If the party is to be taken seriously, the bullying in SF has to stop
Sinn Féin following Soviet model and won’t tolerate the slightest dissent
OVER 20 years ago, when I was on a Troubles-related assignment in Northern Ireland, I spoke to a loyalist about the Reverend Ian Paisley. As we enjoyed a pint in a quiet Co. Down pub, he told me of Paisley’s policy on visiting the North’s most savage loyalist killers in jail.
Paisley would mildly upbraid them for indiscriminately killing Catholics, while distributing presents of chocolate and cigarettes. The message was: ‘Do what you have to do, lads, I can’t associate myself with it publicly.’
When I heard the latest account of Sinn Féin bullying of one of its own members, this came back to me.
The incidents of bullying in Sinn Féin are now so numerous that they can’t be accidental, not in this most centrally controlled and disciplined political organisation.
They have learned tricks from their close relationship with Dr Paisley’s party, the Democratic Unionist Party in the North.
Gerry Adams and the late Martin McGuinness over time assumed the personas of loveable grandfathers. Martin Ferris is a likeable man and I have spent hours talking to him in Leinster House about football and his fishing boat in Kerry.
These three earned their reputations in the Troubles; they had nothing to prove. Yet through the rest of the organisation, there runs a strain of fearsome aggression.
The younger members, who had no war to prove their radicalism, use the workplace to vent their pent-up aggression.
Last week, the latest bullying victim came forward. Westmeath Sinn Féin councillor Paul Hogan, who was tipped for a seat in the 2016 general election, claimed that ‘bullying is rife’ in the party. The Athlone-based councillor said he received a death threat, was the victim of an anonymous hate-mail campaign and was subjected to at least one kangaroo court.
Mr Hogan, who was first elected 13 years ago, alleges that he was the victim of ‘insidious and vile allegations’ following a relationship break-up.
During the last election, he says, Sinn Féin management withdrew all resources from his campaign and tried to hide posters.
Sinn Féin denied involvement in kangaroo courts and said Gerry Adams had campaigned with Mr Hogan.
Councillor Hogan said that he submitted a detailed complaint of over 80 instances of varying levels of bullying to the new disciplinary committee of Sinn Féin. He added that it refused to deal with the issues contained in the complaint.
Sinn Féin said complaints received about Mr Hogan were investigated but not upheld.
IN APRIL of this year, another Sinn Féin councillor, Sorcha O’Neill, resigned from the party in Kildare because of bullying. Four other members of the party resigned at the same time. Ms O’Neill said that there was a ‘hostile system’ within the party, adding: ‘It is impacting on people’s sleep. I have people telling me they are having nightmares. We have been insulted, disrespected.’
In October 2015, around the same time as the bullying began against Mr Hogan in Westmeath, Cork East Sinn Féin TD Sandra McLellan announced that she would not be standing for election. The young mother claimed that she had been on the receiving end of bullying by members of her own party.
‘Efforts to defame and undermine me were particularly vicious and I had a decision to make regarding my family,’ she said.
Two Sinn Féin councillors, June Murphy and Ger Keohane, who are both seen as supporters of McLellan, resigned from the party. Another, Kieran McCarthy, was temporarily expelled.
Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have had incidents of mistreatment and bullying of members down the years. However, neither party has a problem with members who threaten people’s lives.
It is the repellent actions of higher-profile Sinn Féin and IRA members (or those who recently left the party) that lend a far more sinister tone to this bullying.
Last year, IRA man Pearse McAuley, who was jailed for 14 years over his role in the manslaughter of Garda Jerry McCabe in 1996 and whose cause was championed by Sinn Féin, was returned to prison for 12 years. This time, he was convicted of the vicious and cowardly assault of his wife in front of her two young children.
On Christmas Eve, McAuley hit Pauline Tully blows with his fist, used a steak knife to inflict multiple wounds and left her with significant scarring. She would have died but for help arriving.
Ex-Sinn Féin councillor Jonathan Dowdall, who worked closely with Sinn Féin deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald, also got 12 years. His trial at the Special Criminal Court was told that he imprisoned Alexander Hurley in January 2015. He waterboarded him and threatened to feed Hurley to dogs. The court also heard that Dowdall, while wearing a balaclava, told his victim he was a good friend of Adams and McDonald. The court said it could not see how this was a threat.
Dowdall, who was a city councillor, first resigned from Sinn Féin in 2014. He finally severed links with the party in 2015 – and even this brutal hard man cited stress due to being ‘bullied’.
Remember Sinn Féin, a Marxist party, takes not only its economic doctrine from the Soviet model. It is the most centrally controlled party – dissent is not tolerated.
So the accusations of rampant bullying brings us to a worrying question – is it tacitly sanctioned?
The behaviour of Sinn Féin members is the responsibility of the party. The repetition of certain behaviours by members indicates they believe much of it is acceptable within the organisation.
Workplace bullying occurs in all industries. Sinn Féin’s councillors and TDs are pursuing their careers in a workplace.
Political pragmatism may eventually force Sinn Féin to reform.
Would you want your son or daughter to go to work every day in this environment? The middle classes will not turn to Sinn Féin until this aggression ceases.