New Nationalism? The S.D.L.P. and the creation of a socialist and labour party in Northern Ireland, 1969–75

Abstract

‘Since our foundation, the S.D.L.P. has been proudly nationalist and is 100 per cent for a United Ireland.’ This description, from the website of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (S.D.L.P.), advances a claim which might be thought not to sit easy with the party's founding ideals which claimed it as a ‘radical socialist party’ and insisted that, while a united Ireland was one of the party's main aims, it would prioritise the socio-economic above the constitutional question. This article will argue that while the S.D.L.P. was widely recognised as a major advance in nationalist politics in Northern Ireland when it was formed in August 1970, it had lost its avant-garde approach to the constitutional question and become a more organised form of the old Nationalist Party by 1975. Although initially the S.D.L.P. combined socialist rhetoric with a discourse that linked social justice with the reunification of the island – its ideal was a ‘completely new constitution for the whole of Ireland, a constitution which will provide the framework for the emergence of a just, egalitarian and secular society’ – there existed an uneasy tension between nationalist and socialist aims within the party, with the former taking precedence by the time of the powersharing Executive of 1974.