Sinn Féin On A Downer

The year 2005 was supposed to be one of celebration for Provisional Sinn Féin. The party was intending to mark its centenary on the basis of a claim on direct lineage from Arthur Griffith’s Sinn Féin of 1905 (an organisation which practically every other party in the south could also claim a link to). Unfortunately for Gerry et al, it turned out to be an annus horribilis, with the fall-out from the Robert McCartney slaying, the Northern Bank robbery, the failed On-The-Run legislation and the revelation that key provo Denis Donaldson was a British agent casting a cloud over the organisation. Indeed, they failed to make the planned breakthrough against the SDLP, with Sinn Féin candidates being defeated heavily in the target areas of Foyle and South Down, both of which the SDLP held easily in the Westminster elections.

However, those in the provisional movement who hoped that the strike of midnight on 31st December last year would mark the end of their woes have been bitterly disappointed.

The most recent graphic example of the provisionals’ problems occurred over the St. Patrick’s holiday period. Unlike in previous years when the Sinn Féin leadership was feted in America, the movement’s popularity has dropped like a lead balloon stateside.

Arch-Irish American Ted Kennedy censured Sinn Féin over its failure to join the NI Policing Board, and demanded justice for the McCartney family. Gerry Adams also got involved in a very public argument with US Envoy Mitchell Reiss. Sinn Féin was banned from fundraising and had to hand back the $100,000 it had raised from a breakfast with Adams. The McCartney family was invited back to the White House for St. Patrick’s Day after last year’s visit, and interestingly the Rafferty family also made an appearance, which could signify tough times ahead for Sinn Féin in the south of Ireland. Gerry Adams was then forced to take a six-hour train journey after he was detained by armed airport security officers because his name was on an international terror list.

The US media have also taken a turn against Sinn Féin. Humiliated provo councillor Toireasa Ferris was described in the Boston Globe as having been “ridiculed as a bimbo for wearing a revealing skirt. And as the daughter of a former Irish Republican Army commander, she was vilified for refusing to condemn the IRA murder of a policeman that took place 10 years ago.” The paper also described how Eilis O’Hanlon dismissed Ferris as “breathtakingly fatuous,” and said the young politician symbolised how “a movement which positioned itself as a serious-minded and credible alternative to mainstream Irish politics” had descended “into pantomime and farce.”

It seems the days when the provos were viewed through green-tinted glasses by Americans have gone. Attitudes in Ireland have been hardening against the provisional movement- it has been unable to deliver devolved government to the north and questions continue to hang over the organisation despite the IRA’s decommissioning. The key indicator now is how the party performs in the Dáil elections.