There may be misunderstanding on both sides. It appears we are in debate as to whether or not Bertie Ahern was a Republican. It hinders the debate somewhat that we have not reached a definition of what that term means. I do find it a stretch too far to extrapolate from this difference that the party stands for nothing but gombeenism and the pursuit of power (even in a roundabout third hand way).

The discussion began when I highlighted a facet of his political persona that I (and by extension the grassroots party) admired. There were pros and cons to his premiership. The cons were an over reliance on the construction industry and a laissez faire style of governance where money was often not managed, being too plentiful perhaps. The pros for me included a huge focus on the North and delivery of an agreed solution there. Other pros included his familiarity with the trade union movement and the strong relationship and whilst in retrospect that may have cut both ways given our current position, at the time partnership worked or appeared to work and well.

I also think Eoghan Harris matters little in the grand scheme of things. It is an appoinment I would have probably forgotten had it not come up in this discussion. It was raised in grass roots circles at the time and it was certainly discussed (by party members) on sites like politics.ie at time too. However it was not an issue over which the party would or should get overly exercised, and ultimately came to be seen as an indulgence, even a bemusement. There is always a wild card in the gallery. Personally I felt the appointment of Senator Ellis was a far worse decision.

On the economic side of things, you misinterpret me in saying that ‘Republicanism’ has no import on such matters. The point carried over from a similar conversation on another blog recently, in response to accusations that the slow pace of organisation in the North was evidence of a lack of interest to which I responded that twenty six county survival was enough of a challenge in the very immediate future. Nonetheless progress continues as mentioned earlier above.

To deviate momentarily, it could be argued that whilst Republican advocates often are to the left economically, they need not be. One could argue that a true Republic is one in which any citizen can achieve their potential in an ultimate free market American dream type scenario. Am sure American conservatives (neo liberals even?) would make a good argument for how the American republic enables all to succeed. Again it comes back to how one defines the term and the many different meanings it can have.

I am not sure how any of the historical figures mentioned would have performed over the period of Bertie’s premiership. Apart from side issues such as the Harris appointment, what do you feel he should have done differently that would have allowed him to match your definition?

James

I also never suggested that ”FF are simply gombeens”. That is deliberately dishonest on your part. What I said is the paucity of your argument implicitly grants the premise ‘that FF are simply gombeens who stand for nothing but the retention of power’ made by opponents of FF.

On Eoghan Harris: I don’t think he matters much in the grand scheme of things. However, in the context of Ahern’s supposed republicanism it is important. Especially as you yourself were using Ahern’s ‘old school republican’ family connections as evidence of Ahern’s republican credentials. Harris completely repudiates this, in fact, openly boasts about it in the national media, calls anyone who says they are following in this tradition a ”green fascist”, in fact Harris seems to see it as his ultimate enemy. There is a fundamental contradiction between there.

As for the unease Harris’s appointment generated I didn’t see it personally. Now, I can’t say I’m in any way close to the party to judge but there was no public unease displayed whether by TDs, councillors, or grassroots members in the media, on blogs or message boards that I saw. I thought at the time that was very telling. I think if there was private unease at the time then it was rather useless and pointless to keep it private. Any republicans in FF should have opposed Harris’s appointment. It’s as simple as that.

As for your comments on the economy: you seem to suggest that republicanism has nothing to say on the economy. I strongly disagree with this. I think liberty, equality and fraternity should be the bedrock principles of any economy. What Ahern gave us economically was a shallow populism built on orthodox neoliberal foundations. This was in every way anti-republican, I’m afraid and we are left today with the legacy of this anti-republican economy meaning Ahern’s republicanism or lack thereof is not a historical discussion. Anyway, history does not operate in a vacuum, it is a process and it impinges on the present.

Finally on my perspective: it is not really important to this discussion. I am a republican like Wolfe Tone, like my namesake John O’Leary, like Pearse, like de Valera etc. That I don’t believe Ahern is in that tradition is my argument. That is all that matters.

If you want to dismiss me on the basis of preconceived cliches and stereotypes then you can associate me with whichever of the other groups you have already named in this thread.

In the time I’ve been involved in politics I’ve been consistently amazed by the propensity of many to antagonise those potentially sympathetic to their positions, to seek to repel rather than to attract. Your role in this exchange has been a series of critical / negative swipes now concluding with the sweeping broadside that “FF are simply gombeens” etc. We know much of what you are against but little if any of what you are for. You began by acknowledging the many definitions of the term Republican in Irish politics, yet you have yet to identify which one matches your own. You say it “either means something or it doesn’t” but have yet to state what it means to you. Perhaps it only means something if it means what you want it to mean? (although we are still guessing as to what that might be). Why do you so petulantly swipe aside any query on your own perspective? If you wish to initiate and to continue a dialogue then yes I think it does matter. (It would also help if you supplied a valid email address).

The fact is that Bertie Ahern identified himself, in public and private discourse as a ‘Republican’. I really don’t think appointing the likes of Eoghan Harris is a significant or substantive grounds for repudiating that. As you said yourself symbolism is insufficient argument. An idiosyncratic gesture surely and one which caused some unease not least within the FF party but hardly the apex of his political activity. Does Martin McGuinness’s strong and cordial rapport with Ian Paisley and other unionist leaders diminish his Republican credentials?

As an individual, and as a political activist, I too have always considered myself a ‘Republican’. It would be a prevalent theme in the ranks of FF activists and party members although there would be varying shades. Your contention appears to be that it may be adopted for political advantage. Tell that to the octogenarian activist whose views, while profound, will never grace any podium. Neither is it a position I hold for political expedience which is just as well given that in the six months or more I spent canvassing during the local elections I could count on half of one hand the number of times the question was raised. Indeed there is almost a liberal post-nationalist outlook in the wider media where it at times appears politically incorrect to describe oneself in this way. Bertie obviously operated at the upper end of the spectrum yet again I am not convinced of any significant electoral dividend received for his efforts in this regard. As Clinton posited, “It’s the economy, stupid” and it indeed appeared thus. In any case, in the context of Bertie Ahern, it is an academic historical discussion rather than any tactical current political consideration.

James

In fact it implicitly grants that opponents of FF are right when they say FF are simply gombeens who stand for nothing but the retention of power.

You have touched on a couple of themes and I will attempt to address each in turn.

Taking perhaps the most straightforward one first, on the question of why any overpayment on the bank’s assets, the simple answer is because it is, and is patently designed to be ‘a support scheme’. However the indivdual assets will each be assessed one by one and the exact and current market value will be determined before any transfer takes place and the surplus beqeathed to the banks will be a precise figure allocated by government rather than any kind of free for all mass transfer. As regards a clear out at the management level, a recent Sunday Tribune article (http://www.tribune.ie/business/article/2009/sep/27/the-winners-and-losers-of-the-bank-guarantee-schem/) highlighted how from the assorted Chairs, MDs, CEOs across the top tier in banking this time last year, only one figure now remains in situ, and he on borrowed time.

On the topic of the Labour party and populism, it is perhaps ironic that I picked up your comment (on my blackberry) over lunchbreak where I was concluding another volume on the UK Labour party, and the celebrated Brown / Blair rivalry in particular. An avowed fan, I have frequently spoken of the UK Labour party on this blog, and I am fairly certain were I to ever reside in the UK, I would get involved in a local branch.

I have huge time for Gordon Brown, in particular I admire his sincerity, his patriotism and his untrammelled depths. I also marvel at John Prescott’s very epitomisation of the politics of class struggle through his life story. Blair I was most luke warm on of the bunch, yet across the project, I admire the politics they have hewn from ideology, the ‘third way’ in which they have demonstrated that progressive social policy and an enrichment of the wider society can be achieved on the back of honest enterprise, innovation and entrepeunerialship unfettered by over regulation or a disproportionate tax burden. That a rising tide can lift all boats even if the eddies need a little encouragement at times. Ironically it was only by emulating and continuing Conservative fiscal policy that Brown was enabled to deliver on his social justice goals in the lifetime of his first administration, a fact he understood better than most in his party and were it not for his ‘iron will’ may never have been delivered.

Yet I do not see those characteristics in the Irish equivalent. Rather I have been consistently disappointed by its populism. I have spoken of it before (http://jameslawless.ie/2009/02/15/can-the-centre-hold/) and regretted its practice by Eamonn Gilmore in particular of whom I had previously held in some regard. I had dejá vú last night watching RTE’s excellent new FrontLine when members of the audience engaged in collective amnesia / denial with their entreaties to “tax the rich” and “levy the developers” etc etc. Colm McCarthy was impressively collected, albeit a little coldly calculating for political tastes, when he relegated such simplistic yet fantastical solutions to the fools’ paradise where they belong. However such an approach was commonplace from the Labour leader particulalry last Spring in the run up to the local elections when at times I considered how such an educated erudite man could countenance such naievete yet of course the answer is that it was politically succesful to do so and may continue to be. Statements like “Tax the rich” (What rich where?) and an “Its not our fault” mentality are simplistic and unconstructive although evidently they pay political dividends. I could almost write Joan Burton’s speeches myself at this stage, her “hard working families” routine was invented by Adrian Langan for Pat Rabbitte three years ago and Joan is still cranking it out. Regardless what the measure is, or the rights and wrongs of same, Joan will pitch it to appear on six one news and be seeing feeling the familes pain, readying to reap the electoral harvest in due course. Amazingly enough, I am in one of those ‘hard working families’ myself as a PAYE working, mortgage paying, parent of young children living in commuter ville yet I don’t see Labour positing any constructive solutions for me at this time.

As for voting against the Lisbon treaty to ‘get at’ the government, well on the list of good ideas that’s right up there with the public sector going out on full scale strike action to restore the national fortunes. (I realise you’re not advocating either of these but I think people really have to look beyond the nose on their face in these times).

James

Coming from a distinctly non Fianna Fáil background I have to say that i cannot reconcile your well written article with the facts. People have turned against Brian Cowen and FF because they associate them with them worst recession in the developed world (according to the financial times). They look at the culture of closing the ranks and protecting your own within the Government. Why should we overpay for bank assets? Any reasonable observer would agree that the property market has a lot further to fall. Nationalisation is the least worst option because at least the state is in a far better position to pay the correct price and to recoup any potential profits for the state first, not the banks balance sheet.

Why did FF not make a bailout conditional on the removal of all those responsible? Why do they protect Roddy Molloy and Mary Coughlan when she is clearly out of her depth? It is the refusal to do what is right for all the people of the country, not just those who are well connected that has FF and Brian Cowen where they are.

Im a Labour supporter so obviously i take umbrage at your calling us populist when it was the decade of pandering to every vested interest by Bertie that had a substantial impact on the economic crisis we are in.

A sign of the anger at the Government is when so many people say that they are voting no to Lisbon purely to get FF out and not even looking at Lisbon Treaty

Were you in the RSF/dissident camp I think I would understand your criticisms (although without agreeing) however as you identify with Martin McGuinness and Martin Ferris I am taking you to be a mainstream shinner?

If that is the case I am not clear what, in terms of specific outlook on the North, separates SF and FF/Bertie policy, particularly in relation to the events discussed and the GFA etc. Both parties negotiated and supported the agreement and it was adopted in an exercise of all Ireland determination with a massive majority across the island.

My own view is that we have made a lot of progress (from the unionist dominated days of discrimination, a protestant parliament for a protestant people) but we still have a lot to do. I would feel the civil rights issues have largely been addressed but the soveregnity question remains. Whilst it is important to you and I perhaps, for the majority at present it is not an urgent matter and I think you will grant there are many pressing problems facing the government today. I think it is to their credit that moves continue on party development (e.g. recent Down FF summit, full voting Northern position created on Ógra executive, recruitment campaign in Ulster colleges) in the midst of so much national and political turmoil. As has already been observed there is little percentage in it from a purely electoral perspective. Which highlights the sincerity of intent to pursue it now.

You know it’s easy to put up pictures of Pearse or to refuse to enter rooms with Cromwell portraits. This is just gesture politics, superficial noncommittal posturing. It’s much harder to defend the existence of Articles two and three which Bertie didn’t and in fact negotiated away for very little. But this was Bertie’s modus operandi, say one thing do another. It’s very easy to say you will organise in the North, it’s much harder to actually do it. As Bertie’s failure shows.

As I said if you examine Berties supposed republicanism it was really just say your doing one thing while actually doing the opposite, wrap the green flag around you and hope no one notices. Bertie declared himself to be against the revisionists while launching a book by a noted revisionist (in fairness it was a good book but still…), he also put one of the more virulent revisionists into the senate, someone who openly boasts in the national press about being a revisionist. These are not the actions of a republican unless you limit the definition of republicanism to simply not having a monarchy. Certainly not the actions of people of ‘old school IRA stock’, indeed Bertie’s BBF Eoghan Harris was also boasting recently about how he repudiated his families ‘old school IRA’ republicanism.

Which brings us to yours and Bertie’s use of his family lineage: what does this really mean for us or republicanism today? Garret Fitzgerald also uses his family lineage to bolster his own nationalist/republican credentials from time to time. It’s nonsense and ironically it’s a very aristocratic way of viewing things, you know you get your legitimacy from your family lineage and not your actual actions. Bullshit. But if we take ‘old school republicanism’, regardless of whether it’s a good or bad thing, then in the present the closest persons to it would undoubtedly include people like Martin Ferris or Martin Maguinnes. Bertie and Martin Ferris or Martin Maguinness are very far apart in terms of republicanism as you yourself noted.

As for Bertie’s way of thinking on the north: the political weakness of northern Ireland, i.e. sectarianism and British Imperialism was not challenged. Instead, and Bertie was fundamental to this, the focus on what needed to be challenged was changed to challenging paramilitary (mainly IRA violence mirroring British arguments) and the need for ‘peace’. Now ‘peace’ has been achieved the political weakness of Northern Ireland (which still exists) can be ignored by the so-called republican parties in the 26 counties and the rest of the establishment (who never cared about it as long as they could continue to ‘fumble in their greasy tills’.)

However, if we grant your contention that ‘Bertie’s way of thinking won out’ (I don’t for one minute accept that a)Bertie had a coherent way of thinking on the North or b) that the current situation can be simplistically reduced to such) then the irony is that it is in fact Martin Maguinness who is currently carrying it out. The question is (if we accept your premise of Bertie’s way of thinking winning out) has Bertie and the southern establishment abandoned challenging the political weakness of the north and have they hamstrung republicans who still wish to do so. I’d say on both counts yes but then, as I said, I don’t accept that Bertie’s ‘way of thinking won out’ anyway. I just think Bertie was never a republican but a superficial posturer who did what was necessary to achieve and maintain power, in other words the gombeen man par excellence.

I want to address the points raised about Bertie.

I will take the socialist first and the republican question after.

Firstly I accept the remark is largely tongue in cheek and it is fair to say a ‘real’ socialist would be unlikely to count Bertie amongst their number. I am never quite sure whether he meant to say it himself or whether he considered the term in any way before using it. There was quite an amusing interview on the Late Late shortly after when an academic friend of his (may have been the then state pathologist) actually felt the Taoiseach had confused his words saying he was a ’sociable’ person and had to be reassured he had in fact said ’socialist’ which he seemed to grant a bemused chuckle at.

In any event, whilst he more closely straddles the middle ground, and perhaps epitomised for a while a pragmatist leader of a populist party, the fact is that he did concern himself greatly with social spending, social partnership and the welfare budget. It is rumoured he left McCreevy to his own devices once he was assured every year there was money for the old folks and money for the welfare and all the ’spend’ departments were up. In retrospect of course this philosophy is often attributed with insufficient forward planning and seen as contributing partly to our present woes. He also consistently showed concern for his trade union friends and flirted with the movement even prior to entering electoral politics (when he was a form of shop steward working in accounts at the Mater hospital). Ironically he refuted union advances to get more seriously involved at the time telling them his politics were ‘Republican and not into that socialist stuff’ which leads on nicely to the next point.

———————–

In terms of the title ‘Republican’ again those further to the left (or the right or the greener side of the house whichever side that it) of the spectrum than him would probably not consider him sufficiently so for their regard. However as mainstream definitions go he was one, in the sense of a strong Irish nationalist who revered the patriot leaders of previous generations and dedicated a huge proportion of his premiership to addressing the ‘Northern’ question, usually to very little direct electoral reward as it happens. Again there is no doubt that he saw himself in this way, it was his single defining ideology and how he always described himself without fail. It is common knowledge that his office wall bore a portrait of Pearse and his continued interest in Northern matters was evidenced by his strong push for a thirty-two county expansion of the party, just before his days at the helm were brought to a more abrupt end than he may have planned. His parents were both old school IRA stock and he was raised in a staunchly Republican household. Indeed his father Con Ahern was the last Republican prisoner to be released by the free state at the end of the civil war. He first publicly expressed his desire for a United Ireland in a speech at the Liam Lynch commemoration in Cork in 1983 and bookended his career with it, repeating this wish in a Sunday view interview on his last day of office. He did clarify that he felt political means were the appropriate methodology saying that while he wished to create “a free, new, united Ireland sovereign and separate from Britain”, he qualified that “it is the political weakness of Northern Ireland, not the military strength of its defenders that must be challenged”. At the same time Martin McGuinness was saying the only thing that would resolve the conflict was the “cutting edge of IRA violence” while Paisley was busy eulogising Enoch Powell’s rivers of blood. In the long term it appears Bertie’s way of thinking won out on the matter.