It’s almost 10 years since the Good Friday Agreement was signed, thus signaled an end to the conflict as we knew it and the opening of what has been called the new dispensation – it was a British programme, signed on the British ruling classes terms and it is Westminster that will dictate the pace, not either of the two Nationalist parties. Many on the Irish left openly support this agreement and many Republicans are left wondering as to where it all went wrong.

Without straying too much, the GFA strengthens the Union, the Unionist veto remains firmly in place, Westminster has the ultimate say, sectarian incidents have increased, privatisation, PFI and other economic interests of the ruling class are implemented. All of the Stormont parties are virtually indistinguishable on economic issues from one another. They have nothing to offer Socialists and Republicans.

In Wolfe Tone’s age Republicanism was the most modern and revolutionary ideology of that time. But where do class interests come into play? Republicanism was the ideology of the budding capitalist class who sought to overthrow the old order.

Consider this from a Republican pamphlet at the turn of the last century -

‘It is your right to compel your tailor, if he is unwilling, to make your coat of Irish cloth, to compel your grocer to sell you Irish eggs, to compel your public servants to acquire some knowledge of the Irish language and help Irish industries.’

This is not the sort of speech that would be delivered to working class people, it is aimed at the middle and ruling classes, those with a vested economic interest. How many Dublin workers have tailors today, never mind 100 years ago? It is very clear whose support they were aiming for. Look no further than Stormont and Leinster House where so-called Republicans who also call themselves Socialists are appealing once more to the ruling class.

Eoin MacNeill, despite delivering the counter-order on 1916 was elected to the Sinn Fein Executive the following year at De Valera’s insistence. He was later elected to a revolutionary parliament of a Republic he didn’t believe in along with Authur Griffth. They saw an opportunity to expand the interests of the ruling class and as long as the eviction notices were now stamped with the arms of the Irish Republic then it suited.

Even in this revolutionary government with its revolutionary Democratic Programme, the ruling class was represented. It is interesting that when Liam Mellowes occupied the Four Courts, after he was routed by the Freestate Army, it was Eoin MacNeill that supported his murder. The same Eoin MacNeill that delivered the counter-order in 1916 and supported the treaty. Mellowes ‘Diaries from Mountjoy’ were published and there within the Freestate government found their justification for the murder of Mellowes. Mellowes had reached a class analysis and thus represented the greatest threat since James Connolly.

The Republican courts throughout the country around this period favoured the ruling class in many cases, when workers set up Soviets, occupied factories and land, it was the IRA that evicted them and took the side of the capitalist class.

Another strand within Republicanism largely made by the urban intelligentsia was that of the cultural revivalists. Their thinking was in line with English bourgeois thinking of the 17th centenary but which for historical reasons developed much later in Ireland. The Gaelic League decreed that no League meeting “may take place in a house where liquor is sold.” This cut them off from ordinary working class people, whose only form of escapism was through going to a public house.

The recreation of Gaelic myths and folklore is entirely a middle class phenomena, but it was this middle class embodied by the Gaelic League who said “On one hand, in localities were the people are “practical” that they “will not waste time learning Irish” it is generally found that they will have no inclination to learn better ways of butter-making or adopt improvements in agricultural methods either.”

In other words, it was the working classes fault for refusing to take up the language and to adhere to the methods of the League. The cultural revivalists refused to adopt a class position and their methods alienated them from the working class. The decline of the Irish language is a consequence of British cultural dominance in Ireland, “The revival of the Irish culture depends on the revival of the Irish people, the revival of the Irish people depends on the revival of the Irish culture. The struggle for the Irish language should be part of the Reconquest of Ireland, if the Irish language movement fails to be active leaders in that struggle, then the whole Irish revival will fail.”

James Connolly responded to the Gaelic League quite vigorously by saying “You cannot teach Irish to a child dying of hunger.”

The construction of the Republican Movement in itself, a top down military structure through which the gun has the ultimate say, even on the political side is a careful construction that is no accident. This structure is used to maintain discipline and to make sure the leaderships dictates are adhered to unreservedly.

It is elitist and towers above the people we need to be at the forefront of the struggle – the working class. It is noteworthy that when Ta Power prepared his essay on the history of the RSM and what role it still has to play, some class conscious PIRA prisoners in the H-Blocks formed a group known as the ‘League of Communist Republicans’ and interestingly they reached a similar analysis to Power I many regards. The LCR made the point that both electoralism and the armed campaign led away from mass struggle.

Around the time of the hunger strikes a mass movement was developing that included people who weren’t Republicans and didn’t support the armed struggle, but they supported the rights of political prisoners. The trade union movement were an essential component to this campaign and without the intervention of Republican Socialists, amongst others on the left, within the trade union movement these people would not be out on the street. It is our job to convince these workers of our commodity – class politics. This can only be done from within the trade union movement. Republicans failed to do so for several reasons, namely that there was no use for this mass struggle, other than that it was considered a distraction from the armed campaign.

Ta Power speaking on the 69 split said
“It is one of these events in history that while those who spilt were right as regards having to confront imperialism in the six counties, at the same time they lacked the ideological outlook and ability to expand the struggle, to mobilise the mass of Irish people in active support of the struggle.”

Republicanism at present lacks an ideological compass. It is purely for the pursuit of power, with no regard for the struggles of ordinary working class people.

Political discussion is considered divisive; politics is something best left to ‘politicians’ whilst the ‘soldiers’ go about their business. The majority, if not all, of political work is considered a distraction from what little armed actions are happening at present and the problems of elitism still exist. The Ta Power Document and the arguments of the LCR have not been grasped - the relationship between the class and national questions is considered irrelevant.

But unless this is grasped, Republicanism won’t move far in its present state. Ten years from the signing of the Good Friday Agreement there is still no viable alternative for the working class.

In our age, Marxism is the most advanced and revolutionary science. It is what makes us as Republican Socialists distinct. We believe in Ireland’s foremost Marxist, James Connolly’s teaching that the Irish working class are the incorruptible inheritors of the fight for freedom. We know the lessons of the past, we have carefully and painstakingly analysed them but yet they continue to arise – this is a direct consequence of the class which Republican groups, knowingly or not, find themselves aligned to.

It is our duty, as Republican Socialists to raise the banner of class politics and to push for change.  The way forward for Republicanism, and for the Irish left is found in the teachings of men like James Connolly.