ARMS AND YER MAN

Kevin Myers explains why Sinn-Fein/IRA

will never, never, never give up their weapons

Dublin ON 16 JUNE 1921, the Thompson sub- machine gun received its world baptism in action when IRA gunmen opened fire on a train carrying British soldiers in Dublin. Forty-eight years later, in August 1969, when Northern Ireland began to fall apart, an IRA man dug up an old Thompson sub- machine gun in his backyard on the Falls Road for use against rioting loyalists and RUC men. Belfast Catholics will tell you that but for that tommy-gun the Falls Road would have been overrun and destroyed.

It is impossible to exaggerate the belief within the nationalist (aka Catholic 'repub- lican') community in Northern Ireland that if they, the nationalists, are totally dis- armed, they will sooner or later face extinction. So long as there are two com- munities there, there will always be guns in backyards; always. Always.

That old Thompson gun served another purpose too. It ensured that the golden thread of the Irish armed 'republican' con- spiracy, which by the 1960s had been woven to fairy thinness, was to pass to a new generation of sturdy seamstresses; they have it to this day. '

Since 1969 the IRA has of course vastly developed its arsenal, with much thanks to its dear friend Colonel Gaddafi. (No doubt the fine fellows in the US State Department remember him. No? Does Lockerbie ring any bells?) The gun as symbol remains a central feature of the IRA identity. It is not just some weapon of offence or defence in the history of Irish 'republicanism'. It is a psy- chological key, an expression of purpose, past, present and future, and as much as anything else the grail which transmits the apostolic succession of Irish 'republican- ism' from one generation to the next.

Apostolic, grail: these are not merely convenient words. They carry resonances which apply uniquely to this thing called Irish 'republicanism'. The grail, after all, was the platter used by Christ at the last supper, when the 12 Apostles gathered with him. Every bishop today counts his episco- pacy to be descended lineally from one of those 12 commissions granted by Jesus.

Within the apostolic nature of Irish insurrectionary politics, the term 'republi- canism' is misleading. It does not mean what it means elsewhere in Europe, where the state supposedly draws its power from its population of independent, free citizens. Paradoxically, that intellectual form of republicanism is virtually non-existent in the Republic of Ireland (where free access to condoms is only recently lawful and where customs officers still go through the mail confiscating private subscribers' incoming copies of Playboy).

Even more paradoxically, the republican notion of individual liberties is far more profoundly rooted within the loyalist popu- lation of Northern Ireland than it is among the 'republican' population.

Why is this? Well, what Irish 'republican- ism' actually means is an armed conspiracy against British rule regardless of the wishes of the Irish people. So whereas republican- ism in mainland Europe is anti-Catholic and libertarian, in Ireland it is intensely Catholic and authoritarian; its ceremonials and rituals unconsciously echo those of the Catholic Church and of the bloodier, often barely understood, elements of sacrifice, crucifixion, martyrdom.

The IRA sees itself as the custodian of the Irish nation, just as bishops are custo- dians of authority within the Catholic Church. The IRA authority draws on sev- eral streams throughout Irish life, with memories of the United Irelanders of the 1798 rising, various insurrectionary move- ments in the 19th century, but, most of all, the 1916 rising.

That rising, in which several hundred Dubliners, most of them baffled, innocent civilians were killed, is seen as the Calvary of the Irish nation; its Resurrection fol- lowed the execution of the leaders of the rising. They, who chose violence without ever bothering to seek election even once, are remembered and revered by 'republi- cans'. The hundreds of innocent dead, the inner-city poor of Dublin slums, are of course forgotten.

And so, in odd and disfigured ways, Irish republicanism mirrors the history of the Catholic Church in Ireland, in which it is believed — wrongly, of course — that under the British the Catholic Church was outlawed. To enter a modern conspiracy against British rule merely repeats that earlier — albeit mythical — conspiracy required simply to practise one's religion.

The gun is the grail to that conspiracy. Without the totemic function of the gun, there is no purpose to the conspiracy. The conspiracy, to have the vital magic of the consecration of the host, must have vio- lence. Merely to wish and to organise for an end to British rule is no crime. It is nec- essary for the participants to criminalise their activity. It must be a conspiracy which requires secrecy and illegality, and which brings with it the assurances of clandestine bonding and brotherhood outside the law.

So not merely does the gun carry the divine presence of 'republicanism' within its metallic host — for where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them — but sooner or later it also offers a reasonable guarantee of sacrifice. States dislike the unlawful accumulation of arsenals, and tend to imprison their accu- mulators. The gun by its existence alone confers victimhood upon those who com- mune in its name.

The gun draws conspirators as a taber- nacle draws worshippers, and the violent deed is almost like the consecration of the host. In this culture of gun-totemism, `I'm afraid you're too expensive to put back together again.' `republicanism' is almost idea-less, ideolo- gy-free and thoroughly authoritarian. The public is to be no more consulted about killing than the bishop consults his diocese about his next pastoral letter.

Moral authority within the gun-coven lies with the arms-cache. To hold the arse- nal is to speak for an undefiled, true Ire- land. The guns under the floorboard more likely these days the sticks of Semtex and greased AKM rifles in a sealed CAP- funded slurry bunker in the middle of the Irish midlands — confer the unique ability to represent the soul of the Irish people (no matter what those people themselves actually want: as the former insurgent and later Irish President Eamon de Valera so imperishably put it: the majority has no right to be wrong).

So for Sinn Fein the current enlistment of popular will is a mere ploy. Gerry Adams, for example, now demands that John Major should follow the example of President Clinton and the Dublin govern- ment and, in Gerry Adams's words, accept `Sinn Fein's democratic mandate'.

Very well. Let us accept it. In the Repub- lic in the last general election, Sinn Fein stood in 41 seats, lost its deposit in 39, and picked up 1.6 per cent of the votes. In Northern Ireland, Sinn Fein-IRA are rather more popular. In the last elections there, they achieved 10 per cent of the vote, rather more than the bloodless Alliance Party and less than sundry 'others'.

We know why Gerry Adams got an invi- tation to the White House. It wasn't because of 'Sinn Fein's democratic man- date', still less his own. He lost his seat in the last Westminster election. But elec- tions, essentially, do not interest Sinn Fein, nor, probably, the White House. The invi- tation is a policy move to ensure that the IRA guns remain quiet.

`Republican' guns have been un-cached and re-cached repeatedly throughout histo- ry but never surrendered. And the IRA priesthood of violence draws another tradi- tion from the Last Supper — betrayal. Always, always, when elements of the IRA have sought accommodation with the enemy, an anti-peace (anti-Judas) faction has seized part of the weaponry and declared that possession of guns confers moral right to continue the struggle. The majority has no right to be wrong.

There is no reason to believe that this ancient tradition has been discussed into extinction in the past six months. The British Government will disband the Brigade of Guards before the IRA disarms. And even a simple British withdrawal would not cause the IRA to disband, for then other work is to hand; that work is called Unionism.

Kevin Myers is a columnist for the Irish Times.