Brian Keenan (Irish Republican) - Peace Process

Peace Process

Keenan was released from prison in June 1993 and by 1996 was one of seven members of the IRA's Army Council. Following the events after the IRA's ceasefire of August 1994 he had been openly critical of Gerry Adams and the "tactical use of armed struggle", or TUAS, strategy employed by the Republican movement. After the Northern Ireland peace process had become deadlocked over the issue of the IRA decommissiong its arms, Keenan and the other members of the Army Council authorised the Docklands bombing which killed two people and marked the end of the IRA's eighteen month ceasefire in February 1996.

Keenan outlined the IRA's position in May 1996 at a ceremony in memory of hunger striker Seán McCaughey at Milltown Cemetery, where he stated "The IRA will not be defeated...Republicans will have our victory...Do not be confused about decommissioning. The only thing the Republican movement will accept is the decommissioning of the British state in this country". In the same speech he accused the British of "double-dealing" and denounced the Irish government as "spineless".

In November 1998 Keenan addressed a republican rally in Cullyhanna, County Armagh to mark the 25th anniversary of the death of IRA member Michael McVerry. He stated:

I can categorically state the only time the IRA will decommission, we will decommission in agreement with a government of national democracy, a government that derives from the first Dáil. That's when we will decommission—never, ever before...Everybody's saying: 'The prisoners are being released, what's your problem?' Well there's no prisoner was ever in jail to be let out to sell out the struggle and I'm sure none of them would want to be let out if this struggle wasn't going the whole way.

Keenan continued by saying that if republican demands were not met then British Prime Minister Tony Blair would be responsible for the consequences, and went on to say:

So in the future maybe the jails are going to be full again...If our enemies don't want peace, there can only be one conclusion: they must want war. We don't want to go back to that. But let there be no mistake: if we don't get equality and if the reasons for conflict are still there...then the waiting time will soon draw to a close and republicans will once again have to do anything that is necessary to get a Republic, because that's the goal.

On 25 February 2001 Keenan addressed a republican rally in Creggan, County Armagh, saying that republicans should not fear "this phase" of "the revolution" collapsing should the Good Friday Agreement fail. Keenan confirmed his continued commitment to the Armalite and ballot box strategy saying that both political negotiations and violence were "legitimate forms of revolution" and that both "have to be prosecuted to the utmost". Keenan went on to say "The revolution can never be over until we have British imperialism where it belongs—in the dustbin of history", a message aimed at preventing rank-and-file IRA activists defecting to the dissident Real IRA.

Keenan played a key role in the peace process acting as the IRA's go-between with the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning with Gerry Adams remarking "There wouldn't be a peace process if it wasn't for Brian Keenan". Keenan resigned from his position on the Army Council in 2005 due to ill-health, and was replaced by Bernard Fox, who took part in the 1981 Irish hunger strike. On 6 May 2007 Keenan was guest speaker at a rally in Cappagh, County Tyrone to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the deaths of the "Loughgall Marytrs", eight members of the IRA's East Tyrone Brigade killed by the SAS in 1987.

He died on May 21, 2008 of cancer in Cullyhanna, South Armagh.