Sinn Féin – Pragmatism Over Principle?

There was a bit of controversy this week when it was announced that Stormont Assembly First Minister would attend the Belfast Cenotaph this Sunday to remember the British Army war dead of two world wars and subsequent conflicts. 

This would make O’Neill the highest profile Sinn Féin member ever to attend such an event and has been met with disdain from some members of the unionist community and relatives of those killed in IRA violence with some variously branding it as an empty  PR exercise to attempt to distract from the recent problems SF have encountered and appeal to the Irish electorate in the forthcoming Irish election at the end of the month. 

A man whose father and uncle were shot dead by the Provisional IRA has accused First Minister Michelle O’Neill of engaging in a “PR stunt without any substance”. https://t.co/jIhYSe5Nzq

— Belfast Telegraph (@BelTel) November 6, 2024

Others have on Social Media have praised the move as a gesture of reconciliation and evidence that O’Neill is making good on her promise of being a ‘First Minister for everyone’ and wondering will there be any reciprocation. 

There has however been a further development, the Irish News carried a letter from signed by dozens of relatives of those from the Republican community in Tyrone killed in the conflict questioning O’Neill’s decision to attend the British Army remembrance ceremony. Here is the letter:

“As a proud Tyrone person, I feel a duty to put my views on record in response to the shameful news that Michelle O’Neill is to attend events with British and unionist politicians and their military leaders next Sunday, where she will also lay a wreath honouring British soldiers and RUC members killed during the conflict.

The same forces that murdered men, women, children, and priests with impunity.

For many families throughout our county, and beyond, this will be devastating.

It is heartbreaking when we consider that Michelle O’Neill and Mary Lou McDonald determined several years ago that rather than offend the sensitivities of their unionist and British colleagues, and media, they would not attend key republican commemorations.

Their absence for all to witness.

Such reactionary populism has spread through Sinn Féin like a virus suffocating the last vestiges of principal and integrity that might have lingered.

And that’s being extremely generous.

Sinn Féin have turned political somersaults into an Olympic sport, and for what?

A First Minister for all?

What about our patriot dead?

Not much thought for them when you decided not to attend Easter commemorations.

What about all the civilian victims of British state murder, and those uninvolved relatives targeted because their relatives where activists in the movement?

I like many good people of Tyrone witnessed our family members and friends lying dead, dying on our own ground in our own country.

They were murdered in their own country by a foreign force that had no right to be here.

Yet on Sunday you’ll honour them, whilst you stayed away from republican commemorations.

It is beyond belief that any so-called Tyrone republican would wish to lay a wreath in honour of these forces who caused mayhem and murder on hamlets, hills, villages, and towns – the killing grounds of Tyrone where the cries for truth and justice about collusion, state murder, and counterinsurgency haunt the entire county and hundreds of families.

Have you all totally lost the run of yourselves or is it really power at any cost?

Because when you get to the pinnacle of wherever it is you want to be you’ll have compromised so much, you’ll be no different from the staters and Blueshirts that executed republicans and hounded those who held dear to the words and sacrifices of Tone, Connolly, Pearse, Sands, and Hurson.”

I understand the thinking behind O’Neill’s decision in that she is now Stormont FM and that this is now (relatively) big non binary gendered person’s politics and she’s expected to exercise the position without favour but the thing is, if O’Neill is going to be a ‘First Minister for all’ doesn’t she also have to be FM for those who signed the letter and others who think like them?

At the risk of mixing my metaphors, I suspect that in trying to ride two horses and be all things to all non-binary gendered people, Sinn Féin has painted itself into a corner here, which they’re going to have a bit of trouble getting out of. 

Hughie Beag is a West Belfast native and recovering legal scholar who spends lots of time in his spouse’s native Basque Country