This speech represents the political position of 'official Sinn Fein' in relation to what was then going on in the North, with the Provisional campaign in full swing, and the Civil Rights movement shattered by the Bloody Sunday events. The 'official IRA' had recently seen sense and called off its campaign, which it had initiated earlier in competition with the Provisionals. There is an Introduction by Des O'Hagan written in 2000, along with a retrospective Epilogue by Tomas Mac Giolla.

Introduction

Sadly the people of Northern Ireland would have to wait almost thirty years before the then deep understanding of the Republican Clubs would become commonly accepted. During that period a total of 2,937 people were killed as a result of terrorism; of those 850 were security personnel, the remainder 2,087 were civilians. It is not possible to establish the percentage of murders, which can be described absolutely as deliberately and consciously sectarian. However they range from the massacres at Kingsmill to Loughinisland, from Darkley Church to Greysteel. Subsequent to the IRA statement, the then President of (Official) Sinn Féin, Tomas Mac Giolla, delivered this historic address to the Republican Clubs Conference in Carrickmore, Co Tyrone, July 1972. It was reproduced immediately as a pamphlet. We received it in Long Kesh within a matter of days and I remember well the enthusiastic discussions, in the main, which took place in our education classes.

Unfortunately the Provisional internees and their supporters were totally scornful of the proposals. As far as they were concerned, (their deep rooted sectarianism, the talks which they had with the British government in London, the proroguing of Stormont and the propaganda of their leaders) the Irish republic was only a matter of months away. For them our critique was not only meaningless, but we were irrelevant reformists. Indeed I recollect one leading Provisional telling me that the Civil Rights struggle was over, "it was alright in its time" (sic), but that we should get on with "fighting the war".

As the IRA. statement had made clear the real revolutionary struggle was for democracy and reform in Northern Ireland; Carrickmore spelt this out in detail and at the same time pointed to the horrific consequences of continuing terrorism. Furthermore it stated specifically that the Republican rejection of terrorism was based on principles which could not be diluted. What could be clearer than the following: "People have talked about the Provisionals trying to bomb one million Protestants into a republic; but they would not- could not - and no one can - and no one as far as we are concerned would try - to bomb them into a socialist republic. That would be the ultimate contradiction and the ultimate stupidity. We need those million Protestant working people on the workers' side in the Irish revolution.

Irish political history from 1972 is dominated by bloody sectarian murder. What Carrickmore had warned against may not have come to pass in its entirety - full scale civil war - but there can be no doubt that at various times we were on the brink of the precipice. It is too early yet to evaluate the full contribution of the IRA decision and the Carrickmore pamphlet to preventing that descent into sectarian chaos. But there also can be no doubt about it that the thinking contained in them was the basis for the future development and programme of our Party. It meant there was an active anti-sectarian working class party prepared to campaign right across Northern Ireland for Peace, Work, Democracy and Class Politics; this at a time when the foulest sectarian murders were being committed. We were in opposition to all terrorist gangs and our political activity - electioneering or special campaigns - demanded, by virtue of our 1972 decisions, that there could be no "no-go areas".

The courage and commitment of our Party member in those difficult, dangerous years were and are unsurpassed. They and their successors have yet to reap their political reward but it will come, as surely as night follows day.

Des O'Hagan September 2000.

Dear Comrades

When the Republican Movement evolved its revolutionary strategy in the middle sixties, it was clearly based on a peoples' struggle for the ownership of the wealth of their country and for full control of their lives and destinies. We said then and have repeatedly emphasised since, that no elitist group could emancipate the Irish people. Only the people themselves could win through to victory and establish a democratic socialist republic.

All our policies and all our actions since then have been based on this theory, and have been designed to strengthen the peoples' resistance against the forces which are oppressing them. These forces may be economic or political, or generally a combination of both. We have shown the people their power and strength when they are united behind a clear set of demands. We have built the peoples' struggle on issues which affected them personally, and we have endeavoured to integrate all of these struggles, rural and urban, into the context of a national struggle for peoples' rights.

Here in the 6 Counties the paramount issue on which a mass struggle could be built was clearly the issue of democracy and basic human rights. The Republican Clubs had been active on the economic issues of housing and unemployment, which had achieved such success amongst the people in the south. But all the time they came up against the barriers of sectarian discrimination and second-class citizenship which prevented the development of united working class struggle. We all, therefore, threw ourselves into the civil rights struggle.

The organisation was laid and developed in 1967. It only awaited an issue, a catalyst, to rouse the people and bring them on the streets. The issue was provided by the Brontry Republican Club which fought the blatant discrimination of a housing allocation in Caledon by squatting two families in the houses.

Following the widespread publicity and anger aroused by this allocation, a march on August 24th, 1968 was organised from Coalisland to Dungannon. The Civil Rights Association was asked to sponsor the march and I, with Republicans from all over the North, and about 5,000 others, marched in what was the inauguration of the Civil Rights struggle.

The members of the Republican Movement were the spearhead, the prime organisers, activists and main disciplinary element in each subsequent Civil Rights march. But I must take this opportunity of emphasising, and you yourselves should emphasise on all possible occasions, that there was never any intention on our part of using the Civil Rights Movement or the peoples' struggle in the streets, as a cover for military actions against police or British forces. Our objective was the achievement of democracy and civil rights.

We recognised that in the society which existed in the North, the purely reformist demands of the Civil Rights Movement were in themselves revolutionary and would if achieved, change not only the political structures but the whole society. We also recognised that the lessons learned by the people in the course of their struggle for democracy and equality of citizenship would later be used by them in the further struggle for their economic, social and national rights. We knew the civil rights struggle would be only a beginning, but we knew it could be the beginning of a revolution. We had set our faces against elitist militarism and our members did all in their power to ensure that all demonstrations would be peaceful.

It is important now to remember who it was that first introduced violence into the peoples' struggle and what forces were at work to change the course of the struggle and take it out of the hands of the mass of the people. Those who remember the events of early '69 will recall how invincible were the people and how confusion and disarray was spreading amongst the forces of the Establishment.

There was no way by which the Stormont or British Governments could defeat the peoples' demands or break their unity and determination. Furthermore, the Dublin Government had lost all influence or control of the situation since the eclipse of the Nationalist Party in Spring of '69. Control of events and the leadership of the peoples' struggle was in the hands of the Republican Movement, although many other forces were also at work.

In this situation the forces of Imperialism consciously decided to change the character and course of the struggle.

Their objective was two-fold:

1. escalate sectarian confrontations to create the maximum bitterness and division amongst the common people, and

2. provoke a military confrontation by increasingly aggressive tactics by the State forces, both RIC and British Army.

The Orange sectarian forces had been used from the early stages of the civil rights struggle to intimidate people and encourage, or provide the excuse for, the RUC and B Specials to harass and intimidate marchers and provoke situations where the people could be batoned off the streets. These tactics did not succeed due to the discipline of the marchers, provided by the stewarding of Republicans.

In the Spring and Summer of 1969 the RUC were becoming increasingly aggressive, resulting in the first deaths on the streets. Eventually the RUC launched an all-out attack on the Bogside, Derry in August 1969 and were defeated by the people. But in Belfast a vicious pogrom against Catholic areas was carefully organised and carried out by the B Specials and some Orange sectarian bigots, in which a number of people were killed and some hundreds of houses were burned.

This was no spontaneous communal riot or uprising by the Protestant people against their Catholic neighbours. It was organised by the, forces of the State following a political decision at the highest level. It took place in different areas at the same time and was protected and assisted by the RUC, who actually participated in the shooting into Catholic housing ghettos.

The political purpose of the pogrom was to terrify the people, smash the Civil Rights Movement, and change the course of the struggle from one of civil rights to one of defence of peoples' homes. This they temporarily succeeded in doing. But the position could have been quickly retrieved by the Republican Movement and, in fact, was - to the extent that by the late Spring of 1970 important contacts were being made between the Catholic and Protestant working class people and the potential for revolutionary action was developing to a new high level.

But the imperialist forces had foreseen that the effects of a sectarian pogrom would not be lasting unless it was fed and developed by the activities of sectarian forces on both sides.

The Republican Movement and the Civil Rights Movement had set their faces against sectarianism and the A0H and Nationalist Party were dead. So a new Catholic sectarian force was needed. The groundwork for this had already been laid. As early as February 1969 the Dublin Government had begun their part of the imperialist plan by making their first contact with Republicans and Civil Rights workers in the North.

Following the August pogroms they intensified their work on much more fertile ground. By concentrating on those Belfast Republicans and ex-Republicans who saw their role as Catholic defence groups and by playing on their latent sectarianism and militarist desires, they created a split amongst Republicans in Belfast and offered money and guns to those who would reject the leadership of the Republican Movement. Thus the Provisionals were born.

Throughout the Spring of 1970 it became obvious that the British Army, which had apparently come in August '69 to keep the peace between the Protestants and Catholics, were in fact engaged on a deliberate campaign to provoke the Republicans into direct confrontations with them. Regular raids and searches took place, during which people were beaten up and homes were smashed and left uninhabitable. Republicans organised the people to resist this harassment but deliberately refrained from any military confrontations with the British Army. It was a peoples' struggle, and Republicans intended to keep it that way and to stand shoulder to shoulder with the people. Eventually, the British Army invaded the Lower Falls with a massive force with the intention of carrying out a house to house search and completely disarming the people. The IRA resisted in arms for a period of 9 hours and declared that from then on they were prepared to defend themselves in arms if attacked.

Thus it can clearly be seen that violence and military force were introduced deliberately in the North by the Stormont and Westminster forces. That they carried out a deliberate policy of harassment and murder and eventually internment and torture in order to develop a purely military response to all their actions. Now at last the British forces and the agents of imperialism in Ireland are beginning to feel that they are winning. Sectarianism has been raised to new heights of viciousness, and purely militarist organisations, such as the UDA and Provos, with no political demands, have been given the status of Protestant spokesmen and Catholic spokesmen by the British Government.

Today we see in the newspapers, on radio and television the reflection of great public confusion about events and policies. No one seems quite certain where events are leading, what policies are working out, and what policies have been cast aside.

Recently a commentator on the newspapers, radio and television, a man of international reputation, an author and political writer of acknowledged integrity (Claude Cockburn), said that in Britain now "...The reader and viewer are offered facts, usually bloody, without any explanations which could render the facts intelligible or enable any serious person to form a judgement of rights and wrongs, or more importantly, of what practically speaking could or should be done"...

The vacuum which has been produced by this lack of informed and intelligent comment is, of course, of considerable assistance to those who wish to take advantage, of public confusion: in the first place, the forces of imperialism; in the second, the forces of sectarianism. And, as we have said before and cannot repeat too often, the forces of sectarianism of whatever shade and with whatever degree of knowledge are working as surely for the forces of imperialism as if they were wearing British Army uniforms.

We, for a moment, must look coldly and honestly at what is happening. The Provisional Alliance appears to be in the ascendant. In every newspaper, on every news bulletin, in thousands of special articles and hundreds of current affairs programmes, the concentration is the same. The Provisional bombing campaign, the Provisionals' ceasefire, the Provisionals' plan for a new Ireland, the Provisionals' resumption of fighting, the Provisionals' meetings with Wilson and Whitelaw, the Provisional deals in secrecy, the Provisionals' public demands and declarations, this is news. These are the headlines.

The Provisionals, we are told by some, are winning the Propaganda war; the Provisionals, other commentators assure us with equal certainty, are divided from top to bottom, between Belfast and Dublin, between political and military wings, between rank-and-file and leadership. The Provisionals are the force to be reckoned with, the men who must be seated at the conference table, today's 'Soldiers of Destiny'.

To those of us who have studied the history of the Republican Movement this has deep and sinister echoes of the past. It is our duty, therefore, to examine the reasons for the clamour, one might almost say the acclaim, of newspapers and politicians who have always taken, and are bound to take, an anti-Republican point of view.

The Provisionals have won publicity for these reasons: they have engaged in an offensive bombing, and therefore hold a balance of life and death which demands attention; if the Provisionals decide to stop or restart this campaign, that's news because it's death. If the Provisionals demand certain things, they have got to be reported because if the demands are not met it means a continuation of the bombing campaign; and any one bomb, in a pub or supermarket or city street, may claim 15 or 20 lives. They are in the same role as the plane hijacker who holds the passengers hostage and therefore must be talked to.

The Provisionals have won publicity because their demands are simple, easily presented, and easily understood. The Provisionals want a united Ireland with British troops out. What could be simpler for the correspondent who wants to get the message across to people who, a couple of years ago, didn't know Ireland existed? The South is free, now they want to free the North. The age-old demand of a united Ireland, the glamorous men romantically attached to the gun and the bomb, the young hero in his bandolier giving a last press conference to the international press corps before he marches out to die for his country.

Again, the Provisionals live up to the image of the sectarian fighter in a religious war. He is the Catholic, who when he talks about "his people" means only other Catholics. When he talks about the enemy he means Protestants. He is easily presented to a public which has been told that what is happening in the 6 Counties is a religious war, a primitive and unthinking conflict between tribes, arbitrarily divided and incapable of coexistence. Given this notion, sectarian civil war is not only likely bu inevitable - and its threat is going to continue for as long as there are Catholics and Protestants.

The Provisionals, therefore, are attractive to commentators and audiences that demand simple explanations of cause and effect in a world in which bombing and shooting, gruesome death and terrible injury make news. More than that, they can be presented in newspapers, controlled by press barons with enormous capital investments in property, on television stations controlled by the same men or by the bureaucratic representatives of the establishment, without stirring up any of the emotions or posing any of the questions or making any of the demands which they fear most: the questioning and the demands of a united working people seeking their full social, economic and political right - the control of their resources, the use of their labour in their own interest, separation not just from the cloak of imperialism but from the reality of imperialism, the rotten housing, the lack of jobs, the depression of wages, the take-over and close-down of factories at the whim of management in the name of rationalisation, the development of a wholly secular state in which no capitalist ruler can wear the mask of bigotry to divide his co-religionists among the working class from their class brothers.

The Provisionals are using weapons which the Irish and British Tories know they can deal with, for men cannot go on fighting forever. And when they succeed, as they seem to think they will, in bombing their way to the conference table, they will find the British ruling class today as determined as Lloyd George was in 1921, that the solution to the so-called Irish question will be decided in their interests, whether the result be, as it was then, bloody civil war and sectarian pogroms followed by a partitioned nation, or whether it be, as we now forecast, a federal arrangement which will leave Ireland more closely and more permanently tied to Britain than she has ever been.

Those who control the press know, as the military and political strategists of the Tory Government know, that a war-weary people, in the 1970s as in the 1920s will decide not in political wisdom but in longing for peace at any price. So the Provisionals may be the paper heroes of today but let us, looking at the facts, looking behind the pictures and the headlines, see why this has happened and recognise where it is leading. If the Provisionals are taken up by the press and television, they can as easily be put down by them. They will be given time and space until the time is right to impose the solution that the businessmen, the financiers and the Tory politicians need. And without political guidance, without a leadership that articulates their demands, the people will blindly opt for peace at any price. And the paper hero will become a paper monster overnight, isolated and remote.

Today, the Provisionals are desperately trying to develop a political programme which, when their offensive campaign is called off once more, they will present to the people and, if they are given a seat at the conference table - which appears to be the object of that campaign - they will present to the other participants in the talks. We must examine carefully and critically the aims and intentions revealed in their outline "Eire Nua". The principal proposal there is for regional government, the establishment of regional parliaments in the four historic provinces of Ireland and a consequent regional development of the country.

Here again, the Provisionals' appeal is simple, based on little more than vague hopes, without detailed examination of the present system or elaboration of the basic proposals they make. They hang their hopes on regional or provincial divisions. Ulster, they say, will still be governed by Protestants, this time with nine counties instead of six and a much larger Catholic minority. But the mere fact that they assume Protestant government of the province of Ulster means that they neither foresee or expect any change in the attitude of the Protestant working class people. The Provisionals propose to change the appearance of government but not its nature. They offer new names but retain the old system.

Connaught will have a provincial government, with power to encourage economic development and responsibility for financing many of its services, but will that make any difference to the majority of the people of the province as they are expelled from the land, from the villages, from the towns, because this is what capitalism dictates? It will make no difference, because the Provisionals, as so many of their statements to their friends in the United States have shown, have no intention whatever of moving outside the capitalist system. It was not centralised government but the inexorable laws of capitalism which impoverished the West and drew all wealth and development to the East. By retaining the existing capitalist system they would leave the workers deprived of jobs and housing and social services if that was what capitalism demanded, and they would expect them to be satisfied because the will of the capitalist was imposed from Athlone rather than from Dublin or London. That is, if they are to be taken seriously about the devolution of authority at all.

We must remember that regionalism has already failed in this country. The regional government of the 6 Counties, even with the financial support of the central government in London, did not succeed in producing an area which was capable of sustaining its population.

Even before the 6 Counties suffered any of the shocks of the late 1960s unemployment there was already at a disastrously high level. The workers, particularly those who lived west of the Bann, can testify to the failure of a system which, in name, seemed to subscribe to the notion of regional or provincial administration but, in reality, was a peripheral part of a centralised capitalist economy. Not even the powerful, selfish and corrupt Orange junta was capable of making regionalism work.

Some years ago at an Ard Fheis I pointed out that the real border in Ireland was not the political border between North and South but the economic border between east and west. We should by now have learned that economic power is more vital to the people than political power. But now the regional theory has new adherents which make its validity, not less, but more dubious. Jack Lynch, in his opening speech during the two day adjournment debate in Leinster House this week, advocated what he called a regional administration in the 6 Counties to handle its affairs until everyone was prepared for unity.

Once more, as the Provisionals seek a place at whatever conference table may be open to them, there are sinister portents of yet another sell-out in which they would unwittingly participate. They have proposed a regional solution in a federal arrangement - so has Lynch.

It may appear to the casual observer that Lynch has accepted their argument, in part at least. This is simply not so: Jack Lynch produced his suggestion of a regional administration the day after he saw Heath's representatives in Dublin to hear the Tory governments' plans for a final settlement. Regionalism was in the air. The time was opportune for Lynch to make a move. What the British suggested, and Lynch accepted, was that a form of regional administration in the 6 Counties could be linked both to London and Dublin in the final solution: federation, ie a federal arrangement under London with regional governments in Ireland. Lynch calls his suggestion regionalism. The Provisionals outline is also regionalism. The Provisionals offer their programme as a means to their one and only goal, the achievement of a united Ireland. Lynch knows that his suggestion will lead to a different end: the federation of Britain and Ireland in an unholy alliance of Unionism and Fianna Fail under the mantle of British Toryism, the final sell-out and ultimate betrayal of the Irish Socialist Republican ideal.

We see in this coincidence of offered solutions no deliberate plot but a single source: as the lapsed nationalists of Fianna Fail once derived their nationalism from a simplistic notion that independence was only a matter of changing flags and repainting letter boxes, so the Provisionals their vision of a new Ireland equally limited, provide Fianna Fail with the opportunity for the sell-out.

We, in the Republican Movement, are not deceived and must not allow others to be deceived by the name-changing game. The 26 Counties has a history of name-changing - Saorstat Eireann, the Free State, Eire or the Republic of Ireland. Call it what you like, the reality remains: it is a society built not on the needs of its working people but on responses to the capitalists' demands and anyone who thinks that he can change the whole country by changing the appearance of control without radically changing its nature, is fooling himself and trying to fool the working class.

When Liam Mellows walked out of the Four Courts in 1922, he stopped to watch the workers on the quays of Dublin, as they tripped over the concrete and rubble left after the shelling and shooting. They were neither sympathetic nor hostile to the Republicans being led to imprisonment and death. They were indifferent and, noting this, Mellows said: "The workers are not with us". That is the most terrible fate for a Socialist Republican, a fate which for ten years now, the Republican Movement has been working to avoid. It is the fate which awaits the militarist elite which believes that where it leads the workers will follow. The policies of the Republican Movement are based on the converse of that expression: when th workers, the people, are with you, you cannot be defeated. For the great mass of the people, aware of their common interest, educated in political struggle and organised to combat their common enemy, are the only invincible force in this, or in any, country of the world.

We take pride in the fact that you Republicans of the North, in spite of the taunts of the Provisionals and the provocations of the imperialist forces, have shown that you understand the futility of any unthinking response which would add only to the suffering, the disunity and the confusion of the people. You have been subjected to continuous harassment by the British forces; you have been threatened, beaten and shot by the Provisionals; you have been abused by the Vanguard and subject to lies, slander and distortion by all through the news media. In spite of this you have adhered to your policies and strengthened your organisation. You have demonstrated, at a time when it was most difficult to achieve, the true spirit of republicanism and the doctrine in practice that was Tone's and Lalor's and Connolly's and Mellows'. Your strength, courage and calm determination have been the one steadying influence in a confused, bitter and hate-filled working class.

Be assured that the Republican Movement established and developed on the indestructible base of the Irish working class, has no intention of changing its ultimate aim, the establishment of a 32 county democratic socialist republic; nor are there any doubts that the achievement of that revolutionary end demands the participation of all the working class people of Ireland, Catholic and Protestant and Agnostic. Neither bigotry nor force, nor taunts nor cant will deflect us from our position, that we must make common cause with all workers. We are not going to abandon that position for a paragraph in a glamour page, a few minutes on television or a round of applause from a dozen businessmen in a Catholic Commercial Club.

If we are to achieve the logic of our ultimate aim, the establishment of a socialist republic, we must take care that each step is directed towards that achievement. We must not be diverted by gimmickry or deceived by easy solutions that appeal to populist politicians who gain advantage form the sell-out with cynical opportunism.

We stand for a socialist republic which would fulfil the aims of Connolly, the development of the resources of this country for the benefit of the people of this country. We have long been told that Ireland is poor in resources, short of the technical equipment to develop any that exist, and too small to survive in competition with bigger countries on international markets. We have heard the jargon of economists who deal only in units of production, in managerial efficiency, in gross national produce, in language that makes a mystery of inflation and a god of profit. The Republican Movement stands only for the interests of the mass of the people of Ireland, stands against the profiteers and their theoreticians and rejects the pessimism of those who would limit our role in the world to the status of the Butlin's of Europe.

We had been told that we had no resources, yet it was discovered that we had some of the biggest and most profitable mines in the world. We were told we had no capital to develop them, yet we find that a few fat bankers made £15 million profit last year on manipulating our capital resources. We have been told that we, an agricultural island in a hungry world, have no place on international markets. We were once told that we had to produce grain and while we starved, were forced to export it because that was what Britain needed! We were then told we must sell our beef on the hoof because that was what Britain needed and if we were to keep our markets in Britain we had no option but to agree.

Let us cut through the lies and the jargon. We cannot take the word of economists who see people as units of production, families as ciphers, communities as pieces in a theoretical jigsaw, to be dispatched to the wastepaper if they don't fit the grand design. We are a country which has resources sufficient to maintain a growing population, if these resources were to be used for the benefit of the people instead of the enrichment of a few. A combination of greed and accommodation of the greedy by Tory governments in Belfast and Dublin has deprived the workers of this country of the right to work and live at home, has needlessly increased the price of food for Irish housewives, and destroyed native industry such as the linen and woollen industries while keeping up the flow of emigration to the centres in Britain where the factories flourish. The continued economic enslavement of the people of the South shows clearly that mere withdrawal of British troops or a declaration of intent will not bring freedom to people.

We say that Sinn Fein means the development of our resources for the benefit of our people in a system in which the people will control the means of production and exchange; in which preference will be given to those who have a stake in the country rather than fly-by-night international junketeers; in which the workers will have real control through the democratic workers' organisations, beginning with full control of the industries that are theirs.

Sinn Fein means no ostrich-like weak-minded isolation from the influences of the world, no lessening of trade with other countries - rather does it mean that influence will be accepted where it is beneficial to the mass of the working people and rejected where it is not; it means that we would trade, not with less, but with more countries, for we would break the bonds that tie us to Britain as a controlling market and single dominant partner, and we will continue to fight, North and South, the effects of the decision to join the EEC, as these effects bear in upon the workers and small farmers of this country.

Sinn Fein would use the legitimate weapon of nationalisation, but not as Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, the capitalists' allies have done, simply to back up the efforts of private enterprise where private enterprise might lose money by providing a service or engaging in production. We say that nationalisation without workers' control is simply applying the methods of state capitalism to the business of assisting exploiters to continue with their exploitation.

No gimmickry of whatever amount, no simplistic approach to the regions of the country that have not been developed, no changing of names or faces will alter the existing state of affairs. What we need, what we must have, is a fully developed socialist policy covering every area of the lives of the people of Ireland, from the Glens to Ballyfermot and from the Shankill to Bantry. No amount of mouthing about 'tire Nu& or historic units is going to undo the work of imperialism and place the Irish people in full control of their future destiny.

It is important here to put into this context the present position in the 6 Counties. The destruction of Stormont had been hailed by the Provisional Alliance and their supporters as a great achievement. What, precisely, has it achieved? Are the working class people of this part of the Country not suffering the viciousness of imperialism as they were before? Are there more jobs, more opportunities, more equality? No, there are more British troops in occupation and the real force, the Orange Unionist junta, which it was our ambition to destroy, is preparing to change its face for continued onslaughts on workers.

When we say that a form of government will be maintained here, we say it because we believe that Orange sectarian power over the Protestant workers has not yet been destroyed. Only its total and irrevocable destruction, will liberate the Protestant working class. The Irish revolution, which must continue and to which we pledge ourselves, demands the support of the Protestant working class. People have talked about the Provisionals trying to bomb one million Protestants into a Republic; but they would not - could not - and no one can - and no one as far as we are concerned would try - to bomb them into a socialist republic. That would be the ultimate contradiction and the ultimate stupidity. We need those million Protestant working people on the workers' side in the Irish revolution.

There are signs that the Protestant workers have rejected their bosses leadership and are evolving their own role in society. They are still thinking on bigoted, sectarian lines, but the potential exists for growth of consciousness of the common cause between Catholic and Protestant workers as both are facing a sell-out and betrayal.

The Protestant workers, for some reasons which are good and some reasons which are not (the nature of he society in the 26 Counties on the one hand, Orange imposed ignorance on the other), do not wish at the present time to have a united country. Let us understand them. It is difficult to see why any workers should wish to come under the control of Jack Lynch and a State in which he Catholic hierarchy, the man of property's conscience, has a powerful say.

Understanding the justified and unjustified fears of the Protestant working class we have correctly decided that a form of government will remain in the 6 Counties, but it must be a government based on the democratic demands of the Civil Rights Association. Our demand must be aimed at avoiding the absorption of the 6 Counties into the United Kingdom and at preventing, at all costs, the ultimate betrayal of republican socialism in a federal solution. These are the options presented by the regrouping Orange/Unionist junta, by the Provisionals and by Lynch. Our demand must be that whatever assembly evolves in the 6 Counties will have more power in economic affairs such as the power to nationalise the shipyards, the banks and other industries and the power to make its own decision on the EEC.

The trade unions have not yet played their full part in the struggle in the 6 Counties. Nor have many groups which have their base in the working class and which have shunned the imperialist's weapon of sectarianism. Our call is to them: to groups which cross the boundaries that divide the community in the interests of its rulers, to come together and establish here a government of the people in the interests of the people.

The task of the Republican Clubs, therefore, is to clarify for the people what the alternatives are at this point in time; what the British plan is and how to subvert it; what the objectives of the Irish people are and how to achieve them. We are not on the brink of victory, but on the brink of sectarian disaster and sell-out. But we can avoid the disaster; we can prevent the sell-out if we are constantly at work amongst the people. We must dig in deeply in the organisations of the people and provide them with leadership at each crisis. If we keep a cool head, stand fast by our policies and remain with the people in their struggle, we will maintain our revolutionary impetus right through whatever settlements may come from the imperialists' conference table.

The Republican Movement, which has among its members, Protestants, Catholics and men and women of no religious affiliation, now, even at this late stage, urges people of all religions to look closely at what we say and recollect what we have done. Of course, there have been mistakes. We have admitted them and worked to set right what was in error.

We say now to the Loyalist people of the 6 Counties: together, we can solve our people's problems, the problems of the working people: divided and opposed, we can benefit only the rulers who have gained from our division in the past. Our immediate demands remain: in the Six Counties the abolition of the Special Powers Act; the ending of internment; an amnesty for all political prisoners and for all those forced to leave their homes through their activities in the peoples struggle; a cessation of search and arrest operations and harassment of the working people; there must be freedom of political expression for all; cancellation of all debts arising from rents and rates strike; a Bill of Rights which would provide guarantees that the Six Counties might rise from the morass of neo-fascism to the minimum level of a democratic state. We demand that the British troops be removed to their barracks as a preliminary to their removal from the country completely.

Only a people united behind a leadership of principled men and women can secure these demands. The Republican Clubs have that leadership and they have begun to organise the people in political action. They will press ahead in this field and will demonstrate to all by their involvement with the working people that the alternative to the corrupt sectarian Unionist and Nationalist is the policy of the Republican Movement. No group of social democratic politicians or sectarian militarists has the right now or at any time to betray the people or to even attempt to talk to the British until the demands made by the people are met.

For Republicans these are but minimum demands. To admit them and give them effect would be no more than to shift the six-county state from abnormality and repression to some kind of normality. The working people of the six counties of whatever religion have these rights. They have been taken from them. To restore to the people these rights is not to confer any great benefit on them. After they have been restored the Republican Movement will continue to agitate, educate and organise in support of a full revolutionary programme which would radically change not just the form but the nature of the society leading towards a democratic socialist republic of 32 counties of all Ireland.

In the 26 Counties, the revolutionary part of the people will continue to struggle for the rights of men and women to work, to house their families and feed their children, to enjoy education free from the control of clergy of any denomination and class discrimination of any kind; we will fight for the rights of all the people to control all the resources of this country which is theirs; we will fight the mine operator who grows fat on profits which belong of right to the Irish people and we will fight the political gombeen man who, for a few pounds and a seat in a Mercedes, is prepared to sell his people out.

Wherever there is conflict between the interests of the masses and the interests of the ruling few, between capital and the value of human life, the Republican Movement must take its stand with the people to educate, agitate and organise so that the people may go forward, in dignity and consciousness of the final success - ownership of their resources, control of their lives.

Epilogue: The Wasted Years

The Special Powers Act was struck off the Statute Books; the B Specials were disbanded and abolished for ever; the RUC were reformed and appeared unarmed on the streets of Northern Ireland; the Housing Executive was set up, ending discrimination in the allocation of houses. Other issues such as job discrimination, electoral reform etc remained to be dealt with, but the British Government had made major concessions which had left the Unionists in a state of total division and confusion.

However at the same time members of the Dublin Government were engaged in talks with sectarian individuals in Northern Ireland with the purpose of creating a split in the Republican movement and also in the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association. In this they got full support from right-wing militants in the South who were active members of the Republican Movement and totally opposed to the Civil Rights Campaign and to the socialist position adopted by the leadership of the Republican Movement at that time. With offers of money and weapons the Fianna Fail Government succeeded in setting up an organisation which soon became known a Provisional IRA. Once they launched their bombing campaign in 1970 all the successes of the Civil Rights Movement were overturned by the British Government. The RUC were rearmed, the Special Powers Act was replaced with even more draconian legislation and the UDR was set up to replace the B Specials.

In addition to having to suffer the Provisional bombing and shooting campaign in the summer of 1970 the people of the Lower Falls also had to defend themselves from the invasion of the Falls by 4000 British troops. Our members led the people's resistance and also had to defend themselves. Not one Provisional made an appearance during that British attack, the purpose of which was "to finish off the Officials."

Then on August 9, 1971 internment was introduced and our members once more had to defend themselves. The escalation of RUC and British Army activities and the Provisional car bombings of towns and villages led eventually to the massacre of 14 unarmed civil rights marchers in Derry on January 30, 1972. This led to further emotional trauma and further response. We now felt that we were being dragged into a morass not of our own making which was in fact in direct conflict with our own political and ideological position. After much soul searching a cease-fire was called in May 1972. We began to get back on the road we had planned. Thus Carrickmore 28 years ago.

Almost 50% of the population weren't even born then. The years '68-'72 are ancient history to them. The only life they have known is a life full of conflict, injury and death. But now the hope is that terrorism is over and people can get on with 'normal' lives. So the 'victory' after 25 years of 'armed struggle' is 'peace' - that is the ending of 'armed struggle'. What a waste of years, what a waste of lives! As I pointed out in Carrickmore in 1972, "The destruction of Stormont has been hailed by the Provisional Alliance and their supporters as a grand achievement. What precisely has it achieved? Are the working class people of this part of the country not suffering the viciousness of imperialism as they were before? Are there more jobs, more opportunities, more equality?"

Then I went on to state firmly and clearly: "Understanding the justified and unjustified fears of the Protestant class we have correctly decided that a form of government will remain in the Six Counties, but it must be a Government based on the democratic demands demands of the Civil Rights Association."

This became our constant and unswerving policy in all the years since then - a Devolved Government and a Bill of Rights. All the militarists, British, Provisional and Loyalist have now at last agreed that this was the only sane and sensible policy and and all have signed an agreement to establish a Devolved Government at Stormont and implement a Bill of Rights. It's called the Good Friday Agreement.

The main thrust of the speech in 1972 was to emphasise the revolutionary effect of the purely reformist demands of the Civil Rights Association when it united the people in mass struggle; to reject as counter-revolutionary the imposition of an elitist military force which pushed the Civil Rights Association off the stage, smashed the mass struggle of the people when it was on the point of total victory and, by promoting sectarian confrontation and slaughter, set back by 30 years the possibility of uniting Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter which should be the bedrock of Republicanism.

We still have much to do. Immediately we must push for the implementation of a Bill of Rights - not a Human Rights Convention, but a Bill of Rights specifically designed for the sectarian ridden state of Northern Ireland. We must continue the constant struggle against sectarianism, racism, and all kinds of bigotry and discrimination. Finally we must continue to hold fast to Tone's dream of uniting Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter under the common name of Irishman. Or as Cathal Goulding said "the struggle for civil liberties should become a struggle for class rights, so that all Irish workers would become Dissenters." As the great Dean Swift said in 1724, "The public are at the mercy of the wicked, since the wicked are always watching for the opportunity to practice their avarice and malice."

How true today.

Tomas Mac Giolla September 2000

Some navigational notes:

Copyright Dr Roy Johnston 1999