Interview
Senator Martin Mansergh

Fianna Fail Senator Mansergh who has acted as advisor to three Taoisgh, speaks to The Other View about republicanism in Ireland

The Other View: How would you define republicanism in Ireland?

Senator Mansergh: I would define republicanism as an egalitarian form of democracy and a universal political philosophy. By universal I mean that it is to be found everywhere rather than something that be can be found in every country of the world. Republicanism in Ireland is most influenced by French, American and maybe to a degree by Italian republicanism. And although we don’t readily acknowledge it, we are also influenced by seventeenth century English republicanism. We are not appreciative of Cromwell but one must acknowledge the influence of the Levellers.

Obviously Irish republicanism may take a different form from say, French republicanism. After the Good Friday Agreement, for example, an Honourary Consul in France (also an Irish historian) Dr Pierre Joannon wrote to me about the agreement and said that “the republic one and indivisible it certainly isn’t”. In other words, he was drawing a distinction between that and what is now sometimes called communitarianism where you recognise two traditions, two communities. That is different from the concept prevalent in the 1790’s where the United Irishmen sought to abolish the distinction between Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter and substitute the common name of Irishmen. Republicanism at the end of the twentieth century is arguably rather different from what it was in the 1790’s.

The Other View: Does republicanism still have any significant relevance in the Republic of Ireland when apparently all major parties and their supporters operate a republican form of government?

Senator Mansergh
Republicanism has two dimensions. It is, speaking from a southern perspective, a philosophy that underlies the southern state since its foundation but it is also obviously a philosophy that embraces the island as a whole. While the two should run together, they don’t always. I’ve been at one or two republican commemorations, (Old IRA commemorations, that is) in the south where there hasn’t been a mention in the oration of the north from beginning to end - only what happened here seventy or eighty years ago and I suspect that a lot of northern republicans somewhat underestimate this factor.

You are correct in saying that most mainstream parties in the south would describe themselves as such. For example, the Progressive Democrats describe themselves as republican and Des O’Malley speaks about The Republic. On the other hand there are different tendencies within Fine Gael. The Redmondite strain within that party would be less happy to describe themselves as republican. Fine Gael divides into those who are happy to be and speak at Beal na mBlath and those who aren’t. Fianna Fail would describe itself as the republican party and would see itself being in the centre of republican tradition from 1916, a point that is sometimes missed both by northern republicans but also, by revisionists in the south, deliberately so, in my opinion.

My view would be that most of the energy within the republicanism of the 1916-23 period went sooner or later into the state. (I accept that a small part of it went into continuing with Sinn Fein and the IRA). I suppose that Fianna Fail to this day would identify much more, and without apology, with that strain which went into the making of the state and the Constitution of 1937.
It is also fair to say that the independent state we have today consists of several streams coming together. The 1916/23 period got over the biggest hurdle and we had something like an independent state, even if the British didn’t fully recognise it as such in 1922. However, I think that most people would recognise today that people like Daniel O’Connell and Charles Stewart Parnell and the Young Ireland Movement made their contribution. De Valera, and indeed the whole Gaelic league acknowledged a debt to Thomas Davis - perhaps slightly selectively read.

The Other View: How do you see Daniel O’Connell fitting into this sequence?

Senator Mansergh:
It depends on what you see as being the essence. Self-government was the common denominator between them. Obviously, the struggle for Catholic emancipation was a very big achievement and if you like, it took the process to the next point on the agenda which was called Repeal in O’Connell’s generation. He was, too, the first leader of a people that had almost been hidden from view in public life throughout the eighteenth century. I am not suggesting that O’Connell was a republican and he certainly wouldn’t have regarded himself as such. Nevertheless, the present Taoiseach is a great admirer of Pearse but is equally an admirer of O’Connell and he wouldn’t necessarily see any particular incompatibility about holding these views together.

The Other view: Some republics describe themselves as socialist, democratic, Islamic etc. How would you define the Republic of Ireland?

Senator Mansergh:
I would prefer just to say republic. Of course if you go back to the 1916 proclamation - I think even from memory the 1919 declaration of independence - it would have been qualified by the word Irish - the Irish Republic. Today the Irish Republic has unfortunately a rather BBC twang about it (because they do not wish to use the internationally recognised name of the state, which is Ireland), so I would tend to leave the word republic unqualified.
I toyed with the idea of pluralist, but that wouldn’t be in the same category as democratic or socialist. Michael O’Leary of Ryanair might think we live in a socialist republic but a lot of what was best in socialism has been absorbed into modern social democracy which in our case influenced social partnership and in this regard I consider that we are well ahead of Britain.

The Other View: Republicanism in Ireland has always contained a very significant socio-economic content. Might this cause radical or even revolutionary republicanism to survive the resolution of the national question?

Senator Mansergh:
Republicans have always had a national democratic agenda and a social agenda. Our second leader (i.e. second leader of Fianna Fail. Ed.) in particular, Sean Lemass was very strong on the social agenda of republicanism. That was about getting rid of the destitution that had existed in the early part of the twentieth century, when Dublin had nearly the highest infant mortality rate in Europe. He saw the task of republicanism as getting rid of the appalling social conditions, deprivation and backwardness that existed before independence. There continues to be a radical edge to republicanism although I wouldn’t subscribe to the word revolutionary because I wouldn’t be a believer in revolutionary socialism. Certainly the radical edge of republicanism is the reason why it, rather than socialism, is the dominant philosophy in Ireland. It incorporates a lot of what is best within socialism but doesn’t necessarily have some of the ideological connotations of certain types of socialism - the fixation with state ownership of everything important for example.

The Other View: What can Irish republicanism offer northern unionists?

Senator Mansergh:
Historically Presbyterianism has a republican form of church government, as opposed to Catholicism which I suppose again historically would have been modelled on absolute monarchy. I am not saying that this is exactly the situation today. I am talking historically.
Nevertheless, the present unionist/nationalist divide has existed in broadly its current form since about 1886, but it may now be in the process of changing in front of a horizon that has the possibilities of a much more constructive engagement. In the case of northern Protestants, they identify republicanism very strongly with the form of republicanism they encounter in the north. Obviously in the aftermath of a bitter conflict that has left a lot of victims in the protestant community (but obviously in all communities) there is a considerable legacy of distrust. There may be an amount of casual discussion about republicanism and a united Ireland among some within the northern protestant community, but I think that at the moment, and for some time to come, they probably will want to stick to what they know best.

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