failure to defeat the mass nationalist movement in the North. It also reflects the immense discredit that has become attached to the Orange state internationally over the same period. The accord is an attempt legitimacy to the Northern state and British repression by making Dublin complicit in both.
Of course Paisley, Molyneux and the other Orange bigots in the Official Unionist Party and the Democratic Unionist Party cannot tolerate the involvement of Dublin in the Orange state at any level - even that of colwith them in repression against the republican movement. their own twisted sectarian logic they correctly grasp that if London has to lean on Dublin for support this is a new demonstration of the non-viability of the Northern statelet.
FitzGerald Why should Garret FitzGerald's government bail out British rule in Ireland in this way?
This question was answered by a Sunday Times article before the accord was even published: "Saving the SDLP (Social Democratic Labour Party) is largley what the talks are about as far as 12/85 W, COME ON! DO REALLY REALLY ELIEVE THAT??
WHAT ARE YOU?
SOME KIND OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT? Dublin is concerned. In four years the SDLP share of the local election vote has remained constant at around 17.5 per cent, while Sinn Fein's vote has shot up from zero to 11.8 percent.
'If Sinn Fein were able to win five 1C W seats in the Dublin parliament at the next general election, which is not impossible under the republic's system of nropornonal rebresentallull, hold the balance of power in the South whilst dominating nationalist politics for the first time in the North. It is a nightmare that haunts both Garret FitzGerald in the South Hume, the SLP leader in the North.
*The second reason he (FitzGerald) wants a deal to bolster the SDLP is because he fears that if Sinn Fein gains the upper hand among catholics in the North it could wreck the South as well. If the IRA became the legitimate champions of the nationalist minority in the six counties, the risk of Ulster's civil war spilling over the whole island could not be ignored.' (10 November).
The threat FitzGerald is worried about was shown to be real enough at the height of the hunger strike campaign for republican prisoners in the H-blocks and Armagh women's prison in 1981.
Bobby COL more votes than Margaret when he was elected Westminster MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone on 9 April 1981, with 30,492 votes. Paddy Agnew Kieran republican prisoners, were elected 1o the Southern parliament on 11 June 1981.
H-Blocks These votes were based on the greatest since the 1918-21 liberatin against Britain. votes against the spectacle of the consuuuona nabonalsu SDLP and Fianna Fail — standing idly by and allowing 10 young men to die horribly of starvation recognise that people jailed by courts with no juries for fighting for a united Ireland are not 'normal criminals.
They were accompanied by an enormous mobilisation of Irish people in solidarity with the prisoners - 100,000 al the funeral of Bobby Sands for example.
The Hunger strike campaign was a watershed in Irish politics because it conclus very showed against British rule is a 32 county strug gle.
Il showed, the role of the main political forces in that struggle: that the main props of British rule in the North are not only the unionists north of the border but also the capitalist parties south of the North.
republican movement and John were not ment elections last year.
tionalist status by FUne of ten thousand Thatcher domination Doherty, both - the Dail -Fein which is County mass campaign of national They Were the cause of Irish unity.
parties the choice.
rather than years.
Dialogue The alternative that the fighi and British withdrawal.
Socialist Action 6 December 1985