Ceaselessly Split by History
Can the horror of Omagh lead to an end to divisions in Irish nationalism?
By GARRET FITZGERALD

The Irish Nationalist Movement has been remarkably fissiparous: subject to almost endless divisions during the 84 years since becoming a militant force in 1914. In that year, the recently-formed nationalist Volunteer movement split over the issue of support for Britain in the First World War--and the wing that rejected this policy went on to organize the abortive Rising of 1916, after which it merged with the Sinn Fein Party.

Having swept the board in Ireland at the 1918 Westminster election, Sinn Fein itself split three years later. A minority who retained this name rejected the Anglo-Irish Treaty establishing Ireland not as a republic but as a dominion within the British Empire from which Northern Ireland had the right to opt out, which it did.

This minority fought an unsuccessful civil war against the new Irish government, but five years later the leader of these Sinn Fein republicans, Eamon de Valera, split from Sinn Fein and established Fianna Fail. By 1932, this had become, and has since remained, Ireland's largest political party, which has been in power for some three-quarters of the subsequent period.

Later, other groups also split from Sinn Fein: Clann na Poblachta in 1947; Provisional Sinn Fein with its I.R.A. wing in 1969/70; the Irish Republican Socialist Party and its Irish National Liberation Army paramilitary wing in the mid-1970s. More recently Democratic Left moved in the opposite direction toward constitutional politics, and between 1994 and 1997 actually served in the Irish government.

In their turn, Provisional Sinn Fein and its I.R.A.-spawned Republican Sinn Fein in the mid-1980s and--most recently--the 32-County Sovereignty Movement and its militant wing, the so-called Real I.R.A. which, though small in size, has a lethal capacity--as was shown tragically at Omagh.

The Irish and British Governments are currently preparing additional anti-terrorist measures to suppress this group of, perhaps, 100 to 150 people, whose leaders are well known but whose membership includes some newly recruited young people whose identity is still unknown to the police.

In order to suppress the I.R.A. during World War II, Irish governments adopted the draconian measure of internment without trial. Today's Irish Government retains this power, and Prime Minister Bertie Ahern and his Minister for Justice have made it clear that they are prepared to use it if necessary. It was not used against the Provisional I.R.A. during the past quarter-century, for two reasons.

First, the use of internment without trial was widely discredited when the Northern Ireland Unionist Government used it against the Provos in 1971. Loyalist paramilitaries were not interned, and a large proportion of those locked away were innocent. But it was the scale of Provo membership in the island as a whole, and the degree of support they secured from an alienated minority of nationalists across the border in Northern Ireland, that ultimately rendered internment a futile option. By contrast, today's Real I.R.A. has little support anywhere in the island--and much of what may have existed has certainly evaporated since the Omagh massacre. Moreover, the small size and identifiable leadership of this group means that selective internment of a small number might effectively terminate its activities; if it does not close itself down as its statements last Wednesday suggest might happen. Its anonymous new younger members would be ineffective on their own.

Still there remain downsides to internment. Its introduction might encourage opposition to the peace process within the Provisional I.R.A. That could make it more difficult to overcome grass-roots opposition to decommissioning of explosives and arms--which is an essential element of normalization of politics in Northern Ireland. Another difficulty is that Mo Mowlam, who has always been opposed to internment, recently legislated to abolish it at Westminster.

In these circumstances it is not surprising that the Irish Government has decided to attempt to suppress the Real I.R.A. by changes in ordinary legislation to be enacted in Parliament in two week's time. Paramilitary bodies which are seeking violently to bring down the peace agreement are to be banned, and terrorist suspects are to be detained for questioning for up to seven days rather than two, and bail will no longer be allowed.

These measures have already been criticised as being open to constitutional challenge. One constitutional lawyer has argued that administrative internment would be preferable to introducing anti-terrorist laws that might not survive scrutiny by the courts. The Irish government seems to feel, however, that internment is best kept as a backstop. But for it to be a credible fallback, the British government will have to restore it to the statute books as a potential weapon.