Tonight The Pensive Quill features the speech by Jim McAllister at the recent Louth commemoration for Brendan Hughes.
There is an appropriateness about commemorating Brendan in these hills and that goes beyond his family connection and the place of his ashes although those are very important reasons. This is an area steeped in the lore of the Gaels and before them, indeed, and these hills from Slieve Fuaid between Newtonhamilton and Armagh to Slieve Gullion through to these Cooley Mountains are embedded in the stories and legends of na Fianna and the Craobh Ruadh and their warrior heroes like Fionn and Cuchullain; good reasons to commemorate a man like Brendan here. These hills also focus in the history of the IRA down the years and in revolutionary forces before the IRA existed. And here, in the Bearna Gaoithe, the Windy Gap, we can think of Brendan who so often stood in Bearna Baoil, the gap of danger.
There is a wealth of history here, ancient and modern. The Long Woman’s grave is an apt place to start because their are parallels in her story and Brendan’s story in that a sense of betrayal runs through both. Brendan in his time was, and still is, a hero figure to many although such a thing would never have been on his mind nor of any importance to him. Heroes arise from the conditions they find themselves in and their responses to those conditions.
Brendan saw the conditions the people of Belfast lived in and his life as a seaman, as was well explained recently in Conway Mill, gave him a window on the wider world where he found plenty of poverty, discrimination and misery too. His family upbringing, his experiences at home and abroad allied to his honesty meant that he was bound to be a republican and his very nature meant that he was bound to be a hell of a good one. It is important to most of us that Brendan was a republican in the truest sense of the word and that he believed in building an Ireland that would be of benefit to all including those at the bottom of the pile, indeed, especially those at the bottom of the pile. Power for power’s sake, winning elections for the sake of those fighting them, helping to administer partition, these were not his goals.
We know about his friendship with Mr Adams and how he felt about the U-turns he, Adams, took and led a once proud Republican Movement through. We know that this can only be described as betrayal of Brendan both as a friend, a comrade and as a Republican just as it is a betrayal of all who thought the whole thing was about getting rid of Stormont and any vestige of British rule to enable the creation of an all Ireland republic, democratic and with socialist intent.
Adams used to describe the republican struggle as like a journey, a ‘bus ride to Cork’ and would explain how there would be stops, reverses and sideways movements and how people would come a part of the way while others would come the whole journey. If Brendan was alive he’d likely say ‘Gerry, your bus is banjaxed, it’s stopped where it wasn’t supposed to go.' Gerry is not on that bus to Cork now, but he’s on the pig’s back while many of those who followed him are on the dole.
Gerry and his pals have their holiday homes while unemployment in West Belfast is as bad as the first day he got elected. I saw a South Armagh councillor in the local papers recently congratulating parents for raising money to buy an interactive white board for their children’s school. And that councillor never paused to remember that the current and previous two education ministers are, and were, from his bloody party and ask why aren’t they providing the interactive boards?
The Long Woman, I’m sure you know the story was betrayed by a faithless man, brought here under false pretences and lies, and died of a broken heart. We know from what Brendan has said that the lies and scheming of men like Adams, when it became clear, were a terrible burden for him who had faithfully trusted what he thought were republican leaders. Cuchullain, so well associated with these hills, fought a battle with his best friend, Ferdiad, who had left Ulster to fight for Queen Maeve. He said he didn’t want to fight him, not through fear but because he loved him as his friend and foster brother and a man he had trained alongside and fought alongside before. Fight he had to, though, another betrayal of friendship and comradeship. The moral of these tales is similar to Brendan’s story, a faithful man abandoned and betrayed.
Where goes the Republic Brendan believed in now? I believe it is in a parlous state and we need to look anew at where we are going, what we seek to find there and how to get there, just don’t mention a bus to Cork. We need new thinking, fresh approaches. We need to be willing to confront nationalism and show it up as hollow and empty. And I mean the nationalism of Sinn Fein, the nationalism they stole from the SDLP and managed to even dilute as they exchanged their republicanism for it. The fact that they have resorted to rows in council chambers recently shows an attempt to distract the public from the party’s failure. A republic of itself is no guarantee of anything so we need the republic Connolly believed in which I am sure is the same one Brendan believed in.
The Irish Republic has yet to be achieved and in the 26 counties people now speak routinely of Ireland in 26 counties terms only. Republicanism is very weak and must be resurrected and I mean the best kind of Republicanism, the kind that Brendan Hughes believed in , the kind that puts the people before Politician, President, Prime Minister, Pope, Priest, Pastor or Profit.
The answers lie within ourselves and others like us who still hold the vision that Brendan Hughes, The Dark, held.
