Celebrating 1916 puts Rainbow on wrong foot

Despite the underlying current of criticism from the establishment media, Bertie Ahern and Fianna Fáil are completely unfazed by the half-spoken opposition to their plans to reinstitute a public celebration of the 1916 Rising. Fianna Fáil believes that the time is right to stress the spirit of freedom that 1916 represents, and is convinced that it has put all the other parties on the wrong foot.

Most obviously, of course, Fianna Fáil is anxious not to let Sinn Féin bask in the sole reflected glory of those events, or to claim for itself the mantle of true republicans. Even Michael McDowell is trying to lay claim to that inheritance. While there is a strong element of trying to draw the rug from underneath Sinn Féin on this issue, there is a deeper theme and purpose.

The reburial in 2001 of Kevin Barry and other heroes of the War of Independence executed by the British showed that there is a deep residue of pride in those who fought for freedom, a pride that was not extinguished by the war in the North between 1969 and 1994. Indeed, it now appears that once the ceasefire was announced, ordinary people were once again happy to proclaim their patriotic fervour and sing the praises of those who won our freedom.

Sinn Féin itself has obviously benefited, which is why so much energy has been spent by other Southern parties and media organisations in reminding people of how sordid much of the 1969-1994 war was.

For Fianna Fáil, there is a determination not to leave this segment of the voting population totally at the disposal of Sinn Féin. So two ard-fheiseanna have voted to extend the Fianna Fáil organisation into the North, and if the SDLP had collapsed in the last Westminster election this would almost certainly have been done.

But it is not just a question of stealing Sinn Féin's clothes. Fianna Fáil wants to present itself as the modern party of Irish freedom, working in a different context – one of harmony with Britain and of European integration, but one still committed and trustworthy in respect of maintaining the Irish national interest.

And certainly, the wrapping of the green flag around the party has left Fine Gael and Labour floundering in Fianna Fáil's wake. Labour's Liberty project (in association with SIPTU) is a belated effort to redress the balance, but the simple inescapable fact is that Labour (and Fine Gael) have been decidedly behind the posse when it came to advancing Northern nationalist interests or confronting Unionist supremacy.

Bertie's own equivocation in this regard provided the Rainbow Two with some cover, but now that Bertie has managed to convince the British of the need to face the Unionist population, and the DUP in particular, with the spectre of Plan B, the Rainbow's protestations that it too shares the inheritance of 1916 look somewhat bizarre.

The point is that in a time of unprecedented prosperity and economic success, there is little room for the traditional national inferiority complex on which Revisionism throve. Younger people are more assertive of their national pride than the generation which went before them, and, while the particulars of Northern policy will not feature high up in the list of election issues, it is an undercurrent that helps to reduce the appeal of the Rainbow at a time when there is a clear sense of tiredness emanating from the Government and a palpable sense that much of the electorate have had enough of them.

This is the real context of insisting that 1916 be brought back to respectability, for it is ground on which the Rainbow feels uncomfortable and with which it would rather not have to deal. That it also represents a challenge to Sinn Féin is an added bonus.

The official excuse, of course, is that the Provo military campaign made it inappropriate to celebrate 1916 before this, but no one has really explained why.

The danger is that any open debate about 1916 brings forward the opportunity for people to read what the men and women of 1916 said about the Republic they wanted to create. That, of course, is what happened in 1966, when the writings of James Connolly were rediscovered by people who had previously been unaware of them.

Now, an interest in the writings of Pearse, so long reviled by the Irish Times, will be stimulated by this year's celebration. The Establishment will find that his message is no abstract romanticism, but a deeply human and practical description of what a decent Ireland should be.

That, and not the glorification of violence, is the real tiger that Fianna Fáil may have trouble riding.

Eoin Ó Murchú is the Eagraí Polaitíochta of RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta. He is writing here in a personal capacity.