Irish Hunger Strikes Chapter 47

The Aftermath
Part 2

The Rise of Sinn Fein & The Good Friday Agreement
by Gerry Coleman

After Owen Carron won the seat that he helped secure for hunger striker Bobby Sands for Sinn Fein, the republican movement realized it could win large scale elections on their own steam, not only local elections or rely on very emotional issues like the prison protest.

Sinn Fein, as a party, were attracting voters who realized that only Sinn Fein stood up to British misrule.

In the mid-eighties, Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams, the man so vilified by the press and the Church as responsible for ordering the deaths of the hunger strikers, was elected to parliament for West Belfast. Sinn Fein, on both sides of the border, were hampered by a media ban that severely handicapped their efforts, yet the people weren’t buying it.

Sinn Fein elected representatives and leaders were banned from traveling to the United States and excluded from traveling to England, yet word was getting out: Sinn Fein’s analysis of the situation and their program for peace was the way forward that made sense. Soon Sinn Fein was routinely receiving over 40 percent of the nationalist vote and became the number one party in the Belfast City council.

The Anglo-Irish Agreement or "Save the SDLP"

In 1985, the Anglo-Irish Agreement was rushed in existence by the two governments, without benefit of a popular vote of the people involved, for the sole purpose of halting Sinn Fein’s advance and propping up John Hume’s slipping Social Democratic and Labour Party.

There was a temporary reversal of fortunes, until once again Sinn Fein’s star rose to loftier heights than before as the SDLP proved ineffective to deliver anything real to, or even to fairly represent, the people on the ground. A vote for the SDLP was a vote for the status quo no matter how you looked at it.

The people weren’t stupid.

Adams rides New York elevators for 2 days and makes all the difference

When the visa denial policy of the U.S. fell to the Irish American lobby [which recruited people to help in American government and corporate leaders at the highest level], and with the reversal of the media bans on Sinn Fein by the London and Dublin government because of the sheer undemocratic stupidity of it, the public image of Sinn Fein changed dramatically from the darkly, sinister "political wing of the IRA" to one of real political leaders with human faces and a humane and just political agenda.

When Adams first hit New York City, a 48 hour public and media whirlwind limited to Manhattan, it was felt in the guts of northern politicians and clergy [often one and the same] who ran the show by themselves for over 70 years.

Adams said he saw little of America except the inside of elevators going up and down NYC hotels. But it did the trick. He looked and sounded like a college professor. The press were there by the hundreds and his name and face were on the television screens and front pages of papers and magazines throughout the nation.

Visa denial and the Irish republican mystique fostered by the hunger strike, made him an American media hero. He was a nice guy with a relaxed sense of humor and a thoughtful way about him. And he had an analysis for peace.

Now not only the working class Irish American activists were listening, but big time American politicians, even the president of the United States was listening, and big time Irish American business leaders -- corporation CEOs -- and those with international reputations for political and economic justice. Senators Kennedy and Moynahan wanted photos taken with him.

President Clinton not only listened, but sanctioned the trip himself against the advice of his own cabinet and the Brits. London and Dublin had little choice but to accede to a real peace movement that never had a chance of success anyway unless it included republicans and Adams was now the man. Peace without agreement among the combatants was stupidity.

Soon Martin Maginness was over and other Sinn Fein leaders followed. Once broken, the icy isolation of vilification through visa denial and media censorship was swept away by real dialogue.

The defeat of the US visa denial policy was a priority for post-hunger strike US activists. Bill Clinton would later bring Irish politics out of the back rooms of Downing Street and into the light of the Good Friday Agreement. The GFA started in New York.

SF’s "Scenario for Peace" and The Good Friday Agreement

Sinn Fein’s "Scenario For Peace" prefigured the present peace process by five years. Nothing close to it was generated by either the SDLP or the Irish or British governments. It called for a just and non-sectarian Irish Republic that could be agreed to by nationalists and unionists.

It seemed that only Sinn Fein had anything like a "scenario", except for the UUP; and their scenario wasn’t likely to garner nationalist votes. An assassination campaign against Sinn Fein members and elected representatives took scores of lives. Family members of Sinn Fein representative were murdered indiscriminately.

Then John Hume and Gerry Adams started to talk. First privately, then publicly. Albert Reynolds, the Taoiseach, joined them. Loyalists called it a "Pan Nationalist Conspiracy" and began to murder random northern nationalists. The people endured. Talks with the parties [except Sinn Fein] were entertained by the Brits, which was exactly the UUP’s scenario -- a devolved government sharing power with some Catholics -- the ineffective and passive SDLP.

The IRA broke the ice

It was the IRA which broke the ice. Although it took two ceasefires to embarrass the British government into inclusive talks, it finally sunk in the a devolved political situation in the 6-counties was only possible if it was inclusive -- that meant republicans along with everyone else.

An agreement of sorts full of compromises and counter balances that could be signed by enough parties to make it fly came into the world on Good Friday of 1997 -- brokered by the American president and the prominent, retired US senator George Mitchell. Sinn Fein earned 2 ministers on the ten department executive with a all time high vote in the special assembly election. But unionists had no intention of sharing power.

As the GFA was allowed to go into various UUP generated death spirals by the British government, as the SDLP backed off the Patten Commission’s recommendations for a decent and non-sectarian policing service for the north, as the Brits lagged behind on GFA promise after promise on demilitarization, equality and policing and twice suspended the GFA for specious reasons having more to do with propping up David Trimble -- a weak and ineffective leader -- than living up to the requirements of the peace process for both sides, the only political party that could honesty say that it lived up to its promises was Sinn Fein.

Nonetheless, they were blamed for its failure because the IRA lived up to its promises as well. The IRA, of course, wasn’t even a signator to the GFA. It promised to put its arsenal of weapons "verifiably beyond use" under terms acceptable to the GFA’s International Commission on Decommissioning lead by Canadian General De Chastelain -- provided that the British government fully implemented the Agreement. When it suspended the agreement and trashed Patten, the next day the IRA correctly pulled back its decommissioning offer.

The people learned whom to trust: SF is #1 among northern nationalists

If there was one thing that nationalists in the north learned form the hunger strikes, it was whom to trust. In June of 2001, Sinn Féin became the largest nationalist party in Six Counties, leaving the SDLP in the political dust by electing 4 MPs to the SDLP’s two and by electing 108 local Sinn Féin councilors. It gained in popular first preference votes in every constituency throughout the Six Counties in the Westminster elections.

Sinn Fein’s advance is based upon a solid foundation: Bobby Sands MP and Kieran Doherty TD and the other hunger strikers who stood for office. In 1981, they brought down a Taoiseach. Soon, they may make one.

Twenty years after the last man died, they not only can’t be ignored, they are leading, not only the nationalist people’s struggle for a united Ireland, but leading the political struggle for a new Ireland with justice and freedom for all its people.

Next: The Aftermath, Part III: a backward look into hearts of Bik, Bobby H, Kieran Nugent, the Women of Armagh Jail.