30 years in Sinn Féin

Áine Ní Gabhann

As part of An Phoblacht's new 'Living History' series, exploring the lives and experiences of republicans involved in or touched by the conflict, An Phoblacht's JOANNE CORCORAN talks to ÁINE Ní GABHANN about some of the major events she has witnessed, and helped to bring about, over the last 30 years.

An Phoblacht: Can you tell us something about your early life and what got you interested in republicanism?

Áine Ní Gabhann: Well, I was born in County Meath and I have two brothers and two sisters; I'm right in the middle. My father, Pádraig, was a Volunteer in 1916. He married my mother, Maura, and was about 36 years older than her — but the families knew each other. Her father was involved also, and her uncles.

Both my mother and father were in the Gaelic League.

I would have spent time in the Gaeltacht in Donegal when I was nine and then I spent a year in the Aran Islands. The Irish language was very important to my parents and we didn't speak any English at home, even though we were in an English speaking area. My father was the sort of man who wouldn't buy anything made in England. I suppose I'd describe him as very patriotic.

They wouldn't discuss anything with us in detail, but my mother's brothers and uncles would come up and they'd be up all night talking politics. So we'd have picked up on that and heard about Volunteers being killed in the '50s and so on. I don't think they wanted to influence us one way or the other, but I suppose you are influenced somewhat by what your parents believe in.

I knew my father always hoped that he would live to see a united Ireland. That was his one ambition in life. But he died when he was 83.

When did you decide to join Sinn Féin?

Later on I went to Dublin and did a secretarial course, with the intention of going to college, but I started to enjoy life a bit and having a bit of freedom. I would have read a lot of books on history and that and I got involved in leftist politics. I didn't join any organisation but I would have been supportive of things like housing action groups.

In the early '70s I would have attended gatherings at the GPO. I remember seeing Charlie McGlade (a prominent Dublin republican) at those events, he was a lovely man. I had made up my mind that this was the course I wanted to go and I ended up joining Sinn Féin, with my best friend Bríd, in 1974.

We joined the Michael Gaughan Cumann in Dundrum.

At that time there was a slogans campaign going, and writing would have been daubed all over the place, you know, things like, 'Brits Out' or 'Brits Must Go'. We used to go out in the middle of the night and paint walls and when you'd see a car, you'd throw your arms around the other person and pretend you were a couple. That was my introduction to the party.

Did Bloody Sunday, two years prior to you joining Sinn Féin, have any effect on you?

Absolutely. I was at the burning of the British Embassy right after Bloody Sunday.

We had a few marches on the Embassy at the time and we would have had pickets at the GPO. The Embassy was up at St Stephen's Green then, and the night that it was burnt down there were huge crowds there. I was standing with a few other people, and we could see people with petrol bombs and that. And there were people there who weren't republicans as well. Ordinary Dubliners were angry at what they had seen and heard and their emotions were palpable. You know, people were queuing up to join the IRA at the GPO after Bloody Sunday.

But the night it was burned, there was some light relief as well. The crowd was so big that we were told to stand back, so we were at the corner where the Shelbourne Hotel is, and there were a few bangs before the main one. The next thing, this guy drove up in a white car. He opened the door when he heard the bangs and ran away. Just left his car there. It was so funny to watch, given everything else that was going on right at that moment.

So you joined in 1974 — that was the year of the Dublin/Monaghan bombings wasn't it?

Yes, I remember them very well. I was living around Harold's Cross at the time, and it's not like today — no one had mobile phones or anything. We heard the bangs and everyone was terrified. My mother was going mad, like everyone else's mother was, trying to contact me. There would have been a lot of country people, you see, going across town to get their buses, and families wouldn't have known that evening if they were delayed coming home or if something had happened. It was dreadful and a terrible thing to live through.

Of course, we were aware that the people of the North had to go through this all the time, but it woke a lot of other people up.

A lot of Volunteers would have died in the '70s. Does anyone stand out in your mind?

I think I remember Frank Stagg dying on hunger strike the most. That was in 1976. He wanted to be buried in Leigue Cemetery in Mayo, with Michael Gaughan. But the Free Staters didn't want us to have a big funeral for him.

His body was supposed to be coming home from England, and we all spent the night at the airport waiting for him to arrive, and his mother, another republican, was there as well. But they transferred him to Shannon and had him buried in Leigue cemetery, under cement.

The IRA exhumed his body a few weeks later and we had a proper funeral then.

I suppose to every sad thing there's another side and what I remember about Frank's funeral is it being the first time I ever ate an oyster. We were at a pub afterwards in Ballina and fishermen there were offering us oysters.

Isn't it funny the things that stand out in your mind?

Did you find the '70s a difficult time?

Yes, it was really hard. The campaign was at its height and it wasn't that easy being a republican. You'd be out selling An Phoblacht, which we did religiously every Friday and Saturday night, and you would get terrible abuse. But we sold a lot of papers. It was the era of Section 31, so we were unheard and the paper was all we had.

But you'd wake up and hear about Volunteers being killed, and some of them you knew. It wasn't a nice time.

And would you have been harassed by the authorities during those times?

We would have been harassed by the Special Branch right through the '70s, '80s and '90s. They harassed me from the day I started. They'd be sitting outside my flat, outside our meeting point, they'd follow you, they'd put people off joining.

They tried to be smart, they might meet you in the street and they'd say "Hello Áine". They'd try to get to know you, or as we'd say, try to act like human beings. In an awful lot of cases people would stick it out, but they intimidated a lot of new people into leaving. They'd go to their jobs and parents' houses and, of course, people would be afraid of losing their jobs or upsetting their families. I mean, they'd ring up my job and ask for me and hang up and that.

I was never arrested, but they raided the flat on several occasions. That was terrible. They'd go through your chest of drawers and your underwear and you didn't know if they were going to plant something, so you'd have to watch them like a hawk.

It happened more so when I moved in with Tommy, my partner.

We used to organise excursions to Belfast and mainly I went to Turf Lodge and stayed with one particular family. They were delighted to have us up from the South and they treated us very well.

We used to organise a carriage up on the train, not under the Sinn Féin name of course, we had a lot of fun thinking up pseudonyms. Cathal Holland, who was the photographer for the paper at the time, would take loads of photographs, and there was a great atmosphere.

I decided to go to Ardoyne instead one time and that's where I met Tommy. We're 25 years together now

When he came to live in Dublin, they used to arrest him and they'd take him down to the Bridewell and raid the flat. He'd been interned like most young fellas at the time, so the Special Branch used that as an excuse to give him a hard time.

Wasn't '79 the first time you stood for election for Sinn Féin?

Oh yes, the local elections. The H-Block campaign had started at that stage and we had the big badges with the H on them. On the day of the count I remember Michael McDowell, now Minister for Justice, coming up to us and looking at our badges and I said to him: "Yes, that's what it says, H-Blocks", and him scurrying off.

I got 129 first preferences. Jack Crowe was my Director of Elections then, and we had a good campaign. But the electoral strategy hadn't been worked out properly at the time, that was still to come.

I suppose I hadn't much chance of winning anyway — Mary Robinson, who went on to be President, had the cheek to stand in the same constituency as me.

I suppose the Hunger Strikes had a big impact on you?

Yes. We were having a lot of demonstrations and travelling up to Belfast when the Hunger Strikes started. I suppose that was the worst period for republicanism.

I think everyone who was around then will always remember where they were when they heard that Bobby Sands had died. I think everyone's the same — even when you know someone is going to die, you still hope that they won't. Obviously, we were going up for his funeral, and I had a few shillings in the EBS at the time, but they were in dispute. I had to go up to the picket line outside the EBS and say to the workers; "I've a few bob in there, I need it to go up to Bobby Sands' funeral, do you mind if I go in?"

Of course they said go ahead, but that was the only time in my life I passed a picket. I felt terrible about it, but what could I do?

So we went to the funeral; it was unreal. We were all so angry. I don't think I cried when Bobby died. But we used to have demonstrations on O'Connell Street every evening for months when the Hunger Strikes were on. And I remember, that after Bobby, Francis Hughes died. It was a lovely June evening and I was wearing sunglasses, and I remember the floodgates opened then. I cried and cried and I was so happy I was wearing sunglasses.

I moved to Kerry then, Listowel. I was there for the remainder of the Hunger Strikes. I spoke on platforms there with Bernadette Devlin and the councillor for Ballybunion at the time, Robert Beasley. When each Hunger Striker died we used to go around the outskirts of Listowel on black flag marches.

People felt very emotional throughout that period. We'd seen what the families had had to endure — how Bobby Sands' family had been misled by Charlie Haughey. I remember we marched to his house.

They were let down by the whole Irish Government. That it could allow ten Irish men to die was an absolute disgrace.

Were you involved in the campaign for the women prisoners in Armagh?

Well that would have run in side by side with the H-Block campaign. We used to go up and protest outside the jail, especially on International Women's Day. The women there were prepared to go on hunger strike as well, but were told by their comrades not to. But they suffered terribly with strip searches, even if they were pregnant, and other horrendous things like that.

Weren't women throughout Ireland appalled by that?

Well you had Section 31 censorship, and really the only information out there was whatever we could get out through leaflets and An Phoblacht. And you had some individuals who were not actually members of the movement who would have been heard, like Nell McCafferty.

But there was an awful lot of ignorance. People had their own problems and they didn't want to know. The north could have been a million miles away for people in the south.

You've seen so much over the last 30 years. What were your highs or lows?

There'd be a few of each.

The local elections in 1999 were a high point for me. That was the first time I saw electoral politics really working for us. We got four local councillors here in Dublin City Council and then two on Dublin County Council.

Another highlight was the cessation in 1994, for the very reason that I think the IRA made a very brave decision. I know some people had difficulty with the cessation, but some of those were often the ones who hadn't done very much.

A low point was obviously the Hunger Strikes. But I also remember the split in '86 as being particularly hard. After the Hunger Strikes, where we had become very close, it was hard to watch some of your comrades walking out. Some of them were people you knew for years. I mean, Ruairi Ó Brádaigh would have stayed with my granduncle when he was on the run.

But the whole abstentionism thing was something we had to debate. For some people it was like being asked to recognise the courts. I mean, I campaigned in every election campaign since I joined, but it took me a while to get my head around the course we were taking, even though there was no way I was walking out.

Eventually, I could see that, while we weren't taking our seats we weren't getting the votes. People were getting clever about politics. They were saying: "Why should we vote for you, you won't be able to do anything for us?" It made sense to make the decision we did. And the fact that even though we were getting rid of abstentionism, electoral politics wouldn't be our be all and end all, really helped a lot of people.

Do you feel despondent when you see Ian Paisley still playing the same old games?

Well, when you're dealing with Mr Paisley, you're always ready for disappointment. I don't think he would be satisfied if all the members of the IRA stood in front of Stormont, with all their arms, and blew themselves up. He'd want something else.

I've seen Ian Paisley with Ulster Resistance, so his hypocrisy really gets to me.

But they've always put difficulties in front of republicans and we've always overcome them. And we are a long way now from where we were.

On this latest stumbling block, I think we should stick to our guns, if you'll excuse the pun. I'm happy with where the line has been drawn. We will not let Paisley humiliate republicans. So we'll see what happens from here.

You ran in Cabra in the last local elections, do you think you'll run again?

I had no intention whatsoever of running in the last elections. I'm no longer 21! But I was pushing for the second candidate in the area to be a woman, so I had to put my money where my mouth was.

I enjoyed it. I got to know an awful lot of workers out there and they're a fantastic group. And you could see how much Nicky Kehoe is respected all over that constituency.

We knew, because I only came into the race in February, that there wasn't much chance of me winning a second seat, but our job was to capitalise on the vote and we did it very well and got new votes out. But it's not my intention to stand again. I'm ready to pass on the baton.

And it's absolutely marvellous to see so many young people so interested and so committed. And they're sound republicans. They're not opportunists. They don't have egos and that's a great thing. Because there's no room for egos in this movement.

I'd like to see more young women coming through though, as councillors and TDs. That would make me very happy.