Inspiring glimpse into Ireland's struggle

November 27, 1996
Issue 

Before the Dawn
By Gerry Adams
London: Heinemann, 1996. 347 pp., $39.95
Reviewed by Bernie Brian

There is an incident towards the end of Gerry Adams' very readable autobiography that symbolises the depth of the spirit of Irish freedom fighters. It is 1978, the anniversary of internment, when the British tried to kill off the Irish national struggle with mass jailings. Adams, in one of his regular stays in prison, is in the notorious H-Block.

It is about 4.00 am, and guards in riot gear have entered the cell block in an attempt to suppress the cacophony being made by the inmates banging the plumbing. As the riot squad moved around outside of the cells, a lone voice began to sing the republican anthem "On the One Road". "Night is darkest just before the dawn,/ From dissension Ireland is reborn". Despite threats from the guards, all inmates joined in the rendition, which went on till the early hours of the dawn. The guards retreated, beaten by a song and the undiminished spirit of Irish resistance to British rule.

Seven years earlier at 4.00am on August 9, the British army, with the assistance of loyalist mobs, carried out dawn raids across Northern Ireland, kicking in doors, wrecking homes, arresting hundreds and wildly firing off both rubber and lead bullets and tear gas as an enraged community tried to defend itself from the invasion. In the four days of battle, 22 people were killed, 19 of them civilians. One of those killed was a Catholic priest who was shot by a British army sniper while trying to tend to a dying man. All those arrested, who included Adams' father, a veteran of the 1940s republican movement, were beaten and tortured.

What led to the severity of this attack was that the nationalist community had become ungovernable. In August 1969 a popular uprising had taken place in the nationalist community. In the late '60s the nationalist communities (second class citizens in their own country) had raised demands for basic civil rights such as one person one vote and greater access to jobs and housing.

The response of the Northern Ireland state was a reign of terror. The loyalists cried "no surrender" and tore into the nationalist housing estates, burning houses, beating and murdering as they went. These communities, unarmed except for the small remnant of the IRA, fought back with barricades, bricks, paving stones, bottles, petrol bombs and anything else at their disposal. A popular saying at the time was "Throw well, Throw Shell".

Defence committees sprang up involving both new young leaders like Adams and reinspired veterans like Gerry Adams snr. The loyalist police force, the Royal Ulster Constabulary was unable to contain the popular uprising, and British troops were sent onto the streets of Northern Ireland. The British army took over the role of the RUC. As a result of the uprising, whole neighbourhoods were liberated and became no go areas for the police and military. The need to protect communities from the loyalist mobs also led to a revival of the IRA.

Adams' account of the uprising of August 1969 is an inspiring accounts of a people struggling against all odds. However, by late 1972, the popular struggle had receded and the military struggle of the IRA had come to the fore.

Adams is clear that a military response to the terror was unavoidable. In fact, he is critical of the leadership of the IRA at the time of the 1969 uprising because they were so preoccupied with looking for a new political strategy that they failed to come to the defence of the nationalist community when it was most needed. This failure led to a split in the republican movement in the early 1970s. Despite this, Adams makes it clear that he was, and still is, aware of the need to go beyond armed resistance to more overtly political tactics.

Adams takes us through many of the debates that raged in the republican movement of the time, such as whether to contest elections, the primacy of the armed struggle and his own early misgivings about the 1980s hunger strikes. In a moving account, he talks about his own sense of loss and that of most nationalists when Bobby Sands and his comrades were buried.

Nevertheless, their heroic contribution moved the struggle on to a higher phase. Just before his death in May 1981, Bobby Sands was elected as MP for Fermanagh/South Tyrone. This was a turning point for the struggle, as it isolated Britain internationally and broke through a British propaganda machine that had always tried to portray the republican struggle as a minority movement of violent gunmen.

Before the Dawn is not a long book, and there is much more you could wish Adams had covered. In fact, the last 15 years or so are covered by only 10 pages. There is little detail of the events and discussions that led to the IRA cease-fire on August 31, 1994, and the resumption of hostilities earlier this year.

A review by Red Harrison in the Australian of October 26-27 called the book "propaganda tosh" and criticised Adams for his "memory losses". Of course Adams does not mention whether he was or was not a member of the IRA: as he explains in the foreword to the book, the conflict is still alive and he cannot write anything which could jeopardise "the liberties or the lives of others". Harrison's "inside" knowledge comes from British intelligence reports. So who is peddling propaganda here?

It has been some time since I have enjoyed a book so much. I hope that the attempt by Howard (with the active support of the ALP) to ban Adams from Australia at the request of the British backfires and draws attention to a fine book. It may be Adams' autobiography but through its pages the inspiring fighting spirit of the nationalist people is revealed.

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