The phrase “living in a parallel universe” is often used to describe the mind-set of people who inhabit a different moral space from most people and have created their own moral and factual order. This week it has been used about Gerry Adams as he wriggles and twists in an attempt to reconcile his membership of the elected parliament of a modern Irish democracy, on the one hand, and his central role in the IRA, on the other hand.
Living, as we all apparently do now, in a “post-factual” world, Adams is entitled to be regarded as a pioneer explorer of that new order; he saw the light many years ago. Like Trump, he understands that truth is less important than gut feeling.
He was, he claims, never a member of the IRA. Well, you know, that might just be true. Why? Because there is no such thing as “membership” of the IRA, as IRA members see things.
People who join the IRA become “volunteers” or Óglaigh – not “members”. And volunteers can rise to high rank within the IRA but they never cease to be “volunteers”.
“Membership of the IRA” only exists in the criminal law books of the oppressor states – the Offences Against the State Act, 1939, and so on.
So, you see, he is right – and you are wrong. Silly you! You only imagine that you remember him donning the black beret at funerals. Or if you find a photo of a beret-clad, youthful Adams, why can’t you accept that it was just a youthful fashion statement. All his Provo colleagues who remember him acting as OC of the Belfast IRA are “getting on” and no longer reliable.
The Stack family were told that an IRA volunteer shot their father without IRA sanction. They were told by the IRA that it was done in the context of a “brutal” prison regime in Port Laois jail. That was to provide the Stacks with a little “moral context”. They were assured that the volunteer was “disciplined” – whatever that meant, it didn’t mean killed.
How do the IRA know that the shooting was unauthorised? Well, we must assume they carried out an inquiry among their members – oops! – their volunteers. The inquiry must have happened fairly recently because they spent decades denying any involvement in the murder. So a relatively recent inquiry led to a relatively recent imposition of “discipline”.
Who has been in charge of the disciplinary arm of the IRA in recent years? We don’t know. But the disciplinary measure can’t have been physical because the IRA have forsworn violence.
If you are confused by all of this, don’t trouble your little head. It’s all history now! Part of a dark and troubled past! The “peace process” means that we have all moved on, doesn’t it?
Well, not quite. You see certain crimes committed against nationalist and republican people still need to be investigated. And Sinn Féin are constantly campaigning for this. And for a Truth Commission. Those crimes are in a different category. They were committed by the State. IRA crimes are not really state crimes.
Why not? Because the IRA, by definition, never committed a crime. Why is that, you ask?
Again, you are simply not thinking straight! The Army Council of the IRA is – and has been for decades – the “legitimate government of the Irish Republic”.
How do we know that? Because in 1938, a group of seven people conferred that status on the Army Council. It was all official and done in writing!
What power had those seven aging people to transfer the powers of the Republic to the Army Council?
It’s so obvious that I need hardly tell you. But let me spell it out for the slow-learners among you.
The seven signatories of the 1938 hand-over document, you see, were all members of the 2nd Dáil elected in 1921. They may all have contested a number of later Dáil elections up to 1927 and then lost their seats. But that doesn’t matter; they, as a tiny fraction of the 2nd Dáil, somehow kept their Jedi status for another 18 years as holders of the legitimate power of the 1916 Republic – long after the 2nd Dáil’s term had expired and long after they had been rejected at the polls.
If you find this confusing or dubious or ridiculous, that’s your problem.
Every volunteer takes an oath of belief in this magical chain of legitimacy. They swear allegiance to the IRA and its Army Council as the legitimate government of the Irish Republic precisely because of that little ceremony in 1938.
On enlistment as volunteers, they are given the IRA’s Green Book which sets all of this out for them like a catechism. Look it all up on Google, if you doubt me. It says:
“The moral position of the Irish Republican Army, its right to engage in warfare, is based on:
- The right to resist foreign aggression,
- The right to revolt against tyranny and oppression,
- The direct lineal succession with the Provisional Government of 1916, the first Dáil of 1919, and the second Dáil of 1921.
In 1938, the seven surviving faithful Republican Deputies delegated executive powers to the Army Council of the IRA, as per the 1921 resolution. In 1969, the sole surviving, Deputy Joseph Clarke, reaffirmed publicly that the then Provisional Army Council were the inheritors of the first and second Dáil as a Provisional Government”.
These are the core beliefs of Adams, McGuinness, Ellis and Ferris and all the other Provos– to this day. Their Army Council is “the legal and lawful government of the Irish Republic”.
So “authorised” operations involving murder, torture, robbery, mutilations, and bombings cannot be crimes. They are legitimate acts of our “legitimate government”. If only we had known!
Therefore, the murder of Brian Stack falls to be judged by one criterion alone – was it properly authorised by the inheritors of the powers of the 2nd Dáil?
And the Stack family must be hugely re-assured that their father’s death – unlike Jerry McCabe’s and so many other Gardaí – was “unauthorised” by the true Government of the Irish Republic and can therefore be described not merely as ”wrong” – but also, maybe just, as a crime.
This is the parallel universe in which Gerry lives. Those of us who have been slightly taken aback by his radio description of naked work-outs on the trampoline with his dog and by the slightly wacky tweets he sends at bed-time, can take some comfort in knowing that his parallel universe is all legally and constitutionally above board.
Could Disney yet film another Star Wars episode in which Artoo Deetoo rather than Deputy Joe Clarke hands over the secret powers of the Republic to do battle with the Empire to Gerry Adams on the trampoline high up on Skellig Michael? The mind boggles.