Gerry Fitt 1926 – 2005

mike65

(Lord) Gerry Fitt a founding member and first leader of the SDLP has died after illness in London.

from bbc

The former SDLP leader Lord Gerry Fitt has died at a relative's home in England.

Lord Fitt, 79, who suffered from a heart condition, had been in declining health for several months.

In his heyday, he was the dominant voice of nationalism, but his outspoken criticism of republican violence lost him votes and his Westminster seat.

He was one of the co-founders of the SDLP in 1970, by which time he had won seats in Westminster, the Stormont assembly and the old Belfast corporation.

He came to world attention on 5 October 1968 when, as an elected official, he was among the civil rights marchers beaten by police.

Images of Fitt, his forehead and shirt blood-stained, went around the globe.

Few "great" men or women are found in NI politics but Fitts one of them. He could have taken the easy road and kept his head down or been ambivalent about terrorism from "fellow" nationalists but instead when the IRA were looking to burn the house down (pun not intended) he led the majority of Northern Catholics down the road of constitutional nationalism. Its such a scandal that a patently good man was so hounded by the Provos. The family home was attacked many times from 1976 culminating in his home being firebombed in 1983 after which for safetys sake he and his wife left Belfast for good.

Mike.

murphaph

Indeed Mike, a great man with real courage to stand up for the catholic population of NI. A very sad day and sadder that he died before seeing functioning devolved government in NI.

rsynnott

Someone has obviously gone on a campaign to wipe out the decent politicians. Stop it.

Cork

he led the majority of Northern Catholics down the road of constitutional nationalism. Its such a scandal that a patently good man was so hounded by the Provos. The family home was attacked many times from 1976 culminating in his home being firebombed in 1983 after which for safetys sake he and his wife left Belfast for good.

I think Ireland owes him such a debt. It took some in NI - 30 years of violence to come to the conclusion that democratic politics was the way to go.


History will be kind to him.

very sad day and sadder that he died before seeing functioning devolved government in NI.

But I think he knew that his analysis of the NI situation was correct.

Sponge Bob

he was a bit of a rustbelt dinosaur though, the working man not the working woman type.

cal29

an Uncle Tom

No sense in me saying any different that was my opinion of him when he was alive and it hasn't changed because he is dead

Snickers Man

HE was basically one of the good guys but there's a lot of bollox being spoken about him since his death. Especially by the likes of Bruce Arnold in yesterday's Sindo obituary about him.

The piece which said that (I paraphrase) Fitt must have been horrified at the sight of government ministers in the Republic trying to import arms into Ireland for use in the North in 1969-70 after he had worked so hard to campaign for peaceful change is Orwellian in its dishonesty.

It's a total rewriting of history. In fact, Fitt was one of those calling for guns to defend the Catholic areas in 1969 from what they feared, with some justification, was likely to be a governement pogrom on the recalcitrant Catholic ghettoes. There are several contemporary references to his calling for guns. (see Eamon McCann's 'War and an Irish Town' orignally written in 1973 for one example that I can think of off the top of my head)

That he quickly became horrified at the nature of the organisation of gunmen that sprang up to defend the Catholic ghettoes does not change that fact. But it shows how a fundamentally decent democrat could have perceived the need for an armed force to take on the agents of the Northern Ireland state of the time.

It in no way contradicts his later adoption of a softer nationalist line in favour of a strong socialist agenda. Fitt was always more red socialist than green nationalist. Never made any bones about that. His republicanism had a strong leftist slant and he was naturally disillusioned about the fact that the SDLP, which had been born of the radical leftist street politics of the Civil Rights movement gradually came to be subsumed into the identity of the Nationalist party which it had replaced.

He was horrified at the ugly sectarian face of the Provos that emerged, especially in Belfast, as the troubles erupted. Their solution did not match his own left-wing analysis which quickly became overtaken by events. In much the same way that the left-wing theories of Official Sinn Fein (later SFWP, The Workers Party, Democratic Left and now the Labour party) were also submerged in what appeared to be a straight sectarian/ethnic war.

It was wholly in keeping with his basic philosophy that he would become disillusioned by both the SDLP and the Provos. His enforced departure from Belfast was a sad and brutal affair.

However, as Lord Fitt, he became the voice of a body of opinion which didn't really exist in Northern Ireland. The British establishment loved him because his disillusionment with the whole situation tallied closely with their own exasperated failure to understand the nature of the problem.

Let's not forget however, that it was he who brought down Callaghan's Labour government by abstaining on a vote of confidence which they lost by one vote. He abstained because Labour, with the brutish Roy Mason in charge of N Ireland had done 'everything to appease the Unionists' and sought a military solution only. Hardly the action of a loyal subject of the crown.

I think history will be kind to him. He was an honest decent working-class politician whose primary loyalty was to his social grouping which was being torn apart by rampant sectarianism and divide and rule cynicism.

But let's make sure that those historians looking back examine all the nooks and crannies of his journey from civil rights marches to the House of Lords. They're not dark secrets. They're a fair reflection of the situation which Northern Ireland degenerated into in the 60s and 70s.