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In
reading Anthony McIntyre’s
observations on his attendance at the 32 CSM Easter
commemoration I was relieved that someone else was
at least having doubts about attending their rally
in Derry last week.
From
the outset I will admit that the major difference
between myself and Anthony McIntyre on this particular
occasion is that he eventually made the journey from
Belfast to attend the event. Although, I suspect that
his overriding motivation was chiefly one of curiosity.
I stayed at home, approximately a fifteen minute walk
away, and listened to the aerial vehicles of the British
state attempt to drone
their largely futile intimidation down upon those
gathered there and on the rest
of the Creggan population busying themselves enjoying
what was left of a probably
much needed day off.
Having
spent most weekends and school holidays at my grandmother's
home in
Creggan from childhood through to mid-adolescence,
which included most of the 1970’s
and 1980’s, the presence of army choppers are
still a perennial feature of
everyday existence there, and are now as they were
then largely ignored unless
they were providing back up for the early morning
raiding parties that seemed
to be equally intolerant with Catholic front doors
as the Catholics that
slept behind them. Despite the upbeat media furore
about the improvements in
our lifestyle that came miraculously with the signing
of a piece of paper some six
Easters ago, this too is still an all too regular
feature of life in Derry’s largest housing
estate. It’s just that in certain circles and
for obvious reasons this is no longer
the correct type of propaganda needed to prosecute
a peculiar kind of false war.
It
is official, the Creggan is no longer a “ghetto”
but a monument to resistance where
only one particular republican army ever prosecuted
a war. Yet as Tony McIntyre’s
article pointed out, he visited the INLA plot to see
the graves of Mickey Devine
and Patsy O’ Hara. They were both from the area
and their last journey went
through the estate, as Creggan is the home of the
City Cemetery as well.
A
painfully poor example of this was made very clear
to me three summers ago as
I stood at the top of Creggan to witness the unveiling
of a plaque to mark the
thirtieth anniversary of the death of Provisional
officer Eamonn Lafferty, the
first Provisional to be killed on active service in
the city. I had no intention of
attending but my mother insisted because Eamonn had
been an apprentice baker
under the instruction of another recently qualified
baker, my father.
My
father had often told me how he had managed to get
Eamonn his papers a
year early and had tried to procure a job for him
in Dublin, and was subjected to
shoddy assurances that he would leave each week. Of
course at the end of each week
he never left, until in August 1971 it was too late.
When I arrived next spring I
was named after him. Thirty years later on the spot
where he had been killed and
purely through some sentimental attatchment to my
father, I stood and witnessed
historical whitewashing at its best as a crude marble
cross was unveiled in
the absence of any notable Sinn Fein luminaries at
all. One in particular was particularly
pointed in his absence given his later admissions
at the Saville inquiry.
Early
on Easter Sunday morning I visited the cemetery with
my mother as
I do nearly every week to visit my father's grave
and those of other relatives.
Amongst
those other relatives' graves is my paternal grandfather's,
a lifelong IRA member who died in 1968 at the early
rumblings of the current phase of what are too often
glibly referred to as “The Troubles”. For
years now, even before the Sinn Fein year zero (to
the rest of us that is 1998), it had troubled me that
beside Fred Sweeney’s grave there is a flagpole
from which each Easter Sunday the Provisional Movement
hoist and fly a tri-colour. This man had died almost
two years before the IRA
split in 1970, would have never known what a Provo
was, but still the flagpole mysteriously
dons its yearly national costume and joins the many
other dozens that
fly in the pristine republican plot and throughout
the huge graveyard. It is an
impressive sight but nonetheless inaccurate in many
respects. Far below in the
further reaches old of the old bone yard lies another
grave; it is that of Fred's father
William, my great-grandfather. His grave too is marked
in accordance with symbols
of his “paramilitary” activity. It displays
the harp and shamrock but above these
are a crown. I cannot confirm it but I suspect that
in this case father out-ranked
son; you see, William Sweeney was a sergeant in the
R. I. C.. Having
never known my grandfather, he died some four years
before my birth, I cannot
say which way today’s process would have taken
him as a younger man.
From
the brief details that emerged about his participation
in the IRA, I know that in
the early 1950’s he was suspended for a time
because of his refusal to attend a
medal ceremony presided over by De Valera in the Brandywell
area of the city.
Yet
he had returned in his late fifties to take an active
role in the border campaign of
1956-1962. His job as a train driver on the old Lough
Swilly railway provided he
and his comrades with ample opportunity in this period
to ferry arms in and out out
of the city. Only in recent years have I been made
aware that the loft of my old
house was the resting place of this machinery. It
is reported that a least once a
month a solemn line of men walked in front a hearse
up this terraced street hoisted
the coffin shoulder high and took into number 9, whereupon
its cargo was unloaded
and the coffin left via the back gate to meet the
hearse at the other end
of the street. It is also true that whilst this went
on, in the green at the bottom
of the street Derry’s future Nobel Peace laureate
played football with
the sons of an old IRA man.
These
small glimpses of his life as a republican could prompt
speculation about
his political thinking. Born in Donegal in 1900, he
would have been of
fighting age at the War of Independence and the subsequent
civil debacle that
ensued. His shunning of De Valera at that ceremony
probably spoke volumes
at that time about his thoughts. Therefore the Sinn
Fein of today would
contend that he was a “pro-treaty” Collins
man (remember the treaty they
used to hate) and make some decade jumping tenuous
link to why the
flag still sways above his head stone. Still, I could
never attribute any reasoned
opinion about what he might think today. We were always
taught that
reason is what separates us from the remainder of
the animal kingdom and
following that logic I have always thought it best
to let people make up their
own minds: after all wouldn’t any other approach
resemble what we call
dictatorship?
One
of the most irksome and offensive developments of
the past six years for me has
been the latent speculation on behalf of departed
republicans by many different factions
on which way they would have leaned today. In this
I include all republican organisations,
the 32 CSM being no different from any other. The
transparency accordant
with this process and the subsequent ceasefires have
seen a plethora of
former activists only too eager to relay their tales
of comradeship with those who
achieved pivotal prominence within Ireland's pantheon
of heroes, in other words
those who were doomed not to survive. There is little
wrong with this at all, whether
for financial gain or as a genuine attempt at pairing
the edges off a ragged
psyche, as the current leadership of Sinn Fein have
hardly been recalcitrant in
this respect.
As
Tony McIntyre pondered about the demise of Volunteers
Mc Brearty and McGuire
and their attitudes to what they would have seen in
Creggan’s Central Drive
that Monday, his thoughts did not go beyond the boundaries
of pure speculation.
That is to say he was not on platform claiming the
allegiance of dead hunger
strikers, or other dead republicans. I sometimes think
that if republican plots
did not exist then they would have to be invented.
No matter how they met
their end, the dead deserve their rest. To place words
into the mouths of the dead
is nothing more than cynical politicking whether it
was Gerry Kelly who spouted
them in Derry cemetery on Easter Sunday or Marian
Price on Easter Monday.
To speak for those gone before us is demeaning to
these people. It assumes
a collective accumulation of thought that does not
take into account the
massive political turmoil of the past decade and the
bitter ideological schisms
that have resulted in the wake of this turmoil. It
also illustrates the
undemocratic arrogance of those indulging in this
word play, and smells clearly
of a visible yet unspoken chasm between those who
take decisions and those
accorded the role of cannon fodder.
As
it turned out I attended none of the various parades
in Derry over the weekend.
Attendance
at Monday's parade would have been one of pure inquisitiveness
but was eventually outweighed by a dislike of the
32 CSM who have merely taken their place on a scheduled
historical treadmill. As the Provisionals have moved
onto acceptance of the status quo, their “real”
counterparts have stepped into the breach vacated
by them. And, thus it is destined to continue ad infinitum
as we still insist in providing the British with the
greatest weapon they ever had against republicanism,
factional disunity. I have little time, as said for
the new vanguard who appear blissfully unaware that
they have been infiltrated at all levels and still
continue to operate in the mistaken belief that places
like Creggan are the no-go areas of previous decades.
Indeed the only operators still privy to the use of
the no-go rules in Creggan are the licensee and patrons
of the Telstar bar, also mentioned by Anthony McIntyre.
In fact they have access to a special sub-section
of the rules circa 1969-71, referred to colloquially
as the Ronnie Barker sub-clauses, meaning that they
are truly “Open All Hours”. Equally however
I have little time for those who now castigate and
actively campaign against those who have decided that
physical force is the only way forward. This is not
through some wish to witness more carnage waged in
my name or anyone else’s name but clearly in
the realisation that if this was a boxing match then
the British have won the last bout on a massive unanimous
points decision. A clear indicator of this is at last
the springing of the trap door that is the IMC, who
probably would have reported unfavourably anyway despite
being gifted the solid gold prize of the Bobby Tohill
kidnap affair.
So
at mid-afternoon on Easter Sunday I entered another
public house on the edge of
the Bogside, always famed for its support of politically
motivated patrons.
I
was surprised to notice that for the first time in
many years as the afternoon and the
pints progressed in equal amounts that a palpable
tension between the shades of
green began to develop. No ill words were ventured
or no physical rows developed
but if you looked closely enough harsh words were
squeezing quietly through
the corners of intoxicated mouths and invisible daggers
cast from eye level
were certainly reaching their intended targets. A
physical chasm eventually occurred,
but without verbal acknowledgement as both sides (at
times three sides), found
themselves at opposite sides of the bar when at the
start of the afternoon cordial
intermingling had been the order of the day.
Such
however is the nature of Derry, its attitude to republicanism
and the nature of
its people. I suspect heavily that this type of division
is prevalent in other cities and
towns but I can only speak of what I see. In this
town many only want Lazarus to
rise for one day each year, for the remainder of the
time it is too uncomfortable to
speak of those gone before, their contribution neatly
tucked away in a cupboard beside
the drums that are beaten in their remembrance every
resurrection day, their
re-appearance invoked and cobbled awkwardly onto the
messianic magic that
the day truly represents. The propaganda value and
the lure of cameras in the
battle for the hearts and minds of voters or in the
other a case an auxillary network,
having sworn never to bend knee to the attractions
of constitutional politics,
far outweighs the desire to honour Ireland’s
dead; after all this truly captive audience
really cannot answer back.
Next
day, Easter Monday across town in our shiny new theatre,
Feis Doire Colmcille began
its eightieth annual run. Irish dancers, far removed
from the traditionally attired
figures that I remember when I participated, strained
their sinews in search of
elusive medals. In each of the halls that they competed
they were guided by their teachers.
In this competition, supposedly a celebration of our
culture, competitors, teachers
and parents tore strips of each other behind each
other's backs. Even in our
cultural pursuits these children are taught division.
You see there are two separate
organisations that control Irish dancing. One is called
An Comdhail, the other
translates as the Commission or Committee. Even with
my non-existent grasp
of the Gaelic language I know that An Comdhail translates
loosely as Commission
or Committee, in other words there are two organisations
with the same
name. It sounds very familiar don’t you think?
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