Anderson on struggles past and present

“I never thought we would see these scenes again in my lifetime after all we have been through,” said former SF MLA and MEP Martina Anderson in Monaghan Town last week when reflecting on the ongoing standoff on Portadown’s Garvaghy Road.

Ms Anderson, currently SF’s National Policy Development and Training Co-ordinator, was addressing the County Monaghan launch of her autobiography Choosing The Struggle, attended by around 100 people in the Town Hall suite of the Westenra Arms Hotel on Thursday October 1.

Speaking as talks continued to resolve the impasse between the Orange Order wishing to revive a contentious march through the predominantly Catholic Garvaghy Road area and local residents opposed to the parade, she said that standing with fellow SF members in solidarity with local people at Garvaghy the previous Sunday brought back memories of her own childhood on Derry’s Bogside.

“The phrase ‘no going back’ was used very often among us on Sunday,” she reflected, “and that means something very deep to us, and to the people of Garvaghy Road because of all the trauma that has been caused to the community.”

Ms Anderson said Garvaghy made her remember childhood scenes “well before the Battle of the Bogside in 1969”, like her mother going out to fight for civil rights, the RUC kicking in a neighbour’s front door and beating him and his children up, and the RUC trying to bring the Apprentice Boys into the Bogside. She also referenced the shooting dead by the British Army of Seamus Cusack and Desmond Beattie in Derry in separate incidents on July 8 1971.

“The Irish government didn’t help us,” she stated, “nobody came to help us except southern republicans. We will never forget the contribution of republicans from Monaghan, Cavan, Donegal and further afield who gave us solidarity then.

“As I stood on the Garvaghy Road, I thought ‘no going back’ means no going back to those times.”

Introducing Ms Anderson, Cavan/Monaghan SF TD Cathy Bennett said her story mirrors the experiences and response of many republican women from the early 1970s to the historic decisions that led to the Good Friday Agreement.

“Martina has been brave and forthcoming and has held nothing back in her book,” Deputy Bennett stated. “Her most difficult and challenging experiences are shared in its pages. Many hundreds of Irish women from all walks of life and political outlook will find echoes of their trials and tribulations in her story.

“As an IRA volunteer, a SF political activist, and democratically elected member of the Assembly in the Six Counties and the international assembly of representatives of European nations, she has always put service above self and continues to do so.”

While acknowledging the candid tone of her autobiography, copies of which were signed by her on the night, Ms Anderson emphasised to the audience that “there is no loose talk” in the book. She explained the title by stating, “We choose the struggle daily as Irish republicans”, adding that the name of the book also describes a defining moment in her life.

“I made the hardest and most painful decision of my life, to put the struggle first when I had an unplanned pregnancy. I was not going to let my comrades down and the only option I had in my mind was to have an abortion.”

Ms Anderson said she didn’t write this part of the book to get anyone’s approval or change anyone’s mind although she did want to “break the silence” as, at the time, she felt she couldn’t tell anyone or reach out for support.

“I still have a lot of pain that will never go away, but regret and pain are two different things and I do not regret putting the struggle first and not letting my comrades down.”

She acknowledged that this part of the book could be very hard for some people to read and said that a high level of “hate and misogyny” has been directed towards her because of this admission.

She described how the book told the story of her IRA activism, her conviction and life sentence in 1986 on charges of conspiracy to cause explosions in Britain, her experiences while incarcerated in Brixton and Durham Prisons, and her marriage to fellow prisoner and IRA member Paul Kavanagh in Full Sutton Prison in 1989. She also referenced its account of her political career following her release.

She concluded that the “struggle” is ultimately about building a united Ireland worthy of its people.

“I look to the future not with hope, but certainty,” Ms Anderson quoted from the book, “because we didn’t endure all we endured for a half-baked freedom. We will do what Martin McGuinness told us to do, we will finish the job. Ireland will be united.”

Ms Anderson told the launch that all proceeds will go to a permanent memorial in Derry to SF’s Martin McGuinness who died in 2017.