Caoilfhionn Ní Dhonnabháinn’s book A Nation For All will be launched this Friday (23 April) in Áras Uí Chonghaile, Belfast, where Caoilfhionn will be in discussion with Danny Morrison about her life and political activism. Here, Gerry Adams, reviews her book which will also be launched at this weekend’s Sinn Féin ard fheis.
A Nation For All is a must read primer for anyone interested in the struggle for the re-conquest of Ireland by the people of this island. I whole heartedly recommend it. Especially to activists or those brave souls who are on the journey into activism and who are trying to figure out how, in this turbulent world, the struggle for equality, solidarity, democracy and sovereignty in Ireland is to be taken forward. As always it is important to get the basics right. A Nation For All does that.
Caoilfhionn’s writing is compelling, optimistic, factual and accessible. She blends elements of her own family’s history with our national history. I found the personal reflections especially poignant and intriguing, right from the first paragraph in the first chapter. A Nation For All takes us from the Great Hunger, the efforts to kill the Irish language, to 1916. And the counter revolution. It is a scathing critique of the politics of ‘the victors of the civil war who created a state that was reactionary’ and all that followed from that with the founding of Fianna Fáil, the deepening impact of partition and the entrenchment of the unionist regime in the North, to the malign influence of neoliberalism at this time. There is also a timely and an up-yo-date critique of the European Union.
But it soon becomes clear that this narrative is also a manifesto for change. Social and economic change as well as political change. This is a detailed and persuasive argument for the nation state and the primary issue of national democracy and the need for the empowerment of citizens. A Nation For All does not minimise the challenges facing us. Indeed, by setting them out graphically and clearly we are compelled to face up to them and the work we must do.
A Nation For All is a great argument for committed change makers, especially in the South, to complete the unfinished revolution in all its aspects, including the exercise of our right to self-determination by all the people of this island. It is also an eloquent assertion that this can be done.
The Good Friday Agreement’s commitment to referendums on the future of Ireland and the need to secure and to win these referendums so that the new Ireland can be created, is of paramount importance in the time ahead. That is not to suggest that the battle for rights, against neoliberalism, for solidarity, democracy and sovereignty should wait until then.
On the contrary this is that battle. It needs joined up and intensified.
Caoilfhionn Ní Dhonnabháin works as a Sinn Féin political advisor and speechwriter in Dáil Éireann. She previously worked as Matt McCarthy TD’s election manager. She lives in Leitrim with her husband and their two children.