From Maskey to O’Neill: The Evolution of Sinn Féin and Remembrance in Northern Ireland…

Back in 2002, I knew a former RAF man. He had served as a navigator on a Mosquito fighter/bomber in the Far East during the Second World War. He was a proud member of the RAF aircrew association and, like many veterans of that war, dutifully attended the remembrance service at the cenotaph in Belfast every year. What made the 2002 service different from the ones before it, was that Belfast’s first republican Lord Mayor, Alex Maskey, laid a wreath. Afterwards, he made a point of speaking to some of the veterans attending, and my friend was impressed by Maskey’s effort to reach out and respected him for it.

Fast-forward twenty years, and Michelle O’Neill, the First Minister of Northern Ireland, is receiving political flak from various quarters for attending the annual remembrance service in her official capacity. For some hard-line unionists, her presence is hypocritical and incongruous with the occasion. Similarly, uncompromising Republicans have branded her a traitor.

What I find curious is that in normal society, her presence would go entirely unremarked. Let’s remind ourselves that Michelle O’Neill is the first minister of Northern Ireland, not just the Republican parts. She is on record as saying she intended to be a first minister for all. That is both right and proper, and on Sunday past, she walked the walk.

The underlying reasons for the controversy can be found in the changing nature of Remembrance Day and the simplistic good guy/bad guy view so many people have of history and politics. Remembrance Sunday was introduced in the aftermath of the First World War to help a traumatised country come to terms with losses that were on a scale beyond anything in living memory. It was natural after the Second World War for the dead of that conflict to be included. With time, the perception of wars has changed; the Second World War remains in the public mind a noble crusade, while the First World War is often regarded as entirely pointless, bloody imperialistic slaughter. Historians see things in more nuanced terms but most people are not historians. After 1945, the major British conflicts were Korea, Malaya, Northern Ireland, the Falklands, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Three of these have been counter-insurgencies, and public opinion is much more divided.

We speak of the fallen and ‘sacrifice’ but as the American General, George S Patton is supposed to have told his troops in North Africa, ‘No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making some other poor dumb bastard die for his country.’^[1]

And that is the rub, soldiers are killed, but they are also killers. That is why people who have had loved ones slain by them in the most cruel manner, will be angered at the national pat on the back for the army that did so. There are at least two sides to every story and to turn a well-worn cliché on its head, one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist. When Irish Republicans remember their dead, does the wearing of an Easter Lily signify support for La Mon, Kingsmill etc? Some will say yes, but others will say people are simply remembering friends and relatives who died for a just cause they believed in. You choose your team and support it accordingly.

The undeniable reality which unionists detest, is that many, perhaps a majority of the nationalist community see the IRA as heroes, not blood-stained murderers. Similarly, Unionists will never accept the republican narrative that casts their loved ones as villains. We can argue about these things forever and many do exactly that, but where will that get us? If we can’t learn to live together and accept, we have completely different world views, we will kill and die together once again.

There is a remark attributed to Lyndon Johnson that after signing the Civil Rights Act in 1964, he told an aide the Democratic party had lost the South for a generation. I can’t find any evidence Johnson actually said that,^[2] but as a Texan, he knew the deep-seated racism of the South well and surely must have thought it. But he did the right thing, and the former Confederacy has been stony ground for the Democratic Party ever since.

I applaud Michelle O’Neill for participating in the remembrance service. The right thing is rarely easy or popular. She may take a hit in the short term, but Alex Maskey broke ground over twenty years ago and suffered no permanent political damage. I expect something similar in O’Neill’s case.

But nothing happens in isolation. By attending and laying a wreath, O’Neill silently asks unionists, ‘What about reciprocation?’ Outreach is more difficult for a unionist politician as Unionist voters tend not to be as strategically minded as Sinn Féin ones, but it should happen. David Trimble paid the price for the Belfast Agreement, but history has been kinder to him than it was to the voters of Upper Bann. I don’t expect to see Emma-Little Pengelly at Milltown any time soon but if she receives an invitation from the Irish government to attend the official 1916 commemoration, she should accept it. To do so is to accept neither nor applaud the action of the IRA but to recognise and respect the different history and heritage of her neighbours. It’s baby steps, but we need to move forward.

1. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/04/24/war/ (accessed 11/11/24) ↑
2. https://capitalresearch.org/article/we-have-lost-the-south-for-a-generation-what-lyndon-johnson-said-or-would-have-said-if-only-he-had-said-it/ (11/11/24) ↑