How would you define a republican? No, not the American type - how would you define an Irish republican? (To define US Republicans, you only need a quote from Sarah Palin or Donald Trump and no further explanation is necessary.)
In Ireland, we speak of "nationalists and republicans". Unionists, however, are just unionists. So what makes republicanism so apparently different from nationalism and how can we determine who exactly is republican?
The issue of republicanism's definition arises from Dr Anthony Russell's excellent new book on the life of John Mitchel. A significant link in the historical chain of what is now called republicanism from 1798 to 1916, the Presbyterian Mitchel was deported to Tasmania in 1848 simply for what he wrote. (Thank you for your comment that deporting some people for what they write is not a bad idea.)
Dr Russell identifies Mitchel's support for slavery during the American Civil War, in which he lost two sons fighting for the South. He concludes that Mitchel believed: "The slave should be treated fairly within slavery, and this could include beatings where necessary. For Mitchel he would always be a slave", just as the Irish peasant would remain a peasant.
It was hardly a reflection of Wolfe Tone's support for the men of no property.
Hitherto regarded as one of republicanism's stalwarts, some of Mitchel's views are politically embarrassing by today's standards - aligning him more with some American republicans.So should he be expelled from the ranks of Irish republicanism? (Can you think of anyone who would claim sufficient republican infallibility to judge that sort of thing?)
The counter argument is that because he was vehemently anti-British and sentenced to penal servitude, he should remain a republican hero. His lack of enlightenment in the 19th century should not deny him modern republican status. However, he opposed the Fenians and, as a contrary and complex individual, he opposed many progressive ideas.
(If you want to join the debate, you can hear Dr Russell speak at the D'Arcy McGee summer school in Carlingford on August 17 - 19.)
Mitchel's brother-in-law, John Martin (another Presbyterian who was deported for his writings) argued against "power in the hands of capitalists and landlords" inflicting "wrong upon the defenceless working classes." (The Martins were my family's landlords and decent landlords they were.) So was Martin also a republican? Maybe he was more republican than Mitchel, which suggests a hierarchy of republicanism.
If so, those who planted the bomb in Lurgan this week would regard themselves as the nobility in modern republicanism's class system. The noble lords and ladies in Sinn Féin would disagree.
The gap between them illustrates the vast range of people, ideas and ideals which can be found huddling under the umbrella of republicanism, sheltering against the Irish economic rain. It ranges today from Fianna Fáil to those marching in the INLA's funeral tribute to Peggy O'Hara.
In the past, Pearse was a Catholic nationalist. Connolly was a Marxist. Michael Collins, although essentially a soldier, was effectively a founder of Fine Gael.
Dan Breen was an eminent republican, mainly because he shot a lot of people, but he had little interest in politics. (A friend of mine who interviewed him in his later years thought he was "a bit of a spoofer".)
In the 1930s, Frank Ryan was an anti-Franco socialist. Sean Russell organised anti-civilian bombings in England, in which the playwright, Brendan Behan, took part. In Declan Kiberd's words, Behan fused Gaelic nationalist ideals with socialist principles.
So are all those claiming to be republican actually republicans? Maybe, becoming a republican is like a religious experience, a sort of personal political salvation for Irish eternity? (In religion, those experiencing salvation apparently hear the voice of God. Self-anointed republicans presumably only need to hear their own voice.)
Sean Sabhat, who was killed in an IRA raid in 1957, was a devout Catholic and Irish language enthusiast. (He once reportedly complained that a bomb-making lecture was not in Irish. Perhaps bomb-making in Irish is the lotus position of Irish republicanism?)
So who determines what republicanism is? If, for example, it reserves the right to use force in pursuit of national independence, can those who abandon that right call themselves republicans? If so, what differentiates them from nationalists?
So instead of "nationalists and republicans", maybe we should say "nationalists and others, who have individually and collectively self-anointed themselves to be different, even though most of them are not and, in any case, they have no agreed criteria for what those differences should be".
Yes, it is a complicated and contrary phrase. John Mitchel would have loved it.
