Where To Now For Sinn Féin?

As I write there is a major froth building around the arrest of seven people – no, eight – and the discovery of a large amount of cash by the Garda Síochána. It is a mark of the excitement engendered that even Ian Paisley Junior could scarce forebear to cheer the Irish police force. Coupled with the furore over the murder of Robert McCartney, allegedly by IRA elements, it marks a hugely significant watershed in recent Irish history.

Speculation is rife and hysteria is catching. Those who warned of perfidious Shinners are wallowing in their vindication. Those who have been lectured by priggish republicans are enjoying the discomfiture of Sinn Féin’s leading lights.
Others are themselves embarrassed and enraged. Many people bent over backwards (and often forwards as well) to accommodate Sinn Féin and bring them into the political fold. They didn’t like being ticked off for listening to the doubters and now they don’t like being exposed as mugs taken in by the physical force republican movement.
A lot of sacrifices were made by a lot of people, many of whom had to swallow hard and pretend to like the taste of shit in order to do what they saw as their duty to the peace process. As they see it, this is the thanks they get. They will ever more be doubters.
But it’s easy to see this as just fall out from the bank robbery and the McCartney murder. That will be the next defensive position adopted and a lot of people will seek to contain this crisis within that frame. That would be to miss the point.
On February 8th, seven weeks after the bank robbery, a tanker overturned on the M7 Monasterevin bypass spilling its load in the middle of the rush hour. Despite having sustained head injuries, the driver fled on foot and was, Gardaí think, driven from the area in another vehicle.
Odd, you might think. The vehicle was painted in Shell colours, after all. But that’s the point. According to Shell, ‘it does not belong to Shell or any of its companies’.
Gardaí believe the tanker was being used to transport laundered fuel. They also believe that it was but one of many tankers doing just that.
In other words, money laundering and intimidation are just the start of it. One only has to sit in a bar near the border, or indeed in north Kerry, in Limerick, in Cork or in parts of Dublin, to hear the murmurs about where the money for this bar or that property development originates.
According to Michael McDowell the provisional republican movement is a huge crime syndicate. Many claim that the IRA is involved in smuggling as well as bank robberies and that it has also colonised various business sectors, especially property, construction and the licensed trade, in order to launder money gathered by various illegal means.
It is even suggested that they exercise a levy system on gangs involved in other crime such as drug smuggling, prostitution and robbery.
While one might say that even the dogs in the street make these allegations, in fairness to Sinn Féin and the physical force republican movement, at the time of writing they are unproven. That doesn’t mean they have no substance…
These allegations are at a structural level. The pressure arising from the McCartney killing comes from the street, from within the very community that Sinn Féin has farmed and managed for its electoral ‘mandate’.
As I noted in the last Whole Hog, many members of Sinn Féin have been hitting the airwaves and letters pages. Their line generally is that one bad apple doesn’t mean that all republicans are rotten. It is disingenuous to say the least.
Sure, very many members of Sinn Féin aren’t in the IRA and have never been involved in any form of criminal activity. But the links are real, the IRA appears to be the senior partner and let’s be honest, after all that has happened in the last weeks there’s a major question around the party’s sources of funding.
It keeps coming back to a central point. Ireland is a democratic republic in which various parties contend for the votes of the electorate. Only one party is directly associated with a large and well-armed and highly trained paramilitary force. That party is alleged to benefit from funds raised by that private army. It’s just not on.
As for Northern Ireland, it is part of a parliamentary democracy. As in Ireland, the parties compete. But paramilitarism is more ingrained in the body politic. The SDLP has been eclipsed by an unfair and fundamentally undemocratic combination of political party – Sinn Féin – and private army – the IRA. And we’re at a point of history now where that’s not on either.
Without doubt there are many democrats in the republican movement. Now they have to make a hard decision. No more winking and nodding. No more hidden hands. No more robbing, spying, intimidation or thuggery. Let the politics do the work.
Fish or cut bait.