The Cedar Lounge Revolution

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Just a quick word to note the sad - and shocking - passing of Padraig of Politics.ie, which I only heard about this afternoon. A Sinn Féin member and a moderator on P.ie he was a very courteous and pleasant comrade whose passing will be sorely missed both there and more broadly. For myself I can only point to the way he was more than willing in both a friendly and professional way assist in my getting to grips with posting, and the intricacies of the board. He was a genuine - and entirely open - resource as regards the debates of the 1980s in Sinn Féin. A thread on P.ie gives some measure of the man and how highly regarded he was across the political spectrum.

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The death of Ivan Barr brought to a close a journey and a life, that should be of more than passing interest to those interested in these pages. A man who was accorded an obituary in both An Phoblacht and the Irish Times (sub req’d) clearly ticked a broad range of boxes. And indeed reading the obituaries is quite fascinating because Barr made quite a journey in political terms.

Consider this from An Phoblacht…

UPWARDS on 2,000 people attended the funeral of veteran Sinn Féin Councillor Ivan Barr in Strabane on Monday, 12 May.
The national flag and the Starry Plough draped the coffin bearing Ivan Barr’s remains as they left the family home at Bridge Street just after 9am.
The cortege, led by a lone piper and flanked by council colleagues, began the journey as family members carried the coffin along Bridge Street before Sinn Féin pallbearers, including the local MP, Pat Doherty, Martin McGuinness MP and local party councillors carried it on to the junction of Melmount Road.

Ivan’s lifelong friend and comrade, Liam McElhinney, to deliver the oration…He recounted their early days growing up together in the Foot of the Town and told how life changed for both of them forever in 1968 when Ivan, as chairperson of the local Civil Rights Association, and Liam as Secretary, launched themselves into organising an endless series of activities such as protests, marches, and ballots before Ivan went on to become Six-County chairperson of the Civil Rights Association.
He said at the time both were also members of the Republican Movement and it was the understanding that without national sovereignty there could be no true social justice. It was the organisational seeds sown in those early years which have been the foundations of the political strength of Sinn Féin today, he said.

But which Republican movement? For note:

Liam said that, despite travelling different paths for a time, they remained constant friends and that when the 1981 Hunger Strikes came Ivan could not accept any party that would not stand up for the just demands of the Hunger Strikers and once again brought his massive energy and unique skills to the benefit the Republican Movement.

Different paths is a delicate way of putting it, for as the Irish Times notes under the heading “Traditional socialist influenced by writings of James Connolly”:

A Sinn Féin member of Strabane Council and an Official IRA member in the early 1970s, it was a measure of the even-handedness and wide appeal of Ivan Barr that republicans, nationalists and unionists mingled at his funeral in Strabane last Monday.

Barr was ‘active in the civil rights movements in the late 1960s, for a period chairing NICRA before his internment on the Maidstone prison ship in 1971′.

And remarkably:

‘In the Provision-Official split he sided with the Goulding official wing of republicanism. ‘He was more of an ideological socialist than an emotional republican whose main interest was in improving the lot of the working class’…

Nor was this just an affiliation forged in the crucible of 1969-72.

‘When he was released he was involved with what ultimately transmuted into the WP. In the mid- to late 1970s he became disillusioned with politics…’ in no small part due to a family tragedy.

But then:

…in 1980 and 1981 he was galvanised to engage in the hunger strike protests of that period. He switched to Provisional Sinn Féin and was elected to Strabane Council with friends Charlie McHugh and Tommy McNamee in 1985.

No greater testament to the political power of the hunger-strikes could be found, and the manner in which they ultimately shaped the succeeding period.

His view of the peace process was positive but ‘had a somewhat jaundiced view about what he viewed as ersatz opportunistic republicans jumping on the SF bandwagon. While loyal to the party he was never shy of criticising the leadership. He surprised some by his willingness to join the local district policing partnership to help seal SF support for policing in Strabane.

And the tributes? On BBC we read…

Strabane SDLP councillor Eugene McMenamin described Mr Barr as “a true socialist”.

“Although our parties had different views, I can honestly say it was an honour to have worked with, and have known, a genuine man. Ivan Barr will be sadly missed,” he said.

Bernie Mullen in the Derry Journal wrote:

While not everyone may have agreed with his politics over the years, Ivan Barr brought people together and has left a legacy for his family and his party to be proud of.

From a personal point of view, it was a privilege to have known him and work with him for more than 20 years.

Ivan has finally passed on the torch to his colleagues. A giant of a local politician has sadly gone and those left behind can only stand in his shadow.

There’s an unusually (for a commemorative thread) respectful thread on P.ie. Certainly Barr seems to have been a most impressive figure, and I like the reference by Mullen to ‘…not everyone may have agreed with his politics over the years’. His journey from Official Republicanism to Provisional Republicanism was - in truth - replicated by few enough and perhaps made him seem for some almost doubly apostate. But he was clearly someone who cleaved to his own path, as the obituaries note:

While chairman of Strabane District Council in 2001, he was central to a political storm after shaking hands with DUP colleague Thomas Kerrigan.

And that straw in the wind is reinforced by Mullen’s assessment that:

There is no doubt that Ivan Barr laid the foundations on which Sinn Fein’s well-oiled machine would be built at grassroots level.

No doubt his experience in a different branch of the RM was helpful there.

Anyone else around had dealings with, or know more about, someone who seems quite admirable in many ways? Or indeed what of other OSF or WP members who took that route?

Meanwhile, a quick word on an article in An Phoblacht from the 24th April which I’d meant to get around to. In the Media View column Frank Farrell had some interesting points about the lionising of former President Patrick Hillery. He noted that the Irish Times had praised Hillery for ‘his support for Jack Lynch in the period following 1969 and the Arms Trial…’. Farrell takes a perhaps overly harsh line on this particular view of the period, but his critique contains some degree of truth. I find it very interesting that retrospective views seek to paint those events as somehow critical to the stability of the Republic of Ireland, and to paint those who took a dissenting voice, and here I’m thinking in particular of Kevin Boland, as somehow beyond the pale. The analysis of those dissenters (if that term is even appropriate in this context) may have been wrong, and their actions more so. But the way in which they have become a convenient political whipping boy, hauled out time and again to demonstrate some purported failing on the part of the Irish polity (and by extension the electorate) has been one of the most destructive ‘myths’ put about and supported from some curious ideological standpoints. More on that some other time.