Double act on high wire that paved the way - The IRA's decommissioning is a testament to the skilled leadership of Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness
From The Irish Times - 24th October 2001
By Niall O'Dowd
McGuinness, too, carries an almost mythic stature within the movement and played a huge role in keeping it united after the "Real IRA" defections. Together, the two constitute a formidable team. To the outside world, the internal debate could often become an incredibly tedious process, as the endless wrangling over decommissioning indicated. But the consequences of a premature move were obvious to the Sinn Féin leadership, who knew that many lives, including their own, were on the line, as well as the ideas they were pushing.
They were also hampered by the sheer scale of what they were attempting. Prior to 1994 the party was isolated and they had only to deal with their own internal politics. After the IRA ceasefire they suddenly had to negotiate with other parties in Northern Ireland, the Irish, British and US governments and the parties in the Republic as well as to fight elections in two jurisdictions.
During this period it was common to witness senior Sinn Féin figures, haggard from exhaustion, gear up for yet another key peace process meeting. They have never got it wrong. While the outside world watched Sinn Féin in leaders entering the White House or 10 Downing Street the leadership was keeping a weather eye on how such developments were playing back home and constantly reassuring their base that the project was moving ahead.
At times it was an incredible high-wire act, none more so than after the breakdown of the first IRA ceasefire in 1996, when a group of deeply suspicious and angry militants threatened to blow the peace process apart. Winning back that ceasefire may well count as the greatest achievement of the Sinn Féin leadership.
Now once again they have transformed the landscape of Northern Ireland. They have finally chosen the fork in the road. How far they can now go down it remains to be seen.
Fianna Fáil for many years revelled in its status of being a "slightly constitutional" party after the end of the Civil War, and Fine Gael had its own dalliance with extra-constitutional activity when it had ties to the Blueshirts. Sinn Féin in may well in time look back on this period as one of necessary but painful transition.
There are still key questions to be answered, of course, most important of which is how quickly the governments and the Ulster Unionists will respond to this historic gesture. But there is no question now that a Rubicon has been crossed and that this generation of leaders now has an unprecedented opportunity to bring about a peace on the island of Ireland which has been lacking since the Northern state was established. The Sinn Féin leadership has made a truly extraordinary contribution to that idealNiall O'Dowd is editor of the Irish Voice newspaper of New York |
