Cruising for a Living

On one of the well-stocked bookcases in Conor

Cruise O’Brien’s home in Howth sits a book entitled God Save Ulster. This is probably precisely what nationalists would expect to find near his elbow – particularly those nationalists who have always regarded O’Brien as the ultimate Southern bête-noire of Irish nationalism and republicanism.

And yet, despite many assumptions to the contrary, the lines can’t be quite so simply drawn, when it comes to defining the political allegiances of Conor Cruise O’ Brien. On a wall near that God Save Ulster book hangs a framed photograph of O’ Brien and Eamon DeValera, a Fianna Fail leader whom he jokingly claims to “like rather more than his successors!”

In the introduction to his new book, Ancestral Voices, Conor Cruise O’ Brien also examines this dichotomy. All his family were originally Irish nationalists, he says, and he vaguely felt himself “to belong in there somewhere, culturally, and almost genetically.” It was not until he was fifty-four years old that he began to “seriously question” what Irish nationalism was all about.

“I was led to do so when the offensive of the Provisional IRA began in 1971 ,” he writes.”This was, and is, a major convergence of religion and nationalism; a Catholic and nationalist offensive, not only (as claimed) against a British occupation but against the Protestant and unionist population of Northern Ireland.”

And so he has continued railing against what he perceives to be this form of “imperialism” for the past twenty-three years, as a Labour TD and, later, as editor-in-chief of The Observer and through his columns in various newspapers including the Irish Independent, the Sunday Independent and the Sunday Times as well as books such as States of Ireland, in 1972, and Ancestral Voices.

In his preface to the latter book, Conor Cruise O’Brien quotes the poem which gave the tome its title, Coleridge’s ‘Kubla Khan’:

And amid that tumult Kubla heard from afar

Ancestral voices prophesying war. Joe Jackson: Surely, on reading this quote many people will respond “there goes Cruiser again, firing off the same old apocalyptic warnings when the Civil War scenario he’s been touting seems to be becoming less of a possibility day-by-day.

Conor Cruise O’ Brien: That possibility does not grow less day-by-day. There are still two sets of private armies in this island and neither of them has any intention of disarming. They have opposing intentions. When the Loyalist paramilitaries agreed to a ceasefire it was based on their conviction that, as they put it, ‘the union is safe’, and that nothing would be done to disturb the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. We also know from the statements by a spokesman for Sinn Fein that the Sinn Feinn/IRA assumption is that rapid progress must be made towards what they call “demilitarisation”, by which they mean “Brits Out” and they have specified that is not just to the Barracks in Belfast but, as Martin McGuinness put it “to mainland Britain.” McGuinness, Gerry Adams and Mitchell McLoughlin have all indicated that if the IRA don’t get what they want they could be back in business.

Are you trying to say that this is a ceasefire in name only?

This will be a prolonged ceasefire, but I don’t see it as durable. And when Albert Reynolds says ‘we must build on the two ceasefires’ the question remains ‘what can you build on a contradiction?’ One side of the ceasefire says ‘Northern Ireland must stay forever’ and the other side says ‘Northern Ireland must go soon’. You can’t build on that and so my predictions stay in place.

Do you believe Martin McGuinness when he says that he was given an assurance that the British would be pulling out of Northern Ireland and that this, then, is how Sinn Fein were able to convince the IRA to call a ceasefire?

It’s not improbable. In British officialdom there is a very strong wish to tiptoe away from the whole thing. The IRA knows that and they made the calculation that they can make, perhaps, better progress on that through a ceasefire. But they will, eventually, blame the breakdown of the ceasefire on the British, claiming they got these assurances. And that breakdown must come, unless they get their way, politically. So, to refer to this as ‘peace’ is a very exaggerated term. Peace means that the paramilitiares would give up their arms and be prepared for a peaceful settlement.

The peace process which you continually deride, does seem to be leading in that direction with Albert Reynolds, in particular, saying that a major objective following the loyalist ceasefire is to get paramilitaries on both sides to disarm. Surely that’s a much more positive approach than you endlessly predicting a Bosnian scenario?

I do not think the peace process is headed in the direction of a paramilitary disarmament. You compare me with Albert Reynolds but if I want to know what the IRA are likely to do I read the Sinn Fein signals and they are not saying these lovely things Albert Reynolds is saying. Gerry Adams has said ‘maybe, if we don’t get anywhere in three years time, another generation of IRA leadership will.’ Martin McGuinness has put it more severely, saying if Sinn Fein were to call on the IRA to give up their arms, without achieving their objectives, that he would be laughed out of the room. So they are poised to resume what they regard as the advance if the peace process doesn’t get them what they want through negotiation.

Yet the individual on a recent edition of Questions and Answers who said he was sick of you going on about a Bosnian scenario, with 10,000 dead by next April, was probably speaking for many people.

That will only happen if fighting involving the two sets of paramilitaries resumes. It’s not on anyone’s agenda for the next few months. But as long as those private armies are still there, in possession of their weaponry, I regard that as a very serious possibility. And I know that people are probably tired of hearing me say so, but that is not going to stop me saying what I think.

Nevertheless, in your States of Ireland book in 1972 and repeated in Ancestral Voices you have turned out to be wrong. For example, you suggested that after a limited, tactical interruption in the Provisional offensive, loyalist paramilitary murders would increase and there would be massed Protestant assaults on Catholic ghettos. In fact, the opposite has happened, with loyalist paramilitaries calling a ceasefire.

My basic point stands, which is that if the continuation of nationalist pressure, in the direction of a United Ireland, doesn’t stop, then paramilitary violence will be a factor. And the point is that it isn’t stopping. Loyalist punishment squads still use firearms and IRA punishment squads use hurley sticks, iron bars and baseball bats to break peoples’ legs and so on. And you must remember that Danny Morrison indicated that if the peace process doesn’t get them what they want there is room for the unarmed struggle, which is civil disobedience and street protest, some of which has happened already. Albert Reynolds keeps on referring to a “cessation of violence.” There hasn’t been a cessation of violence.

Nevertheless, it’s all very far from what you predicted and you certainly didn’t anticipate that “Gusty” Spence, founder of the modern UVF, would read out the loyalist ceasefire declaration, apologise for wrongdoing in the past and say they would even consider talking to Sinn Fein.

That was a positive sign, yes, but one that was based on an assumption with which no nationalist accords – which is the assumption that Northern Ireland will stay in the United Kingdom. Whereas, as I say, the IRA are still saying ‘the Brits must get out.’

So what are you saying here? That the loyalist paramilitaries who agreed to the ceasefire – and who presumably studied the situation carefully before doing so – are less insightful than you, or are fools?

No. I’m not saying that. But I will say I do my thinking for myself. The loyalist paramilitaries don’t do it for me, the IRA doesn’t do it for me and Albert Reynolds and Dick Spring don’t do it for me. And what I’ve just told you is the way I see things. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong. But what the loyalist paramilitaries are saying is that as long as the IRA has a ceasefire, we will have a ceasefire. And their ceasefire is based on the erroneous assumption that the union is safe. And I don’t really lay too much importance on loyalists apologising for their wrongdoing, though some people have made the point that the IRA never apologised for all the things they did.

Brian Lenihan has described you as an “intellectual terrorist” using language that is as “hate-filled” as the men of violence you condemn.

(laughs) Brian means no harm in that, for God’s sake!

Why then did you write a letter to the Irish Times saying you were going to sue him because of the danger such comments brought to your family?

That was at the time and no harm did come to my family, so I didn’t sue him.

Do you agree you have consistently used hate-filled language or verbal violence consistently over the past quarter century?

I first met this accusation from Ruari O’Bradaigh, who accused me of making “scurrilous attacks on republicans” and I asked him to identify a single scurrilous word and he couldn’t. And I think if you read my stuff, such as this book, you will see that the tone is rather cool. I go in for verbal violence a lot less than some of the nationalists.

Your attacks on John Hume in the Sunday Independent where you claim he was “supping with the devil” and “dancing to Gerry Adams’ tune” clearly could nonetheless incite hatred against the man.

John Hume would want to be very sensitive if he regards that as verbal violence, or if anyone does.

The general tone of your attacks on John Hume would have been seen by many as vilification.

Alright. So be it. But I think of ‘vilification’ as something personal. My objections to what John Hume has been doing are political. I know John is, at present, riding high with the “complete cessation of violence” but I think we are going to pay for that later. And by bringing Sinn Fein in from the cold I know he thinks he was doing something absolutely right but the point is that Sinn Fein have not broken their link with the private army of the IRA. And that being so, for Sinn Fein now to be in the confidence of the Government, raises queries about the nature of the regime. I’m not impugning his motivations, or his personal character – it’s his politics I object to.

But he has, at least, helped bring about a ceasefire. Surely that is something that is to be applauded, rather continuing with a vilification of the man.

“Vilify” is your word. I attacked his politics, whereas villification, if we look it up in the dictionary, ‘usually takes the form of personal abuse’ which I do not engage in. But, I think his politics are dangerous and remain dangerous. A ceasefire that brings the IRA so close to our Government is unhealthy and dangerous. I’m certainly not going to cheer for that.

If John Hume is awarded a Nobel Peace Prize will you admit you were wrong about him?

No, I won’t. Not for that, alone. But if, by then, the arms are being handed over, possibly at the demand of John Hume and he gets the Nobel Peace Prize then I’ll cheer along with everybody else. But if he gets the Nobel Peace Prize while the IRA are still in possession of their three ton of semtex, I will definitely not cheer.

John Hume, apparently, had a meeting with the top brass in the Sunday Independent recently to complain about the personal attacks that have been made against him in that newspaper over the past year, and more, particularly from the likes of Eilis O’ Hanlon, Shane Ross, Eamon Dunphy and, one assumes, you.

I was asked to attend that meeting, but wasn’t in a position to, because I was leaving for Canada. I would have attended had I been free to do so. I don’t know what happened. Nor do I know what happened as a result of Fianna Fail passing a motion, before I left for Canada, saying that a delegation was to go to Independent Newspapers, in effect, to get me to stop, which, presumably, was in the interests of Free Speech. They complained about media coverage in general. But all the other targets were in RTE, particularly Gay Byrne, in terms of the way he was treating the government. Pat Kenny was another. It seems Fianna Fail had a meeting and they were very angry that the Government was getting bad press, and I was the only journalist.

How will you respond if you are dropped by Independent Newspapers?

We’ll see about that. I don’t think I will be dropped because there is a contract there and that contract will be respected.

You mentioned ‘Freedom of Speech’ there, do you now admit you may have been wrong in relation to Section 31. Your argument always was that giving Sinn Fein members access to the airwaves would strengthen support for the IRA and further incite violence whereas, in fact, most people would recognise that the lifting of the Section 31 ban has helped the peace process.

It has helped what we call the “peace process” but I have already indicated to you in what ways I regard this peace process as deeply flawed.

But the lifting of the Section 31 ban has been largely advantageous, so you were wrong about that, weren’t you?

It has been advantageous to Sinn Fein and the IRA, in terms of their political process, yes.

Do you still think the Section 31 ban should be in place?

It would be futile for me to urge that it now should be in place. But I would think that if there are signs of deterioration in the situation it should be reconsidered. Particularly if it becomes clear that the IRA have no intention, whatever, of giving up their arms or giving up their status as a private army. And if Sinn Fein have no intention of breaking with them. Then I would again raise the question: what are the representatives of a private army doing on our airwaves?

Before the Section 31 ban was lifted one got the sense from many of your declarations that you saw the general public as somehow incapable of making their own minds up on the issue, or too dumb to see through Sinn Fein or IRA propaganda. Surely it should be left to the public to decide for themselves? The line taken at the time was that the most terrible thing you could do to the IRA was to expose their representatives to incisive questioning from characters out at Montrose (laughs). We’ve seen that and obviously they haven’t been exposed to the kind of interrogative questioning that would expose them. But I never believed they would be incisively interrogated by either the RTE, or BBC people. Besides, people such as Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness, Danny Morrison are clever people. They know their own brief, know exactly what they are going to say and can never be taken by surprise because they are talking about something they live all the time. And, as to your question, it is broadcasters who generally assume they are more intelligent than other people, especially terrorists. I have seen no evidence of that.

Would you like, for example, to go on The Late Late Show, or Prime Time and discuss these issues with Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness?

It’s a proposition I would consider, yes.

In one Sunday Independent article following the Michael D. Higgins interview in Hot Press last year you attacked the Minister for what you described as an “authoritarian” position in relation to the media. But isn’t it true that at one point you yourself threatened the Irish Press with prosecution for publishing Republican letters and you later censored Mary Holland’s articles on Northern Ireland when you were editor-in-chief of the Observer. So, how dare you criticise Michael D. for being authoritarian!

I suppose I dare because I am an authoritarian personality myself!(laughs).

Seriously, you are authoritarian, So why criticise Michael D. Higgins along these lines?

My point was that the powers I exercised, which brought into being the Broadcasting Amendment Act of 1976, were set in place to oppose the power of an authoritarian, hierarchical, militarist movement – the Provisional IRA. I never did what other Ministers did, which was, they intervened when it was a question of criticism towards the government with which I belonged. And I was in charge of both broadcasting and media relations at the time. My interventions which can, if you wish, be regarded as authoritarian, were all aimed at curbing Provo ascension, therefore I would continue to stand over those acts.

What about the question of censoring Mary Holland’s articles while, at the same time, you apparently were lecturing in America, on the subject of freedom of expression and freedom of the press?

I was editor-in-chief at the time and my specific job was to be responsible for policy and I thought the coverage of Northern Ireland was contrary to what I thought the policy of the Observer should be. That was strictly the use of my editorial power. Later another owner of the Observer complained about that and dropped me. I’ve been dropped by other editors and that is all part of the give-and-take of a free press.

But the Observer was hardly a free press if Mary Holland wasn’t allowed to say-

(cuts across, exasperated) Oh come off it! I was editor-in-chief of the Observer and was responsible for policy, right? So if a given contributor to the paper is taking a policy line which I say is one I don’t want to see in the paper, then that contributor can be dropped. Editors do that all the time and it’s only when it becomes mixed up with Irish nationalist politics that it comes to seem heinous. Mary Holland was a contributor but there was no stipulation that she was free to say anything she wrote. And after I ceased to be editor-in-chief she returned and still writes for the Observer.

In his highly-acclaimed history of Ireland, Joe Lee, concludes that your main failing as a political analyst is that you never submitted Unionism to the same clinical examination with which you dissected nationalism. One certainly doesn’t remember you dealing with issues such as collusion between loyalist paramilitaries and the security forces or, for example, the case of the Ballymurphy Seven where confessions were beaten out of people by the RUC.

I believe I did, at the time. I certainly, at the time of Bloody Sunday, went to London to talk to Reggie Maudling and tell him what a frightful course they were on. But, yes, in the main where I think criticism is most important is where applied to the consensus within one’s own community.

You say you went to Britain way back in 1972 and warned Reggie Maudling what a “frightful course” they were on but how loudly did you then protest when that course led to the continuing murder of Catholics as a result of RUC collusion with paramilitaries and the shoot-to-kill policy? Surely the fact that you are so clearly identified as an anti-nationalist, means that you failed to make your voice heard in terms of unionist injustices such as these, which must undermine your whole position for many people, throughout the years?

Yes, I know it does. If you’re criticising nationalism, people always say ‘why don’t you criticise unionism instead?’ That’s what happened during the Peace Movement following the Warrington bombing.When those women said ‘The IRA must stop’ they were asked ‘why don’t you talk about RUC brutality, loyalist paramilitiares, this case and that case’. In that sense they turn the whole thing around so that it becomes meaningless. I have something clear and distinct to say about Irish nationalism. I was brought up as an Irish nationalist and I think it has taken a wrong turn and I wish to discourage that and that’s what I wish to talk about. If other people want to talk about other things, let them. And if they want to say I’m this, that or the other, let them say that.

Surely if you had put the spotlight as extensively on Unionism it obviously would have given greater substance to your arguments about nationalism.

That suggestion is just not true. My criticisms of nationalism do have substance and weight precisely because they make up a coherent picture as a result of the fact that I am saying something clear and not changing the subject, or my position every time I am asked something different.

But do you accept, for example, that the RUC beat confessions out of the Ballymurphy Seven?

In any police force policemen will occasionally beat up somebody in particular, whom they believe to be guilty of violence. It’s deplorable, but it exists in every police force, everywhere.

As in the Gardai who operated so-called “heavy gangs” during the 1970’s, which were initiated during the time you were in government and abused the civil rights of people like Nicky Kelly? Would you now see that as wrong and what would you say to him?

The government I was in never heard of any “heavy gangs” except through the Irish Times which was out to get Pat Cooney. I had a high regard for Pat Cooney, didn’t believe these charges, still don’t.

You don’t believe heavy gangs were operating at the time?

As I said earlier, in any police force policemen will occasionally beat up somebody. But I don’t think that got any worse under the Government I was in, or got any better since. But I think the “heavy gang” charges were political and they were dropped when Fianna Fail got back into power.

And what about the case of Nicky Kelly?

What do you make of the fact that the Gardai moved against republicans recently, raiding houses, and questioning people who were thought to be likely to endanger the cease-fire.

They moved against dissident republicans and if they are beginning to make distinctions between dissident republicans and other republicans with arms, we surely are in slippery territory. And I’m not criticising the Gardai. But the Gardai themselves, and the army, may regard with some disquiet the close relationship that the IRA private army has established, through Sinn Fein, with the Government. It’s a very unhealthy set-up. And the recent claim that the IRA are going to give this ceasefire until Easter to see if they get what they want, or not, would not be incompatible with my view of the whole thing.

That said, if the proposed framework document for political talks in the North, does strike the right balance, all your prophecies will, again turn out to have been needlessly alarmist.

What I would like to see in that framework document is a commitment, on the government’s part, to submit an amended version of articles 2 & 3 to a referendum. But I don’t expect to see that in it. Albert Reynolds says Articles 2& 3 are on the negotiating table but are they, really? And I don’t honestly see that the kind of thing Dublin is talking about, in terms of this framework document, cross-border institutions etc etc – I don’t think they have any real contribution to make right now. If you had the elimination of the private armies then it could be a good time to talk about such things.

So what are you saying that people should be talking about now?

Security should now be top of the list and what I regret about the latest development is that John Major wanted to put the emphasis on that but Alberts Reynolds said something different. Look at this paragraph on the front page of this morning’s Irish Times which refers to yesterday’s meeting at Chequers: “There was also some dismay at Mr. Major’s success in pushing the issue of disarmament further up the short-term political agenda.” Why should our Government be dismayed at the issue of pushing the disarmament of illegal private armies, unless Adams has told them that’s just not on? But then, as I say in Ancestral Voices, it has become apparent that it is Albert Reynolds who covets the approval of Mr. Adams because his credentials are superior, emotionally, within the Cathoic-nationalist-Republican tradition. Within the republican movement the IRA have always had the glamour. And that’s something that’s still felt.

But, on the other hand, if the talks do progress and lead to the formulation of some kind of joint authority, can you see that finally helping to solve the problem of Northern Ireland?

One could talk about all sorts of things if the private armies weren’t there. But with their arsenals there, and their incompatible objectives there. That overshadows everything else. Particularly, for example, if one talks about when Sinn Fein meets the Brits. Sinn Fein have just one card, which is – if you don’t do what we want you to do at the pace we want you to do it, you will find the IRA back in business. They have nothing else to say.

But many would see what’s happening right now as an evolutionary process in which we are inching towards a satisfactory and balanced solution.

Towards a United Ireland? That, finally, is what will be forced on unionists through these Cross Border Institutions with Executive Powers, despite their legitimate wish to remain part of the United Kingdom – which I accept, without reservation. Albert Reynolds accepts it and tries to shove the nationalist agenda in by the back door. Therefore, if we do make ‘progress’ along these lines the loyalists will be looking to that ceasefire of theirs because their basic assumption that the union is safe will turn out to be false. And if we don’t make progress the IRA will say ‘what did we get? We made this big gesture of a ceasefire and the bloody Brits just behaved as if they own the place, as they did before.’ And I think that the Government will find itself in an increasingly difficult position.

You end your book by saying “Things are not better now than they were before the ceasefire. They are worse”?

I’m afraid so. I think we now are living in a lull period and I can understand people feel happy about that. But, if one tries to look ahead the factors I’ve mentioned indicate that this lull will not last very long.