Joe Carroll
Power Play. The Rise of Modern Sinn Féin
by Deaglán De Bréadún (Merrion Press, €17.99)
This valuable book is all, or nearly all, you need to know about Sinn Féin under Gerry Adams, as the party gears itself to enter the corridors of power after this year’s general election.
The author, an experienced political journalist, has been studying Sinn Féin from close quarters while reporting from both Belfast and Dublin, and has already written an informed book on the lead-up to the Good Friday Agreement, which brought the party in from the cold.
The author mainly eschews analysis in favour of factual reporting and letting the main actors give their own accounts of what the party stands for and its intentions if it gets into power.
This comes from potted biographies and interviews with deputy leader, Mary Lou McDonald, Deputy First Minister of the Northern Ireland Executive, Martin McGuiness, Pearse Doherty, Martin Ferris and several backroom party members.
The figure of party leader, Gerry Adams, is a continual presence, mainly through reports of speeches and press conferences. His written answers to the author’s questions are guarded and possibly the least interesting part.
Far more interesting on the workings of the party are the comments of former prominent members like Brian Leeson and Killian Forde who left disillusioned, former Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell, Martin Mansergh, and Jonathan Powell, the former chief of staff to Tony Blair.
The author is unsparing in detailing the u-turns by Sinn Féin on economic issues like the bank guarantee and corporate taxation, the sex abuse scandals, some of which tainted Adams’s own family, and murky IRA killings. Unresolved is how democratic is decision-making in the upper reaches of Sinn Féin.
On the positive side, there are the impressive electoral results of the hard work ethic from top to bottom of the party and its attraction for bright, young graduates such as Mary Lou and theoretician, Eoin Ó Broin. In the US, funds are rolling in from coast-to-coast where $12 million has been raised, often from reputable companies and professionals over the past 20 years.
In the chapter called “The Rocky Road to Power”, Sinn Féin’s chances of getting into government after the up-coming election are explored at length, with all the various combinations discussed.
If the party wins 30 seats or more, which seems quite possible, it will be in a key position when the jockeying for power begins. Pre-election Sinn Féin is ruling out any coalition with a Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil-led government but the author’s close analysis of various Ard Fheis resolutions reveals room for manoeuvre after the votes are cast. Who would have foreseen Sinn Féin going into government with the Democratic Unionist Party in Stormont?
As the author points out, Sinn Féin has to work much harder to win seats because of the reluctance of voters for other parties to give their transfers to Sinn Féin.
If this reluctance can be overcome by election 2016, and it must be a big if in the minds of many commentators, the party will be a major force on the Irish political scene, north and south, as the Easter Rising is commemorated.
