Interview with Bernadette Sands
Bernadette Sands is no publicity seeker. Since the launch of dissident republican group The 32 County Sovereignty Committee, of which she is vice-chairperson, she has had hundreds of requests for media interviews. That's hardly surprising. Bobby Sands, the dead IRA hunger-striker, is the modern republican movement's greatest icon. When his sister criticises the peace process and, by implication, the strategy of the Sinn Féin leadership, it's big news.
Bernadette Sands is no publicity seeker. Since the launch of dissident republican group The 32 County Sovereignty Committee, of which she is vice-chairperson, she has had hundreds of requests for media interviews. That's hardly surprising. Bobby Sands, the dead IRA hunger-striker, is the modern republican movement's greatest icon. When his sister criticises the peace process and, by implication, the strategy of the Sinn Féin leadership, it's big news.
Journalists from around the world have bombarded her with telephone calls and visited the small business she runs with her partner in Dundalk. They have all been turned away. She gives the impression of someone who prefers anonymity and has entered the public arena only very reluctantly. Apart from a short radio interview in America, she agreed to meet with Magill as a “one-off” in order to “set the record straight” about her beliefs and motives. “I'm a very private person. I wouldn't be making statements or sitting here if I didn't feel so strongly about what is happening.”
The 39-year-old has lived in Dundalk for the past 20 years, running a print business that produces T-shirts, pictures and leaflets. She and her partner have three small children. Dressed in a smart blue trouser suit and lemon silk blouse, she is a far cry from the stereotypical republican woman. Sipping coffee as she reads the Irish Times, she could easily be a Fine Gael or SDLP spokesperson.
At first glance, there seems little resemblance to her brother. But a closer inspection betrays the tell-tale similarities – the sandy hair, freckles and open countenance. More than physical characteristics unite the two: “Like Bobby, I have a very strong commitment to Irish national sovereignty. I do not believe it is on the agenda at the Stormont talks. All that is on offer is a redefined and updated partition. It's about dressing up an oppressive system nicely, rather than destroying it.”
She is not opposed to dialogue in principle but feels the current talks are not addressing “the core issue of British jurisdiction in Ireland.” She is calling on Sinn Féin to withdraw from them. Set up last month, The 32 County Sovereignty Committee upholds the 1919 Declaration of Independence and opposes “any party which accepts British rule in any form.” Its establishment followed resignations in republican ranks over the peace process.
There were widespread media reports that one of the IRA resignees was the sister of a dead hunger-striker. Sands McKevitt says she is a republican but has never been a member of the IRA nor of Sinn Féin. She is taking legal action against some media. She worked for Sinn Féin in last year's Dáil elections, canvassing for her local candidate, Owen Hanratty – one of 30 Sinn Féin members in Co Louth who recently resigned over the Mitchell principles.
Her objections to the peace process are extensive and long-running. She had “grave reservations” about the first IRA ceasefire, in August 1994, and would like to have seen a British declaration of intent to withdraw first. She claims that the “unilateral nature” of the cessation strengthened the argument that the IRA was the main obstacle to peace and that “state repression” and loyalist violence were merely reactive.
When the ceasefire was announced, Sinn Féin leaders celebrated at rallies with champagne and carnations. Their supporters held “victory” cavalcades across the North. Sands McKevitt did not share this optimism. “I wasn't one of those people out on the streets celebrating. I was very cautious from day one, and it became more apparent as time went on that the British were not dealing seriously with republicans.
“False hope was generated by some people. The message sent out was that there was light at the end of the tunnel for republicans and, if we all held hands, we would come through. But that wasn't true. The “big” days, portrayed as historic – like Sinn Féin's entry into the talks or visit to Downing Street – weren't actually historic. Nothing was achieved.”
She admits that her position has been criticised in some quarters. “If you speak out, if you voice doubts, you are portrayed as a war-monger. It's not popular to be anti–peace process.
“I won't be put on a guilt trip. I am not against peace, just this process. My position is not a maverick or isolated one. Many people see what is going on but until now have been afraid to say, ‘the emperor has no clothes.' A lot of people have been deceived and a lot of lies told. There has been a lack of debate in the republican movement, but that is starting to change.”
She believes the Mitchell document, which binds all the parties to abide by the outcome of the talks, is tantamount to accepting an internal settlement. As a minority voice at the negotiating table, Sinn Féin is impotent, she says. “According to the rules, if the SDLP and the unionists reach an agreement, Sinn Féin can be by- passed. Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness can stand up, wrap the green flag around themselves and sing ‘A Nation Once Again' at the top of their voices, but it will do no good.”
Although the talks might not immediately lead to Irish unity, will mechanisms not be set up that will ultimately allow republicans to advance their cause democratically? Is a gradualist approach not more realistic than expecting everything in one fell swoop? “I reject the logic of the argument that by giving upour objectives now we can actually further them in the future.
“I do not think cross-border bodies with executive powers will be a stepping-stone to a united Ireland. The Border Commission was sold as a stepping-stone in the 1920s. It was the same with Articles 2 and 3 of the 1937 Constitution. These ‘stepping stones' have a funny habit of copper-fastening partition.”
Surely a settlement offering concrete gains to nationalists, such as demilitarisation, would be worth accepting? “It isn't a matter of reducing or phasing out British army patrols. British rule was unjust before 1969, when there wasn't a single British soldier on the streets.” The 32 County Sovereignty Committee will oppose any settlement emerging from the talks that falls short of Irish unity and will campaign against it in any future referenda. At the committee's launch, Sands McKevitt appeared nervous and hesitant before the cameras. But, in conversation, she is confident and articulate. Certainly, she is no fool. Her politics might be very different from those of Gerry Adams, but, ironically, she wouldn't look out of place by his side on Sinn Féin's talks team. She refrains from directly attacking the Sinn Féin leadership, but her criticism is implicit. “Words such as ‘independence' and ‘freedom' do not seem to be used by any party on this island today. Instead, we have the in-phrases – nice cosy terms like ‘equal citizenship' and ‘parity of esteem.'
“Well, the last two IRA volunteers to die on active service, Ed O'Brien and Diarmuid O'Neill, did not die for parity of esteem and equal citizenship. They died for freedom. Throughout this conflict, men did not give up their lives and liberty, families did not suffer terribly, and there was not all this heartbreak and sacrifice for what is on the table now. The campaign was for an end to British rule, not a rejuvenated partition.”
Such language is striking at a time when republican leaders have softened theirs. Her criticisms have caused them serious concern because of her family history and her own personal background. She has street credibility. As a west Belfast republican who strongly disagrees with her stance acknowledges, “Bernie is difficult to deal with because she can't be written off as just another outside critic having a go. She is one of us.”
The Sandses were not always a republican family, but their experience in the early years of the Troubles shaped their politics. They lived in the predominantly Protestant estate of Rathcoole, in north Belfast. Bernadette was the second youngest of four children. Bobby was five years older. “My parents were quiet people who kept themselves to themselves. As children, we never thought of religion. We had plenty of Protestant friends. Coming up to the Twelfth, we gathered wood for the bonfires.”
But in the early 1970s they came under threat, like other Catholics in the area. Bobby Sands was beaten up by the Tartan gangs. Loyalist youths would gather outside the family's home chanting “Taigs Out.” “We were terrified. I remember Bobby standing at the top of the stairs with a carving knife to protect us while my sister Marcella clutched a pepper pot. When we called the RUC, they took hours to arrive and never offered any help. The British army laughed at us.”
Eventually, the intimidation climaxed. “There was a woman who acted as a sort of estate agent for the UDA. She drove young Protestant couples around nationalist homes to pick one they liked. I saw her outside our house, explaining it had three bedrooms and a nice garden. The next week, shots were fired at the house. A rubbish bin was hurled through the window. We moved.”
Like hundreds of other Catholic families, they ended up in the new Twinbrook Estate in west Belfast. “The Housing Executive told my mother to pick a house, put up curtains and move in. We were lucky, our house was finished, but most of the others were empty shells – walls and roofs but nothing else. Families moved in and the builders built around them.” Living in west Belfast, Sands McKevitt was thrown into the cockpit of the conflict. British soldiers were camped in her school, St Genevieve's. At night, she lay in bed listening to gun battles. She passed several O' Levels and went on to higher education, but the Troubles proved a big distraction. At 16, she left college.
She became involved in community activism with Bobby, who was just out of jail after serving four years for arms possession. “There was nothing for people in Twinbrook to do. We started running social nights in a Portakabin and we campaigned for greater amenities. Bobby and I were very close. We shared the same ideals. He was great fun, always playing the guitar and singing. I took piano lessons, but he was far more musical. He had a fine, strong voice. There was a shy side to him, too. I was probably the most outgoing one in the family.”
Six months after Sands's release, he was again caught in possession of guns. Subsequent events left a deep impression on his sister. She recalls his sentencing in Crumlin Road courthouse in 1977. “He was given 14 years. As he was being taken to the cells below, he waved to us. Someone in uniform, a prison warder or RUC officer, raised his baton and smashed it on Bobby's head. They dragged him away, and we could hear him being beaten. There was uproar in the court.
“We saw him the next day. He looked awful. They had shaved his head, but not properly, and there were tufts of hair sticking out of his scalp. He was badly bruised. He looked very vulnerable. The authorities held him responsible for the disturbances in court. He was placed in solitary confinement in the ‘dungeons' in Crumlin Road for three weeks. He was put on the ‘A1 diet' – dry bread and water. I was worried sick.”
In the eyes of his opponents, Sands was receiving his just desserts. To his family, it was evidence of “an inhumane system.” He was moved to the H-blocks, where he joined the “blanket protest” against the removal of political status for republican prisoners. After four years on it, he joined the 1981 hunger-strike.
Now living in Dundalk, Sands McKevitt addressed anti-H-block rallies. Again, it was a case of reluctantly entering the public arena. “I was terribly nervous. I would be standing on the platform, my knees knocking the hell out of each other. I did it for Bobby and his comrades. I hoped he would see me on television and know I was fighting for him.” She would ring the jail for information about his condition from pay-phones along the Border. She didn't expect him to die. “I refused to give up hope. I was naive. I thought that the Irish government, Mrs Thatcher or somebody would save him.” She won't talk about his death or funeral. “They are private matters for our family, not for public consumption.”
Other prisoners on the hunger-strike who lived – like Laurence McKeown and the late Pat McGeown – went on to support the Stormont talks. If alive today, Sands would be 43. Would age not have brought compromise? “It's impossible to tell what Bobby would have done. But the ideals he died for are ideals I hold dear and which have always motivated me.
“Bobby did not die for cross-border bodies with executive powers. He did not die for nationalists to be equal British citizens within the Northern Ireland state. In the last extract he made in his diary, he writes that he will never be broken because the desire for freedom is in his heart. He says that one day the Irish people will have their freedom and it is then we will see ‘the rising of the moon'. That day of the ‘rising of the moon' has not yet arrived, and I think it is well worth struggling for.”
Does this not sentence another generation in the North to further hardship? “The British have to be challenged. There is no point side-stepping the issue. It will only resurface later.” What about the morality of IRA violence? “The Irish people have the right to assert their independence by every means at their command. I'd prefer if the British listened to argument, but they haven't so far. They are the aggressors.”
Her critics in Sinn Féin say Sands McKevitt is living in the past. “She needs to adopt a new mindset,” says one. “The 1980s are long gone. Everything has changed. It is possible for republicans to move forward politically, but she can't seem to get her head around that. She has to learn to move with the times.” Sands McKevitt denies hers is a knee-jerk reaction. She resents attempts to “undermine the committee” by “personal attacks” on her. While her brother's death affected her deeply, she was republican “before, during and after the hunger-strike.”
She is a practising Catholic but insists she isn't sectarian. When asked about her reaction to the killing of leading loyalist Billy Wright, she says: “I don't want to get into that. The British are the problem, not the unionists.” Republicanism is the great preoccupation of her life. She likes to paint and is interested in computers but has “very little time” for hobbies. She does not see herself as a feminist, although she believes in “equal status for men and women right across the board.”
Most mainstream political observers would view her brand of nationalism as outdated. She denies being trapped in a time-warp. “British rule is just as wrong today as it was 10 years, 20 years or 80 years ago. As we approach the new millennium, Britain should do the modern, progressive thing and leave Ireland.” She predicts that Sinn Féin will end its abstentionist policy at Westminster. She opposes “the participation of nationalist representatives there in any shape or form.”
Republican grassroots in Belfast are confused about her position. The lack of media interviews by The 32 County Sovereignty Committee means many don't understand what it stands for. One activist who knows her family says: “Any divisions within our community are tragic, even more so when they involve the relative of a hunger-striker.”
Staunch supporters of the Sinn Féin leadership are less philosophical. One says: “Bernie Sands's problem is that she is over-ambitious. That's what is behind all this. She won't get far. There won't be too many republicans following her line.” Sands McKevitt dismisses such allegations. “I've no selfish or cynical motives. I've no book to write. I'm not vying for position. I have two daughters and a son. I could go home and just take care of them except I don't want my children, or anyone else's, to go through what I went through. I want them to inherit a free Ireland.”
The committee claims to have several hundred members, some of whom are also in Sinn Féin. A few Sinn Féin cumainn in the South are backing it. In the North, its impact has been more limited. Only one Sinn Féin councillor, Francie Mackey in Co Tyrone, has joined.
Contrary to media reports, she says, there has been no official request from Sinn Féin for a meeting with the committee. It is willing to talk to “all interested parties” and wants to meet the government to discuss any proposed amendment to Articles 2 and 3. She says the committee is seeking support “from the Irish people generally and not just republicans.”
Nevertheless, despite her statements, it is the response the group elicits from the republican movement, particularly the IRA, that will determine its success. If a substantial number of IRA units support its stance, the peace process could be in danger. The republican leadership says it is fully in control. The dissidents say much is happening behind the scenes but have not proved their claims. A lot is at stake.
Suzanne Breen is a journalist with the Irish Times in Belfast