Press Freedom What Is To Be Done! Labour: Missing Boat The Right to Misrepresent? Joe Keenan starts debate Labour Comment
page 9 page 17 back page IRISH POLITICAL REVIEW September 2007 Vol.22, No.9 ISSN 0790-7672 and Northern Star incorporating Workers' Weekly Vol.21 No.9 ISSN 954-5891
Jihad. Crusade. Culture vs Politics Colonisation Ireland tags along behind Britain in European and foreign policy matters. It could not Does Islam Encourage Terrorism? Yes do otherwise because, at the official level of the state, it has lost all historical sense of That was a screaming headline in the itself. As we go to print it is taking part in the attempt to starve the Palestinian population Irish Times on 13th August, over an article in the Gaza Strip into abject submission to an Israeli state that has never defined its by Susan Philips. She is described as "a . borders. The fig leaf for this policy is that Hamas does not recognise the state of Israel political analyst" but her political analysis and must therefore be excommunicated. If the Irish state had not lost all historical sense excludes politics: of itself, it would have some historical sense of the predicament of the Palestinian people "Factors such as the existence of in the face of ongoing conquest by the Jewish State, which was founded by British Israel and the occupation of Iraq by foreign policy when there were few Jews in Palestine and Britain was denying western armies may provide a focus for independent statehood to Ireland in defiance of a General Election mandate. Islamists. But none of these so-called provocations existed in the 7th century The collapse of Ireland's historical sense of itself, and therefore of the world, is when Islam spread like wildfire, mainly entirely due to Fianna Fail. It was Fianna Fail that insisted on Ireland becoming by the sword. Many consider Islam to contain peaceful approaches, but within independent. Fine Gael and Labour, having submitted to Britain's Treaty ultimatums its literature, significant space exists to of 1921 and 1922, settled down to domestic self-government, under the authority of the nurture a vanguard force, which is Crown, within the Empire/Commonwealth. religiously driven and committed to De Valera and his colleagues refused to settle down under the Treaty. They worked world domination through a process of up popular anti-Treaty sentiment into a functional party which made the state independent jihad. Unless Islam is understood in in the 1930s and has dominated its political life ever since 1932. such terms and is held in check by But political independence was not consolidated in the intellectual sphere—in the world opinion, the power of western Universities and in the 'Third Estate'—and those spheres now operate in antagonism institutions or moderate Islamic elites, with a Government which is in great measure the state because of the lack of a viable it will continue unchecked in its quest Opposition party. to establish global caliphate." (The No case in this Irish Times is presented by Syyed Siraj H Zaidi. Though technical- Fianna Fail remains dominant as the superior managerial party. But it was not as a ly in the form of presenting the cases managerial party that it became dominant. Its rise to dominance came about through a for and against the proposition, the Yes political purpose that went far beyond the ordinary purposes of a political party. It then appears as part of the headline in the consolidated its political dominance by developing managerial skills—a development way the page is laid out.) which is evident in the autobiography of Todd Andrews: Liam Lynch's die-hard, 'extremist', adjutant, who was hunted out on the bogs and the hills in 1923, and Philips is repeating the battle cry of the subsequently created Bord na Mona without any show of repentance for his earlier "war of civilisations" proclaimed by the activities. continued on page 2 continued on page 4
Part Two Iran: parts of Iran, Pakistan, India and China.
Ethnicity And Nationalism Turkmenistan is a vast country with only 5 million people plus the 2 million within Iran. It was only here that I came I had assumed before going there, on language had a very Slavic sound to it. He across an obvious presence of Iranian no actual evidence, that Iran, unlike Iraq, agreed and said that it was because of the soldiers because of an American presence was a fairly homogeneous country. Wrong Turkish extensions into Eastern Europe. in Turkmenistan. The Turkman people again. Less than 50% of the population of He added that if I wanted to hear pure are a strange mixture. The majority were about 65 million are Persians. There are Turkish spoken I would have to go East of of Cossack appearance with the men over 25 million Azeris who speak Turkish. Turkey and that there were over 200 wearing fur hats, tunics, baggy trousers About 2 million Turkmen, and the rest are million Turkish speakers in the world and long evil-looking knives in their belts. made up of Arabs, Kurds, Armenians and including the 70 million in Turkey itself. The women wore clothes made in the 'others'. Turkish was spoken in most of the Southern most brilliant colours. I remarked to a Turkish Turk that his Republics of the Soviet Union, but also in continued on page 3 opportunity for Catholics in Ireland. C O N T E N T S As an imperial entity with plenty to feel Page bad about, Britain has had plentiful Culture vs Politics. Editorial 1 recourse to historical myth. But there is no revisionism of sacred myth in the light Jihad. Crusade. Colonisation. Editorial 1 of historical fact, and there is no Ethnicity And Nationalism. Conor Lynch (Part 2 of Iran) 1 interference with academic freedom to Letters To Editor. Romantic View Of FF? Reader (Co. Meath); prevent it. About ten years ago John China G.M. Williams; How Ireland Reached The End Of History I. Kenna 3,26 Charmley used his academic freedom to Harris In The Seanad. Jack Lane 6 engage in some revision of the Churchill Shorts from the Long Fellow (Labour Debate; Celtic Tiger; Fianna Fail; myth. He wasn't sacked. The Times even The Irish Times Opposition; The Irish Times Refuge) 7 gave him some space to set out his Sacco & Vanzetti. Report of l'Humanité tribute (trans. J. Martin 8 criticism. But the thing was a nine-days- Press Freedom: The Right To Misrepresent? Editorial 9 wonder, and was soon lost amidst the Hidden History Of 'Ireland's Nazis'. Manus O'Riordan 10 mass of academic orthodoxy supportive Getting Sophistication. Julianne Herlihy (Report,Trevor/Bowen Summer School) 13 of the ideology of the state. Hubert Butler Society Goes American. David Alvey (Report of lecture) 15 Broadcasting is likewise controlled What Is To Be Done! Joe Keenan 17 discreetly in Britain within parameters set Editorial Digest. (Northern Victims; O'Loan Insulted; Empey On Democracy; by the political requirements of the state. Gay Derry; Shankill Welcome!; End Of Sctarianism?; Carson; Limerick 20 But occasionally things get slightly out of The Indo's Guilt Complex. Seán McGouran (Part 2) 20 hand. Does It Stack Up? Michael Stack (Education?; Sculpture; Global Warming; Dollars & Guns; Pheasant-Shooting; Atonement 21 The BBC was designed to function Old Irish And The Market. John Minahane (Part 2) 22 within the party-politics of the state. That The Professor And The Prince. Pat Walsh 23 is the meaning of the official requirement that it is 'impartial'. It is not independent. Labour Comment, edited by Pat Maloney: But its position in Northern Ireland is Two Views On When And Why Labour Lost Both Boat And Vote back page anomalous, because the region is outside Eamon Gilmore Conor Lynch page 31 the party-politics of the state, and BBC,NI Union Officials v. Elected Reps Tom Doherty page 31 is liable to conceive illusions of independ- What Next For The Left In Northern Ireland Mark Langhammer page 31 ence. About twenty years ago its regional Director commissioned interviews with Martin McGuinness and Gregory Camp- Garret FitzGerald is the anti-type of antagonism with the academic and journal- bell. McGuinness was still imagined to be Todd Andrews—the pampered son of a istic dimensions. an outrageous revolutionary in those times. member of the Treatyite elite who declared In functional states the harmonious Mrs. Thatcher questioned the propriety of himself a Commonwealth man sixty years functioning of these different dimensions broadcasting the interview. The Director ago when Fine Gael declared itself to be is achieved by patronage. In a well- General supported the regional Director. Republican for the purpose of scrambling conducted state the patronage is so The Government put its foot down. back to office in alliance with a recently discreetly operated that it is scarcely Vincent Hanna (who came of a Belfast retired Chief of Staff of the IRA. But in noticed. But there is always patronage. middle class nationalist family) was then recent years it is only FitzGerald, amongst And academic freedom operates within in the position that Jeremy Paxman holds the leading politicians and academics, who practical parameters set by patronage. now. He led a strike against Government has said anything thoughtful in support of interference, and asserted the independ- political independence. Effective state patronage of the academic system by discreet means ence of the BBC, which he described as a kind of independent guild of broadcasters. This apparent absurdity is actually in requires that the major political forces A flimsy semblance of compromise was accordance with the present nature of the have a strong presence within academia. arranged to obscure the climb-down of the state. Fianna Fail, insofar as its leadership The problem in Ireland is that the dominant BBC. The Director General resigned soon is concerned, is only a managerial party. political force appears to have scarcely after, and Vincent Hanna was a spent It does not exist in the sphere of ideology— any presence within academia. force. Paxman sometimes asserts that the in academia and journalism. If anything BBC functions independently of Govern- thoughtful is to be said in support of the The outcome is not that there is no ment, but he knows from the Hanna independence of the state, it must be said patronage of academia, but that there is episode that he must never put it to the by somebody else. British patronage. Thirty years ago the founder of the Irish Sovereignty Move- test. As to the independence of the state, the ment, Raymond Crotty, called upon the Four years ago BBC radio got into essential thing is that it is an accomplished British ruling class to take Irish intellectual conflict with the Government over an fact. It cannot be undone. It cannot return life in hand once more. It has done so. accurate report by Andrew Gilligan of a to the British womb and start again. It discussion with Dr. David Kelly about cannot even return to 1931 and take up the Forget about Dublin, Cork and Galway. the "dodgy dossier" justifying the invasion thread of Treatyite development. Fianna Forget even about Trinity. Look to Oxford of Iraq. Tony Blair demanded Gilligan's Fail made it independent, and its only and Cambridge, to Manchester, and even head and got it, and other heads along with choice is between being spirited or craven. to Liverpool—which in the form of it. At the moment it is pretty craven. Professor Marianne Elliott revealed a few yeas ago that there was never such a thing It is not normal, and in the long run it is as a British Penal Law system against A Commission to inquire into the matter not functional, that the government dimen- Catholicism in Ireland, but that on the found in favour of the Government—as sions of the state should exist in continuous contrary the 18th century was a century of British Commissioners always do.
2 IRAN continued LETTERS TO THE EDITOR · LETTERS TO THE EDITOR· LETTERS TO THE EDITOR· In Iran they work the rice fields near the shores of the Caspian Sea. But mostly they are semi-nomadic, driving herds of sheep from one pasture land to the next, accompanied by donkeys and some Romantic View Of Fianna Fail? camels. There is an effort to enclose the My yearly subscription comes to an end in August 2007 and I wish to renew for the lands and the animal drivers are often coming twelve months. As a freelance journalist with broadly left republican views I forced to move and camp along the roadsides really enjoy your publication. Your romantic view of Fianna Fail’s alleged republicanism —albeit that the roadsides can extend for apart. That particular party are in my view deeply partitionist and in the pocket of multi- several hundred metres. Though a tougher millionaire property developers and big business interests. They may be progressive life, the nomads cling on to their old when compared with Fine Gael, or the Thatcherite Progressive Democrats, but that’s not travelling ways as much as possible. really saying anything. I would also suggest that maybe you find room in your The Turkmen people live to a ripe old publication for adult learners of Irish. Maybe you could have a small page in basic pass age. The Guinness Book of Records once leaving certificate standard Irish. (Reader, Co. Meath) decided that a man from this area was the oldest recorded person in the world at 165. NOTE: We will endeavour to restore an Irish column to the magazine: Ed. But the entry was deleted when the scoundrel was found to have fibbed and added 10 years to his age and doctored the Tsarist records! 120 years is quite usual China In The Irish Press and these old people are very fit. I was introduced to one old man who hadn't a clue how old he was but reckoned he was I was intrigued by the review of “Letters from a Chinese Official” which appeared in old enough to swap his donkey for a the Aubane book The Irish Free Press. But when I looked it up, I found it was listed as motorbike. As I have discovered in life, the work of an English historian called Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson, a man linked to the so-called backward peoples are a the Bloomsbury Group. It was published anonymously and among those fooled was thousand times more individualistic, William Jennings Bryan, anti-evolutionist and three-times Presidential candidate for the interesting and intelligent than the modern, Democrats. Dickinson had earlier published Letters from John Chinaman and Other semi-homogenised carriers of civilisation. Essays under his own name, and another called The Greek View of Life. The Turkman area is quite racially Looked at critically, what’s said is rather too Western. It fits in with a long tradition mixed—most look Russian but many are of using some outsider to say things that the author would regard as ‘rational’, but which of Mongolian appearance. Like Northern would not occur to an insider. Besides, “prosperous farmers” were rare in China in the Syria there is also a good sprinkling of early 20th century: landlords were much closer to the ordinary population than they were what appear to be Kerrymen—red hair in Ireland but they were just as much parasitic. They wasted the rural surplus on a genteel and freckles. life-style and had no interest in agricultural improvements. If you want a typical educated Chinese view in pre-Communist days, take a look at I didn't get the opportunity to visit the the work of Chiang Yee. He wrote a series of books entitled The Silent Traveller in.....: Azeri part of the country, but met many I’ve read only the one for London but there are many, including one of Dublin. The Azeris in Tehran. Several younger ones comments are interesting but distinctly shallow and lacking in any wider social vision. talked about wanting to live in the West. I Fascinatingly, Chiang Yee’s The Silent Traveller in London includes the tale of ‘Mr reminded them where the airport is. There Blockhead’, at the end of his chapter ‘On Men’. It’s the same Chinese legend that Mao are no restrictions on movement, either used in his famous essay The Foolish Old Man Who Removed The Mountain. Chiang internal or international, in Iran. Yee was well-educated and became a professor, but just could not organise his thoughts in a way that is fairly routine in the West. That needed the injection of Marxism for it There are about 50,000 Jews in the to happen in China. country. Recently very large sums of Gwydion M. Williams money were offered to them to move to Israel. The Jewish leadership was publicly very irate about this. They said that they were in Persia long before many other peoples and intended to stay there and SUBSCRIBERS were insulted by what they called the attempted bribery. Nevertheless they to this magazine may buy regularly go on holiday to Israel. They are this book at a guaranteed a seat in the Iranian Parliament. discount of After the Second World War the Azeris set up an Autonomous Socialist Republic. €3 or £2. But within Iran and not the USSR who didn't much want them anyway. This was Just mention you are a subscriber put down by the Tehran Government in when ordering from one of the 1946. The Azeris are the businessmen of addresses on the back page the country and look down a bit on the Persians, and find it irksome that the 172pp. ISBN 978 1 903497 33 3. Persians in turn look down on them. But 2007. I found no evidence of any movement to €12, £9. link up with the now independent Azerbijan across the border. continued on page 4 3 There was a large scale transfer of hard put to find an Iranian who loses any Armenians to the USSR, but many still sleep over the sufferings of any Iraqis— JIHAD… continued remain. I need to know more about Armen- Sunni or Shia. ians as I've come across them in large numbers in Iran, Syria and Palestine where There are repeated attempts by the United States a few years ago—and then they seem to have a lot of property and a Americans to control and direct disaffected denied for the purpose of prosecuting that very vibrant church. After the break-up of groups in Iran. These efforts come to war more effectively. The purpose of denial the USSR they attacked Azerbijan. But virtually nothing. The substantial danger was to bring "moderate Islamic elites" onside for the war on Islam. But, if Islam is this was not a religious dispute as Christian to Iran is within the clerical leadership and inherently impelled by the sacred texts of Georgia supported the Azeris, while Iran, it is the British who are working in that the religion, to strive for global dominance, Russia and America supported Armenia. area, as explained in Part One of this using the means by which it established series. itself as a power in the world 13 centuries There are many Arabs, including Sunni The most serious armed group fighting ago, then the "moderate Islamic elites" are Arabs in the oil-rich area bordering Iraq. the Iranian Government is the MKO not Islamic at all. And doesn't everybody Their behaviour, along with that of the (Mojahedin-e Kkalk). These arose from know that they are the kept men of the US Azeris further up the border over the last the Islamic Mojahedin which was one of and the EU, corrupt themselves and keeping thirty years, brought home to me again the the main groups fighting the Shah and was down their people by force, and doing an extent that nationalism has taken hold in then suppressed by the Islamic Republic. occasional bit of torture for the West. The expansion of Islam by force was the larger countries of the Middle East— They reorganised later in Iraq. The stopped on the borders of France over a in spite of the artificial borders constructed Americans used them for a while against thousand years ago. Islam settled down in by the imperialist countries in many places Iran but they soon turned on the Americans Spain where it existed peacefully for many there. and joined the Iraqi insurgency. centuries, developing a highly civilised way The Iran-Iraq War was really two wars. In Iran they are still conducting attacks of life, until it was conquered by a Crusade Throughout the eight years of these wars on their own behalf against the Govern- which reduced the region to a kind of the Shias formed the backbone of the Iraqi ment. But they do not have the strength or Christian barbarism for centuries, with army on the border. And the Arabs on the the support to conduct a guerilla campaign Inquisitions and autos da fe. Iranian side were loyal to Iran. and mostly confine themselves to assassin- A later conflict, in the east of Europe, In 1980 Iraq, with Western urging and ating political leaders and internal security between the Ottoman Empire and the Hapsburg Empire, ended with a Christian backing, launched an attack on the oil rich personnel. While I was there they blew up victory at Vienna over three centuries ago. Iranian border area. They took advantage a leading cleric in Aswad, and a few years The history of the world since then has of what they and the British and Americans ago set off a bomb in the Presidential been dominated by Christian globalism, in assumed was chaos following the setting Palace, killing the President. which the sword has played the dominant up of the Iranian Islamic Republic. The part, and the Ottoman state was in decline. chaos was far more apparent than real. By For a long time there was a large Afghan 1982 the Iraqis had been driven back refugee population in Iran. The Iranian In 1914 Britain (with Irish Home Rule across the border and the war could have Government offered a deal where for every support) declared war on the Ottoman Empire ended at that point. family that returned to Afghanistan, one for the purpose of taking over Arabia and But the Iranians were full of confidence, family member would be given a perman- making it part of the British Empire, connecting India with Egypt. It thought in and decided to capture the holy cities of ent work permit to stay in Iran and so be the first instance that it could take over the Karbala and Najev which, in effect, meant able to support his family. This has been Middle East by means of a simple Imperial capturing most of the Southern, Shia, part hugely successful and there are very few conquest. It had been describing the Ottoman of Iraq. They were in turn driven back to Afghani refugees remaining. Empire as "the sick man of Europe" and their borders after about three years. What expected it to crumble at a touch from the followed for the rest of the eight year war One thing that makes Iranians of all British Army. When Johnny Turk gave the was mostly devastating bombing of Iranian shades proud of being Iranians is the Imperial forces a hard time for a year, Britain cities. overall sense of community. They are an decided it needed allies in the region. honest people who would rarely, if ever, In November 1914 it had rejected an I stayed in Abadan and Khormanshahr demean themselves by cheating or thiev- offer of Alliance from an Arab nationalist movement in Basra, not wanting to prejudice on the border—the latter is about 30 km. ing. Their welcome for outsiders is genuine its rights as military conqueror. Then in South of Basra. The older parts of both and almost extravagant. And given the 1916 it procured a declaration of Jihad against cities are functioning and several villages attraction of the holy city of Mhashad for the Turks by the Governor of Mecca, signing are being rebuilt to incredibly high millions of foreign pilgrims, and of the an agreement to recognise an Arab state in standards. But there are miles of former pretty cities like Isfahan for people from the Middle East in the event of the Turks urban areas which are almost completely all over the world, there are a great number being defeated. But, when the Turks were flattened. I could make out the routes of of outsiders to contend with. In this the finally defeated in 1918 (an event now former streets and house foundations, with Iranians are like the Syrians and the usually referred to as a "collapse"), Britain the odd bit of wall sticking up. The closest Palestinians (apart from Bethlehem). used its power (supported by France, to thing I've seen like it were news reels of which it allocated the northern part of the region) to prevent the establishment of the Hiroshima after the dropping of the atom They are proud to contrast themselves Arab State. It Balkanised the Middle East bomb. to what they consider to be the degenerate into several subordinate states—which it Here the Tigris forms the border, and Muslim countries like Egypt or Morocco called 'national' states—suitable for the harbour area of Khormanshahr is still where much of the population demean manipulation. And it allocated Palestine to full of bombed wharves and cranes and themselves trying to shake down foreign- be the territory of a Jewish state even though the rivers are littered with rusting cargo ers and steal from each other. Saudi its population was 90% Arab. ships. Abadan airport was once a major Arabia is not considered degenerate None of those spurious national states international hub. Now it is a minor because the people by and large are not was Islamic in the sense in which Crusaders like Susan Philips (and David Quinn) use regional airport. degenerate—only the ruling elite. I will deal with the religious dimension in part 3 the word. The 'Islamist' development occurred separately through the Wahhabi Iran takes an anti-occupation line on of this series. revival which consolidated itself in what is Iraq and acts accordingly. But you'd be Conor Lynch now Saudi Arabia. Britain in the 1920s
4 protected its puppet states from the Wahhabi in Palestine, though it was still far short of Ireland is now fully implicated in the expansion northwards (mowing the being a majority (while of course not opening humbug as an active member of the EU. It Wahhabis down in the desert with machine its own borders to Jews). is doing its best to make life miserable for guns), and then formed a close alliance with The Jewish minority turned on its patron. Palestinians in Gaza in the hope of inducing Wahhabi fundamentalism in order to secure It made a declaration of independence and them to sell their souls. Is there any good its position in the region—as the US did a launched a terrorist campaign in support of reason why this should not be called short time later. it. In the face of that campaign Britain gave Souperism? up responsibility for the Zionist project that Britain governed India for centuries, and it had launched in 1917 with the Balfour Europe atones for making a sacrifice of in the late 19th century it recruited Irishmen Declaration. It handed over the project to the Jews by making the Palestine Arabs a from the Christian Brothers Schools to take the United Nations, but used its Veto to sacrifice to the Jews. And Ireland with its part in its Indian administration. Two of prevent it becoming the business of the ersatz Europeanism is doing its bit. them wrote books about it, which our present- Security Council—where it would still have day admirers of the British Empire prefer to responsibility for it. It became the business ignore. of the General Assembly, which had no Review: One of them was Sir Michael O'Dwyer executive powers. There were few states in "Eyal Weizman: from Tipperary, who was the civil Governor the UN then. A few European states, the responsible for the Amritsar massacre after white Colonies, and the USA and the USSR, Israel's oppressive World War I. He justified the massacre in with their client states, acting as the world his Memoirs, and urged the British community, authorised the establishment of architecture of occupation a Jewish State in Palestine. It set out borders Government to put down charlatans like The occupied West Bank, 1999. A group Gandhi with a strong hand. for that state, which it had no means of of Israeli settlers complain that their mobile The other was Charles James O'Donnell, enforcing. The Jewish colony quickly spread who joined the Indian administration with beyond those borders set by the UN, and phone reception cuts out on a bend in a road the intention of improving the world. He hardly anyone now remembers what they from Jerusalem to their settlements. resigned his position in the early 1900s on were. Further Jewish colonisation of the The mobile phone company Orange that grounds that, under Lord Curzon's residue of Palestine continues down to the agrees to put up an antenna on a hill Viceroyalty, England began to lay the basis present day under effective UN authority in overlooking the bend. for ruling by the manipulation of religious the shape of the US veto. The hill happens to be owned by conflict, setting Muslim against Hindu. Palestinian farmers, but since mobile phone When joining the Empire he had understood Susan Philips had a go at Hamas (for reception is a "security issue", the mast winning an election and not letting itself be its purpose to be the fostering of a civil construction can go ahead without the society stratum drawn from all religious swindled out of the result by Fatah, which is farmers' permission. sources to be an Indian governing class. now armed with US/UK weapons and Two generations later, Britain presided over Intelligence) in the Irish Times on 22nd Other companies agree to supply the Partition of India in the course of which August. On the same day one of the Jewish electricity and water to the construction site a million people died while the British self- terrorists who made war on Britain in 1945- on the hill. righteously washed their hands of 7 had an article published in the Financial In May 2001 an Israeli security guard responsibility for the outcome of centuries Times in which, although he is now a Harvard moves on to the site and connects his cabin of British government. Professor, Amitai Etzioni disdained the to the water and electricity mains. Then his great humbug of our time by presenting wife and children move in with him. At the same time it washed its hands of himself as a successful Jewish terrorist. (See: In March 2002 five more families join http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bb894a8c-5047- responsibility for the product of its Palestine him to create the settler outpost of Migron. policy. It had built up a big Jewish population 11dc-a6b0-0000779fd2ac.html .) The Israeli ministry for construction and housing builds a nursery, while donations United Nations GAZA Situation from abroad build a synagogue. cannot be printed because Gaza printing By mid-2006 Migron is a fully fledged Report for 15-23 August shops lack the requisite raw materials. illegal settlement comprising 60 trailers on 6. Paltrade reports that as of 14 August, the a hilltop around the antenna, overlooking SUMMARY POINTS direct and indirect potential losses from the the Palestinian lands below. closures have reached an estimated at $8 This blow-by-blow account of just one 1. In the last 72 hours, 12 Palestinians have million for the furniture sector, $15 million example of the ongoing Israeli colonisation been killed by the Israeli Defence Forces for garments and textiles and $3 million for (IDF) in the Gaza Strip, including two processed food. The agriculture sector has of Palestine appears in the opening pages of children. estimated export losses at $16 million. 85% a fascinating new book by Eyal Weizman, 2. Fuel supplies resumed on 22 August to of manufacturing businesses have now the dissident Israeli architect. the Gaza Power Station for the first time temporarily shut down, with over 35,000 Called Hollow Land: Israel's Architect- since 15 August. However, power cuts are workers laid off. An additional 35,000 ure of Occupation, it is an extraordinarily still expected due to a continuing lack of workers have been laid from other sectors detailed account of exactly how the capacity. including construction, trade and the service occupation works in practice, focusing on 3. Continuing strikes by the Gaza city sector. the physical organisation of space and the municipality have led to thousands of tons political dynamics that shape it. of solid waste piling up on street corners, For more information please contact posing public health concerns to those living Judith Harel, OCHA, 054 66 00 528 The 300 page book is packed with in surrounding areas. [email protected] fascinating diagrams and photographs that 4. Karni, Gaza's principal crossing point, Link to the latest OCHA report : http:/ shed a revealing light on almost every aspect remains closed. Basic humanitarian supplies /www.ochaopt.org/documents/ of the occupation." from the private sector and humanitarian Gaza_Aug23.pdf Socialist Worker 2065, 25 August 2007 agencies are entering through Sufa and United Nations Office for the Coordination (www.socialistworker.co.uk) Kerem Shalom. of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), This review can be read in full at:
5 unfortunate fact is that his equivalent in the Had Harris actually joined the IRA in Cork city, Sean O'Hegarty, did not enter in the late 60s, instead of just fantasising mainstream politics after the war. Neither about it, he may have experienced some serious Harris In The Seanad did Florrie O'Donoghue. All this left a great politics, for development of a kind did take vacuum in the evolution of Cork place. As well as learning one end of a gun In appointing Eoghan Harris to the Seanad Republicanism and one result was that Cork from the other, many of its members took part Bertie Ahern has shown a sense of humour, or Republicanism became dogmatic, in creating the Cork Housing Action Commi- rather a sense of devilment, contempt for the ideological and detached from mainstream ttee. But Harris was above getting involved in Seanad and a concern for the afflicted. realities. Harris comes from that tradition. things that that. The Cork IRA also functioned The devilment will be in seeing a court In North Cork the military leader there, as a kind of Citizen Army—or to be more jester supporting Fianna Fail in the Seanad. Moylan, helped develop and evolve a lasting precise—Mickey Mullin's private army in the As Lyndon Johnson explained why he gave a comprehensive political orientation for his ITGWU's battles with the newly arrived multi- job to J. Edgar Hoover—it was better to have Brigade area and a similar vacuum was nationals. Then the Cork IRA took itself off to him pissing out of the tent rather than have avoided for Republicanism. This evolution Derry in August 1969 and stayed there. him pissing into it. Harris will play the same was argued out over years in houses, farms role. and cross-roads but of which there is now It all went really sour for Harris when the FF once abolished the Seanad and it was a no record left. Provos proved to be the substantial republicans good day's work. Second chambers are fifth in the crucible of the North and when Moscow, wheels that can only obstruct the democratic I recall first encountering Harris over the spiritual and physical home of the Stickies, process. They are held in contempt by forty years ago as the doyen of the UCC collapsed. I can fully understand why the democrats. This Seanad may be more a centre student debating Society, the Philosoph, consequences of these developments involves of entertainment than anything else and take dressed in FCA uniform. This was to give so much self-loathing for him. Such disastrous some attention away from the Dail for no good the impression to gullible undergraduate misjudgements are not easy to accept at an purpose. But Harris may have to debate rather that this was really an IRA uniform to fit the individual level. than declaim and that might make him more rhetoric and demagoguery that spouted forth. responsible but don't hold your breath. More than one student was convinced he His consolation is to be a bit like Plekanov's was the Chief of Staff and Harris did not fly on the mudguard of the wheel of history Harris is afflicted with a severe dose of disabuse them of such notions. He was imagining he is the cause of all the dust being self-loathing. He is not alone; it pervades the never a member and his contribution to raised around him. He promotes a Zelig-like media and academia, and it's just that he Irish military development was to try to get persona and will no doubt now be telling us personifies and expresses it more bluntly and the FCA to have commands in Irish. The that he is responsible for all Bertie Ahern's crudely. By comparison people like Myers IRA never indulged in such levity. It could success. Laugh or cry, take your pick, but and Bruce Arnold have just become or rather lead to a lot of friendly fire. there is no need to take any of it seriously. The remained true Brits. Harris is more complex. The only regular target available for him fact is that he is being rescued by FF and is Cork seems to have a habit of producing were the little old dears selling poppies back where he should have begun nearly fifty pristine examples of Irish types. What goes every year—genuine remnants of WWI and years ago. with this self-loathing is the most extraordinary not the professional, politically motivated In his Sindo piece immediately after the false memory and when reading it one does Poppy beggars of today. appointment, Harris concentrated on how he not know whether to laugh or cry. Laugh at the The harassing (Harrising?) of them by would sort out Northern Ireland and his new nonsense or cry that any person needs to write young Republicans seemed to take on the analysis is that Sin Fein is the now the "centre such nonsense and seems to have a need to significance of Kilmichael or Crossbarry of social democracy" there (4.8.2007). I am believe it. for him and he exulted in it. I found his sure it is news to every single person who Harris is a product of West Cork/Cork city performances on this disgusting, his voted who for SF in the North that they voted Republicanism and much as he is detested justifications at the Philosoph intellectually for social democracy. Has anyone anywhere there now it is also necessary for Republicans insulting as well as feeling shock and in the world voted recently for social there to figure out how such as Harris was ever disbelief that this seemed to be the best that democracy? If anyone in the North did so they produced from their midst. Obviously there UCC could produce. Where Finbarr taught may have voted for the actual Social are personal factors and there is no knowing did not seem to have Munster learning Democratic party there—the Party that lost the full extent of these in Harris's case no more much, to misquote its motto. comprehensively. But Harris knows better. It than in any one else's case. But there is a is unbelievable that anyone should seriously political context for all political behaviour I had assumed the war of independence think that the electorates in the North voted and that is all we can hope to cope with . . . was over (Harris was still fighting it), we for anything other than a nationalist or unionist had won it and it was time for other things party of some variety. His original hero, or icon, was Tom Barry like socialism, maybe communism, Maoism The only interesting issue is what type of and he was clearly shaped by the spell of or some new political experiment but not nationalist voted for Sinn Fein and what is Barry and the whole Barry persona. One of the same old story recycling the obvious. their current base. The Northern nationalists the most amazing false memory creations was Harris was living in a time warp. Time had have two fundamental choices now and when Harris claimed that, after reading Peter stood still for him and his political metier. historically—Republican nationalism or Hart's book on Kilmichael, he realised that He was politically paralysed at birth by this Hibernian nationalism. That is a choice Barry had always really agreed with Hart and was forever afterwards desperately and between separation from the UK or a when he recalled his conversations with Barry frantically trying to catch up with the world. nationalism that is pro-British and satisfied about 40 years earlier! It's akin to Hart's Republicanism was then at its lowest ebb with the Union. The question is—which is infamous interviewing of dead Kilmichael for decades. If Harris had any positive Sinn Fein at the moment? All else is nonsense survivors. contribution to make to its evolution it was and a red herring and Harris as usual Barry was a military genius who organised the time to do it. Instead he was just a sucker personifies the nonsense. The real world very successful ambushes and who was also for the 'Stickie' development which was remains a parallel world for him able to organise and win a major battle of based on lies, scheming and fantasies about manoeuvre such as Crossbarry, overcoming Irish history and politics. He had no inbuilt Ahern may not succeed in making him overwhelming odds. The latter was the largest critical faculties to cope with this and became learn even the most basic bits of common field battle in Britain or Ireland for centuries. one of its main propagandists. sense despite his best efforts to help him. But Barry was not a political animal. An Jack Lane 6 LOW TAX STRATEGY? answer has been to throw money at the But while a low corporate tax strategy problem. The queues have reduced drama- has contributed to our current prosperity, tically but at enormous cost through the Shorts it does not follow that low taxes in general national treatment purchase scheme, which from have had anything to do with it. Low involves the state buying from the private income taxes and low capital gains taxes sector. the Long Fellow have meant that the loot, which has been Labour is doomed to irrelevancy unless extracted from abroad, is unevenly it bases itself on the working class. It must show that it is ruthless in pursuing the LABOUR DEBATE distributed in this country. Brendan Howlin has made a thoughtful Probably the most iniquitous feature of interests of that class and ignore the bleat- contribution to the debate on the future of the Celtic Tiger has been the dramatic ing of the media, most especially The Irish Labour (http://www.labour.ie/press/ increase in property prices, which has Times, which has a different agenda. listing/1184940932560782.html). Using been fuelled by cheap credit and low taxes. some of the inelegant marketing The working class has not benefited from THE IRISH TIMES OPPOSITION terminology of Pat Rabbitte, Howlin hints this. About five years ago this magazine It is difficult to understand what is that its electoral pact with Fine Gael has calculated that in a housing development happening within The Irish Times. If there undermined the Labour "brand". Although in Lucan €40,000 per each housing unit has been a post mortem following its Labour "flatlined" in the last election, it went into the hands of the land speculators. disastrous election campaign it has not was in circumstances that were more This €40,000 per housing unit was as a been conducted in public. About 3 months favourable than in 2002. consequence of the Council rezoning from before the General Election the Long Howlin admits that the Labour Party's agricultural to residential. This does not Fellow had the unaccustomed pleasure of failure in the last 10 years to engage include the amount that went to the builder discussing Fianna Fail's electoral prospects proactively in government formation or even the developer. It relates purely to with a Government Minister. The latter allowed the Progressive Democrats undue the administrative decision of the Council. was quite optimistic about his party's influence. At least 20% of the mortgage payments prospects. He said that since October 2006 Another point that Howlin makes is paid by householders are, in effect, to and Bertigate the opinion polls had that Labour and the left in general is keep land speculators in the manner in indicated that the Irish people felt that the perceived as being negative in relation to which they are accustomed. media was the problem. As the election the Celtic Tiger. This negative view doesn't The amazing thing about this country is drew near wavering voters would gravitate accord with people's experience of life. that there has not been more corruption towards Fianna Fail because of fears of If the left is to make progress it will with such a system. The solution is not the Government instability. And that is what have to understand the Celtic Tiger. setting up of tribunals but the full happened. implementation of the Kenny Report, The problem with the media is that it is a thing in itself, which is impervious to THE CELTIC TIGER which advocated a 100% tax on all such The three principal determinants of the speculative gains. democratic control. When it decides Celtic Tiger are: 1) social partnership 2) something it acts with one voice. The EU transfers (the CAP and structural funds FIANNA FAIL Long Fellow believes that the source of in the 1980s and 1990s) and 3) low corpor- If the Labour Party is to make any the unity is The Irish Times. ation tax attracting American capital. progress, it will have to come to a more And following his election victory The last of these three determinants— realistic understanding of the most Ahern showed his contempt for The Irish the low corporation tax rate—has become successful political party in the state. Times by appointing Eoghan Harris as the most important. Indeed the success of Fianna Fail is not a corrupt party and senator. The latter's denunciation of the this policy turns left wing orthodoxy on its neither is the state a corrupt state. The media on the Late Late Show just before head. The Yankee imperialists have not benefits of the Celtic Tiger have not been the election needed to be encouraged in been screwing us; we have been screwing confined to an elite. The moralistic order to break the media consensus. But them. The Long Fellow read recently that denunciations of Fianna Fail have not on the other hand his revisionist views Microsoft paid the equivalent of 300 benefited the working class. The main ruled him out of a position on the RTE million dollars in taxes to the Irish State. beneficiary has been the legal profession Authority which he had been looking for. In the same year it paid 17 million dollars through the hundreds of millions spent on A seat in the Senate was the ideal com- to the US. This is not because the Irish the Tribunals. Such denunciations have promise from Ahern's point of view. State has lower taxes but the opposite. Our been an excuse by the left to avoid thinking Harris has been open about his mental low tax rates have encouraged such about politics. health problems and his writing on recent corporations to transfer profits earned in Fianna Fail is a genuine all class history owes more to political expediency the US to Ireland. alliance. It is not an ideological free market than factual accuracy. But the Long Fellow Accountants transfer the revenues of political party. The working class has not does not accept that he is a crackpot. In the Research and Development expenditure done badly in the last 20 years. Even last 20 years he has pursued a coherent to Ireland even though most of the costs before the Celtic Tiger took off, welfare anti-national agenda. His alliances with were incurred in the US. It is particularly provision was increased at an annual rate John Bruton, David Trimble etc have been easy for I T and pharmaceutical companies above the level of inflation. Pension consistent with this political orientation. to do this because a high proportion of increases have also been very generous. And he has gathered around him a coterie their total expenditure is in R & D. And it A weak point has been in health. The of journalists in the largest selling Sunday is no accident that these are precisely the Progressive Democrats were in danger of newspaper, which shares his views. type of Multinational industries that are exposing the contradictions within Fianna In Northern Ireland the Taigs beat the located in Ireland. Fail by pushing its free market agenda and Prods. But who won the war? Within the In Marxist terms a portion of the surplus therefore alienating the working class Northern Catholic community there has value which was created in the USA has element of the Fianna Fail class alliance. always been a division between been handed over to the Irish State. It is There is no doubt that the free market is Hibernianism and Republicanism. The difficult to see how the left can do anything completely inappropriate in the area of Hibernians were happy to settle down except support this policy. How long this health, where the suppliers (i.e. the doctors) within the Empire as long as they were situation will last is another question. determine the demand. The Fianna Fail treated decently. Harris's suggestion that
7 Sinn Fein embrace social democracy is a Cromwell. save them…. euphemism for Hibernianism. "As any objective historian agrees Day of grief and anger. Ahern is a brilliant tactician but it is Cromwell engaged in the systematic Hurrah for the dollar! unclear whether he has a long-term depopulation of Ireland, wiping out over A triumph of science, of hygiene, of one-fifth of the native population. strategy. It is by no means certain that Fordism and the Bible. Fianna Fail will be able to tame Harris. "Not content with that he sent letters to parliament rejoicing in the slaughter Class justice has just killed Sacco and of what he called the 'barbarous Vanzetti. THE IRISH TIMES REFUGEE wretches'. Because they were militant workers. The Long Fellow has seen no "His confiscation of land from the Because they were innocent. explanation for the transfer of Marc native Irish laid conditions for a Because the whole world cried it out. Coleman from The Irish Times to the sequence of famines from which this Because the dollar is infallible. Sunday Independent. As Economics country is only beginning to recover. And because American capitalism must Editor, Coleman was one of the most "For some this is ancient history. always be great, even in crime, above all in prolific writers in the business pages and Sorry, but no matter how long ago it crime. occurred, genocide must never be the Long Fellow thought that this A rational murder. journalist's barely concealed contempt for forgotten or forgiven. The deeds of Hitler must always be remembered, The automobile industry had supplied Fianna Fail would ensure a glittering career lest they are repeated. Likewise, those Governor Fuller. at the daily newspaper. of Cromwell. Cromwell was a racist The religious industry, Judge Thayer… But in retrospect, Coleman showed a and a mass murderer who plunged The police industry, the false witnesses worrying capacity for independent (pun England into its darkest period of and the necessary bombs. definitely not intended) thinking. The Long intolerance and bigotry (Sunday The electrical industry supplied the Fellow remembers one article by Coleman Independent , 29.7.07). current of two thousand volts… suggesting that the left should oppose All carried out in the most efficient Benchmarking because V.I. Lenin was in Those are sentiments that would never manner of scientific brutality. favour of a cheap, efficient state. This is appear in The Irish Times. Coleman is a Sacco and Vanzetti burned alive on the not wrong. Lenin believed that high Jacobite but that paper is irredeemably electric chair. It is the last word in capitalist salaries in the public sector had the effect Cromwellian. "civilisation". Bourgeois America, the of making the upper echelons of the state America of trusts, of the Ku Klux Klan, of bureaucracy identify with the bourgeoisie. the automobile for all, of lynching and of The bourgeois state apparatus should be the American Legion; all of it is there. smashed and replaced with a state Sacco and Vanzetti apparatus consisting of employees with Last month was the 80th anniversary of But against this, to the other America, salaries equal to the average worker. the execution of Nicola Sacco and those of the workers tied to the factory, to Perhaps Coleman was playacting, but who Bartolomeo Vanzetti, two Italian the office, on the land or in the mines that knows where such thoughts might lead? anarchists who were convicted of murder. we address… And then, in one of his first articles in The executions in the USA were greeted The flag of American capitalism can no the Sunday Independent, he opposed with outrage throughout the world. To longer fly except under the protection of Ireland rejoining the Commonwealth. It commemorate this event we reproduce an the police, of the paid touts and appears Coleman is an Anglophile, but editorial by P. Vaillant-Couturier, which provocateurs . not of the kind approved by The Irish appeared on the front page of the French For the fearful bourgeois, for the small Times as the following extract Communist party newspaper l’Humanité minded intellectuals of the "consensus", demonstrates: on 23rd of August 1927. the murder this morning is a "regrettable "Rather than being a dyed-in-the- judicial error". wool Shinner, I'm a Jacobite (we haven't It is not a judicial error. gone away you know). My problem Electrocuted ! It is an "example". starts not with Britain, but with the nature of its monarchy. Being the central The Proletariat will avenge them ! binding force of the Commonwealth, Declaration of war For the proletariat, it is an open that same monarchy and what it stands DECLARATION OF WAR! for is crucial. The principle on which The proletariat had done everything to THIS EVENING, TO THEBOULEVARDS! the current British monarchy is founded (Translated by John Martin) —the Act of Settlement—should be unacceptable to any modern pluralist democracy. "The 1704 act bars any Catholic SUBSCRIBERS from ascending to the throne of England and bars any British monarch from to this magazine may buy marrying a Catholic. "You can imagine the furore if this book at a Bunreacht na hEireann barred Protest- discount of ants from becoming President of Ireland. We are rightly proud of the fact €5 or £3. that one of the first presidents of Ireland, Douglas Hyde, was a Protestant…. "If Ireland is to rejoin the Common- Just mention you are a subscriber wealth, then that organisation must be when ordering from one of the led by a monarch whose selection is addresses on the back page based on the law of hereditary succes- sion, and not religious bigotry. But perhaps the most problematic issue for 172pp. ISBN 978 1 903497 33 3. Ireland joining the Commonwealth is a 2007. statue that still stands outside the Houses €20, £15. of Parliament: the statue of Oliver
8 Press Freedom: However, in the context of the overall representative of the family to take part in programme, a viewer could reasonably the programme but failed to get through. The Right To have assumed that Mr. Clissman was a Some months later Inge Clissman phoned Misrepresent? war criminal… The Commission upheld the producers and said— the complaint on this basis." "she would consider it if she had some Cathal O'Shannon's sensationalist editorial control on how the interview Tile Films, while claiming that if it did television documentary, Ireland's Nazis, was used. They pointed out that they which was broadcast by RTE, was the not give the impression that Clissman was could not agree to any editorial input or subject of complaint by Mrs. Clissman a war criminal, hinted that it might have control and their offer of an interview on with regard to its presentation of her done so by use of "extensive material this basis was declined by Ms Clissman." husband, Helmut Clissman, as a Nazi war- available from British and American intel- Editorial independence, you see! Editors criminal, although he had not been charged ligence". This amounts to an attempt to cannot forgo their right of misrepresentation. with war crimes, still less found guilty. justify the impression which it denied giv- Freedom of the press etc. would be a fine RTE pleaded in defence of its broadcast ing. As far as we know, it has not published thing if we were all litigious millionaires that— this material which it did not use but which like Albert Reynolds and could meet these "the programme did not include any it considers relevant to its defence of its powerful media institutions on something false statements about Helmut Clissman misrepresentation of Clissman. like equal terms on a level battlefield. and that an offer to participate in the RTE said that— programme had been made to a A release form of the kind which people representative of the family, but had not "ultimately what Ms. Clissman being interviewed for RTE documentaries been accepted. On this point it is RTE's wanted was that the programme would must sign before they are interviewed shows view that the inclusion of an interview make no reference to Helmut Clissman. what editorial independence means. The This could not be agreed to." in the programme with a representative document resembles the Official Secrets of the Clissman family was not necessary Since the programme was in substance Act in Britain. And it requires you to give for the programme to be fair to Mr. about war criminals, and RTE admitted the producers the right to misrepresent you Clissman or his family." that Clissman was not a war criminal, why for their own purposes, and obliges you to It then entered the explanation that: could it not be agreed to? Perhaps because maintain secrecy about it. Below is such a "the documentary was in two parts; RTE itself was taken in by the slick editing form, which is currently in use by another the first part dealt with people who were and did not realise in time that Clissman company producing documentary films for war criminals who came to Ireland after was being misrepresented. the war, the second part dealt with other RTE. Readers are invited to judge for people who had participated in some Tile Films says that Cathal O'Shannon themselves. way with the German forces during the phoned Inge Clissman to ask for a TO BE CONTINUED war, but were not necessarily war criminals. Helmut Clissman's story was told in the second part" (from Broad- Release Form casting Complaints Commission website). Production Company: Reel Story Productions Ltd. (The Associate) In this pleading, as in the programme, Production Title: [Title of Programme omitted] (The Production) the distinction between people who were war criminals and people who were not I agree to participate in the production of the above mentioned programme, the nature war criminals is effectively abolished. and composition of which has been explained to me, and hereby give consent for the filming and recording of my activities, acts and performances. A defence pleading was also entered by David Farrell on behalf of Tile Films, the I agree that the tape may be cut or edited for the programme or publicity material company that made the programme, associated with the programme, and may be used in association with the exploitation of arguing that— same. "their portrayal of Helmut Clissman was fair and accurate and should not I hereby grant and consign to Reel Story Productions Ltd the copyright and all other have left the audience with the rights and interests of whatsoever nature in my contributions to the programme and the impression that he was a war criminal". rights to exploit the same worldwide in all media for the full period of copyright including We doubt that anybody who watched any extensions, renewals and revivals thereof and thereafter to the extent possible in the programme in a receptive state of mind, perpetuity. I hereby also waive any moral rights that may be deemed to be in existence and who was not otherwise informed, would in relation to my contributions and participation in the programme. be left with any impression but that Cliss- man was a war criminal. I acknowledge and agree that my contribution towards the programme and my name The misrepresentation of fact by means and/or likeness may be advertised and used in the exploitation of the programme, at any of atmospheric context was so blatant that time and from time to time throughout all the countries of the world in perpetuity. I the Complaints Commission upheld Mrs. hereby waive any claim I may have for loss of opportunity to enhance my reputation as Clissman's complaint: a result of the non-inclusion of my contribution in the programme. I confirm and warrant "On viewing the broadcast material, that I'm entitled to enter into this release, and am not under contractual or any other the Commission was of the opinion by obligations precluding me from doing so. I undertake to keep confidential any matter reason of the context in which reference which comes to my attention relating to the programme. I undertake to execute all and was made to Mr. Clissman, that the any deeds and take such steps as are reasonably required by Reel Story Productions to impression was created that Mr. give effect to the intent of this release. I am not entitled to a credit in relation to my Clissman was a Nazi War criminal. At contribution. no stage in the broadcast was his treatment adequately separated from that Agreed & Accepted...... (PLEASE PRINT NAME) afforded others who were the subject of Signature: the programme. There was no clarific- ation made that he was not a war criminal. Address: The Commission acknowledges that Tel/Mobile No.: there was no claim made in the course of the broadcast that he was a criminal. Signed for Reel Story Productions:
9 was a citizen. Yet O'Shannon has let Harris put it about that he himself had been Hidden History Of 'Ireland's Nazis' victimised by Gageby for "fighting the fascists"! Had Bill Alexander—who had Programme to fight against everything the fascists had Part One to throw at him over the course of two successive wars—been able to foresee The self-styled documentary Ireland's be regretted that when mythmaking about O'Shannon's 'war record' boast a decade Nazis was made for RTE's Hidden History his 'war record' was compounded by down the road, his 1996 denunciation of series by Tile Films, in association with outright slander of others {because, of him would have been even more vituper- the History Channel. Irish audiences saw course, a dead man can't sue for libel} ative. For it was none other than O'Shannon it in two parts in January, while British O'Shannon refrained from correcting his himself whom Alexander had denounced audiences saw it in May. Filmed on cheerleader's traducing of another man's as a fascist filmmaker. location in Auschwitz extermination camp, good name. So it was that Eoghan Harris Such a charge, however, was the programme presenter Cathal O' was allowed to get away with the following profoundly unfair. When it came down to Shannon referred to how those Allied in the Sunday Independent on 14th brass tacks, Bill was indeed an Anglo- soldiers who had liberated the Nazi camps January: centric bigot, whose devotion to the word could never forget the horrors they had "O'Shannon started his film with a "Great" was as high as to any other word experienced. Among such soldiers known flat statement: he joined the RAF to in his one-time formal title of Assistant personally to myself was Bill Alexander, fight the fascists … Let me drop a name General Secretary of the Communist Party who had for a period been the Commander … about O'Shannon's not getting a great of Great Britain. The context for Bill's of the International Brigade's British welcome when he returned to Ireland charge was his criticism of myself for Battalion during the Spanish Anti-Fascist from fighting [sic] … There was no showing O'Shannon's pioneering 1976 lack of frost in the Irish Times itself. In documentary "Even the Olives Are War until he was wounded in 1938. Bill fact when Cathal O'Shannon reported subsequently fought right through World back from the RAF, Douglas Gageby, Bleeding" at that summer school. In sharp War Two as a captain in the British Army, who was later to edit the Irish Times, contrast, Dave Goodman was to side with and his participation in the liberation of called him a traitorous c**t." me in agreeing that Bill had gone over the the Nazi death camps had indeed marked top with such a denunciation. Dave himself him for life. This is an outrageous calumny—quite had been taken prisoner in the company of In 1996 a Jewish International Brigade apart from the fact that it was actually with Irish International Brigaders Frank Ryan, veteran, Dave Goodman, organised a the Irish Press that Gageby was working Maurice Levitas and Bob Doyle, as they summer school in the potteries district of when O'Shannon returned to the Irish marched into an Italian fascist ambush in England on the theme of the War in Spain. Times, while Gageby himself would not March 1938. Having got to know them I represented my father and spoke of the commence his own involvement with the even better as fellow prisoners during the Irish involvement, while Bill Alexander latter paper until 1959. Harris has twisted year he was to spend in the Spanish fascist spoke of the role of British International beyond recognition the following anecdote concentration camp of San Pedro, Dave Brigaders. At that school Bill went on to from Mary Maher, in her contribution to had quickly come to an objective denounce a third party—in his absence— Bright, Brilliant Days, the book edited by appreciation of Irish politics, subsequently as a "fascist filmmaker", and if one is Andrew Whittaker about Douglas Gageby reinforced by his marriage to an Irish- hooked on Eoghan Harris's teachings in and the Irish Times. She recounts: woman. Bill's objection to Cathal respect of "acting with good authority", "There was the [senior staff] O'Shannon's documentary had been to the Bill's wartime experiences might be conference… at which someone fact that Cathal had interviewed Irishmen regarded as giving him every right to be so suggested we should expose the who had fought on both sides of the Spanish judgemental. Another cause of profound inadequacies of the Garda training Civil War. Irish International Brigaders irritation to Bill, and to which he also system… with the comment that all themselves, however, had no such object- reacted quite viciously, was when the they learned… was how to shine their ions. They knew that they had performed buttons… Ordinary members of staff… far better than their Blueshirt opponents— subject of the English writer Laurie Lee's tend to see [the conference] more as a autobiographical account of his own fight point-scoring exercise among people on both battlefield and screen! But such against fascism in Spain came up.. For the jockeying for position… On this was O'Shannon's own superb and truth of the matter was that Lee had never particular day, someone piped up to scrupulous research, together with his fought at all in that War. In all fairness, remark that when he was in the RAF, objective presentation and fair-minded however, it should also be pointed out that the squaddies had special buttons that interviews of all concerned, that nobody, Lee did indeed have the courage to didn't need to be shined. Douglas from any Irish quarter, could ever question volunteer to do so. But after his arrival in Gageby peered up over his glasses and the integrity and professionalism of that Spain, through no fault of his own, he had said in his drawling ironic tone… 'Is documentary. been rejected as being unfit for combat, that so… when you were in the RAF And so it was over the course of O' you didn't have to shine your buttons. Shannon's own programme-making because of recurring epileptic fits. Wasn't it well for you—you fucking Nonetheless, one can imagine how traitor.' Tolerating fools, even moment- career. More's the pity, then, that in a year infuriated Bill Alexander would have been ary fools, was not his strong point, of vulnerability within months of being at Cathal O'Shannon's documentary quite apart from the fact that any whiff widowed, Cathal O'Shannon allowed boast—twice pronounced, at the start of of West Britism brought on thundering himself to be flattered—and a childish both Parts One and Two—that "many wrath." sense of RAF grievance to be nurtured— Irishmen like me went to fight for the in order to front a programme that was not Allies". For this was a claim that he had to This occurrence had nothing whatso- his own but had been researched and qualify immediately in his Irish Times ever to do with O'Shannon. The senior scripted well in advance by others who interview of 6th January: "He had joined staff offender in question was a hoity- were more than willing to cast program- up at 16, but serving when the war in toity Anglo-Irishman whom Gageby had matic integrity to the wind when it came to Europe was over and that in the Far East cut down to size for invoking his RAF seeking a commissioning contract from was ending, 'I never raised my hand against shiny buttons in order to sneer at the RTE. This latest product from Tile Films, the Germans'." It is, however, greatly to police force of the Republic of which he as originally envisaged, had no provision
10 for O'Shannon to play any role in it the fact that—in their outright refusal to compared with which the bare year he had whatsoever. RTE, however, subsequently accede to Tito's 1946 call for his extradition spent en route in Ireland—having been imposed the condition that O'Shannon in order to face war crimes charges in quite deliberately let loose by the British should be brought on board, in order "to Yugoslavia—the British authorities had authorities—was quite minimal. The lend gravitas" to the programme and to speedily decided to set Artukovic free, the shame I felt was instead directly related to complain about not being able to coat-trail following observations by Leach are very what was going on in the USA itself his RAF uniform in public during the much to the point: during that very period of the mid-1980s. years 1945-47. What was unconscionable, "The British had captured Artukovic The most prominent US public figure to however, was the significant exclusion in Austria and despite being fully aware the fore in voicing support for Artukovic— also agreed to by the producers in order to of the allegations against him, released as a "good Catholic citizen" who should kow-tow to RTE's own corporate concerns him with 'no security objection'. After a not be extradited—was a relation of my about "looking after their own", of which single year in Ireland, he spent almost own, Tadhg Manning, the Cardinal more in Part Three. 40 times as long in the US. Moreover, Archbishop of Los Angeles. Manning was the Vatican and Western governments O'Shannon's own lack of personal assisted and funded operations in the son of the blacksmith of Ballingeary, research for this programme was revealed Croatia, in which Ustasha (Croatian and his mother had acted as matchmaker in the ignorance he displayed during the fascist) guerrillas fought Tito's Com- for the arranged marriage of my paternal course of his Irish Times interview: munist rule. Similarly, in an operation grandparents with whom, in turn, he "Sixty years on, even a mass killer codenamed 'Jungle', the Western Allies himself had lived in the Pope's Quay O' such as Artukovic [the Croatian fascist parachuted agents into the Baltic States Riordan family home when studying at Interior Minister who had been (many of them former members of the University College Cork. responsible for the Second World War German SS) soon after the end of the The admiration factor was the respect I extermination of 30,000 Yugoslav Jews war, to destabilise the rule of their had for Hubert Butler himself, and for and 750,000, or two-and-a-half times former Soviet allies and support anti- whose memory I continue to retain a soft as many, Orthodox Serbs—MO'R] is Soviet partisans. Indeed the Americans largely unknown here. O'Shannon entire intelligence network in Eastern spot, notwithstanding justifiable criticism admits that he hadn't heard of him until Europe was inherited wholesale from in this journal of a number of his writings a year ago". the Nazis, and even run by its former exhibiting Protestant bigotry and head, Gen. Reinhard Gehlen." arrogance. He could, after all, just as Small wonder, then, that the Lilliput quickly turn his fire on those of his own Press publisher Antony Farrell was I had personal experience of US policy background, as when he described the provoked to write to the editor of the Irish on such matters. While studying in the Anglo-Irish as the most reliable Times in a letter that appeared on 15th USA 1969-71, one of my closest friends collaborators that the Nazis would have January: in SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) found in Ireland, had they had cause to and its campaign against the US war in invade: "Madam—it seems both remarkable Vietnam, was an Estonian-American "I think when the success of the and improbable, even in this amnesiac anarchist who had been born in Germany invasion had been assured, it would age, that 'veteran journalist' Cathal have emerged that the respectable Xs, O'Shannon, or his programme in 1948 but had come to the USA as a two- the Anglo-Irish Herrenvolk of Ulster researchers, were unfamiliar with the year-old. One day in 1970, in his home and the Dublin suburbs, would prove essays of Hubert Butler ('the Artukovich city of Buffalo, New York, he introduced the more satisfactory accomplices in File', Escape from the Anthill) published me to his non-English speaking establishing the German hegemony. by both Lilliput and Penguin Books in grandmother as yet "another Communist" The Jersey [occupied Channel Islands] the late 1980s and 1990s, and and translated back to me her reply in treatment would have been applied to subsequently in New York and Paris… Estonian: "Nice to believe in; not so nice them, insofar as they were civilians. In his writings Butler smoked out the to live under". But then his uncle appeared There would have been dazzling Croatian mass murderer and traced on the scene and we were introduced displays of 'correctness'. It is probable Artukovitch's presence in Ireland in without any further elaboration. It was that at Greystones [Co. Wicklow] and 1947-48 and the role of the Franciscans Newtownards [Co. Down], as at St. in giving him shelter on his passage only after we had left the house that he Helier and at Peterport, divine service west to California, prior to his eventual informed me that his uncle had been with prayers for the King and the British extradition to Yugoslavia in 1986… Deputy Commandant of a Nazi Concen- Empire would continue to be permitted Due acknowledgement should be tration Camp who was now living quite in the Protestant churches… The British made." openly as a respectable US citizen and Naziphiles were romantic, traditional, "refugee from Communism". imperialist. Irish separatism would have Apart from the implicit charge of been incompatible with their Kiplinges- plagiarism, the most salient point in the Antony Farrell had dated Hubert que ideal of a merry, beer-drinking 'old' above is the "passage west" reference. Butler's essay as the late 1980s. It had in England, allied with Germany, grasping This was a point that was further elaborated fact been published in 1985 and I had once more in her strong right hand the on to much greater effect by Daniel Leach helped him with a small amount of reins of empire and dealing out justice of the University of Melbourne, in an to the lesser breeds… Nazi philosophy research. I had managed to obtain for was permeated with race snobbery and article for the May-June issue of History Butler the 1948 Dublin birth certificate of we are outwardly a rustic and Ireland, entitled Irish Post-War Asylum. Artukovic's son, which established that he unpretentious people. When a Nazi Leach was listed as "historical advisor" to had been living at that time under the leader, Ribbentrop, visited Ireland, it the programme, but already as early as pseudonym of 'Anic' on Zion Road in the was with a Unionist leader, Lord January itself he had been forced to protest Dublin suburb of Rathgar. Apart from my Londonderry, at Newtownards that he against both the "Ireland's Nazis" label keen support of the principle of 'the truth stayed. In the Nazi hierarchy of races (describing it as "itself quite a sensational- will out', my research had also been the Irish would not I think have ranked ist title") and, far more seriously, against personally motivated by factors of both high" (The Bell, November 1950; gross misrepresentation of what he himself shame and admiration. Escape from the Anthill, p109). had to say on the Breton question, which My sense of shame did not relate to any will be dealt with in the third part of this Irish Government role. As highlighted by "History repeats itself; the first time as article. But taking note of how quickly Leach, this war criminal had been indulged tragedy, the second time as farce"—is a O'Shannon's commentary had glided over and entertained by the USA for 40 years, statement often attributed to Marx, if not
11 originating with him. In 1952 Hubert bringing his "Artukovitch File" to public assessment in Was Frank Ryan A Butler had been denied free speech notice, nor does it justify the shabbiness of Collaborator—my review of Fearghal regarding the wartime massacres and the Ireland's Nazis programme in refusing McGarry's biography of Ryan, available persecution by Croatian Ustasha regime to acknowledge such pioneering investig- on http://www.geocities.com/irelandscw/ of the Orthodox Serbs, and suffered the ative work. This was a sin of omission on docs-Ryan2.htm . I will, however, consequences of a bitter public ostracism. the part of that programme. But there was conclude this article with two excerpts Twenty years later I was witness to another also a far greater sin of commission present penned by Cathal O'Shannon himself, denial of free speech to Butler, but it was in O'Shannon's unconscionable willing- before the producers of Ireland's Nazis no Catholic who shouted him down on ness to deliver a script of character assas- persuaded him to sing from a different this occasion. It was at a so-called sination in respect of Frank Ryan that was hymn sheet. During the course of his "Christian-Marxist Dialogue" Conference at variance with everything that he himself review of the most recent biography of in Malahide, Co. Dublin, where the had previously written and pronounced Ryan by Adrian Hoar, O'Shannon had 'Marxist' objective was to win over regarding Ryan. arrived at the following conclusion in the 'progressive' Catholic clergy to various Irish Times of 8th January 2005: international peace initiatives favoured So it was that we had O'Shannon "Years ago when I made a film with alike by the USSR and Yugoslavia. This declaiming on screen, in tones of such Irish survivors of the Spanish Civil was at a time when Tito's Yugoslavia was certitude, that Abwehr intelligence officer War, there was a plain unease among a more intent on keeping the lid on Serbian Helmut Clissmann "saw Ryan as the key few of them at Ryan's sojourn in nationalism and assuaging the Croats, and to getting IRA help for the Nazis' plan to Germany, though they wouldn't express was not at all anxious at that particular invade Britain". O'Shannon knows very it publicly. Hoar deals with this charge a little uneasily himself and comes to juncture to have the Artukovic issue raised. well that nothing could be further from the the conclusion I came to many years The first time I ever encountered Hubert truth. In 1961 Enno Stephan's book Spies ago. Frank Ryan was not a collaborator Butler was at that 1970s Conference, once in Ireland had authoritatively quoted in the sense that he helped the Germans again cast in the role of a loner, as he Helmut Clissmann on the purely defensive to fight a war against his erstwhile insisted on having his say about the war role envisaged as a possibility for Ryan in comrades, but kept faith in his anti- crimes of Catholic Croatia, despite being Ireland, where they both might "act as imperialist past." harangued from the Chair by the most military contact men between the Irish prominent champion of Titoism in Ireland, government and the German Army in the Two months later, on 16th March 2005, Dr. John de Courcy Ireland, who event of Anglo-American occupation of it was at my invitation that Cathal condemned Butler for raising issues that Ireland and to help organise guerrilla O'Shannon was to launch the second he pronounced extraneous to that warfare against the aggressors". edition of my father's book Connolly Conference. Ireland's Nazis went on to feature US Column. During the course of an address During another session a number of us historian Mark Hull giddily make the that was both generous and thoughtful, insisted on drawing attention to the following outlandish allegations (that he Cathal advanced the following Elephant in the Room, the conflict taking himself nowhere saw fit to set down in perspective: place at that very time in Ireland itself print in his own 2003 book, Irish Secrets): "And, of course, there is a good deal between Catholic Nationalism and "Frank Ryan and some others came about the great Frank Ryan. Michael Protestant Unionism, at which point the up with the idea to recreate the idea O'Riordan has always been the guardian Conference collapsed into disarray. It was from the First World War of Roger of Frank Ryan's reputation, which he praises and defends in the original as a result of this encounter that a certain Casement to take British POWs of Irish extraction to form them into a unit of edition. In this new edition there is very mutual admiration developed between detailed account of the Ryan Butler and ourselves, recognising kindred Irish nationals… They overestimated the reception they got… They thought controversy in a long review by Manus spirits prepared to puncture cosy consensus they were going to be welcomed with O'Riordan… provocatively entitled and act as disturbers of the peace by open arms… They were almost 'Was Frank Ryan A Collaborator?' … insisting on having our say. Butler physically attacked". Manus argues convincingly that Ryan's afterwards went on to give us some assist- sojourn in Nazi Germany after he was ance in setting up Church & State Once again it was O'Shannon himself freed from Burgos was free of magazine. It was, however, to be regretted who also provided the commentary for a collaboration in the sense that he that Butler never saw fit to put pen to changed sides or opinions… What is squalid 'dramatic re-enactment' that was written in this book will not completely paper in public recognition of what he pure fiction: POWs were shown launching end that controversy about Ryan, but it himself was now effectively acknowledg- themselves forward in attack, but then must be taken as a very important ing to be taking place (notwithstanding being held back by the German soldiers contribution, in the most reasoned and his own previous pronouncements of protecting the fictitious "Frank Ryan", detailed manner, to the controversy". Protestant superiority)—that Fenians were who was portrayed as a cowering coward. doing it for themselves and needed no Yet O'Shannon also knew full well that So be it. All a far cry from the Ryan Anglo-Irish ideological guidance in order both Clissmann and Ryan regarded such a caricature in the "Ireland's Nazis" to fight for the separation of Church and proposed "unit" as a crazy idea, and that pantomime. State. It should also be recognised that it Ryan's only role was to vouch for the was not only his Slavophilia but also his personal integrity of any POW foolish (to be continued) deep-seated anti-Catholicism that had enough to present himself as a volunteer. Manus O'Riordan acted as such a driving force behind his As Clissmann had also told Stephan: POSTSCRIPT: On 25th June 2007 the championing of the cause of Serbian "Ryan and I visited the camp dressed Broadcasting Complaints Commission Orthodoxy, to such an extent that his as civilians. We were both very sceptical found in favour of a complaint from Mrs. demonstrable myopia concerning Serb as to whether our mission could have Elizabeth Clissmann that the programme any possible success. As a matter of nationalism leaves me in no doubt that lacked impartiality in its portrayal of her Hubert Butler would also have uncritically fact Frank Ryan was immediately recognised by several of the prisoners late husband Helmut Clissmann. This championed Slobodan Milosevic hook, decision can be accessed at http:// line and sinker. and greeted with a friendly 'Hello Frank'." www.bcc.ie/decisions/ None of this criticism invalidates jun_07_decisions.html where it is the first Butler's moral courage in insisting on Readers can access a more detailed item on the list.
12 stopped the latter from practising for some students were up to everything and he was little jape which merited widespread always writing to his father for money for Getting Sophistication audience laughter. books but really it was for drink. Report of Trevor/Bowen But now, Keane got serious and said Though Keane was there only to launch Summer School 2007, Mitchelstown the British Troops had withdrawn from the event and introduce us to the evening's the North, our 800 years were over, the main speaker, Donncha O'Dulaing, he On the Bank Holiday weekend of 3rd to Big House now is seen very differently really ate into the time and it was now 5th August 2007, the first Trevor/Bowen which is right, and at last Croke Park has quite late. However Donncha was in good School was launched by Mitchelstown opened up—something his late father humour and spoke of his famous walks Literary Society. Mr. Liam Cusack wel- always favoured. In Trevor's time, we ran and remembered his first one was in a comed about one hundred attendees in the Protestants out of the place—that was a pony and trap. Afterwards he did one Firgrove Hotel and spoke of how the event very bad time. His own uncle called on every year and his walk to Santiago de la came about. He was in Dublin with some Mr. Leslie of the Big House in Tarbert and Compostella in the footsteps of St. James friends and they were talking of how to these people were so scared—we should was hugely successful. But he told us how market their town. One man there spoke remember this and be rightfully ashamed. he had worked in Soho and he had seen the about William Trevor. The others had Even now there was a Fermanagh women there and he went to confession. never heard of him despite having obtained Protestant player who was thinking of Like the Confessions of St. Augustine he honours English in the Leaving Certificate. giving up GAA playing because he has thought he would get a decent hearing. But when they heard of his eminence and been targeted for sectarian abuse. {This But for his pains he got the Stations of the having been born in the town—they went was a storm in a tea-cup and the lad has Cross—three times. {Much laughter as out and got some of his books. The Ball- since gone back to playing but not before he wasn't being a smart alec like Keane.} room of Romance spoke to them of a time the Dublin media—especially Fintan And to put the cap on things he was told by they all knew so they were delighted and O'Toole—made a huge row about it for the priest "you have all the makings of a then they heard of Bowen nearby of the their own agenda as usual. JH.} Keane thundering blackguard" which suggested Big House. So they were delighted as the continued, saying we had made a huge the priest was definitely Irish. success of Summer Schools around Ireland transition in the South and now that was Anyway Donncha went off to UCC and was growing and now they could have happening in the North. He said the Civil after graduating went to the English their one too. They needed sponsors and War formed the State. Keane then dilated Professor, a very eminent lady by all accounts the biggest one around was Dairygold but about the atrocities of ambushes, and the —one B.G. McCarthy. She suggested, as they refused. Crown Jewels and poor Sir Arthur Vickers he was born in Doneraile, that he should Eventually they got local businesses shot as the Volunteers hunted for them. do his MA on a writer from there. When amongst whom were Riverdeep Interactive The same people shot an RIC man inside Donncha said Cannon Sheehan—Ms Learning, Almedian Graphic & Web of Waterford border—30-35 miles from McCarthy replied with a tightening of her Design, Brooks & Co. Solicitors, Cusack their present location and still there is not lips "I don't think so" and said she was & Co. Accountants, Firgrove Hotel and a a name on his grave. He went on, bizarrely, thinking of Elizabeth Bowen. Donncha few others. Since that initial meeting, there to sing the lines from a song "Torn between never heard of her and was told to read her now is a very successful Music Festival two lovers" and his voice shook. The Death of the Heart. He read it and and of course the William Trevor Short When he met William Trevor—this didn't understand it but after another meet- Story Competition which has produced man who won all the Bookers—he was so ing with an unrelenting B.G., who gave successful short story writers, amongst overawed and asked him how to write. him tea and cucumber sandwiches, and whom is Clare Keegan. {Anyone who has ever met the quiet writer told him to cultivate sophistication, he Billy Keane, son of the late John B. Trevor would know he'd have been gave in and did his Thesis on Elizabeth Keane the playwright, officially launched appalled at this approach, JH.} and then Bowen. Donncha went off to RTE where the School. Keane spoke of the very there was an appalling story about some he was told he had an impediment to successful Listowel Writer's Week and men going to Croke Park who went to a success and that was his country accent. told how, when his father was alive, they Prostitute and, asking if she was any good: But he found a niche for himself with the had tough times too but it was now regarded "Shure says she—haven't I two All-Ireland Holy Well trails and walks and did lots of as a world-wide literary event. So from medals" which she had got from the other stuff as well. But how now to intro- small beginnings—big things can grow. oinseachs who already had dealings with duce us to Elizabeth Bowen. He brought He congratulated those who started this her. (Audience laughter but muted). Keane flowers to her grave yesterday, he said. then spoke again about Listowel Writers' school and wished them well and He asked us if we ever heard of Molly Week, which is now run by his sister acknowledged that their writers were O'Brien—Elizabeth's housekeeper, who Joanne who is the Chairman. All the indigenous to the locality and were not was brought down to Bowen's Court from Bookers Prizewinners told him "Tell your just shipped in. Billy Keane spoke of the Tipperary when she was just a young girl story". And when he asked Brendan parallels between his father and William of seventeen, and was never to see her Kennelly—he just said "its arse on seat— Trevor which seemed to consist that they homeplace again. Donncha often stopped just write the shagging thing." both went over to England for work. Billy on his way to Dublin and had many the Keane returned to The Ballroom of got involved with writing for a national whiskey with her and recalled old days. Romance, which was on TV and said "that paper (Irish Independent) on sports when But his first meeting with Elizabeth was the Anglo-Irish were the ones dragging the great outbreak of foot and mouth broke when he went down to Kinsale where she Ireland into a pluralist Ireland". Keane out and his dog writing articles for the was staying with Lady Vernon and Major then spoke of the Rotary Club and said it Sporting Press were over. P.G. Cunning- Vernon. Donncha had bought a new was the Rotary Clubs who put up a ham read his stuff and liked it and he was overcoat for the occasion and was appalled "beautiful statue" of his father in small very lucky. So, like William Trevor, he to see his new overcoat being taken by the square (this seemed to annoy him) and started his writing career late in life—late butler and thrown down in a corner. 30's early 40's. Keane spoke with a comedic Neil Tobin hoped that, like in Ballinspittle, touch about doing law with his friend, the John B. Keane statue might move— Elizabeth was tall, gaunt and a great now a solicitor—who was present and but so far it is still. conversationalist. She also had a stammer. was known to him as Brooksy from West Keane then spoke of his nostalgia of When he interviewed her for RTE in the Cork and he was Keansy. The Law Society college life where John Brooks and he as BBC's studio, they knew when to cue her
13 in and out over the stammer. She spoke to Bowen spoke of 'A Celestial Omnibus' by story as a family myth about getting their him about Spenser when they visited Foster. Tremendous enthusiast. Was it a land. Kilcolman Castle, and he was told she man? The feminine in him was quite a belonged to the Henry James school of pleasing way. She spoke of other authors, When Bowen was 7, her father had a writing. She was reared in Dublin, her Gide was criticized by Katherine breakdown and all this stopped. She was father was a lawyer and only began to read Mansfield and she didn't agree with her. exiled to an island but she always thought at seven and never stopped. "She had the Proust was "a great gift to our civilization". Ireland was the first island and so felt greatest feeling for the countryside—loved {Bowen's cough was awful—she died of sorry for England. He quoted her words land more than people". Donncha said lung cancer, JH.} Proust influenced her— about Ireland having "left prints on our that her book The Last September was the even just the appearance of a page—and eyes". During the War of Independence best account of the War of Independence. then there was his dialogue. Jane Austen, she was living in England and so One of Donncha's great regrets was that, though, was the King and Queen of experienced it second-hand. She was when he met Bowen—she had already dialogue. O'Dulaing ended by saying always waiting for the letter to say that sold Bowen's Court with the hope of the Bowen coloured everything he ever read Bowen's Court was burnt down. It has patter of little feet from the new owner but afterwards. Then he finished by asking if often been questioned if she was an Irish that never happened and it was torn down. there were any questions. writer—"places loom large" for her in her She told the story of how one night, her Q: A man asked when was the interview topography. London became 'Mysterious house was invaded by the Whiteboys or recorded and O'Dulaing said 1970. Kor' during the second World War. But some such and the family were put upstairs. Q: A woman asked where she could she herself was clear about the colonial Next morning they had "taken nothing": access his Thesis, as he spoke so knowingly system that won her family the lands it only reading Kipling during the night and of Bowen. owned in Ireland. There is a quotation this she told with great glee. {This story A: "I am delighted that you asked that from her about "these fields were is very different to the story told by question. B.G. gave me a Pass in my MA murderous". A writer has an inner land- O'Dulaing when he lectured us during the and I was very upset and demanded it scape but also needs an outer landscape Elizabeth Bowen Centenary Conference back so I could get an honours degree. But and she was aware of her hyphenated in UCC 2nd -4th July 1999, see report in time went on and what would a gob-daw identity. Her mother didn't want her to the IPR.} like me do back in academia. I tore the read or write until the age of eight—she thing up and forgot about it. I was involved was very close to her cousins. Rooms, Bowen never shrank from admitting with the Little Flower trip around Ireland landscapes lent themselves to her ghost how her family came to own Bowen's and since then I have a programme in RTE stories and they had an ability to humanize Court but this was a time "when England called Failte Isteach." her imagination. Her house had a human- and Ireland turned upon one another". ized presence. About war, she writes Today things have changed. Now Paisley As there were no more questions he brilliantly, also family, class and identity. and Martin McGuinness are in a joint deal received a rousing applause. Her literary imagination as a novelist/ of governing Northern Ireland. He said Mr. Liam Cusack made an announce- short story writer was worked on by the Kate O'Brien opinioned that "We Irish ment that Dolores McKenna who was due darker versions of the fields and this sense have seldom paused to look at the great to talk at 8.30 the following day couldn't of a beleaguered House. Roy Foster said gifts of the settlers". Bowen's Court was a make it as she had put out a disc and was the past for her was a remembrance of wonderful Italianate building; the top floor on a trolley as he spoke in a Dublin hospital. landscape which as Proust wrote was like was the great long room, where all the She had been due to speak about William "history eavesdropping". During the War hunt balls and big parties were held. Lady Trevor as she had written a biography on of Independence, Bowen's Court and other Livingston—whom he said none of us him. Big Houses according to him were would know where she came from {but it "besieged Houses" with "murderous fields was Doneraile Court, JH}—did an ad for 4th August 2007. Farrahy Church. Dr. around them". Ponds Cold Cream. Sean O'Faolain whose Eibhear Walsh, UCC on 'Elizabeth Bowen In 1929 when she wrote The Last father was a groundsman loved the Big and The Fields of North Cork'. 3 p.m. September, she was at a distance in Italy. House and even had picnics with Bowen As Eibhear Walsh walked up to the She admires, as does he, her House and herself. front of the church, he turned round and her people who carry on their lives amidst Bowen was so important to the world with a mischievous smile said he couldn't the War of Independence. She didn't like of literature and also above all—to the resist it and walked up onto the pulpit. the middle class, especially the officer's area. She was a North Cork woman who Mitchelstown, he said, was very lucky in wives if they tried to make their way into lived in London. He then switched on his its connections. Elizabeth Bowen and its the drawing-room. In that book Daniels- tape, where E.M. Foster and Elizabeth landscapes became well known through town was Bowen's Court and Louise sees Bowen talked to O'Dulaing about 'Aspects her work. He said her short story Happy it in terms of a thing of such beauty—were of the Novel'. And in that hotel room a few Autumn Fields was part celebration of that they to be murdered or smothered as long minutes from Mitchelstown, we listened landscape but also there were ambiguous as they were not afraid. She too conveyed to the voice of Bowen—this North Cork notes there. Tenuous connections some snob values as she thought the officered woman according to O'Dulaing, whose might say but in times of war, she always classes "talked too much about their plummy accent made the present English came back—again and again. But the innards". The Big House people were Queen sound common. whole thing was never straightforward. more afraid of their niece Louise being Bowen was very funny about Lady The fields and hills a complex one—there engaged to an officer than the figure of the Sybil Thorndike. Encounter was an was complexity and ambiguity. She was IRA man—this shadowy figure running incomplete attempt to say something that born in Dublin and spent her summers through their wood. They danced in the was never said before. The world of cars, here. She tells her story about her ancestor Big House and they played tennis and all women driving with scarves flowing, was Col. Bowen and his two hawks. Cromwell the time a new Ireland was emerging with another kind of life. Old Lady Doneraile— took one of his hawks and strangled it. A which they had no engagement or even great picture of Elizabeth Bowen—great flight of a hawk and he got all the land the thought. So The Last September is "an friend of O'Dulaing—she didn't understand hawk flew over was what Cromwell said. elegy for the Anglo-Irish" according to anything about the locals, nor Cork but But actually we know that a hawk flies Walsh. In the film of that book, the house South Africa. During the RTE interview straight up and down but Bowen liked the is burnt down; it is, Walsh said the "visual
14 blueprint" for the "death of three Big never came. There was no apology from People work harder and longer hours to Houses" that night. The book ends with her. satisfy their consumerist lives. But there the great doors burning open to the Instead we were offered our money for is now a beginning of a questioning. He countryside. the lecture back and we did not take it. The then spoke of life in Mount Melleray and Bowen inherited the Big House in her poor organizers were very upset. But Fr. Humility, freedom, love and prayer were thirties. She was a novelist, essayist. She Luke from Mount Melleray Abbey went paramount. Silence allowed the monk to had lived in Oxford and had a flat in ahead with his talk on Monastic Life and listen. Regent's Park, London. Many of her novels Today's World. There was a full audience Questions. had English characters. The House in Paris and it was without doubt the best lecture Q: What time did he have to get up? 4 contains an account of a visit to Cork— of the school. Father Luke was a former a.m. (general groaning). Montenotte. teacher and this was very evident. He Q: A man with an English accent said During WW2 she produced Bowen's delivered his lecture with a fluency that what was the value of their life when there Court, Seven Winters, many short stories the rest could only hope for. He was is so much war in the world. and her novel The Heat of the Day which enthusiastic about monastic life and he Father Luke spent much time on this has a long sequence in Ireland. Identity— had a wall chart on which he wrote the question saying how important prayer "every pore open during the War". Her more important points of the Benedictine was—that it was not not doing anything sense of the abnormal—"lucid Rule. but hard work and the quiet of monastic abnormality". In her critical war, the SILENCE. BALANCE. HARMONY. life seemed to bring lots of different kinds Blitz—the air-raids—her house hit many Father Luke went from the Fall of the of people and some say they are changed times. {Wrong—her windows blown out Roman Empire to our own day. He was and some say not. once, JH.} Walsh was keen to say that her very insistent on the monastery as a place There was much more to this lecture paid visits to Ireland only betrayed "her of hospitality—high tradition in St. but I leave it with Father Luke inviting naivety"; she could "translate Ireland to Benedict's Rule. 150 years ago Matthew anyone interested to come visit Mount England. She defended Irish neutrality". Arnold felt sad about the "dying faith in Melleray. There is guest accommodation, There was "no espionage as she had no the nineteenth century" "this strange there is no set charge but a donation is access to important enough material". In disease of modern life". Sick hurry of invited. The Heat of the Day she wrote about Ireland of 2007. More and better products. Julianne Herlihy treason and the spy's name was Robert Kelway—if she was a boy—she would have been named Robert. Heather Bryant Jordan {who was the first to notate her payments from the UK Government, JH} quotes that "she tried to present the idea in Lecture in a Cathedral 1942 to her friend and lover in the Bell— Sean O'Faolain—that there was a valid place for the Big House". O'Faolain did an Hubert Butler Society Goes American important job—a place for assimilation— The latest initiative from the Hubert but things got better as the night her tone is "jaunty and optimistic". When Butler Society, an "inaugural lecture" progressed. she was writing Bowen's Court she sent from a prominent international speaker out chapters in case of it being lost. {Walsh held as part of Kilkenny Arts Festival, Before introducing Samantha Power, mediated on her work and its connections drew a huge audience but failed in its Fintan O'Toole delivered a short homily to the landscape but he never says it is primary purpose. It failed because the on the virtues of Hubert Butler. Being the through the House that the landscape is speaker, Samantha Power, was a mismatch best informed of human generations we seen—she never saw it any other way but for the image of Hubert Butler the society are knowledgeable about all the horrors of from the perspectives of that Big House.} is trying to project, and because she is too our time—Bosnia, Rwanda, Darfur etc, When Alan Cameron died in 1952, she closely aligned with the US political but somehow the true horror doesn't continued with the House but more and establishment to strike the right chords register with us. It takes a writer like more of her money was drained into it and with an Irish audience. Hubert to speak directly to our hearts and she had to finally accept that she couldn't It is hard to know exactly what the minds, to focus in on particular individuals keep it on. So she sold it and said "This Hubert Butler Society is: they have no in particular circumstances and catch the House long played its part and is now at website and issue no literature that I am 'specificity' of it all. What Hubert had was an end". But Walsh says "that space is not aware of. Samantha Power thanked the rare because he could combine journalistic empty—the fields around Bowen's Court novelist, Colm Toibin, for inviting her skills with philosophical understanding. are always seen through the eyes of and Fintan O'Toole, Assistant Editor of He could speak to our hearts and minds Elizabeth Bowen". the Irish Times, for introducing her but but he understated his message and never neither of these is likely to be an officer of lapsed into sentimentality. Moving on from An announcement was then made that the society. Still we know from previous these suitably eloquent reflections he on the 9th September an Anglican service events organised by the society that it is introduced the main speaker by saying for Elizabeth Bowen would be held in one of the organisations currently pushing simply that she was an appropriate person Farrahy Church by Dr. Ian Dalton. an Anglo Irish agenda. In any event the to give the first of what is to be an annual On Sunday 5th August at 2.30 p.m. we choice of Colm Tobin and Fintan O'Toole lecture in Hubert Butler's memory. made our way to the Firgrove Hotel for the as facilitators is enough to indicate the Samantha Power is a professor at the Irish Times Literary Critic Eileen Battersby society's political complexion. Kennedy School of Government at for her lecture on William Trevor. We The lecture was given in St. Canice's Harvard. She has worked as a reporter in waited and nothing happened. Then we Cathedral, Kilkenny on the evening of the places like Bosnia for the Economist and were told that Ms Battersby had been sent 25th August. The audience of what to me other publications. A Democrat, she is a plane tickets to Cork Airport and two lads looked like respectable Irish Times reading member of Barack Obama's team of had gone up to collect her but she was not theatre-goers, easily numbered a thousand. advisors. Her website invites media queries on the plane. Contact was impossible as Overall the ambiance was not propitious on: foreign policy, human rights policy, her mobile was off and in the end she of a robust exchange of political views, international law, non-governmental
15 organisations, Rwanda and the UN. Her nose-dived no other state or group of on the example of Zimbabwe where the main claim to fame is her book, A Problem states was stepping forward to provide African Union had opted to give priority from Hell: America and the Age of alternative leadership. to sovereignty above human rights. On Genocide, which won her a Pulitzer prize She was critical of the low priority international law she agreed that rule based in 2003. She has just completed a biog- given to diplomacy in the US. Diplomacy order was a worthy aim but she felt that as raphy of Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN was an important activity not least because international agreements depended on troubleshooter who was killed in a targeted it afforded opportunities to get to know states who acted out of their own interests, bombing in Iraq. the enemy. US officials should talk to it was difficult to deliver. An international everyone, even people like Ahmadinejad. army was also a relevant concept but it too The audience had come to see a class She had made a point of studying the ran up against the reluctance of states to act and she was all of that. Her opening confessions of the individual who had hand over their troops to be used by an line was, "So yo'all fans of George W transported the suicide bomber who blew international civil servant. An alternative Bush? " Next she flashed her Irish up de Mello, Abu Omar al-Kurdi, who option sometimes discussed was to raise a credentials (she was born in Ireland and was working for Abu Mosab al Zarquawi. privatised army of mercenaries, account- left at age nine) by thanking at least a Al-Kurdi had a worked out rationale as to able only to an international body. dozen of her Irish connections. She also why the UN should be targeted ranging Regarding my point about public punctuated her talk with references to her from UN collaboration in places where opinion she averred that in the US anything high regard for Tom Arnold of the Concern Muslims were oppressed to its involve- that countered the power of corporate charity who was in the front row. The trick ment in the sanctions against the people of influence was to be welcomed. Otherwise behind her lecture was to win the support Iraq, and its granting of legitimacy to the she disagreed with the premise behind my of the audience with anti-Bush jibes with- Iraq invasion by setting up in Baghdad. question. out stating anything that could be used He was supportive of Indonesia in its The next questioner wanted to know if against her in US political discourse, and oppression of East Timor. the US Constitution could be used to at the same time to win sympathy for the She seemed to run out of steam towards withdraw all US bases on foreign territory. basic US role in the world in subtle ways. the end but the overall gist of the lecture The following speaker wore a chain of Typical of the latter was describing Sergio was that the New World Order needed to office and he may have been Councillor de Mello as having been a Paul Bremmer- be re-thought. James Brett, Fianna Fail Chairman of type colonial governor of Bosnia. Having Kilkenny Borough Council. He asked an won us over to putting de Mello on a important question about the use of pedestal, suddenly we were being per- The first questioner was a woman who Shannon for rendition and other military suaded that Paul Bremmer wasn't so bad felt uneasy about the idea of engaging in purposes: how would the US react if either. dialogue so as to better know the enemy. Ireland withdrew them? It all eventually came unstuck but she Should it not be to better understand the Surprisingly Ms Power said Bush would did have some interesting things to say. other? She also was wary of opposing the immediately find somewhere else but that Referring to the mess that the New World G77 group. such an action from a friendly state could Order has become she quoted Machiavelli I was the second speaker. I agreed with well force a re-think. She was clearly to the effect that nothing is harder to the first speaker that the G77 development saying that withdrawing the use of deliver than a new order of things. She was deserving of support and a welcome Shannon could have a positive effect on identified a number of changes in the development on the world stage. The US policy. On the question of the tectonic plates governing international problem of genocide in various parts of Constitution all she would say was that relations. The standing of the US has the world could only be effectively Obama was an unrivalled expert on the declined in all sorts of ways; new centres addressed through a proper system of US Constitution. of power are emerging as with the petro- international law. The existing system authoritarian states like Russia and lacked moral authority as it was based on At this stage Fintan O'Toole elected to make his contribution and for me one of Venezuela; new economic powers have the settlement following the Second World developed as in India and China; and new War. The people responsible for the his points constituted the defining moment diplomatic alignments had sprung up as in bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and of the evening. Clearly mindful of her account of al-Kurdi's confession statement the G77 non-aligned grouping of Southern of civilian cities in Germany had not been hemisphere states that includes Brazil, brought to court. A proper system of he said that Ireland was unusual in having Nigeria, and South Africa. international law required that the US more people than anywhere else, who at some point in their lives may have As advisor to Barak Obama on sign up to the important international international relations and therefore a Treaties, in other words that there be an sympathised with terrorist activity. They possible future Secretary of State she felt internationally agreed body of law; and may have thought after the IRA bombing that followed Bloody Sunday: 'serves the that imposing democratic institutions on that there should be some means of enforc- the developing world was not the way to ing that law through an independent inter- British right', before quickly coming to go. Instead she quoted from a speech of national military force. I said I had mis- their senses and reprehending themselves for such a lapse from moral probity. My President Roosevelt that the important givings about using public opinion as a freedoms were freedom from fear and force in influencing international events. reading of Samantha Power's body lang- freedom from want. She was critical of the You would need to have great faith in the uage while this point was being made was that she did not like it. In truth O'Toole G77 states because they had too much international media not to think that public respect for the sovereignty of states and opinion could be manipulated, that the was only blurting out in his own inimitable not enough for human rights. She saw media could operate its own agenda, or style what was happening at the lecture: the audience was not hearing her message hope for the future in the work of NGOs that the heart strings of the public could be rather than of states, hence her high regard plucked in pursuit of some agenda or in the way she had intended them to hear for Tom Arnold, head of Concern other. it. International. She also favoured the The next speaker was concerned about There were no questions or contri- emergence of public opinion as a source the extent of corporate influence in US butions from speakers with pro-US or of pressure on Governments regarding policy formation, including in the area of right wing opinions. The next speaker international topics. She thought that while foreign affairs. In replying to the points wanted to know why the US media which the standing of the US internationally had about the G77 Samantha Power focused had played such an important role in
16 building opposition to the Vietnam war While vigorously joining in the final Republicans if a United Ireland was ever had become so quiescent about Iraq. On applause a man sitting beside me who had to come about. Furthermore it was a this she was able to come back with one earlier told me he had been a tenant of position developed by people who were solid point. The journalist responsible for Hubert Butler's, said out of the corner of manning the barricades in the face of releasing details of the My Lai massacre his mouth he had great difficulty staying RUC, B-Special and Loyalist attacks in was Seymour Hersh and he was continuing awake for her answers to the last few Belfast in 1969. And there weren't too to provide good coverage of the Iraq war. questions. As we filed out of the cathedral many of them about. It was not unusual for the New Yorker to I overheard one woman ask another, "What allow Hersh to work on a story for over a d'you think of it?" "Ah", her companion The Hibernians understood that their year. Hersh broke the story about Abu said, "very American." That about summed immediate goal of dominating Northern Ghraib and also a recent story about it up. Out of curiosity I returned to the Protestants in whatever constitutional military preparations to attack Iran with cathedral about twenty minutes later to format they both ended up in was better nuclear weapons. She considered that one see if anyone had bothered to stick around expressed through the armalite than any problem was the new ways that media to get the author's signature. Disappoint- ballot box; certainly it was not to be were being accessed. Her students read ingly there was still about five people publicly announced. their papers on-line and merely ran waiting patiently in line. My quarrel here is not with the clear searches on issues they were interested in. fact that the war was fought in the first Fintan O'Toole had said that Samantha instance to overcome the oppressive sectar- Other questions related to reform of the Power was an appropriate person to deliver ian character of the partition arrangements UN Security Council, the role of the World the inaugural Hubert Butler lecture. That of 1920-21. That conflict had all the full Bank, and the African Union but she said puts the esteemed essayist in the company range of material grievance to be called as nothing new in her replies. Fintan O'Toole of an apologist for US foreign policy, justified as any sectarian war in history. It wrapped up the meeting after prolonged even if she had critical things to say about was justified. It was successful. It is now applause for the speaker. He said she Bush. Has the Hubert Butler Society lost long past time to move on from it. would be staying around to sign books, its way or simply followed the logic of its My quarrel is with its not having been that an orderly queue should be formed Anglo orientation? It will be interesting to moved on from. And it's a political quarrel, between the podium and a distant see who they get next year. not a sectarian one. As far as sectarianism graveyard. David Alvey goes my sectarian instincts are with the Hibernians. It's just long past time to move on from such instincts. Readers are invited to comment on this discussion article Before the first ceasefire was called it was already plain that the sectarian war What Is To Be Done! had been won. The Protestant middle class (Also Who, Why, Where And When) had withdrawn from politics. Its cannon fodder within the Protestant working class Had the Provo War come to a political The last substantial split in Sinn Féin, that had actually fought and borne the conclusion with the Good Friday in 1986 on the issue of abstentionism in brunt of the casualties of that side of the Agreement it could reasonably have been the South, saw Sinn Féin for the first time war was at best demoralised and at worst assessed as a Republican victory over controlled by the Northern IRA, which declassed, disrupted, redeveloped and British imperialism in Ireland. There was was an alliance in arms between national disintegrated. The Prods had been defeated no prospect of an independent and united Republicanism and provincial Hibernianism. and the victorious Taigs were socially Ireland in April 1998. But there was every Within that alliance the Hibernians, who economically and politically the dominant chance of significant movement towards were fighting the sectarian war Joe Devlin force in the six counties. a reestablishment of the national polity had bequeathed to them, were always In the immediate aftermath of the which was shattered by such acquiescence numerically superior. ceasefires Taigery took a back seat to as there was in the Anglo-Irish Articles of The Republicans, who were fighting an Fenianism. The core of the politics of Sinn Agreement of 1921 (the Irish called it a anti-imperialist war which they were Féin at that time was the Republican Treaty, the British called it Articles of always prepared to take to Britain, were strategy of reintegrating the national polity Agreement; the British had the sense of fewer but more articulate and able to state by encouraging the national organisation the thing). clear political goals. They had no difficulty of Irish parties and agitating for a restora- Three simple acts of completion could in declaring for an independent and united tion of Northern representation in Dáil have been accomplished in the immediate Ireland. Éireann. The driving force behind this aftermath of the 1998 Agreement, any of Joe Devlin organised Hibernianism to strategy was the Sinn Féin party in the which would have reopened the republican be the moral fibre and backbone of Dáil, led by Caoimhean O'Caolain. The road to unity that was closed off in 1921. Redmondism. Its obstinate refusal to Northern leadership made occasional Fianna Fáil could have organised as its accept that the Ulster Protestants are a noises in support of the Southern intellect- own self in the North. Or it could have nation because they are so clearly Irish is uals but forebore from agitating for their merged with the SDLP. Or Sinn Féin strikingly counter-balanced by its lack of core demands. They were prepared to could have established itself in the South scruple in making war on them because agitate only for a return of Stormont and as an inevitable member of future coalition they so clearly aren't Irish at all. A stout for redress of all the grievances arising governments. physical proof of the inconvenient fact from the war. But none of those acts of completion that there are two nations in Ireland— As the immediate aftermath of the was accomplished. Each and all of them that's Hibernianism! ceasefires became the recent and then the was made to depend on the prior establish- The "Two Nations Theory", before distant past, Taigery came to the fore. ment of an Assembly at Stormont, and the being adulterated by Conor Cruise O'Brien Republican elements were silenced by the British ensured that no stable Assembly and others, merely recognised a fact of life urgent clamour for a Catholic place in the was established there until the Hibernian denied in theory by many. It was not an sun, under the blue skies of Ulster. The wing of Sinn Féin had ground down the argument against Republicanism as such, grey skies of an Irish Republic seemed party's Republicanism and taken control. but a reality that had to be faced by gloomier by the minute.
17 Since 1986 Sinn Féin has been led by oppose that newest revision of the Bill a Free State Destiny. charismatic figures from the Northern IRA that was supposedly on the Statute Books, who have been preoccupied with Northern allegedly to be implemented at the war's The ruthless hypocrisy of de Valera's issues, most particularly with their end. His opposition took the form of machinations is disgusting. But at the core overwhelming need to score points against participation in the Irish Convention which of it all his thinking was correct. Ireland rivals in the SDLP by doing what the sought to return to the original Redmondite could be free of England or it could be SDLP had failed to do and bringing back idea of a united Home Rule Ireland within united. It couldn't be both. And then to de a local administration from within which the Empire. But really Redmond knew the Valera's mind it couldn't be said that it they would establish centres of power for game was up. It may even be that when he couldn't be both without giving scandal their people (within the six counties, within died Redmond himself was no longer a and outraging the faithful. the Union). Redmondite. Even today, given the advance of The rumour that Trimble was brow- revisionism in the South and the failure of beaten by Blair into accepting the Good In the same period and beyond Joe all political parties to oppose it, it is still Friday Agreement may well be true. Or he Devlin remained what he had always been, the case that Ireland cannot be both united may have been robustly persuaded to a a Hibernian pledged to Ireland, not merely and free of England. The defeat of British long term strategy for disabling Repub- free but Catholic, not merely Catholic but state-sponsored revisionism is a pre- licanism that could only end with his and free. And a partner in the glories of the condition, though not the only one, for his party's demise. In any event, having British Empire. any moves towards a form of unity that accepted the Agreement he worked it to Devlin's Hibernianism survived to doesn't involve going once again under drag Sinn Féin compromise by com- thrive in the six counties because the pre- the tutelage of Old Mother England. promise, year by year, away from a broadly Treaty leadership of Sinn Féin was determ- At all events, such remained de Valera's Republican view of the possibilities of the ined that it should do so. That leadership policy throughout his career. He stated it settlement to a narrower Hibernian pers- deliberately held back the growth of its most clearly on 7th February 1939 when pective. In the nature of Sinn Féin oppon- own party organisation there in order not he intervened in a Senate Debate initiated ents of the drift have been pressured to to find itself bound by a strong Northern by Senators MacDermot and Alton who conform or forced out, sidelined or section of Sinn Féin to oppose partition. were looking for compromises to assuage silenced. On the heights of the party organisation, the Unionists in a hope of reconciling What had been a Republican strategy to his fellow mountaineers, de Valera them to a really nice form of unification. to rebuild the national polity (which is the made it clear that he (correctly) favoured Then de Valera said: essential precondition of any moves to an independent over a united Ireland. He "Suppose we were to get unity in the national unity) has become, under the was determined to carry Sinn Féin with a country provided we were to give up guise of reaching out to reassure partitionist settlement that guaranteed the principles that are here in this first Protestants of the Provisional movement's independence for the greater part of the Article of the Constitution—the good intentions, a return to the Devlinite national territory, and entirely willing to 'sovereign right of the nation to choose dream of a Catholic Ireland at the heart of sacrifice the nationalists of the Fourth its own form of Government, to deter- mine its relations with other nations, an English empire (with a good Taig on Green Field to that end. The most he was and to develop its life, political, the throne by God, why not?) prepared to do for them was prepare Joe economic, and cultural, in accordance Devlin's Hibernian movement as a fit with its own genius and traditions'—I I say Devlinite there rather than Red- repository of their poor lost souls. would not sacrifice that right, because mondite because Joe Devlin's Hibernian- So, following a meeting between de without that right you have not freedom ism was a simpler thing than the winding, Valera and Joe Devlin in February 1921, at all. Although freedom for a part of twisting, convoluted thing that was Sinn Féin and the Hibernians fought the this island is not the freedom we want— Redmondism. northern elections together, allied on the the freedom we would like to have, this By June 1916 Redmond himself had Sinn Féin programme of self-determination freedom for a portion of it, freedom to seen through his original strategy. In 1914 and abstentionism. De Valera did not make develop and to keep the kernel of the Irish nation is something, and something he had reluctantly agreed with the British attendance at Dáil Éireann for successful that I would not sacrifice, if by sacrific- that Ulster should be excluded from Home candidates a condition of the Pact, and the ing it we were to get a united Ireland Rule for a total of three years. Three days Hibernians simply stayed at home waiting and that united Ireland was not free to after that agreement the British unilaterally out their abstentionist pledges. determine its own form of Government, increased the exclusion period to six years. Though Sinn Féin secured twice the to determine its relations with other Redmond swallowed that. After the 1916 vote of the Devlinites, each party to the countries, and, amongst other things, to determine, for example, whether it Rising a Northern Nationalist Conference Pact won six seats (the Unionists won the was held in St. Mary's Hall in Belfast and would or would not be involved in war. remaining 40 of 52). Four of the Sinn Our people have the same right as any voted 475 to 265 in favour of a temporary Féiners (but none of the Hibernians) were exclusion of the Six Counties which were other people to determine these vital elected on the first count. Those four were matters for themselves and they ought to continue to be ruled from, and with de Valera in Down, Collins in Armagh, not to surrender them in advance to continuing representation in, Westminster. Griffith in Fermanagh & Tyrone and anybody or for any consideration. Both Redmond and Devlin had to threaten MacNeill in Derry. The other Shinners Certainly, as far as this Government is to resign to get that vote and what they got elected were Seán Milroy and John concerned, we are not going to surrender was a split between Antrim and Down O'Mahony in Fermanagh and Tyrone. that right—for any consideration, even which stood with Devlin, and Tyrone Devlin later (in a letter to James Dillon, the consideration of a united Ireland." Fermanagh and Derry which were all the 22nd April 1921) stated that, but for the The undated minutes of an "interview more ready to move to Sinn Féin. pact with de Valera, his nationalists would between An Taoiseach and a northern A month after that Conference, on 22nd. not have won a single seat outside Belfast. Nationalist Deputation" record de Valera July, Lloyd George finally informed Which is precisely the outcome de Valera arguing that "the retention of the 26 county Redmond that the six counties would be was determined to avoid. status was considered to be of such value permanently excluded and would have Then in 1925 as its President he split that the loss of it could not be risked in any their own parliament with the scale of the all-Ireland Sinn Féin party in such as effort to reintegrate the country…" (quoted Irish representation at Westminster being way as to leave him in undisputed control in Phoenix, Northern Nationalism, page drastically reduced. Redmond vowed to of the 26-county Fianna Fáil, Soldiers of 389). And such was de Valera's line even
18 after he had indisputably won his Republic Partition was the essential precondition the working out of the parallel Hibernian and a Fine Gael-led administration had at of a Republic in the greater part of Ireland. victory over the earlier Republicanism of last proclaimed it. De Valera knew that. And de Valera said the undefeated army has been cheered that, in only slightly coded form, in the every step of the way by the revived and To recap, even during the War of smoke-filled rooms of high political life. refreshed imperial Jingos of Whitehall. Independence the most influential sections He never said it publicly. Publicly he of the leadership of Sinn Féin set about always denied it. And publicly he always The British Empire never went away undermining their own party in the North. appeared to be working to undo partition you know. It withdrew as it had to from This was because they knew that political while privately he did his best to shore it the world it never quite won, leaving independence from England, just the barest up. Tomorrow was no doubt to be another conflicts behind and unresolved issues possibility of establishing a republic in day when all manner of wrongs would be that would give it future cause to intervene. Ireland, was incompatible with a serious put right. But tomorrow never came. Or Its great legacy to Europe was the multi- campaign for unity, and they feared that a rather when tomorrow finally came, in national Yugoslav state. It reaped quite a strong Northern wing of Sinn Féin would August 1969, de Valera's Republic was harvest from its activities around the make the necessary, but utterly unmention- not worthy of it. More than 50 years of destruction of all that. able, partitionist settlement unachievable. hypocrisy and dissimulation had taken England has been active in the Middle At the end of the 'Treaty' negotiations and their toll of the State, the Party and their East since destroying the Ottoman Empire debate there was a war between former President. in the course of its First War on the World comrades over the issue of how republican (in the last hundred years). There it laid the settlement was or could be made to be. The Fianna Fáil Government's failure the ground for the creation of the Jewish The issue of a United Ireland was scarcely at that time to intervene decisively on State and the oppression of the Palestinians mentioned at all in those life and death behalf of its national minority when the (another loyal little Ulster Churchill called struggles. security forces of the United Kingdom in the one, dogs he called the others). Today uniform and under orders went berserk to it has embroiled the United States in its The losing side in that conflict went on engage in a frenzied attack on them, when third or fourth Iraq War, and its fifth or to form its own party with every intention the loyal citizens of the United Kingdom sixth invasion of Afghanistan. of achieving a thorough-going Republic among whom they had been living joined It never quite went away and now it's in the twenty-six counties. It only organ- in that frenzy of murder and arson; that coming back. ized in the twenty-six counties, leaving failure showed up in the starkest of colours Northern Nationalism in the Hibernian the bankruptcy of the Republic's vaunted Everywhere for which England has hands of the Irish Imperialist, Joe Devlin. independence. This freer than the Free plans (which is to say just about every- Former Sinn Féin President and leader of State, independent, Republic, for which where) you will find the British Council. Fianna Fáil, Eamon de Valera, had saved the ultimate national aspiration had been So of course the British Council is present Northern Hibernianism from virtual sacrificed, found itself having to apologise and very very busy in Ireland, North and extinction in 1921 and relied on it ever to the aggressor for the belated and inade- South. In March this year the Annual after to keep Northern nationalists safely quate steps it had begun to take to make Lecture of the British Council was oppressed and discontented on the right provision for its people in the North and delivered by President Mary McAleese. It side of the Black Pig's Dyke. Under the then, when rebuked by the aggressor, had was entitled The Changing Faces Of Unionist jackboot and out of his hair. rushed to abandon. It went so far as to Ireland – Migration and Multiculturalism. De Valera used the Northern issue as prosecute the ministers it had ordered to Flattering the great and good of areas it fuel in the fires he stoked up to achieve the manage the attempt to defend its people in has plans for is just part of the British alphabet republic. Further than that he had the North. Anyone who wants to call that Council's plan of campaign. In Ireland, little or no interest. Serious Republican craven behaviour freedom will have great for which it definitely has plans, the British members of Fianna Fáil were treated as difficulty defining slavery. Council is a major publisher. Two years the best of them, Eamon Donnelly, was The moral collapse of 1969 was an ago it published the first volume of Britain treated; driven to distraction and an early almost inevitable consequence of the & Ireland: Lives Entwined. This had joint grave (he fell ill under the strain of trying immoral means by which the Republic prefaces by Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair to complain about the ill-treatment of had been built by de Valera's Party. It led which clearly point the way to the Republican prisoners in English jails while to a 25-year war, in the face of which all Taoiseach's Westminster speech in which in Ireland de Valera was using the English the institutions of de Valera's Republic he attributed all that is politically healthy hangman on them). Northern Republicans, wilted. It is now an open question whether in Ireland to English influence and Fianna Fáil supporters to a man, were, like the Irish Nation at the end of all this is example. Cahir Healy, constantly rebuffed and capable of sustaining an independent form It is becoming plain that England is on driven to the worst forms of Hibernian of political life. Here and now the Irish the prowl around the crumbling defeatism. And so was the Republic built State itself is up for grabs. foundations of a national state that has lost that Costello's Coalition Government touch with its people and whose political belatedly declared in 1948. The Provo War did not come to a establishment has lost interest in it. There was never any possibility that a political conclusion with the Good Friday It is increasingly the case that the only Republic established in such a manner Agreement. It was not a victory over British things the Irish people, North and South, could forever evade the consequences of imperialism in Ireland. It came to a political have in common with one another are its means. conclusion with the establishment of English things. The English culture of communally-allocated ministries at binge drinking. The English obsession De Valera was entirely correct that Stormont earlier this year. And that was with celebrity. English football and freedom from English politics and English an Hibernian victory which confirmed the English pop. wars was incompatible with the com- New Labour Imperialists' renewed promises the strong Unionist minority that imperial fervour. Soon the Hibernian question will be unity would have saddled him with were put. The Irish have so much in common sure to demand and win (short of a The Provos beat the Prods but only on within an English frame of cultural Stormont-style regime of police oppres- sectarian Hibernian terms of which the reference, why should the country not be sion, gerrymander and discrimination). British authorities entirely approve. Indeed at last united within an English frame of
19 political reference, within the Common- inept governments and there was a role wealth say, with impartial English bodies for a "real opposition" like that seen in in place to see to it that no nasty sectarian the US and other democracies. (Irish divisions emerged to spoil the essential News 9.8.07) The Indo's Guilt rightness of it all. Gay Derry The Free Derry Wall was What political force exists in Ireland painted pink for the Gay Pride festival. Complex today that could give the proper answer to Jim Collins, who looks after the wall such a question tomorrow? At this time of said the organisers of the annual feile Part Two writing it is clear that there is none of any thought the pink wall would be a positive Last month I dealt with the 'revelations' substance. Only ourselves and other small way of showing solidarity. David about Patrick Pearse by Willie Dillon in groups of eccentrics. McCartney of the Rainbow project said: the Irish Independent (16.06.07). It formed "This sends out a very solid message to one of several exposures: the title of the What then actually is to be done? the gay community—we are really piece was Our Dirty Secrets…. Unusually At a minimum we must continue to welcome here—Derry has changed." (IN for the Indo these days it was all in the combat revisionism each and every time 30.7.07) upper case: OUR DIRTY SECRETS…, at every place its rears its ugly head. We Shankill Welcome Mark Boyd, an 18 presumably to emphasise the sheer must seek to re-establish the national polity year-old Protestant was knocked down awfulness of it all. that de Valera disrupted and was finally on the Shankill Road and had his legs The continuation of the main headline fractured by the so-called Treaty of 1921, broken. The motorist stopped for a is "… that we were ever taught in history arguing for all Southern parties to form moment and she drove off. Some young classes". Let me assure wee Willie that branches and fight local elections in the men ran over and Mark handed them his the history of England (inflicted on North. And oppose, openly and honestly, mobile to call an ambulance. As he lay children in Scotland, Wales and 'Ulster', with none of the shiftiness and hypocrisy on the road they asked him to sing the as well as England) was put forward in a of de Valera, all talk of forms of Irish unity Sash and when he couldn't, they penumbra of holiness. Two chaps called that would bring us back under English proceeded to beat him up. Then they Hengist and Horsa founded the English power. made off with his mobile and his bike. nation. I first encountered this fact in a The English are not looking for power (Belfast Telegraph 7.8.07) 'history class' at the age of eleven. Even in Ireland as an end in itself. England has End of Sectarianism? Reading the papers for a particularly daft Irish Catholic boy plans for the world which are involving it or watching TV in the North one would the lack of female involvement was in ever more wars. They want Ireland for get the impression that sectaranianism puzzling. its children. They want its children to fight was almost a thing of the past. The In the article proper the first matter those wars for it. periodic shooting at the police (and "swept under the carpet" is the fact that What is to be done is everything in our missing) by the UDA gets a mention. there was a huge incidence of venereal power to stop that from ever happening But virtually every weekend there are disease in Dublin in the 1920s. The again. attacks on the Crumlin Road from Government hushed it up "on the advice Joe Keenan Ardoyne and on Tigers Bay from the of the Catholic church". How come it New Lodge. These and similar incidents appeared to be common knowledge in the are not reported. 1960s, when I read about it? It is claimed Carson Someone has walked off with the that "holy Catholic Dublin" was worse Editorial Digest bronze plaque marking the house in than "sin-soaked London". This fact was Northern Victims At the "West Belfast Dublin's Harcourt Street where unionist taken out of its obvious context of soldiers Talks Back" forum Senator Eoghan and UVF founder Sir Edward Carson returning home from the Great War, with Harris said: "cultivation of victimhood is was born. Dublin Tourism refused to the added scourge of the Black & Tan/ not going to bring any peace to this replace it so the Irish Government has Auxiliary incubus. country. The Irish people in the South agreed to stump up £1,500 to do so. (IN would likely as not regard you as 10.8.07) But sure wasn't Carson also a Willie Dillon also cited Professor extremely odd people. You appear to United Irelander in his own sort of way? Kiberd copiously in his piece. Kiberd have moral problems with republican Truth about Limerick! Tourist claims that, when he asked about the 'Civil victimhood". Stormont minister Edwin authorities in Limerick are very upset by War' in "sixth class in the early 1960s", Poots said: "if you are going to embed the posting of a spoof tourist site on the the teacher said, "'that's not history son, yourself in the past forever you are only internet. It opens with mystical music that's politics'". Apparently Kiberd going to bring more and more pain upon suddenly shattered by gunfire, screaming commented, "It was actually a very clever yourself". and sirens. The voice-over invites people answer and I learned from it, even though SDLP MLA Declan O'Loan said that a to relax in the toxic waters of the I learned nothing". This is somewhat republican black ribbon campaign to Shannon. It continues: "see piebald gnomic. What did he learn? What didn’t highlight allegations of state collusion ponies in their natural environment, as he learn? Presumably what the teacher in murders during the Troubles was an they crash through housing estate fences meant, was that people in their teens, insult to all victims (News Letter 9.8.07). and sample the delights of an urban twenties and thirties fought the 'Civil War', The thoughts, if any of Love Ulster's drive-by shooting right on your and many were still alive. And involved Willie Frazer are not recorded! doorstep… the city's nightlife is second in politics from Áras an Uachtarán to local D'Hondt Unionist Party leader Sir Reg to none and you are sure to dance the government level. The bitterness of the Empey has called for the scrapping of night away at the accident and 'Civil War' had been further complicated the d'Hondt system which distributes emergency department at Limerick by political infighting in the intervening ministries according party strength on Regional Hospital where the friendly years. This included Blueshirtism and the the NI Executive: "I would be looking locals are sure to have you in stitches." 'Economic War', the 'Declaration of the forward to the day when governments It says a five-day break will cost you Republic' in 1948, and Fianna Fáil passing could be constructed on a different basis, €240, your wallet, your keys and an Act remarkably like Dr Browne's a coalition of the willing with some whatever else you had in your jacket Mother and Child scheme, after it ousted cross-community element." He said before. "Limerick: Open your mind, the Inter-Party Government, and other that at present voters couldn't throw out hand over your wallet." (IN 23.8.07) matters.
20 We get on to the rôle of women and the as the War of Independence, proved a hideous. But only Mark Dooley seems to War of Independence. Kiberd said: "over stimulus to the production of literary (and see it as the monstrosity it is. 50 women involved as soldiers in the 1916 to an extent musical), work, and work in I was interested in the take by Roslyn Rising, yet they didn't get mentioned…". the fields of painting and sculpture. Even Dee who said "It certainly beats a stodgy Not even Markievicz? She has been slated the Free State's new coinage was a sign of old statue of some fallen "hero" or as being, essentially, unladylike in Easter a vigorous cultural life. In the wider sense parliamentarian. Let's face it—when you Week. Being accused, inaccurately, of of 'culture' it helped to consolidate a multi- have seen one Daniel O'Connell or Wolfe having shot at unarmed men in the party political system, whereby the Tone, you've seem them all". Could this opposing forces. It has been implied that electorate had considerable leeway in innovative approach be adopted for it was unladylike of her even to have making their feelings about political Trafalgar Square? thought of shooting at armed chaps in the organisations abundantly clear. The Irish opposing forces. Quite how one should electorate behaved as if they were citizens GLOBAL WARMING conduct a revolution is never made clear of a republic, long before the State Global Warming scaremongering by the 'revisionists'. Maybe they think described itself as such. received a few kicks recently. One was the revolting is revolting, or maybe it's just Seán McGouran discovery by dendrochronologists that revolting against 'the British' that's Ireland's climate is now as warm as it was revolting. at the time of Brian Boru a thousand years Apparently "the rebels" would have ago: i.e. it was as warm 1000 years ago as made "Hannah Skeffington the first female it is now. This indicates surely that airlines, government minister anywhere in the Co2 emissions and other human inter- world", a year ahead of "Aleksandra Does ventions may have little or no impact on Kollontaj in the Soviet Union". Neither our weather systems. Another is the report Declan Kiberd, nor Willie Dillon appear it from entomologists that malaria-carrying to grasp the feminist implications of Stack mosquitoes are spreading northwards Sheehy-Skeffington. (Sheehy-Skeffington's because of warm weather—and we did name was 'Hanna'—short for Johanna, up? have malaria in Ireland and England and not the Biblical 'Hannah'). "The EDUCATION? previously up to about 1690, when the "rebels" might, in that case, have appointed Education and examinations are in the mossies were killed off by a "Little Ice a number of women. Sheehy-Skeffington media spotlight just now. One expert said Age". Oliver Cromwell died of "the ague" was an ardent Republican (who went on "there is no question of failure in the which was the medieval name for malaria. publicity cum fund-raising tours of the Leaving Certificate examination. All So what's new? It has all happened before USA, to expose Easter Week atrocities, examinees pass. But at different grades". and we as a species continued to survive. and later on behalf of Dáil Éireann), and a Another expert says "The Leaving Cert pacifist like her murdered husband. does not work properly, as it is merely a Markievicz and Kathleen Lynn, who were test of memory and learning, and not a DOLLARS & GUNS involved in the Citizen Army (and were proper reflection of a student's ability or In Iraq, the US has lost track of 190,000 Protestants of Ascendancy and middle suitability for university". Also there has weapons. So this is a new market for arms class origin respectively) would also, been an outcry from the experts on the manufacturers by friends of the Bush surely, have been 'in the frame' for Cabinet "dumbing down" of the degree standards administration who get paid for the arms posts. as exemplified by the increase in awarding by the US taxpayer. Very clever. The We end with the 'Civil War', Kiberd honours degrees in the Universities. dollars are taken out of the US economy refers to "a brilliant scene" in The Wind Isn't the problem that the second-level and most likely transferred abroad to safe That Shakes The Barley. A young and third level examinations are being havens and the US economy is further Volunteer, when asked what side he'll used for purposes for which they were weakened. It happens to all empires before take in the Civil War, "just walks out and never intended for in the first place? There the end. says he will take neither". Kiberd claims was a time when a good Primary education that "there were probably thousands of was available which by the age of fourteen PHEASANT-SHOOTING people who took that position…" [and enabled a student to engage in an adult The Irish Times property section carried saw] "…it was going to be a political, working life. George Boole, for example, marketing dream about a Big House in cultural and human disaster…". Civil left school at fourteen. He was mostly a Kilkenny recently. Always the "gentry" commotions tend to have unpleasant self-taught mathematician. His Boolean angle for the newly rich Dublin 4 types. consequences. What Kiberd overlooks is algebra is the basis of most modern We were also informed that there was a that the neutral position in the Civil War computers and he never got a university gun in the house and it was used for the led to no development. Both accepting degree and he was made a Professor in shooting of pheasants and the writer the British ultimatum and rejecting it were Queen's College, Cork. assured us that was "with the "h". As if we soundly-based positions. Each led to Henry Ford had no engineering degree, have forgotten! political development. But neutrality was nor had the great engineers Telford, a march which led nowhere. Macadam, Dunlop nor I.K. Brunel nor his ATONEMENT In what sense was the Irish 'Civil War' father. It doesn't stack up and the whole The media is awash both here and in the a "political, cultural and human disaster"? system needs to be re-thought and re- UK (there still is a difference—yes?) about There were a number of pointless deaths, designed. the forthcoming film of Ian McEwan's those of Collins and of some Republican 'Atonement'. "Dunkirk epic shaping up to leaders, Liam Lynch, for example, come SCULPTURE be a triumph" and so forth. But the main to mind. Some 'great houses' may have Prize-winning English artist Antony thing is and forgive us for remarking on it been burned to the ground, but that was Gormly has been commissioned to create but what moves everyone is—and this is not in all conscience a great loss to the a modern sculpture for the Dublin the killer—"there's not a hidden American general run of Irish people, and a number Docklands Development for a staggering accent to be heard". It seems that of them were 'all façade'. Their actual fee of €1.6 million. It will emerge from the Spielberg's 'Saving Private Ryan' still cultural worth was pretty insignificant Liffey River and be as tall almost as Liberty rankles. compared to the way the 'Civil', as much Hall. From designs in the papers it looks Michael Stack
21 discipline where people thought and sought Old Irish And The Market with passion and contributed to the general culture of Ireland. One thing that has Part Two certainly collapsed is the work of editing "WHERE is my chief, my master, this bleak night, mavrone? and collection, which was so well sustained O cold, cold, miserably cold is this bleak night for Hugh! for much of the 20th century by people like Its showery, arrowy, speary sleet pierceth one thro' and thro', Dinneen, Lambert McKenna, Risteárd Ó Pierceth one to the very bone. Foghludha and James Carney. (Nicholas Rolls real thunder? Or was that red vivid light Williams, with Carney's encouragement, Only a meteor? I scarce know; but through the midnight dim made some praiseworthy contributions The pitiless ice-wind streams. Except the hate that persecutes him, around 1980, but he seems to have been Nothing hath crueler venomy might." deterred from continuing by the destructive criticism of pedants.) I was about fifteen, I think, when I came Bardic Poet, a brief but marvellous piece of Instead there are long, stale and laboured across that poem. I had read others by writing that to my mind is the peak of Irish works of interpretation. One finds nothing Mangan and thought they were good, but Celtic scholarship. that has the inspired flights, the bubbling this one was awesome. Those long lines Carney mentioned in passing that about intellectual energy of Carney's essay on The with their rushing, galloping, darting, 50 poems of Eochaidh's survived; some had Irish Bardic Poet. Some of the best things swooping rhythms! And the communica- been edited, but fully half of them still had are done by people who come from abroad tion of the sense of cold! I hadn't known to be read in manuscript. That was 40 years with open and curious minds. The that it was possible for a poet to express in ago. Since then, surely, someone has Reformations in Ireland, by the American words the bone-piercing damp winter cold produced a collected edition, so that he can Samantha Meigs, is not bad as an antidote to of Munster. Beyond all that, there was the be allowed a fruitful contribution to modern The Gaelic Mind etc. After making a survey strange impressiveness of Hugh Maguire, Irish culture and engagement with modern of the evidence, Samantha Meigs concluded marching through Ireland in the winter of Irish intelligence? that the supposedly apolitical and world- 1601 to support Hugh O'Neill at Kinsale. Not so. In fact, there are many important historically bankrupt class of professional There was the strangeness of the poet Irish poets whose work has never been poets played an indispensable part in expressing his concern for him: for example, collected or in most cases even fully edited, securing Catholicism in Ireland in the late in the last verse the sudden joy of including Muireadhach Albanach Ó Dálaigh 16th and 17th centuries. remembering Maguire's most terrible acts. and Gofraidh Fionn Ó Dálaigh from the In Irish-language work there has been Whatever other poems I forgot, I could 13th/14th century period; Fear Flatha Ó something of a counter-current. By sheer never forget O'Hussey's Ode to the Maguire. Gnímh, Fearghal Óg Mac an Bháird, Uiliam dogmatic will Breandán Ó Buachalla has Afterwards I read what James Carney Óg Mac an Bháird, Tadhg Mac Dáire Mac brought to the surface the more or less had to say about Eochaidh Ó hEodhusa Bruaideadha, Domhnall Mac Dáire Mac buried continent of Irish Jacobite literature, (O'Hussey), and I found he disliked Bruaideadha, Fear Feasa Ón Cháinte, from and much else along with it. In Aisling Mangan's version because "Mangan has the 16th/17th centuries, as well as Eochaidh Ghéar he grossly oversimplifies many MacPhersonised Eochaidh". And I have to Ó hEodhusa; Aodh Buidhe Mac Cruitín, things, and the literature of the first half of admit that the criticism is just, even though Eoghan Ó Caoimh from the 17th/18th the 17th century worst of all. But he has the MacPhersonised Eochaidh could never centuries… There is no anthology of poetry made himself and his materials hard to lose his magic for me. I could imagine other from the Nine Years' War (1594-1603) there overlook, and so, for example, the author of inspired translations of that poem in a quite is no anthology of poetry from the Making Ireland British finds it politic to different vein. Confederate War period (1641-1653)… claim that he is giving the so-called 'bardic There's a completely different poem of Other things too are still undone that would poetry' equal status with the State Papers Eochaidh's, where he declares that he's be worth doing. (however poorly this claim may be founded going to start composing simple But one must face facts about the present in fact!). Ó Buachalla has made a continent unsophisticated artless poems, because state of this branch of intellectual activity. of literature, of enormous historical as well that's the trend of the times. Anthony Cronin In 1990 one of the current leading lights, as literary value, visible in outline. But did a version which included these stanzas Michelle O' Riordan, produced a book with something more is needed than an outline that I quote from memory: the grand title The Gaelic Mind and the visibility, and the elite of Celtic Studies, "My probing hard-edged statements Collapse of the Gaelic World. For me, it instead of helping to provide it, is more I have been forced to abandon became an involuntarily written book about likely to declare that this is a field suitable for a sort of free poetics The Academic Mind and the Collapse of for medievalists or scholars of literary stereo- that is vastly more in fashion. Celtic Studies. The failure of sympathy and types, and for anyone else it's not worth the So from now on, whatever the subject, imagination, the naïve assumptions about effort. John Minahane I renounce pride, profit, favour, politics, the relentless finding of stereotypes TO BE CONTINUED. if a single one of my verses everywhere and blindness to specificities, John Minahane is working on a translation of looks difficult to a day-labourer. " the childishness of attempts to deal with the Geoffrey O'Donoghue's work. I read a review of that book of Cronin's in more obvious problems posed for the general a British newspaper, where the reviewer theory (e.g. Pádraigín Haicéad): all of this Editorial Note: quoted these verses as an interesting slant suggested a crisis in that branch of thinking For years the Aubane Historical Society tried to from past centuries on a modern and familiar whose greatest ornament was James Carney, get people with academic credentials to make literary issue. They can be interpreted so. who died in the year before this book was translations of the poems of Eoghan Rua Ó Eochaidh Ó hEodhusa is someone who could published. Súilleabháin and Piarais Piaras Feiritéar. But be seen from many interesting angles. In one sense there is no crisis in Celtic they were disabled and intimidated by their James Carney took him as an object of Studies: despite recent reverses in UCD, it academic training in Irish from doing it. In the end it was left to Pat Muldowney, a study, hoping to gain some insights into the remains a small industry possibly with slight growth potential, capable of generating mathematician, to embark on the project, with general problem of relationships between no specialist Irish training, but on the basis of poets and lords. But Eochaidh became so employment with good remuneration in the Irish learned in National School. He is continuing interesting that, as he said, the original goal English and German speaking lands. But it this work and a second volume of Ó became secondary. The result was The Irish seems to have collapsed as an intellectual Súillleabháin's writings is due later this year.
22 Kindergarten (The Round Table group who were the main architects of the British Commonwealth). Harrison was offered a The Professor And The Prince Liberal candidacy at the General Election, but instead, as an admirer of Parnell, left Emeritus Professor John A. Murphy of monwealth for its role in our constitutional Balliol to become the Nationalist MP for UCC fears that Ireland might be moving evolution from Free State to Republic, 1922- Mid-Tipperary from 1890-92. He joined an back to the British Commonwealth. This, 1949. Irish regiment of the British Army in 1915. after UK Minister for Foreign Affairs Kevin "But there was never any real support in In 1920-1 he was Secretary of the Irish Murphy stated in the House of Commons nationalist Ireland for the idea of the British Dominion League and supported the Treaty that "Irish membership of the Commonwealth Commonwealth. Though Kevin O'Higgins, Desmond FitzGerald and other Cumann na as the realisation of his objective. From would provide a new context" for British- nGael leaders successfully worked the 1924-7 he was Irish correspondent of the Irish relations after the recent Northern Commonwealth dimension of the Treaty, Economist. He wrote a number of books on settlement. they never called themselves a Common- Parnell and some interesting works on Professor Murphy's piece, We Have No wealth party. There was too much grassroots Ireland and the British Empire in the 1930's Need Of The Commonwealth, in the Sunday distrust of top-hatted junketing for that. including: The Partition Of Ireland; Ireland Independent (5.8.2007), argues that since The fledging IFS's external policy was And The British Empire, 1937; Ulster And Unionists have no desire to surrender the skilfully exercised in the League of Nations The British Empire, 1939; and The Neutrality Union for the Commonwealth, Sinn Fein and other international fora, rather than in Of Ireland. have been handily seen off in the South, and the Commonwealth. Harrison was an English Liberal and an a united Ireland is now on the "very long :Compulsory Dominion status came too late for Irish nationalist aspirations, it was Irish Nationalist. In the mid-1930s, after De finger" there is little point of such talk. an alien concept, and it was associated with Valera had begun to undo the Treaty, But Professor Murphy also believes that partition and civil war. The surprising thing Harrison set himself the task of explaining the time of the progressive role of the British is that our membership lasted as long as it to England why Ireland did not become Commonwealth in Ireland's independence did. another South Africa. He attempted to help has gone: "All that didn't stop us in succeeding England sort out the mess it had made of "Though a London-controlled Empire decades from flying the re-entry kite, in an Ireland, so that the Irish could be enlisted in was already evolving into an association of ineffectual attempt to trade a born-again another Imperialist war on Germany in 1939/ self-governing (white) Dominions by 1921, membership for a united Ireland, at a time 40, even though he supported Irish neutrality the Anglo-Irish Treaty of that year imposed of self-delusional anti-partitionism." as the only course Ireland could have taken a restrictive Commonwealth status on the in the circumstances. In 1942 Harrison new Irish Free State (IFS). In the Treaty Professor Murphy and other revisionists debate, Michael Collins, having just hastily just cannot help themselves when it comes founded the Commonwealth Irish Associ- acquainted himself with Commonwealth to seeing Irish independence as an evolu- ation with General Sir Hubert Gough, the Curragh mutineer. development, argued (correctly) that tionary development. membership would give us Dominion allies Murphy, of course, is not one of the Harrison was a remnant of Imperial in our pur-suit of further autonomy —the radical revisionists who throw all caution to Ireland trying to explain to England's ruling 'guarantor' argument. class why the Irish substance, once it had "However, his republican opponents the wind and produce the most extravagant predicted (again, correctly) that London claims about Britain's "gift" of Ireland's taken power, had sloughed off the Empire would never allow the IFS the same independence (which they see as having and why the Irish would not be volunteering constitutional latitude it was forced to turned out to be an all too benevolent in the second World War as they had done in concede to Canada, the Dominion on which mistake!). Murphy is too long in the tooth the first British "war for civilisation" in our new political entity was to be modelled, not to take account of the former nationalist 1914. in theory. parameters of history writing and dismiss Harrison's other purpose was a plea to "And so; British govern-ments attempted them as bunk. He realises that it is not just a Britain not to make the situation any worse to thwart Irish efforts to exploit the Treaty's story; it contains many facts that are by invading Ireland. But luckily, by the time potential for inde-pendence in foreign policy, indisputable. Churchill had ousted the appeasers his army while the other Commonwealth states, if had been made mincemeat of by the Germans only out of enlightened self-interest, made Contained within Murphy's seeming common cause with this “reluctant antagonism to the British Commonwealth and it was not up to another round with the dominion” (the phrase of historian David is the argument that much of Ireland's Irish. As well as this, it became the main Harkness) in eventually achieving the independence was actually achieved through priority—in order to get out of the hole independence charter of the Commonwealth, the help of the Commonwealth. Britain had dug itself into—to bring America the Statute of Westminster (1931). But where does that argument lead? To into the war. And an invasion of Ireland "In other words, British thinking on the view that the Treatyites were right in would not have been consistent with the Ireland remained Imperial, but imperialism their view that an evolutionary process of kind of propaganda that was necessary to was modified by Commonwealth influence. working within the Empire, in alliance with get United States help. "At different periods, General Jan Smuts the other Dominions, would ultimately gain Harrison argued that Britain in its conduct of South Africa, Herbert Evatt of Australia, of the Treaty made a rapprochement with and Mackenzie King of Canada, all played full independence. helpful and conciliatory roles in the Anglo- HENRY HARRISON Ireland impossible—a rapprochement that Irish relationship. Henry Harrison, the last Redmondite, Harrison, being an Imperial Irelander, "De Valera was able to make his unilateral wrote a lot about the events Professor desperately desired. and radical con-stitutional changes in the Murphy considers, seventy years ago. But The thing that makes Harrison immensely 1930s in the assured knowledge that the Murphy places himself at odds with Henry superior to Professor Murphy is that his British would be pressured by the Dominions Harrison in his interpretation. So where Hamlet has the Prince. Much of revisionism not to take drastic retaliatory action against does that leave Professor Murphy? is Hamlet without the Prince. It describes the IFS. And it was the Commonwealth Most will be unaware of Henry Harrison. the Treaty and Ireland's response to its countries that advised Britain to retain a Henry Harrison, OBE and holder of the imposition without regard to the major party special status for Irish citizens (technically to the Treaty—England. But the Prince is alien) in the UK after we declared a republic Military Cross, was from Holywood, County in 1949. Down. He went to Westminster School and firmly within Harrison—he has to be, since "So, whatever about future relationships, then on to Balliol College, Oxford around Harrison is addressing the Prince, in his this State is historically indebted to the Com- 1889—at the same time as many of Milner's time of crisis.
23 Murphy has forgotten the Prince—or TREATY MANOEUVRES Elevens conducted policy against the Free forgotten his ways—as opposed to the What happened in 1923/4 was a British State. All three were based on elements of younger revisionists who have never really retreat from the high policy of the Coalition. the Treaty that the British architects had known his ways. The Ulster Government and partition were built in to give Britain direct leverage on the bedded down with illegal financial Free State. EVENTS IN BRITAIN assistance—replacing the more ambitious Revisionist historians therefore leave out scheme of the Coalition to draw Southern Firstly, there was the defining of what happens to England from 1922 to Ireland back into the British sphere. And Dominion Status. Dominion status did not 1938 and treat the Treaty as this thing in the potential effects of the Treaty settlement actually exist when it was granted to Ireland. itself that facilitates the evolution of Irish with regard to Southern Ireland were Or at least it had no legal or constitutional independence—as if Britain just goes along minimised through political and judicial meaning. It had come about in 1917 as a with it. But did Britain use the Treaty to means. kind of incentive to the white colonies to slide away from Ireland? Harrison didn't The Conservative Governments decided play a full part in the war effort at the believe so. not to dish the Treaty but to ratify it and suggestion of General Smuts. Britain was When, in the Autumn of 1922 the frustrate it. pretty desperate in 1917. It would have lost Conservatives ousted Lloyd George, After the fall of the Coalition and the the war if America had not bailed her out. Churchill and the rest of the Coalition that ascension of what Churchill called the The people who set up the Commonwealth had signed the Treaty, they had to decide Baldwin/MacDonald "Second XIs" to —Milner, Lionel Curtis and the Round how to use their victory. The new Prime power, Britain retreated from the positive Table group—were the very group who Minister, Bonar Law, had led the Unionist policy of creating Imperial Ireland that before the war had campaigned for Imperial resistance to Home Rule from 1912 and the Churchill and the Coalition envisaged and federation. But Imperial federation was most party that he now took into Government fell back on the Ulster bulwark as a holding unlikely after the 'war for small nations' and were more or less the same men who had operation. It might be said that the democracy propaganda. So the Imperial threatened civil war if the paltry Home reintegration of the rest of the island into the federalists decided to let the colonies on Rule measure had come into law. Now they British sphere was placed on the long finger longer leads to retain them. had the Treaty, which still had to be ratified whist Ulster was kept, to be used as the The first step in turning the British Empire and implemented, and Ireland at their mercy. potential lever. into a Commonwealth was taken in May There must have been a great temptation British legal and judicial pressure was 1917. The suspension of Party conflict in October/November 1922 for the die- directed against the Free State. This pressure during the Great War and the ascension of hard administration. It had got control of sought to establish that, because the Treaty Milner to the Cabinet (he was second in Government for the first time, been freed had been passed by Statute, its interpretation importance to Lloyd George) gave the by the limitations imposed upon it by was subject to the British Parliament— Round Table group a greater influence than Coalition, and it had the chance to right all which it would not have been if it was an they ever had before. A banquet was the appeasements of Ireland. Ireland could international obligation. Haldane, who had arranged in honour of General Smuts, who have easily been found to have been in been there when the Empire had a stronger had joined the Imperial War Cabinet and breach of the Treaty it signed up to, especial- will, urged the Tories to declare war on had conquered German South West Africa ly when Collins was at the helm. Britain Ireland, if they had the courage of their for the Empire in the most conspicuous had found cassus belli in much less favour- convictions and to stop their nonsense if British success in the war. Smuts, with able circumstances to restart conflicts. they hadn't. Here is how Henry Harrison Milner sitting on his right side, made a There were few Conservatives who had saw it: speech in which he referred to the "British any enthusiasm about the Treaty. Many "Conservative lawyers immediately Commonwealth of Nations" rather than the had seen it as a surrender and most had gone after the fall of Mr Lloyd George's Empire. His speech was printed and given along with it only as a necessary evil, as the Coalition, in 1922, set to work with the widest publicity and was disseminated price of Coalition. But now they were free persistent legalistic ingenuity to deprive throughout Britain, the Empire, the United of Lloyd George and free to do what they Ireland of her principal gains in the Treaty States, and the rest of the world. wished to the Treaty and Ireland. of 1921... But the same Conservative Britain had no means of forcing the lawyers (and the ministers whom they The Anglo-Irish contingent of the colonies to do more for the war effort at this Conservative Party and supporters in Ulster advised,) left unexercised the point so it conceded a kind of independent were urging them on to reconquest and the unquestionable statutory and sovereign powers of the British Government to status that gave them a share in ownership Irish, who had stood in defiance of Britain of the war effort whilst committing them to for four years, were now preoccupied with supervise Northern Ireland affairs when constitutional principle was being violated it more closely. In March-April 1917 the internal difficulties and greatly weakened. and the liberty of the subject swept away. Imperial War Cabinet was followed by an There was also the fear of Bolsheviks around That was a glaring contrast. The main Imperial Conference. The white colonies every corner, which the irregular forces in assault on Ireland's Treaty rights was both of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Ulster could have been used to deal with, if direct and indirect. Direct attack was South Africa were admitted and India—not the Imperial Government paid the price of launched in the Dominion Conference of having reached the required level of reconquest. 1930, and it was repelled, according to Lord Hailsham himself, with unanimous civilisation yet—was put on a kind of And yet these same men, who had waiting list. promised "to die in the last ditch" over indignation by the Dominions... The direct Home Rule, baulked at Mustapha Kemal attack took the form of the economic war When Lloyd George put the Articles of (Ataturk) during the Chanak Crisis. That of 1932-38...which failed after immense Agreement to the Commons on 14th bitterness and after immense economic provides a marker for what had happened loss to both sides. The whole legalistic December 1920, he asked rhetorically: between 1914 and 1923. paraphernalia of argumentation to prove "What does Dominion Status mean?… It is Bonar Law declared in the Commons on that Ireland was not entitled to get what the difficult and dangerous to give a definition." 4th December that "we were not bound by Anglo-Irish Treaty expressly gave her He knew that an expedient was a very any Treaty which had been made before we perished of its own fallacious frailty and dangerous thing to define. came into Office. We were committed to no the remains were swept away in silence by This may have been a reply to a statement promise. We had a clear field, and we could the Treaty of April 1938." (Ulster and the made by Collins to the Times of 8th take what action we wished." British Empire, 1939, pp. 153-4.) December in which he called for the de But his Government still decided to There were three main ways in which the facto status of the Dominions to be implement it. British administrations of the Second recognised de jure with acknowledgement
24 of the implications for sovereignty, by the Treaty to the statute law relating to Republic but they never recognised the allegiance and constitutional independence this aspect in 1921. Irish Republic or Dáil Eireann. If they had to be made explicit. it would have been possible for the British Ireland was actually most unsuited to The second means Britain used to government to have concluded a treaty with Dominion Status. Ireland was not a colony frustrate the Treaty was through the view the Irish Republic as it did with Kemal composed of British settlers surrounded by that the Treaty was not really a Treaty and Ataturk's Turkey at Lausanne. So the deal- restless natives. That had been attempted that it was operative and binding on the ings with these Irish representatives resulted but it had succeeded in only one part— British solely because it was embodied in in mere "Articles of Agreement for a Treaty". North East Ulster. So it was really only in an Act of the Imperial Parliament (as was It was not until Ireland had returned to North East Ulster that Dominion Status the Constitution). The argument was that being subjects of the King, that Oaths of was appropriate. (Along with the Anti- "the assertion of imperial supremacy, made Allegiance to the Crown had been sworn in Catholicism of the British state the lack of in 1766 as a challenge to the repudiation of the Parliament of Southern Ireland, set up lesser breeds—lesser breeds than Irish that supremacy by the American colonies, by British Statute, that the Treaty was Catholics that is—prevented any fusion of was renewed in 1922 in respect of the Irish ratified. colonist and native in Ireland. And Lord Free State." (Professor Berriedale Keith, Here is the sequence of events: The Salisbury confirmed that the Hottentots in 1931, An Introduction to British Constitu- Provisional Government assumed authority Ireland were the Irish themselves.) tional Law, p164) and power by virtue of the 'Articles of The Dominions were British settlements The Treaty is often regarded by revision- Agreement for a Treaty' at the insistence of in the lands of native peoples. These ists as having conferred independence by the British Government. The British admin- Dominions were majority-British colonies. default on Ireland. But that is not how istration passed the machinery of That did not mean that the majority of the successive British Governments saw it. government into its hands and created a people who lived in the territorial areas of The Truce preceding the Treaty had no rival for power and authority to the these lands were British settlers. But the legal basis. The British Parliamentary paper Republican Government and Dáil Éireann. majority of people who had reached the describes the Truce as "the subject of an The establishment of the Provisional required level of civilization were. Often honourable understanding… not embodied Government not only created an alternative there were settlers of other races but these in any formal signed agreement." source of authority—it also had a destabilis- were in the minority. So these minorities Although a Treaty was supposedly signed ing effect on the Republic. The Irish acted as a kind of filler for the colony, in December 1921, what was actually signed Republican Government and Dail Eireann bolstering its numbers and making it safe were "Articles of Agreement for a Treaty were to come to an end on the completion of for white civilization against the lesser between Great Britain and Ireland, 6th the Treaty settlement. Therefore the breeds without the law. December, 1921." discipline and organisation of the Repub- Obviously the great exception to this The British are very careful with words. lican organs which had been maintained was South Africa. And the application of Articles 17 and 18 provided for the throughout repression, war and Truce now Dominion Status to Ireland was made submission of this Agreement to the began to fracture. The British imposition possible by what had been accomplished Parliaments of the two countries and for thus crushed the Irish Republic making the by the British in South Africa. ratification by legislation. But ratification Treaty possible. Why was Ireland given Dominion Status? in Ireland was to come from the Parliament Because it was not independence. When of Southern Ireland (not Dail Eireann), One thing I have not seen pointed out is the Irish wanted Home Rule they were which was to convene a Provisional that the Treaty itself was unimportant to the offered a lesser form of devolution, when Government for the purpose. British. It was the process of implementing they wanted Dominion Status they were Lord Sumner pointed to the political it that was all important. The British meti- offered Home Rule within the Union, when usage the treaty was being put to on 14th culously made sure that that process they declared and stood firm for a Republic December in the Lords. He revealed that involved the dismantling of the Republic they were offered Dominion Status. what was happening was expediency: and its institutions, the superseding of its Dominion status was judged the price "In calling this document a Treaty, or to legitimacy with the consequent splitting of necessary for the dismantling of the be more strict, in calling it 'Articles of the national movement that had established Republic and the shattering of the national Agreement for a Treaty between Great it. Without that process the Treaty would movement. And the Treaty was always just Britain and Ireland,' not merely is every have been useless to the Empire. a scrap of paper anyway. (Britain found constitutional usage violated—that may Not much attention has been paid by itself honour bound by Treaties when it be a small thing—but a deliberate attempt Irish historians to the Treaty debates—the has been made to con-vey, as far as the Treaty debates of the major party to the suited policy but it found them to be mere negotiators dared, that Ireland was what scraps of paper when it suited.) Treaty, that is. Harrison, to his credit pays the Sinn Féiners have claimed, that Ireland the British debates the required attention. The British representatives attempted to always has been, an independent and deprive Ireland of the proposed Statute of separate country which has never bowed He quotes Lord Birkenhead, a senior Westminster at the Imperial Conference of the neck to any admitted and voluntary architect of the Treaty, and Lord Chancellor 1930. They were only prevented from doing allegiance to the British Grown. Now one as saying on the 8th February 1922: so by the disapproval of the other asks oneself: 'Why was this done? Why is "We recommended, after elaborate Dominions, looking after their own interest. this called a Treaty? Why is it negotiated as debates, and after taking the whole of our Up until the Statute of Westminster, the if it was a Treaty?' I can conceive of two countrymen, represented in Parliament, into our confidence, that this preliminary Treaty acted as a bar to the Irish availing of reasons and two only. One reason is that it was hoped that it would appease the Agreement should be accepted and the rights other Dominions had established negotiators, Mr. Griffith and Mr. Collins endorsed by Parlia-ment. By overwhelming since 1921. and the rest. The other is that it was foreseen majorities our advice was accepted by both The Dominion Status which Ireland that it would be a very convenient way of Houses. What happened then, and what is acquired through the Treaty was limited to introducing it with the Legislature, when it happening now? The matter went for what Dominion Status was—and most had to be introduced at long last, and would ratification before Dail Eireann. The noble specifically what Canadian Status was—at save the Government a world of trouble." Marquess has said that we must have the time of the signing of the Treaty. So that The Treaty was not quite a treaty, as listened, and that any Englishman must have listened, to some of the expressions no subsequent development of Dominion such, since the Crown could not make a Status that the other Dominions attained which were used in the debates in Dail treaty with its own subjects. The British Eireann with feelings (I think he said) of applied to Ireland whose status was frozen dealt with representatives of the Irish humiliation.
25 "I confess that I feel that some allowance LETTERS TO THE EDITOR · LETTERS TO THE EDITOR· LETTERS TO THE EDITOR· must be made for the particular character of the assembly in whose hands lay that decision, to them alike tremendous and desperate. Were they to renounce How Ireland Reached The End Of History everything, for which they had declared Irish Political Review has invited comments on the article by Desmond Fennell in the July they would fight as long as they had a drop 2007 issue Why A United Ireland Has Lost Its Significance. of blood in their bodies? What was the Fennell refers to "The Irish nationalism of history having brought us thus far and evaporated". character of that Assembly? There was Iceland is free, united and Icelandic. All that Irish nationalism has ever claimed is for Ireland hardly a member of it who had not at one to be free, united and Irish. time or another been put into gaol by the As things are, Ireland is a second-rate nation and widely regarded as such. The tasks of Irish British Government. It will easily be under- nationalism have not been completed. stood that I am not arguing the merits of Has Irish nationalism evaporated? Has every single, solitary Irish nationalist vanished? those sentences to-day, but am merely Obviously not. Irish nationalism may have lost some mass support but that is not the same thing analysing the facts, with the resultant as evaporated. Mass support can be rebuilt given the right circumstances. consequences upon the constitution of the Irish nationalism is an embarrassment to Fennell. He wishes it would go away. So he tells assembly. There were few of its members it that it has evaporated. Ireland has reached the end of history. who had not lost some relative as a result Subjectively, Irish nationalism continues to exist. But is there any objective basis for Irish of the hostilities so recently prevailing. nationalism? As long as Ireland is not free, united and Irish, there is an objective basis. Therefore, it is broadly true to say that you Where, though, is the mass basis as long as over 90% of the Irish population are happy living could not have put the ratification of the it up on EU, UK and US money with EU membership and two governments and speaking Treaty before a more bitterly hostile and another country's language? Has Ireland really reached the end of history? unfavourable assembly, how-ever you had Ireland is only a small place. It cannot reach the end of history on its own. It needs company. collected that assembly in Ireland, and Has the majority of the world's population reached the end of history? Obviously not. while I, like others, was disappointed by Countries with one-sixth of the world's population, including Ireland, enjoy five-sixths of the the smallness of the majority, I nevertheless world's income. Countries with five-sixths of the world's population, including China, subsist counted it, and count it, a great on one-sixth of the world's income. They are determined to even things up. They have not circumstance that the ratification should reached the end of history. have been passed by any majority in such For example "figures from the National Bureau of Statistics of China point out that the an assembly." population of China's middle class will expand from 5.04 per cent in 2005 to 45 per cent by Harrison also quotes Churchill moving 2020" (Beijing Review, May 10th, 2007. Page 18). How will this affect Ireland? the Second Reading of the Irish Free State China has a quiet contempt for nations which speak another nation's language instead of their (Agreement) Bill in the House of Commons own native languages. How will this affect Ireland? Ivor Kenna on 16th February: "It is my duty to ask the approval of the Provisional Govern-ment as the nominee chosen as the President of the Dail. He is House for this Bill. It gives effect to the of the unrecognised Irish Republic. Hence also, in Irish eyes, the President of the non- Treaty which both Houses have already the British desire for an election in order recognised Irish Republic, and if the Irish approved by such large majorities. It clothes that a new democratic will of the people people accept his advice and guidance, and the Provisional Government with lawful might be created—a democratic will that ratify the Treaty and endorse the Treaty power and enables them to hold an election would be more amenable to Britain and which he has signed, he will be able to under favourable conditions at the earliest disestablish the Irish Republic and to lay would disestablish the Republic in favour aside these functions. These matters do not moment." of the Crown and Empire: "A Provisional Government, unsancti- affect us in our procedure in any way; but is "The first of these objects is a National it not a desirable thing that upon the authority fied by law, yet recognised by His Majesty's decision upon the Treaty by the Irish Ministers, is an anomaly, unprecedented of the Irish people recorded at an election, people. I am asked every day by my hon. the Republican idea should be definitely, in the history of the British Empire. Its Friends below the Gangway questions Continuance one day longer than is finally and completely put aside? about the Irish Republican Army. I will "…The second object of the election is necessary is deroga-tory to Parliament, to explain the view of the Irish Government the Nation, and to the Crown. We must to secure an adequate constituent on that point. It is very important we assembly." legalise and regularise our action. should understand the different points of Contempt of law Is one of the great evils view. Whether we agree with them, or Churchill then indicated the further steps manifesting themselves in many parts of sympathise with them, or recognise them, for giving effect to the Treaty:— the world at the present time, and it is is quite another matter, but it is important "The next thing will be the holding of the disastrous to the Imperial Parliament to we should understand them. This is the Irish election, which I might provisionally connive at or countenance such a situation view of the Irish Government, the Irish fix for March or April. The next thing is that in Ireland for one day longer than is signatories of the Treaty. Their view is the Irish Free State Parlia-ment should absolutely necessary." that the Irish Republic was set up by the assemble and, acting as a Constituent "Mr. Ronald McNeill: “It is your own Irish people at the elections which took Assembly, should make the Constitution. creation.” place during the Conference, and that this Let us hope that that will be in progress in "Mr. Churchill: “Yes, with the full Irish Republic can only be converted into May or June. Then there is the final confirm- approval of both Houses of Parliament. an Irish Free State by the decision of the atory legislation in the Imperial Parliament, Moreover, what chance does such a Irish people. That is not our view. We do which, we may say, will take place in June situation give to the Irish Executive who, not recognise the Irish Republic. We have or July, if the time-table were observed." at the request of the King's representative never recognised it, and never will in Ireland—made, of course, on the advice In May 1921 Britain held a fresh election recognise it. I am explaining their view to the Parliament of Southern Ireland. The of His Majesty's Government—has and they say that they were elected by the assumed the very great burden and Dail treated it as another election to Dail Irish people on a certain basis, and that Eireann. A Parliament was elected in May responsibility of directing Irish affairs?”" only the Irish people can release them. 1921. It never met as all but a handful of the Churchill was candid about what was They are determined to stand by the Treaty members of the Parliament of Southern happening in Ireland. The movement that and to use their utmost influence with the Ireland regarded themselves as elected to the established the Irish Republic had been the Irish people to procure their adhesion to Second Dail. The Irish Free State (Agree- party which brought the British to the the Treaty, and that will, from the Irish point of view, be the act which will ment) Act passed by the British Parliament negotiating table. But the British Govern- disestablish finally the Republic. Take received the Royal Assent on 31st March ment did not, and would not, recognise it. Mr. Griffith's position. Mr. Griffith has 1922. After the Treaty was negotiated, the Britain, in effect, made peace with the not joined this Government. He has been Parliament elected in May 1921 was called 26 to meet—at the insistence of the British the Methodist College). His mother, a teacher, Government—and it ratified the Treaty and N. Ireland continued was brought up in Belfast's Protestant Shankill arranged for the Treaty Election of June district. His father, a Catholic from the Czech 1922. are contained within that Agreement. Sudetenland, was a refugee from Fascism in The object of this election, as Churchill However, the days of Labour "beating 1938 following the Chamberlain/Hitler ourselves up" about the Border are over. accord—as a consequence of his grandfather's revealed, was to produce a popular mandate involvement in Social Democrat politics there. for the implementation of the Treaty and a We campaigned for consent. Sinn Fein Mark first stood unsuccessfully as a Labour new Constituent Assembly that would and the DUP merely thole it. candidate in the 1989 European election, but produce a constitution amenable to the Treaty But what if there was a referendum was elected to Newtownabbey Council. He and the Empire. tomorrow? was elected on the first count on every The Provisional Government governed occasion he stood, topping the poll in 1997 There isn't. And it's hypothetical. We're (an unparalleled achievement in a dark era of from 16th January 1922 until December Labour! Labour members hold different 1922. It enacted the Constitution of the Free Labour politics). Mark led the Labour views on the Border which are compatible Coalition to election to the Stormont Forum State which came into operation by Royal with our policy of unity by consent. This Proclamation on 6th December 1922. as the last party elected, but—due to work is an illustration of how we intend to commitments—took no part in the Talks That is how the Irish Republic became the practise more mature politics than that process itself. Free State and a new 'democracy' established dictated by crude sectarian division. All For many years until its disbandment in within Ireland—a democracy that was that matters is that Labour members put 1993, Mark was a leading member of the Imperially permissible. Labour First! Campaign for Labour Representation, The third means by which Britain tied in A simple question of whether or not we campaigning for the British Labour Party— the Free State was in insisting that the Domi- for as long as it intended to govern Northern want an United Ireland does not reflect the Ireland—to organize, contest elections and nion Status Ireland acquired under the Treaty complexity of the situation. Many people seek a mandate there. He subsequently joined was subject to the final say of the British do not see themselves as exclusively the Irish Labour Party (through the Donegal Privy Council. In other words the Privy British or Irish or do not wish to be obliged North East constiutuency) and played a Council had the sole ultimate authority to to opt into one camp or the other. If there leading role in first securing the right of decide just what the Treaty did or did not is to be a referendum on these terms it people in Northern Ireland to join the Labour amount to, what the Constitutional status of would have the potential to be further Party (through a "Headquarters Branch") and Dominion was in 1921 that governed Ire- exacerbate divisions and reinforce single then, in 2004, for a northern branch (the land's status as a dominion, and to control all issue politics. Current reality is that "Labour Forum") to be fully recognized. The amendments made to the Constitution and sovereignty is, to a degree, being 'pooled'— Party has now recognized a Northern Ireland everything done under the Constitution. So Constituency Council. Mark Langhammer is thus the need for political structures to now campaigning for the Labour Party to Britain was always judge in her own case, reflect the nuances of increased island- register with the (UK) Electoral Commission having appointed and paid judges applying wide development. The growth of labour with a view to Labour Party candidates British law and morality politics here depends on being able to contesting local elections in Northern Ireland. POWER POLITICS move beyond the traditional, historic As a local councillor, Mark Langhammer Of course, the only way that Britain could divisions and the simplistic either/or was Chair of the Newtownabbey Economic make sure that the Free State abided by these options which only serve to perpetuate Development Partnership, 1995-2001, and interpretations was through war or economic mistrust, fear and division. inaugural Chair of the Newtownabbey (EU) blockade. But it failed to do this when Peace & Reconciliation Partnership. He It's the Party of James Connolly— served on the National Board of the Citzens DeValera called its bluff and by 1938 it surely you will just be seen as a Labour Advice Bureaux and was Chair of the North- appeared to throw in the towel. Party for the Nationalist community? ern Ireland Association of CABx, 1994-98. Revisionists do not ask why Britain did Will Irish Labour not be a 'put off' to His proudest achievement was as Chair of not do the necessary in 1923-4. They take it Northern Protestants the Rathcoole Regeneration Working Group for granted that a benevolent Britain did not The Labour Party will draw strength where he led an effort to regenerate Rathcoole, want to do the necessary. But there is not Northern Ireland's largest housing estate, and unity from its own diverse traditions which resulted in successful bids for Govern- much evidence of benevolence in Britain's and will orientate as a "third stand" in Irish behaviour toward Ireland from 1923-37. ment, European, charitable and other regener- politics—neither Unionist, nor Nationalist. ation funds being channeled into improving There is simply a lack of will to pursue what We will draw on the historic radical and the Treaty had provided the Empire with— the housing, environment, play, sporting, dissenting traditions, giving these modern recreational, educational and economic to use the means at its disposal. (The benevol- expression. The Labour Party has given development facilities in the estate. The ence of 1938 was explicable only as a last significant thought to the manner in which improvements led to the first ever visit by a ditch attempt to clear the slate before the it has set itself up. In fact, the model of the Secretary of State, Mo Mowelam, to coming of the second great war on the Irish Congress of Trade Unions has been Rathcoole, as well as a Royal visit from Continent.) a template, with an island wide body, with Princess Anne. Professor Murphy makes no comment on Mark Langhammer has been an outspoken a Northern Ireland element to reflect the opponent of paramilitary gangsterism (whose what sapped the will of the Empireafter the needs of different jurisdictions. A great fall of the Coalition. Such a thing is apparently contributions to the regeneration of Rathcoole many trade unionists in Northern Ireland, was limited to attempts to extort money from outside his parameters of thought. He takes Protestant and Catholic, are members of the British decline for granted: "British building contractors), and has publicly backed British-based unions who are affiliated to Raymond McCord's campaign for justice for thinking on Ireland remained Imperial, but the Irish Congress of trade unions. Many his murdered son (where the intervention of imperialism was modified by Commonwealth of those Unions—such as the GMB, the Labour leader, Pat Rabbitte, in the Dail played influence," says Professor Murphy. That's ATGWU, AEEU/AMICUS, and a significant part in the "blowing open" the one way of looking at it. But what happened USDAW—are affiliated to Labour. corrosive effects of state collusion with to the Empire between 1922 and 1938 could Loyalist paramilitaries). hardly be described as a mere "modification" Mark Langhammer Biographical Notes Mark Langhammer did not contest the 2005 local elections in order to concentrate brought about by a little colonial persuasion. Mark Langhammer has been the most There was a more substantial piece of on the effort to secure Labour Party candidates electorally successful Labour politician in in Northern Ireland. He was co-opted onto "persuasion" involved in the process. But Northern Ireland since David Bleakley in the that is a subject for another day. the Labour Party National Executive 1960's (Bleakley, ironically, taught him at Committee in July 2005.*************** Pat Walsh 27 N. Ireland continued are fully aware that, as an electoral body, vote to its name. Not a single vote. And the SDLP's purpose is to get out the Labour governs Northern Ireland in ever liberating effects of a positive relationship Catholic vote. In the Stormont Assembly, deeper consultation with a Fianna Fail the SDLP designates to represent the Government equally without a vote to its with an independent Irish state. There is no prospect of that happening within the Catholic community. Equally, the SDLP name. It is this undemocratic unacceptable present framework of Northern Ireland, is remarkably non partisan when it comes misgovernment that is at the heart of the to elections in the Republic. Many a Northern problem. where each community is organized politically against the other, and the struggling Labour candidate would have Not allowed to settle down within any southern state and its politics are thought given his soul for even a token appearance Governmental system—and without the by John Hume in the byways of Donegal, governmental politics of Britain or to be identified only with the moderate Catholic nationalist interest. A Labour Dublin or Cork. And Mark Durkan made Ireland—Northern Ireland falls back on electoral presence in the north would be no bones about welcoming a Fianna Fail the age old communal & sectarian division. victory in the recent Dail election. The Breaking sectarian politics down will the first vital step in the creation of a politics in which Catholics and Protestants plain truth is that none of the northern be neither easy nor quick—but it can only could be involved simply as citizens. parties, including the SDLP, are be done by offering voters real govern- recognizably Labour in the normally mental politics—the politics of "who We are in your hands, brothers and accepted sense. The "sister party" argu- governs and in whose interests" It is only sisters. The future for the left in Northern ment is nowadays simply an excuse for the gravitational 'pull' of state level politics Ireland is within a vigorous mainstream, inaction. We don't expect that Labour that will draw people away from sectarian governmental party of the left. That Party Party delegates would have the cynicism rythyms / patterns. The Greens are running, is the Labour Party. We seek your support to use such an excuse. the British Conservatives are contesting. to allow us to take the next step— It's time now for the Labour Party to dip contesting Council seats and giving We won't win, will we? We don't win our toes in the water! representation to hard working families in Donegal, we don't often win in on the ground. Roscommon. We rarely win in Leitrim. What about the British Labour Party, aren't they organising in Northern No one thinks Labour candidates will More Information: have it easy. It'll be a hard slog. But it is Ireland too? [email protected] essential to offer Labour people a home, Labour will develop fraternal relationships with all parties within the and candidates to vote for. As it happens, Labour candidates in the North we can be confident of some initial success. PES. and the Labour Forum will welcome NEC member Mark Langhammer has been those who are also members from the —are you sure? British Labour Party to the Forum. the most successful Labour politician in Questions and Answers. Northern Ireland since David Bleakley in In objective terms, British Labour the early 1960's winning successive elect- membership was conceded to Northern Irish people reluctantly, under legal threat, What about the SDLP? Our proposal ions since 1989, to retain a council seat in and only as a means of avoiding political is a modest one, pitched at contesting the tough Newtownabbey area of North local government elections only—one Belfast. Mary McMahon served on Belfast organisation. All British Labour spokes- which balances the needs of northern City Council as a Workers' Party represent- person insist that conceding membership to those resident in Northern Ireland was Labour Party members to develop and ative. Jenny Muir was a councillor in grow the Party, with the wider needs of the Hackney. Michael McBrien is a stalwart undertaken for the express reason of Party to keep open the potential for political trade unionist and member of the District stopping political organisation. That is not the case with the Irish Labour Party realignment in the longer term, particularly Policing Partnership. Ciaran McLean (son with regard to the SDLP. of well known civil rights activist, Paddy which has been set up to develop public The Labour Party's relationship with Joe McLean) could be a strong candidate political positions and to develop political space on the centre left. the SDLP is understood by Northern in Tyrone. Likewise, Liam Gallagher, long Ireland based Labour Party members. It is time chair of the Derry Trades Council. Sure, isn't Northern Ireland "sorted" a conciliatory and moderate party of the The Labour Party could not wish for better now with Stormont up and running: Catholic community. It has broadly slate of activists or candidates. The operation of the devolved government progressive policies on a range of social is welcome. It's better than arrogant, matters. At times when the Labour Party Why now? These Council elections are the first under the new system. The old unelected, part time, "parachute in" had no elected MEP, John Hume's office English ministers. But it is also a 26 districts have been replaced with 7 was generous in providing a gateway. "devolved" government. Power devolved However, the SDLP has no formal links Councils with increased powers. Labour was the only party to strongly advocate is power retained. It remains the case that with the trade union movement. Grassroots Northern Ireland, though transformed and for a mature and powerful local govern- community and voluntary sector activists equality reigns, remains in a long-term tend to be associated with the Progressive ment. We should have the courage of our convictions and contest these seats. If we political limbo. Even our religious friends Unionist Party or Sinn Fein, not the SDLP. have decided that their limbo was not do not run in the 2009 elections, then the Although affiliated to the Party of sustainable and no longer exists, as far as European Socialists [PES], not since the next Council elections would not be until 2013. I know. days of Paddy Devlin or Gerry Fitt has Labour could provide a long-term there been a recognizably socialist element Northern Ireland Politics: Why do positive focus as an alternative to the may in the SDLP. Its political character is we need Labour? become political posturing by both sides demonstrated by the members who have The Northern Ireland problem is, in of the present divide. left it. Austin Currie had no political essence, a simple one. There may be many disagreement with the SDLP when he left, complications, nuances—but the core What is Labour's position on a slotting in easily with Fine Gael! problem is simple. Northern Ireland is Border Referendum? Labour holds to the "consent" principle, Labour might be the SDLP's sister party systematically mis-governed, and has been in the PES, and regularly sends TDs to since its inception. Presently, Northern enshrined within the Good Friday/Belfast help in northern elections But all Labour Ireland is governed by a new Labour Agreement. Provision for Border polls members who canvass in Northern Ireland Government in Westminster without a continued on page 27
28 N. Ireland continued to draw people of similar political outlook Labour Must Wait? It is many years together, away from communal affiliation, since de Valera uttered the edict "Labour and lend them coherence. In the recent must wait". For Labour people in Northern Protestant union. His answer was that "it Dail election leaders debate, the essential Ireland the waiting continues. Now is a had nothing to do with reconciliation". He shallowness of "community" politics time of choice for Labour. Do we stand explained that the NASUWT became the was demonstrably apparent in the for tribalism in Irish politics, furtively largest teachers union in Northern performance of Sinn Fein's Gerry Adams. rejecting the efforts of people who would Ireland—the largest in South Armagh, try and build bridges across the sectarian and the largest in North Down—because Sinn Fein has been the purposeful divide? Or do we stand for building the it was represented on the UK Burnham proponent of the current peace process, Third Strand? That's why we are seeking but its lack of coherent social values will Committee which set wages—whilst your support for a modest measure—that INTO and UTU weren't. It was the limit its vision of a new Ireland. Labour Party candidates contest the 2009 gravitational pull of power, at the level of A formally racist party under Arthur local Council elections in Northern Ireland. Griffith in 1905, Sinn Fein was socialist in state, that drew teachers away from Our motion asks the Labour Party to communal, Protestant or Catholic the Republican Congress phase in the give recognition and support to bring about positions. And so it will be with politics. 1930's; it was in active alliance with Nazi the development of a real Third Strand Germany in the 40's; it was Catholic Politics is influencing and participating in northern politics. in state power or it is nothing. vocationalist in the 50's; it fell under Communist Party influence through Roy Northern Ireland politics is currently The mirage of provincial Labour is Johnson in the 60's, it veered back to structured along communal/religious now over. "Soda Farl" socialism is gone. corporate Catholicism in the 70's; was grounds, producing a constant predispos- After the NILP, the United Labour Party, swayed by London loony leftism in the ition to sectarian grind and conflict. Our the Labour Party of Northern Ireland, and 80's and by the late 90's and in the Good society is changing, with new peoples and Labour 87, there will never again be a Friday phase the prevailing ideological increased ethnic and national diversity. serious effort to establish a provincial influence on Sinn Fein was Thatcherism— There is a large and growing middle ground Labour Party. But a serious effort had to when it implemented with alacrity Private of people of all religious affiliations who be made to prove the point. Finance Initiatives—more than any other collaborate in work, in trade unions, in the party in the NI Executive—across its briefs voluntary sector and community groupings I campaigned for many years for the in Education and Health. many of whom would be concerned to British Labour Party to organize in NI, not There are few signs that Sinn Fein in develop a Third Strand in northern because I was sold on the union, but the current Northern Ireland Executive politics—given the right vehicle. We because it was the centre-left party will do anything other than go along with believe that the Labour Party, rooted in contesting for state power. The question the Durkan/Trimble Reinvestment & internationalism, is that vehicle. Reform Initiative—with all investment of who governs and in whose interests Usually, when the issue of Labour was paramount. As the party of working hitched to an aggressive programme of marketisation in health, education and contesting elections in the North comes people, Labour's gravitational pull had up, there are a number of staple questions. across the public services. drawn people in Glasgow and Liverpool The most frequently asked are away from communal religious affiliat- Social policies for Sinn Fein and the other "community" parties is beside 1) What about the SDLP—is it not our ions. Whether it could have done so in sister Party in Northern Ireland? Belfast remains unanswered. It didn't try. the point. It's what gets you over today, and no more. 2) We won't win, will we? For reasons of state, British Labour would 3) Why Now—is the timing right? not and will not organize in N Ireland. But Third and from a self interested Labour 4) What about the British Labour nature abhors a vaacum. Party perspective, after a difficult Dail Party—is it not trying to organize? election, it would demonstrate an 5) Sure now that Stormont's up and So, why should the Irish Labour imaginative, bold and practical policy running isn't the North all sorted and Party contest elections in Northern direction. We need a distinctive, independ- boxed away? Ireland? ent and fresh approach to politics across 6) Labour would get caught up in There are a number of reasons: the island that will connect better with the Northern issues—like, what our First, the Irish state is playing an electorate. The collaboration of grass roots position on the Border increasing role in Northern affairs and it is councillors, North and South, will help 7) We're the Party of Connolly and appropriate that the political system should strengthen and reinvigorate the Party Larkin—will that not just put off the begin to reflect that. The current National across the island, increase its reputation Protestants? Development Plan, for instance, commits internationally and provide a firmer 8) Why would we bother, we've just lost significant financial aid to roads and platform for the future. an election—it's nothing to do with infrastructure within Northern Ireland, the Fourth, a reforming Labour Party of us. Department of Foreign Affairs' Reconci- the left and middle ground, capable of There are others, but those are the main liation Fund supports a myriad community attracting Protestants and Catholics, could ones. No doubt we'll get to some of these activity financially, the six Cross Border prevent the leakage of political influence during the open session. Implementation Bodies are also directly towards the extremes. Labour could New politics Finally, there is a need for funded. These trends will continue, provide potential for cross community notwithstanding the understandable ennui forms of politics which will allow partition alliances to those parties which are to function in a reasonably civilized way amongst the Southern electorate towards moderate, but religiously aligned. "the North". for the indefinite future. There is also a Finally, a northern component of labour need for politics which could enable Second, the Labour Party, as a party would fill in the missing part of the jigsaw partition to be ended at some stage in a (unlike any party within Northern Ireland) of Labour Party and Trade Union structures civilized and non coercive way. That contends for the exercise of real power in across the island (corresponding to the means that at least some people of a British, a sovereign state. As a governmental party northern section of the ICTU), recognizing Protestant and Unionist perspective need of critical mass, it would provide a centre and respecting the practical reality of to be enabled to appreciate the potentially of gravity which could, over time, begin governance in the two jurisdictions. continued on page 28
29 N. Ireland continued publishing, the media and cultural life—a Welfare state. "revisionism" if you like—aimed at The NILP was a serious effort. As drawing Ireland back into the fold. It also recently as 1970, the NILP got over and Beaverbrook's who set up the entity of tends to explain away rather than explain 100,000 votes—but it was all shadow Northern Ireland were geo-politicians on Irish history and the Labour contribution boxing. In 1969, when the bubble went up a grand scale. They determined that to Irish history is a victi0m as much as in Northern Ireland, Jim Callaghan visited Northern Ireland was not going to be many other positive aspects of Irish history. Northern Ireland, received detailed allowed to settle down within British So, Northern Ireland is not a state. It is briefings from the NILP and spoke at the politics. There were two reasons for this. disconnected from the British state—a bit Ulster Hall to a packed NILP meeting. He First, the 1912-14 Home Rule crisis like the South African Bantustan concept suggested to the NILP that it apply to almost brought Britain towards civil war. from Apartheid era. Northern Ireland is a become part of his party, the Labour Party After this, a bi-partisan "arm's length" generously subsidised Bantustan—but it's of state. After the NILP had voted approach to Ireland was aimed at ensuring a Bantustan nonetheless. When Secretary overwhelmingly to do so, this too was that any Irish political virus was kept in of State, Peter Brooke, urged by John rebuffed by the Labour Party. What Ireland. When I raised this with Mo Hume, said in his City of London speech happened was that greater interests of Mowlam some years ago, she termed it on 9 November 1990 that Britain had "no state emerged. In Tony Benn's diaries it the "disease" theory. The bi-partisan selfish strategic or economic interest in was clear that the "arm's length" principle approach is largely respected to this day Northern Ireland", he was not strictly still ran deep. He records that, instead of by the two main British parties and is a accurate. Britain has an interest. Britain taking responsibility for the situation, cornerstone of British policy in regard to always has an interest. Labour thought it would better to avoid Northern Ireland. Within the confines of the Northern responsibility, with Denis Healey arguing Second, and perhaps more important, Ireland Bantustan, developing left of centre for Unionists "carrying the can". Northern Ireland was to be kept apart, as politics without a framework of state has an irritant to the fledgling Irish Free proved very difficult. The Independent I myself came out of the remnants of State—an abnormal entity which could Labour Party tried its damnedest (one of the NILP. Labour remained strong in give Britain ongoing leverage with the our members, Joe Keenan, wrote a Newtownabbey (to the north of Belfast) Irish state. At the time of the setting up of magnificent account of the ILP which I as it collapsed elsewhere. This was because Northern Ireland, the loss of the Free State would encourage anyone interested to it retained some good, long serving, was seen by Britain as an historic mistake. read—it gives the best impression that individual councillors. It was in a strong The Redmondite development was the I've read about how hard people tried in blue collar manufacturing area where proper course—a course that would have developing a left alternative). (The Labour Trade Union instincts ran deep. And, for seen Ireland as a junior partner in Empire, Opposition of Northern Ireland, a many years, it also retained a bar! robbing and civilizing the world in equal complete reprint of the first Labour Newtownabbey Labour produced quite a measure. newspapers in Northern Ireland, 1925- few important figures. Kate Hoey, current The conflict in Northern Ireland arose 26—1992, ISBN 0 85034 054 3). MP for Vauxhall started there. Inez out of the way it has been governed since McCormack, the well-known trade 1921. It was a predictable consequence of After the Second World War, and partly unionist is another. However one who the British decision to keep the Six due to the euphoria surrounding the best illustrates the dilemma we have is Counties within the British state but govern development of a Welfare State, things Eamon O'Kane. Eamon was brought up in them outside the democracy of the state. could have opened up for Labour. In 1949 South Derry, but came to live in Undemocratic government has Jack Beattie was elected on a Labour Newtownabbey and was active in the consequences in the democratic era. ticket in West Belfast with a mandate to Newtownabbey Labour Party. He was But take the Labour whip at Westminster. He also a teacher and a trade unionist, rising Britain has sold the idea that the trouble was rebuffed. Had Beattie's effort been to become first President, then General in the North was caused by Irish national- taken up it is probable that the Catholic Secretary of the UK-wide National ism. That idea is what revisionism is all community in particular would have joined Association of Schoolmasters, Union of about. It has been used to give Ireland a in great numbers. For the northern Catholic Women Teachers (NASUWT). As bad conscience about itself, and about community, the Labour Party was the General Secretary, in the Ernest Bevin what it had to do to achieve its independ- only conceivable bridge to the British tradition, he led British teachers' unions ence. And it is one of the lessons of the state. into a Social Partnership deal which past Dail election for us in the Labour The Northern Ireland Labour Party too, survives and thrives as an odd part of the Party. The Labour Party must reject was a very serious effort at hoisting a red British trade union landscape. Unlike the that view of things and remove the flag. At one stage it elected 4 Stormont mainstream European tradition of co- suspicion that it is an anti-national MPs (out of 52) and had a sort of Christian determination, and the social partnership party. socialist ethos with lay preachers such as arrangements in Ireland, the British Since the end of the Cold War, and in David Bleakley, Vivian Simpson and Billy tradition is wedded to a highly adversarial particular since 9/11 and Blair's Boyd prominent. David Bleakley taught system. "kaleidoscope" speech, Britain is now fully me at the Methodist College and imbued Eamon died back of cancer back in back in imperial mode. At times this is in me a constructive outlook on industrial 2005, and his wisdom and perspective is dressed as "humanitarian intervention". democracy. The NILP presented itself as sorely missed within the British Trade It cannot be said that Britain's leverage the Labour Party against a Conservative- Union movement. I remember asking him on Ireland has not been successful—with aligned Unionist Party, but in reality it why the NASUWT had become the biggest Ireland backtracking on the social Europe, knew that every piece of socialist teachers' union in Northern Ireland. It was joining the globalisers, and genuflecting legislation in Westminster was replicated, faced with two strong and traditional rivals. to Ameranglia in regard to the use of word for word, line by line, by Unionist On one hand there was the Irish National Shannon rendition flights and involvement administrations. Harry Midgely, a notable Teachers' Union, a predominantly Catholic in the ISAF force in Afghanistan. Labour stalwart, understood this and union. On the other hand, the Ulster switched to the Unionist Party post war in Teachers' Union, a predominantly A significant British effort has gone order to play a part in ensuring the into influencing Irish academic life, implementation of the Health Service and continued on page 29
30 Labour Comment Eamon Gilmore Letter To Labour Comment The following letter appeared in the Irish Mark Langhammer (N.E.C.): Speech to the Independent of 28th August 2007 Union Officials v. Tom Johnson Summer School, Galway, Elected Reps 13-15 July 2007 I was present when Eamon Gilmore used the Greaves Summer School* to I've just read the May 2007 edition of launch his Labour leadership bid and the LC which reprints an articl from Socialist What next for the Left abused the Society's facilities by walking Voice, and I take objection to a statement in Northern Ireland? out before waiting for the other speakers within it, i.e. from Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein to speak, "Workers' representatives— First, thank you for the opportunity to or taking part in the general discussions regardless of whether they are elected address you—it's appreciated. It's particul- which are central to these occasions. The by their fellow workers or are appointed arly appreciated because at this year's mood of the School at the end indicated by the management—are employees of Labour Party Conference in Wexford, that he will not be welcome again. A the undertaking. They cannot act with Northern Ireland based Labour Party central theme of Mr. Gilmore's speech the same level of independence or freedom as union officials, because they members will be asking you to endorse was that the future of Ireland and the world was determined by scientific and are dependent on the company for their the principle of the Labour Party candi- job and pay." dates contesting local government economic forces beyond political control. He said that the role of Labour politics elections in Northern Ireland—starting in I realize that this statement is made in 2009. was to be international and local without mentioning any national role or national the context of a discussion of Company polity. In this he goes further into the Unions, but could be taken as applying to There are lots of issues that I could talk lay representatives in independent Trade to you about—issues which affect the realms of the new right than the Progressive Democrats. By contrast, Mr. Mansergh Unions who are also dependent on the interests of working people in Northern company for their job and pay. Ireland. There's the water privatization talked about Fianna Fail not being hidebound by ideological committment My experience in such a capacity for issue, the Strategic Investment Board (a fifteen years was that elected "rotten borough" if ever there was one), to the "free market" and spoke about Ireland developing inside the European representatives were in general more the Private Finance Initiative, the willing to defy management than the full marketisation of health and education and model rather than the Anglo/Thatcherite model. time officials employed by the Union. a range of others. But the central issue, for Whether organizing Industrial Action or democratic socialists in Northern Ireland, At least now we know where a Labour Party under the leadership of Eamon defending individuals I certainly didn't is developing a political vehicle of scale feel constrained by being an employee of and size, capable of orientating in today's Gilmore will stand, and something about the manners of the man wishes to lead the the company, despite the occasional threat circumstances. to discipline me. I'll start with a quotation: Party of which I am a member. Conor Lynch. It may well be that my interpretation "The continuing conflict of national was not the intention of the author. allegiances has stunted the growth of Nevertheless I felt the need to offer this normal class politics in the south and * The published version incorrectly located the event at the Labour History Summer correction virtually prevented it in the North. Tom Doherty Working class Protestants in Northern School, Ed. Ireland vote for one party whilst working class Catholics vote for ******************************** ********************************* another. Both are victims of political Council—to allow local branches to be Left politics across Europe is usually discrimination and social injustice. But set up. Now we are seeking a modest next focused around a socialist or social the party political system does not provide a means by which this inequality step—to allow for Labour Party candidates democrat party contesting for state power. can be addressed." to contest the next local Council elections Around this governmental effort is often a in Northern Ireland, currently scheduled myriad of smaller socialist fringe group- Who said that? Well, that was from the for 2009. ings criticizing, seeking to influence—in Labour Party in our submission to the some cases practicing "entry-ism"—or The Labour Party has long been on Forum for Peace and Reconciliation back infiltrating. Some are genuine, some in 1994. record as wanting to develop a Third 'barking' mad. In Northern Ireland, Our conference motion will ask that the Strand in Irish political life, independent however, we're a bit like a doughnut—or of the ancient communal divisions. With Labour Party make this real—by a polo mint. We have all these colourful, registering with the Electoral Commission the main paramilitary organizations interesting, irresponsible rainbow of in Northern Ireland with a view to gradually receding and the political clowns—the Trots, the Commies, all of representatives of the two communities contesting elections there, at local them—but no solid centre. There is no government level. engaged in a less antagonistic relationship governmental party of the left. And this in Stormont (some would say engaged in is down to the strange governmental a "love in") this is not the time for those Background: the background to this is arrangements dreamt up for Northern that changes to our Labour Party committed to reconciliation to hold back. Ireland by the British state in 1921. Constitution in 2001 allowed for It is a time to consolidate the peace by individuals from Northern Ireland to join introducing real politics. Northern Ireland is not a state. It was the Labour Party as "Headquarters" A sad history: Before looking at why set up as an "outhouse" of the United members. In late 2004 the Labour Party the Labour Party should contest elections Kingdom for reasons of state. In setting up moved to create a formal advisory structure in the north, I'd like to pause and consider Northern Ireland, its people were excluded —a Branch (the Northern Ireland Labour why the left has failed in the north. The from the political parties of state—notably Forum) for its Northern Ireland based topic is "What next for the Left in Northern Labour and Conservative. This was no members. Earlier this year it was agreed to Ireland" There are lessons for us in the accident. The Lloyd George's, Churchill's recognize a Northern Ireland Constituency past. continued on page 30
31 VOLUME 25 No. 9 CORK ISSN 0790-1712
Two Views On When And Why Labour Lost Both Boat And Vote
Interviewed on the RTE radio prog- But there was also more than a loss in to do deals with Fianna Fáil, particularly ramme "This Week" on August 27 the national self-respect involved in that 1994 Charles Haughey. This testiness failed Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte debacle. A very different reading of Irish between the two wings of the broader tried to foist his own sins of failure on a party politics can be gleaned from the labour movement was a peculiarity of previous leader by damning him with faint recently published book by Tim Hastings, the time… The 1980s was a particularly praise. Rabbitte had been asked: tough time for Labour to be in govern- Brian Sheehan and Padraig Yeates, entitled ment, and it was also a time when the "You were outside the Labour Party Saving the Future: How Social Partner- trade union movement has to reassess when the most effective recent leader ship Shaped Ireland's Economic Success. its basic strategies. The dynamic Dick Spring was in position. Looking Part of the authors' scene setting includes between the two left a lot to be desired, back on all that, what do you make of the following observations from SIPTU particularly in contrast to the relation- him as a Party leader?" General President Jack O'Connor: ship between the trade unions and To which Rabbitte replied: "Perhaps the Fine Gael-Labour Fianna Fáil. Relationships between "Oh I think Spring was a remarkable Government (1983 -87) also lacked the Labour and the unions improved mark- leader… and any man who got 6.4 sort of personalities that the trade unions edly in later years, with Dick Spring percent of the vote in 1987 and then got felt at ease with. SIPTU's Jack O'Connor and Ruairi Quinn (Minister of Enter- 19.2 percent in 1992 demonstrates that." certainly takes this view. The 1987 prise, Trade and Employment, 1993- But then came the sting in the tail of the Programme for National Recovery 94 and Finance Minister 1994-97) oper- scorpion: 'would not have happened without ating social partnership under the "I think that he was also a man of his Haughey. Full stop. He and Bertie Programme for Competitiveness and time… You can't repeat those circum- Ahern understood the subtlety of Irish Work and negotiating the Partnership stances. We're in a different Ireland politics'… Jack O'Connor, looking 2000 agreement." now, times have changed. Dick Spring back, believes that Haughey and Bertie emerged as the kind of nemesis of Ahern understood 'the need to bring "SIPTU's Jack O'Connor, provides Charles J Haughey and what he stood people together'…" an intriguing perspective on the Labour for. And in that sense I suppose you Party, which he believes made 'a have to examine the decision he made In a chapter provocatively but disastrous decision' in 1994 not to go when he got 19.2 percent of the vote, accurately entitled "LABOUR MISSES back into government with Fianna Fáil which was interpreted to be a vote to OUT" the authors further relate: under Bertie Ahern. The Taoiseach Albert Reynolds (1992-94) had insisted get Fianna Fáil out. And, because of the "The Labour Party was also a backer exigencies of the circumstances in the on appointing the former Attorney of centralised deals, but was perhaps General Harry Whelehan as President Dáil at the time, he ended up making jealous of the ability of the trade unions the fateful decision to put Fianna Fáil of the High Court. Whelehan had been back in!… It was a very difficult deci- attorney general when that office had sion, but it was a decision that halved Subscribers to the magazine are regularly made a botched effort to extradite a his seats in the subsequent election in offered special rates on other publications paedophiliac priest to the North. Reynolds 1997!" resigned. Bertie Ahern, who succeed- Irish Political Review is published by ed Reynolds as leader of Fianna Fáil in Rabbitte was being too clever by half. the IPR Group: write to— 1994 and looked on the verge of The first electoral low point for Dick becoming Taoiseach, tried to mend the Spring in 1987 represented the electorate 14 New Comen Court, North Strand, Dublin 3, or coalition, but was unsuccessful,. Labour punishing the outgoing Fine Gael-Labour PO Box 339, Belfast BT12 4GQ or decided to form an alternative 'rainbow' Coalition Government, while his fall from coalition with Fine Gael and Democratic PO Box 6589, London, N7 6SG, or his 1992 grace to hit another low in 1997 Left. For O'Connor, not going into represented the electorate punishing the Labour Comment, government with Bertie Ahern was a outgoing 'Rainbow' Coalition Government C/O Shandon St. P.O., Cork City. huge missed opportunity: 'I would say of Bruton as Taoiseach, Spring as Tánaiste it was one of the two worst decisions Subscription by Post: the Labour Party made in its history.' and Rabbitte himself as Democratic Left's 12 issues: £17.50, UK; Many trade union leaders like O'Connor own Super Stickie Junior Minister. Far Euro 25, Ireland; Euro 30, Europe. were Labour supporters, but, unlike from Spring being punished in 1997 for Electronic Subscription: their colleagues in the UK, they were fashioning the successful Fianna Fáil guided by pragmatism more than Euro 15 / £12 for 12 issues ideology. Most of them saw no Coalition Government of 1992-94, he was (or Euro 1.30 / £1.10 per issue) in fact being punished for breaking it up difficulty in doing business with Fianna and handing over the reins of power to the You can also order both postal and Fáil, in fact some preferred it." electronic subscriptions from: man named "John Unionist" by Albert www.atholbooks.org Reynolds. *********************************