Analysis: A motion for Republican Sinn Féin's Ard-Fheis reveals growing dissatisfaction and cracks within the dissident republican organisation
By Dieter Reinisch, University of Krems
When the delegates of the Republican Sinn Féin organisation meet for their Ard-Fheis in Dublin tomorrow (November 22nd), it will not be their last gathering. But one motion indicates that the oldest dissident organisation might call it a day in the not-too-distant future.
At the Teacher's Club on Parnell Square West, several dozen delegates will discuss several dozen motions on topics ranging from politics, organisational matters, the economy, and social issues to international affairs. As in the past years, there might be more motions than delegates.
It is a far cry from the organisation's height in the 1990s. When long-term leader Ruairí Ó Brádaigh passed the torch to Des Dalton in November 2009, over 200 delegates and visitors attended the two-day gathering in Wynn's Hotel, a historical place for Irish republicans where Cumann na mBan held its inaugural meeting on 2 April 1914. That 2009 Ard-Fheis attracted media from the Irish Times in Dublin to the Irish News in Belfast.
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From RTÉ Archives, Michael Ronayne reports for RTÉ News on the formation of Republican Sinn Féin by a breakaway group from Sinn Féin in 1986
But this year’s event, downsized from a two-day gathering in a Dublin inner city hotel to a half-day event in a small room, will pass almost unnoticed. Some within their organisation have recognised that their time has gone. One unusual motion on the agenda reads "That this Ard-Fheis calls on the incoming Ard Chomhairle to discuss the relevance of this organisation in modern Ireland and thereafter produce a working document on the way forward."
The motion indicates growing dissatisfaction among members of the organisation and reveal cracks within the dissident republican organisation. While this motion has been submitted by a local branch from Co Fermanagh, questioning the existence of the organisation is supported by the national leadership itself, as visible in the document obtained by the author.
While RSF is a fringe political organisation with a shrinking, ageing membership that plays no relevance in Irish political life, the motion sheds further light on the decline of dissident republicanism in recent years. RSF stands out among the numerous other dissident groups as the oldest. It was founded in 1986 by experienced former leaders of Sinn Féin and the IRA who disagreed with the dropping of abstentionism to the Dáil from the constitution of Sinn Féin,
RSF were the original dissidents, though this is a term rejected by the organisation. They would rather consider themselves as the true inheritors of the 1916 leaders. This notion was underlined by Tom Maguire, an IRA leader who served in the Second and last All-Ireland Dáil. He and six other members of the Second Dáil never recognised the partition of Ireland. The 17 December 1938 issue of the republican Wolfe Tone Weekly carried a statement from a body calling itself the Executive Council of the Second Dáil, transferring the governmental authority to the IRA Army Council.
When the republican movement split in 1969/70 and again in 1986, Maguire announced that the Provisional IRA, and later RSF, and the Continuity Army Council remain the bearers of the Second Dáil legitimacy. Later known as the Continuity IRA (CIRA), this Continuity Army Council claims to be the true inheritors of the 1916 rebels.
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From RTÉ Radio 1's Morning Ireland in 2013, Tim Pat Coogan on how republican history remember Ruairí Ó Brádaigh
The group was founded by the late Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, who served as president of Sinn Féin until 1983, when Gerry Adams ousted him. Ó Brádaigh became a TD in the 1950s, was elected for Sinn Féin on an abstentionist ticket, and served as IRA Chief of Staff for two periods.
Although later rejected by their members, it was Ó Brádaigh who introduced the term "dissidents". During the fierce internal debates of republicans surrounding the peace process, which led to the formation of the Real IRA (RIRA), he said that RSF and the CIRA "offered a home" to republican dissidents.
In the mid-1990s, CIRA was at its most active phase. For a while, it looked as if the ageing RSF/CIRA movement would be revived with younger militants and build a unified front in opposition to the Good Friday Agreement. The disastrous Omagh bombing in August 1998 brought these plans to an abrupt halt. The infiltration of both IRA and RIRA by US intelligence agent David Rupert created further irreparable damage.
READ: A guide to the many groups who've used the Sinn Féin name
Nonetheless, RSF/CIRA remained active and maintained its base in traditional republican circles in the southwest, along the border, and in Co. Galway, where RSF member Tomás Ó Curraoín became councillor. They maintained offices in Belfast and Dublin and published the monthly paper Saoirse. North Armagh was a stronghold in the 2000s and Constable Stephen Carroll was killed in a CIRA attack in Craigavon, the first PSNI officer to fall victim to militant republicanism.
The last confirmed CIRA attack dates back over six years, when they detonated a roadside bomb in Wattlebridge, Co Fermanagh in 2019, targeting a PSNI patrol they had lured into the area. Since then, CIRA merely made headlines with unconfirmed claims and hoaxes, again mainly in the Fermanagh/Cavan border area.
The handful of members involved in these activities in Fermanagh, Cavan, Armagh and Monaghan are thought to have split to form the small Éire Nua group. However, it's notable that this weekend's motion questioning the relevance of the movement comes from the area that has seen the last identifiable CIRA activity.
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From RTÉ Radio 1's Morning Ireland in 2016, former BBC security editor Brian Rowan on how UK terror threat level has been raised because of dissident activity
CIRA, once considered by the British intelligence service MI5 a significant threat to national security, is nowadays believed to have less than a dozen active members. According to one of their former Dublin members during a research interview a few years ago, "we don’t have more than ten members throughout the island who are willing to go out and do anything."
The decline of their political wing is similarly visible. Their Belfast office has not opened in years and Saoirse - which had a print circulation of 15,000 in the 2000s according to one of its editors-in-chief Lita Campbell - has ceased print publication.
As Sinn Féin’s Michelle O'Neill became First Minister in Belfast, and that party eye up potential government in Dublin, the days of the first dissidents - the ones who aimed to break the SF-dominance within republicanism, oppose the Good Friday Agreement and unite Ireland by force - seem to be over.
This weekend's Ard-Fheis will not be their last. A few ageing stalwarts will keep the name of the party, aiming to carry the torch of the Second All-Ireland Dáil to a new generation. Still, their relevance in Irish society and politics has long faded, and at least motion sponsors in the Canon Maguire Cumann know it. Other dissidents might follow suit.
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Dr Dieter Reinisch is an adjunct professor at the University of Krems and the Journalism Academy Austria. He is a former Research Ireland awardee
The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
