The Blanket

The Blanket - A Journal of Protest & Dissent

Get On With It

 

Dolours Price • 14 September 2004

I have had a premonition. I know what is going to happen in Leeds Castle. Usual suspects, gather to dance around one and other, side step, forward, back, swing that partner round. They won't be wearing cowboy boots or jangling spurs, no, it is more than a premonition. I know what is going to happen in Leeds Castle.

For ten years now the Provisional Sinn Fein party have been standing with its hands up, but yet will not speak the the words, "We surrender". Not this time, not in the leafy ambience of Leeds Castle.

I know that we are all bored up to our oxters with the pretence, their dalliance, their constant refusal to accept what they signed up to. They agreed Partition, they agreed "Northern Ireland", a British State; they agreed to settle for fair play within that British State, they agreed equality, they have been 'elected' to the Assembly in "Northern Ireland", so what is their problem?

They either participate or they don't. If they don't then they insult the people they are supposed to represent, the Nationalist people of that "Northern Ireland" who only wanted a fair crack of the whip. A house, a job, equal rights within that State. A vague yearning for a United Ireland somewhere towards the end of the list of necessities.

Now, in the early 80s, I and many Republicans were told that by standing for election we would 'shut up' our opponents who said we had no mandate for the "Armed Struggle". That meant that we had to get a mandate. I went about in a car calling on people to, "Vote Sinn Fein, vote Gerry Adams".

Well, it was just to show our mandate for armed struggle, to rid Ireland of the British presence and to move forward to the United Ireland we were dedicated to, fought for, died for, and we lucky others spent some years in prison for.

I ferried people from polling station to polling station: 'vote early vote often'. It was a slick operation and the red haired guy in the wheel-chair had voted three times in the same polling station before the RUC arrested him for personation. We only wanted a mandate, not democracy.

Gerry Adams is recorded as saying, "Republicans need to be prepared to remove the issue of the IRA and of IRA arms as an excuse for Unionists to block political progress in the 'Six Counties'." (An Phoblacht/Republican News, 12 August 2004) Gerry, as you have recognised, there is no such State as the 'Six Counties', there is only "Northern Ireland", United Kingdom, Britain, British Colony, Empire. Need I go on? Get honest, get real Gerry.

My translation of what Gerry Adams is saying, and saying gently so as not to panic the grass-roots is, "They will go away, you know." And they will. The IRA will disband (as the Provisional military wing), the guns will be sealed in concrete and that phase will be over. A few will get the political jobs, others will get satisfactory jobs (community work and the like), some will get shops to run, taxis to drive, a racket here, a scam there. It is the way of the world.

But not yet, not at Leeds Castle. There is still pretending to be done. Pretending that you have any say in the matter while Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern compose the statement they want you to make.

Congratulations, Dr. Paisley, Robinson and Co. You got what you wanted, Stormont back, "Northern Ireland" secure and the Fenians in their place.

Not this Fenian and a good few besides. We don't recognise the "Northern" state, never have, never will.

It will take time to recover from the mugging we got in the dark alley the Provisional leadership led us up. It has always been so. I remember in prison painting on hankies, "it is always darkest before the dawn". I can't see clearly before myself. I will wait until the fog lifts. Others will move on, settle into their new improved lives, but nothing tumultuous will have changed on our Island. Except for a few thousand dead, comrades killed or dead after the torture of long starvation, thousands of years in prison between us and all for what? Another pit-stop at Leeds Castle?

Gerry, Martin, Gerry, etc, etc, take a lesson from Gary Gilmore, get on with it. Complete the sell-out now and give our heads peace!


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Index: Current Articles + Latest News and Views + Book Reviews + Letters + Archives

The Blanket - A Journal of Protest & Dissent



 

 

All censorships exist to prevent any one from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions. All progress is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and executed by supplanting existing institutions. Consequently the first condition of progress is the removal of censorships.
- George Bernard Shaw



Index: Current Articles



19 September 2004

Other Articles From This Issue:

Get On With It
Dolours Price

Who Pulled the Strings
Eamon McCann

Can of Worms
John Kennedy

British Terror in Ireland
Kevin Raftery

Big Snake Lake
Eoghan O’Suilleabhain

'Ulster Britishism' or the Myth of Nationality
Liam O Comain

An Teanga Once Again?
Seaghán Ó Murchú

Converting Waste into Value
Liam O Ruairc

Scargill Speaks In Belfast
Anthony McIntyre

NIPSA, the Most Important Workers Strike in Northern Ireland in 20 Years
Davy Carlin


12 September 2004

Standing Down
Mick Hall

Life in the Party
Seaghán Ó Murchú

Is There a Peaceful Way to a Peoples Republic?
Liam O Comain

Rising to the Top of the Hate List
Fred A. Wilcox

Books Not Bombs
Mary La Rosa

Fighting for the Right to be a British Drug Dealer
Anthony McIntyre

Document Stamped 'Secret'
submitted by Fionnbarra Ó Dochartaigh

The Final Insult
Starry Plough Editorial Collective

Tensions Escalate as Loyalists March Through the Ardoyne
Paul Mallon

 

 

The Blanket

Home

 

 

Latest News & Views
Index: Current Articles
Book Reviews
Letters
Archives
The Blanket Magazine Winter 2002
Republican Voices