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Post by maolsheachlann on Jul 7, 2017 16:11:04 GMT
I am reading a book about the 1981 Hunger Strikes. It's interesting to me because I assumed that orthodox Catholicism would have still been strong in the republican movement at this time, from the evidence of this book it was an extremely left-wing brand of Catholicism, liberation theology at its worst. The director of the hunger strikers in H-Block, a former seminarian, was a devotee of a radical revolutionary priest called Camilo Torres, of whom I'd never heard before. In the Irish language speaking hut (or whatever it was) in H-Block, there was a picture of Patrick Pearse on one wall and Che Guevara on the opposite wall.
Does anyone know when genuine, orthodox Catholicism ceased to be a force within the Sinn Féin/IRA/republican movement? I understand that Sean South was very observant and that Sean Mac Stiofáin was as well-- indeed, I'm told that I attended Mass with the latter. (I was only a baby so I can't remember). I'm talking about theoretical orthodox Catholicism here-- not going into the question of whether membership of the IRA was compatible with Catholicism at all, at this time (I'm inclined to say no).
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Post by assisi on Jul 10, 2017 11:58:52 GMT
Hard one to call.
I remember hearing in the 1980s I think, that some IRA volunteers going into military operations carried the Prayer to St. Joseph for protection. Martin McGuinness described himself as a practicing Catholic right up to the end. Republicans I knew vaguely from their younger days at primary and secondary school were more nationalist and Catholic than marxist or left leaning.
In short I think the 'foot soldiers' were originally nationalist and Catholic. However I think that if they spent time in jail or were serious about their republicanism then they eventually came into contact with a more left leaning individuals in the leadership and their Catholic and nationalist beliefs were diminished
There was a feeling in the 1960s, 1970 and even the 1980s that this was a time of revolution against a capitalist establishment (particularly the USA). It was undoubtedly attractive to some in the republican movement to 'internationalise' the struggle as a small country against a colonial giant, feeding into the feeling of an oppressed against oppressor scenario and to share some commonality with the likes of El Salvador and Nicaragua and their struggle with the US.
I suppose a left leaning/marxist analysis was a way of getting away from a more parochial view that the struggle in the North was Catholic v Protestant, Nationalist v Unionist or Irish v British. A left leaning analysis would attract a new set of international commentators and provide support for the struggle from outside Ireland and the UK and would hopefully pressurise and embarrass Britain.
However Republicans had a difficult balancing act to perform as they were indebted to support from Irish American organisations for money (and arms?) and the Irish American organisations would generally not be too enamoured of any left leaning or marxist analysis as their view of Ireland was a traditional one of Catholic and nationalist.
There also tended to be, generally speaking, a more left leaning urban republicanism in contrast to a more earthy nationalism/Catholicism in the rural republican heartlands.
Now, I think that the world has changed, Sinn Fein have gone down the socially liberal route as that is where the votes are, and the lack of Catholicism is just the same secular drive we see in most western politics now. A small percentage of Sinn Fein personnel have left due to the Sinn Fein views on abortion for example but many who see themselves as Catholics will vote for Sinn Fein as they still see the Irish v British dynamic as more important than their Catholic view on social issues, or they can disengage their morality in favour of political gain.
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Post by maolsheachlann on Jul 10, 2017 21:57:26 GMT
Excellent analysis. Thanks.
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 18, 2017 18:12:40 GMT
A few other points come to mind: There is probably a parallel with the decline of working-class Catholicism in similar urban areas in the Republic. I remember a few years ago reading. a memoir by a Limerick prison officer (an atheist himself) who recalled that when he entered the prison service in the early 70s virtually all the prisoners attended Mass on Sundays, and when he retired only a small minority went. I've seen the same observation made about the Maze in the early 70s and late 90s by ex-prisoners. There was always a slight distance between families whose identity and activities centred on the Church and those whose identity centred on the republican movement (Gerry Conlon of the Guildford Four notes that in his poor working-class area during his childhood in the late 50s and 60s some had the Sacred Heart on display where others had Wolfe Tone. This did not necessarily mean that the republicans were not Catholic or vice versa.) Conlon's reminiscence of how he lapped up pop culture in the late 60s/early 70s and how this related to a generational sense that the older generation had lain down and passively accepted defeat had something to do with this as well. Similarly, Brendan Hughes' reminiscences combine insistence that he was a conscious socialist and atheist and anti-colonialist (partly because of seeing living conditions in Africa and Asia when he was a merchant seaman in the 1960s, partly because he recalls his pious grandmother as a real whited sepulchre) with deep love and reverence for his pious father who worked himself to exhaustion binging up his children after the death of his wife.
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Post by maolsheachlann on Jul 18, 2017 18:23:39 GMT
Very interesting indeed, Hibernicus, but I'm not sure what you mean about Gerry Conlon and pop culture?
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 21, 2017 20:26:02 GMT
Sex and drugs and rock and roll, basically.
I don't think the "liberation theology" element was simply a marxist front (indeed one way of looking at it, both in and outside Ireland, is as repackaging a form of integralist tribal Catholicism,Fr McVeigh strikes me as an unconscious example of this; another is as a reaction to the disappointment of the promises of Christian Democrat technocracy to provide a new way of life, once it actually got into power - the contrast between the idealised Catholic view of JFK in the early 1960s and the horrors of the Vietnam War by the end of the decade would be a parallel). The idea that there was a potential alternative social model drawing on marxism and reconciling it with Catholicism had a lot of selling power in the 60s with the cooling off of the Cold War. Again, there is an element of class conflict; the sense that official Catholicism had been taken over by middle-class concerns and lost interest in the ghettoes is pretty integral to the conflict between the Republican movement and SDLP/Alliance (while at the same time SDLP/Alliance Catholics are seeking to move into the mainstream and play down the more irksome bits of their Catholic identity, and are encouraged in this by the sense that the existence of different communal identities had caused the violence in the first place). The conflict itself also helped to create new communal traditions/markers that were less linked to the Church. The way in which annual republican commemorations of the anniversary of internment on 9 August displaced the traditional Lady Day celebrations on 15 August would be an example.
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Post by hibernicus on Mar 7, 2018 22:09:17 GMT
Francie Brolly has now resigned from SF over its insistence on a whipped vote on abortion. Several other activists are reported to have gone. Says it all.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Oct 10, 2021 21:18:42 GMT
I think Hibernicus means Mick Wallace and Claire Daly when he refers to Bonnie and Clyde: so how would he describe Eoin Ó Broin and Lynn Boylan?
The parish church in Ballyfermot run by the Redemptorists put up a rainbow flag for Pride Week, then reversed the decision after protest, and then became the focus of a Shinner protest organised by Ms Boylan. The placards admonished the Church to obey the State, which is a bit ironic coming from an organisation that was, let us say, tardy about even recognising that state. Maybe Deputy Ó Broin missed that.
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Post by maolsheachlann on Oct 11, 2021 8:21:36 GMT
I think Hibernicus means Mick Wallace and Claire Daly when he refers to Bonnie and Clyde: so how would he describe Eoin Ó Broin and Lynn Boylan? The parish church in Ballyfermot run by the Redemptorists put up a rainbow flag for Pride Week, then reversed the decision after protest, and then became the focus of a Shinner protest organised by Ms Boylan. The placards admonished the Church to obey the State, which is a bit ironic coming from an organisation that was, let us say, tardy about even recognising that state. Maybe Deputy Ó Broin missed that. It's funny how nobody talked about putting on the rainbow jersey during the lockdowns.
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Post by hibernicus on Oct 13, 2021 22:40:54 GMT
The end of the lockdown was accompanied by an ad campaign on the sides of Dublin buses, with various people declaring how glad they were to be coming out. I referred to Daly and Wallace as Bonnie and Clyde because of Wallace's dodgy legal history, which led to Daly's departure from the Socialist Party when she refused to dissociate herself from him. I don't know of anything similar being alleged against Boylan and O Broin.
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jaykay
Junior Member
Posts: 65
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Post by jaykay on Oct 16, 2021 0:11:43 GMT
"There also tended to be, generally speaking, a more left leaning urban republicanism in contrast to a more earthy nationalism/Catholicism in the rural republican heartlands".
Yes, there was that divide. I recall a joke (but probably quite factual) about a hard-core leftie Provie on the run from Belfast who was hidden in South Armagh, and on returning to Belfast and being asked about his impressions of the "volunteers" there described them as "Fianna Fáilers with guns".
I come from a not unadjacent area and can well believe it.
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