SEAN LOOKS BACK
SINN FÉIN COUNCILLOR SEÁN MACMANUS WHO DEPARTS THE POLITCAL STAGE NEXT WEEK AFTER A LONG CAREER IN PUBLIC LIFE TALKS TO PAUL DEERING ABOUT A UNITED IRELAND, NEGOTIATING WITH THE BRITISH, MEETING PRINCE CHARLES AND THE DEATH OF HIS SON, JOSEPH AT 21
IT’S like the changing of the old guard in Sinn Féin. A quick glance at the picture on the right of the party’s negotiating team at Downing Street with the British Government in the wake of the 1994 IRA ceasefire tells it’s own story of how senior figures are departing the stage one by one. Admittedly, the announcement a couple of weeks ago that councillor Seán MacManus was retiring from public life after some 40 years as an unelected and elected representative for his party in Sligo, didn’t quite hit the headlines as in the recent decision of Martin McGuinness to step down but as next week’s council tributes to the Blacklion native wil testify, his contribution to political life in this county and further afield has been most noteworthy.
An emigrant to London in the 1960s to find work as a carpenter, MacManus established a strong footing for Sinn Féin when he returned to Ireland and Sligo in the mid 1970s. The party wasn’t popular then, perhaps even loathed in many quarters but MacManus stuck with trying to build support for Sinn Féin in Sligo and it culminated in his election to the Borough Council in 1994, followed in 1999 with two more councillors including his son, Chris and his elevation to the County Council, a seat he held at every election since. He also had the honour of being Mayor of Sligo in 2000 and 2003.
Seán will be 67 this year and he says he had made up his mind about retiring some time ago, that it wasn’t a hasty decision.
“I was thinking about it for at least two and a half years. I was actually slightly reluctant to contest the last Local Elections in 2014. I always admired people who were able to get out of politics at a time of their choosing,” he says.
He remained on as he wanted to assist in the settling in process of newly elected party colleague Cllr Thomas Healy and he had also become chairman of the Local Community Development Committee and wanted to devote attention to this too.
In fact, he describes himself as a somewhat reluctant politician from the start and he had made quite a mark on the party away from the ballot box, serving as national chairperson from 1984 to 1990 and he was also part of the first Sinn Féin delegation to meet with the British Government in over 70 years after the IRA ceasefire in 1994.
He didn’t see his many election defeats as disheartening as progress continued to be made but when the party made a breakthrough in 2011 when Sligo/ Leitrim elected a Sinn Féin TD it was through Michael Colreavy not MacManus, a seat the party held with Martin Kenny in 2016.
Seán’s not bitter about not contesting that 2011 election saying he had made his mind up not to stand after 2007 but believes that he had a strong chance of getting a seat in that election when the constituency was a four seater.
The election seemed to be going well for MacManus but he suffered a heart attack the day after Bertie Ahern called the election and he wasn’t as a result on the ground as much as he would have liked and the swing to Fianna Fáil in the final few days of campaigning went unchecked locally by the party.
Nevertheless, despite not making it on to the national stage, MacManus, who served on the party’s national executive for many years, still played a vital part in shaping the nation over the past 30 years.
He was part of the party’s “significant negotiations” with John Hume, the Irish Government before the IRA ceasefire of 1994, a process he describes as stop- start and protracted and didn’t get the momentum it deserved until Albert Reynolds became Taoiseach from February 1992 onwards.
He describes the British Government playing “hot and cold” when talks began with them but he says from all sides it was essentially about trying to find some resolution that would in some way be acceptable to as many people as possible. Consequently, the beginnings of a Peace Process began.
“There seemed to be a serious recognition immediately by the Government when Albert Reynolds became Taoiseach that the Peace Process needed to be moved forward.”
“I would always have given kudos to Albert for the efforts he made,” he says.
Could peace have some decades earlier? Seán doesn’t think so, saying he didn’t think conditions were as ripe for peace, the Birtish Government hadn’t been willing to do as much. The Good Friday Agreement he says surpasses anything on offer before including Sunningdale. There was also the imput of US President Bill Clinton who was also pushing for peace.
At Downing Street on several occasions he met with Prime Ministers John Major and Tony Blair, NI Secretaries including Mo Mowlam and senior civil servants as part of his party’s negotiating team.
“There was probably a recognition that matters would have to move on on the basis that they weren’t able to defeat Republicanism but there was aslo an acceptance that they hadn’t been able to stop the growth of Sinn Féin.”
“Initially with John Major there were a lot of delays and hicups. Decommissioning was brought into the equation fairly early in the discussions That went on for the best part of ten years. That was dragged in as an obstacle.
“What you’ve got to understand with the British is that they have a history of close to a thousand years of negotiating and prevaricating.”
The peace deal was finally struck and a NI Government was formed initially with Sinn Féin and the OUP and more recently with the DUP with MacManus saying the relationship between Martin McGuinness and Ian Paisley which surprised many was
THE LOSS OF ANY YOUNG PERSON IN A FAMILY IS TRAUMATIC AND IT’S VERY HARD TO GET OVER BECAUSE AS A PARENT YOU DON’T EXPECT TO BURY A CHILD
a close and genuine one. This was borne out by the good wishes sent by Paisley’s son, Ian junior on the news of McGuinness’s illness and the role he played.
“That’s what one wants to see, some form of reciprocol situation coming from unionists in recognising the role which republicans have played,” he says. Keeping the interest of those living in the South in Northern affairs can be difficult but Seán feels that while it’s human nature to think of things close to home such as economic and financial circumstances, “you could easily say most Irish people if you peeled back one or two layers you’ll find at the centre of most people there’s a desire to see a United Ireland of some shape or other that would work and that there would be peace.”
Particularly pleasing to him was how the many communities embraced the 1916 Rising commemorations throughout Ireland and the sense of pride they had.
A United Ireland, he thinks it is possible in his lifetime. “When I was younger I would have said yes that I would see a United Ireland in my lifetime but as I get close to pension age I’m not as convinced but I am convinced that there will be some form of a united Ireland in the relatively short term.
THE LOSS OF A SON
The IRA didn’t achieve it through a long armed campaign which took a massive toll in lives, including Seán’s own son, Joseph who was shot dead in February 1992 aged 21 after an exchange of fire between an IRA cell and a part- time Ulster Defence Regiment soldier who was also a dog warden for the local council at farmhouse near Belleek.
“The loss of any young person in a family is traumatic and it’s very hard to get over because as a parent you don’t expect to bury a child. To lose a child in violent circumstances whether it’s an armed struggle or a car accident is traumatic and if you look at it from that point of view you obviously don’t want to see that person dying, but in relation to the bigger question you’ve asked whether armed struggle was worth it, yes, I would say that regrettably that armed struggle, as has been proven time and again across the world that it is sometimes necessary to get some States to move. If one casts their minds back to the situation pertaining in the North of Ireland prior to 1969 when it wasn’t even a situation of one person, one vote. I don’t think you’d have the same situation now pertaining in the North were it not for the actions of the IRA. I’m convinced of that.
“Unfortunately, many people lost their lives some of it attributable to the IRA and a considerable amount to the British Armed Forces and their subordinates and the question has to be asked I suppose would there have been an IRA or an armed struggle in the Northern Ireland if the British weren’t there and I think anyone who has any understanding of the situation would say no.
“We are now in a situation, first and foremost we have to recognise the rights and responsibilities of everyone and I think, in fairness, people involved in Republicanism have always been open to that,” he says, referring to the ideals of Wolfe Tone embracing an Ireland welcoming to Catholic, Protestant and dissenter.
“We have tried to reach out with some level of success over the last twenty years to the unionist community in Northern Ireland,” he says, adding however that almost 19 years on from the Good Friday Agreement there seemed to be “people in unionism who still consider nationalists as second class citizens, epitomised by the behaviour surrounding this latest debacle.”
He points to promises not fulfilled such as turning Long Kesh into a reconciliation centre. Issues like these, he says, showed a lack of respect to the nationalist community.
Part of the reconciliation process was the visit of Queen Elizabeth to Ireland in 2011 and that of Prince Charles to Sligo in 2015 where he shook the hand of MacManus during a Civic Reception at The Model where the the Royal spoke of the hurt at the killing of his great uncle, Lord Mountbatten in Mullaghmore in 1979 in an IRA bombing.
MEETING PRINCE CHARLES
“We spoke for about a minute. The first thing I want to say about meeting Prince Charles was that it may have been difficult for him.
“He lost relatives to active republicanism and it was also difficult for me because we lost our son. It wasn’t easy to go up there and shake hands and try to engage but I did it after talking to... particularly to people here in Sligo. I also spoke to people at leadership level, not to Gerry Adams or Martin McGuinness but to other people like the national chairperson and I had decided in the interests of building peace, going back to what I said about mutual trust, respect and recognition, that it was only right I go and meet him.
“When I did meet him I said to him that I recognised the fact that he was here in Sligo largely because of the death of Mountbatten and that he had also suffered loss. I told him who I was and that my son had been killed in the North of Ireland and that I would hope in the future that he would promote reconciliation.
“This needs to be fostered between the Irish and British but also across the communities in Northern Ireland,” he says.
Asked if he had known his son was in the IRA, Seán replied: “I had a fair idea.”
“We’d seen he had been influenced by events in Northern Ireland and he took his own decision to join the IRA.”
A strong advocate of the Peace Process, Seán says that significant advances have been made for the nationalist communities in the past 25 to 30 years and the situation is not comparable to what it was in 1969. On his return to Ireland in the mid 1970s, Seán settled in Sligo, a decision he has never regretted.
“I love Sligo. It’s such a beautiful county. Its people are welcoming, decent, friendly and receptive. I’ve managed to hold out to my Cavan accent but many people assume I’m from Sligo,” he says.
Being the town’s Mayor on two occasions is an obvious highlight of his political career but also he says in particular the 1999 election of himself, son Chris and Arthur Gibbons to Sligo Corporation.
An 18 career on local councils has brought home to him one glaring drawback apart from the obvious lack of finance.
“It’s just too centralised. There isn’t enough devolved powers for local authorities. We’ve one of the centralised systems of local government in the world,” he says.
He laments too the scrapping of Sligo Borough Council. A population of over 15,000 requires their own council, he believes.
“You go to France for example and there are places with less than one hundred people with a Mayor and a council. It’s more democratic and more people buy- in to that type of local government,” he says.
Sligo lost its Borough Council but got a Municipal District which Seán describes as just a sub committee of the County Council which cannot take any major decisions. Even, at County Council level there’s been a cut in its powers. Water and Sewerage responsibilities have been taken away.
Devolution of powers from central government has to be seriously looked at, he says along with tax raising powers. In recent years the county council has hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons in terms of its multi- million euro debt and it was creaked under savage cuts to services and staff in order to return its revenue account to surplus which was achieved in 2016 (€ 1.6m).
It’s difficult being a councillor in these circumstances he says as the needs and aspirations of people will not be met. Housing in particular is a huge need.
“I don’t think the financial package that’s there at present is sustainable and which has been imposed, by and large, by the department. It’s totally impossible to seek € 3.7million in savings in 2017. Where can you cut services anymore? They are looking for further redundancies.
“The discretionary spend is so small that they won’t be able to find € 3.7 million in cuts,” he says, adding that the cuts affecting the library services which periodically closed some, is only the tip of the iceberg. The situation with the libraries has been resolved but he believes it’s only a matter of time before another vital service was affected similarly. Such are the swinging cuts that he says: “It’s hard to believe in the circumstances to see the bit of work that is being done.” Hopes that the Government’s Rural Plan might be of major assistance doesn’t impress Cllr MacManus who says € 60 million is not an awful lot when divided amongst 600 towns and villages.
“If the Government were to say this was only the first tranche of funding to come in well then I would welcome what’s been done out,” he says. Maybe there’s a recognition at last he says by this Government of the neglect of rural Ireland.
“There are failed businesses and dereliction in every town, particularly in the west reflecting a serious problem and jobs need to be created.” Seán says he intends staying active in the party locally but he’ll certainly have more time to go walking on his favourite beaches in Strandhill and also making the odd trip to see QPR playing, an affinity that began when he worked in London. Looking back on his public life he says that “twenty years of local service was a long time trying to rectify problems. It could be hectic at times with people calling to the house before the advent of mobile phones. The pressure at your home eased off then but it also made you totally accessible to people. I always kept my mobile switched on, so I was accessible to people 24/ 7. You surrender a lot of your privacy.”
The latest call he got was at 4.20am while there were many at at 1am, but problems were rarely solved at that hour! Job satisfaction came when he got a phonecall from someone saying they got what they were entitled to like a social welfare payment or medical issue or when he was walking down the street and someone said to him, “fair play to you, thanks for that.”