The Rising Nicholas Mansergh's The Ballot Is The Thing John Morgan Laxative Propaganda Labour Comment Jack Lane page 9 page 16 back page IRISH POLITICAL REVIEW June 2009 Vol.24, No.6 ISSN 0790-7672 and Northern Star incorporating Workers' Weekly Vol.23 No.6 ISSN 954-5891

Northern Ireland Some Benefits Of Is This All There Is? The Lisbon The Good Friday Agreement improved the position of the Northern Catholic (or Campaign Nationalist) community in its conflict with the Protestant (or Unionist) community in the conflict of communities, which is what politics in Northern Ireland is all about. It has The Lisbon Referendum campaign will never been anything else, and the GFA did not establish the conditions in which something do untold good, whatever the outcome of else. could emerge from it. the actual referendum itself, because it Nationalist Ireland, in all its varieties, is, as it always has been, profoundly reluctant to has forced some critical thought to emerge see Northern Ireland for what it is, and to see the Protestant, or Unionist, community for about the EU in Ireland. Hitherto it was a Panglossian attitude by the majority. All what it is. will always be for the best with the EU. As The Unionist community knew very well that it had been out-manoeuvred on Good an ideal the European one is perfect, like Friday 1998. David Trimble signed the GFA under duress—or did not actually sign it, but all others. But what is it in reality and what did not strongly contradict the assumption that he did. He immediately set about is the Lisbon Treaty in particular? There preventing the Agreement from becoming operative, but had to make a minimalist was a Conference of legal experts held on capitulation to it after about two years, and thereafter was chiefly interested in finding 11th May in Dublin to help clarify this. It ways of making Whitehall suspend it. But that long conflict over the implementation of was reported that: the GFA provided a useful distraction from the truth about its content. The Unionist community was compelled to give ground inch by inch, sometimes managing to take a step "The Lisbon Treaty will do nothing to backwards but always being obliged to retrace it, and that gave satisfaction to the change the nature of the EU, according to Nationalist community. the Professor of European Law at the Through this procedure Trimble lost ground to Paisley. When he was eventually University of Cambridge, Alan Dash— displaced by Paisley, Paisley was left without the hinterland (at once threatening and wood. He characterised the EU as 'a protective) that he had provided for Trimble, and the realpolitik of the situation left him federation of sovereign states'. Speaking with no choice but to work the Agreement with Sinn Fein. His lieutenants felt he was at a conference on the law of the Lisbon working it with too good a spirit and they ousted him, thinking they could stall it. They Treaty organised by the Irish Centre for European Law in Dublin yesterday he found it impractical to do so. described the treaty as 'a sheep in sheep's The GFA has been functional only since Paisley agreed to work it, or even since he was clothing'" (Irish Times, 12 May). ousted by Peter Robinson who found he had no realistic choice but to work it. That was only a couple of years ago, but already a feeling of ennui has set in amongst the Nationalist What in the world is all the fuss about community. It is far better placed in the conflict of communal attrition with the Unionist then? If it is effectively pointless to the community than it ever was before, and there is little prospect of being put back under the Professor, it is clearly not pointless to the rule of the Unionist community, but there is also little prospect of its being able to do politicians of the EU. They need and they anything in politics but stalemate the Unionist community, and it is beginning to find that need it badly as a vote of confidence in unsatisfactory. what they are doing. We are describing the objective situation, not condemning Sinn Fein for functioning Expanding on his description of the within it. Upholding your own side in the inevitable conflict with the other community EU, Professor Dashwood said: always seemed to us to be the only effective thing that could be done within the parameters "The entities that compose the union of 'Northern Ireland'. The SDLP, the architect of the GFA under John Hume, did that very are sovereign states (as distinct from the badly under Seamus Mallon and Mark Durkan. Sinn Fein has done it rather well since it states of the USA or the German Lander). took over. But, when the DUP took over from the UUP and agreed to operate the GFA, Nobody questions their standing as full our comment was that Northern Ireland had been put back in the box. And that is how it subjects of the international order, while is now being experienced. they remain the principal focus of their citizens' collective loyalty and the Ten years ago, in our analysis of the GFA, we said we could not see in it the possibility principal forum of democratic political of any dynamic of internal development. And that is proving to be the case. What exists activity" (ibid.). is an arrangement of stalemate. The 'parties' (actually communities) negative each other This makes the existing EU an invisible, in a strange constitutional entity, which is certainly not a state—though many books ethereal thing, but that hardly fits the emanating form Cork University under the influence of Professor Dermot Keogh describe reality. The nation states have given a it as "the Northern Irish state"—but neither is it a local government body of the State in wide variety of competences to a central the proper sense, nor a devolved legislative/administrative arrangement of the state, free authority, i.e., they have conceded to deal with a limited range of issues as it sees fit.

continued on page 2 continued on page 5 and not that of the nationalist community. C O N T E N T S The best solution would be a merger of Page Sinn Fein and the SDLP—anathema to Is This All There Is? Editorial (Northern Ireland) 1 both parties at the moment but not outside the bounds of possibility in the future. Some Benefits Of The Lisbon Campaign. Jack Lane 1 "In the meantime and in this period of uncertainty and nervousness, the onus is Readers' Letters: Figuring Out The Famine. Ivor Kenna, Jack Lane; on the Irish government to devise and Palestine: Two Into One? Eamon Dyas; provide a comfort blanket to northern WWI Hypocrisy. Jack Coldrick 3, 17 nationalism. If that means more Guess Who's Not Coming To Dinner. Wilson John Haire (Poem) 4 representation in the Dail and Senate then better it happen soon." Elizabeth's Reports. Jack Lane 5 Shorts from the Long Fellow (The World Trade Imbalance; The Automobile Industry; All of this is fine as far as it goes— Never Write Off The Germans! . . .; Or The Irish!; The Media Is The Problem; leaving aside some misleading terminol- NAMA; State Industrial Policy; The Late Late Show 6 ogy. But it does not address why the When Did Western Civilisation End? Desmond Fennell 7 Dublin Government has been actively distancing itself from the North recently, Arms Conspiracy Trial. Suzanne Kelly's Speech 8 leaving the GFA in the doldrums. The Rising. John Morgan's Oration at Arbour Hill 9 In 1998 there was a difference of opinion Pat Murphy In Mind. P.H. Pearse's The Fool 10 within a kind of Unionist think tank (which Rebel Cork's Fighting Story (ongoing). Jack Lane 11 affected not to be Unionist) called the Cadogan Group over the nature of the The Myers Obsession With The Recently Dead. Manus O'Riordan 12 GFA. The issue was whether or not it was a "settlement". It seems that Dennis Prize Nonsense. Seán McGouran 13 Kennedy (a former EU functionary who Public Meeting On The Irish Times. John Martin 14 wrote occasionally for the Irish Times) saw that it did not provide for a settlement Queen Elizabeth And Pockets Of Resistance. Niall Meehan 14 and was unhappy about it, while Professor Coolacrease Again. Brendan Clifford 15 Bew, the future Lord, saw it as a settlement and supported it. It hardly seems con- Propaganda With Your Laxatives. Jack Lane 16 ceivable that Bew actually did see it as a Biteback: Judicial Swipes. Tom Sheridan 18 settlement. It seems more likely that he played the part of a missionary to the Ulster Unionists on behalf of Whitehall. Labour Comment, edited by Pat Maloney: The GFA was patently a transitional The Ballot Is The Thing? arrangement. (back page) Professor Dermot Keogh, the hagio- grapher of Jack Lynch, took up the Lord Professor's view from 30 years ago that Denis Bradley, a former priest who some tending to. There are many Northern Ireland was a state, and he has played an active part as an intermediary in interpretations of how the 'Troubles' came been fostering an academic literature about bringing about the present arrangement, to an end but the critical one was the "the Northern Irish state". In his history commented on it in his Irish News column realisation that nationalism could not of 20th Century Ireland he wrote that the on May 1st. (Bradley and Brian Feeney, defeat unionism and unionism could not "Northern Irish state" was set up on the also an Irish News columnist, write pol- defeat nationalism. It took years to get basis of "institutional sectarianism" in itical comment that is a couple of leagues that into the heads of republicans and 1921. It wasn't. It was given the form of above anything that appears in the Dublin even more years to get it into the heads of democracy, though entirely lacking the and Cork papers.) He wrote: the DUP. Now it seems that they need substance. The institutional sectarianism reminding of it from time to time. All our came with the GFA. The reality underlying "Unionists may be fractured but, at political institutions are posited on the the spurious democracy of 1921-72 was least, they have political representation reality that each community has a veto. brought to the fore by the arrangement in the halls of power. Their represent- That is not a natural form of government. which discounted the superficial 'parties', atives get on planes on a Tuesday and fly But it is the price we paid for peace. That, gave the two communities places in the off to Westminster to argue their case and in turn, is posited on the reality that each feel some sense of political purpose. The community looks to a different govern- Government as a right, and gave them a SDLP are on the same planes but must be ment for its identity and its authority. mutual veto on each other in the Assembly. feeling an increasing political disorient- Always looking to a higher authority The formal establishment of institutional ation. They are flying to the wrong weakens and demeans the status of our sectarianism under strict, legally enforce- parliament. assembly and executive but it is the only able, rules was the means by which the "Nationalists have no representation thing that provides an alternative to the war that began in 1970 was brought to an in the Dail. Eoghan Harris is in the dangerous undertow of British/Irish end, for the time being. But that arrange- Senate as the spokesman on Northern history. It means that both governments ment precluded the development of party Ireland. Eoghan has not been well for the need to attend to the needs and the fears politics as generally understood. The last year but at the height of his health he of the respective community for some communities were taken to be the com- has been a conduit for the unionist period yet. ponents of the system. position. "It seems that the SDLP is incapable of "I think nationalists are feeling, once merging with Fianna Fail or with any of There were parties of a kind within again, lonely and unwanted. And that is the Irish parties. Fianna Fail will pick its each community, but these parties were not a healthy position. It hasn't reached a own time to organise in the north and that treated as subordinate parts of the com- critical condition but it could do with time will be to Fianna Fail's best interest continued on page 4 2 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR · LETTERS TO THE EDITOR· LETTERS TO THE EDITOR·

of 25, is so contrary to the experience of Report admits are in defect, at least, to that Figuring Out almost every country, and especially to all degree. The Famine that which we have heard of the habits of the "The returns of births, the Commission- Irish people, that when I first read a précis ers hope, 'are very near the truth, since Jack Lane's article "Figuring out the of the Report in the last number of the they average one to three, which is near the Famine" in Irish Political Review, April Statistical Journal, I was exceedingly result obtained in other countries.' I can 2009, got me thinking. I dug out an article staggered by the statement, and have annex no meaning to births averaging one from the 'Journal of the Statistical Society endeavoured to trace the origin of what to three, and after much consideration, can of London' Vol.13; No.1 (Feb. 1850, p25- seemed to be an evident mistake." only presume it to be a mis-print. It certainly does not relate to the ratio of births to 29) entitled 'Agricultural Statistics of I will not bore the reader with the details Ireland' by G.R. Porter which bears out marriages, which is greater than three to of how Hallam explained the quite arbitrary one in every entire country known to us, much of what you wrote. categorisations, approximations and deduct- though it may be less in particular localities. The Census Returns did not give the ions by which these absurd conclusions were In fact, the calculations of births made in number of holdings not exceeding an acre arrived at. the Report, p.40, compared with the table in 1841. What sort of census was that? He also discovered the most outlandish of marriages, would give considerably A quick inspection of the figures on conclusions about births, marriages and more than four births to a marriage, perhaps page 25 shows that the number of holdings deaths and quoted the report itself to show as high a figure as high as 4.6, which is that of under an acre must have decreased by a that even the Commissioners themselves of Belgium. But as the marriages in Ireland surprising amount in order that holdings could not believe the conclusions they had to are supposed by the Commissioners to be above 30 acres increased by 88,835 between draw! very defectively returned, we cannot rely 1841 and 1847. The Gregory Act stipulated The Report contained a table which it explained at all upon this. Yet the age of marriage in that no one holding land of more than one- was— Ireland appears to be rather earlier than in quarter of a statute acre would be eligible "showing the general result of the bran- England and general opinion does not for relief. ches of vital statistics, birth, marriages, and favour the notice of any peculiar curse of Taking an average family of 5, untold deaths, in the ratio which they bear to the barrenness in Irish women. millions must have been forced off the community. It will be seen that the births "We find, indeed, a startling assertion in land. They probably had not wanted to be average one to three, which is so near to the a note on p.12 of the Report, that the counted in 1841, the enumerators could not result obtained in other countries, as to average number of children in an Irish be bothered to count them and they were make it probable that they are very near the family is considerably lower than in a probably Irish-speaking. truth. The marriages are obviously much Scotch or English one, 'in accordance with England had always had plans for getting too few, being by the table only 1 to 181; the well known law, that the most marrying whereas they can scarcely be in reality, less rid of the native population of Ireland. The race have the lowest cypher of fecundity.' than 1 to 128. The deaths we have already "But as we cannot admit that such a law Irish came to depend upon the potato which shown from other sources, to be in defect is well known, or see the slightest ground could not be destroyed by marauding about one-fourth." for believing it to be a law of nature at all, soldiers. You might be interested to read The report goes on: it seems much more reasonable to presume the 'The history and social influence of the error in the particular tables from which "these results can only be considered as Potato' by Redcliffe Salman, a Cambridge the assertion is derived. approximations. The returns are incomplete, University Press publication for more "It is evident that if the number of and the causes of the fluctuations are so details of the Famine though he accepts the children in Irish families were to those in numerous and so uncertain, that we abstain 1841 Census figure of 8.2 million. English or Scotch as 2.34 to 3, we must from various interesting deductions which Ivor Kenna account for it by some extraordinary the subject invites; still trusting that these mortality in the first years of life, nothing tables as well as those on vital statistics of which has been reported, and it would Comment by Jack Lane generally will be found to afford, even in be inconsistent with the rate of increase of This letter was very useful for the sources their present state, much curious material to the Irish population, which, in the judgment provided. I followed up the reference to the the general statist" (p51). of the Commissioners, has not been less 'Journal of the Statistical Society of London' Take away the understatement and this is and discovered a very interesting item in during the last decennial period than before, the people in charge of the Census of 1841 though, through the effects of emigration the 1844 edition, Vol. VII, by Henry saying that they cannot make head nor tail of Hallam. He was a leading light in the it has shown itself so favourably in the the figures they gathered and that they were Census. Whig/Liberal aristocracy and famous as a good for a laugh but for nothing much else. "I am, dear Sir, Faithfully yours, Henry constitutional historian with his work on It could not occur to them that they could Hallam." the subject running to some dozens of have got the basic figures completely wrong In other words, the 1841 Census was a editions. He was also a Trustee of the in the first place—yet all the evidence points Statistical Society itself so, no doubt, he travesty with laws being postulated and that way. assumptions being made to fit facts that took his sums seriously. But he was enough Hallam comments on this in his own of a man of the world to know, long before just did not make sense. If Hallam saw this wonderfully understated way but his so clearly in 1844 why has it taken so long Disraeli, that there was more to statistics contempt for the Report and the Census than the statistics. He found some extra- to be generally acknowledged? Even the shines through—more damning for the Census Commissioners themselves realised ordinary conclusions in the 'Report of the restraint of language: Irish Commissioners' on the Census of this! "I should be very sorry to dispute what is 1841. Is that Census of 1841 the longest First of all, he found: so modestly urged; yet I cannot help observing, that while it is most true that, in standing Irish joke of all? I believe it is and "That less than one-tenth of the male statistics we must often satisfy ourselves my personal hope is that the Irish Govern- adult population (that is, above the age of with approximations, it seem an excessive ment would use its resources to put an end 17) and only one-fifth of the female, should use of that word to cover errors of 25 or 30 to it, once and for all. Then the Famine be married by the time they attain the age per cent. The deaths and marriages, as the could be put in a proper perspective.

3 strongly resistant to social welfare reform. made with the Catholic Defence Com- The degree of ignorance in Southern mittees since the preceding August, thus Is This All There Is? academia about Northern affairs is really facilitating—or provoking—the transition continued impressive. The British social welfare from the defensive insurrection of August munities. UUP and DUP were alternative system exists in the North as as part of the 1969 into the offensive insurrection which representatives of the Protestant commun- British state. One might call that Union- took off in 1970 and lasted for a quarter of ity, and similarly with the SDLP and Sinn ism, but it is not what is usually meant by a century. Fein in the Catholic community. This was Unionism. In recent years Dublin Governments the de facto position before 1998. It was The North was excluded from the have been busily merging celebrations of made Constitutional in 1998. political process of the state through which the 1916 Insurrection, which led to the that social welfare reform was brought formation of the Irish State, with It was implicit in the arrangement that about. The North was communally celebrations of the Great War fought by London would in the last analysis be the governed by the Unionist Family while the Army that suppressed that Insurrection. patron of the Unionist community and the issue of social welfare reform was They have deliberately set about making Dublin of the Nationalist community. Of fought out in the party politics of the state. nonsense of the history of the state which course there was no parity between the The outcome of British party conflict was they govern. They seem to imagine that, two because Whitehall was the actual then applied in the North. if they make nonsense of themselves, they Government of the North, while Dublin The trouble that erupted in the North in will get the Ulster Unionists. The had little more than observer status. 1969 was not provoked by Unionism, Protestants are unimpressed. The effect is As the actual Government, Whitehall meaning the common institutions of the in some degree to generate Catholic had to present itself as acting even- British state which exist in the North. It discontent with the GFA. handedly towards all subjects of the Queen was provoked by Unionism in the sense of in the North, and in order to keep the a form of politics deliberately separated Bertie Ahern, while merging the devolved arrangements functional it had by the British Establishment from the celebration of profoundly antagonistic to make good this pretension occasionally. political life of the state—the politics of events, at least set in motion measures to Whichever party was in power, the the Unionist Family ruling a large Catholic accord Northern representatives some right Government represented no constituency community in semi-detachment from to sit in the Oireachtas. He was stymied in the Northern Ireland region of its state. Britain. by Fine Gael and Labour. He then set In 1921 it had disowned responsibility The Catholic minority after 1921 did about giving Northerners representation for this region of its state while maintaining not refuse to take part in British politics. It via the party system, by proposing to undisputed sovereignty over it. Its purpose was excluded from British politics. organise Fianna Fail in Northern Ireland. in doing this was never explained, but it If he had proceeded, the other Irish parties The Unionist—ie, Unionist Family— would have been obliged to follow. Brian requires little insight to see that its effect MPs fly off to Westminster every week, was to retain leverage on the affairs of the Cowen has revoked Ahern's measures. and that makes them happy, even though We cannot see what opportunist advantage South at the expense of bad government in they are little more than spectators there. the North—government which any he thought it would give him. There are long historical reasons why the Denis Bradley's stricture was deserved. worthwhile British politician would see, Ulster Protestant community is profoundly after a moment's thought, as systematically unpolitical, and is content to be part of the bad. When the scale of the trouble caused ceremonials of the British state while GUESS WHO'S NOT by the bad government which it had set up having no part in its political substance. COMING TO DINNER for the North became so great in 1972 that It is likely that the Catholic community the only thing to do was to abolish it, would have participated vigorously in the Big, strong, manic, hungry, he eats Whitehall immediately set about trying to political substance of the British state if the earth. restore it in modified form. This took 27 that had been open to it after 1921, but the years, and then a few years longer as The Monroe Doctrine is his main Jingo ceremonials do not attract it at all. menu. Trimble's Unionist Party tried to prevent The Catholic community is very polit- European waiters his retinue. the functioning of the system to which it ical by disposition. Excluded from British had been obliged, under duress, to agree politics and placed under communal A la carte, guzzling nations to subvert. in principle. Protestant rule, it kept on looking to Chopper gunships are his mode of Dublin. travel. Two quite distinct things might be Dublin used to see the condition of the Phosphorus, cluster bombs, the award meant by the word 'Unionism'. Denis Northern Catholics as its particular stars, Bradley does not distinguish between concern—though it never did much about them. In the actual life of the North hot ashes in crematorium jars. it, and certainly did not cause the insur- But the noodles begins to unravel, Unionism means the Protestant commun- rection of 1969. But since 1998 the Irish ity, sometimes referred to as the Unionist Government has developed pretensions. a Far East nation will not be eaten. Family, which ran the devolved system It has its own hors d’oeuvre, its own for 50 years. Forty years ago, St. T.K. Whitaker urged course. Unionism might also refer to the fact Jack Lynch in all his public statements to Shout? The oven is lit. Shout until that the North is part of the British State— be careful not to speak as if the Catholic hoarse, or has a "connection" with the British community was his particular concern. they don’t walk on eggs but like them State. This is a rather abstract usage, as He should be careful in his phrasing to beaten, the political system by which the British appear to be speaking for all the people of avoiding the jaws of the carnivore. state is governed was withheld from the the North. Lynch never succeeded in Six Counties from the moment they were doing that. It could not be done. If Its bloody footprints signs some other set up as Northern Ireland. seriously attempted nothing but hollow shore. Professor Fitzpatrick of Trinity, one of debating points would emerge. All Lynch the godfathers of revisionism, published a did was abandon the Northern Catholic Wilson John Haire. history of Ireland as two states set up in community in the Summer of 1970, and 28th May, 2009 1921, and asserted that both of them were revoke the working arrangements he had 4 the mess. It is not just Martians who will included in the pamphlet. be asking "Take me to your leader?" if They are therefore important historical Lisbon they drop in. All citizens across Europe documents and their importance to Bowen will be doing it and will not get clear herself and to the War Cabinet is clearly continued established. answers. That is a sure recipe for political Also, she was very successful in what she set sovereignty in certain areas to the Com– alienation and/or worse. out to do, she influenced Churchill and the War mission. But that body has been deprived Next it was reported that Professor Cabinet, her cover was never blown and even of the moral authority to act in accordance Dermot Walsh of the University of now, over 30 years after it was first established with the power it accordingly should Limerick warned that major changes in that she was engaged in espionage there are have—it only has the devolved power in the criminal justice system of member people who insist on maintaining her cover. states had been brought in by membership This is a rare achievement. In fact it must be legal theory. some sort of record in the espionage world. The Member States concede competen- of the EU and these would be given a significant boost by the Lisbon Treaty. Espionage has been dramatised and hyped ces and then retrieve them by dominating up out of all recognition by people like Ian the Commission. This was most clearly "These changes are unprecedented in speed and scope since the demise of the Fleming and John le Carre—both ex- and crudely expressed by Sarkozy, practitioners. The reality is usually very hum- especially over the Doha Round WTO Brehon law system" (ibid). drum work, collecting valuable information [World Trade Organisation] negotiations. So, from meaning nothing at all, the just as Bowen did; indeed it is probably 99% The Commission has full competence in Lisbon Treaty suddenly changes things perspiration and 1% inspiration. But vital activ- Trade and these negotiations were to very fundamentally indeed. I think it would ity nonetheless especially in time of war. And reshape the world economy with the EU be useful to have a report of any summary especially in time of war in a country whose invasion is being very seriously contemplated. in the lead. Could anything have been that was made of the Conference presentations and discussions. It was quite important that those contemplating more important for the Commission? But such an invasion know the thinking in this the Commission was really the tool of the If this is the best that some top legal experts can come up with to enlighten us, country. There was no need to inform Ireland UK in this area. Against this, Sarkozy put or the Irish Government about how they felt the French case and won. He did not then the EU is in a sorry state and will get but there was a great need indeed to inform bother too much to persuade the sorrier whatever happens in the coming Whitehall. Commission of his reasoning—he simply Lisbon Referendum But the most important thing about all this is overruled it. The fact that he was right in . the insights she provides on what the War itself the particular issue is a separate matter. Another positive outcome of the Lisbon was about. Nowadays, we have a retrospective Sarkozy could do this because the Referendum could be the emergence for view of the war launched by Britain in 1939, which is that it was about Fascism, Jews, Commission was broken in spirit by Pat the first time of a real EU party across the EU based solely on EU issues, i.e., Poland or all three. To Elizabeth Bowen it was Cox and the European Liberals to bring not about any of those things—Britain had about this state of affairs by the use of Libertas. Its polices are quite secondary to the significance of such a party coming gone to war again against Germany and that spurious corruption charges (though it is was sufficient reason for the war. She was probably giving them too much credit to into existence. That could lead to a renewed quite correct. This is the reality of the war say that they knew what they were doing EU and in its own way make a distinctive launched by Britain in 1939. or undoing: they were being used as tools positive Irish contribution to Europe that She illustrates very well in these reports that by opponents of a social Europe). would make up for the negative effects of it was a war against Germany and nothing Up to that point, the Commission had a the last distinctive Irish 'contribution' by else—whatever its political system was. The competence of its own: and the way it was Pat Cox. Irish politician she cultivated most was James Jack Lane Dillon, later leader of Fine Gael. She did so constructed meant that small countries because he was the most prominent politician like Ireland had a full contribution to who wanted Ireland to join the war against make. But, once the President of the Report: Address by Jack Lane to Bowen/Trevor Germany. She studied him very closely and Commission was ousted, the way was Summer School, Mitchelstown, 1 May 2009 acutely and concluded he was a fascist but that cleared for the down-grading of the made no difference whatever to his credentials Commission as a guiding force in the as an ally in the war against Germany. Fascists shaping of Europe. In practice this means Elizabeth's Reports willing to fight against Germany were no a few of the larger states dominate and I want to thank Liam Cusack and the Organ- mystery at all to her. play games with the Commission, and ising Committee for giving me an opportunity Her reports are seminal documents. I would other smaller Member States—as they see to introduce this latest collection of espionage submit that Elizabeth Bowen cannot be fully reports by Elizabeth Bowen*. They are a small understood or evaluated unless all her reports fit. during the war years are properly assessed and The result is that Europe is now neither number of reports brought to our attention recently and are published here for the first evaluated and this has not yet been done. a unitary state, nor a federation, nor a 'road Schools like this have a useful job to do in this map' to either—nor does it correspond to time. Though small in number they are significant in a number of ways, regard and we are making our contribution by the original plan of the EU founders. The First, they show the regularity with which publishing those reports we can find. real gainers in this mish-mash are the she wrote her reports, about one per fortnight Jack Lane lawyers. They will be in Paradise in this which confirms what a biographer, Heather Elizabeth Bowen: more of her espion- Europe. And as this conference showed— Bryant Jordan, has estimated. This means about age reports from Ireland to Winston with law you pay your money and take 200 in total were produced as well as verbal your choice. reports that she would not commit to writing. Churchill. 40pp. ISBN 978 1 903497 54 8, This shows the enormous amount of effort she Aubane Historical Society, 2009. ¤5, £4 Dr. Gavin Barrett of UCD raised the put into these reports, and that this work was Treaty proposal to elect a president of the her main preoccupation during the war years Elizabeth Bowen: "Notes On Eire". Council of Ministers: 'This is not a which in themselves were crucial years for her Espionage Reports To Winston and everyone in Britain. Churchill, 1940-42; With an extended president of the EU, as the Libertas website Secondly, we have included background states" (ibid.). This hardly clarifies matters material that shows they were read by Churchill Review of Irish Neutrality in World and begs the question—what is this new who they were intended for, the crucial ones at War 2 by Jack Lane and Brendan Clifford. President, President of? There will be two least, and discussed by the War Cabinet and we Third edition with extra reports. 266pp. competing Presidents but neither will be have both Churchill's acknowledgement and a Bibliog. Index. ISBN 978-1-903497-55-5. President of the EU? This adds further to report on a War Cabinet discussion about them AHS, 2009. ¤20, £15 5 based economy to an economy based on negativity of the media. This has created a wind and sunlight. The biggest casualty in very damaging perception abroad. this adjustment process has been the auto- Our economic situation is grim, but we mobile industry. An American free market have not suddenly become a poor country Shorts economist recently said that there were as some would have us believe. During from two instances when State intervention was the Celtic Tiger era there was over- justified. One was in developing econo- employment. We had practically full the Long Fellow mies. The State should support emerging employment and many people were industries until they can compete on the working overtime. Now the extent of world market. The second instance was in unemployment is understated. People on THE WORLD TRADE IMBALANCE mature economies to facilitate the winding a three-day week do not show up on the The world economy is going through down of declining industries. President statistics even though they sign on. If a an adjustment process and this is causing Obama is subsidising the American auto- person is in paid employment for over an the recession. mobile industry so that the necessary hour a week he is not classified as being The principal element in the adjustment downsizing will take place with the unemployed. process is the correction of the imbalance minimum of social disruption. But the news is not all bad. C. & F. in world trade. For the last twenty years or Tooling, an Irish-owned company based more manufacturing production has transferred from the West to the East NEVER WRITE OFF THE GERMANS ! . . . in Athenry, Co. Galway, is planning to (particularly China and India). Advances The general consensus at this year's recruit an extra 250 people over the next in information technology have also Hanover exhibition on renewable energy two years. It has invented a wind turbine, enabled services ancillary to the manu- is that the Germans are about ten years which will generate electricity at wind facturing process to be transferred to the ahead of everyone else. Germany has never speeds of 1.5m per second compared to an lost the capacity to make things and rem- East. industry norm of 3.5. This should allow In the past the West had a neo-colonial ains the largest exporter in the world. She has an impressive ability to mobilise the the C&F product to generate energy on relationship with Asia. Although wealth society to develop the economy. Local 350 days a year, over 100 days more than was created in the East, the West extracted communities can generate electricity bec- the current average. Another Irish-owned surplus value or profits from the East so ause the State has invested in the electricity company, Moffat Engineering, which is that the West's standard of living could be infrastructure. The national grid can also involved in renewable energy, plans maintained. receive electricity as well as dispense it. to recruit an extra 100 people. But these When Deng Xiaoping opened up China The problem with moving away from a items of news were reported in the print to capitalist reforms the West must have carbon-based economy is that billions have media days after they were announced thought that the vast Chinese market was been invested in the new industry, but the and then only in the business sections of the final frontier, with an endless supply benefit will only be in the future. This has The Irish Times and Irish Independent. of cheap labour to be exploited. added to the strain placed on the world But the capitalist reforms did not economy by reducing the capacity for represent a collapse of the Chinese State. current consumption. NAMA China remained a State with interests in The media believes that every silver lining must have a cloud. At the Public the World and did not become a capitalist . . . OR THE IRISH! colony. On the contrary it became a player Accounts Committee on 14th May It is very encouraging to see Irish Michael Somers, the head of the National in the world with extensive interests in entrepreneurs thinking about this new Treasury Management Agency, expressed Africa. And China herself is transferring industry. They, of course, will need help production to countries with cheaper doubt about the ability of that body to run from the State. Ireland has a plentiful with existing resources the newly created labour such as Vietnam. supply of wind but one of the problems of National Asset Management Agency. This So an increasing proportion of the wind energy is that it is difficult to store world's productive resources had trans- was very understandable given that the the electricity. One storage method is to terms of reference of the new body have ferred to China, but—unlike in former use the wind energy to pump water to a yet to be worked out. times—the wealth that was created did height and when the electricity is needed not return in the form of profits exprop- The NTMA is widely regarded as a by the consumer, the falling water is used highly competent organisation with riated by the West. The wealth did indeed to generate electricity. The ESB station at responsibility for management of the return to the West, but this time it was in Turlough Hill stores electricity in this the form of capital owned by China. And National Debt; Claims against the State; way. At off-peak periods water is pumped Finance of State projects over ¤30 million; the capital has been sloshing around the (not by wind power) from a lower reservoir and the National Pension Reserve. It often western banking system enabling the West to an upper reservoir. And at peak times to continue to buy Chinese commodities. happens that a body or an individual within the water from the upper reservoir is an organisation that is performing well But that situation was not sustainable released. finds that he is overloaded with new in the long term. In the absence of a neo- An Eastern European geologist has colonial relationship with China, a transfer responsibilities. This seems to be the noticed that Ireland has an ideal geological concern of Somers and the NTMA. This is of the World's productive resources from structure. Our mountains "sweep down to a matter that can be resolved and does not the West will necessarily lead to a dimin- the sea". He thinks we could use wind ution in the West's consumption. The warrant the extent of the media coverage energy to pump sea water to reservoirs on that it has received. financial system postponed that day of the top of hills enabling us to increase our reckoning and therefore made the adjust- capacity to generate such non-carbon On the other hand, another NTMA ment all the more severe when that day based electricity. Many of the best sites executive John Corrigan thought there arrived. for generating electricity in this way are in was merit in the idea of bringing the remote areas, which could give an impetus impaired loans under one roof because THE AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY to de-centralisation policies. many of the large Developers have loans The adjustment of the trade imbalance outstanding from more than one bank. is not the only adjustment that is taking THE MEDIA IS THE PROBLEM There were many positive aspects to place. The world is moving from a carbon- One of the problems in Ireland is the the deliberations of the Public Accounts 6 Committee. Although the National Debt Fennell's expression—was out in force on Varadkar (Fine Gael) in which the latter has risen dramatically over the last year, the Late Late Show of 8th May. Pat Kenny said that Fine Gael policy was to invest prudent management of the State finances gave a platform to Fintan O'Toole, Nell ¤10 billion in State enterprises. Mc in the past means that the State can weather McCafferty and John Crown (a Sunday Cafferty then asked where he was going to the deterioration in the world economic Independent columnist and eminent get the other ¤10 billion? She seemed to environment. In 2007 Irish debt to GDP oncologist) to lecture our democratic think that there was some relationship ratio was 23.8%. This rose to 43.2% in representatives. between the proposed ¤10 billion State 2008. By 2012 it will be 79%. But will still Kenny introduced the item by saying investment and the ¤20 billion social be less than the EU average, which is that we had gone from boom to being the welfare bill! She then claimed that she predicted to be 83.8% by 2010. Also, Irish "poor men of Europe"?! knew more about finance than politicians pension reserves as well as cash balances O'Toole in his sermon from the pulpit who didn't know what "Government held by the NTMA amount to 20% of urged us to "grow up" and denounced our corporate bonds" were. But there is no GDP, which could be deducted from the system for being "decrepit and self such thing as "Government corporate official National Debt figure to give a indulgent". "Above all" we should have bonds". Government Bonds and Corporate more realistic and more reassuring view "a realignment of Irish politics". The Bonds are two distinct items. of our State Finances. problem for Fintan and The Irish Times is It is clear from her autobiography that The problem that we have is that, that Irish people just don't vote the way McCafferty disengaged from politics in although there has been prudent manage- they are supposed to. the 1980s. Since then she has been nothing ment of the Public finances, Irish Banks The politicians were placed in rows at more than the court jester of Dublin 4. have been lending recklessly. Private the front of the audience like recalcitrant If there was any sense that could be sector debt has risen from ¤18 billion to children being called to account for them- made from the "Correctorate", it was that between ¤400 and ¤500 billion. It appears selves. Pat Kenny lectured the politicians we should abandon our parliamentary that this increase in debt has been con- on their failings pointing his finger at system in favour of the American system centrated among a small group of indivi- them. At one point he suggested that the of separation of powers between the duals. Irish society, in general, has not people voted blindly for politicians with a Government, the Legislature and the gone on a spending spree. The Banks have surname beginning with "A" or merely for Judiciary. O'Toole urged Fianna Fail been competing with the State for loans family names. He then asked Sean backbenchers to vote against their Govern- and domestic savings are not adequate to Sherlock if this comment was patronising ment to show their independence. This, of meet this demand. So about 85% of the towards politicians. The Labour TD said course, would make the functioning of State Debt is from abroad. The NTMA it was patronising towards the people. government impossible. thinks that, if our banks decided to renege But the representatives of the on amounts owed to foreign bond holders "Correctorate" were very unimpressive, Yet again this programme calls into —as Fine Gael advocates—the State's despite the format of the show being set up question RTE's relationship with the State. ability to borrow from abroad will be for them. Nell McCafferty thought that In no other country in the world would seriously impaired. Social Welfare expenditure was ¤40 journalists be given such a platform to At present the State has no problem billion rather than ¤20 billion. There then denigrate the Democratic institutions of raising money from abroad. The risk followed a bizarre exchange with Leo the State and its representatives. premium that lenders require over and above German interest rates has been as a vase containing the collective life of declining since the middle of March. the western peoples, that war cracked that vase all over. But I argue that it left it STATE INDUSTRIAL POLICY When Did Western nevertheless formally intact until 1945. Although the State has managed its Civilisation End? Up to that year, except in Bolshevik finances competently the same could not Russia and Nazi Germany, the inherited be said of the Banks. This has created a big During the question-and-answer European rules governing the behaviour problem for Irish industry. Enterprise session at the launch of my new book of states, communication with the super- Ireland, the State body responsible for Ireland After the End of Western natural, international relations in peace Irish-owned industry, has been placed in Civilisation (published by Athol Books), and war, dealings among persons and the position of compensating for the Jack Lane asked a question which I between age and youth and men and defects of the banking system. The Long answered briefly. But since Jack was women—those rules remained formally Fellow is forming a favourable impression putting forward a view which I have intact (even if occasionally breached in of this body. Its approach to lending is encountered more than once in the Irish practice as they had often been before). completely different from the banks. Political Review, I should like to give a Then in 1945 the United States formally Manufacturing companies find that they fuller response. justified the atomic massacres carried will be dealing with a person with an At the launch I had been saying, as my out in Japan, the West generally acquies- engineering background, rather than a book argues, that Western or European ced, and the construction of weapons for financial background. Such a person has a civilisation ended in the years 1945 to the indiscriminate massacre proceeded in the much better understanding of the business 1970s. Jack asked was it not rather the USA, Britain and France. A breach had and its customers. In many cases the case that European civilisation ended with been opened, and in the USA in the 1960s- Enterprise Ireland official will have had the First World War; that that war brought 70s, under the guidance of the left- dealings with the company's customers to an end Europe as it had been known to liberals—a new brand of liberals replacing and will be better able to assess the loan history. the 'classical' sort which we knew in Ireland applicant's sales projections. The For me, a civilisation means, among since Daniel O'Connell—a broad replace- relationship is more organic whereas the other things, a set of essential rules of ment of European rules of behaviour took banks' decisions are made by head office behaviour that provides an agreed frame- place, with the rulers' legislative support. employees fiddling around with work for the life of the community Imperially, the USA induced its West spreadsheets. concerned. I accept that the First World European satellites to follow suit, with War gave a shuddering shock to the 'Swinging London' providing the main THE LATE LATE SHOW European or Western framework of rules. European base of operations. First in the The "Correctorate"—to use Desmond If we imagine the European civilisation USA, then in each West European nation, 7 a body of left-liberal ideologues—which West with 'liberal' (as the left-liberals of time passes and the deaths of various I call the 'Correctorate'—preached and American vintage described themselves). parties allowed for the exposure of facts administered the new, post-European In the Republic of Ireland, The Irish which were previously kept hidden. rules; mainly through the mass media Times, which had been in danger of Most of the Arms Trial characters are which they came to dominate (but foundering, found new life and com- now dead, with the exception of Mr. Dessie also through leading universities). With mercial success as the main organ of the O'Malley. It is said that he still holds the acquiescence of the governments and Irish (left-)liberal correctorate. After trenchant views that the Government of the backing of legislation, these corrector- the establishment of Irish television in the the day, of which he was a member, was ates in effect replaced the Protestant or 1960s, RTE as a whole took its ideological right to prosecute the Arms Trial although Catholic clergies as the principal ethical lead from The Irish Times and has continued his audience of believers have diminished teachers. to do so for the moral edification of the in numbers. Working in tandem with commerce nation. Angela Clifford has done a fantastic and its advertising campaigns, they Desmond Fennell job in unearthing a lot of the lesser known paralleled the Communist parties in the facts. She forensically examines them in Soviet Union and its East European Ireland After The End Of encyclopaedic detail. It means that you satellites. As in the public language of the Western Civilisation cannot speed read The Arms Conspiracy Communist countries the words 'communist' by Desmond Fennell. Trial. You have to read it slowly. You are and 'socialist' were made to mean 'morally 102 pp. Index. ISBN 978-1-085034-12-1. forced to consider it. correct', so, too, in the English-speaking Athol Books, 2009. ¤10, £7.50 There are two companion, slimmer volumes of interest: August 1969 – Ireland's only appeal to the UN and Report: Suzanne Kelly's Speech at the Launch of The Arms Conspiracy Trial Military Aspects of Ireland's Arms (Author: Angela Clifford) on Friday 8th May 2009 Crisis of 1969/70. It is kind of eerie for me, as a daughter, Arms Conspiracy Trial to watch my father moving from parent to There is a forensic detective programme either knew directly or indirectly or I historical figure, in my own life time. My on TV called Bones, where a group of hip knew their children. mother's recent death has underlined that anthropologists, when presented with a Just as fascinating as it is, it is also process. It was her lifelong ambition to very old corpse, keep prodding it and frightening for me as a lawyer to see the have my father's name cleared and have analysing it and allowing the corpse to tell lengths the Government did go to destroy him posthumously promoted to the rank its story. individuals. It is as if the Government or he would have achieved if his army career The Arms Crisis is almost a forty-year some of the politicians of the day were had not been cut short. The problem was old corpse, and there are still rich pickings more comfortable hiding the truth than that she required courageous politicians to be had in prodding and analysing it, so revealing it. The maintenance of the to assist her, where the nature of the as to allow the old corpse to tell its true official lie became an end in itself. politician in power is to maintain the status- story. The story of the Arms Trial is a story of quo and do nothing. Moral courage and In simple terms, the Irish Government a massive Government cover-up, where politician are not happy bed fellows in the decided to import arms. The Irish Govern- all the resources of the State were used to one sentence. ment changed its mind. In the process the achieve that objective. It was such a big In the end, I am quite convinced that Irish Government sought to cover up any lie that it was difficult for many to believe history will get it right! Angela's books attempt to import arms by alleging a covert the extent of the cover-up for years. Each will add to all other books including Kevin conspiracy on the part of what are called new fact, as it emerged was disputed by Boland's and my father's, for future 'the accused'. The accused were found the Government with the same intensity interested parties. The interested will get Not Guilty by the Irish courts. as if it was fighting a war. Fortunately, to know the truth. The corpse will have The Irish Government decided that it told its story. did not like the outcome of the court case. So, it started a campaign to politically overturn the court's verdict. In an attempt The Arms Conspiracy Trial. to explain away the verdict journalists and Ireland 1970: the Prosecution of Charles historians were briefed with the real story: Haughey, Capt. Kelly & Others by Angela You know the jury was got to! A not-guilty Clifford. 720pp. Index. ISBN 978-1- verdict does not mean innocence! You 874158-20-8. A Belfast Magazine No. 33, know it is all about money! and so on. 2009. ¤30, £25 . Even the original official court report of the trial was destroyed whilst in Govern- The Arms Crisis: What Was It ment hands. The tapes of the trial, which About? by Angela Clifford. 40 pp. ISBN the judge ordered to be kept, disappeared 978-1-874158-22-6. ABM No. 34. May 2009. whilst stored in the Department of Justice. ¤5, £4. Angela Clifford, like the Bones anthropologist, has prodded, pulled, Military Aspects Of Ireland's Arms dragged and analysed the Arms Trial Crisis Of 1969-70 by Angela Clifford. corpse in an attempt to get at the truth of Index. 164pp. ISBN 1 874 157 16 2. what actually occurred. She has crawled ABM No.29. 2006. ¤10, £7.50. through all the minutiae of the underlying paperwork and notes. It is a fascinating August 1969: Ireland’s Only Appeal piece of detective work, made all the more To The United Nations: a cautionary fascinating for me, because my father tale of humiliation and moral collapse by Captain Jim Kelly was one of the accused Angela Clifford. ISBN 1 874157 13 8. 96pp. and because most of the characters, I ABM No. 26, March 2006. ¤7.50, £5. 8 Report: John Morgan's Oration at the Graveside of the Executed Leaders of the Easter of personnel meant they didn't take the Rising, 1916, in Arbour Hill, on 3 May 2009, on behalf of the 1916-1921 Club Railway Stations at Kingsbridge, Amiens St., Broadstone and Westland Row. They failed to cut the railway lines and, most The Rising vitally, they didn't take the landing-pier in It is with some trepidation that I speak Rising as a one-dimensional military Kingstown. in this august place called Arbour Hill. grand-stand. In fact it was much more. It The garrisons throughout the city sent Like the Execution Yard in Kilmainham was seminal. The Proclamation was the forward patrols and set up some FDLs, or Goal, it is heavy with sadness. Like The nation's canon. History was altered. A Forward Defended Localities. But they Hermitage in Rathfarnham, it evokes paradigm was set. Other nations followed. had inadequate resources, which meant a memories and conjures up ghosts. But, it The Empire had dug the first sod of its Screen of sufficient strength could not be is a place apart. Here is present Redemp- own grave. established. Therefore, they were unable tion, a sense of peace and an air of to force the British to deploy, attack, achievement. Militarily, the Rising failed for several regroup, deploy etc. They were unable to Yet, somehow, there is not present a reasons. The German arms consignment, buy time, prevent British forward move- sense of completion. At this, the nation's on the Aud, was bungled. Communication ment, maintain their own positions shrine, the vision of the Easter Rising was poor between the Military Council unidentified and generally frustrate the heroes is incomplete. Here it was intended and Germany. There was an erroneous enemy. that their ideals would lie hidden, buried believe that a U-Boat could patrol Dublin This permitted a rapid British Advance and forgotten. Like their bodies. Instead, Bay and intercept British re-inforcements. to Contact, an early identification of the there is renewal. McNeill's counter-manding order main Irish positions in the city, and a produced chaos. Volunteer turn-out was quick engagement with same. The superior Buried here are: depleted. The provinces failed to respond, British combat power dictated there be Thomas Clarke, Patrick Pearse, Thomas sufficiently. Confusion was wide-spread. but one result. It was now a matter of time. McDonagh, executed 3rd May. Most important, the RCP, or Relative William Pearse, Joseph Plunkett, Edward Combat Power, lay overwhelmingly with As a General Headquarters, the GPO Daly, Michael O'Hanrahan, executed 4th the British. The Volunteers and Citizen was an inspired choice. It was strongly May. Army were armed with assorted rifles, built and dominant. It became a synonym John McBride, executed 5th May. shot-guns, revolvers, pistols and home- for the Rising. It gained iconic status. Con Colbert, Sean Heuston, Eamonn made grenades and bombs. Some Here the Military Council was in situ. The Ceannt, Michael Mallin, executed 8th fighting was fierce, the resistance heroic. May. insurgents were weapon-less. The British had small arms, light and medium But the shelling and the wide-spread fires James Connolly, Sean McDermott, forced the defenders, men and women, executed 12th May. machine-guns and artillery, which included field-guns and howitzers. These into an impossible position. It was now 8 All were executed by firing squad in could pour high-explosive and incendiary pm, Friday 28th April. Still fighting, they Kilmainham Goal. All, but one, were led shells on targets. They also had motorised withdrew in groups. Some tunnelled out, on their own, to the Stonebreakers' transport, armoured cars and armoured through walls to Moore Street, after a final Yard, blindfolded, hands tied, with a white personnel carriers. Plus, of course, full speech by Pearse, which was followed by aiming-mark pinned over the heart. They logistical back-up. On the other hand, the defiant singing of the Soldiers' Song. Then, were put sitting on a soap-box and shot. Irish were often hungry, cold, sodden and alone, Pearse searched the building and The exception was the wounded James without rest. departed. The last man out. Connolly, who was brought out tied to a The Military Council—Pearse, Mc chair. The British, too, ruled the seas. Their Dermott, Clarke, Plunkett and Connolly— They were shot at dawn and their bodies re-inforcement capability was immense. regrouped in a house in Moore Street. were quickly moved to Arbour Hill and The huge military mobilisation in Britain There, amidst the tumult, they conferred. buried, coffin-less, in quick-lime graves. ensured this. Their military had virtual Pearse attended to a wounded British Consigned to oblivion, but later elevated carte blanche. Their main problem, soldier, lying there, who had cried out. to the national pantheon. initially, was to identify the Irish positions. They considered a break-out; bringing Thomas Kent was also executed by Then they could bring their vastly superior the fight into the streets; gaining the firing-squad in Cork on 9th May. Then, in RCP to bear. If they had to lay waste to Dublin mountains. The decision was to a last act of vengeance, the Crown hanged Dublin, then they would. And did. They seek terms in order to save civilians' and Roger Casement in Pentonville Prison on devastated O'Connell Street and adjacent insurgents' lives. Negotiations followed 3rd August. That, they felt, was that. streets with a rare abandon, destroying contacts. These resulted in unconditional and setting alight to buildings, without surrender, as insisted upon by the British. Irish Parliamentarians had split the inhibition. The city century lay in ruins. At the Moore Street-Parnell Street Volunteers and supported the Empire in junction, Commandant General Pearse, the War of the Saxons. Home Rule, they The Rising began on Easter Monday, on behalf of the Provisional Government said, would follow. The blood-shed of 24th April. The Irish deployment had a of the Irish Republic and the Army, Easter Week would be avoided. Instead, military rationale. It satisfied, in the main, surrendered to Brigadier General Lowe, Irishmen would shed their blood, and the principles of defence. It achieved the General Officer Commanding British German blood, for the Empire. Then, they defence in depth; mutual support, to a forces in Dublin. One must wonder at would have self-rule and remain united, degree, and all-round defence, to a degree. Pearse's state of mind, in this final act in as they had been for the previous seven (All of these are seldom completely the tragedy. He hadn't slept for five days. hundred years; in a British context, of achievable, especially when resources are His hopes seemed dashed. He'd led from course. inadequate.) the front. He'd endured with others. He'd They also took the high-ground (in an seen men fight and die. Now, in this last After the Easter Rising, the Survivors urban setting, usually buildings), with the moment, it all fell to him. He presented were uncritical of the leadership, with one inexplicable exception of St. Stephen's himself calmly, uniformed, slouch-hatted, notable exception and he was scornful of Green, from which they had to quickly neat and tidy, and cutting a dash. He was it. But it is a misconception to view the withdraw. However, the low availability dignified, to the last. He politely 9 reprimanded the British General when he'd had his word doubted. But it was the end. Or was it? Pat Murphy In Mind Surrender orders were dispatched to Patrick Henry Murphy died on April 1, April Fool's Day. This term had been worn the garrisons. By Sunday, reluctantly, the as a badge of honour by Patrick Henry Pearse, President of the Provisional Government last surrenders were made. British Courts of the Irish Republic proclaimed by the Easter Rising of 1916. As Pat's funeral service Martial formed. Firing Squads stood by. took place just a week short of this year's Easter Rising commemorations, it was Incarceration awaited—prisons in England and Scotland and Frongoch particularly appropriate to reflect on the words of Pearse's own poem on this theme. Internment Camp in Wales. For, to quote the words of the German poet Goethe: "Poetry is secular prayer". But it wasn't over at all. This was the end of the First Act. A Second Act awaited. THE FOOL As does an Epilogue, now. Since the wise men have not spoken, I speak that am only a fool; A fool that hath loved his folly, And so we stand at this tranquil place. Yea, more than the wise men their books or their counting houses, We overlook the final resting-place of Or their quiet homes, visionaries, their vision unfulfilled. But Or their fame in men's mouths; the nation will rise again. Others, more A fool that in all his days hath done never a prudent thing, inspiring, will emerge. They will negotiate Never hath counted the cost, nor recked if another reaped the completion of the dream. The dream The fruit of his mighty sowing, content to scatter the seed; of freedom. A fool that is unrepentant, and that soon at the end of all Pearse wrote to his mother, from his Shall laugh in his lonely heart as the ripe ears fall to the reaping-hooks cell, on the night before his execution, And the poor are filled that were empty, when all was dark and gloomy, when all Tho' he go hungry. seemed lost: "We have done right. People will say I have squandered the splendid years that the Lord God gave to my youth hard things of us now, but later on they In attempting impossible things, deeming them alone worth the toil. will praise us." Was it folly or grace? Not men shall judge me, but God. In his poem, The Fool, he wrote: I have squandered the splendid years; "O wise men riddle me this: what if the Lord, if I had the years I would squander them over again, dream come true?" Aye, fling them from me! In pursuance of the dream—the For this I have heard in my heart, that a man shall scatter, not hoard, universal dream—perhaps we should Shall do the deed of to-day, nor take thought of to-morrow's teen, apologize to all those nations which Shall not bargain or huxter with God; or was it a jest of Christ's Irishmen, in British uniforms, helped to And is this my sin before men, to have taken Him at His word? suppress, often with a violent hand. The lawyers have sat in council, the men with the keen, long faces, And said "This man is a fool", and others have said, "He blasphemeth"; And the wise have pitied the fool that hath striven to give a life All publications mentioned in this In the world of time and space among the bulks of actual things, magazine can be obtained from the To a dream that was dreamed in the heart, and that only the heart could hold. addresses on the back page or from: O wise men, riddle me this: what if the dream come true? What if the dream come true? And if millions unborn shall dwell In the house that I shaped in my heart, the noble house of my thoughts? www.atholbooks.org Lord, I have staked my soul, I have staked the lives of my kin On the truth of Thy dreadful word. Do not remember my failures, But remember this my faith.

And so I speak. Yea, ere my hot youth pass, I speak to my people and say: Ye shall be foolish as I; ye shall scatter, not save; Ye shall venture your all, lest ye lose what is more than all; Ye shall call for a miracle, taking Christ at His word. And for this I will answer, O people, answer here and hereafter, O people that I have loved shall we not answer together? by P.H. Pearse

Book Launch by Pádraig Ó Fiannachta

Friday, 7th August, 7.30 pm

Eoghan Rua Ó Súilleabháin DÁNTA/Poems

MALTON HOTEL, KILLARNEY

10 Report incapacitated and incapable of sustained speech; * Hart claimed in his 1992 thesis (on Rebel Cork's Fighting Story (ongoing) which his 1998 book is based) to have Rebel Cork's Fighting Story was part of ever frisson of publicity and notoriety it been given a tour of the Kilmichael a series of paperbacks on the War of might achieve by doing this. ambush site by the person who was Independence published by Anvil Press, The following letter was sent to the interviewed six days after the last veteran died. This revelation was omitted from Tralee, in the late 1940s. It and the others Series Editor and to Mercier Press: the 1998 book, which mentioned but did in the series became classics because of not specifically identify Hart's tour-guide; the detailed information they provided on AUBANE HISTORICAL SOCIETY the major engagements of the War at a Aubane, Millstreet, Co. Cork. * Hart cited a British assessment of loyalist informing in his 1998 comment- time when most of the participants were 30 April 2009 ary on April 1922 killings near Dunman- To: [email protected] still alive and able to contribute. way in a way that directly contradicted Dear Dr. Ó Conchubhair, Anvil Press was acquired by Mercier the source's conclusion. A relevant section Press recently and it is to republish this immediately following and directly RE-PUBLICATION OF 'REBEL CORK'S and other books in the series. All very qualifying the sentence he cited was FIGHTING STORY' encouraging but there is a major drawback. It has come to our attention that you are censored; Apparently Peter Hart will be providing editing a series of books for Mercier * In his later editorship (CUP, 2002) of the introduction to the Cork book on this Press, Cork, that involves separate re- the British Record of the Rebellion in the occasion. This seems almost a sick joke as publication of Cork's, Dublin's, Kerry's 6th Divisional Area, from which the Mercier has published a major refutation and Limerick's Fighting Story, originally assessment above was taken, Hart failed published on various dates by Anvil Press to explain his censorship of the source. of Hart by Meda Ryan. Do this publisher Hart then proceeded to omit an entire what it puts out? (whose titles are now taken over by Mercier). This is an excellent initiative section, 'The People', from this important Hart has sought to discredit the War of that will re-acquaint a modern audience assessment, but without informing the Independence by every means possible— with these classic texts on the War of reader. It contained relevant information and particularly the War in Cork— Independence. The decision to provide a on British assessments of Irish people including the interviewing the dead to contemporary introduction that puts these that contradicted the view Hart promoted. make his case. works in context is also a good one. The These issues (that are not exhaustive of He specifically denies the legitimacy selection of an appropriate historian to the credibility issues) have undergone of the Irish Independence movement as he write the introduction is important. public scrutiny in 1998 (Brian Murphy, explained in the Irish Times: In that context the choice of Professor The Month); 2003 (Meda Ryan, Mercier Peter Hart of Memorial University, "…the Dail had no legal standing and Press); 2005 (Peter Hart, Murphy, Ryan, Newfoundland to introduce 'Cork's Fight- was never recognised by any foreign Niall Meehan, Andres Boldt, Sean ing Story' is surprising. Professor Hart is government. Nor did the IRA, as a Kelleher and Manus O'Riordan, Mar- a controversial choice. That is not a guerrilla force acting without uniforms Apr to Sep-Oct 05, History Ireland, four problem in itself. The historical society and depending on their civilian status for issues); 2006 (John Regan, History Vol. on whose behalf I write also has a reput- secrecy, meet the requirements of 91 (301), Jan 06; Meehan, Hart, John ation for controversy. Controversy stirs international law. The British government Borgonovo, (Irish Times, Jun 23, 28, Jul debate, focuses attention and clarifies was therefore within its rights to give 3, 14, 06); 2007 (Ryan, History Vol. 92 thinking. courts-martial the power to order (306), Apr 07; Murphy, Aubane; The concern with Professor Hart con- executions" (23 June 1998). Borgonovo, IAP and History Ireland, cerns not controversy, but credibility. And furthermore: (May-Jun 07); 2008 (Meehan and The credibility of Peter Hart's research is Murphy, Aubane, Brendan O'Leary, "Nor were members of the IRA the controversy that surrounds him. In Dublin Review of Books); 2009 (Joost protected by the Hague Convention, the that regard, our society published in 2008, Augusteijn, Jan-Feb 09, History Ireland). basis for the law of war on land. The 'Troubled History, a 10th anniversary In the two publications in which Hart British government and its forces were critique of Peter Hart's The IRA and its participated (History Ireland, 05, Irish not at war in this sense. To be recognised Enemies' by Brian Murphy and Niall Times 06), he failed to address the as belligerent soldiers, the guerillas would Meehan. We also published in 2006 Dr criticisms - please see Andres Boldt's have had to be fighting for a responsible Murphy's 'The Origin and Organisation comment on this aspect in the Sep-Oct 05 established state, wear a recognisable of British Propaganda in Ireland 1920'. History Ireland. In the Irish Times in uniform or emblem, carry their arms Both publications raised issues of June 2006, in reply to Niall Meehan, Hart openly, and not disguise themselves as interpretation, distortion and censorship, stated that he had never used the term civilians. None of these conditions arising out of Professor Hart's use of 'ethnic cleansing' with regard to the War applied. It is of course true that historical sources (do you have them? If of Independence in the South of Ireland. international law favours established not I will forward them to you). The It had to be pointed out to Hart that he states, but if any group can claim criticisms are not exclusive to our Society, indeed had used this term in 1997 and in belligerent status when using political far from it. They have been brought into 20003. violence, then so can the INLA or the the academic mainstream, albeit too Joost Augusteijn, in the Jan-Feb 2009 LVF. The Oklahoma bombers would also slowly in our view. I detail summarised History Ireland, made the point that Hart conceivably have a right to POW status" examples, that relate to credibility, has not answered the serious criticisms (Irish Times, 22 July 1998). (matters of interpretation are secondary and that he has taken them too lightly. in this context) below: The Mercier Press, which has published Professor Brendan O'Leary made the excellent material on Irish history over a * Hart claimed to have interviewed a same point in the Dublin Review of long period, must surely see some incon- veteran of the November 28 Kilmichael Books. O'Leary wondered how 'this gruity in having a person who sees the Ambush six days after the last veteran ghost', Hart's Kilmichael tour guide, whole Independence War as criminal died; 'walked the walk', and 'talk[ed] the talk' activity introduce accounts of the Inde- * Hart claimed to have interviewed ('A Long March', http://www.drb.ie/ pendence movement. It will damage its two veterans of the ambush when only more_details/08-09-25/a_long_march. reputation beyond measure despite what- one was alive (aged 97), though medically aspx, see notes 72, 73). 11 While these criticisms relate mainly to our view - there are other historians whose in honestly presenting the full horrors of matters of fact, Hart's interpretation of work is not tainted to this extreme degree. war, but without relish. On 2nd May 1995 sectarian intent within the Irish War of The choice of historian is yours, or I submitted the following letter to the Independence largely depends on the mat- perhaps Mercier's (please clarify). That Editor of the Irish Times: ters of fact in dispute that he has failed to is not our business. However, we reserve address adequately. Hart has promised the right to comment on the adequacy of "Fifty-two years ago a new ballad on various occasions, both public and the choice made, as in this case. spread like wildfire through the Vilna private, to address them. No response As I have explained, the choice made Ghetto. It had been anonymously that directly addresses the points in at this juncture by you/Mercier in the composed by one of only thirty who had contention has emerged. context of this book will be regarded managed to escape from a massacre of In such circumstances your decision to widely as unacceptable and unwise. We over four thousand Lithuanian Jews at choose a scholar whose work has been suggest that a historian is chosen who has Ponar on a single-day—April 4, 1943. discredited without response is a strange not made impossible claims and one who One of its lines tells us: "Alongside the one. We ask you and Mercier Press to re- has not engaged in systematic censorship. Jewish dead there also lay several consider it. Work produced by this author I await your response and that of Germans, bitten to death". Yes, the will be tainted by his inability to address Mercier Press with great interest. victims had fought back, and a number of serious criticisms. The decision under- Yours sincerely, SS mass murderers met an undoubtedly mines public confidence in the profession Jack Lane grotesque but hardly undeserved end. 'Fight fair! D'ye want us to come out in of history and it will bring Mercier Press cc Eoin Purcell, our skins an' throw stones?', asked Fluther into disrepute. It will surprise serious [email protected] in 1916 of a British soldier in Seán scholars of history. It may be that, in Sharon O'Donovan, O'Casey's play, 'The Plough and the these circumstances, you might impose [email protected] on Professor Hart a requirement to address Stars'—a question that can be posed with the criticisms prior to permission being very much greater validity on behalf of We will keep readers in touch with granted to publish his introductory the victims of Nazism. For they indeed remarks. That would be inadequate in what response is received. had every right to fight back with any weapon to hand that might serve as a defence against their own annihilation, be it bullet or bomb, teeth or knife." "Why, then, the caricature of an obitu- The Myers Obsession With ary for Milovan Djilas penned by Kevin The Recently Dead Myers? ... Why does Myers maintain that Djilas not only 'used to boast in old age The July 2008 issue of Irish Political ist's "quite magnificent two volume history how he slit the throat of a captured Review carried an article of mine entitled: of the Irish Guards—a masterpiece of German soldier before clubbing him to "Haughey in the Service of the Nazis? military literature, its every line beating death' but that he also 'lived in the Myers, Damned Lies and Statistics". I with a passionate pride in the feats of Irish mountains beyond reprisal'? By observed: soldiers". By whom, of course, Myers definition, a dead man—no matter how meant those who had taken the King's recent his demise—cannot be libelled. "The Myers predilection for telling Nor, for the most part, can the dead shilling in 1914 to fight in Britain's war whoppers of lies about the not-so-long answer back. Djilas's own reply is, dead (knowing that, being dead, they upon the German nation. Here is how however, contained in his 1977 memoirs, cannot sue for libel) is just as strongly Kipling described the manner in which entitled 'Wartime'. There is no boasting alive and kicking today as when I first Michael O'Leary had won his VC on 1st in this book of the incident concerned. drew attention to it thirteen years ago." February 1914: Instead we are given a painfully honest April 20th, 1995 saw the death of the "The Germans were too well posted to narrative of a day of horrors—June 13, Yugoslav dissident Milovan Djilas. Even be moved by bomb or rifle, so our big 1943. Djilas had been among a group of though Djilas had been an anti-Communist guns were called upon to shell for ten Yugoslav Partisans effectively trapped polemicist for many decades—breaking minutes, with shrapnel, the hollow where by a German SS Division on that day. alike with both Stalin and Tito, and serving they lay. The spectacle was sickening, They had been fighting since the crack of a period of imprisonment under the latter's but the results were satisfactory… It was dawn with heavy casualties. Among the regime—Myers found his earlier wartime here that Lance-Corporal O'Leary… won dead was his own young cousin. On Communism unforgivable. With Djilas his VC. He rushed up along the railway retreating into the forest they stumbled less than a week cold, Myers penned an embankment above the trenches, shot on two SS men. In response to a question "Irishman's Diary" that was wholly and down 5 Germans behind their first from Djilas, one of the SS boasted that explicitly devoted to consigning him to barricade in the trench, then 3 more trying their Division was indeed all around them. to work a machine-gun at the next Hell's flames. Published by the Irish Times Djilas continues: 'I unslung my rifle. Since barricade fifty yards further along the I didn't dare fire, because the Germans on April 27th, a week to the very day after trench, and took a couple of prisoners. his death, Myers portrayed Djilas as "an were some forty yards above—we could Eye-witnesses report that he did his work hear them shouting—I hit the German unrepentant killer with the blood of quite leisurely and wandered out into the over the head. The rifle butt broke, and hundreds on his hands", who "revelled in open, visible for any distance around, the German fell on his back. I pulled out killing Germans… killing them by hand, intent upon killing another German to my knife and with one motion cut his with knife or hammer, or by strangling whom he had taken a dislike." throat'. Survival had required silence, them". hence the knife. And Djilas recalled the The relish with which Kipling pro- Lest there by any confusion on the remainder of that day as follows: 'We subject, Myers had absolutely no qualms ceeded to narrate the bloodlust of O'Leary stationed guards around us, and could about killing Germans as such, particularly in casually proceeding to kill a ninth hear the Germans killing our wounded in World War One, as long as such killings German, whom he did not want to be and non-combatants along the Sujestka, were carried out by the right sort of people. bothered taking as a third prisoner— and on the road which we had travelled Four years later, on 11th September 1999, triggered by the "very good" reason that that morning. It was then that a husband the Irish Times published his hymn of he had just "taken a dislike" to him—is answered the plea of his gravely wounded praise to Rudyard Kipling, in which Myers quite chilling in its understated delivery. wife to kill her, seizing his opportunity gushed about that imperialist propagand- By contrast, Djilas was to be quite explicit while she was dozing. I had known them 12 since 1941. It was then also that a father Indeed there was nothing that Myers attack on Bob, but did not allow me a fulfilled the same request by his daughter. could do about it. But the Irish Independent right of reply. But when we remember I knew that father too. He survived the Editor could—and did—suppress the the hallowed ground where we are at war, withered and sombre. We counted following letter which I submitted in reply present—this is Liberty Hall; this is where the shots the Germans above fired as on February 11: the 1916 Proclamation was printed; this signals and knew they spoke of our is where those Leaders met to give effect annihilation.' When Kevin Myers prays "I refer to the column of vituperation to that 1916 Rising; this is where the that 'God has consigned Djilas to where directed against the late Bob Doyle by statue of James Connolly was unveiled in the hottest flames linger', it is sufficient Kevin Myers. As an Irish Republican the presence of Bob Doyle and his fellow to recall that Djilas came through the hell volunteer Bob confronted the Blueshirt brigadistas—when we remember that just described." menace in Ireland, fought courageously Kevin Myers was published in a paper against international Fascism on the that actually called for Connolly's I had submitted the above letter with battlefields of Spain and enlisted in the the following covering note to the Irish execution, we can say to Bob: By Christ, British merchant navy for World War you're in good company!" Times Letters Editor: Two. Having faced down far more "As the recently-deceased Milovan substantial foes—from the Spanish fascist And so he was. Djilas is no longer in position to reply on guards who regularly and viciously beat Manus O'Riordan his own behalf to Kevin Myers… I hope him with clubs, to the Nazi German it will be possible to publish Djilas's own Gestapo who interrogated him during his account, from his 1977 Memoirs, of the year of concentration camp incarceration Prize Nonsense incident referred to." —Bob would have nothing but contempt Readers will not be surprised to learn that for the journalistic 'courage' of such a It is time for the IPR to institute its this letter was not, in fact, published. 'kick him when he has just died' column own Prize. There's a Prize for rushed off before his family even had a everything these days. One for the Necrophilia is rightly regarded as a most tortured attack on Republicanism product of a sick and twisted mind. But chance to conduct his funeral service... But it was the honour bestowed upon him in the media is a prime need. The what are we to make of such passionate by Spanish democracy that particularly reader might respond that 'Major' K. necrophobia, expressed so immediately warmed his heart. For it was a cross- Myers would walk away with it. Even after the death of the targeted victim? And Party Spanish Parliament that unanimous- if offered on a weekly basis. what are we to make of various newspaper ly voted in 1996 to grant the right of In the Irish Times (Fri. 16.01.09) editors who have seen fit to indulge a Spanish citizenship to Bob and his fellow Paddy Agnew's weekly Rome Letter serial offender in his pursuit of such per- International Brigade volunteers. The was entitled No Oscar in prospect for verted and cowardly predilections? Irish verdict of the Spanish people themselves realistic portrayal of Mafia brutality. International Brigader Bob Doyle died in was his ultimate vindication. Citizens of It was a (slightly pointless) whinge London this past January 22nd. His Dublin can also show their appreciation about the film Gomorra being nixed by remains were cremated on February 10th at the Garden of Remembrance this 'Hollywood' for an Oscar. Gomorra, and his ashes brought back to Dublin by Saturday when his ashes will be carried Agnew claims, is too gritty and realistic his family on February 14th. Meanwhile, by his family in procession to Liberty about the Mafia. Hall for a celebration of Bob Doyle's on February 6th, the Irish Independent He sneers at the "huge success" of life." published the following diatribe penned The Sopranos, whose "hero was a by Kevin Myers: See www.indymedia.ie/article/91124 violent godfather and the underlying "Bob Doyle was no democrat. In the for a report and video footage of the protagonist was organised crime". Can 1930s, he was a member of the Dublin vindication of Bob Doyle by the 600 an abstraction like "organised crime" IRA, the slogan of which was put citizens who participated in those Dublin be a "protagonist"? It reads reasonable elegantly by Frank Ryan: 'While we have ceremonies on February 14th. In my own enough. fists, hands and boots to use, and guns if remarks at Liberty Hall I proceeded to The next paragraph is Prize-winning necessary, we will not allow free speech point out: to traitors.' And 'traitors' in this context material: "How would Irish viewers meant the democratically accountable "I will also mention one more family, react to a soap opera about the Murphys political party, Cumann na nGaedheal. because it is a fitting answer to what in mid-80s Belfast and the difficulties But Bob Doyle was also a member of the Kevin Myers has written. He sought to they faced in trying to resolve the Communist Party, which took its orders exploit the Irish dead, including the Irish conflicting requirements of home life from Joe Stalin. The International Brigade dead of the Soviet Gulag. One of those and being effective Provo operatives?" that he served in was merely a tool of the was Patrick Breslin, a founding member The Mafia / IRA comparison is a bit Soviet Union—which at the time of the of the 1920s Communist Party of Ireland, passé. A bit 'Indo' and unsubtle. The Spanish war, was simultaneously who went to work in the Soviet Union people 'Provo operatives' were allegedly conducting a great purge, three of whose and was unjustly charged with anti-Soviet 'terrorising' have been voting, in fatal victims were actually Irish (see 'Left activities. But his family can be proud of increasing numbers, for them for a the fact that he maintained his innocence to the Wolves—Irish victims of the quarter century. Paddy Agnew is living Stalinist Terror', Barry McLoughlin, Irish to the very end. Bob, who had himself suffered at the hands of Fascist in Italy but surely he must be familiar Academic Press)." with the election results? "So, there isn't a single part of Bob imprisonment, would have had nothing but admiration for a man who devoted his 'Provo operatives' might have to be Doyle's political agenda which was put in context. The British Army (and dedicated to democracy and the rule of life to the Soviet Union and who rightly maintained his innocence of any anti- Navy, and Air Force), a large (armed) the ballot box... But naturally, he is to be police force, two large (and many remembered with a public march from Soviet activities, but who nonetheless perished. And it is a tribute to the horizons smallish) Loyalist paramilitary groups the Garden of Remembrance to Liberty would have to be factored in. It might Hall tomorrow week, and no doubt will of people who are inspired by Bob, that get a wee bit too complicated for simple be celebrated as a defender of democracy Patrick Breslin's daughter (Mairéad and freedom, just as Frank Ryan and Patrikovna Breslin Kelly) and his soap treatment. Viewers might even Sean Russell, IRA men who threw their granddaughter (Lara) are here today to start thinking. lot in with the Nazis, came to be so feted. honour Bob Doyle, in spite of the likes of Seán McGouran There's nothing anyone can do about this Kevin Myers (Applause). Needless to ..." say, the Irish Independent published that 13 The Irish Times respected when it related to the Irish State. The final question came from a long Public Meeting on The Irish Times time Irish Times employee who praised the integrity of Douglas Gageby and On April 22nd the National Library Days, the Bank regretted three years later thought that Fintan O'Toole's moral Society had a talk on The Irish Times by that McDowell was placed in such an denunciation of Michael Lowry of the Mark O'Brien, the author of a recent book impregnable position. previous day was admirable. He further on the subject. I have described in the Irish O'Brien concluded by suggesting that suggested that, now that adherence to the Political Review the book as being "overly the Trust arrangement indicated that The Catholic Church had declined, the values sympathetic", but nevertheless containing Irish Times was a public service rather of The Irish Times could provide a valuable information. And O'Brien's than a commercial enterprise. Following substitute. There was embarrassed laughter speech was a reflection of his book. He O'Brien's speech there was a speech by a as the audience's gaze turned to the referred to the Unionism of the newspaper Mr. Ian Dalton, who reflected the Chairman of the meeting, who happened before the Treaty and the relationship Protestant view. The newspaper reflected to be a Catholic priest. After a few seconds between the newspaper and the emerging Protestant values. These values were quite pause, the cleric responded with a terse State after the Treaty. O'Brien described conservative. The Protestants population "no comment". the distrust which the State had for the had diminished substantially since newspaper, but the impression was given independence, but the remaining popula- I have not a religious bone in my body, that the State was being irrational and the tion was over-represented in the banking, but the news that the values of Rome may newspaper's motives were beyond legal, accountancy and insurance profes- be replaced with the values of Bishop reproach. sions. He thought that Fintan O'Toole had O'Toole and his fellow moralists in The Nevertheless, O'Brien reproduced some a rather rose-tinted view of the matter. If Irish Times was no cause for celebration! of the cartoons of the period after The Irish Times occasionally embarked John Martin independence, which give an authentic on a liberal cause, it couldn't rely on its The Irish Times: Past And Present, flavour of the culture of The Irish Times. infantry to follow it. a record of the journal since 1859, One of the most famous cartoons was the by John Martin. Odearest advertisement depicting the fire The meeting was then opened to the Index. 264 pp. ISBN 978-1-872078-13-7. in the Irish Times premises of 1951. It floor. I was trying to assess the audience. BHES. 2008. ¤20, £15. shows in the background the editor Bertie There were about 80 in attendance. They Smyllie emerging from the premises with were middle class and the majority was three treasured possessions. probably over 60. My impression was And it is an interesting question. If that they were Irish Times readers. One of Queen Elizabeth and there were a fire in your house or office, them said he loved the newspaper and was what three possessions would you attempt particularly impressed by the standard of pockets of resistance to salvage? The choice could be very photography. A younger man felt that Rugby player Ronan O'Gara caused a mini- revealing. The Irish Times in its recent some of Smyllie's writings should be re- sensation when he kept his hands in his 150th commemoration magazine also published. I was surprised at this because pockets when the team was presented to reproduced the cartoon, but only referred in his largely uncritical biography Mr Queen Elizabeth. The following letter was to one of those possessions: a roll of Smyllie, Sir, Tony Gray suggested that submitted to the Irish Times on 12th May, newsprint precariously balanced on Smyllie's writing style was pompous. His but did not find publication Smyllie's head. The second possession is Nichevo column was dubbed by some a typewriter carried under the Editor's left people "Famous People who know me". O'Gara's stance: the pocketbook history arm. But the third possession is the most The impression given was that the famous On December 1, 1920, the RIC auxiliary interesting and revealing of all. It is carried Irish Times Editor was something of a pub division based at Macroom Castle in Co under Smyllie's left arm and could easily bore. Cork ordered that "all male inhabitants of be missed. But, as O'Brien said in his But there were a number of people that Macroom and all males passing through lecture, a close examination reveals that it were quite critical of the newspaper. A Macroom shall not appear in public with is in fact a Union Jack. few speakers thought there was a conflict their hands in their pockets. Any male Of course, the cartoon was only an between its high moral tone and the com- infringing this order is liable to be shot on advertisement and the focus was on another mercial objectives of the newspaper. The sight". Irish Times character—the Quidnunc disastrous purchase of Myhome.ie was columnist Seamus Kelly—who is worried mentioned. One person criticised O'Brien It has been the habit of Corkmen to that his Odearest mattress, "his most for having too benign a view of the assert a right to keep their hands in their cherished possession", would be lost in relationship between Major McDowell pockets in the presence of British authority the fire. The advertisement was part of a and Douglas Gageby. This person referred figures ever since. The more often it long running advertising campaign in The to the "white nigger" letter, which gave a happens, the more it should reassure British Irish Times and certainly was not intended very different picture of that relationship. personages no harm will come to them as satire. In my opinion the cartoonist got I asked if the author had received any and so it is not necessary to shoot Irishmen Smyllie just about right. explanation as to why it was necessary for with deficient deportment. The Irish Times Trust and Irish Times Ltd. This may explain why Ireland and O'Brien went on to describe briefly The Directors to swear an oath of secrecy. The Munster rugby star Ronan O'Gara, from Irish Times Trust of 1974 and remarked author stumbled over this question and Cork, kept his hands in his pockets when on the extraordinary powers accorded to the audience burst out laughing when he he met Queen Elizabeth, from London, Major McDowell. He thought that the said that he didn't know why there was an recently. Bank of Ireland wanted those powers to "oath of allegiance". He compounded the Whether the historical basis for O'Gara's be given to the Major. But there is no Freudian slip when he suggested that a stance was part of the IRFU's defence of evidence of this. The most that can be said possible explanation was "cabinet his actions (Irish Examiner, May 9) is is that the bank acquiesced and, as Andrew confidentiality". I replied that "cabinet another matter. Whittaker says in his book Bright Brilliant confidentiality" was not something that Niall Meehan 14 after the country had been Partitioned, and after no Home Ruler—and no advocate Coolacrease Again of remaining within the UK and the Empire on any basis—had even contested the 26 The Aubane book which refutes the In the final paragraph the review lets County Election, aside from the elite broadcast RTE account of the executions itself down, hedging its bets: University electorate. The Ulster Unionist at Coolacrease in June 1921 has been "Having said all that, I must pause. All complication had been hived off. But, in reviewed in four commercial publications. of this depends on your views on the face of a sweeping 26 County It was rubbished in the Sunday Business nationalism, physical force, legality and endorsement of the Dail, the British Post in a review which was itself rubbish politics. None of those involved are now Government still stood firm against the (see Irish Political Review, Jan. 09; living. The authors of this book are democracy. Do I think that Whitehall/ Church & State No. 95). Then it was clearly in favour of the IRA of those Westminster had a reasonable case, in reviewed in History Ireland by Joost times. Although critical of the accuracy terms of legitimacy, in the era of the Augusteijn, who was trained as an acad- of their opponents, they are not above League of Nations, for refusing to acknow- emic historian within the revisionist school making mistakes of their own. Suffolk, ledge the sovereignty of the Dail? I don't. which was the source of the RTE travesty for instance, is not one of the home And nobody who does has argued the of the Coolacrease event. Augusteijn counties. There is a case here and the case. The preference is to discuss the conceded the substance of the Aubane makers of the programme should answer legitimacy of the 1916 Insurrection—a case against RTE in a couple of quick it. Having strong County Offaly wartime event in a situation where neither sentences before hurrying on to a couple connections, I very much enjoyed reading the Insurrectionists nor the Government it but I was not convinced." of pages of silly comment on the Aubane that defeated them was democratically book on marginal points. Then there was What was Kircaldy not entirely con- elected—and to pass over the Elections of a review in the Dublin Review of Books vinced of? Was he suddenly overcome by 1918, 1920 and 1921 as if they were (see Church & State No. 96). And now the a doubt of his own assessments in a somehow subordinate to the Rising, rather book is reviewed in the May issue of preceding paragraph that the incident was than being distinct events of a different Books Ireland by John Kircaldy, about not an act of religious antagonism in pursuit kind from the Rising. The Rising and the whom no information is given. of a land grab? That RTE was right after mode of its suppression undoubtedly all, and that there WAS "Ethnic Cleansing influenced what happened in the electoral My understanding of a book review, In The Midlands"? process when it was restored (in demo- acquired in a by-gone era, is that it should cratised form) after the Great War. But give the reader some idea of what the book I do not understand why "all of this that does not make the War of Inde- says and assess its accuracy, before going depends on your views of nationalism" pendence a continuation of the Rising. It on—if the reviewer must—to entertain etc. One might be an Imperialist and still was a continuation of the Election in the himself with irrelevancies. I stopped assess the evidence with a degree of face of British refusal to heed the electoral reading book reviews as a matter of course objectivity and reach the conclusion that mandate in Ireland. long ago when they stopped doing this. Aubane reached Indeed, some of the And I particularly stopped reading Books people connected with Aubane were Kircaldy reviews Coolacrease along Ireland reviews when I saw Stickies roundly denounced as Imperialists by the with two other books: The Provisional (Official Republicans) commending each effective maker of the RTE programme, Irish Republican Army And The Morality other's books in it without acknowledging Senator Harris—Bertie's bequest to the Of Terrorism by Timothy Shanahan their relationships. It therefore came as a nation. One does not need "to be in favour (Edinburgh University Press), and The surprise to find that Kircaldy's review of of the IRA of those times", or to think that Burnings Of 1920 by Pearse Lawlor Coolacrease was almost a genuine review. nationalist Ireland was entitled to take by (Mercier). He remarks with regard to the The title of the review is Not Proven, force what the Empire had refused to former: but the following amounts to a verdict of concede to its vote, in order to be able to "The justification for violence by the Guilty against RTE: see that the incident at Coolacrease was IRA has always been simple. It believes "Looking at the evidence as presented not a sectarian land grab. in a united Ireland and feels that, if this is here, the following to my mind stand up: achieved, history will absolve it. the family was not shot as Protestants but I am the author of a small part of the Surrounding this are notions of martyr- because they were seen as enemies of the book. Am I "clearly in favour of the IRA dom, blood sacrifice and minority IRA (all other families in the area were of those times"? I never felt an urgent activists. Violence is justified because a left alone). There seems no evidence that need to decide. In 1969 I made the part of Ireland is occupied by the their membership of a small religious strongest case I could for Ulster Unionism. British…" sect had anything to do with their killing. Was I in favour of it? It was there, and my It was their involvement during the war estimate was that it was going to stay This is a blinkered 26 County view of that was their undoing; this was there. The general nationalist estimate what has happened in the North over the underlined by the evidence that the family was that it was a base-less remnant of the past 40 years. The Provo campaign has was integrated into the community before past and would crumble under pressure. (I long since been "justified" in the only world war one. The idea that the motive recall in particular debating this question place that counts, which is the Catholic for the killings was the grabbing of land community that had to put up with the also does not seem to hold water." with a Fine Gael Front Bencher.) If it was going to last, I saw no sense in describing bizarre form of government that West- minster set up for the 6 Counties in 1921. Kircaldy says he knows Offaly and it as it was being described. (Martin The right-thinking middle class of the knows that the incident "still reverberates Mansergh holds me responsible for keep- Republic, which never troubled to there". He does not suggest that "the ing it in being when it was about to crumble, understand the particularity of Northern evidence as presented" is faulty. By taking because I described it as having the quality Ireland, switched off from the North in the the book as being sound on those points, of a durable nationality, but with mid 1970s and moralised at it in a way that he damns the RTE programme in substance uncharacteristic modesty I must say that made no sense in terms of Northern but is prudent in his form of expressing it. he exaggerates my influence.) Catholic experience. (RTE reaches millions: Aubane only thousands.) The Coolacrease incident happened There was war in 1919-21 because 15 Westminster decided to ride rough-shod over the majority in Ireland. There was war in the North in 1970-1998 because the Propaganda With Your Laxatives Catholic third in the North was deprived of an outlet in the democratic politics of It is high time there was an Irish history (Sir John Kane, Judge Wylie, the Manag- the state and was subjected to communal of World War II. The War is painted as ing Director of Guinness's, etc), confirmed rule by the two-thirds. The Provo war one continuous event but that was not the these reservations. As one functionary, effort would have been impossible without case in reality. The original war declared Professor Harlow, bluntly put it: "their very substantial support by the Catholic by Britain over Poland was effectively work would be stultified by the fact that in community from the start, and increasing over before the major one between these days the Anglo-Irish cut no ice support as pressure was applied against it. Germany and Russia began, and the US- whatever" (PRO, Kew, 16/6/1941). He And social communities do not denounce Japan War had its own quite separate contrasted that with the work being done: themselves—not unless they are shattered. raison d'etre. There are therefore at least "in the closest consultation with the Dom- three wars involved with different histories inions Office and various departments of The Provos were not an anti-Treaty as each war meant radically different things the British Intelligence Service (where) remnant of Southern politics. They were to the different nations involved. It meant we are working steadily and not without a new development, of 1969-70, out of the something else to the neutrals and some- success through Mr John Betjeman in a predicament in which the system of thing different again to those who were variety of ways of which it would not be misgovernment that Britain devised for neutral and then became engaged. And it wise to describe in detail" (ibid). The the North had placed the Catholic was different again for neutrals according proposal died a death. community. They were not there at all in to where they were geographically located. July 1969. They arose out of the com- However, other proposals were forth- The issue became one of who was neutral munity after the events of August. They for whom and who was neutral against coming. Nichols Mansergh pursued a did not exist over against the community. whom. There is no doubt that Britain suggestion made— They were a communal response to regarded Ireland as being neutral against "at a recent meeting in the Dominions undemocratic government, and that was it and Switzerland as being neutral in its Office that tea and other commodities their "justification". They stood in no favour. It is therefore inevitable and correct supplied by this country to Eire should be need of subsequent absolution from a that all real histories will be national his- packed in containers indicating that the transcendental "history"—a history tories in relation to the conflict and any contents have been furnished to Eire from serving external interests. an United Kingdom source or alternative- other approach will become abstract and ly that they have been brought from artificial. I tried to direct events onto a very overseas in the UK on Allied ships" (12/ The writing of any Irish history would different course after August 1969. I 12/1941). concentrate essentially on the relationship failed chiefly because Unionism did not with the UK and a very important part of A straightforward attempt at blackmail have the will to substantiate its slogan, the practicalities of that relationship with tea! The assumption appears to be "Ulster is British" by insisting on making centred on the work of the Ministry of that people might suddenly consider this it so within the political life of the state. Information. It sought to collect inform- neutrality lark was not worth the certainty There was a degree of willingness within ation from across the Empire and else- of their cup of tea! That seems to be the the Catholic community to go in that where and use this to do propaganda work level of it. (Whatever happened to Free direction, but it depended on the Protestant in Britain’s favour across the world. It was Trade?) majority. And, faced with the choice, a very extensive operation and its very Apart from the crudity of the approach, Unionism decided for Ulsterism and all extent shows the need there was to con- there was a practical problem that Nicholas that it involved. vince people of Britain’s case for war. It soon discovered. Tea was not sold in was not self-evident to many. packets as it is today (and of course tea Kircaldy attributes to the Northern It sought to influence opinion by all bags were not heard of). Shops sold what Catholic community—which in the great possible means and its work might well be was called 'loose tea': I earned pocket majority supported Sinn Fein—the view illustrated by just one area of its work in money weighing this 'loose' tea into pound that "Violence is justified because a part Ireland—the attempt to use commercial and half pound bags from huge chests. of Ireland is occupied by the British". channels as a means for propaganda. Bits The chests were recycled as toddlers' play That would certainly be the conventional and pieces of archive material indicating pens. So it would have been necessary to statement made for the record by the Ministry's efforts in this area have get the small shopkeepers of Ireland (and spokesmen. But the cause of the long been released and are now available—but their assistants) to stick a leaflet from the military campaign sustained in very not the full story. British Government into every bag they difficult circumstances does not lie in the The first attempt seems to have been to weighed and sold! This was a bigger non- justification of it once it has happened. set up an organisation of businessmen starter than the "The Forever Ireland" The turn to Republicanism in 1969-70 did who would use their influence to promote proposal. not happen because people suddenly Britain’s case. It had a working title of But Nicholas was nothing if not persist- realised that they were "occupied by the "The Ireland Forever Association". ent and industrious. His next proposal was British" and thought they would be The idea was "to get hold of a group of to investigate the possibility of inserting justified in fighting them. It happened Irishmen who would do propaganda work "leaflets in packets of (a) soap, (b) tooth- because the part of Ireland which the in Ireland by the Irish for the Irish and paste, and/or tooth brushes (c) cocoa, British state continued to hold after 1921 paid for by the Irish". However it was coffee or Bovril. We are very anxious that was subjected to a perverse mode of plain to all involved that the only people these leaflets should circulate more widely government by Britain, disconnected from who would do this were members of the than at present in Eire" (30/12/1941). the democratic process of the British state. Anglo-Irish minority—and that would be So the details of the distributors of the Violence was generated by the provo- the kiss of death for the scheme in view of following products were procured so that cations of an indefensible and unviable the fact that there would be no way of they could be approached with the plan: governing system. The morality of it is Rhyno (pig and poultry feed) hiding who was behind it. connected with its source. Dr. Witts catarrh cure Nicholas Mansergh, from personal Bile Beans (laxative) Brendan Clifford knowledge of the people being considered Phillips Dental Magnesia (toothpaste) 16 Phillips Milk of Magnesia (indigestion) California syrup of figs (laxative) LETTERS TO THE EDITOR · LETTERS TO THE EDITOR· LETTERS TO THE Zam-buk (ointment) Doans backache pills Phensic (pain killer) Germoline (ointment) Palestine: Two Into One? Birds Jelly de Luxe The debate over Palestine is often on the issue of one state or two states. I've never quite Fynnon salt (laxative) understood why these were considered mutually exclusive positions. If there was evidence of a Clarke's blood mixture (which was once meaningful movement among the Palestinians for a one-state solution then this would obviously advertised as follows: be something to support but I don't see this at present. The Palestinians know instinctively that "It never fails to cure Scrofula, Scurvy, their only chance of freeing themselves from the oppression of the Israeli regime is for them to Scrofulous Sores, Glandular Swellings have their own state and that to expect the Zionists to relinquish control of their own state is not and Sores, Cancerous Ulcers, Bad Legs, a realistic prospect. Secondary Symptoms, Syphilis, Piles, This does not mean that the concept of a secular non-Jewish Israel/Palestine with full and Rheumatism, Gout, Dropsy, Black-heads equal rights for Palestinians should not be something to be supported—far from it, but it should or Pimples on the Face, Sore Eyes, only be advocated as a possible two-stage evolution in the course of time. Eruptions of the Skin and Blood, and Whatever the chances of an eventual one-state solution occurring in the fullness of time it Skin Diseases of every description". would only happen if there was first a separate Palestinian state that made the decision to amalgamate under its own terms with what is now Israel. Although the main energy driving the (I hope this list does not activate associated current Palestinian resistance is Islamic, there remains a strong secular component within its symptoms or induce nausea amongst readers.) broader community and a separate Palestinian state would not necessarily be one that remains Nicholas later minuted his superiors Islamic. that: "I shall take steps to ensure that each A one-state solution by all means, but also a recognition that an essential pre-requisite of this piece of propaganda is submitted for our ever happening is a separate Palestinian state in the interim. It's then up to both the Israelis and consideration before any action is taken" Palestinians to decide how they evolve. (27 January 1943). He was so keen! It Eamon Dyas seems that this scheme had no more success than the tea planting plan. But Nicholas WWI Hypocrisy was not to be deterred. He was as busy as Sometimes the screen of propaganda which conceals a genuine understanding of WW1 slips a bee. momentarily to reveal something that doesn't quite fit into the perceived 'wisdom'. The Sun newspaper on the 6th May last published a report on the exhumation of a WW1 mass grave in His next scheme was to influence local France. The grave is located near the village of Fromelles in northern France. The battle took newspapers by withdrawing British adver- place in 1916 about 50 miles to the north of the Somme where the main thrust of the British assault tising in them. A long list of the culprits on German lines was taking place and was meant to divert German attention from that area. The was procured with copies of the papers report in The Sun goes on: and he assessed them in a secret minute to "But, like much of the fighting on the Western Front, planning and execution were pitiful. John Betjeman who gloried in signing A charge at dusk over oven ground raked with machine-gun fire was doomed to failure. himself Seán O'Betjemán at this stage: Within 24 hours, 5,533 men from the 5th Australian Division were killed, wounded or "You will remember that you divided missing. The 61st British Division suffered 1,547 casualties. the papers into two categories. From the Honours former you were anxious that all British The Germans offered a truce so bodies could be recovered. But Allied commanders turned advertisements should be removed, but it down—so German troops hastily dug eight pits and laid our the corpses in neat rows. in the case of the latter you suggested that Researchers discovered the mass graves a year ago after studying aerial photos taken we should take no action until they offend by the British days after the carnage. again. In the former category appear the Yesterday Australian soldiers watched as the dig began at a ceremony attended by French, 'Carlow Nationalist', the 'Kerry Cham- Aussie and British dignitaries including defence minister Quentin Davies." pion' and the 'Dundalk Examiner'. We The episode tells us something of the attitude of the British military command towards their have listed the advertisements of British troops—an attitude that displays a huge divergence from the sentiments subsequently displayed origin appearing in the papers. In the case during commemmorations in the aftermath of victory when the sacrifices have to be justified. of the 'Carlow Nationalist' there are five An offer by the Germans of a cease-fire to enable both sides to bury their dead (and presumably advertisements; in the case of the 'Kerry an opportunity to treat living casualties on the battlefield) was rejected by the British. Then, to Champion' there is one; and in the case of compound matters, in the wake of all the sentimental hand-wringing at every Armistice Day the 'Dundalk Examiner' there are none. commemmoration for the past 89 years, the British ignore the presence of this mass grave of its Since the list is so brief we would very dead soldiers. The article claims that this grave has only recently been discovered but admits that much like to have further details, if aerial photographs of the site were taken only days after the battle. The record and details of the available, from you before going ahead. battle also surely existed but it would be too much to reveal that, while the British ignored their "I understand that advertisements of casualties of this battle for 93 years, it was left to the Germans, under the most difficult British origin appearing in these provin- circumstances, to bury the dead of their enemy and thus provide some dignity to these soldiers of the British army abandoned by their own. cial papers may be divided into categories (a) advertisements commissioned directly Jack Coldrick by large firms (b) advertisements of firms is visiting Ireland and can acquaint the with representatives of Kodak Ltd., who who do not conduct their own advertising local advertising agents verbally with the were sympathetic in principle, but in Eire, but follow the normal practice of wishes of his firm. Yours sincerely, P.N.S. emphasised the very considerable allowing a percentage of the purchase Mansergh" (22 January 1942). practical difficulties involved. In their price for advertising and (c) firms who view it is not possible to arrange for the have their own advertising done through It is not clear how successful this fixing of labels at this end, but that it agents in Dublin and elsewhere. In the escapade was but soon Nicholas was on could be done if we could arrange to case of (a) action will be comparatively anther tack. Writing on 14th March 1943, deliver propaganda labels to the Dublin simple; in the case of (b) it will be virtually he noted that "At a meeting at the Domin- branch of the Kodak Company. Their impossible because it would mean that ions Office on 23 February, it was suggest- representative in Dublin would arrange retailers in Ireland would have to be ed that films might provide a suitable to insert labels with the film before advised accordingly; and in the case of medium for the circulation of propaganda distribution." (c) action is possible, but it may be slow leaflets in Eire”. And being ever diligent since it would be desirable to wait until he reported that: However, Nicholas was sceptical of some number [sic] of the firm in question "We have now considered this proposal the practicalities of doing this and doubtful continued on page 18 17 · Biteback · Biteback· Biteback· Biteback· Biteback· Biteback· Biteback· Biteback

Judicial Swipes The following letter was submitted to the Irish Times but did not find publication Irish Times 21st May, Page 7: Fianna advantageous to executive actors who seem tional power "integrity". The integrity of the Fail's Minister Martin Mansergh (son of beyond and above the power reach of the State's progenitor conceptual framework, Nicholas Mansergh, knight of the realm), Nation's Sovereign Body, Parliament. So tell though ephemeral, is now cracked and the recently used Irish Parliamentary Privilege us something we do not know. genie is trying to get out. Genies are big as his shield when he commented that the What is the Minister's politicking tactic? By trouble. Ali Baba will confirm this. From Ladies and Gentlemen of the Judiciary were obtuse obliqué he blew hot air across the their history the Germans call it the "Mythos "unseemly gleeful" over-literal, or close (Four) Courts' sails to have their legal horizon of the uncontrollable". reasoning when it came to technicalities. His line adjusted? This would raise a professional The resulting voids undermine the criticism may have also been interpreted as a man's antennae and make him listen up. Many sovereignty of the Nation's Body. There are criticism of broad legal interpretations. Was years ago itinerant ladies in Swinford, living in more and more abuse proceedings to come. it at the lower and/or upper legal body? No- dire conditions, used to prick their babies with The Dublin Diocesan sex abuse report is too one knows just what he was at. Let him a needle when begging so as to make them cry, be released soon. It will be very bad. The explain. thus attempting to coerce the sympathy of judicial effect has been to put the relevant It is reported he intimated that "some" passers-by. Every actor was corrupted. Cabinet Department(s) under admonishment and costs. Judges, when it comes to the spirit of the law, Ministers do not rule in an Irish State of Some professional servants of State might are applying double standards of personal Nature.....no? The coarse lack of sensibility of take that very personally and do so in an legal applicative tendency and legal logic the Minister's outburst is bad form, debasing objectively historical sense too. It is not so theory-interpretation (broadly called the bodies of State. Such an engagement should much that the rot has set in, but that the rot has interpreting the spirit of legal provisions and have occurred within formally dedicated been exposed for all to see. Acts) as between technical defects to Government structures and normal systems of In a similar manner to the Minister's applications of the European Arrest Warrant, State administration available for review under outburst, the judicial body's reasoning in the but yet they do not apply the same or FOI [Freedom of Information] legislation. So case, by way of its finding, did not subvert in consistent interpretation of such spirit in why the big public gesture by the honourable construction or delivery, loyalty and honour. other domestic legislation. He also reminded gentleman? They provided as just an outcome as was the Dail about past "impeachments" and Looking at the context around the Minister's possible. Contrast this to Dr. Woods ineptitude "capricious judges". Now that is very outburst, the Executive and the Department of of letting the religeuse off the hook. Was that serious... Don't you think? Education/Finance mandarins must have been just ineptitude? Why was there such a state of There are many examples of such very annoyed over the recent Supreme Court inept Fianna Fail degeneration in 2002? On a parliamentary obtuse obliqué on judicial findings regarding the costs in this child abuse Radio One weekend show, Dr. Woods findings in many different state machina- case where, due to the exceptional circum- explained the negotiation meeting took 20 tions across Republican State histories. So, stances of the case and "the complexities of the minutes for it to be agreed that religious while from one perspective his comments state-church-school relationship", the State bodies would contribute EUR 125,000,000 could plausibly be viewed as business as failed to get its costs though it won the case. towards making compensation payments to usual, in the light of these extraordinary The church-State personality-driven abuse victims—the total of which had ended times his utterances are worth comment. relationship is indeed complicated. The shame up to be EUR 1,200,000,000! What is the cost Is the Irish body judiciary the veiled sword of the State to pursue the costs in the abuse case of either amount per second of the meeting? of the Executive? Is the judiciary behaving in speaks for itself. The legislative framework Minister Dr. Woods and Bertie Ahern slit a rather irregular manner? Worse than that, is effectively nullifies the State from the throats of their own political legacies. the Fianna Fail Minister suggesting their responsibility for children in Church-managed They did this by way of their own hands. application and interpretation of the spirit of schools (where all school board meetings start Look at the blood. It is on their hands. law contradicts Cabinet policy on legal spirit with an evocation of the Lord, Jesus Christ). Institutionalised blood of children. The blood and technicalities? On the one hand you have Notwithstanding the legal risk analysis of the Nation's Sovereign Body! Cowards? the principle of the Separation of State, on provided to the State by solicitors and Counsel Idiots? Slaves? Expediency? For the victims? the other the principle of Parliamentary prior to the proceeding, the exceptional judicial How many ways can you talk around the Privilege. The Minister is obviously not effect was to turn this legislative position on its problem? Such ducking and diving is galling. subverting in content or delivery. So, what's head. Hope is a Theological precept, and there is the problem with the few inches of copy in The Catholic Church's Constitutional little hope as regards charity and mercy, the Irish Times this week? placement has existed since the veritable because they have killed vocation and charism, The Parliament and the Senate should not inception of the State. It is definitely reasonable now left to the X-posé TV dining set. be the Executive's plaything. The to say and plausible to argue that the attitude Immediacy is king. On to the next frontier— traditionalist power asymmetric of the Irish within State mandarin circles is that the judicial the real politic polemic. State is traditionally Executive-centered. In effect of the Supreme Court common law Tom Sheridan (Copyright) a word, traditionalist. The 'concentration of finding has hammered a wedge into this primary To be continued power tendency' has always been fundamental grain of legislative and Constitu- of the benefits to be derived. Kodak also packets, if it was practicable, and I know appears as a rock of common sense and wrote to the Ministry confirming their that the Dominions Office still take that full of worldly wisdom. scepticism. view. Clearly it is not shared by the The fact that all these efforts came to Dublin Office." (10 February 1942) All in all, Nicholas was frustrated that nought was not really due to the technical his schemes seemed to be getting nowhere. The assumptions here are astounding. difficulties involved. The real problem The British diplomatic staff in Dublin The Dominions Office in Whitehall for the Ministry was the conviction for were sceptical of them, and he vented his thought it knew better than those on the neutrality amongst the people. The feelings against Dublin: ground in Dublin how practical and generation that lived through WW II was "At present the situation is thoroughly beneficial it was to carry out these schemes, a generation that had gone through the unsatisfactory, since every proposal put and Nicholas, despite his alleged Irish Home Rule conflict, WW I, the Easter forward at this end is torpedoed on the expertise, agreed with the Dominions Rising, the War of Independence, the ground of policy, at the other. At our Office. He seems to have been such an Treaty War, the Economic War and the meeting at the Dominions Office it uncritical and subservient functionary that Blueshirt/Fianna Fail conflict. (And their appeared to be generally agreed that he allowed common sense to go out the fathers had experienced the land war). 'convoy' leaflets should be inserted in window. By comparison Sean O’Betjemán One of the most profound and settled continued on page 19 18 BALLOT continued that Dublin gave a damn. Imagine how Dick Spring must have felt in The PR system operates by means of the his Kerry North constituency in the 1987 X function that it really serves." (1928). single transferable vote in multi-member General Election when he won by four votes, constituencies. Each constituency elects at least after the preferences of 10 other candidates Abu to Dev! three deputies, and all constituencies have were redistributed in 11 counts? Hell, can you Why can't the leader of the Labour Party and approximately the same ratio of voters to seats. imagine how Tom McEllistrim, FF felt after say the same and stop blathering about so- There have been two unsuccessful attempts losing by four votes! called reforms of the parliamentary system. by Fianna Fail Governments to abolish PR and The soft underbelly of the PR system is the "The brother of Ceann Comhairle, John replace it with a single non-transferable vote in calculation of a surplus. O'Donoghue has called for the abolition of single-member constituencies. In the For the first count surplus, votes are allocated the Seanad. referendum of 1959, the result was 48 per cent in strict proportion (10 per cent of the total "Fianna Fail councillor Paul O'Donoghue in favour of change and 52 per cent against. In means you get 10 per cent of the surplus) as said “that august body Seanad Eireann” is the second referendum, 1968, the result was 39 calculated by adding up the total number of costing the country millions and should be per cent in favour of change and 61 per cent second preferences. Non-transferable votes are closed. against. not used for the purpose of calculation. "“It serves no purpose. It should be Back to Johnny Fallon again! The problem arises because bundles of votes abolished”, said the Kerry councillor. His "Geography and local knowledge are the are physically moved to the booths of other comments come as his brother John is key but it also requires a firm understanding candidates. No attempt is made to calculate looking at ways of cutting costs in the of proportional representation (PR). We what proportion of third, fourth, or further Houses of the Oireachtas in his role as viewed Ireland's voting system with a certain preferences have been allocated. Ceann Comhairle" (Irish Independent, amount of distrust" (Party Time p99). As the papers are thoroughly mixed before 10.3.2009). "The great thing about it, though, is that counting begins, this should, in theory, give a Unicameral (Single Chamber) National if you do manage to understand our system random sample of voters' preference all the legislative bodies exist in many European and the use of the single transferable vote way down the line. The potential errors this countries, China and several Latin American (STV), then you can go anywhere in the creates become amplified by the transfer of countries. world and their electoral system will seem surpluses on later counts. Unicameral legislatures today include like child's play. We undoubtedly operate When a candidate is elected on the second Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Israel, New one of the most complex voting mechanisms and subsequent counts, his surplus is calculated Zealand, Luxembourg, Sri Lanka. possible, and in truth we are forced to admit not on second preferences, but on the transfer The Scottish Parliament is a single chamber that many of our own voters don't even of the bundle of votes on top of his pile. know how it works" (Party Time p100). and yes, the Northern Ireland Assembly is THE E-VOTING MACHINES likewise. Bear with me, reader: The 7,700 machines were bought five years The state legislature in Queensland, Australia "The voter marks his candidates 1, 2, 3, ago for ¤52 million and have cost a further ¤3 has a unicameral parliament, the Upper House 4 on the ballot in order of preference, and all million to store in a required environment. having voted itself out of existence in 1922. the No. 1 votes are counted first. Let's Following pilot trials in a few constituencies, The Australian Capital Territory has a single imagine that one candidate polls well over they were deemed unreliable for the 2004 chamber. the quota; now there is a surplus which General Election. In Nebraska, a West-Central state in the must be distributed. Our hypothetical Last year, in advance of the US Presidential United States, the same has existed since 1937, candidate is 2,000 votes over the quota, so election, an investigation found that most of the year the Constitution of Ireland was enacted his No. 2 votes are looked at and counted, the electronic voting machines, which had by De Valera. and if another candidate gets, let's say 50 been widely adopted since the disputed 2000 Ironically, in their respective jurisdictions per cent of the total No. 2 votes then 1,000 Presidential election when George W. Bush Queensland and Nebraska would have been votes are added to his first preferences. In stumbled into office via Florida and the admired as territories where people lived off reality, not every vote can be counted a infamous hanging chads, posed "a real danger "the sweat of their brow" i.e. they worked for second time, so this figure is arrived at by to the integrity of national, state and local a living. checking random batches and counting the elections" (Irish Independent, 11.2.2009). No. 2 votes in these batches." (Party Time We're described by the Irish Development THE PR MULTIPLE SEAT SHAM! p101, Mercier, 2006). The Proportional Representation (PR) Association as 'The Silicon Valley of Europe': system was chosen for elections in the Free What the hell is this?—"not every vote can we really demonstrate our faith in technology State during negotiations leading to the Anglo- be counted a second time"; pick out a bunch of by ensuring that it is kept a 1,000 miles away Irish treaty of December, 1921, again on the "random batches" and Bob is your TD from our electoral system—after the recent fiasco, it will be a million miles—so much for basis that it favoured a system best suited to "I'm a big fan of electronic voting, even providing representation for minorities our zest for reform if it kills the fun of the counts. It's more Yet, day in, day out, we transact business (Unionists). accurate; simple as that. Our paper system Its first use in a General Election was for the and monetary arrangements going into millions can't count every vote in a surplus or of Euros a day through a "hole-in-the-hole"- new 'parliament' in the Six Counties in May, elimination, they just take a sample. It's 1921. However, it was soon abandoned there: ATM machines-with a paper receipt confirming usually an accurate guess but, let's face it, if a secure electronic transaction! 1929, and the constituencies re-organised under you lose a seat by three votes you want to the straight-vote system and with it, the Do the powers that be live in the real world know every possible vote has been counted" at all? abandonment of the nationalist minority, not (ibid. p169). conclusions they had reached from these Neither can Nicholas be blamed for doing soon see the light of day as they no doubt bitter experiences was that they were not his best for his country in time of war. would cast more light on these events and going to join another war launched by However, since he is designated as the the mentality of those who hatched the Britain against Germany or anyone else. Irish expert at the Ministry, it is amazing various propaganda plans, commercial and To think or imagine that they might be that he was he so ill-informed on the otherwise. These diaries might well be the swayed from this conviction by a leaflet situation in Ireland. And it simply beggars fullest story we could get of the whole enclosed with their tea or their laxative belief that he could have been lauded, and period on the propaganda front in the UK showed the most pathetic and patronising still is, as an 'Irish historian' in view of his as regards Ireland and would make contempt that it is possible to imagine. assumptions and of the judgements he fascinating reading and might well become The typical functionaries in Whitehall can makes about the country. the primary source on the subject. Let’s hardly be blamed for their ignorance and It is to be hoped that Nicholas have them! for promoting these pointless efforts. Mansergh’s diaries of those years will Jack Lane 19 when it could not be controlled centrally. tempted for electoral gain to do what BALLOT continued "Fianna Fail has modernised at pace. people might like them to do. Is this the Part of the price it has paid is in the greatest test so far for Fianna Fail? In a Fianna Fáil ranks. involvement, structure and indeed power word, No. Fianna Fail is used, for the last of its local units. Nowadays politics is all 40 years, to people saying it's a party in It calls for "an ambitious reform of the about the TV image and popular appeal. demise. Once upon a time people who common agricultural policy" (CAP) in "Such changes are inevitable, but would follow Fianna Fail were willing to the framework of the World Trade Organ- nonetheless they must be managed. give up their lives if necessary. isation talks and a continuing reduction of "Fianna Fail has become used to Bertie "Fianna Fail and this country have the Cap budget post-2013. Ahern and his consensus style, but in faced far bigger challenges and far worse It also calls for "major new efforts" to large sections there was a noticeable tiring crises than the current monetary ones. strengthen and extend the European too. Brian Cowen is a different man. The question is, are the current generation security and defence policy, while dem- Fianna Fail will look to him to defend the of Fianna Fail followers up to the task, do anding respect for all the fundamental party and its members, finding new ways they possess the will of their forefathers, freedoms guaranteed within the EU, such of encouraging and involving them. the conviction and unrelenting desire? as upholding the rights of minorities. "That's not always easy to do when you Are they willing to take pain personally Ms Neyts said there was general are leader of the country as well as the in order to achieve a greater good? Or are acknowledgement that on ethical issues party. But with just over a year to go to they to be easily swayed by the first tough Irish political parties took positions that the first major electoral test of Brian calls that come their way. were not necessarily the mainstream EU Cowen's leadership, he will have extens- "Dick Walsh once said that for position, but she said the Liberals had ive work to carry out internally to solidify members, "Fianna Fail is Ireland itself in always allowed the party's MEPs to vote and build upon the bright facade Bertie microcosm". As we watch events unfold, freely following their own freedom of Ahern has left" (Johnny Fallon, Irish we could hardly disagree" (Johnny Fallon, conscience on such issues. Independent, 7.4.2008). Irish Independent, 16.2.2009). ***************************************************************************** That was April last year, now Johnny Fallon, the former Fianna Fail Ard POLITICS AND DEMOCRACY "If voting changed anything, they'd We get the government we voted for. Comhairle member takes a leap to abolish it" (Ken Livingstone) The government is the choice of the February this year. ***************************************************************************** majority—well, is it? "Fianna Fail has undergone some Just a small example! Take the 2002 JUST CANVASS FODDER? dramatic changes in the last decade. Many General Election which resulted in a Below is an interesting analysis from a of its procedures have changed. From Fianna Fail/Progressive Democrat former member of the Fianna Fail National candidate selection to the media-focussed coalition. Executive, Johnny Fallon, a Longford party gatherings. All of this is a necessary The total population in 2002 was man. The first reflection is written in April evil as the party's electoral success has 3,917,203. last year, it is followed up by another shown. However, Fianna Fail has singu- Of those, over 2.9 million were eligible article written in February of this year—if larly failed to find new ways of involving to vote in the General Election that year. anything the problems facing the Fianna and rewarding membership. As powers However, only 1,788,985 did so. Fail organisation have been compounded are removed in certain areas it is important One million voters did not vote at all over that period. that these are replaced with something The combined Fianna Fail/PD vote of else. "But Ahern set to the long task of 787,447 votes in that election represented "The difficulty now is that members reform. {1994}. Starting in opposition, have, in reality, only one function: only 27% of the will of the eligible voters. he had far more front bench positions to canvassing. And membership does not Another way of putting it is that 73% of offer. The Reynolds cabinet ministers bestow any extra benefits, such as access, the electorate did not agree to be governed were accommodated with posts as were information or policy influence, that by a Fianna Fail/PD coalition. old Haughey figures like Burke along cannot be obtained by anyone else from In effect, the coalition reflected the will with some new faces such as Micheal outside the party. Therefore, in tough of only 20% of the total population when Martin. times, when the wind is in your face, only it was elected. "Ahern has led a change within Fianna the staunchest of members will decide Put another way, only one in five people Fail. That change has seen a far more that continued involvement is still worth in Ireland agreed. professional approach. Fianna Fail today it. So 3,138,000 citizens who wanted no is a much more media savvy organisation. "Following this, Cowen needs a Electoral tactics are strictly imposed. As hand or part of that government had to like complete root and branch overhaul of regards the organisation itself, Ahern can it or lump it? Fianna Fail in advance of the next general point to unprecedented electoral success, election, finding ways of making mem- over 3,000 registered cumann and in the SEANAD EIREANN bership attractive. region of 65,000 members. Seanad Eireann, the Senate or secondary "People should, however, be careful "Eight thousand of these were recruited house of the Oireachtas as it is formally what they wish for. It is not inconceivable in the last year as part of a membership described is nothing more than a political that without action Fianna Fail could one drive. dosshouse and that's stating it mildly. day disappear. Now, more than ever, "The party was also helped by the sale It was another imposition from the people will look for a populist and radical of its headquarters building generating Empire intended to placate Unionist inter- approach to problems. But radical is not enough funds to leave it in secure financial ests in the new Free State. Its function and necessarily right. This poll may in time standing and alleviate the debt burden. be seen as no more than a blip, but that powers were modelled on the House of "Bertie has united the party and left a will only happen if Fianna Fail lead the Lords. strong organisation, but there are public in facing some harsh realities. Eamon de Valera summed its effective- problems simmering under the surface. "If the country needs anything right ness up in 1928: "The 2004 {Euro and Local} elections now it is political parties ready to serve showed a disconnect between Fianna Fail "We think the proper thing to do is to their country, to say tough things, to at a national level and its local roots and end the Senate and not attempt to mend it. offend people and groups and to do what an inability to get its message across It is costly, and we do not see any useful is necessary. Fianna Fail must not be continued on page 19 20 BALLOT continued The 2004 local elections were Fianna big number of its staff, including its Fail's worst ever result, and the party Secretary General, has been Irish. failed to win Council seats in 16 local But the UEN is unlikely to survive attended the launch. election wards—the first time in the State's after June's elections with the decision by "Dr. McDaid admitted that 'frictions' history that the party had failed to win the British Conservatives to quit the Euro- remain with the party ever since the return representation in every ward. pean People's Party and form their own of the Blaney organisation to the fold A similar set-back this month would be group in the parliament. almost three years ago" (Donegal News, really serious, and unprecedented!. Fianna Many are predicting that the next 27.4.2009). Fail always come back but a substantial European Parliament will continue to have loss of seats at these elections, two the two large groups, the centre right EPP Clonakilty in West Cork has seen the consecutive reverses, would have to set and the Socialists at its core, but the usual resignation of four officers of the local the alarm bells ringing. Fianna Fail's batch of smaller groups will be composed cumann. problems also seem to coincide with the of MEPs of more extreme right and left. Four Fianna Fail candidates who were electorates loss of faith in the democratic At least with Fianna Fail safely in out selected to contest seats on Clonakilty process itself. of the cold with the Liberals, the party is Town Council resigned prior to this A small qualification : Fianna Fail will less likely to find itself in a group with month's elections. probably avoid carnage in the local Libertas or the Tories simply to qualify The four candidates withdrew their elections, simply because of the multi- for status and funding. names from the race as a direct result of member seat configuration and their Euro candidate Ned O'Keeffe said he the 'parachuting' of a fifth candidate, Anne hardcore vote. After that, Fine Gael and was "shocked" to see fellow party MEP Cullinane, on to the team by Fianna Fail Labour might start taking seriously the Brian Crowley still expressing opposition headquarters. Ms Cullinane is a step- merits of single seat wards and to the party's move to join the liberal daughter of the party's Cork South West constituencies following polling day— group in the European Parliament. sitting TD, Christy O'Sullivan. but don't draw your breath! But Taoiseach Brian Cowen went over Former Fianna Fail Mayor of Crowley's head to negotiate FF's entry Clonakilty, Jer White, spoke passionately into the vastly more influential, European about the long tradition of Fianna Fail in TIME-SERVING POLITICIANS! One of the most astute and streetwise of Liberal Democrat party (ELDR)—the the town, the loyalty of past and present the old Fianna Fail organisation is Ned third largest political group in Europe. members, and said it was a very sad day O'Keeffe, the party TD for Cork East, and Mr. O'Keeffe has joined Mr. Crowley for local politics, for local democracy and now a surprise runner for the South Ireland on the Fianna Fail ticket in Ireland South. for Clonakilty town. European constituency, along with sitting Mr. O'Keeffe says Fianna Fail's decision In the north of Cork county, John member, Brian Crowley. With only three to join the liberals is an important move Murphy, Fianna Fail's longest serving seats, this could be the "mother of all and dismissed Mr. Crowley's stance. councillor in Fermoy, has decided to run political battles". But it is Ned O'Keeffe's as an Independent despite being nominated "I'm delighted Fianna Fail is joining thoughts on contemporary politics that as a Fianna Fail party candidate. He has that group. We will be removed from any bear out the concerns of many party served 30 years on Fermoy Town Council. taints from that UEN group," he said. political activists. A battle is currently raging in the town Mr. Crowley has expressed concerns over the setting up of a second Fianna Fail "Fianna Fail Cork East TD, Ned about Fianna Fail's stance on issues, such cumann—the proposed cumann was O'Keeffe, has said ministers are now as abortion, being compromised by joining recently ruled out of order by Fianna Fail more concerned about their pensions and the liberals. headquarters because of a procedural salaries than the national interest. But Mr. Cowen has firmly dismissed "Speaking on Newstalk yesterday infringement. this suggestion and says Fianna Fail will In Sligo, former Fianna Fail members Deputy O'Keeffe said: “The problem with the party now is that it has gone down to retain its policy position in these moral Michael Clarke and Tommy Cummins areas. will both run as Independents. money, pensions and salaries, if that is more important than the national interest Mr. Crowley, the sitting Munster MEP, In the Ballymahon area of County said he had no comment about Mr. Longford, John Nolan and Mark Casey that is regrettable. It is all about getting a job, getting a pension and getting a big O'Keeffe's views. and former Councillor Brian Lynch in the salary and status. It is not in the national Granard area have flown the Fianna Fail "No. I always knew Ned was a great interest as it should be”, he said" (Evening liberal," he joked. coop and are standing as Independent. Echo, Cork, 15.11.2008). In Dingle/Daingean Ui Chuis, John "He said there were far too many Fianna Fail won't be joining the ELDR Hanifan has left the party after over 30 chairmen in Government. “I think we in the European Parliament until after the years membership and is running for have 21 committees and they are over- European elections. Labour. lapping all over the place and there is a At the Fianna Fail Ard Fheis held in huge cost factor there. We have 21 THE EUROPEAN LIBERALS March last, a motion to abolish the new ministers of state, what are they doing I The European Liberals have launched centralised interview selection process was often wonder. I was one myself and did their manifesto for the European elections carried unanimously and then a 'referral not have an awful lot to do. There is need and included Fianna Fáil on a 700-strong back' was put in, which has caused no end for reform here”." list of candidates. of discontent among cumann members. Liberals President Annemie Neyts FIANNA FAIL—THE LIBERAL PARTY stated: "We are happy that an important ***************************************************************************** Fianna Fáil has officially joined the party like Fianna Fáil has found us "Over two thousand years the myth has Liberal group in Europe. sufficiently attractive to join us", at the arisen that the bureaucracy in the centre Fianna Fail MEPs are upset by the launch of the Liberals' manifesto, which knows how to run the affairs of a world- move, however, as for the past five years prioritises 15 key issues for the electoral wide institution. The more I see of it the Ireland South MEP Brian Crowley has campaign. more I attribute to chance—or the Holy been the co-President of the Union for The Liberal manifesto includes several Ghost." Bob Santamaria. Europe of the Nations (UEN) group and a points that may cause some unease in ***************************************************************************** continued on page 20

21 ¤130 million in levies and businesses vote, according to a study by the Houses BONUS continued which owe ¤77 million in unpaid water of the Oireachtas which shows problems charges. in numerous constituencies across the Recently, in a submission on Local Local Authority tenants owe over ¤33 country. Government reform, the Councillors million in unpaid housing rents, with The figures showing the problem in proposed salaries of at least ¤50,000 a Councils owed ¤28.7 million in unpaid every part of the country are contained in year and State pensions as well as office bin charges. Over ¤1.5 million is owed in constituency profiles developed by the accommodation, secretarial assistance and unpaid litter and parking fines. Oireachtas research unit and are based on financial resources. A survey of local authorities found: Census 2006 Figures. In 2007, the cost of representation by Before the 2007 General Election, the our 883 councillors amounted to ¤29 * One developer owes ¤813,000 to Monaghan County Council in unpaid Department of the Environment spent ¤6 million. The average sum received by an levies; million for the upkeep and maintenance of individual, including the representative * Some 173 are being taken to court in the register and this sum was matched by payment was in excess of ¤33,000. The Wexford over the unpaid charges which local authority funding. Another ¤1 highest-earning councillor received are used to pay for roads, footpaths and million was spent on a high profile advert- ¤80,000. water services; ising campaign. Councillors who fail to get re-elected Environment Minister Gormley (Green in this month's local elections will share a Dublin City is owed the most (¤55.25 Party) is planning to set up an Electoral bumper pay-off worth more than ¤10 million), followed by South Dublin Commission, which would be responsible million and will still be free to contest (¤33.35 million), Fingal (¤33.215 for compiling the register nationally. future local elections. million) and Dun Laoghaire Rathdown Mr. Gormley's spokesman accepted The country's cash-strapped 34 county (¤33.04 million). there were problems with the register but and city councils made provision for the Cork County Council is owed over pointed to the planned reforms. new 'retirement gratuities' in their budgets ¤15 million, while Limerick City is owed "Clearly there is still a gap. The for the Local Elections. over ¤4 million. Wexford County Council fundamental issue of a more effective The payout of ¤10 million could be is owed almost ¤24.3 million, while Kerry way to compile the register lies within more than three times what the former County Council is owed ¤5.4 million. the establishment of an Electoral Minister for the Environment Dick Roche Commission. The register could be estimated would be the cost of the scheme CANDIDATE SPENDING better," he said. Spending limits for the local elections when he announced it in December 2006. Oddly enough, the disgraceful exclus- were enforced from 7th April 2009. Figures revealed by the Irish Independ- ion of people who should be on the register Environment Minister John Gormley ent last year showed that councillors now is not the chief problem. signed the polling day order for the June take home more than the average industrial Everywhere, people who have died or 5th local elections, which for the first time income in wages, allowances and expen- moved away from the relevant district limits the amount of money that candidates ses, with the average councillor receiving have remained on the lists, often in their may spend pursuing their political over ¤33,300 in 2007. thousands. ambitions to a maximum of ¤15,000. The worst case is the Donegal South The order also imposed a restriction on REVENUE WARNING West constituency, where the proportion when posters could be put up. Candidates Local politicians have been warned by of excess registrations is 17 per cent. were not allowed to place posters until 6th the Revenue that they face being taxed on The worst for exclusion is Dublin South May 30 days in advance of polling day, their expenses amid ever soaring costs for East, with a register 8 per cent under the and will have to remove them seven days hard-pressed taxpayers. population figure. after polls close. The country's part-time politicians are In both instances, the opportunities for The spending limit comes because of entitled to claim thousands of Euro each fraud are obvious. In tight races, it could concerns about excessive amounts of year for a range of ad hoc expenses— affect election results and even the line-up money being spent on elections. including travel and subsistence for confer- of incoming governments. The state of At least one candidate in the 2004 local ences, foreign trips and training courses— registers is an indictment of lack of care elections in Dublin spent more than under expense allowances approved by for democracy. the Revenue in 2006. ¤80,000 on the campaign. Under the retirement gratuity scheme, For the 34 County and City councils, a sliding scale will apply, with four separate FIANNA FAIL—PARTY MAYHEM Councillors who resign, retire, or lose In recent months, mayhem has broken spending limits, based on the population their seat are entitled to a retirement out in several electoral areas approaching within each individual electoral area. payment, which goes to a dependent in the the Euro and Local Elections on 5th June A top limit of ¤15,000 will apply in the event of death in service. Some long- 2009, even the Taoiseach's own constitu- most populated areas, with limits of serving councillors who bow out this ency Laois/Offaly has not been spared. ¤13,000, ¤11,500 and ¤9,750 to apply to summer will be entitled to lump sums of Three Fianna Fail members have chosen candidates in other areas. over ¤30,000. to run as independents candidates because A standard spending limit of ¤7,500 they were not selected. ECONOMICS OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT will apply to all 80 of the borough and Local Authorities are owed a staggering town councils. "Dr. James McDaid, TD told the ¤271 million in unpaid waste and water Donegal News that party officials in Dublin were ruining Fianna Fail in charges, development levies and litter and VOTING REGISTER SCANDAL Donegal North-East. His comments come parking fines. Major inaccuracies in the electoral just days after Minister for Education A new crackdown on offenders is register were revealed in a Dail report and weren't corrected in time for the elections Batt O'Keeffe attended the official Fianna promised after City and County Councils Fail election launch for the local elections and the forthcoming referendum on Lisbon saw their funding slashed in the toughest in Letterkenny. Budgets in years. later this year. "However, neither Deputy McDaid nor Councils are now employing debt Most parts of the country have more any of his loyal band of supporters… collectors to chase developers who owe people on the register than are eligible to continued on page 21

22 But with so little power, they have to be into every household in the country for BALLOT continued seen to do something. the first time," said Liam Kenny, director In recent years, more and more power of the Association of County and City and 74 per cent of Czechs say they aren't has been taken from elected Councillors Councils. "The first Irish local elections interested while 61 per cent of Irish citizens and given to the Management of Local were called by Westminster to deal with say they were interested in the upcoming Authorities—in particular, the setting of the unwieldy and unrepresentative actions elections. refuse charges, and the rates charged to of the Grand Juries and Poor Law Guard- ians who had governed locally up to Irish people are more likely to vote in local businesses by the local authority. this." the elections than most Europeans, with But, as two academics from University 45 per cent of citizens saying they would College Cork, Liam Weeks and Aodh The formation of elected County Coun- probably vote in June compared to an EU Quinlivan, point out in their new book: All cils extended the voting franchise to people average of 34 per cent. But this would Politics is Local: A Guide to Local who owned a minimum of property as represent a sharp fall from the last Euro- Elections in Ireland: well as granting voting rights for women; pean election in 2004 when turnout was "… local councils here compare pretty however, they had to be over 30 years of 59 per cent. poorly to local authorities abroad. age and head of the household. Even before the Eurobarometer results "Local authorities in Ireland have no Local democracy has since degenerated were known the EU institutions launched role in education or transport or tourism into near farce, particularly with the new initiatives to spur voter interest such or health or policing. All of that would be decision by Taoiseach Jack Lynch to as broadcasting adverts on MTV and using considered standard fare abroad. abolish Domestic Rates in 1978 which the internet to woo young voters. "Nor do they have general competence, starved Local Authorities of their main The survey highlights a lack of where they are allowed to manage their source of revenue. The Lynch decision knowledge about the fundamental own affairs. We operate under the ultra was probably the greatest single and most workings of the parliament among many vires system, where you cannot do irresponsible blow to Local Government, citizens. For example, just over half of anything unless it's prescribed. a fact glossed over by many commentators people (53 per cent) say they know the "They have no autonomy. They are who are still in awe of 'Saint Jack'. parliament is directly elected by the financially centralised. They do not have Rates on domestic property still pertain citizens of all member states while the their own tax base. Local authorities still in the Six Counties. same number (53 per cent) say they know need the permission of the relevant Another aspect of the democratic minister for many things. There is a that EU laws are decided jointly by the process has been raised by former Fianna begging-bowl mentality." parliament and member states. The Fail TD for Cork North-Central, Danny awareness of co-decision was least known Quinlivan believes the system needs Wallace: in Ireland, where just 43 per cent of people reform and that proper financing will be "One surprising aspect of this election said they knew laws were agreed jointly the litmus test. so far is the small number of candidates with the parliament. Relying on Central Government and prepared to put their name before the The survey shows a drop in public on dwindling development levies is not electorate—only nine candidates for six seats in the South-West ward and just 11 support for three EU institutions—the satisfactory, he says. parliament, commission and the European candidates for seven seats in the South- East. Central Bank. "While nobody wants to have a lot of local taxes, people across Europe are "In the North-West, there's only eight staggered that we are not paying for candidates for four seats. IRISH VOTERS " When I first stood for the Corporation A large proportion of the Irish electorate domestic water. Local authorities are struggling for cash and there is a lack of in 1979, 14 or 15 candidates per ward will vote, certainly compared with connection with citizens as well. If they was the norm. I've been looking at the elections elsewhere in Europe. In 2004, were to pay tax to the local authority, and record for the 1999 elections, and there turnout was 59%, just 3% lower than the seeing it come back in services, it would were 14 and 15 candidates per ward then proportion voting in the historical 2008 be helpful." as well. US presidential election. "There's a trend there, with less people Fianna Fail needs these elections like a Following this month's Local Elections, making themselves available, and we hole in the head. Councillors will face an even more have to ask why" (Evening Echo, Cork, There were no Local Elections for eight straitened financial circumstances after 23.5.2009). years in the 1990s; did anyone give a Local Government funding was slashed in the recent Budget. "Since October, ¤131 damn? Indeed, it may come as a surprise AND NOW— million has been slashed from the Local to many that local elections were THE PERKS—SORRY, GRATUITIES! postponed here on 15 occasions over the Government Fund which helps pay for In 2002, when the Exchequer was previous 76 years. Council services" (Irish Independent, awash with money, the Government The Twentieth Amendment of the 14.4.2009). introduced a "representative payment" of Constitution Act, 1999 now provides The ultimate power to vote on the ¤16,600 a year for local Councillors. It constitutional recognition of the role of Budget still lies with the elected wasn't a great deal of money. The Local Government and that local elections Councillors, but it is merely a rubber- payment—and a related retirement bonus are held at least every five years. stamp job. —was designed to bring new blood into Although directly-elected Mayors have local politics and to mark an end to been promised for many years (i.e. Mayors FIRST LOCAL ELECTIONS Oireachtas members holding Council which the electorate would have the chance On April 6th last, County Councils seats. But it also signalled a transition to choose for themselves), it is still the across the country celebrated the 110th from the concept of the volunteer local councillors who pick a Mayor from among anniversary of the first local elections representative who engaged in politics for themselves. In Cork, we have a "You step held in Ireland. altruistic purposes to a paid representative. in, I step out arrangement" between Fianna The local elections of 6th April 1899, Since then, the impetus towards salaried Fail, Fine Gael and Labour—or as also marked the first time women in Ireland full-time local politicians has gathered Councillor Mick Barry calls it: "pass the could vote. pace. parcel between the pact parties". "The 1899 elections brought politics continued on page 22

23 VOLUME 27 No. 6 CORK ISSN 0790-1712

Then keep your heads, I say, my boys; your comrades in the town Will help you yet to win a vote and put your tyrants down. Throw your old guns aside, my boys; the ballot is a thing They did not have to reckon with when George the Fourth was king. The ballot is the thing, my boys, the ballot is the thing Will show these men how long it is since George the Fourth was king. (William Kidston, Queensland Labour man, 1890s.) The Ballot Is the Thing? "When Macdonell stood unsuccess- ***************************************************************************** will happen here. fully for the Barwon {1901, New South "Modern sociology has dispelled the An EU-wide survey published on April Wales} two men rode 70 miles to vote for egalitarian ideology of earlier times. It 14th last, shows 28 per cent of EU citizens him. Even more dedicated was the aged tells us that all societies, whether demo- saying they would definitely vote in the bushman who staggered into an outback cratic or otherwise, are conducted by elites elections while a further 6 per cent say hut during one election; penniless, which exert hegemony over the mass. It is they would probably vote. British voters hungry, weak and ill, he was desperate to not a view of things which we care for, but are the least likely in Europe to turn out, get to a polling booth and vote for Longwell. 'I want to give Hughie a vote', it is the prevailing view of these times. with just 21 per cent saying they would he said, 'I suppose it will be my last'. And its implication is that, in certain definitely or probably vote compared to Sadly, his quest failed, as that night he situations, majorities don't count because 30 per cent who say they definitely would died" (The Light on the Hill, The they are only waiting to be hegemonised. not vote. Australian Labor Party 1891, 1991, Ross Majorities only count when the active The results contained in the latest McMullin, Oxford, 1991). minority has established a functioning Eurobarometer survey are causing real system, and the different tendencies within concern in Brussels that voter turnout The 2009 European and Local Elections it have agreed that there is so little at issue could slump to a record low. Since the first take place on 5th June 2009—on that day between them that the majority can be direct European parliament elections in people will go to the polls to elect 1,627 allowed to choose between them" Brendan 1979, voter turnout has steadily declined. councillors to the 34 city and county Clifford, Labour & Trade Union Review, In the last elections in 2004, just 45.5 per councils, five borough councils and 75 August, 2004). cent of citizens cast a ballot, compared to town councils in the State and 12 members ***************************************************************************** 63 per cent in 1979. The survey says to the European Parliament. Less than a third of European citizens previous research indicates that only people who say they will definitely or "It is a cliché of Irish political comment say they will definitely vote in the European elections, prompting fears of a probably vote in elections are likely to over the years that our elected leaders are show up at the polls. often poor quality but our senior civil record low turnout in June. Fianna Fail The reasons for not voting are: not servants are top class. Yet the two groups will be only praying that a similar turn-out have such similar backgrounds that they knowing enough about the role of the parliament (64 per cent); thinking voting are almost indistinguishable, except that Subscribers to the magazine are regularly one is elected, the other appointed. offered special rates on other publications will not change anything (62 per cent); not "Perhaps it's the political system and being sufficiently informed to vote (59 even democracy itself that holds back Irish Political Review is published by per cent); believing that the parliament our politicians from displaying their true the IPR Group: write to— does not deal with problems that concern talents whereas the unelected officials in 1 Sutton Villas, Lower Dargle Road them (55 per cent); and being against the “permanent Government” are not Bray, Co. Wicklow or Europe, the EU or European construction encumbered in the same way by the claims PO Box 339, Belfast BT12 4GQ or (20 per cent). and clamour of the public" (Deaglan de Young people are the least likely to PO Box 6589, London, N7 6SG, or Breadun, Irish Times, 7.2.2009). vote in the elections, with 27 per cent of Labour Comment, students saying they definitely wouldn't Surely it is about much more than that, C/O Shandon St. P.O., Cork City. vote in June. People who have gained a in reality power resides with the bureauc- Subscription by Post: third-level educational qualification are racy which too frequently makes its barg- 12 issues: £20, UK; among the most likely to vote, with 40 per ains with economic pressure groups and € 30, Ireland; € 35, Europe. cent of those surveyed saying they would which is subject to merely marginal control Electronic Subscription: definitely vote. by political parties. Some 53 per cent of EU citizens say Was this ever more evident than in the € 15 / £12 for 12 issues (or € 1.30 / £1.10 per issue) they are not interested in the European present controversy over the justice and elections, compared to 44 per cent who compensation claims for child abuse You can also order both postal and say they are. Some 79 per cent of Latvians victims? electronic subscriptions from: www.atholbooks.org continued on page 23