Reflections on the History of Fianna Fail by Dr. Martin Mansegh
Reflections on the History of Fianna Fáil by Dr. Martin Mansergh, Special Advisor to the Taoiseach, at the Fianna Fáil Dublin Forum Commemoration of the 75th Anniversary of Fianna Fáil, the Republican Party, Cassidy's Hotel, Wednesday, 16 May 2001 at 8.15 pm.
The history of Fianna Fáil is intertwined with the history of independent Ireland. This should not be surprising. It was the party founded by the surviving commandant of the 1916 Rising and the political leader of the independence struggle from 1917-1921, Eamon de Valera. De Valera belongs with other founding figures of the 20th century, like Nehru, de Gaulle and Nelson Mandela, who first liberated a nation and then for a long time after remained the principal embodiment of it.
If there was a difference in the Irish case, it was that the British succeeded in splitting Sinn Féin over the Treaty and were determined thereafter as long as they could to keep de Valera out of power, and of course it is not widely understood that the purpose of the economic war was to eject him in 1932 to the benefit of Cumann nan Gaedheal.
Constitutional Republicanism has antecedents going back to the open period of the United Irishmen in the early 1790s and Dr. William Drennan. There is still a lot to be learnt from that very creative and democratic period, which has tended to be overshadowed by the secret phase and by the 1798 Rebellion. The establishment of an Irish constitutional tradition of our own, as opposed to being bound in by the British constitution, such as it was, was the goal of the 1916 Proclamation, and inherent in the establishment and functioning of Dáil Eíreann in January 1919 and the Republican Courts, following the 1918 General Election. The political contribution of Eamon de Valera in articulating the Irish case was at least as important to the achievement of Irish freedom as the military contribution of Michael Collins. Constitutional Republicanism was finally forged in the aftermath of civil war defeat. The vast majority were prepared to draw a line under the bitter experience and move on. Ideological purity vis-à-vis Free State institutions, which were supported by the people in the absence of anything better, meant political marginalisation, and also that pressing economic and social problems would not be properly attended to.
De Valera's goal in forming Fianna Fáil was to move towards an agreed constitutional basis for the State that would be independent of Britain, then having consolidated it, address the problems of partition. The subsequent success of Fianna Fáil showed that the people much preferred Republican politics to Republican violence. The Republican viewpoint on the Treaty may have been justified, but allowing the differences on either side to spill over into civil war had been a tragedy that should have been avoided at all costs.
Fianna Fáil's formation separate from Sinn Féin meant that no organic relationship was retained with the IRA, even though former IRA men and units contributed substantially to the initial strength and discipline of the party, and even though to this 3/8
day Fianna Fáil remains heavily involved in old IRA commemorations. As the Taoiseach quoted this morning from de Valera's first Árd Fheis speech, the party's immediate objective was 'the opening of the road to free constitutional action'. Fianna Fáil became the slightly then fully constitutional embodiment of the mainstream Republican tradition, south of the border, and attracted many of those most associated with 1916. The Pearse mother and sister, the Countess Markievicz, and Mrs. Kathleen Clarke all joined. Fianna Fáil also attracted disillusioned pro-Treaty supporters like Robert Barton, Liam Tobin, who had been Collins' right-hand man, and Senator Jenny Wyse-Power, in whose home the 1916 Proclamation had been signed and whose political activism went back to the Ladies' Land League. To be fair to Cumann na nGhaedheal, in the 1920s, they also laid claim to the inheritance of the struggle for independence, and of 19th century Nationalism, but, as time went by, with the principal exception of the Béal na mBláth commemoration, there has been progressively less emphasis on this side of Fine Gael's past.
Sinn Féin itself went into decline, and in 1938 abdicated to what was left of the IRA. One of the fundamental fallacies both of Republican fundamentalists aided and abetted by the revisionist school of history is to see the modern and mainly Northern-based Republican movement as the sole legitimist heirs of 1916. This was partly based on the preposterous nonsense concocted of a pseudo-apostolic succession from Pearse to the Second Dáil to Sinn Féin to the IRA, to the Provisional Army Council of the IRA, to Republican Sinn Féin. The invocation of commandant Tom Maguire, who, having given away his putative mandate in 1938, had to do so again in 1969 and again in 1986, purported to convey authority for the fiction that the true Government of Ireland is not that elected by the people, but an entirely unknown and unaccountable secret paramilitary junta, that has a green book for a constitution, containing all sorts of sanctions in breach of fundamental human rights. All of that has become an increasing embarrassment, even for those involved.
Fianna Fáil has, through the decades, helped ensure that within the broad Republican tradition in the South democracy has prevailed, not militarism. One of our greatest services to the peace process has been to help build the ideological bridge for armed Republicanism to transform themselves into a purely political and democratic force. We still have the task of fully convincing ourselves as well as others that in the post-Good Friday Agreement context, and throughout the island, Republican means democrat, and that anything else is an abuse of the term.
I do strongly believe that the sooner Republicans, who are now part of mainstream politics in the North, can safely consign the armed side of the movement to history the better, and I accept that is the desired direction. If, in the framework of the Agreement, democratic Republicanism alongside constitutional Nationalism is to prove a better unifier in the long run in Northern Ireland where Ulster Unionism has so far not succeeded, and in Ireland as a whole, there is a lot of ground to be made up, and no time to be lost.
I respect the searing honesty and forthrightness of Bernadette McAliskey's evidence to the Bloody Sunday Tribunal yesterday, which of course highlights the contribution that British military repression in the early 1970s, above all on that day, against those seeking justice in Ireland made to the development of a long war. Events like Bloody Sunday and internment were of course far more important in terms of causation than the events of May 1970 in this State, though you would not think so from many of the claims that have been made in recent weeks.
The history of Fianna Fáil can be studied from many angles. There is a wealth of research waiting to be done on the role of Fianna Fáil as a grassroots organisation in the constituencies, in local cumann areas and in the community from 1926. There is also a history of the national organisation hidden in the minutes of the National Executive, the records of the Parliamentary Party and of Árd Fheiseanna. More obviously, there is the public activity of the party leadership in and out of government that to a great extent reflects what is going on below.
Fianna Fáil has very broad-based support, averaging 40-50% of the electorate. This, with the single exception of the Swedish Social Democrats, is the most consistent record of any European political party. Fianna Fáil has been deemed as a catch-all party, or as one that tries to be all things to all people. Opponents wish that Fianna Fáil would plump for a particular constituency, instead of trying to maintain a broad appeal. While committed to equality of opportunity, rights and treatment, and to outcomes which lift the whole population above the persistent poverty level, we have the advantage of being pragmatic as to means. Certainly, since the 1950s, we have the advantage of being without ideological baggage, and can put together a mix of policies, some of which in terms of inspiration come from the Left, and others from the Right. Our critics, needless to say, rarely want to look at the whole picture.
We certainly aim to be the party that occupies the entire ground of Irish politics. Originally, support came from the smaller farmers and the labourers, the urban working-class, both employed and unemployed, and the indigenous entrepreneurial class that Lemass began to create in the 1930s. Class has been a bigger factor, but a largely hidden one, than critics with their clichés about right-wing parties have been inclined to credit. Every Fianna Fáil TD or Minister I have ever met has a good idea in socio-economic terms where they draw most of their support from. The man of no property has indeed become over the decades the people of some property. I am delighted that Todd Andrews' two-volume autobiography is reappearing in a new edition, as it conveys a very good idea of the ethos of the generation that built the State in collaboration with de Valera and Lemass. We are apt to forget today the idealism and enthusiasm that the people felt in the face of the challenge of state-building and service improvement.
In 80 years, what had been a backward and underdeveloped province of the UK, with often abject social conditions, and which might have been destined to remain primarily an agricultural exporting country plus a tourist destination, has been transformed into a highly dynamic, modern and diversified industrialised economy, that no longer has to be content with very limited ambitions. In these changes Fianna Fáil has by and large been able to bring most of its traditional constituency with it, while adding or renewing other layers of support.
During three periods in particular, Fianna F áil has been the driving force in national life. First, in the 1930s and 1940s, Fianna Fáil established and defended sovereignty, but also stimulated economic activity and built up a very basic network of social services. Because of the concentration by historians on constitutional high politics, in which de Valera had a commanding role, we are apt to underestimate greatly the radical appeal made by Fianna Fáil economic and social policies, which were arguably the most important element in its electoral appeal, and which secured the support of the Labour Party in forming a Fianna Fáil Government in 1932. In the 1930s and 1940s, Ireland did not succumb to the temptations of either Fascism or Communism, and succeeded in holding its own vis-à-vis intense pressures from Britain and America, so that it was not reduced to pliant dependency status.
By 1949, the battle for political independence as a Republic was finally brought to a conclusion. But economic independence was equally vital, and the limitations of protectionist economics in a post-war world that was being reconstructed on the basis of free trade and European integration were becoming obvious. The sixteen year period of Fianna Fáil Government that began with the 1958 White Paper on Economic Development and ended with Ireland becoming a full member of the EEC was one of great economic and social advance, that created a real confidence in the future.
There has tended to be an over-concentration on superficial and populist aspects of the 1997 manifesto. The essence of it was a very ambitious attempt to achieve sustained full-employment, in the face of a huge demographic challenge. EC entry had made all governments of that period over-confident. Things went wrong. Arguably, there were flaws in an approach that depended on the public sector providing the engine for growth. It was very unfortunate that in managing the difficulties that were greatly exacerbated by the second oil crisis-induced recession confidence could not be maintained, and that effective remedial action was too long delayed.
The best period of our history has been the last 14 years, since the turnaround from March 1987. There has been immense satisfaction in turning round a depressed economy and making it the best-prospering bar none. Social partnership has been put on far a more effective footing.
We used EU structural funds well, and have been able to join the Single Currency. Ireland today is much admired, not just by smaller and less developed countries but even in the United States, where with the Bush Administration, the Celtic Tiger is at least as admired as the peace process.
Fianna Fáil has preferred to deal with social change as much as possible by consensus, rather than by liberal/conservative confrontation. There will always be a battle between those who want to move forward to an imagined ideal of where we could be versus those who want to go back to an imagined ideal of where we were.
There is within this party an immense storehouse of political achievement and experience and acts of imagination. There is also a pride in country. On the debit side, there have been political failures and personal lapses. While these can and do inspire high moral indignation, our record as a democracy over the past 80 years is one of the best. Our duty is to keep it that way, and to raise standards, so that a repetition is unlikely. The political and social ideals of a democratic Republicanism, allied to effective governance and a culture of implementation, have strong continuing public appeal.
Fianna Fáil has had six leaders; Eamon de Valera, Seán Lemass, Jack Lynch, Charles Haughey, Albert Reynolds, and Bertie Ahern. Some have been very controversial. All of them have been gifted, all have left their stamp on the country and the public memory. All have needed the willing support and co-operation of not just their close colleagues, but of the entire party organisation, which is the real source of their strength. But I am conscious that I am outlining only the early chapters of a story that will stretch long into the future.
Kilde:
http://www.fiannafail.ie/whatsnew/archives/s_160501b.htm
