Martina Devlin:

A new strategy for a united Ireland

SOMETIMES, turning points are only recognised in hindsight. But today, visible to all, a crossroads moment for Sinn Féin is happening. It may not amount to a complete handover from the old guard, but it’s a significant development.

Potentially, it’s as pivotal as the election of Bobby Sands to Westminster, and the retreat from abstentionism when the party took up seats in the Dáil and European Parliament.

Two women without republican pasts are now in key leadership positions, following Mary Lou McDonald’s anointing as party president. How quickly can they nudge the party along its evolutionary process? A development which both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael underwent, incidentally, although we don’t hear much about their armed origins.

I suppose it partly depends on whether the women are foxes or hedgehogs. Perhaps I’d better explain.

“The fox knows many things; the hedgehog one important thing,” says the Ancient Greek poet Archilochus. Later philosophers and thinkers (as well as Woody Allen) have reflected on the same notion – that some people view the world through the lens of a single, defining idea.

Gerry Adams is a hedgehog: his central concept is ‘Project Unity’. He considers everything through the prism of reversing partition. Ms McDonald and her deputy Michelle O’Neill must share some of that vision, or they wouldn’t be appointed. But whether additional elements comprise their world view remains to be seen.

Project Unity underpinned Mr Adams’s support for the peace process. It’s how he was able to persuade the IRA army council, Sinn Féin activists and the broader republican movement to back the Good Friday Agreement, agree to power-sharing with unionism, decommission weapons and support policing. Those were extraordinary achievements.

Let me pause here to paraphrase Eamon Dunphy, who made an interesting observation on TV3’s ‘The Tonight Show’ on Thursday. He noted that Mark Durkan was John Hume’s sanctioned replacement – yet support for the SDLP collapsed on his watch. Successors chosen by outgoing kingpins aren’t necessarily the fittest to lead.

It’s possible Ms McDonald and Ms O’Neill are the cream of the crop. However, a more transparent and democratic way forward would have been an election within the party, with several candidates pitching their case.

If Ms McDonald is to continue the party’s evolution, she must show herself to be a fox rather than a hedgehog, with multiple influences and goals. Project Unity inherently is insufficient to make the party electable in the Republic.

Some about-turns in position will be necessary, none impossible. Shifts have materialised already. For example, while Sinn Féin remains left wing, it has moved away from the Marxism of earlier years. It is already a mainstream party, and once in government will become an establishment party.

The new president has to set about stamping her authority, and one direction she could take – a service, incidentally, to all people on this island – would be to rescind the ban on sitting at Westminster.

Throw open doors, Ms McDonald – let in the light. In fact, a federal Ireland, or indeed a united Ireland, may be approached through that Westminster gateway. The party could show unionists what Sinn Féin is able to negotiate for them vis-à-vis a soft Brexit. And imagine the gains in terms of image, and leaving the past behind, if Sinn Féin and the DUP teamed up in London to hammer out the best deal for Ireland.

In the Republic, Ms McDonald as president is likely to enlarge the party’s electoral footprint. Increasingly, there will be fewer TDs, MLAs and councillors with prison records, which must broaden Sinn Féin’s support base.

For some, Mr Adams was an obstacle to voting for the party. Making history doesn’t necessarily make you liked. Many cannot forgive him for waging war, even though he also helped to end it. He is a bogeyman to some, a peacemaker to others, but whichever perspective you adopt, it must be acknowledged that his personal vote is consistently high on both sides of the Border.

However, his presence at the head of the party has left his line-up, which includes talented politicians, reliant on stock answers and a defensive air whenever his past is raised. But Sinn Féin is popular with young people who did not grow up watching bombs explode and victims bleed on the news because the IRA has been on ceasefire for 20 years. It’s irrelevant to a youthful generation.

We must give Mr Adams his due for an outstanding achievement – peace in our time – but that doesn’t mean setting aside revulsion for the violent horrors he participated in. His legacy is mixed. You don’t have to sanitise his past to recognise that he led republicans away from armed resistance and towards democratic engagement.

I suspect historians of the future will adopt a more nuanced stance towards him than a number of people are capable of doing today. If he had taken a back seat after negotiating the Good Friday Agreement, the public may have been less inclined to look upon him as someone associated with violent extremism. However, he had to stay in place as president – not for 35 years, mind you – to demonstrate to the republican movement that gains could be made from the political strategy. The alternative to the armed struggle had to deliver tangible results.

A priority for the party in his aftermath will be reshaping its culture, judging by a plethora of bullying claims brought by Sinn Féin representatives north and south of the Border. The suggestion is it was run along quasi-military lines with insufficient checks and balances. Clearly, its processes need to improve.

It will be enlightening to study Sinn Féin in government in Leinster House. Its policies are untested. We know the party is effective in Opposition in Dáil Éireann, but forceful oppositions can be less adept in government. Its engagement in Stormont, when it’s operational, can’t be consulted as a performance guide because there is no real opposition and powers are restricted. Still, it’s only a matter of time before the party is in government on both parts of the island: the pressure is on for a Stormont deal, while Sinn Féin will take office in the Dáil either following the next general election, or the one after.

As for Mr Adams’s past, I don’t seek to justify it because violence can’t be defended. But remember this. Other men of war could have replaced him. But other men committed to the peace process who could move the IRA towards peace? That’s doubtful.

Prickly hedgehog he may be, but he’s a case of cometh the hour, cometh the man.