Sectarianism will never be defeated if one side insists on playing pass-the-parcel with it, writes
DAVID ADAMS
IT MUST have been horrendous for the relatives of the 13 Protestants murdered by the IRA in west Cork over a four-day period in 1922 ( Cork's Bloody Secret,RTÉ One, last Monday evening). Most had to flee the area, along with countless of their co-religionists, to begin life anew in Northern Ireland or in England.
This bare factual recounting hardly begins to do justice to the enormous emotional and practical realities of their ordeal. Robbed of a loved one in the most brutal fashion, and driven from the land of their birth, they had to face starting over again, as strangers in a strange land - but only after they had run the gauntlet between Cork and Dublin. According to a first-hand account, the IRA attacked a Cork-to-Dublin train, which was packed with fleeing Protestants, at three locations.
It was even worse for those few relatives who stayed behind. Unlike victims from both sides in the North, for example, they had no large community of co-religionists to provide support, sympathy and a relatively safe haven. Quite the reverse, they were left with just the pain of loss, a daily fear of the gunmen returning, and an isolation from the local community that bordered on ostracism. For decade after decade, generation after generation, they had to act as though nothing had happened, forever keeping a fearful silence, too frightened even to discuss the murders with their children.
I don't know west Cork, but, knowing people, I would suggest that, for a majority of Catholic neighbours, the silence and detachment came from fear and shame. Fear of what might happen to them or their families if they showed sympathy to their Protestant neighbours, and deep shame at what had been done in their name.
Still, even if they appreciated the reasoning, it was bound to be of little comfort to the bereaved and ostracised. How could you avoid forever wondering, and silently speculating upon, who among those neighbours was involved in murdering your loved one(s)?
There is no excuse at all for official Ireland. It buried this sordid episode, and goodness knows how many more, determined to maintain the fiction of wholly non-sectarian freedom fighters. It even invented a cover story to explain the sudden decrease in Protestant numbers within its jurisdiction, claiming that they had freely chosen to leave. Was this where a policy of maintaining appearances at all costs, regardless of how brutal the reality, began? A policy that later contributed so much to the obscenities of the Magdalene laundries, and to the abuse of children in State-monitored institutions?
At least now, thanks to RTÉ, as with its previous documentary on the IRA's sectarian murder of the young Pearson brothers at Coolacrease in 1921, a fearful silence has been broken, people have been given a voice at last, and another bloody secret is no more.
It seemed to me fitting that Cork's Bloody Secret was an Irish language programme and that Irish speaker Hazel Baylor, grandniece of the murdered Bertie Chinnery, should feature so prominently. For too long the Irish language has been used as a divisive weapon by those who misappropriated and abused it. It was heartening to see it wrested back from the fanatics.
Despite what we know about the recent Troubles, and mounting evidence of past misdeeds, it would be wrong to suggest that republicanism, of whatever era, is or ever was primarily driven by sectarianism. That is simply not the case. I am close friends with too many determinedly anti-sectarian republicans (including, incidentally, a few former Provisional IRA members) to entertain that notion.
However, it is equally wrong for republicans to persist with the self-serving pretence that sectarianism is, or ever was, just a unionist problem. Republicanism, from the outset, just like unionism, has been plagued by sectarianism.
In 1798, while Wolfe Tone was still alive, and before Presbyterian Ulster had risen, southern United Irishmen had massacred Protestants at Scullabogue, and committed other anti-Protestant atrocities in the south of the country. Such has it been ever since.
The problem of sectarianism is not exclusive or germane to any political ideology in Ireland, but, rather, it comes with many of the people who attach themselves to the politics. For either side to point an accusing finger at its political rival, without acknowledging that it has the same problem, is like one hopeless alcoholic reproaching another for drinking too much, while having the gall to pretend he is teetotal himself. We will never defeat sectarianism if one side insists on playing pass-the-parcel with it. We must acknowledge it as a common problem, and then tackle it together.
I sincerely hope that Minister for Education Batt O'Keeffe watched Cork's Bloody Secreton Monday evening, and was moved to reconsider his plan to discriminate further against the sprinkling of rural Protestants left in the Republic by slashing funding to their schools. It's the least he can do on behalf of official Ireland.