Abstract
Robin Eames, Unfinished Search, Columba Press: Dublin, 2017; 224 pp., 9781782183204, €19.99 (hbk)
Martin McKeever C.Ss.R, One Man, One God: The Peace Ministry of Fr Alec Reid C.Ss.R, Redemptorist Communications: Dublin, 2017; 216 pp.; 9780992721626, €14.95 (hbk)
Malachi O’Doherty, Gerry Adams: An Unauthorised Life, Faber & Faber, Ltd: London, 2017; 368 pp.; 9780571315956, £14.99 (pbk)
Tony Blair’s 1997 soundbite comment about feeling the ‘hand of history’ on his shoulder endowed the Northern Ireland conflict and the negotiations, with media complicity, as being of global and historic significance. The perpetuation of this perception was confirmed by the attendance of global statesmen at the commemorative events held in 2018 to mark the twentieth anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, an arrangement that entrenched sectarianism into the province’s political fabric. The cessation of violence shifted the conflict to the cultural arena and the battle over the past began. It seems likely to outlast that fought with guns as the conflict and its aftermath continue to generate a plethora of projects and books from those personally involved at various levels, journalists who covered the conflict and academics from disciplines as diverse as gender and masculinities to religion and peace studies. The three books under review are representative of the trends. Malachi O’Doherty is a journalist who endured and reported on the Troubles; Robin Eames is a leading churchman who became involved in the peace process and its aftermath; and Martin McKeever is a Redemptorist professor of moral theology in Rome, born and raised in Belfast during the violence.
As the opposing sides continue their war on the cultural front, with pens seemingly replacing guns as the weapons of choice, the Nationalist narrative appears to have the advantage, not least owing to the authorial skills of Gerry Adams, a prolific as well as an accomplished writer whose books reach a wide audience. O’Doherty, an equally accomplished writer who chose, along with the vast majority of Northern Ireland people, not to pursue the path of violence, clearly seeks to debunk Adams’s chronicles and the mythical aura he believes has been built up around him. For O’Doherty the task of the Good Friday Agreement, however long and arduous, far from being a moment of historic portent, ‘was simply to establish devolved government in Northern Ireland and formally end the IRA and loyalist paramilitary campaigns’(235). A Belfast based writer and broadcaster who reported on the Troubles and the peace process, O’Doherty is still a regular commentator on Northern Ireland for a variety of newspapers and magazines. He writes with zest and purpose and plenty of telling observations as he guides the reader through the unauthorized life and times of Gerry Adams.
O’Doherty writes with a clear command of events, people and places. He effortlessly conveys his intimacy with the country and its conflict and it is clear he wants Adams and the IRA to be held accountable for all the pain and suffering to which they contributed. An inordinate amount of ink has been devoted to Adams, including by Adams himself. O’Doherty appears to have read everything written by the latter and a great deal written by others. O’Doherty reveals with an almost child-like glee the contradictions and inconsistencies, be they in the written or spoken word, that have emanated from the lips and pen of a man O’Doherty has to concede was crucial in delivering an end to the violence, becoming a consummate statesman: ‘one of the most successful politicians in the democratic world’ (325).
In his detailed dissection of Adams, sometimes O’Doherty is gently mocking, at other times he is cutting and edgy. Always there is a serious political point, even amidst the wit and humour. In parts O’Doherty can be laugh-out-loud funny. Yet nothing can conceal the cold, dark anger residing at the book’s core. O’Doherty details the family scandals residing in the figures of Adams’s paedophile father 1 and brother Liam, who sexually abused his own daughter. 2 He implicates Adams in the cover-up of the Maria Cahill rape case, which became the subject of an award-winning documentary and elicited an apology from the Director of Public Prosecutions. 3 Interestingly O’Doherty, a seasoned commentator on Irish Catholicism, likens the behaviour of Sinn Fein to the Catholic Church, especially in relation to sexual misconduct on the part of its members. O’Doherty is scathing in rejecting the notion he attributes to Adams of the IRA as a people’s army that represented the grievances of an oppressed community. He challenges as a self-serving construct the depiction of the community in which he was raised as coherent and principled, even noble in its resistance to the brutality of British state forces, loyalist paramilitaries and criminal gangs. Rejecting the assumption that the people either knew or trusted the IRA, O’Doherty seeks to show how rather than defending the community, the IRA controlled, deceived and damaged it, wilfully sacrificing the lives of its young men. To achieve this end, O’Doherty examines a range of dubious IRA operations, from the well-known, such as the disappearance of Jean McConville, to the lesser known, and those for which the IRA has not acknowledged responsibility. 4
Most telling is the forensic treatment accorded to Adams’s denial of IRA membership, to which O’Doherty constantly returns throughout the book, unfortunately to the point of tedium. Given O’Doherty’s deft use of humour, he might have been better advised to emulate the nudge-nudge-wink-wink approach of the popular Northern Ireland comedy show the Blame Game, which satirically lampoons what no-one believes but most accept as a necessary conceit. Necessary because it facilitated a means by which Adams could deliver an IRA commitment to ending its campaign of violence to remove the British by force. The real value of O’Doherty’s searing analysis is not what it tells us about Adams, most of which is already in the public domain, but what it reveals about a struggle within himself, one reflected elsewhere in the nationalist community, with the dominant Republican narrative. The portrayal of the IRA as the defenders of the Catholic community against violence and discrimination is not without merit, but many share O’Doherty’s reservations about the means and the awful atrocities with which their community became associated. The dilemma that O’Doherty articulates is that of being unable to forget or forgive the atrocities or the association, compounded by the perpetrators becoming hailed as peace-makers. O’Doherty articulates the deep-seated resentment in sections of the community at the apparent benefits and plaudits bestowed on those they hold responsible for the destruction and mayhem and their persistence in justifying a campaign that ruined so many lives and silenced so many voices.
Seamus Heaney’s 1975 poem ‘Whatever You Say, Say Nothing’, 5 immortalized the ‘strange silences among those who lived in Northern Ireland during the Troubles’. 6 Albeit today the silences of the Troubles have seemingly been replaced by a war of words in the struggle to dominate the narrative of the past, researchers continue to focus on the key players, and former combatants in particular. In addition to giving streams of interviews, numerous former combatants have been incorporated into well-funded ‘peace initiatives’, whilst others are employed in ‘conflict tourism’. The views of those involved in post-conflict criminality, those dependent on prescription medication, alcohol or illicit drugs, are seldom sought. Nor are those of the vast majority of the population who struggled to survive and provide a modicum of normality for themselves and their families, adhering above all to a value system that transcended violence and offered alternative visions for the future. O’Doherty is one of the latter and therein resides the true significance not simply of his analysis, but of the emotions and responses that he represents. He voices what many ordinary people from both communities in Northern Ireland feel as they struggle to come to terms with the pain of the past and the negative nature of the present dispensation.
The significance of the Robin Eames book is not simply that it brings to the narrative the perspectives and recollections of a well-connected and respected leading churchman, but that it reveals how the pain and trauma of the conflict afflicted and remains with those at the top as well as those at the bottom. Eames was born in Northern Ireland. His father was a Methodist minister. Ordained in 1963, he first studied law before doing a theology degree. He was appointed Bishop of Derry and Raphoe in 1975 and translated as Bishop of Down and Dromore in 1980. He was elected Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland in 1986. An influential voice within the Anglican Communion, he held important positions of leadership during the conflict and the peace process. The book is not an autobiography. Eames’s life and work has already been well documented, as he acknowledges, by Alf McCreary. 7 The book is rather a reflection on the Troubles, an attempt to come to terms with memories that he admits still have the power to overwhelm him.
Eames enjoys all the trappings of success in both his career and personal life, yet his remains a soul still haunted by the Troubles. Throughout the book, Eames returns to the same series of questions, repeatedly asking if, in essence, the churches might have done more. Whilst Eames was a latecomer to the peace process compared to Alec Reid, his was still a vital contribution to peace-building and maintenance. Eames is candid in discussing his attitudes to the unfolding conflict. A factor in his decision-making was undoubtedly his conviction that Northern Ireland was from top to bottom infected by a deeply rooted, ubiquitous sectarian disease (240). For Eames, Northern Ireland’s naked sectarianism had been ingrained over generations and would require generations more to erase. Interestingly, his view differs from that of some religious embedded in working-class communities. From their perspective, bad governance caused the divisions. 8
Eames readily recognizes the contradictory role played by the Christian churches. Among the many penetrating questions he raises, Eames crucially asks: ‘How far was religion itself a cause of the divisions in society and how far was the Church an active participant in keeping the divisions alive and well?’ (29). He frankly concedes and seeks to explain the reasons why the tendency was ‘to identify with victimhood within one community and that community was one’s own’ (66). He fully acknowledges that there ‘were figures who had a political religious identity which in its turn pushed forward the tribal sectarian identity which continued to be a feature of Northern Ireland life’ (137). His is less an attempt to mitigate than to recognize and render explicable the judgement of Methodist minister Sam Burch, who lived and worked on the Shankill Road. Burch observed: ‘In the early days, through the seventies and early eighties, the churches seemed impotent because we had allowed ourselves to become trapped in the political situation, being virtually tribal churches with tribal chaplains’. 9 In 1988, over 200 men and women from across the evangelical Christian denominations acknowledged that they reflected societal divisions and as part of the disease were unable to be part of ‘the cure’. To become part of the latter, they agreed and highlighted 10 principles intended to contribute ‘to biblical thinking and action in Northern Ireland’. 10 Most importantly, it was an evangelical recognition of their ‘share of the blame’, essential if they were to be part of an effective solution.
As with most religious in leadership positions, Eames consistently condemned paramilitary violence. In August 1994, he was approached by the Reverend Roy Magee for help in the discussions he had been holding with Loyalist paramilitaries. Eames was wary of being drawn into the conflict and being used by those he considered terrorists. With the IRA on ceasefire, he would only agree to talk with leaders who held the power to deliver a Loyalist ceasefire. During his meeting with loyalist paramilitaries, Eames invoked God and asked for a public acknowledgement of regret. He subsequently approached Prime Minister John Major for the assurances sought by Loyalists to enter the peace process. The outcome, on 13 October 1994, was a ceasefire by the Combined Loyalist Military Command accompanied by an expression of unequivocal regret for the distress caused by their actions. At a critical point, Eames engaged with the peace process and the risks it entailed. His account avoids the often confusing and ego-driven recollections of other key figures, offering a straightforward essentialist approach that provides profound insights into the challenges for those seeking a Christian course through a conflict in which Christians of one persuasion were killing those of another.
Primarily regarded as an ethno-nationalist conflict that could be explained by political and economic factors, religion was not regarded as causal. Nonetheless, during the ‘Troubles’, as the conflict was euphemistically termed, Northern Ireland’s churches were institutions with power and influence at all levels of society, at home and abroad, including amongst the secular. In the working-class and impoverished areas that bore the brunt of the conflict, Catholicism and Protestantism were cultural determinants in terms of identity and sense of belonging. More than simply a marker of national identity, for many their religion was also their political identity. Differentiating between the political and religious spheres was problematic in a state whose discernible hostility toward the Catholic Church was reflected in the denial of equality for its Catholic citizens. In addition to which, of course, there was clerical intervention in the political realm on both sides, most famously in the figure of the Reverend Ian Paisley, whose rhetoric embedded fear of the papacy and Rome into the Protestant-Unionist imagination. The combatants on both sides waged war in the name of their respective religious communities, regardless of institutional Protestantism and Catholicism condemning the murderous violence that scarred the small state for nearly thirty years.
In Martin McKeever’s book on the peace ministry of Fr Alec Reid, fellow redemptorist Dan Bargary expresses understanding of those who attribute blame to religion. He insists, however, that ‘if it wasn’t for religion and faith we wouldn’t have had a peace process’. Whilst the institutional churches have been criticized for insufficient engagement during the Troubles, it is widely recognized that individual church people made significant contributions to the peace process, often at great personal risk, including providing the space for the secret and back-channel talks that facilitated a way forward. Reid’s peace ministry was necessarily shrouded in secrecy, but his role was critical. In the autobiographical Hope and History: Making Peace in Ireland, Gerry Adams devotes a full chapter to ‘The Sagart’, the Irish word for priest by which Reid came to be called. 11 Reid’s peace ministry began shortly after the Troubles started in 1969. It was a ministry that took a terrible toll on his physical and mental health as he worked unrelentingly behind the scenes to shift the conflict out of the community and onto the conference table. Adams is a contributor to the book and makes clear his affection and admiration for Reid, also his conviction that Reid played a vital role in facilitating the peace process. O’Doherty recognizes that Adams was a practising Catholic. He does not dwell on his relationship with Reid beyond noting that he was Adams’s emissary to the Irish government at the start of the peace process. He cites without comment Reid’s observation that he saw ‘Gerry Adams as a man sent by God. In other words, he was part of God’s providence for peace in Ireland’ (329). McKeever says precisely the same of Reid. He was sent by God.
McKeever draws on some of the vast ‘Alec Reid Archive’ organized by the Redemptorist order, never before available publicly. McKeever sets out to reconstruct his story drawing on extensive recorded interviews with Reid, original documents, existing literature on the peace process and interviews with other key figures. The book is divided into four sections. The first part is a historical essay that draws on archival and oral records. The second and third parts are contributions by key people who knew Reid from both the religious and political communities, and include, as well as Adams, Mary McAleese, who gave one of the funeral orations. The fourth part contains almost a hundred pages of documentation providing deep insights into the tireless efforts Reid committed to cultivating the dialogue he believed essential to resolving the conflict, despite the many set-backs and disappointments.
Reid, born in Dublin and raised in Tipperary, joined the Redemptorists as a young adult. The order is committed to serving ‘the poorest and most abandoned, those living on the margins’ (3). In the early 1960s he was appointed to the Redemptorist Community at Clonard Monastery, deeply rooted in west Belfast for over 100 years. Reid’s discretion meant he was unknown to the wider world until March 1988 when a photograph of him kneeling over the dead bodies of the two British corporals he had tried to save was published by newspapers around the world. 12 Ironically, under his arm he was carrying a Sinn Fein paper for the SDLP as part of the task he had assigned himself of bringing the two political parties together in the search for an alternative strategy to that of violence. 13 Reid was instrumental in opening up contact between Adams and John Hume in 1986, after which he focused on building links between them and the Dublin Government. His efforts, and those of other religious, were undoubtedly critical to building the foundations for the peace process. Yet no religious figures were invited to participate in the Good Friday Agreement. Notably, however, when the political settlement was stymied over decommissioning, resolution was brought about by deploying Reid, accompanied by the Methodist minister Harold Good.
Where there is poverty, deprivation, genocidal wars, all manner of human suffering and horror, there you will find the religious involved in myriad tasks at all levels, committed to political and social peace processes. As well as being involved with what has been termed the ‘negative peace’ of ending violence, the religious are often party to ‘positive peace’, the wider principles of justice, equality, fairness, social re-distribution – factors that directly contribute to social healing. The Northern Ireland peace process was once held up as a model to the world. The current impasse in the region’s politics and the cultural conflicts that replaced the violence have inevitably tarnished it. All three books implicitly challenge assumptions about the peace process and its implementation and suggest that there were alternative visions and aspirations for a new and better society that were not given full voice or consideration. With the political settlement presently looking moribund and visionless, all three books remind us that there are other sectors of society, other voices, whose views and ideas need to be brought forward to effect more creative and meaningful alternatives than have been on offer for the last two decades. They can help guide Northern Ireland towards a brighter future and most certainly a better means of dealing with the ubiquitous and haunting legacy of the past.