How sleveen politics took control of our new State
His selective nuggets lack context and give legs to lazy thinking that dismisses all politicians on the basis that one is as bad as the other.
This lies at the heart of the apathy that informs our political debate and is one of the reasons why it is difficult for enlightened politicians to engage with the electorate in a meaningful way.
The sleveenism that has infected Irish politics since the foundation of the State finds its roots in a single act of treachery which Mr Dwyer alludes to, without quite naming it as such.
In skirting around Eamon de Valera’s great betrayal of our nation in 1921, he sets the scene for further contortions. When de Valera finally came to power in 1932, he inherited a stable apparatus of state.
It was not always so. Ten years before handing over the reins, the pro-treaty government had to deal with meagre finances and tremendous pressures both from within and without. The economy was on its knees, the threat of assassination was ever present and the Civil War was tearing us apart.
The death of Michael Collins brought things to a head. It was time for true patriots to stand up and be counted. It was time to get this state up-and-running and kick off the stepping-stone stratagem that informed Collins’s acceptance of the treaty.
If this meant seeking financial and military assistance from Britain, then this was a price that had to be paid — and it was against this backdrop that WT Cosgrave “agreed” to pay the dreaded annuities.
The outgoing Cumann na nGaedheal government would not have been human if they were not appalled by de Valera’s ascension to power and the public re-emergence of the anti-treaty IRA whose ranks were now swollen by Johnny-come-latelies who would later receive military pensions for their troubles.
Sure, the dalliance with the “neo-fascist Blueshirts” and the use of back channels to the British were not Cumann na nGaedheal’s proudest moment, but it is stretching credibility to suggest the Economic War was a “parting contribution” of the party. The British were never going to accept de Valera’s annuities broadside lying down and when settlement finally came after a protracted period of economic stagnation, it had as much to do with a shift in Britain’s strategic interests as any great powers of persuasion by de Valera.
Jack Lynch’s handling of the Arms Crisis must be viewed in the context of his precarious hold on the Fianna Fáil leadership and the sizeable rump within his party that was gagging for bloodshed.
Lynch’s great act of betrayal, and one that Ryle Dwyer fails to mention, was his election manifesto of 1977 which sowed the seeds of economic fecklessness and a return to mass emigration.
Mr Dwyer’s comparison of the Brown/Coogan and Kennedy/Arnold phone taps does not stand up to scrutiny. The former involved contacts with an organisation that sought to undermine the State, while the latter involved the use of State personnel and equipment illegally to monitor internal party opposition.
No party has a monopoly on skullduggery, but some have sinned more than others.
Vincent Callanan
Castlewood Gardens
Carlow
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