By Brian Rohan
As is almost always the case, when you come expecting fire, you usually get smoke.
Bernadette Devlin McAliskey was expected to come from Tyrone with plenty of fire, and a bit of brimstone too, but her appearances in the US last week were, to the eyes and ears of most, surprisingly mild. She did not come in criticism of the Sinn Fin political party, as many expected, neither did she have harsh words for the Provisional Irish Republican Army, whose cease-fire of August 31 she is known to disagree with.
What she did come with were questions, some doubts and enough devil's advocacy to smoke out any room.
"The absence of war is not peace", she told over 400 people at a union hall in Manhattan. "I do not accept that there is a cease-fire, because not everyone has stopped shooting."
She then proceeded to warn that the present leadership of the Irish republican movement, that is, the segment of Ireland which wishes to expel all British governance and dissolve the Northern Ireland border, is, in her belief, being led up the proverbial garden path.
She compared the present leadership of Sinn Fin and the IRA to their predecessor, Civil War leader Michael Collins, who she argued was "tricked" into agreeing to partition with the British.
"I honestly think", said McAliskey, in a hushed, careful breath, referring to the British and the aspiring Irish republican negotiators, "that they're doing it all over again".
And as with all smoke, we know what's never too far away.
As evidenced by the hundreds who came to see McAliskey at various venues, Irish republicans on this side of the Atlantic have been a bit confused since the cease-fire. There has been near universal joy among such circles over the cease-fire, although with each passing week the question is being asked more and more: "What's in it for us?"
As one of the fiercest proponents of the armed republican movement, yet one who has never been a member of the Sinn Fin establishment, Bernadette Devlin has always been in a unique position for comment, and is thus often looked to by republicans in Ireland and the US for guidance. She is not bound by the stifling code of Sinn Fin-speak which often makes dealing with republican spokespersons so frustrating; thus, her opinion is often held in high regard in controversial times.
In the US, this is especially the case. In dismissing the Downing Street Declaration, Sinn Fin supporters say they instead favour the Hume-Adams (or more likely, Adams-Hume) initiative, although none but a handful of tight-lipped leaders know exactly what the initiative entails. Others speak vaguely about what "the movement" stands to gain from the IRA's hibernation, although no-one knows if there is any such "reward". To Bernadette, then, is where many look.
Her most obvious following is among the expatriates in the County Tyrone Society, approximately 400 of whose members packed a hall in Woodside, Queens. Tyrone republicans pride themselves on being the "hardest" in Northern Ireland, and the New York Tyrone Association is perhaps the only one of the area's many county associations which has as its stage centrepiece not a banner bearing the county name, but rather one reading, "England, Get Out of Ireland".
The association's journal is similarly unique in that it is peppered with memorials to recently killed "volunteers" and declarations of "Tiocfadh Ar La" ("Our Day Will Come", a republican slogan associated with the IRA).
McAliskey started off her speech at the gathering by poking fun at the neighbours. She spoke of a T-shirt which boasted, "I'm an Irish republican with a Tyrone mentality." Said McAliskey, "I wouldn't try to sell that one in Belfast. Or Derry." An attendee at the dinner offered a joke to his tablemates, prefaced by how the IRA in Tyrone started the cease-fire on August 31. "So did the IRA in Derry", he added. "Although theirs started on August 31 ten years ago."
For now, though, McAliskey said she had as few answers as anybody else. But she had plenty of warnings. She warned against Gerry Adams and the rest of the republican leadership getting pulled into a "trap" set by the British government, which to her mind can never be trusted.
She warned against the US government trying to end the Northern Ireland problem by the donation of money alone, which she opposed. And she warned against Sinn Fin ending up compromised through any prolonged and possibly fruitless coalitions with the SDLP (Social Democratic and Labour Party), the Dublin government and even American administrations.
"Tyrone will not go back to Stormont", she proclaimed to much cheering from the crowd, referring to the six-county, Unionist-controlled parliament that ruled Northern Ireland before direct London involvement. "For whoever is doing the negotiating, tell them to vote us out!"
McAliskey, who became the youngest person ever elected to the British parliament in the early 1970s, spoke at a tribute in Manhattan to George Harrison, a Mayo man from Brooklyn found not guilty of IRA gun-running in 1982, and also to the Tyrone group the next night. Throughout, she raised mild doubts and concerns about the cease-fire and the progression of the republican movement, but she was always mindful to direct her cynicism at the "trickery" of the British rather that the strategy of republican leaders such as Gerry Adams.
Much speculation, almost entirely unfounded, has been made of possible splits within the republican ranks, and McAliskey seemed concerned not to be mistaken for a harbinger of such. She placed her support and hope with Adams and the others, she was mindful to say, but made strides not to come across as second-guessing the IRA/Sinn Fin leadership. Most of all, she wanted to emphasise that she would not be condemning the IRA for halting its campaign.
"They [the IRA] have made their decision, and that's their right", she said. "It's not for me to say they should go out and die."
Obviously she is content with her role, held for as long as the current "troubles" have existed, as the "conscience" of the republican movement, even if she currently holds no office or party position. McAliskey is a person of much influence, and right now her message is one of caution. [From the October 12-18 Irish Voice (USA).]