Does Irish Republicanism have a Future?

Republicanism was probably a strange idea to the Gael, when Theobald Wolfe Tone and his fellow Enlightened Irish Protestants introduced it to Ireland. Gaelic society had been based on a warrior aristocracy up until the Defeat at Kinsale, Briseadh Chionn tSáile, 1601, and all of our Gaelic poetry and song was aristocratic in mentality (and, for the most part, still is). I would think that the Gael who fought in 1798 had very little concept of Republicanism, but knew it was against the English enemy, and that was good enough. Later on, Daniel O'Connell was basically treated as a king, as was Dev in the 20th century. And, if the truth be told, it's better to have a good king than a democratic rabble like we have now, who want nothing so much as to plunder and loot the country for all they can get. But, it's obvious why Wolfe Tone would introduce Republicanism as a concept. It seemed to provide a transcendent idea that could win the allegiance of all Irishmen. The reality, of course, was otherwise. That said, at least Republicanism did manage to provide an organizing idea to the majority of the native Gael, particularly after 1916, though it was a particularly Irish form of Republicanism that the likes of Voltaire and Robespierre would have found difficult to recognize. But, that was then, and this is now. We never won liberty, still less equality (and recently that word has been turned into a joke), and the one thing we did have as a people, a sense of fraternity, has been thrown to the wind. Modern Ireland is a place that fails on every level. We are ruled by scoundrels, who, to our great shame, we elect ourselves. Our media is owned and run by people with a visceral hatred for the Irish nation and all things Irish. On the economic level, we have only managed to put up a show of success by turning Ireland into a safe haven for corporate money laundering. And these companies bring in 75% of their employees from abroad. Art and culture are poor to say the very least. And partition is as strong as ever - if not stronger. Well, I think any objective observer would say that Irish Republicanism is really not serving the purpose of giving the people a unifying idea. An objective observer might even ask "what is Irish Republicanism?" If he picked up a PSF document, he would probably learn that it's about equality. But, he would be left no wiser as to what this equality actually is. RSF would certainly give a more detailed response. Éire Nua and Saol Nua certainly give some idea of what a future Irish Republic might look like. But, I'm afraid he would get very little from the other Republican groups by way of explanation. One way or another, he would have to come to the conclusion that whatever Irish Republicanism is, it is not exciting the imaginations of the people, and it is not winning their confidence. So, what exactly is the nature of the crisis we face today in Ireland? In the south, it really isn't that our so called government pawned the people's wealth to pay off criminal banksters and landowners. You put rats in a cellar full of cheese, and they will always eat it. You can't blame them for that. It isn't even the Unionists in the north-east. They are behaving like any people would in that situation. It seems clear that the crisis is inside those who might have been expected to form the bedrock of the nation, i.e. the native Gaelic population. This population is being pounded into fragments, and nobody is doing anything to stop that, or even recognize that it's a problem. Where there should be some unity of purpose, there is only a riot of factional and individual interest. Can Irish Republicanism be considered as any kind of transcendent idea now? Particularly, given that many, if not most, Irish Republicans today have bought into a liberal attitude that would even deny that the nation has any need of any kind of bedrock or foundation. And, of course, if that were to be correct, why even bother with an Irish state. Would we not be better to move to a single European state, were we can all be Irish and Republican to our hearts content. In effect, this is what great numbers of Irish people are now saying. Though Brexit may have woken some of our Irish people out of their dream state, PSF was campaigning to present EU misrule as "the will of the people." So, as a unifying idea, Irish Republicanism is really very weak. At the very least, it needs to be reassessed. No doubt we love to hold on to dearly held traditions, but if, decade after decade, we come no closer to success, but even fall backwards - and nobody can doubt that the situation in the south is now chronic - then we have to step outside those traditions and look at the whole picture with different criteria. Today, in Ireland, people are primary respected according to their wealth. After that, according to the type of work they do. But, in reality, Ireland cannot function unless everybody does his own particular job to the best of his ability. And this is where Ireland falls down every time. If you give exorbitant wages to company directors and lawyers, but give less than a living wage to the man who collects the garbage, what you are really saying is that company directors and lawyers could run the country on their own. Those who work with their hands are not really needed. And they are made to feel that they are not really needed. How can any nation prosper with such a violently wrong mentality? Our problem is that we are not ruled by the strong. We are ruled by the nearly strong – who only see the nation as an opportunity for themselves and their families. The really strong see all the nation as their beloved brothers and sisters. The really strong do not bargain a worker down – to the point that he or she can no longer live. This would be a disgrace – an intolerable shame to the really strong. When the man who is really strong sees poverty and exclusion, his heart bursts with rage and indignation. He does not try to justify it – only the half strong do that. Those poltroons who populate our economics departments and departments of state, and sit on the boards of our so called Irish companies. At the very core of Irish Republicanism is the question: What is the nation? The Social Democrat will, of course, claim that the nation is the sum total of those who live within the borders of the national state at any given time. In effect, the past and the future are denied. What we have here is an example of a man waking up with self inflicted amnesia, and, seeing himself lying in a gutter, covered in puke, decides that since he is lying in a gutter covered in puke, this must be the best state to be in, and why he got there is of no interest whatsoever. This is how our latterday Social Democrats think. If we say the nation exists, we must ask how could such a thing as the nation come into being. And if we find that an objective process was involved, then we must ask ourselves does the nation still exist, or can it continue to exist into the future, if this foundational objective process is removed. I would be so bold as to suggest that the nation would not exist if there was not such a thing as the tribe. I know may of our lefties here will disagree. Good. That's what a political debating forum is for. We are not religious fanatics, trying to protect some dogma from intellectual investigation. I would also venture the possibility that the great anthropologists, such as Claude Levi-Strauss, are not entirely wrong. Tribes are built on blood relations between closely knit family groups and the nation-state is a later formation, usually associated with the emergence of capitalism and the bourgeoisie. If we look at the objective picture of the world as it has emerged over the last two or three hundred years, nation-states tend to crystallize around particular tribal groups. In other words, there will be a dominant, or hegemonic, tribal group, who will mould the nation-state in its own image. But, if one were to accept that there is a tribal kernal to every nation state, then we could legitimately put the question - If we deny and eradicate this tribal kernal, can the nation-state survive? Look at the nation-states that have most strenuously denied the tribal kernal. Are they not the very same states which are suffering the most extreme existential crisis, and which are actually behaving in increasingly psychotic and murderous ways towards their more tribal neighbors, and who are the states which bring the survival of life itself on earth into the most jeopardy? It's clear that the EU's effort to become a non-ethnic state has crashed on the hard kernel of ethnicity. The idea that Africans and Asians can be Europeans just by taking part in some kind of government ceremony and getting a bit of paper has been spectacularly rejected.

In my view, unless Irish Republicanism breaks its connection with Liberalism and Multiculturalism it will never achieve any useful function in Ireland, and will continue to fail to act as a unifying principle in Ireland. Indeed, as Adams & Co. have shown, Irish Republicanism may well end up being just the hired help of Goldman Sachs and the rest of the international financier clique.