The recent interception by gardaí of a powerful bomb allegedly intended to cause death and destruction in Northern Ireland was a salutary reminder that the offshoots of the IRA have still not gone away.
It was truly disheartening that the latest alleged bomb plot came just days after the 50th anniversary of the murder of the British ambassador to Ireland, Christopher Ewart-Biggs, whose car was blown up by an IRA bomb just outside his residence on what was then a quiet country road in south county Dublin.
At a commemorative ceremony at the residence in Glencairn hosted by the current Ambassador, Kara Owen, Kate Ewart-Biggs recalled that day, when she was just eight years old. Her father had only been in the post for less than two weeks and was scheduled to go into the city to meet minister for foreign affairs Garret FitzGerald. She recalled hugging him as he left the residence and asking if he really had to go.
Kate then went to the garden to play with Eoghan O’Driscoll, whose father was driving the embassy car. As they played they heard a loud bang but after pausing for a moment they continued their game. The bomb, planted in a culvert a few hundred yards from the house, killed the ambassador and a young civil servant, Judith Cooke, while O’Driscoll and senior UK official Brian Cubbon were seriously injured.
The bombing made headline news across the globe and did enormous damage to Ireland’s image. At the commemorative event Taoiseach Micheál Martin echoed the comments of taoiseach of the day, Liam Cosgrave, who described the murders as an atrocity which filled all decent Irish people with a sense of shame.
“His words remain true today. These were murders that appalled both countries, in a year already beset with horror and strife,” the Taoiseach said. “To murder a diplomat is the ultimate rejection of dialogue and peacemaking, and of the rule of law in international affairs.”
Irish independence was the result of a complex process that involved political campaigning, beginning with the election of Daniel O’Connell in 1828 and culminating in the election of the First Dáil in 1918
Just a week before he was murdered Ewart-Biggs, who lost an eye while fighting in the second World War, gave a short press conference after presenting his credentials to the President at Áras an Uachtaráin. “I have one prejudice, acquired during the second World War and reinforced again in Algeria: a very distinct and strong objection to violence for political ends.”
His wife Jane, who was left a widow with three children, dedicated herself to promoting peace in Ireland. In a speech at his memorial service at St Patrick’s Cathedral a week after the murders she fully shared her late husband’s belief in the futility of violence. She established the Ewart-Biggs memorial prize to be awarded for effort to promote peace and reconciliation. It was a remarkably generous response to her husband’s murder and one which over time contributed to the development of the peace process – but not until thousands more had been killed and maimed.
That is why it is so depressing that some people still seem determined to undermine the peace that finally emerged in 1998 despite the legacy of terror that inflicted so much suffering on the country for more than a quarter of a century.
One of the reasons for that is undoubtedly the undue reverence that continues to be accorded to the proponents of violence in Irish history. Irish independence was the result of a complex process that involved political campaigning, beginning with the election of Daniel O’Connell in 1828 and culminating in the election of the First Dáil in 1918.
While there was also a resort to violence in 1916, the march towards independence had begun long before. Admiration for the cult of violence that motivated some of the 1916 leaders has warped the popular understanding of our history for far too long permeating popular culture.
While the complexity of our history is properly taught in our schools, the State has continued to foster the dangerous myth that independence came about only through violence. This distorted version of history has provided ideological cover for the minority in succeeding generations who have tried to destroy it.
In a groundbreaking analysis written in 1966 for Studies magazine, the Irish language scholar Fr Francis Shaw of UCD challenged the official view of 1916, writing: “It asks us to praise in others what we do not esteem or accept in ourselves.”
This inherent contradiction between the peaceful, democratic values the vast majority of Irish people actually live by, and the official admiration accorded to the perpetrators of violence in the past, was the central theme of Shaw’s courageous challenge 60 years ago to the established view of 1916.
As long as the State and popular culture continue to glorify violence as a legitimate political weapon, we will still – 50 years after the murder of Ewart-Biggs – have to deal with the fallout.
