The IRA’s mythic ‘men of peace’

A President Biden Selfie. pic.twitter.com/4NiiiUWlvU

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Nonetheless, this needs to be seen alongside some ugly truths — such as the fact that the men of violence were rewarded, given portfolios in government and made international statesmen, while people who never took up guns were left by the political roadside. Worse, the actual sources of the conflict were not put to rest. They were put on hold.

It has always been my view that the IRA would be back, as they were at intervals throughout the twentieth century. And not just because of “British occupation.” In my opinion, Northern Ireland should be governed by whoever it wants to be governed by. At present its people want to remain within the United Kingdom. The problem is that the ghastly story Sinn Féin-IRA preached throughout the Troubles is preached still.

Take the current Sinn Fein president and leader of the opposition in the Irish Parliament. Some years ago Mary Lou McDonald could be found at Fairview Park in Dublin. That park contains one of Europe’s few statues to a Nazi collaborator. The IRA leader Sean Russell was returning to Ireland in 1940 from a training session laid on by Nazi Germany when he died of a perforated ulcer on the U-boat carrying him home to his native land. (Because remember that when the Luftwaffe were bombing British cities, so was the IRA. In 1939 and 1940 the IRA were busily setting off bombs in London, Liverpool, Birmingham and Manchester.) He was then buried at sea.

So after the war who did the peace-loving Republicans in Ireland put up a statue to but this IRA terrorist and Nazi sympathizer? It has stood there ever since. I have visited it myself. When it has been vandalized (which has happened a few times) the Dublin authorities always make sure it is repaired. Unlike, say, the statue of the unforgivable Edward Colston in Bristol.

McDonald paid her respects to Russell in Fairview Park, at a ceremony to celebrate him, because that’s what you have to do to rise within Sinn Féin. You have to praise Nazi collaborators, terrorists and other “men of peace.” Because the poisonous folklore of Irish Republicanism remains.

Of course it has some poisonous opposites on the Unionist side. But the acts of violence stretching from well before 1916, though the Nazi collaboration, to the civilian bombings and the disappearance of innocent mothers of the 1970s to 1990s (here’s looking at you, Gerry) all happened because the poison tree has never been uprooted.

These days it can be seen in the youths who don’t remember the Troubles but nevertheless go out in the Creggan with petrol bombs. It can be seen in the sputterings and smiles of American Democrats like Joe Biden, the Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and the disgusting former congressman Peter King

The poison tree is not currently in full flower. But it will be again, seeing as the conditions are all there. Everybody thinks it’s gone, but its bloody bloom will break out again some season — because youths brought up with the worst stories and heroes will have forgotten what their grandparents learned the hard way. That heady Irish cocktail of romance, lies and boredom is still intoxicating. And those of us who oppose it will continue to be called “anti-peace.”

This article was originally published in The Spectator’s UK magazine. Subscribe to the World edition here.