Fintan O'Toole Formula Obama & Arab Street Not On Our Knees Yet John Martin David Morrison Labour Comment

page 12 page 7 back page IRISH POLITICAL REVIEW November 2010 Vol.25, No.11 ISSN 0790-7672 and Northern Star incorporating Workers' Weekly Vol.24 No.11 ISSN 954- 5891

Like A Virgin! Lisbon looms again! Witnesses To Mass Murder In The Icy Bann is the headline to an Irish Times article The EU has had to come up with an ad advertising the opening of a Trinity College exhibition of documents written by hoc response to the Greek sovereign debt Protestants who suffered a setback in the English/Scottish ethnic cleansing of Ulster in issue. It sought to do so by pledging a 1641.. large amount of money to bail out Greece If the word "murder" is to be used about events in a conflict of civilisations over three called the European Financial Stabiliz- and a half centuries ago, then so must some other words that are not pleasant. ation Facility (EFSF). However, this was There was a time—we recall it well: it was not very long ago—when superior people clearly a stop-gap solution and something deplored the fact that there were bigots with long memories who carried on about things more permanent had to be done and there that happened in the 17th century as if those events had something to do with us. As we has been much talk of more 'economic understood their position, it was that there was a time in the past beyond which moral governance' to ensure more stability and standards and moral judgments did not apply That view seemed sensible to us and we were happy to go along with it. But, if the superior people now want to publish co-ordination among Euro states. Presi- sensationalist headlines about "murder" in the mid-16th century, and relate that "murder" dent van Rompuy was given the task of to politics in the present day, then we must also discuss ethnic cleansing, colonial coming up with a real solution. displacement, cultural genocide, and perhaps even actual genocide. The subject is a Pandora's Box, best left unopened. But the superior people have POLITICAL CRUX opened it—their columnist John Waters has assured us that they are the superior people. When the Euro was established, budget- So be it! ary and other economic issues were left to the national states. Fiscal rules were agreed A correspondent to the Irish Times (22 Oct.) wrote: and then ignored by Member States for "It is hardly possible to exaggerate the importance of the publication of the 1641 their own political reasons. And this caused Depositions in Trinity College Library, hidden from view (in the best Trinity manner) for the current economic problems. well over three centuries. They provide detailed accounts of the massacre of Protestant The debt crisis is clearly a problem that settlers at the outbreak of the 1641 rebellion, and future study of them will surely alter our cannot be solved by throwing huge perception of the nature of religious conflict between Protestants and Catholics in Ireland. amounts of money at it. In fact that will "Who knows? Perhaps we may even have to revise our historical judgement of that devil incarnate, Oliver Cromwell (an Englishman as well as a Protestant). make it worse as the Greeks and others "We may certainly be encouraged by the publication of such documents to challenge will interpret it as being let off the hook wherever we find them (and from whatever direction) expressions of sectarian hatred. and the money markets will see a large Neither side in this terrible conflict has a monopoly of truth and justice. continued on page 2 continued on page 4

Taming Tigers? Sunday Independent headline, October one of the golden chains that Connolly 24th: Soden: Let's Quite EU And Join US. warned about in vain. Selecting suitable people for jobs is a Soden is Mark Soden, a former inter- When Soden was dropped by the Bank, large part of the art of government. The national banker who was Chief Executive he wrote a book suggesting that Ireland Minister for Finance set up a Central Bank of the Bank of Ireland, which pushed him should break the European ties on it and Commission to advise him, and to carry out in 2004 for accessing adult internet look West. On his appointment to the weight with international banking for sites on his work computer. Central Bank Commission on October being independent. The name Bank of Ireland carries a 1st, he advised the Government about the One member of this Commission has comfortable national feeling. It is not contents of his book, which was about to suggested selling off the two main Irish widely understood that the Bank of Ireland be published, and was appointed anyway. Banks. Another has suggested leaving the was the British Bank in Ireland, established At least there can be no doubt about his EU and becoming the 51st State of the in the days of the Protestant Ascendancy, independence. He is entirely free of the USA. and that after independence it remained Irish orientation in the world of the last continued on page 5 fundamentalists who had usurped the power of state by means of Parliament, C O N T E N T S broken the stable Government in Ireland, Page and threatened mayhem in Ireland against Like A Virgin! Rediscovering 1641. Editorial 1 Catholics and those loyal to the Crown. Lisbon Looms Again. Jack Lane 1 Taming Tigers? Editorial 1 The dispossession of the Irish in Ulster Readers' Letters: Augsburg & Westphalia, Stephen Richards. by the Crown, and the displacement of the Rose-Tinted View Of Fianna Fail? Kells reader natives by colonists—selected on sectarian Private Hospitals. Nick Folley 3 grounds to minimise the danger of fellow- Obama's 'New Beginning' At An End In The Arab World? David Morrison 7 feeling arising between the new possessors Political Snapshot. Philip O'Connor 7 and the dispossessed—had happened a Harris Doing As Harris Does. Jack Lane 8 generation before the governing system based on the Plantation was undermined First Ballymurphy, Then Bloody Sunday. Report, and Poem by W.J. Haire 9 by the English Parliament. It had happened Shorts from the Long Fellow (State Broadcaster; Anglo Bank Cost; Brian Lucey & well within living memory. The State— David McWilliams; Government Performance; Could And Should; Lucey On The the regime—on whose authority it was Property Market; Lenihan On Banking Crisis; The Irish Times; The Village 10 done, was undermined. The dispossessed Moral Denunciation From O'Toole. John Martin 12 acted to resume possession. They set 1939 Greaves-Regan-O'Riordan Conversations. Manus O'Riordan 14 about uprooting the Plantation. Republican Ireland And Zionism. Philip O'Connor. As far as one can tell at this distance, (Part 1, De Valera On Zionism And Palestine) 18 the regime of the Crown in the Irish In Reply To Jeff Dudgeon On Peter Hart. Niall Meehan 21 Parliament was functional. When the Es Ahora. Julianne Herlihy (The Cosh Of The Crozier; Ireland & The IMF; regime was overthrown, the consequences History Of IMF; Manifest Destiny) 23 were much like the consequences of the Hard On Hart? Brendan Clifford 25 overthrow of the functional Baathist Biteback: Nama & Associate Professor Lucey. Feargus O Raghallaigh 26 regime by USUK, with Irish assistance. Naval Warfare. Pat Walsh. (Part 1) 28 Is there an eternal morality that applies When. Poem and article by Wilson John Haire 32 to these things, and that is applicable, Does It Stack Up? Michael Stack (The Government; Croke Park Agreement; regardless of circumstances and elapsed Bertie Ahern; Department Of Finance; Automatic Pilot) 33 time? We are told that the overthrow of the Labour Comment, edited by Pat Maloney: Iraqi regime was virtuous because it Not On Our Knees Yet, James! brought down a "tyrant", and did not lose (back page) its virtue because of what it led to, even though the consequences were foreseeable. "I express my warmest congratulations Catholic and Protestant, settler and Gael, We gave the people of Iraq their freedom to the department of history and to Prof. met during the 1630s when the English and that was a meritorious act, regardless Jane Ohlmeyer and also to their colleagues did not meet as it had shown itself of what they did when freed from the in Aberdeen and Cambridge. subversive of government. The Stuart regime. "Yours etc, Gerald Morgan, But there was a social stratum in Iraq The Chaucer Hub, Trinity College." monarchy was acceptable to the Irish on traditional grounds,despite what it had that felt free under the tyranny, and because So Professor Morgan of the Chaucer done to them. However, it was not of the tyranny, under which there was a Hub is shocked by the revelation from the acceptable to an English faction, and when degree of order, a kind of citizenship, and opening of hidden documents of alleged the English Parliament was called in 1640- reliable infrastructure of public amenities massacre in Ulster. 41, it went into rebellion. The King's that enabled them to live like us. And the Hidden documents! There have been Minister in Ireland was called to London Irish had reason to know that, having had long stretches of time when published and killed by the rebellious Parliament. a considerable degree of intercourse with histories of Ireland seemed to deal with His crime was that he had governed Ireland the Tyranny. little but the allegations in these "hidden" as a Kingdom of the Three Crowns, instead The Iraqi middle class was destroyed documents. of as an English adjunct. by the freedom we helped to bring the Do the superior people have an amnesia The governing of Ireland was disrupted country—either by being broken internally switch that enables them to forget about by political instability in England, not for by the Reign of Terror that freedom the Trinity Depositions so that they can the first time or the last. The Henry the brought, or managing to get out and find experience the excitement of encountering Eighthist-Elizabethan state religion was countries where their skills were valued. them and being penetrated by them again? thrown off by a wild, anarchic kind of Tariq Aziz, the representative Christian Like A Virgin! Protestantism, lacking the coherence of Prime Minister in the Tyranny, has just The ethnic cleansing of Ulster accomp- the evolved forms that developed on the been sentenced to death by the Shia lished under James Ist was followed by Continent. Government for religious persecution. the establishment of a functional system If we are to talk emotionally about Shia freedom was certainly curbed by the of government under Charles 1st. An murder with relation to 1641, it should be Tyranny, and large numbers of Shias were Irish Parliament representing the main about the murder of the King's Irish drawn into administering the system of social bodies in the country, including Minister by the unstable, fanatical religious the Tyranny. If we are to take it that 2 religious persecution is a crime meriting death—and as supporters of the liberation LETTERS TO THE EDITOR · LETTERS TO THE EDITOR· LETTERS TO THE EDITOR· of Iraq how can we do otherwise?—then a lot of re-writing of Irish history needs to be done. The English tried for hundreds of Augsburg And Westphalia years to civilise us by religious persecution. My Junior History memories came flooding back as I read about the Kanturk launch And let us recall that, when the persecut- of John Minahane’s translation of Conor O'Mahony's book on the rights of the kingdom ing regime in Iraq was overthrown, the of Ireland in the mid-seventeenth century. It was Pat Muldowney's reference to the Peace persecuted were urged to seek out the of Westphalia that set me going. Cuius Regio, Eius Religio: whose is the kingdom, his persecutors and kill them. (or hers) is the religion. As a guiding principle by which to pacify Europe this actually We supported the overthrow of the predates Westphalia by nearly a century. regime in our little way, and Minister By 1555 the Emperor Charles V was worn out and at his wits' end. The Lutheran heresy Mansergh, adviser to Taoiseachs, explain- was well established in the northern parts of his dominions, and the Calvinist heresy was ed why it was the right thing to do. And, spreading like a rash all over his dominions, and in Poland and Hungary to the east and France to the west. The Hapsburgs and the Catholic Church needed time to regroup. So to the best of our knowledge, we still think in the imperial city of Augsburg the famous formula was worked out. it was a good thing to wreck the Tyranny It applied only within the Empire, and only to Catholics and Lutherans. There was (the State), but carry on as if that act was meant to be no place for Calvinists in the Empire, and as for the Anabaptists, well, they separable from its consequences. We are weren't supposed to have any future at all, and many of them didn’t, but others survived, in denial about the mayhem we helped to and by the late 17th century they were beginning to emigrate to North America. In 1555 bring about seven years ago. And yet we the Catholic princes still controlled the lion's share of the Empire. From then until 1618 seem to be on the verge of pleading guilty the Hapsburgs continued to try to throttle the Reformation. I used to think that the Thirty for the revolt of the survivors of the Ulster Years' War was started by a combination of a reckless Prince, Frederick the Elector Plantation against the Plantation over a Palatine, and a bunch of Bohemian Protestant hotheads. But that was far from the case. third of a millennium ago, when the Or if they were mad they had been driven mad. The alternative to revolt was slow authority responsible for the Plantation strangulation. Westphalia represented a small advance. Subjects within a given realm, even Calvin- was being overthrown. ists, might be allowed to exercise a contrary faith to that of the ruler, but only judiciously in private. Even that concession wasn’t to apply in the Hapsburg lands, as the Hapsburgs About fifteen years after 1641, the Eng- wanted time to complete their work of stamping out any Protestant variants within lish Rebellion, having conquered Ireland Bohemia and Upper Austria. Treatment of the Calvinist Palatines, whose territory I think in the usual way, was conducting persecut- was handed over to the Wittelsbachs of Bavaria, was so bad that many of them had to flee, ions in Ireland of people who had not some to County Limerick. I recall from Luke Delmege (Canon Sheehan) that Luke was remained true to their allegiance in 1641 something like a fourth generation Palatine. Maybe that was why he found it so hard to after the structure of that allegiance had enter into the mindset of local clergy and laity: he was at heart a systematizing German. been broken by the English Parliament, Stephen Richards and had done killings not authorised by the lawful authority—the lawful authority Rose-Tinted View Of Fianna Fail? being the one overthrown by those English I wish to renew my postal subscription to your excellent publication. Overall your rebels. publication's political analysis is excellent even if you seem to believe Fianna Fáil are And we are now being persuaded to the same revolutionary, republican left of centre mass movement of the 1930s. Dev is have second thoughts about Cromwell,and a long time in his grave and the present Fianna Fáil leadership and general financial perhaps apologise for having called him a backers, although more progressive on the national question than the partitionist mindset bad man. And the reasons we are given people in Fine Gael, are nowadays very much part of the Irish establishment, and for re-considering are the merest quibbles. respectable Irish society, and have been for a long time now. Keep up the good work What Cromwell should be judged by is Political Review but don't ignore Fianna Fáil's shortcomings. not his military behaviour in Drogheda, or Kells, Co. Meath reader whether the religious freedom he announ- ced was genuine—even though it criminal- Private Hospitals ised the Mass. He was a bad man because It seems obvious to me that having a vibrant and functioning public health system is he was a mere rebel—an incompetent revo- diametrically opposed to the 'needs' of private health care. Who would bother with lutionary perhaps, but therefore a mere rebel. private care if the public system really worked? For those enslaved by 'free-for-all Rebellion is becoming popular in south- market' ideology the only purpose of a government 'health' department would be to run ern Ireland. The Mercier Press—one of down the public health system in order to absolve the state of any responsibility for its the few Irish book publishers left—has citizens' health (other than forbidding them from sparking up in pubs and stopping them approvingly reduced the Constitutional from taking recreational drugs) and drive them into the arms of private health care—if Revolution enacted in 1918-21 to a mere they can afford it. And if they can't.... well they can die on waiting lists. That would Rebellion. Rebellion may be a good thing explain the otherwise odd behaviour of boards like the HSE, for example. in some circumstances—e.g. when life is And so, with the Hippocratic Oath delegated to the bottom of the drawer, we can get made intolerable by a state and there is no on with the real business of making money for our shareholders. What really sticks in my throat though is when private companies get a foot in the door of hospitals that were built practical possibility of improving it, and with public money. If they want hospitals to make private profit for their shareholders, one becomes a Whiteboy or an Intefadist— let them **** off and build their own hospitals at least, or buy (at the best price for the but there is no excuse for it when a rebel people who built them—i.e the public) the existing hospital. One of the ironies of the time acquires state power but remains a rebel. is the attention drawn to the lack of hospital beds, when I think of all the hospitals built Cromwell gained immense power and in the 50s and 60s and sold off in the 80s & 90s for a pittance to hotel consortiums etc.. Nick Folley continued on page 4 3 dictatorial authority but didn't know what tion, effectively Merkel and Sarkozy have the lobby in Ireland will have to argue, not to do with it. He was a religious fanatic laid down that a new Treaty change was just for reduced voting power as before, whose fanaticism ran out and left him in needed. Van Rompuy was on course to but for depriving themselves of a vote at the doldrums. God stopped telling him propose something more timid. all in some circumstances. It will be turkeys what to do, so he didn't know what to do. It is hard to see how the new demands voting for Xmas. Vote yes to deprive He died and left a shambles behind him. for tough sanctions on Euro states who go yourself of a vote could be a slogan for the His disciples were lost sheep. The King over budget can be resisted. After all, it is opposition! that Cromwell failed to capture and kill these states which depend on Germany was brought home to restore the Monarchy and others to guarantee their borrowings. IT'S POLITICS, STUPID —and he killed a raft of rebels while the Such states are hardly in a position to The issue this inevitably poses is: what country gave a sigh of relief. resist any safeguards which are demanded is the EU now for? Is it an entity worth Why should we bother our heads about in return for economic help. losing such political power for? this troublemaker—this bungling rebel? The underlying assumption for the Clarendon—who left the incompetent Once such changes go through, over- proposed change is that the EU is, and was Parliament to serve the King, and who budget Euro Member States could lose created to be, an economic solution to the returned to office with the King, said he political powers for what would be judged member States' problems. If this is so, it is was a "great bad man". Maybe so. Not economic misdemeanours. This is turning built on sand. many rebels achieve supreme power in a the EU's priorities upside down. The The original EU project was never an state. But, of those who did so, we know emphasis on economic governance assumes economic project. It was set up to liberate of none who just did not know what to do that the problem the EU faces is an Europe from Britain and its entire works with it. economic problem. But it is not. Estab- which had destroyed Europe twice in the lishing the Euro was a straight political 20th century. It was to offer Europe and If, as the Irish Times says, the Ulster decisions by the Member States, just as the world a new polity that ensured a dispossessed who tried to get their property the whole EU project was. The Euro aimed social market; an end to the colonial era; a back, when the authority of the State was at monetary union to cement the creation non-dictating relationship of equals, undermined, were murderers, then Crom- of a single market, and to ensure Germany including past colonial nations; and an well was a murderer. He did not have was more locked into Europe after re- independence of the USA and the USSR. lawful authority. It was acknowledged by unification. The political tool for this was Christian all in 1660 that lawful authority remained Moreover, just as setting up the Euro Democracy which had imbibed the dread- with the Crown. There was no English had a political inspiration, the attack on ful experiences of modern Europe. All Republican Government In Exile. It was the Euro by the Anglosphere has a political else was subordinate to these aims. Ireland the Republicans, whose Republic had purpose. could fit into this like a glove. collapsed in their own heads, who brought But every single positive element that back the King and made submission to CONSTITUTION? created the EU project has been killed off him. And it was as an element in Monarch- The politics of the EU itself during this or reversed. All the member countries ial Government that the English Parliament period was consumed by the perceived agree on now is the very opposite of the gained a role in the conduct of the state need for a Constitution. The attempt to founding ethos of the project. This cannot that was not disruptive of the state. adopt such a Constitution democratically bring political unity or governance— failed. Eventually, in order to sell the economic or otherwise. Now the nations project, the EU strategists salvaged what of Europe behave like cats in a sack. And they could out of the proposed constitution they lack the political and moral authority Lisbon Looms and called it a Treaty. They had to concede continued to put economic factors in their right per- that this agreement would be the final act spective. The result is political contort- crock of EU gold that can be siphoned off in the political development of the EU. ions of the most intricate kind. by them, via the bailing out of the 'problem' Lisbon was the endgame: it was to be France was always central to the EU countries, as and when they are deemed to sacrosanct, and the final political structure Project. I can't think how anybody could have become a problem by the Credit and aim. The EU imposed a political limit now believe that Mr. Sarkozy gives a Rating Agencies. on itself. It boxed itself into a political damn about Europe any more—if he ever But if money cannot solve it what can? hole—to mix metaphors. did. Apparently he now wants, among This is the dilemma facing Mr. van Rom- other things, the UK Foreign Office reject puy, the current President of the European But, as Parnell said about Ireland, and torture-sanctioner, David Miliband, Council. His report is due out at the end of 'nobody has the right to set a limit to the to be the next EU Foreign Affairs Czar! October (past this magazine's deadline). march of a nation', and similarly the nations Britain under Edward Heath did care A draft was promised at the end of Septem- of the EU cannot halt their political about Europe and had some vision that ber but did not materialise. development for good or ill—even if they coincided with that of other Member States But the President's plans were ambush- wanted to! but, since Thatcherism took over, Britain ed by the understanding reached between They will march on and they did march does not give a damn about Europe either. Merkel and Sarkozy at Deauville on 19th on and the EU was hoisted on its own And France and Britain together will October. This proposes sanctions as being petard called Lisbon. always browbeat Germany into whatever necessary to ensure strict fiscal compliance The endgame was over within months they want and the others then fall into line. by Euro members. One of the proposed when Greece was bailed out and now the sanctions is to deprive States of voting pro-Lisbon people, who in Ireland To have more economic governance powers in EU councils for misbehaviour. promised that the referendum would be there has to be more political governance As such a far-reaching change cannot the last for years, will have to eat their but what will be the basis for this? Any be imposed under the present EU constitu- words and start again. But this time around new political structure in the world, and 4 the EU is a very new structure both in time reality and anyone given that power cannot off a collapse in the banking system, he and in organisational terms, has to have a resist using it. gave an inspirational speech, saying that very new, distinctive and attractive he was an Irish nationalist and believed message for itself and the world in order to POLITICS IN COMMAND Ireland was capable of supporting an win real popular support and trust—the The history of modern Europe and the independent banking system. And Ireland only keys to solving economic and other history of the only successful Marxists in without a native banking system would problems. Unfortunately, what existed of the world outside Europe provide con- certainly not be independent—as various this is disappearing fast. clusive proof that it is politics which is countries in Eastern Europe have found to Mr. van Rompuy has a difficult task. primary, and economics very much a poor their cost. They allowed their banks to be Look at his own country, Belgium. That second. If economics ruled the roost, there bought be external forces, with the result had a fair amount of economic and political would be no world wars and no Russian, that—when the financial crisis hit—they governance, was quite well off, and had Chinese or other revolutions. And Vietnam found they lacked a vital lever for taking millions poured into its economy every would hardly have resisted the USA on remedial action. year by the EU bureaucracy. Yet now it the basis of economics! No more than There is a talent for choosing experts to has less common governance by every Afghanistan resisted the USSR and is give independent advice about a problem passing day. Belgian may be the future now resisting the US on the basis of its within the terms of the problem, and it model for the EU! economics. Yet, despite the overwhelming differs to giving free rein to eccentrics evidence that people are fundamentally whose centre of gravity lies elsewhere. motivated by other human attributes, There is a difference between giving a QUO VADIS? In the Oval Office, apparently, there economic determinism rules the roost and willing horse his head and giving a horse are no clocks that give the time in any nowhere more so than in think-tanks of freedom to kick over the traces. European capital. Europe is just like a the EU. It simply means that they cannot fifth wheel to US Foreign policy and, like cope. The great surprise of recent times has Sarkozy's experience, the more the EU When President van Rompuy produces been Garret FitzGerald, the Commonwealth becomes an abject follower, the more his report, I doubt if he will refer to these -man and doctrinaire Free Trader. In the irrelevant it becomes to the US and the issues and we will get instead a report that past we have thought he was wrong on just less it is necessary to consult it. will have to be decoded before it can be about everything, from the North to the The EU is becoming more despised by understood. And then it will be only taken world. But in recent months he has gone the day. The EU has lost its way and that notice of in the political interplay of the completely against the Fine Gael stream is why it has an ongoing economic crisis. Member States and all else will be for the and supported the Government efforts to There is no centre, there are only synthetic birds—and the media. preserve the national economy. And his objectives, and there is no confidence in In fact Rompuy's scheme has already stand was probably an influence in obliging itself. It follows NATO militarily and the been superseded by Merkel and Sarkozy— Fine Gael—and Labour too—to take up IMF in economics. which proves that nobody who matters the Government offer of a look at the There is a great irony in the fact that, takes any notice of this European President, books in the Department of Finance. though Marxism is dead and gone, a or of any of the other three that prance That look at the books has, of course, perverted remnant of Marxism remains in around the corridor of the EU. Like Lisbon, partly disabled the Opposition. the subliminally accepted basic fact they are all already pass their sell-by date. It is also likely that Eamonn Gilmore, about society in Western Europe, i.e., that Jack Lane the Stickie leader of the Labour Party,was economics determines human behaviour. getting vertigo. The Opinion Polls were The thinking is that, if you get the economic showing him as being in danger of being levers right with the Euro, economic Taming Tigers? the next Taoiseach, and it was an event governance etc., then the political co- continued that could happen at any moment. ordination and integration will follow as On the eve of the crisis he made the surely as a car will go when switched on third of a century, which all parties other Labour Party into a middle class business and put in gear. than Sinn Fein have supported. party. When the crisis struck, his policy— From the left to the right it is accepted or his rhetoric—suggested that the market Another Commissioner, Patrick Honohan should be let rip. This was seasoned with that, if you follow the money trail, you —a former Trinity College Professor of will find the source and the reason for some socialist rhetoric about not honouring International Financial Economics who debts to wicked bankers. What would he people's behaviour. And, without that was recently made the new broom Gov- guide, where would our media and invest- do if he came to office on a wave of that ernor of the Central Bank in 2009—made rhetoric? Or was his concern that, if he igative journalists be? They would have a speech on the fringes of an IMF/World nothing to say and nothing to investigate! persisted with that rhetoric, the voters Bank Conference in America, suggesting would, in the moment of truth at the ballot And, if the political establishment that the Irish Banks might be sold off. So box, defect from the opinion that they accepts that economics is the driver of he too is free of any concern for the Irish gave to the pollsters? behaviour, then it is inevitable that it is national economy. automatically beholden to its sharpest and After the look at the books, and the But will it reassure the international best-organized practitioners in the finan- consequent admission of the reality of the bankers that Ireland is a going economic cial markets—who can dictate their terms problem as stated by the Government, concern, when two of the independent to the politicians. Once they were called Gilmore has committed himself to the advisers chosen by the Finance Minister the 'gnomes of Zurich'; now they are the basics of the Government policy for four say that it is a write-off? all-powerful 'bondholders', with an aura years. That may make him more safely of power that can make or break a country. When Brian Lenihan first announced electable. But it might also raise the The aura when accepted becomes a the emergency Bank Guarantee, to stave question for possible voters of why to go 5 for a change of Government, when the Ireland had its glorious twenty years of as it had never been before, what were the Opposition has come to support the capitalism. (Maybe that was the "error" Irish but a raw democracy loose in a free approach which it condemned the Govern- that Mansergh had in mind? Maybe the market, which had acquired its own ment for adopting. Government's Red-baiter was a closet globalist dimension, in which greed was Socialist all the time?) the supreme economic virtue? Martin Mansergh, junior Minister at Vigorous, exuberant capitalism is what The only constraining institution that the Finance Department, made a speech in Ireland had. That was the Celtic Tiger. was in some degree native, the Catholic London that was reported in the Sunday Exuberant capitalism without greed— Church, was rejected in the course of Independent under the headline, Govern- that is the most mindless of all Utopias. becoming globalist operators. And the ment Errors And Greed Caused Crisis— If this free-wheeling capitalism was Irish had never really assimilated the Mansergh. the error, then somebody did see it— economics of Christian Democracy It does not appear from the report that Garret FitzGerald, the Free Trader. About anyway. Mansergh was suggesting that the greed ten years ago he said he thought there had was the Government's, only the errors. been enough economic development, and Mansergh makes passing mention of And it is also not clear what the errors the time had come to stabilise. But that is "international factors": "the crisis where were. He is reported as saying there was the great secret of the world that nobody domestic and international factors anger in Ireland at the Government "for has found out—how to stabilise capitalism, compounded each other". He does not allowing a critical situation, in which how to say, This is enough, let us settle specify the international factors, but when deep cuts would be needed, to occur". down where we are! Ireland went globalist, they were by far But, unless he specifies particular Govern- And the pressure that was coming from the more important. And, in the critical ment errors which brought about this situ- leaders of the capitalist world was all the period, the most damaging of them was ation, the statement is pretty meaningless. other way: there should be deregulation the EU. He deplores the statement of former of controls on capital and on business. Germany had a capitalism in which the Finance Minister, Charlie McCreevy, The sacred dogma coming from Britain market was bound up with constraining "when we have it we spend it", but and America was that the market knew factors. Connolly discovered this and comments: "fortunately he did not entirely best and a country interfered with it at its supported Germany on Socialist ground— act on it". And he says that public pay own peril. but enough of that: we must not think of should have been held down. It went against all that FitzGerald had Connolly and Germany, it would spoil It is not indicated how public pay could been preaching to say Ireland had enough Our War. have been held down in a situation when capitalist development and should have When Prussia beat off the French the whole economy was booming in a no more. There was some merit in saying invasion of 1870 and Bismarck constructed Partnership society. The fact is that Fianna that during the boom. But he no more idea the German State after 1871, a kind of Fail under Bertie Ahern spread prosperity than anyone else of how to halt the wild feudalism was built into the structure of around, both to public servants and the development of a boom without bringing things. The working class was given lower reaches of society. Social welfare on the inevitable bust sooner than necessary. status without being reduced to an inchoate in Ireland became one of the most generous The capitalist market must expand or mass by individualisation in the first place regimes in Europe—far superior to what die. Every year a surplus profit is produced and then having to engage in class war for is available in the North and in Britain. for which an avenue of investment must any rights at all. This was the basis of the And, if there are now to be cuts, they will be found which will lead to an even greater strong Social Democracy of Germany be from a higher level. In Britain the surplus. Marx worked that out a century before 1914. Tories are about to cut welfare from rates and a half ago, and capitalism has obeyed In 1919 Germany was punished with that are far lower than Irish levels. his theory of it ever since. an ultra democracy in which free capital- ism was let rip. This led to the chronic "Many now claim to have foretold the An element of market activity, heavily crisis that ended only with the introduction crisis", Mansergh said, "but the record constrained by political forces superior to of corporatist capitalism after 1933. After does not bear them out". But, if the crisis the market, is a possibility. But where are 1945 Germany was taken in hand by resulted from particular mistakes, and it such forces to be found in Ireland? Adenauer's Christian Democracy with would not have happened if those mistakes Market development under the influ- inbuillt corporatist structures which curbed had not been made, it would be surprising ence of a strongly conservative and the free impulses of capitalism while facil- if nobody had seen those mistakes, and traditional ruling class, which transmits itating economic growth. (There was a surprising that Mansergh has not clearly its values to the mass of society as democ- real continuity between Hitler's Germany identified them in retrospect. racy encroaches, might result in a restrain- and Adenauer's Germany in many respects, A remark by McCreevy that he did not ed capitalism in which the market is not which is why there was an easy transition fully act on, and public salaries a bit too given its head. But the Irish ruling class, to democracy. The German authorities high, hardly amount to an adequate cause when it had one, was alien. It could naturally did not proclaim that continuity, of the crisis. oppress and plunder, but could not guide— while the Western conquerors denied it, And then there was greed. (Is it sensible and, in any case, it was neither traditional attributing post-1945 German develop- to condemn greed when talking of the nor conservative, but was the spider that ment to their "denazification". But the market?!?) Mansergh told London's spun the web of Globalism. And, when "de-Nazification" was barely skin deep. It economists: "I think there is an argument the Irish obliged it to leave, it continued to was called off very quickly in order to for saying that Irish society, or certainly plunder by means of the golden chains. enlist Germany in the new Cold War the upper echelons—whether in the public And, when Haughey snapped some of the against the force that had actually defeated or private sector—did become somewhat golden chains—getting little thanks for Germany, Soviet Russia. (In 2003 the greedy". it—leaving the country free and ambitious British and Americans, having fooled 6 themselves that they had transformed the past. A free financial sector, operating Germany through in-depth de-Nazification, autonomously and globally, became the Political Snapshot set about de-Baathifying Iraq with disast- medium in which industry functioned. rous consequences.) This new medium of finance held that The changing mood in Ireland toward a constructive approach to dealing with the Lenin described the German economic the German system was counter-competitive. crisis—see Fianna Fail Renaissance? in form developed during the Great War as It took the matter to the EU Court, which October's Labour Comment—was further Finance Capitalism—an interconnection ruled in its favour and that German finance- reflected in RTE’s Frontline (Pat Kenny, of capitalism and industry under Govern- capitalism was to be broken up. This 18th October). It was the most positive of ment supervision. And that is what there threw the German banks onto the inter- these programmes yet, and a step away was in post-1945 Germany. There were national banking system, making it even from the “bear pit” described last month, State Banks (banks under the Länder) wilder. where Kenny has to date unleashed self investing in local industries they were That is what the EU was doing in things indulgent mobs against politicians. familiar with. that mattered while Ireland was being Archbishop Martin, and even Niall In Britain and America there was the distracted by Pat Cox's anti-Commission Crowley, attacked the pervasive opposite development. Small banks, in 'corruption' campaign—hinging on a negativism (to thunderous applause) and, contrary to Kenny’s urgings, did not which Bank Managers knew something favour done by a French Commissioner to support notions of “civil society” setting of local industry became old-fashioned. her hairdresser—and by agonising over itself up in opposition to “politics”. Both Finance became a thing in itself, subject to whether it dared repeat its first vote against of them appealed to young people to get the normal course of expansion in response Maastricht and Lisbon a second time involved in existing political parties and to competition. The financing of industrial round. to renew them. What was most surprising expansion out of industrial profits, or with If there is any possibility of having a was the receptiveness of the audience to a loan from a bank manager who knew reasonably stable system of capitalism, it what they were saying. your business better than you did and was is only on the lines of the German system— Meanwhile in the “Ireland’s Greatest” probably better placed to estimate risks which Ireland has helped to destroy and show (based on the BBC’s “Greatest than you were—all that became a thing of which the EU has declared illegal. Briton which won by a landslide by Churchill), there is no doubt that, if voting was to be on the basis of the best case made, Mary Robinson, championed by David McWilliams, would win hands Obama's "new beginning" at an end in the Arab world? down. Joe Duffy gave an awful presentation on “poor aul’ James Connolly, he lived in penury”, which An opinion poll conducted in 6 Arab According to the poll, Obama's policy on Israel/Palestine is the main reason for seemed to project Joe as the new Connolly. countries in July 2010 showed a precipi- McDowell’s presentation on behalf of his decline in popularity. That is hardly a tous drop in the approval rating of President Collins was equally awful, though it was Obama and his administration, and a surprise. In the first few months of his enjoyable watching him justifying taking dramatic rise in approval for Iran acquiring presidency, he raised expectations that he British spies off trams and executing nuclear weapons compared with a year was going to force Israel to accept the them—“had to be done” quipped Michael. earlier. creation of a Palestinian state in the terri- Otherwise McDowell’s portrait was a It looks like Obama's ambition "to seek tories it has occupied by force since 1967. rehash of the Tim Pat Coogan book. The a new beginning between the United States Those expectations were dashed when, other two making the short list of five and Muslims around the world", as set out faced with opposition from Prime Minister were Bono and John Hume. And, in the in his Cairo speech in May 2009 {1}, is at Netanyahu, he gave up trying to force event, Hume won. an end in the Arab world. Israel to halt settlement-building in those Philip O'Connor The poll is conducted annually for the territories. Understandably, the Arab Brookings Institute by Zogby International world has concluded that, if he wasn't It is difficult to believe that he would be and Shibley Telhami at the University of prepared to force Israel to cease planting as forgiving of Palestinian action that Maryland {2}. The countries covered— Jewish settlers on the territory where a "violates previous agreements and under- Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi mines efforts to achieve peace". Signifi- Palestinian state is supposed to be estab- Arabia and the United Arab Emirates— cantly, in the same Cairo speech, he are among the least radical in the Middle lished, then there is very little chance of insisted that "to play a role in fulfilling East and, apart from Lebanon, have an his forcing Israel to withdraw from that Palestinian aspirations" Hamas had to almost exclusively Sunni Arab population. territory altogether to enable such a state "recognize past agreements". He has yet to be established. to lift that requirement upon Hamas. OBAMA PLUMMETS In his speech in Cairo on 4th June 2009, Respondents with a positive view of Obama declared: IRAN RISES President Obama dropped from 45% to "The United States does not accept the The Brookings poll also revealed a legitimacy of continued Israeli settle- significant shift over the past year in Arab 20% between 2009 and 2010, while those ments. This construction violates with a negative view rose from 23% to previous agreements and undermines attitudes towards Iran and Iran's nuclear 62%. Similarly, whereas in 2009 51% of efforts to achieve peace. It is time for activities. A fundamental part of the those polled described themselves as these settlements to stop." Middle East strategy followed by the "hopeful" about the Obama administra- Obama administration (and its pre- However, by September, in the face of decessor) has been to attempt to build an tion's Middle East policy, a year later this opposition from Netanyahu, he accepted figure had plummeted to 16%. In line that this construction could continue, alliance with Sunni Arab states against with this, those "discouraged" by US despite the fact that it "violates previous Shia (non-Arab) Iran. The US would have policy rose from a mere 15% to a massive agreements and undermines efforts to us believe that Sunni Arabs view Iran as a 63%. achieve peace". great threat to the stability of the region, 7 just like the US says it does. This poll shows conclusively that popular Arab opinion certainly does not regard Iran as a threat to any great extent. Harris doing as Harris does Asked to name the two countries that pose the biggest threat in the world, Israel was Eoghan Harris's efforts to keep re- view at the height of the Great War, in a choice of 88% of respondents, followed inventing himself continue apace. His May 1918: closely by the US itself with 77%. Iran recent piece in the family's house news- "'Little Belgium' had a champion in many a generous Irish youth. Their bones was a long way behind on 10%. paper, the Sunday Independent, is almost beyond belief. He says: "We did forget but today lie buried beneath the soil of On Iran's nuclear activities, a majority Flanders, or beneath the waves of Sulva (57% to 35%) believe that these activities now we must put old ghosts to rest" (15th Bay, or bleaching on the slopes of Galli- were for military purposes. While those October 2010). In reviewing a book by poli, or on the sand of Egypt or Arabia, in figures haven't changed significantly in Neil Richardson on the First World War, Mesopotamia, or wherever the battle line the past year, the approval for Iran's A Coward if I Return, A Hero if I Fall, extends from Dunkirk to the Persian Gulf. activities has increased dramatically. (O'Brien Press) he quotes the author: Mons, Ypres, will be monuments to their "Men died in their thousands, men unselfish heroism—but the land they Thus, 77% (up from 53% last year) said loved dearest on earth, the land to which that Iran has a right to its nuclear prog- were blown apart in their thousands and, in Ireland, men were forgotten in their they owed their first duty and their first ramme and only 20% (down from 40%) thousands." devotion, the land they fondly hoped support the US policy of pressurising Iran their sacrifices might assist to freedom still lies unredeemed at the feet of the to stop its nuclear programme. Then Harris comments: age-long enemy—and that she would Furthermore, 57% (up from 29% last "The question hangs there: how could year) thought that, if Iran acquired nuclear thus lie were every youth within her a civilized country forget the sufferings borders to immolate themselves in this weapons, the likely outcome for the Middle of tens of thousands of fathers, brothers, war is the fixed conviction of all Irishmen East region would be "more positive", friends and neighbours? The traditional who permit themselves to see things as compared with 21% (down from 46%) answer is that 1916 changed everything. they are." who thought the likely outcome would be But this cannot account for the anger aimed at these hapless survivors. After No bitterness or hatred there but sadness "more negative". all, if they had been duped, they deserved and regret for brave but betrayed people. It seems that popular Arab opinion sympathy. As Richardson asks: 'Why the doesn't regard Iran, even a nuclear-armed bitterness? Why the hatred?' My answer Harris and I were briefly contempor- Iran, as a threat. Israel wins that race by a comes from my memories of growing up aries at University College, Cork. I was mile, closely followed by the US. in Cork in the Fifties, when First World War veterans still crossed Cork city on starting as he was finishing and it was crutches and restless Republicans still there, and from him, that I first encountered OSAMA OUTPOLLS OBAMA roamed the streets on Remembrance day, the bitterness he talks about. Does he have To add insult to injury, President Obama tearing poppies from the coats of middle- any sense of irony? At the Philosoph on doesn't figure at all in the list of most aged men, and it is a simple answer: Sinn Saturday nights he would glory in recount- admired world leaders chosen in the poll. Fein deliberately demonised the survivors ing and praising those who had persecuted Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein and drove them from collective memory." do—they are the choice of 6% and 2% the poppy wearers, who had done what he respectively. The list is headed by Recep The civilised country they fought for, describes above. He was fighting the War Erdogan (20% up from 4% in 2009), Britain should indeed remember them and of Independence all over again and, in his followed by Hugo Chavez (13% down honour them, but it does not. It remembers, FCA attire, he clearly imagined himself to from 24%), Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (12% ad nauseam, its own soldiers but it knows be a sort of reincarnated Tom Barry up from 6% ) and Hassan Nasrallah (9% in its bones that the Irish-born soldiers are figure. I was taken aback at this doyen of up from 6%). (Respondents were not an embarrassment as they were so blatantly UCC who was clearly living in a time- allowed to choose a leader from their own betrayed. So it draws a veil over them. The warp. Initially I gave him the benefit of the country.) doubt that this was all an act but it turned There is little doubt that the sharp rise heroic British story cannot be spoiled by out not to be. He had all the hand-me- in Erdogan's popularity rise is as a result acknowledgement of facts like that. of Turkey becoming a vociferous defender That said, Harris is not even right about down politics of another era—supporting of Palestinian rights and moving away the hostility. I grew up in another part of the long and deservedly forgotten Poblacht from its former close relationship with Cork in the '50s. I never saw expression of Criostúil Party, denouncing and demoniz- Israel. Chavez, who headed the list in bitterness towards WWI veterans. Some ing the Language Freedom Movement, 2009, has lost out to the more local hero, of their songs were as popular as rebel virulently against the proposed EEC entry, Erdogan. This won't bring any comfort in songs. My father remembered good- etc etc. Washington. natured singing competitions and banter Nor will the continuing popularity of between them and old IRA men at fairs In fairness to Cork City Republicans of its arch enemies in the Middle East, Iranian and patterns. They were all old soldiers, the day most of them were doing quite President Ahmadinejad and Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, both after all. And their war was long gone as different things and had other priorities. Shia leaders admired by a significant was our War of Independence. We had One of the most spectacular events of that proportion of Sunni Arabs. won and we were getting on with other time was their occupation of the City Hall David Morrison things. The Foggy Dew summed up Chamber in protest at housing conditions. September 2010 perfectly the sorrow and sympathy for They campaigned against the Vietnam References: those who had died so wastefully "at War, and helped the Trade Unions in {1} www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/ Remarks-by-the-President-at-Cairo-University-6- Sulva and Sud el Bar". These were, and strike situations. One member, Martin 04-09/ are, the appropriate sentiments. O'Leary, was killed in the process of doing {2} www.brookings.edu/reports/2010/0805_arab_ opinion_poll_telhami.aspx De Valera's expressed the common so. US ships and the US Ambassador got 8 quite a shock when they faced protests in try to make his case. this part of the 'old sod'. The Ambassador He goes on: went pale when his visit was picketed and "Growing up I recall three successive First Ballymurphy, his talk in UCC was heckled and laughed positions on these old soldiers. First: my at. grandfather's grim IRA generation told Then Bloody Sunday But Harris had nothing whatever to do us the survivors were dupes at best, traitors with any of these activities. and spies at worst. But at some level they The Ballymurphy Massacre Families did not believe their own rhetoric. After have issued the following statement: All political parties in the college were all, they too had grown up in British Cork and knew that they too might easily have "Representatives of the Ballymurphy banned at the time. Harris went through ended up in France." Massacre families met Nuala O'Loan in UCC and did not a thing to get it removed.. October. She was Police Ombudsman He went on to another planet called the So they might or they might not have 1999–2007 and now sits in the House of Wolfe Tone Society, which was like a self gone to join the War—a sort of toss of the Lords as Baroness O'Loan of Kirkinriola selecting confraternity of priests at a coin affair. It might have depended on in the County of Antrim. retreat, preaching, explaining and updating what side of the bed one had got out of that "After a disappointing meeting with Owen Paterson, Secretary of State for their political gospel to reassure them- morning. For Harris, the difference bet- ween what has been and what might have Northern Ireland on Thursday, we got on selves it was still relevant. One had to be with our campaign the very next day. We vetted to ensure one was a believer before been is of little significance. However, the told Nuala of how our loved ones were you could be considered worthy to enter little difference in this case was the making murdered in August 1971. It was a good their sanctum. Harris gloried in this kind of modern Ireland—or not. Harris being a meeting where Nuala listened very of atmosphere. There were also visits from wordmonger cannot see much of a intently. She was familiar with our cam- High Priests like Anthony Coughlan from difference. Apart from being an insult to paign and search for truth. We shared with her evidence of the brutality and time to time. They considered themselves history this is a contemptuous insult to all—those who joined up and those who bloodshed and similarities with Bloody the wave of the future but their wave Sunday where the same Parachute crashed on the rock of the Northern Ireland opposed it. Regiment murdered 14 innocent crisis shortly afterwards, as their gospel civilians." had no credible answers for that. He continues: "Second, my father's generation, which was replacing the Old IRA in the Fifties Harris goes on: was actually more primitive in its politics. "The fact is that the 200,000 Irishmen As teenage tearaways they had roamed who went to fight did so for 200,000 the streets in the lawless days of Civil THE BALLYMURPHY MASSACRE reasons—but mostly because they wanted War and lacked their father's fairly benign to. The chief witness here is the memories of the complexities of (Assassination Of The Innocent) commander of the West Cork Flying Redmondite Cork. As adults they were Column, Tom Barry himself: 'I went to political louts, like Hitler's Brownshirts, Francis Quinn (19) the war for no other reason than that I who would stupidly shout 'West Brits' at sniped by 1st Para wanted to see what war was like, to get a working class veterans who lived in the Hugh Mullan (38) gun, to see new countries and to feel a lanes off Shandon Street. " a Catholic priest grown man.'" So his father's generation who fought Joan Connolly (50) the Blueshirts were just like the Brown- also deceased This is most bizarre. Barry felt obliged shirts. Apparently, it was fascists fighting Daniel Taggart (44) to explain this, precisely because he fascists in Cork in the 1930s! What a same horror knew that his was an exceptional reason weird place. It is truly a case of not know- Noel Phillips (20) for joining and that, though there were ing what is going to happen yesterday. the sky is lead some others like him, the main reason that Does Harris read what he writes? Indeed, Joseph Murphy (41) thousands joined was the political con- is there any point in anyone reading what goodbye sun viction they had that they were 'fighting he writes? Edward Doherty (28) for the freedom of small nations', with hope, none Ireland top of the list. The dogs in the He has been engaging in frantic attempts John Laverty (20) street know this, but it is not mentioned or to escape from himself for years and with life in the red acknowledged by Harris from among the his history and personality that is perfectly Joseph Corr (43) 200,000 reasons that apparently exist for understandable. That is his own business reluctant grave going to war! Soldiering is the least but he cannot get away with distorting John McKerr (49) individualistic activity on earth and there basic historical facts in the process. Whitehall askew can be only one overwhelming reason for Paddy McCarthy (44) going to war. Any more could cause Eamon Gilmore is, apparently, having crime waved confusion in the ranks. some 'senior moments' about his past just Operation Demetrius And of course Barry's love of adventure now. However, I would be very surprised death queues does not explain why he changed sides if the goes on to turn his own and his August 9, 1971 after the War. If he remained just an family's history upside down and inside death craves adventurer, he could have found better out to justify his current political position. August 11 opportunities in Palestine, Mesopotamia, One Harris is more than enough and death does not subdue India, Africa and elsewhere. He began as another would be more than flesh could an adventurer but he did not end as one. So bear. Wilson John Haire Harris has to present a truncated Barry to Jack Lane 10th October, 2010 9 right all along. The facts are that S&P was the likes of Brian Lucey and David Mc suggesting a minimum of 35 billion, while Williams from pretending that there is. the Central Bank's best estimate is 29.3 On 5th October The Irish Times published Shorts billion. This figure does not include loss- another Brian Lucey rant. The assumption sharing on subordinate bonds. Recent of these commentators is that the Govern- from estimates indicate that the bank may make ment is incompetent and it is being mani- the Long Fellow a profit of nearly 2 billion on buying back pulated by sinister and devious forces. this debt. Here is Lucey's grovelling opinion of The Long Fellow thinks that the Central Roman Abramovitch. THE STATE BROADCASTER The Long Fellow wonders why the Bank estimate of 29.3 billion is conserv- "A further problem with the bond markets has revealed itself with the real- State subsidizes RTE. In other countries ative and prudent. In the first two tranches of Anglo Irish Bank loans transferred to isation that while the Minister 'expects' the State broadcasting service acts in the the subordinated bondholders to carry interests of the State. This, of course, does NAMA there was a "haircut", or discount, of 58% (i.e. loans were valued at 42% of some pain, they are not playing nice. not preclude criticism of the Government. People like Roman Abramovitch do not But RTE appears to see its role as deni- book value). These loans were to the largest get to own 300ft yachts and Premiership grating the State at every opportunity. property developers. Initial indications football teams by giving money away On 28th September RTE's Morning are that the loans to some of the smaller unnecessarily. It now appears that, in some cases, the subordinated bonds can- Ireland recycled a 10-day-old story from developers are even more risky. Accord- ingly, the Central Bank has assumed a not be subject to a 'haircut' unless the senior the discredited ratings agency Standard & bonds are in default. And the Minister Poor, which suggested that Anglo Irish massive haircut of 67% on the remaining loans to be transferred to NAMA. The has stated, in cataclysmic and apocalyptic Bank was going to cost at least 35 billion terms, that this will not happen." report suggests that there is a core of good euro. This went all around the world as if But of course The Irish Times has long it was new news. RTE practically boasted quality non-NAMA loans in Anglo Irish Bank. However, for any loans where there ceased to be a serious newspaper on finan- about its malign influence. Here is what it cial matters. The Financial Times (4.10.10), said on its website: is a doubt, it is assuming haircuts ranging from 43% to 70%. All of this appears very on the other hand, reproduced extracts "The S&P analyst's comments, made prudent. It is unlikely that the costs will from a statement from Abramovitch's in a Prime Time interview, part of which investment company Millhouse, which was broadcast on Morning Ireland, sent exceed the 29.3 billion. the cost of insuring Irish sovereign debt holds subordinated debt in Irish Nation- against default to a record high this ANGLO IRISH BANK LOSS SHARING wide. The statement is a rambling and morning" (28.9.10). Anglo Irish Bank—in effect the State— incoherent begging letter which concludes has offered 335 million in settlement of There is no objective economic reason as follows: 2.2 billion in subordinated debt. This will "We urge Irish authorities to re- for an Irish sovereign default. As indicated give a profit of 1.865 billion and, as consider their position on INBS subordi- last month, the National Debt crisis is far mentioned above, was not taken into account nated bonds and come out with a detailed less serious than in the 1980s. However, when the cost of 29.3 billion for Anglo plan on what is going to happen to this negative reporting is pushing up the cost Irish Bank was calculated. The offer by institution. In the meantime, we are fully prepared to vigorously defend our of borrowing making it more difficult for the State is accompanied by a threat of position using all possible legal avenues." the State to obtain cheap finance. bank resolution legislation which would It is not a question of suppressing the enable loss-sharing among the various Abramovitch can whinge all he likes, truth. There is an obligation to weigh and stake-holders. In such a case the subordin- but there is no legal basis for treating subordinate bondholders in the same way consider. ated bond holders may not receive any- On the following day Morning Ireland as senior bondholders, no matter how thing. On the other hand, the State does many or how big the subordinated holders' was at it again. It invited head of SIPTU not particularly want to pull that trigger. Jack O'Connor to express an opinion on yachts are! The situation is like the famous scene Lucey's article continued in the same whether Anglo Irish Bank should default in the Dirty Harry film. At the end of the vein of contempt for Government policy: on its Senior Bonds. But O'Connor was shoot out the Clint Eastwood character having none of it. He replied that he did "It is instructive to examine the case of points his gun at the villain who is lying AIB. AIB has an asset value on the market not think it appropriate to comment on wounded on the ground with his own now of just about 600 million euro. The this, as such speculation could push up the weapon a few feet away. Eastwood taxpayer will have to inject some billions costs of borrowing. It's a pity there are not explains the dilemma: in additional capital, taking our stake more responsible people like O'Connor in "I know what you're thinking. 'Did he towards 90 per cent. We will be purchas- public life. fire six shots or only five?' Well, to tell ing, however, the carcass of AIB. Its you the truth, in all this excitement I kind valuable assets, in Poland, the UK and ANGLO IRISH BANK COST of lost track myself. But being as this is a the US, which would over the next number The Central Bank, in conjunction with .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun of years have provided valuable cash the NTMA [National Treasury in the world, and would blow your head flow, have been or will be sold. The State Management Agency], conducted an clean off, you've got to ask yourself one will in effect pay billions for an asset analysis of the potential cost of Anglo question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, worth millions, an asset that will moreover not likely recover in value for decades." Irish Bank. Its best estimate of the final punk?" cost is 29.3 billion. Under a very pessi- The Long Fellow thinks that the subord- This implies that the State paid billions mistic scenario there could be an extra 5 inated bond holders won't take the risk. for 90% of AIB when it could have paid billion needed, giving a total cost of 34.3 just 600 million for 100% of the company. billion euro. Needless to say the media BRIAN LUCEY AND DAVID MCWILLIAMS What a load of rubbish! The State could focussed on the 34.3 billion figure and There is no quick, cheap fix for the Irish have put 600 million into the shareholders' tried to suggest that Standard & Poor was banking system, but that does not prevent pockets for 100% of the company, but that 10 would not have solved the problem of AIB's COULD AND SHOULD Dr Brian Lucey, a finance lecturer at under-capitalisation. It would still have However the Government, or at least Trinity College Dublin (TCD), said fur- had to put in "billions" to keep AIB afloat. Fianna Fáil, can be criticised for not con- ther strong growth in the Irish housing market was underpinned by four key David McWilliams has been repeating trolling the property market. With the benefit of hindsight the Long factors: demand, demographics, culture some of the same ideas as Lucey, but the and sociopolitical issues. former is cute enough not to put them down Fellow knows what should have been done. But whether it could have been done "Lucey claimed that demand would in print. On Saturday View (2.10.10) on continue to be supported by rising earn- and by "whom" are other questions entirely. RTE 1 Radio he suggested that there was ings, a low interest rate regime and limited What should have been done is that supply. no problem in liquidating Anglo Irish Bank banks should have been prevented from and paying off the deposit-holders. All the "The demographic profile of the coun- lending to property developers. But how try, with population growth in younger State has to do is look for insurance on the could the Financial Regulator have done age groups and migration from abroad, international market. This is like a pyro- this. A Financial Regulator does not run was a key factor in underpinning future maniac looking for fire insurance. No the banking system. He can only intervene demand. commercial insurance company would agree if he suspects that a bank is insolvent. The "The academic also examined the to underwrite the bank's depositor liabilities accounts of Anglo-Irish Bank at September attachment to homes in Ireland and the when the stated intention is to torch them. 2008 did not indicate this. large number of properties abroad owned You could say that the Anglo accounts by Irish people. Another idea McWilliams has is that were a pack of lies. Well that's not what "He said Irish people continued to we should access 10% of the 750 billion the auditors thought. You would have display a preference for property invest- euros of profits that are trapped in the IFSC been asking the Financial Regulator/ ment because of a ''disaffection' for the and which US companies are holding to politicians to second-guess the auditors. stock market" (Sun. Bus. Post, 12.2.06). avoid taxes in the USA. He thinks that the You could then say the auditors were companies involved would be only too corrupt. But the auditors can only assess BRIAN LENIHAN ON BANKING CRISIS loans at current market conditions. It can- happy to invest in Irish companies which It was good to see Brian Lenihan in not base the accounts on future projections. might give a return in 10 years time. combative form in interviews with Miriam So it can be reasonably claimed that the Callaghan and Vincent Browne (30.9.10). Leaving aside the accuracy of the amount accounts were perfectly valid on the basis (more than 5 times Irish GNP) the question Some of O'Callaghan's questions were of conditions that existed at that time. along the lines of "when did you stop arises why would such US companies You could say that international invest- beating your wife". She has a habit of want to do this when there are numerous ors had a bad feeling about Irish banks and other countries and numerous other banks were selling its shares. You could then starting by making a very dubious assertion throughout the world which would be say: well, if international investors knew and then asking a question on the basis happy to find a home for such funds. (or thought they knew) that something that her assertion is a fact. Lenihan was Another illusion that McWilliams likes was wrong, well then surely the Financial forced to interrupt the questions on numer- to peddle is that the banks can torch the Regulator/political authority should have ous occasions in order to dispute her bondholders with impunity. In making known. Well you can't run a banking assertions. system on the basis of what international this assertion he quite often does not dis- It was also good to see Lenihan criticise fund managers think. Also, a collapse in RTE in the course of the interview. Politi- tinguish between senior bondholders, the share price has no effect on capital cians are accountable to the people, but which rank pari passu with depositors; ratios. So this alone would have been of the media appears to be accountable to and subordinate bondholders which do no concern to the Regulator. nobody. It is only constrained by the laws not. In the Saturday View programme he Of course, the politicians should have of libel, which it campaigns to mitigate if gave the example of a Danish Bank which known that the property market was not not entirely eliminate. on going into liquidation did not pay "bond- sustainable. They should have told the The other constraining factor in the holders". But, as the conversation develop- bankers that the latters' assessment of risk case of privately-owned media organi- ed, it was clear that he was talking about was flawed and that they (the politicians) sations is the market. subordinated bondholders in this case. knew more about the status of the loans than the bankers. THE IRISH TIMES The politicians should have done this. GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE The Irish Times has been experiencing And we would have all been better off if the chill winds of the market: its latest set The Long Fellow is of the opinion that they had. But was it realistic to have the Government has handled the economic of accounts (2009) are bleak. Sales are expected them to do it? First they would down by 25.9%. Most of this decline is and financial crisis in a competent manner have had to have had a proper under- accounted for by a fall in advertising since September 2008. One could quibble standing of the economic situation (econ- revenue. The decline in circulation was about the details of this or that policy. omists differed on this), and secondly marginal. Patrick Honohan criticised the extent of they would have had to have the courage Its loss after exceptional items and tax the Bank Guarantee while supporting the of their convictions to overcome the in- was 27.8 million. The loss before except- general policy of a guarantee. But the evitable resistance to such credit restrictions ional items was 4.6 million. However, the question must be asked: how would the —and not just from the banks, does anyone outside observer might wonder about the Government have behaved differently if remember the Sunday Independent cam- "exceptional items". If the "exceptional" paigns to keep the property market buoyant. the Guarantee had not been so extensive? happens every year when does it cease to What option was closed off that would be exceptional and become normal? LUCEY ON THE PROPERTY MARKET have been availed of if the Guarantee had The Irish Times financial position is One of the current Government's stern- perilous but it would be an exaggeration not been so extensive? The Long Fellow's est critics would not have been much help to say that it is in immediate danger. opinion is that the extent of the Guarantee at the height of the property market. Below Unlike the Independent Group, it is cash had no material effect on Government is a newspaper report of Brian Lucey's rich. Since it is owned by a company with policy and therefore the criticism is largely views in 2006: no shareholders, it could not pay out academic. "In a new study on the housing market, dividends in the good times. This has 11 stood to it in the bad times. However, its Book Review: Ship Of Fools by Fintan O'Toole cash balance declined from 38.8 million to 13.5 million. A few more bad years and it could indeed be in trouble. The current Moral Denunciation From O'Toole Chief Executive thinks that it will continue to make losses in 2010, but claims that its cash position will not deteriorate any The subtitle of this book is: "How haul from an extensive trawl of recent further since most of the losses will be stupidity and corruption sank the Celtic decades. The author admits that Ireland is accounted for by depreciation. Tiger". It is not so much an economic or not unique in the level of corruption. How- In the Celtic Tiger years the newspaper political analysis as a morality tale. ever, he claims that the tolerance for cor- made some incredibly bad decisions which have been well documented in this maga- The author begins by describing the ruption in this country is remarkable. His zine and elsewhere (e.g. Myhome.ie, lavish wedding reception of the property evidence is the election of a local councillor Metro, the Gloss etc. etc). The prognosis developer Sean Dunne and the Sunday in Sligo who was convicted of fraud and for the newspaper is not particularly bright. Independent journalist Gayle Killilea. The the case of the former Minister Michael Competition from the internet, which The happy couple had hired a yacht formerly Lowry TD who participated with Ben Irish Times itself facilitated, has under- owned by Aristotle Onassis. O'Toole then Dunne (the only customer in Lowry's refrige- mined its circulation which is declining at contrasts this with a seemingly unrelated ration business) in a tax evasion scheme. a faster rate than that of its main rival, the event: the sinking of the Asgard II, a boat This reviewer has no knowledge of the Irish Independent. The Long Fellow owned by the State, named after the vessel minutiae of local Sligo politics. Regarding suspects its readership profile is becoming used by Erskine Childers to import German Michael Lowry it appears that he is an older each year. arms in 1914. The reader is invited to assiduous constituency politician. There Nevertheless, the old Lady of Tara Street still has a pulse and will probably reflect on the symbolism: a salutary tale might also be a feeling that he was hard struggle on for at least a few more years… on the dangers of excess leading to the done by. An allegation of influencing the death of the Republic. competition for the lucrative mobile phone THE VILLAGE (IDIOT) There then follows a litany of what the licence has been investigated by a Tribunal The Irish Times may have its problems, author considers to be corruption. Most of for 13 years and no substantial evidence but its Editor hasn't quite the same the examples he gives are of tax evasion, has been produced to substantiate the alleg- challenges as the former Editor of the such as the Ansbacher Accounts and the ation. O'Toole's claim that these cases Village magazine. All of this was revealed Non-Resident accounts leading to the indicate a tolerance of corruption is tenuous in, of all places, The Irish Times property DIRT enquiry, rather than the bribing of to say the least. supplement. public officials. Among the examples of In the Celtic Tiger era The Irish Times alleged corruption—in the normally The difficulty with O'Toole's thesis is property supplement (or the Queen of accepted meaning of that term—are the that, if the political system was corrupt, Property Porn as David McWilliams following: how can the Celtic Tiger be explained? dubbed it) used to describe not only the His explanations include: "dumb luck"; trophy houses it wished to sell but also - Haughey changed tax laws to benefit liked to titillate its readers with details of Ben Dunne the Celtic Tiger was merely catching up the wealthy owners such as Jim Sheridan, -a £30,000 to £40,000 bribe by the after years of under-performance; and Polly Devlin and Edna O'Brien. The Bailey brothers to Ray Burke subsidies from a Social Democratic prospective buyer was not only buying a -a £40,000 bribe by Seamus Ross to Europe. He also mentions our favourable property but a glamorous way of life. Liam Lawlor to change the postal address demographics and sees a paradox: in one of his developments But it's difficult to know what the "Paradoxically, the Ireland of the 1990s -F rank Dunlop's smaller bribes thinking is behind revealing Vincent reaped enormous benefits both from the -B ribing of George Redmond Browne's circumstances. Perhaps the seller repression of women before the 1970s is hoping buyers will take pity on him. The claim that Haughey changed the and from their subsequent liberation". Maybe the newspaper hopes readers will tax laws to benefit Ben Dunne is simply obtain a sadistic or voyeuristic thrill? The limiting of access to contraception not true. O'Toole has covered the Tribunals Browne is hoping to sell his home for 3.25 ensured high birth rates and by the 1990s million euro because he needs: quite extensively, so it is very difficult to feminism had led to greater female partici- "…the money, although we could wait believe that this is an innocent mistake. pation in the workforce (but no mention of another few years. The money's needed to All the other allegations might be true. Minister McCreevy's Individualisation of pay debts from Village magazine, to buy However, O'Toole does not say that doubt the Tax Bands). another house and to supply some kind of has been cast about the allegations made Unfortunately, O'Toole couldn't leave pension because I don't have one." by James Gogarty against the Bailey "Browne, a broadcaster and Irish Times the demographics alone and spots an irony: Brothers. The Supreme Court Judge columnist, was the founding editor of "With a grim irony, Ireland was also Village magazine in 2004. It ceased Adrian Hardiman awarded Tribunal costs reaping the economic benefits of mass publishing in 2008 but was later revived in favour of the Bailey Brothers and emigration in the 1950s, which meant with a new editor. reprimanded the Tribunal for suppressing that many of the elderly people who "Vincent Browne's debts are understood evidence that would have cast doubt on should have been in Ireland were actually to be €1.5 million. He has not, he says, been the credibility of Gogarty. There is a thin in the UK and elsewhere and being cared put under pressure to sell by his bank. for by other societies." 'There is no immediate pressure and dividing line between political contribu- although we do need the money we've got tions and bribes. It will be recalled that But, of course, the old were not old a bit of time. I gambled money on Village Pat Rabbitte accepted a political donation when they emigrated to Britain in the magazine and it didn't pay off. If we got a from a developer, but returned it some 1950s. They were for the most part active decent price now we'd take it'…" (The Irish participants in her labour force. They Times, 9.9.10). time later on the advice of his constituency organisation. would have reproduced the next generation Oh dear! ...way too much information! At any rate, O'Toole's list is not a great to work in Britain. The implication that 12 Britain was looking after elderly Irish British banks in Ireland at all. There is a "…some breathing space in which the immigrants having received no benefit for brief reference to Ulster Bank, a subsidiary government could work with the rest of herself is ludicrous, particularly in view of Royal Bank of Scotland, at the beginning the EU on a coordinated response to the broader crisis. Yet for some reason— of the fact that it received a workforce of the book because this bank lent 260 whether an ideological hang up about ready-made, with no costs in raising it. million euro to Sean Dunne. O'Toole nationalisation or a residual loyalty to claims that the Irish taxpayer underwrote Sean FitzPatrick or a mixture of both— About the only elements the author Dunne's lavish lifestyle. Unfortunately, Cowen and Lenihan decided not to take believes that cannot be explained by "dumb the evidence he produces is the following: this course". luck" are the massive investment in educa- "In August 2009, Ulster Bank, a sub- Nationalisation in tion by the State and Social Partnership. sidiary of the Royal Bank of Scotland, September 2008 would have made the O'Toole grudgingly acknowledges the moved loans it had given Dunne to buy State directly responsible for the liabili- "central role" played by Bertie Ahern in the Jurys and Berkeley Court site into a ties of Anglo Irish Bank. If the correct social partnership but, of course, there is new 'quarantine' division for dodgy assets policy was, as O'Toole believes, to let Anglo- a prelude to eventually offloading them Irish go, then nationalisation would have no mention of its founder, who was Charles to a British or Irish State 'bad bank' for Haughey. toxic debts that were unlikely ever to be made no "sense". But he is much more He admits that the Irish Financial Ser- repaid in full". interested in making debating points than attempting to understand the financial crisis. vices Centre employed 25,000 people but But none of Ulster Bank's loans were He goes on to say that the State event- then quotes extensively from a Guardian moved to an Irish State 'bad bank'. They ually nationalised Anglo in the "worst article describing the number of "brass were moved to a British bad bank. So possible circumstances". But he doesn't plate" companies employing two or three unfortunately for O'Toole's thesis, in this explain why those circumstances were people—which begs the question where instance it was the British tax payer that worse in January 2009 than September were the 25,000? Could they all have been took the hit. employed by "brass plate" companies?! 2008. For instance, in September 2008 the Needless to say there is no mention of bank was technically solvent. Its accounts minimum wage legislation, increases in O'Toole's description of the events showed that it was profitable. It is likely social welfare and pension benefits, the surrounding the Bank Guarantee is that its shareholders would have had to be elimination of taxes on low-paid work or garbled. He says: compensated. No such consideration arose other positive features of the Celtic Tiger. "…all six major Irish financial institu- in January 2009. O'Toole's carping at times reaches tions, including Anglo Irish, would have Unless the reader enjoys moral indign- their deposits, loans and obligation guar- ation, this is quite a depressing book. comical proportions. For example he says anteed 100 per cent by the Irish tax payer. about the ending of emigration during the The government had effectively no idea There is an epilogue which reads like an Celtic Tiger era: what those obligations were or how many apology for the negativity. This part of the "The diasporic life was now lived at of the loans were likely to be repaid". book is an afterthought which has very home—a logical outcome of the econo- Here he is mixing up in the same little connection with the rest of the book. mic reversal in which, instead of labour paragraph the Banks' loans to customers O'Toole tries to be positive for a change moving towards American capital, with their borrowings. but it doesn't come easy. It is only in the American capital moved towards Irish The Government knew the value of the last half a dozen pages that he makes labour." liabilities that it was guaranteeing. The recommendations. It might be thought that the "economic problem was that the value of the banks' His first recommendation is that we reversal" represented progress. Emigra- assets or loans to customers was of dubious recognise that the crisis is moral as well as tion was no longer an economic necessity, value. economic. We all need to be good people and the country had reached full employ- O'Toole doubts that Anglo Irish Bank and stop being bad or as he says himself: ment. But for O'Toole every silver lining was of systematic importance. Since the "Unless there is an attitudinal revolution must have a cloud and therefore he book was published, the distinguished in which honesty, responsibility and a concludes: academic and current Governor of the concern for the future become basic social "The sense of estrangement felt by Central Bank, Patrick Honohan, has values, nothing else is going to change". generations of emigrants could now be declared that it was systematic. His second recommendation is that we felt without actually going anywhere." But, even without the benefit of Hono- need a proper system of local government. Since O'Toole's thesis is that Ireland's han's wisdom, it is surprising that the This would facilitate: economic crisis is essentially a moral events surrounding the Guarantee did not "A real functioning parliament that problem, he exempts himself from giving give O'Toole pause for thought. For example, concentrates on the jobs of framing an economic analysis. It is not until the at the meeting preceding the Guarantee, legislation and holding the executive to end of the book that he outlines what the Chief Executives and Chairmen of account may seem like a rather basic demand in an established democracy, but happened in Anglo Irish Bank. He men- AIB and Bank of Ireland wanted Anglo tions the Contracts-for-Difference transact- the reality is that Ireland has never had Irish Bank to be nationalised. Why would one." ions of Sean Quinn and Cowen's efforts to the two largest banks want their competi- It is not clear how a proper system of impose stamp duty on these transactions. tor to be saved? The answer could only be local government would have prevented O'Toole accuses Cowen of capitulating to that the failure of Anglo would engender the economic crisis or what this has to do the "money men". Included in his list of a systematic collapse in the Irish banking with the rest of the book and O'Toole lobbyists was the "London Investment system. doesn't explain. Nor does he explain how Banking Association". But he makes no- Incredibly, O'Toole thinks that the Ireland, unlike other countries, fails to thing of this even though it puts a dent in immediate nationalisation of Anglo in his thesis of corrupt Irish crony capitalism. September 2008, although "hugely hold the Executive to account. Ireland, problematic", made "some sense" because like numerous other countries has a Indeed O'Toole hardly mentions the it would have bought: parliamentary system of government. The 13 legislators are subject to party discipline. However, unlike in Britain, our propor- tional electoral system, usually results in a narrow majority which means that 1939 Greaves-Regan-O'Riordan Conversations individual legislators have a greater oppor- The Athol Books link http://free- "Naturally, the 50th anniversary year tunity to influence the decisions of the downloads.atholbooks.org/pamphlets/ (of the outbreak of the Spanish Anti- executive. Whether this is a good thing or connolly_america.pdf to my 1971 thesis Fascist War) evokes personal memories not is a moot point. back to the day I left my native Cork to go Connolly In America indicates how long- About a year ago on the Late Late Show to Spain. Politically it was not a problem standing have been my disagreements with O'Toole seemed to favour a system like making the decision, but personally it his Connolly Association biographer and the US where legislators are not con- was not all that easy. My parents were Irish Democrat Editor, C. Desmond strained by party discipline. He urged sincere unpretentious Catholics, and I Greaves (d.1988). This, however, is an was conscious that they would face all Fianna Fail back benchers to vote against article in appreciation of how authentically the pro-Franco hysterical propaganda, of the Government to prove that they were and accurately Greaves was to capture the which Fr. Paul O'Sullivan was but a genuine legislators. The disadvantage of typical example. I left a note trying to personalities and outlook of both my Cork this system is that the Executive is less explain as simply as I could why I was City father, Micheál O'Riordan (d.2006), effective in matter requiring legislation. going, not to the war, but to a good job and his Ballingeary Gaeltacht mother, Julia For example, Barack Obama could not hundreds of miles from the front. Some Creed (d.1965), in conversations recorded rely on members of his own party to thirty five years later, when I completed in July 1939 for a journal that was both the manuscript of Connolly Column— support his proposals on health reform. observant and opinionated. In a covering the story of the Irishmen who fought in A third reform or aspiration of O'Toole letter to my father, dated 24th June 1991, the International Brigade—I dedicated it is the realignment of party politics along 'to the memory of my father who, because Anthony Coughlan, CDG's literary exec- left/right lines. But in this reviewer's of the propaganda against the Spanish utor, kindly explained: opinion this would be less likely if our Republic in Ireland, did not agree with political system becomes more American. "You remember that I gave you a my going to Spain, but who also disagreed photocopy of the section of CDG's journal How O'Toole thinks realignment can be more with our “coming back and leaving dealing with his first visit to the South of your Commander Frank Ryan behind”.' achieved is a little unclear. It appears that Ireland in 1939, referring to his visit to My mother, I know, spent a small fortune it requires another "attitudinal revolution". Cork and first meeting with yourself getting Masses said for me. I never could We must have a "social vision". Not with- {when my father was 21 years of age— get to know whether they were for my standing the title of the book (Ship Of MO'R}. I have now done out this on safe survival or for my 'conversion'. I Fools) and much of its content, O'Toole computer disc and enclose a copy of the suspect it was a sort of an each way bet. concludes that the Irish people have: relevant section, in case you might find it It is one of the good memories of my life interesting and would care to have it and that—although there was a little tension, "…enough energy, enough talent, would find this more legible than CDG's a degree of embarrassment, with some enough imagination. The question is handwriting. Who was the other Riordan perplexity thrown in—when I returned whether they have constructive anger to he refers to in the text, I wonder, as from Spain, the relations between the kick away a system that has failed them against yourself, given as 'O'Riordan'?" three of us resumed their normal good and make a new one for themselves." parents-son one. I remain ever thankful It seems we are forever doomed to These July 1939 journal extracts fill in to both of them for that." disappoint Fintan! a blank for the period preceding my father's Regarding Greaves's account, I have 1940-43 years as a Republican prisoner in three brief points of clarification, a fourth This book is a hastily put together sum- the Curragh Internment Camp (detailed in more significant one, and one even more mary of O'Toole's Irish Times columns. It the series on John Betjeman's wartime significant amendment. Firstly, the un- is neither a political nor economic analysis espionage in Ireland, published in the named carillon to which he referred was but an extended moral denunciation. March, April, May and September 2010 obviously the Bells of Shandon. Secondly, Readers hoping to gain some insight into issues of Irish Political Review), but the basic two-way split in the River Lee the causes and nature of the economic subsequent to a letter from him on history gave that visiting Merseysider the optical crisis will be disappointed. and politics, available at www.irelandscw. illusion that Cork was a city of many com/ibvol-MoR1939.htm and first published rivers and canals. (But his sense of smell by Irish Political Review in July 2007. In An Argument Defending The Right Of was both acute and accurate. Indeed, I that April 1939 letter to a US comrade-in- The Kingdom Of Ireland (1645) by Conor myself can still vividly recall from child- arms, my father explained how, as a O'Mahony hood the foul odour that used to emanate member of the Communist Party of Ire- First translation from Latin from the Lee at low tide, while sitting in land, its leaders had directed him to remain Introduction, John Minahane: Conor O'Mahony, the 1641 my granny's front bedroom on Pope's Quay a dual member of the IRA, adding that it Rebellion and the Independence of Ireland during successive Summer visits from the "can be a great force for Good or Evil, in 232pp. €25, £20 mid 1950s to 60s.) Thirdly, Greaves and the sense that it is the major Revolutionary his cycling companion, John, were attired Millstreet Miscellany (4) Force in Ireland". in shorts. Greaves was to wear shorts yet Edited by Jack Lane 60pp (A4). €8, £10 The authentic character of my grand- again on a post-war Summer lecture visit mother's exchanges with Greaves—not to Cork, much to the embarrassment of his William O'Brien & His World least her insistence on the power of Socialist hosts—being no less orthodox by Brendan Clifford 16pp. €5, £4 prayer—will be all the better appreciated as to dress codes than their fellow Corkonians in the light of what my father himself —who nevertheless failed to persuade Orders: [email protected] wrote of her in the July-August 1986 issue Desmond to change into a more conven- https://www.atholbooks-sales.org of New Hibernia: tional pair of trousers. 14 Fourthly, with the heading of Cork Spain's battle of the Ebro) was not 'Riordan' if they go the way they are going... Bishop Supports Lord Mayor's Protest, —as Greaves misheard and erroneously Whether the Irish Government is willing, the Irish Times for 27th February 1939 recorded—but Jim Regan. I have amended or not, to take back these imprisoned IRA men is not the point—it is that a Socialist had reported: Anthony Coughlan's transcript according- Government should not keep these "While one hundred men from the Ger- ly. Nor could Greaves have accurately political prisoners a single second longer man naval cadet training vessel Schlesien recalled Regan's account of the British in jail. They were moved by idealistic were at Mass in St.Colman's Cathedral, Army's burning of Cork city in 1920 (I've principles, had nothing to gain and all to Cove, yesterday, the Bishop of Cork (Dr. corrected CDG's "1922"), as Jim would lose. It is a shocking thing that they Cohalan) announced his support for the should have been treated as criminals. I action of the Lord Mayor of Cork never have attributed it to a Hollywood- style landing of the marines! In a 1995 think their policy was a mistaken one; I (Councillor James Hickey, TD) in thought so all along; but there was nothing article in Saothar 20, journal of the Irish refusing to welcome the officers and crew of self-interest in it anyway. If the Labour ... The Lord Mayor, in a statement on Labour History Society, Anthony Cough- Government have any sense, they would Friday, said that his refusal was because lan related how, after the War, Greaves go with bands and banners to the prisons of 'the insult given to the Catholic world was to befriend Regan with prison visits. where these men are, open the gates for on the death of the Pope (Pius XI), when Following Jim's release, CDG also visited them, and ask them to join in the fight for the responsible German Press termed human political and economic freedom... our Holy Father a political adventurer'... him in Cork on many occasions. I myself knew Jim Regan (d. 1978) Why don't the Bishops—who are forever The Bishop, speaking at Cork Catholic talking mercy and forgiveness—speak a over a twenty year period from my early Young Men's Society said: 'I regret the word for them? Or the 'Republican' Gov- unavoidable absence of the Lord Mayor, childhood, as both a friend and political ernment of de Valera? Oh what are some because I would have wished in his associate of my family, our last meeting of those on the Government benches here, presence to congratulate and thank him occurring in West Cork in 1975 at the on the Government benches there, and on for the stand he has taken up in this Clonakilty funeral of my maternal aunt the benches where the Bishops sit?" German matter. The whole world— and godmother, Máire Keohane Sheehan. Catholic and non-Catholic—expressed When the Irish Times published a There is, indeed, a particularly sad irony appreciation of the great Pope who has version of this letter on 13th October, it passed away. The Head of the German attached to CDG's account of that July very carefully excised the two sentences State is a nominal Catholic, but after the 1939 first meeting, when we realised that, that made any reference to the Bishops. death of the Pope the language of the despite being opposed to Seán Russell's The letter was, however, published in full official German Press was outrageous... IRA bombing campaign, Jim Regan's own It is not for such occasion as this to refer in the British Labour Left's Tribune on 5th sense of IRA loyalty would finally impel to the general persecution of the Church December, preceded by O'Casey's listing him to volunteer for active service in in Germany-Austria, but I take this of all thirty prisoners, including "Joseph England. Betrayed by an informer, and opportunity of congratulating the Lord Collins Mac Nessa, Dunmanway, 20 Mayor in what he did on his own initiative. arrested and charged with conspiracy and years" and "James F. O'Regan, Sunday's I did not ask him to do it, nor do I suppose possession of explosives, he was tried— Well, Cork, 20 years", and completed by did anybody else'." under his full name of James F. O'Regan— his exhortation: "Christmas cards, letters, at London's Central Criminal Court in books, weekly papers, and periodicals Bishop Cohalan was mistaken on that October 1939. Sentenced to 20 years penal may be sent to the prisoners, addressed to last point. Cork ITGWU leader Jim Hickey servitude, Jim would serve as many as 9 Parkhurst Prison, Isle of Wight". was not only a good personal friend of my years, in often brutalising conditions. Nonetheless, a dispute broke out, described father's; he, in turn, always regarded When my father married my mother Kay as follows by David Krause, the Editor of Hickey as an honest-to-God hero of Cork Keohane in November 1946, their honey- O'Casey's correspondence: Labour. It was my father who had moon took the form of a journey to Park- approached Hickey to argue that there hurst Prison, on the Isle of Wight, to visit "The 26 December 1947 issue of was no way, as a Labour Mayor, he should Tribune printed a poem by Neil Jim Regan and his fellow Irish Republican MacIntyre, with an introductory comment receive the armed forces of a Nazi prisoners, including Joe Collins of Dun- Germany that had bombed the Basque explaining that the author had been manway, who had been convicted under inspired by O'Casey's appeal... Apparent- town of Guernica two years previously, his nom de guerre of "Conor Mac Nessa". ly O'Casey felt the poem was a bit of and that had supervised the incarceration In a mid-1960s conversation, Joe told me misplaced doggerel, too flippant in its of Irish defenders of the Spanish that, apart from the physical abuse for comic approach to a serious problem." Republic—Bob Doyle, Jim Haughey, which the prison authorities were respon- Johnny Lemmon, Morry Levitas and Frank In the 9th January 1948 issue of Tribune sible, the most brutally racist anti-Irish O'Casey wrote: Ryan—in Spanish fascist prisons and con- verbal abuse of the prisoners came, on a centration camps. Hickey readily agreed, "Neil MacIntyre, in his 'Odd Man Out' visit to Parkhurst, from the mouth of Bri- poem, has a laugh at me (which doesn't but said he would have to find a formula to tain's wartime Home Secretary, Herbert justify the denial of normal Mayoral matter), and another laugh at the Irish Morrison—London Labour Party boss and prisoners who have already done nine courtesies to the visiting Nazi warship grandfather of Peter Mandelson. years in jail, which matters a lot to humane that would have the maximum popular minds. In the first place, these prisoners appeal. My father regarded Hickey's "Irish In the peacetime of early 1947, play- are not 'Odd Men', for they have but solution" as a stroke of political genius, wright Seán O'Casey came to the fore in a fought for the principles avowed by de ensuring world-wide press coverage, but two-year campaign for the release of those Valera and his followers a day or so ago; he obviously left Greaves in the dark as to IRA prisoners. On 24th September 1947, and which have been avowed by the Labour Party since it was born; a principle his own role. O'Casey provided the chief campaign which they have been putting into practice organiser, Eoin O'Mahony, with a letter in the restoration of independence to India Finally, the name of my father's fellow for public use, in which he said: and to Burma; and which they hold, CPI/IRA dual member (and, in 1938, his "The Labour Government, if not the presumably, regarding the nationalities International Brigade comrade-in-arms in Labour Party, will have to be jeopardised nearer to their own particular home... Sir 15 Oswald) Mosley (leader of the British Irish head that refuses to lift itself and say last; and I feel sure the rest will be out Union of Fascists) and his followers were a word for these fine men wasting away in before long... If you can, please tell J.R. reckoned to be a danger during the war jail." And he meant every word of it. In how pleased I am. The last magazines I years; but they had an easy time of it in sent were returned from the prison, per two separate letters to Irish Writing Editor quod, with daintily-cooked food and a the Governor, with a note that J.R. had suite of rooms, with many privileges, and David Marcus, the Anglo-Irish writer and already 'received his entitlement'. quick release when the war ended. Our Gate Theatre dramatist Denis Johnston Concern for him, and his companions, lads have been closely confined within would be cursed not once, but twice, by prevented me from telling this bostune all the rigours of prison life for nine long O'Casey: what I thought of him in good O'Casey years. Doesn't Mr. MacIntyre think it "I am not eager to appear cheek by jowl language. It was very hard on me to have time to call enough? Does he think that with Mr. Johnston, who refused to sign a had to keep silence when there was a vengeance should go on having its own petition for the release of the Irish chance to fight fools; fools in power sour way till the life of these lads is prisoners who were rotting alive... I have lording it over better souls than their swallowed up forever in the waste of very little respect for the bourgeois own. However, I expect they will all be lonely and useless time? Apparently he caution that prevents a man from taking out before the year ends." does, for all he can think of is a laugh at the part of men, brave men too, however the fate of men who had the courage to we may disagree with what they might So, now to CDG's account of his first, face danger for what they believed to be have done, and honest, as well, who were July 1939, visit to both the County and true. Well, let him have his laugh, though, less fortunate than himself" (25 October City of Cork, and his meetings with for me, I'd rather be one of the jailed than 1950). International Brigaders Micheál have a laugh like that." "The article by Johnston on me is amusing and, I fear, very ignorant... But, O'Riordan and Jim Regan, some months Under the heading of "OPEN THE of course, there has always been this before the former's four years of internment PRISON GATES!" the Daily Worker of pretence at knowing among the upper without trial and the latter's nine years of 22 December 1947 had also published the middle classes of Ireland. As for (O' penal servitude. Casey) losing 'compassion' for the people, following from O'Casey: Manus O'Riordan it comes ill from one who refused to sign "There are 30 Irishmen in Parkhurst a petition for the release of the Irish Prison ... young men whose one fault was political prisoners from the horror of 1939 OBSERVATIONS AND that they loved Ireland not wisely but too Dartmoor" (21 December). CONVERSATIONS IN CORK well... and since they have languished Killarney (Kerry)—July 22, Sat. long enough, further imprisonment will On 4th November 1947 Jim Regan had ... Then we returned to Killarney. There simply be just cold and bitter vindictive- sent a telegram to O'Casey to thank him ness on the part of authority calling itself was a town dance on, which kept us awake democratic, broad-minded and fair... for his support, and O'Casey replied on late, as periodically there would be terrific These lads got a good deal of their inspira- 12th November. Jim penned a letter in rhythmic stampings and cries of "Ooh!" tion from WB Yeats... Like the poet, similar vein in December, and on 30th as the old folk-jigs and polkas were danced. these young men had 'hidden in their December O'Casey sought to cheer him And the sound of the fiddles scraping hearts the flame out of the eyes of Cath- up for the approaching New Year: away gave a great air of festivity to the leen, the daughter of Houlihan'... And "My dear James, I am very glad, very evening. After that, everybody paraded not from Yeats alone. Reviewing a book glad indeed, to hear you all like me saying the streets one way and another, and it was of mine, George Orwell got very angry a word or two on your behalf. I will go on readily discernible that nine-tenths of the because he thought there was too much doing so, wherever and whenever I can. population were almost blind drunk. Irish nationalism in the work; and he You do well to write all your letters to selected passages to prove this, quoting your mother. She must be always anxious Killarney, Kenmare, Glengarriff, the following verse: to hear from you, and be delighted when Macroom, CORK—July 23, Sun. 'Singing of men that in battle array, she does. So don't reply to this one from Ready in heart and ready in hand, On what turned out to be the first fine me; but go on writing home... I have had and hot day, with a bright sun which put March with banner and bugle and fife a vigorous and a busy life, and that is To the death for their native land.' the finishing touches to our already tanned what I should like you lads to have, and skin, and stimulated the irritation of the "But it wasn't Finn McCool, or even not be hanging the latch in prison. Especi- insect bites, we cycled to Cork, through Thomas Davis, who wrote it. It wasn't ally lads that followed an ideal: followed even an Irishman. It was an Englishman, it too well, and landed in jail, while the Windy Gap, along the fjord coast of West well-known and famous: it was Tennyson, cuter ones landed themselves in cushy Cork, and through the hills to the east. but the learned George Orwell didn't jobs... And now all the best to you all. I This ride was the star-turn of our holiday, know... It is time that the workers of somehow believe it won't be so long now including wonderful mountain scenery in England called for the release of these till you see the gates opening. My love to Kerry, and coast scenery at Glengarriff, fine lads ... that they may take their place you, Seán O'Casey" (first published in which was further rendered interesting by in your ranks, to march with banner and Saothar by A. Coughlan in 1995). the profusion of semitropical vegetation. bugle and fife, in the great cause of Our old friend the fuchsia reappeared in Labour." {Indeed, on 9th November 1945, O'Casey's efforts on behalf of the the region immediately surrounding Glen- O'Casey had observed: "Yes; I remember- Republican prisoners finally bore fruit. garriff. Of course the roads are frightful, ed that Orwell was with the Tribune and Jim Regan was released in September loose slate and only half made up. As we drew my own conclusions."} 1948, while Joe Collins was among the were riding all day there were no incidents. On 18th April 1948, Greaves's Irish last to be released in December. Sharing It was interesting seeing the people going Democrat, while stating its "disapproval in that prisoner release campaign had been to Mass in their best clothes. We saw cart- loads of them on wagons bearing promin- of the terrorist methods the prisoners had O'Casey's fellow Dublin Protestant ently the title "No passengers", and child- used in the past", organised a prisoner Republican, the Abbey Theatre musician ren wearing the white satin frocks and release rally in London's Holborn Hall, and composer Freddie May. On 29th white stockings of fifty years ago... But which received a message of solidarity September 1948, having learned of this part of the country is clearly more from O'Casey that ended: "May the curse Regan's release, O'Casey wrote to May: prosperous. There is much greater vari- of every Irish saint fall heavy on every "I am so glad that J.R. is out of jail at ation in the size of the farms, and in the 16 main a tendency towards middle peasant again asked if it would be war. "I hope it they landed their marines here and sacked holdings. won't be a war", they said, "for the sake of the town, set fire to the whole south side of We found a suitable place in Cork, the boys". They wanted to be assured that Patrick Street, besides shelling the other where there was a garrulous old Scotchman there really was conscription in England, side. So when the trouble (sic) was over (sic) staying. We were followed there by and on hearing that John was a militia- they had to pay compensation, and build a few small children attracted by our man, brought in the neighbours to have a it up all over again. Many people say it's unusual appearance. And our hosts asked chat with him. a pity they didn't burn down both sides, if we felt cold—and were silenced by the However, we got back to Cork in time and then we'd have the finest street in talking Scotchman who said we were to see O'Riordan, a very fine comrade Ireland."... But I liked Cork. It has a truly travelling the only sensible way. We had who was several times mentioned in metropolitan atmosphere; and again, as J left Killarney in company with a young despatches in the Spanish war. His first and I remarked, there is the strange similar- cyclist from Liverpool who spent a few question, after the usual formalities of ity to Liverpool. Only now that we have weeks in between spells of casual or semi- how we liked Ireland and saying there seen Dublin, Limerick and Cork (I saw casual employment in travelling about the were a lot of Irish in Liverpool, was about Belfast years ago) is it possible to trace the land of his ancestors. Again in Cork we the attitude of the CPGB (Communist origins of those characteristic elements of met Liverpool over and over again. Every- Party of Great Britain) to the IRA bomb- the vastly more complex port of Liverpool. body we met in Cork this evening had ings. I told him what we had said, and he Cardiff + Cork + Belfast = Liverpool. been there at one time or another... agreed with it. I was not then aware of Liverpool is one of the Western circuit— what had, since my departure, been pub- not an English city. CORK—July 24, Mon. lished in the Daily Worker, and neither We also discussed the Irish attitude to In the morning we went to look up a was he. Dublin were slack in sending him Fascism. A few years ago {it had, in fact, party member, Michael O'Riordan, at 37 material and he got all his literature—CI been only five months previously—MO'R} Pope's Quay. Cork, like Dublin, has its (Communist International), Inprecors, and the Mayor of Cork had refused to attend a quays. When we went for a walk around it so on—from the United States. He had civic reception for a German naval unit. in the afternoon, we noticed, however, contacts in New York and Frisco, in which But this was on the grounds of the dis- first, that instead of one river Cork has two centres the American party is mainly respect shown by the Nazis on the death of many, that the whole town is divided and concentrated. He had to get back to work, the Pope, not for political reasons. There intersected by small canals; and second, but he arranged to meet us on Patrick's is some ambivalence in the Irish attitude, that the water is a filthy green and smells Bridge in the evening. made up of sympathy with German abominably. Apart from that, Cork is the It was then we explored Cork, going to grievances with rough treatment at the finest city in Ireland, without a doubt. see the Cathedral, and following the hands of Britain, a certain sympathy with We saw O'Riordan's mother. He wasn't various canals and quays. There is a very German propaganda regarding British in. "Might you be connected with this remarkable carillon above the place where misrule in Palestine, and a certain persist- International Brigade?" "We are." She we stayed, and of course we were advised ence of the idea that England's difficulty is became hostile. "Well, I'm sorry. I don't to go and see it. But the children were able Ireland's opportunity. For example, Hitler's believe in it. I think no good will come of to prevent us. Not content with sniggering entry into the Rhineland was compared to it. I don't believe in politics, and I'm sorry and calling "hikers" at us, they must crowd a possible Irish occupation of Ulster. But Michael ever had anything to do with it." around us shouting the way to the church two factors tended to change the Irish "I'm sorry we don't agree." "Don't agree! with the bells, adding in the same breath attitude; first the annexation of Czecho- But wasn't it to be a terrible thing, all the "and now give us a copper". At other slovakia, which is felt to be a country young boys dying in Spain"—she was times they would come pattering up to us similar to Ireland, and second the inten- quite a nice old lady after all—"and asking for money without even the sified persecution of Catholics. In addition, Michael going off like that, and we pretence of giving information. At last I the close collaboration between Germany wondering what had become of him!" decided to use a stratagem, and said, "Be and Japan, whose robber war in China is "There are two sides to it, of course", we off, or I'll bring a policeman!" This worked so strongly resented in Ireland, has tended agreed. "Ah, it's nearly killed his father, like a charm—they went scampering off since Munich to alienate sympathy from him an old man with his hair white. It's too in all directions, and goodness knows how Germany, which no longer can pose as much worry we had over it." "But he came it got around, we were never again pestered champion of small nations. Also Hitler is back." "He did. But what is after bringing in Cork, despite looks of surprise on the regarded as the man who is liable to cause him back? Prayers, it is! It's only that! faces of some of the locals. Now, by world war. He'll be in at three o'clock and I'll tell him English standards, our appearance was The Mayor of Cork is the first Labour you've called and hold him back for you. highly respectable! ... Mayor of the city. There are 5 Labour What is your name?" "Desmond Greaves." Later we met (Jim) Regan, a friend of councillors, out of 15, the rest being either The name Desmond worked wonders. She O'Riordan, also of the IB (International Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael. Proportional smiled her approval—and, her nationalist Brigade) and a party member, who told us representation results in a much fairer feelings getting the better of her, she that O'Riordan would not be about for a disposition of seats among the parties. chatted merrily for a good ten minutes, while. We went into a pub, and I had a The workers of Ireland are 75% organised wanting to hear all the details of the exile's whiskey... Regan does not drink. He and the Trade Union movement is rela- return, as she thought it must be. explained that everybody he had known tively stronger than in Britain. Wages are However, we decided to go to Cobh, to begin, had ended by taking too much, better. There is no official connection but to get back by three. We were stopped and that he therefore neither drank nor between Labour and the TUs except that half way, however, by violent rainstorms. smoked. This was startlingly borne out the same persons run both... We have thus Our devil's luck had deserted us, and we later on, as at tap-stop the pubs disgorged a social-democratic Labour party, without had to shelter under a yew tree until we dozens upon dozens of drunken men who, TU or Co-op finance. There is a general were invited into a cottage. The young whatever their age, sang and jostled their apathy among workers. Éire is separated man who chatted with us was against the way along the broad pavements of Patrick by Britain from European struggles, and IRA men who "didn't know how to conduct Street, three sheets to the wind. I remarked even the natural alertness of the people themselves", but was loud in his praises of upon the fine buildings. "Well, to be sure, tends to be lulled if they stand in the the IRA who had "fought for the inde- we've got the British Government to thank shadow of such a great power. Also, pendence of their country". Everybody for them." "Oh! How?" "Well, in 1920 nobody feels that Ireland is capable of 17 playing a part in world affairs, and nobody give them political autonomy. They want- listening to the Scotchman, we went to bed. in the country wants her to try, as the ed peace. He gave it to them. Then they penalties would certainly outweigh the realised it was peace on the terms of the Cork, Fermoy, Mitchelstown ... advantages. Anglo-Irish big bourgeoisie. They voted July 25, Tues. O'Riordan proposed we should go and in then the petty-bourgeois de Valera who In the morning we set off. Our devil's have a drink. We pointed out that it was 11 carried the revolution a little further. But luck as regards the weather reasserted o'clock, an hour after closing time, and he was failing them; the labour movement itself. It rained to right, to left of us, before that though we were bona fide travellers, was sunk in economism—communism and behind us—but, with the exception of they were certainly not. But he took us to unknown—and but for the short time when a shower at Mitchelstown, not on us. The the side-door of a pub, knocked three de Valera appealed to the masses over the journey was through interesting country, times, and waited until the door was Trade War with Britain, there had been a mainly in the valleys between mountain cautiously opened and we were let in. gradually increasing disillusionment with ranges. The country seemed fairly pros- There, in the darkened bar, in the dim all politicians. This also is the basis for perous, with a deal of dairying going on; reflected light from a distant street-lamp, IRA activities—the helplessness and the bogs were absent; there were numerous relieved only by an occasional reddening defeatism of republicanism under de Val- co-operative creameries... We went on to of a pipe or a cigarette, we discovered era's government. Finally, after promis- Kilkenny... about twenty customers, drinking in dead ing to send O'Riordan Daily Workers, and C. Desmond Greaves, July 1939 silence, steadily and continuously, or stopping to talk in whispers and under- tones. It was a strange sight, and it was there, and under the influence of the stout, De Valera on Zionism and Palestine that O'Riordan explained to me that he Republican Ireland and Zionism and Regan were still members of the IRA, and that as such they were liable to arrest. PART ONE They would have to keep silence and De Valera's election to President of the Walshe, that a group of former colonies refuse to plead, under the rules of the IRA. League of Nations Assembly in September should work together to "change the But, of course, they would adopt the communist method of defending them- 1932 was an international sensation. In Commonwealth's character and give us selves and making a platform. his inaugural address he expressed sceptic- an opportunity of sliding quietly out of the But O'Riordan felt most bitterly, he ism of the League's intentions or ability to King's orbit" (Documents on Irish Foreign said, the tragedy of his young comrades of halt aggression by big powers. But he also Policy, Vol. 5, p309). the IRA (many of whom would have fought championed the notion of international Following the Cumann na nGaedheal with him in Spain), under their bad law in the interests of small nations, and Governments of the 1920s which, if any- leadership, with all sincerity, going over active measures of "collective security" in thing, had become overzealous in imple- to England to cause unnecessary friction defence of the "Charter" of the League. menting the letter of the Treaty and had with a potentially friendly people, and An editorial in the Journal de Geneve focussed on Ireland's 'Dominion Status' in losing ten, fifteen, or twenty of their best (25th September 1932), widely syndicated the Commonwealth/Empire, De Valera's years, in the service of a mistaken cause. in the world press, caught the flavour of foreign policy represented a return to the It was true, of course, that partition must be remedied before the Irish movement his impact: position advocated by Collins of hollowing could ever turn towards the questions of "... Eamon de Valera, the outlaw and out the Treaty and establishing an inde- social revolution. Republican traditions hero, is now at the head of all the nations pendent existence in the world. As part of of the world... {His Presidency} may would remain in their primitive anarchistic this, immediately following his election become a sort of guiding light, a star in to power, he wound down the State's condition until Ulster was returned to Éire. the heavens for all those oppressed But when de Valera was already making peoples struggling for their independence engagement with the Empire and expanded such good progress, these attempts would —de Valera presiding over the sessions its role at the League of Nations instead. only harden things. He remarked that the of the Council at which the Japanese will Article 29 ("International Relations") Catholic Church had come out against the have to explain their attitude to China. of the 1937 Constitution incorporated the bombings, but just as he, as a Catholic Here is an astonishing occurrence, of foreign policy principles of the 1921 from birth—who felt it was hard even which Ghandi and millions of Indians, Declaration of Independence, committing now not to be a Catholic—had gone to Arabs, of yellow people and, perhaps, of the State to "international justice", the Spain despite O'Duffy's reactionary alli- black, will at once grasp the full import." ance with the Church, so these young men "pacific settlement of international dis- braved excommunication as well as jail. DE VALERA'S FOREIGN POLICY IN 1930S putes", and the overriding role of the They were splendid types. There was in But de Valera's role on the world stage "recognised principles of international Ireland a great deal of anticlericalism was not that of a revolutionary demagogue. law" in relations between states. The which would be expressed round the peat The manner of Ireland's achievement of State could join or become associated fires by the farm labourers, but which independence was seen internationally as with "any group or league of nations ... for everybody would keep silent on in the a model. Close relations with India deve the purpose of international co-operation street. It would not do, for example, even loped on this basis, with the Indian revolu- in matters of common concern". Article in 'the rebel Cork' {sic}, for them to profess 28 stated that "War shall not be declared anything but complete agreement with tionary Subhas Chandra Bose—leader of and the State shall not participate in any Catholicism. Their fellow-workers would the 'militant' wing of the Indian Congress otherwise have no faith in them. and persona non-grata in Britain—twice war save with the assent of Dáil Éireann", meeting with de Valera in the 1930s. In i.e. the automatic commitment to support He finally explained how the apathy of Britain's wars inherent in the 1921 Treaty the people was contributed to by de Valera. 1938 the Egyptian Foreign Minister Shar- were annulled at a stroke. First Cosgrave had disappointed them. He ara Pasha—Egypt at the time having a came into power at the end of the trouble status in the British Empire not dissimilar In September 1938, at the height of the {sic} because he was against pursuing the to that of the Irish Free State—proposed European crisis over Czechoslovakia and national struggle any further than would to one of de Valera's closest aides, Joseph its discontented minority German, Slovak, 18 Hungarian and other populations, de best suited to their needs—that is their strengthen the hand of the Republic in Valera, addressing the League, called for affair—and it should be made clear at dealing with Lloyd George: once that differences in this regard are "a general European peace conference or "On that day {June 21st} the Irish not and will not be a cause of war among at least a peace conference between the Hierarchy were meeting in convention at the peoples." greater Powers" to bring about "a lasting Maynooth. President de Valera, believing In the spirit of this sentiment de Valera peace in Europe as a preliminary to the that support from the Church would had been instrumental in securing the establishment of a League of Nations immeasurably reinforce the national acceptance of the Soviet Union into League position, went to Maynooth and urged effective over the whole world... If nations membership, and down to September 1939 them to issue a statement recognising the be called to make certain sacrifices at continued to advocate the peaceful settle- Irish Government as the legitimate such a conference, these will be far less Government of Ireland. The Bishops did ment of the remaining issues arising from than the sacrifices they will have to make not take the action required…" (Dorothy Versailles. in the event of war." He supported the McArdle, The Irish Republic, Dublin, This was all during what we are now efforts of the British Chamberlain Govern- 1951, p465). told by historians Tom Garvin, Brian ment at this stage for a general settlement Instead, the Bishops remained stub- Girvin and others was Ireland's "isolation- between the Powers to resolve the out- bornly on the ground of the Home Rule ist, inward-looking" period. standing conflicts from Versailles. In a position, demanding merely that the British reference to Danzig and other questions facilitate the election of a representative he continued: REPUBLICAN IRELAND, FASCISM & THE JEWS government. They never endorsed the Many members of the 3,000 strong "If, therefore, a solution is found now Republic. This enabled the British to southern Irish Jewish community support- to the Sudeten problem it will be madness proceed with their strategy, regardless of ed the Sinn Féin movement that developed to sit by and see another crisis develop in the Irish position, of forcing the establish- regard to other questions which everyone after 1916, while the Jewish community ment of a Dominion Home Rule arrange- knows must ultimately be settled before in Belfast tended towards Unionism. This ment on the basis of the 1920 Government the foundations of anything like a perm- mirrored the traditions of Western Euro- of Ireland Act that had been rejected by anent peace in Europe can be laid. To pean Judaism at that time. That Jews in adopt the ostrich policy towards these Republican Ireland. The "Provisional southern Ireland were attracted to Repub- questions will not remove them out of the Government", subsequently established licanism rather than Redmondism was way. Nor will the advice to let sleeping under the Treaty, was understood by also not surprising, given the pluralism of dogs lie keep dogs indefinitely asleep…" Britain as resting on the basis of that Act. ('Only hope of lasting Peace', Irish Press, Sinn Féin compared to the increasingly The defeat of Republicanism in 1922-3 27.08.1938) clericalist substance of the Irish Parli- and the establishment of the 'Free State' amentary Party since it had absorbed the In this speech—which inexplicably is substantially on the grounds of the old Ancient Order of Hibernians as a mass not included in the Cambridge/Royal Irish Home Rule concept reinvigorated the Catholic base in 1906 and enjoyed the Academy Documents on Irish Foreign Catholic Hierarchy and gave it, and undivided support of the Catholic Hierarchy. Policy—De Valera let it be known that he Catholic lay organisations in the tradition As the controversy over the anti-Jewish was no well meaning pacifist and that of the AOH, a far more influential role in disturbances in 1904 in Limerick had Ireland would support a just war against relation to the new State in the 1920s than shown, anti-Jewish tendencies were also international aggression. But he also stres- they had enjoyed with the Republican more pronounced in its ranks than among sed that the current problems in Europe State of 1919-21. the 'advanced nationalists'. Several Jews could not be understood in these terms, The catastrophic conditions in conti- actively participated in the War of Inde- but rather in terms of conflicts which had nental Europe resulting from the 'Great pendence on the side of the Republic. just grievances at their source: War' and the Versailles Treaty of 1919— Robert Briscoe, from a Dublin Jewish "The war of sheer aggression, the war particularly the destruction and balkan- merchant family with international con- of the bully who covets what does not ising of the multi-national Habsburg State, belong to him and means to possess nections, became an officer in Collins' the emasculation of the Italian and German himself of it by force, is not the war that Intelligence service, organised arms States and the pauperisation of the German we need to fear most. The most dangerous supplies from Germany, was later an and Austrian populations—provided the war is that which has its origin in just officer in the anti-Treaty IRA, and went claims denied, or in a clash of opposing impulse for the rise of modern fascism. It on to serve nearly forty years as a Fianna rights and not merely opposing interests, gained some followers in Ireland, with an Fáil TD. Others active in Sinn Féin includ- when each side can see no reason in intellectual anti-Jewish tendency develop- ed the Dublin solicitor, Michael Noyk, a justice why it should yield its claim to the ing in right-wing clerical-corporatist other. If, by conceding the claims of close aide of Griffith during the War, circles associated with the "Blueshirt" justice, or by reasonable compromise in Griffith himself having abandoned his movement. A popular pamphlet, The a spirit of fair play, we take steps to avoid earlier imperialist views on the 'Jewish Mystical Body of Christ in the Modern the latter kind of war, we can face the Question'. Chief Rabbi Dr. Isaac Herzog possibility of the other kind with relative World (1936), issued with the imprimatur became a close friend of Éamon de Valera, equanimity." of the Archbishop of Dublin, warned of providing a safe house for him when he the threat of "Jewish finance" and "Jewish was on the run, and remaining a confident De Valera also opposed the division of Bolshevism" to European Christendom. of his throughout his life. Europe into "fascist" and "anti-fascist", But fascism as a political force never The Republican ascendancy over or "Bolshevik" and "anti-Bolshevik", gained substantial currency in Ireland, Redmondism from 1918 never succeeded camps. He denounced as "gratuitously and was irrelevant in the context of the in securing the endorsement of the Hier- criminal" attempts to— vibrant republican ideology that remained archy. In June 1921, at the height of the "array Europe in hostile camps accord- the dominant strand in all political parties. ing to State ideology. The people of each War of Independence and during the nation or state can be depended on to negotiations towards establishing the The views of the Fianna Fáil Govern- evolve that form of State organisation Truce, de Valera sought their support to ment in the 1930s were given very direct 19 expression in the Irish Press. Fine Gael and as a body of persons entitled by law in Europe—economic collapse and the TD James Dillon, who, as Elizabeth Bowen to their place in the country's life" (The rise of anti-Jewish sentiment—led to a reported to British Intelligence, was one Irish Times, 24th March 1938) surge in the years thereafter, with 30,000 of the few figures in the Irish political arriving in 1933, 42,000 in 1934 and establishment with genuine fascist sym- BRITISH ZIONIST PROJECT 62,000 in 1935. By 1939, from a base of The small international Zionist move- pathies, later accurately described it as about 40,000 in 1917, the Jewish popula- ment of the 1930s, which was strongest in "de Valera's Pravda", read "in every tion had reached nearly half a million. The the US and was a marginal presence among chancellery in the world … to find out Arab world for its part, which had joined anti-assimilationist Jews in Europe, had what was behind his pious affirmations in Britain's war of 1914-18 for the destruction been fiercely pro-British since the Balfour public" (The Irish Times, 29.11.1957). of the Turkish Empire on the basis of the Declaration of November 1917. The Contrary to the current fashion of promise of an Arab State, was balkanised Zionist project of colonising Palestine portraying Irish opinions of the 1930s as and colonised by Britain and France in could only be carried out under the wing isolated from and ignorant of the world, their carve-up of the Ottoman Empire. of a protective world power, and that the front page of the Irish Press was In British ruling circles there was a power, as persistently stated by leaders of usually dominated by world news and a convergence between anti-Semitism and the Zionist movement, was the British singularly independent view of them. It Zionism. Its Aliens Act of 1905 had been Empire. The Balfour Declaration promised reported negatively on the suppression of directed mainly against Jewish immigra- the establishment of a "Jewish homeland" democracy and the persecution of the Jews tion and had been enacted in a public in Palestine under British protection— and the Christian Churches in Nazi atmosphere of spy fever and anti-Semitic despite the very small Jewish population Germany, much to the chagrin of Charles fervour. The demagoguery surrounding in the area at the time. Its purpose was to Bewley, the pro-Nazi Free State Ambas- its introduction provided the intellectual bring the US into the war on the side of sador in Berlin. It also covered de Valera's climate of the 1904 disturbances in Limer- Britain. It acted as a powerful stimulant to public opposition to racial persecution in ick. Britain's Imperial intervention forces, European anti-Semitism, as Zionism Europe and its coverage of the Spanish sent to overthrow the Soviet Government sought to align European Jewry with Civil War betrayed some republican in 1919, stood by while their White Army British interests and against those of the sympathies much in contrast to the allies indulged in widespread anti-Semitic States where the largest Jewish populations militantly Catholic Irish Independent. At massacres. As Minister for War, Churchill actually lived. the same time, the Irish Press gave exten- defended these massacres as understand- During the 'Great War' Britain had also sive and respectful coverage to the appoint- able in the context of the role of the Jews promised the Arabs the creation of an ment of Dr. Eduard Hempel as German in destroying Tsarism. The following year, Arab State which included the same terri- Ambassador to Ireland and as late as July Churchill set out the full British Zionist tory. The populated, fertile area of the region 1939 hailed the conclusion of a Trade and case. Describing the Jews as "the most stretched no more than a few dozen miles Technology Agreement with Germany as formidable and the most remarkable race", inland from the Mediterranean before a major step towards undoing Irish econ- he differentiated between "Good and Bad running up against a large desert east of omic dependence on Britain. While the Jews": Government accepted whatever form of Damascus and Amman. In 1922 Britain "The conflict between good and evil State other peoples chose, it was unequi- had the League of Nations adopt Palestine which proceeds unceasingly in the breast vocal on the values of the Irish republican as a "Mandate Territory", with Britain of man nowhere reaches such an intensity state. This reflected de Valera's position holding the mandate to implement the as in the Jewish race... It may well be that Balfour Declaration. this same astounding race may at the as he had outlined it at Geneva. present time be in the actual process of The new 1937 Constitution (Bunreacht In the late 1930s, when the chaotic conditions which colonial settlement in producing another system of morals and na hÉireann) recognised the Catholic philosophy, as malevolent as Christianity Church as having a "special position" in Palestine was causing dictated that Brit- was benevolent, which, if not arrested, the State, but it also—to the chagrin of the ain's interests change towards a policy of would shatter irretrievably all that Hierarchy—recognised the main Protest- creating a joint Jewish-Arab entity, a Christianity has rendered possible..." ant denominations as well as Judaism as propaganda pamphlet by Oxford Professor This malevolent Jewish philosophy was official religions of the State. As Professor James Parkes (Palestine, Oxford Pam- Bolshevism, "a worldwide conspiracy for Joe Lee put it, this was "a gesture not phlets on World Affairs, 1940), issued to the overthrow of civilization". He differen- without dignity in the Europe of 1937" provide the case for this, pointed out some tiated between "National Jews" and "Inter- (Ireland 1922-1985. Politics and Society, of the demographic realities. In 1914 there national Jewry". The latter was a disruptive p203). A leading Zionist official, Rabbi were no more than about 20,000 native force in the world, while only Zionism M.L. Perlzweig, on a visit to Dublin during Jews and 10,000 Zionist settlers in Pales- offered the prospect of the Jews being a break in negotiations in London over tine, and at the time of the Balfour Declar- grounded in a nationalism of their own, British plans for Palestine— ation 93% of the population (664,000) "the Jew" becoming a nationality rather "paid a high tribute to Ireland's treat- was still Arab. But under the 'British Man- than a disruptive internationalist, while ment of the Jews, which, he said, had date', Jewish settlement was aided and also fulfilling an imperial function by created among Jews all over the world a assisted, being met with Arab resistance creating a white British colony beside the feeling of help and encouragement, and a at every stage. Between 1918 and 1922, knowledge that there still were powerful Suez Canal defending the land bridge to 20,000 Zionist settlers arrived, followed India: forces in the world working for liberty by 7,400 in 1923, 12,800 in 1924 and and justice... It was a matter of interest to "But, if, as may well happen, there 33,800 in 1925. The Jewish population Jewry all over the world, he said, that should be created in our lifetime by the Ireland in the magnanimity of her spirit settled at 150,000 in 1929, and appeared banks of the Jordan, a Jewish State under chose to speak specifically in her Con- to have reached its limit, with just 5,000 the protection of the British Crown, which stitution of the Jewish community as an arriving per year in the three years up to might comprise three or four million of integral element in the Commonwealth, 1932, when it again rose to 10,000. Events Jews, an event ... in the history of the 20 world which would, from every point of was close to the de Valera Government, been fulfilled by the Jewish plantation, view, be beneficial, and would be commented: although the Jews, too, got a double deal, especially in harmony with the truest "What England has undertaken in the since their 'National Home' was declared interests of the British Empire." ('Zionism Holy Land may yet prove the destruction to mean no more than a settlement..." versus Bolshevism. Struggle for the Soul of her Eastern power. There seldom was ('How Britain betrayed the Arabs', of the Jewish people', Illustrated Sunday a more flagrant piece of diplomatic Catholic Bulletin, February 1938). Herald, 18th February 1920) hypocrisy than British tactics in Palestine The Governor of Palestine in the 1920s, display. During the Great War, the Arab De Valera's friendship with the Irish Sir Andrew Storrs, summarised the British nations were won over to the Allies by Jewish community was the very antithesis British pledges. England promised that, concept thus: a colony gradually built up of the Zionist project. He regarded the if the Arabs would cooperate in the Jews and other religious minorities as in Palestine would evolve for Britain into overthrow of the Turkish Empire, she integral elements of the nation and sought "a loyal little Jewish Ulster in a sea of would establish and recognise a great hostile Arabism" (Storr, Orientations, free Arab State, raised on its ruin. When their cooperation in building the Republic. 1937, p358). peace came, the promise was torn to As the next part of this article will show, shreds, the Arab world was split into a de Valera, while mobilising the very limit- number of isolated kingdoms and ed resources of the State in attempts to save IRISH VIEWS OF THE ZIONIST PROJECT protectorates, and a plantation of a quarter The creation of the Jewish colony in threatened Jewish communities in Europe, of a million Jews was made in Palestine... took a resolute stance at international level Palestine by Britain under the League of The promise {of an Arab State} was against the colonial project in Palestine, Nations mandate was regarded in Ireland understood to include Palestine, but the as essentially a British Imperial project. English, seven years later, shuffled out of and later came to be regarded as the main Despite his friendship with the leaders of yielding Palestine … In the interval the barrier to acceptance by Ireland of the Israeli the Jewish community in Ireland, de Valera pledge to the Jews, which flatly State established by the United Nations. distrusted British designs in Palestine. In contravened the pledge to the Arabs, had Philip O'Connor the 1930s Britain was engaged in a fierce terrorist war against Arab opposition to the Jewish immigration to Palestine being carried out under its tutelage. In 1937 it In Reply to Jeff Dudgeon on Peter Hart ignored the League and declared its inten- Peter Hart's argument in The IRA And right, in other words, but it would be tion of partitioning Palestine into Jewish Its Enemies (1998) provoked a sharp wrong to discuss it. and Arab sub-colonies. Arab opinion debate on the conduct of academic histori- vociferously rejected this, as was reported ography in Ireland and a perceived inter- In 1998 Hart wrote of this event, that sympathetically in Ireland. The Irish relationship with the requirements of was central to his analysis overall, "my Independent drew comparisons between public policy on the conflict in the North primary sources were interviews with participants and statements made by them, the British suppression of the Arab resist- of Ireland. Irish Historians divided in Hart's conducted and collected by myself and ance and the situation in Ireland in 1919- wake, into pro, con, or (more often) wary 22, and also expressed Catholic concerns others". These "primary sources" were of venturing above the parapet. When critics anonymous and gradually attracted more for the fate of the Christian sacred sites in originally emerged, they concluded that attention than 'who did what'. Hart's use of the area. An Irish Press editorial on 10th Hart's methodology was quite often slip- anonymous informants reinforced a sense July 1937 stated that the disastrous condi- shod, unreliable, and, in places, unbelievable. that he was exposing truths that could not tions of conflict in Palestine were a direct This criticism, particularly the latter otherwise be uttered. result of the duplicity of British policy point, was characterised within the aca- The alternative view of 'evidence' not since the Balfour Declaration, which, with demy as inappropriate. As Fearghal Mc subject to verification was ignored. Hart its aim of maintaining a strategic strong- Garry of Queen's University Belfast put it, floated above his critics who, in peppering hold in the Middle East under the guise of "Some of the resulting controversies fell his academic flank with detailed criticism, a League of Nations mandate, was now within the realm of legitimate debate, but could not knock him down to earth to deal threatening the Arab population with being a lot didn't" (Irish News, 28 Aug 2010), with it. Doubtless, this was frustrating. By ruled by an immigrant Jewish majority. but without informing us what, in his all accounts the late historian was a person- able individual, far from having a sense of The partition proposals, it elsewhere rep- view, either did or did not. This was said after Peter Hart's recent sudden unfortunate his own importance and was generous orted, would see the Arabs "ousted from death. Roy Foster summed up Hart's critics, with his time, expertise and advice. It may the coastal areas to the hills", while the as (unnamed) "local historians and piet- be wondered, therefore, why he did not proposed Jewish area would be too small ists", while University College Dublin's acknowledge mistakes or address critic- to be defensible ('Partition and Palestine: Diarmaid Ferriter endorsed Hart's view isms in a reasoned manner. Arabs and Jews opposed to Commission that critics practised "faith-based or creat- It may be that Hart did not have Proposals', Irish Press, 9th July 1937). ionist history" (Irish Times, 31 July 2010). academically-acceptable explanations. It Liberal opinion in Ireland too was By accusing Hart's critics of engaging may be also, that the academy had invested hostile, Owen Sheehy Skeffington writing: inappropriately, his historian supporters too much unquestioning belief in Hart to "The interesting fact which lurks behind (who dismiss the notion that they support require him to explain his methods. Critic- this revolt is that the Arabs are fighting for anything other than, disinterestedly, their ism was destined to be ignored and, where possible, suppressed. their liberty against British Imperialism craft) had a reason for refusing to engage. One particular criticism, however, was which is using the Zionist movement as a dismissed as unimportant. Fearghal Mc The context in which Peter Hart's The willing instrument" ('A foreign com- Garry reported, "The inordinate focus on IRA And Its Enemies was publicised in mentary', Ireland Today, vol. 1, no. 5, who did what at Kilmichael detracted 1998 affected its reception. While histor- October 1936). The Catholic Bulletin, from appreciation of the significance of ians McGarry and Foster criticise negative which despite its title promoted a rigorous- {Hart's} body of work as a whole" (Irish reactions to Hart's work, they do not ly republican view of world affairs and News, 28 Aug 2010). Criticism might be address the polemical manner in which it 21 was promoted and defended, a promotion IRA shot imagined enemies at random, "I take issue with the argumentative Hart appeared to encourage. For instance, mainly Protestants, and those they saw as manner in which Peter Hart approaches in the Sunday Times (19 April 1998) wrote "deviants". his response… His language is emotional about Tom Barry, the IRA commander of Hart was challenged in detail on all of and aggressive…. I don't believe that the successful 28 November 1920 Kil- these points. Take one of the first examples Hart is able to convince his 'enemies' by michael Ambush, "Barry is still considered of criticism to emerge. Brian Murphy denouncing them; he has to argue with to be an idealistic figure, unlike the great reviewed The IRA And Its Enemies in The them, based on historical evidence and majority of his comrades he was little Month (Sept-Oct 1998). Murphy, English- understanding of that time." more than a serial killer and thought of born, Oxford-educated, is a historian with Hart did not take the advice. As late as the revolution largely in terms of shooting impeccable credentials. His words to the 2009 in History Ireland, the historian and people. His politics were very primitive". effect that Hart"s book was "important" former doctoral student colleague of Hart, The promotional efforts of journalists appeared afterwards on its dust jacket. In Joost Augusteijn, recommended that Hart Kevin Myers and Eoghan Harris stimul- the course of his review, Murphy consider- respond. The things those sympathetic to ated a low-level culture war in which the ed Hart's discussion of the 27-29 April Hart's position accuse his critics of doing, evidential basis of Hart's views was chal- 1922 republican killing of 13 Protestant have been done by Hart himself and his lenged. Far from pietism and historical civilians in West Cork. supporters. creationism, skeptics addressed evidence The unprecedented event climaxed on all occasions. In return, they received a Hart's analysis. It occurred during the If Roy Foster, Diarmaid Ferriter or rather low-level response. Roy Foster cited increasingly chaotic interregnum between Fearghal McGarry (or others) wish to Hart as a basis for dismissing Ken Loach's the signing of the Anglo Irish Treaty in address specific issues, they are in an portrayal of the IRA in his film, The Wind December 1921, the republican split in essay on spinwatch.org, The Stubborn That Shakes The Barley (2006). Hart January and the onset of Civil War in June Facts Of Kilmichael, in which I examine: "raised hell" among (unnamed) "local his- 1922. Hart cited a sentence from an (a) the political context within which torians", noted the Waterford-born professor. archived British Intelligence analysis that Peter Hart's research was promoted and the Pursuing the theme, Foster also sup- was, he wrote, "by common consent the reaction from within the academy to the ported allegations of IRA sectarianism most trustworthy source we have". It stated emergence of a critique; towards two farmers shot in June 1921 at that, generally, Southern Irish Protestants (b) the basis of Hart's interpretive Coolacrease, Co Offaly. This was depicted were not guilty of informing because framework; in a contentious RTE documentary on the "except by chance, they had not got (c) how evidence was shaped to fit that framework. subject involving Eoghan Harris, a prog- {information} to give". In other words, ramme that itself relied on Hart's research Protestants were not active in support of I take the detailed discussion further to establish the notion of widespread anti- British forces. Hart could then state with here by pinpointing the actual source of Protestantism. What was this if not a "faith confidence that those shot in April 1922 Hart's anonymous information. I link this based" response to criticism? were killed more or less at random to a fundamental flaw in Hart's reasoning The critical summary of Hart's legacy "because they were Protestants". The point that undermined his narrative. I examine in September's Irish Political Review was central to his argument. However, the Kilmichael chapter, not to demonstrate criticised those who adopted Hart's "mil- Murphy pointed out that Hart left out a that there is a definitive account of the lenarian… spirit" and who "responded to sentence following the one he quoted, Ambush (that is probably impossible), it as believers". Jeff Dudgeon, a Roger stating, "an exception to this rule was in but in order to prove that Hart's conclusion Casement scholar, questioned this view the Bandon area", where these loyalists shaped his evidence. of Hart's analysis. He also, unusually, were killed, and that those involved engaged with some detail, but challenged suffered greatly. The evidence unavoidably affects petty-minded "fact-checking". Dudgeon consideration of what McGarry termed The evidence available to him in his asked his readers to acknowledge the "the significance of the body of {Hart's} inevitability of error and mentioned some "most trustworthy source" contradicted work overall", in particular the rest of his of his own Irish Political Review, October). Hart's conclusion and he omitted it. book. It is absurd to assert otherwise. This example of misrepresentation of Those who saw weaknesses in Hart's an archival source was not the first to I address in detail two points raised by presentation of evidence regarded them as emerge. It was difficult to elicit explana- Jeff Dudgeon in his letter to Irish Political more than trivial, however. Attention tions of these and other anomalies. Review, the "scout" status of one of Peter focused initially on Hart's second chapter, Take another example. In 2003 Meda Hart's Kilmichael interviewees, and the The Kilmichael Ambush, and his pen- Ryan published her critique of Hart, Tom southern Protestant experience of the War Barry, IRA Freedom Fighter. Its title ultimate Taking It Out On The Protestants of Independence. I show that in each of provided Hart with sufficient excuse to chapter, because they established his view these areas Peter Hart's errors go far beyond ignore her contention that Hart appeared the kind of trivial errors that Jeff Dudgeon that the War of Independence was an to have interviewed an anonymous Kil- exercise in ethnic and sectarian revenge. intimates were involved. I invite Jeff michael Ambush veteran after the last Dudgeon to respond to the detail. Hart regarded the Kilmichael Ambush participant died. It also permitted him to Failure on the part of the broad academic commander, Tom Barry, as "vain, angry observe that Ryan's analysis was not community to discuss revelations about and ruthless" (p32), a liar (p36) and as a "rational". It was at this point, after a "serial killer" (p100), who engineered a History Ireland interview with Hart Hart's methodology and to address the "massacre" of surrendered British soldiers (March-April 2005)—in which Ryan was criticism will mean that it has failed in its (p37). Hart observed: "the culmination of deemed irrational and in which Hart claim- primary intellectual duty to advance know- a long process of social definition… pro- ed that Murphy's criticism was unpub- ledge by means of discussion, evaluation duced both the heroes of Kilmichael and lished—that discussion became heated. and debate.The ball is in their court. the victims of the April massacre". As he A newcomer and neutral in the debate, Niall Meehan put it, "one is as important as the other in Andreas Boldt of Maynooth, in surveying See, The stubborn facts of Kilmichael at understanding of the Cork IRA" (p292). the fall-out in later editions of History www;spinwatch.org:http://www.spinwatch Ireland (to Sept-Oct 2005), suggested to .org/-articles-by-category-mainmenu-8/52- He went on to suggest in his final Hart that he should engage with the northern-ireland/5394-distorting-irishhistory chapter, Spies And Informers, that the argument objectively: -the-stubborn-facts-of-the-kilmichael- incident 22 of Midleton College which is a mixed-sex something happened. Under the title of boarding/day college where his twin the 'Military and Hospitaller Order of Saint teenage sons attend. His involvement in Lazarus of Jerusalem' there is this description: es ahora * the Hard Gospel movement is evidence of "This is the only legitimate presentation where his sympathies lie. of the reunited order, successor of the In the Phoenix, Vol. 28, No.21, October two former Obediences Malta and Paris THE COSH OF THE CROZIER 22-November 4th 2010, there is an intrigu- When Church of Ireland Bishop of reunited and legitimated under one ing mention of Bishop Colton and his Grandmastership since 2008". Cork, Cloyne and Ross Paul Colton took friend Dr. Rev. Robert McCarthy at an umbrage at the Fine Gael politicians of extraordinary ceremony at St. Patrick's The rules were changed to allow Cork County Vocational Education Com- Cathedral, Dublin. The Military and "Obedience only to our Grand Master and mittee (VEC) who at their annual meeting Hospitaller Order of Saint Lazarus of Constitution", with no mention of Papal took a democratic vote and elected fellow Jerusalem held "an elaborate" cathedral involvement. I would love to know who Fine Gael former councillor Tom Sheehan ceremony— the RC clerics were and wonder if they are onto the Committee, as was their right, all "against the chants from St. Patrick's from a certain abbey which has been in the hell broke loose. Canon George Salter lost choir and readings from Ezekiel and news lately. his seat as a result of the vote but Bishop Mark, all under the watchful eyes of the Colton was furious and accused the poor international Grand Master, Don Carlos IRELAND AND THE IMF Fine Gaelers of behaving badly towards Gereda de Borbon, Marquis de Almazan As the Government tried-for consensus the minority Church. He also accused "the and the Irish Prior Chev Bernard Barton, across party for the economic bind we are councillors of pursuing a political SC, the 'Inquisitor' Elena Keany-O'Brien all in—not surprisingly it didn't fly. The agenda". Immediately the Fine Gaelers who asked the 'postulants' on whom the Opposition parties—with the exception issued a statement saying that they would Order of Lazarus was about to bestow of Sinn Fein which wouldn't even attend— give Canon Salter "a role as an observer membership to stand." came out of the meeting, having looked at on the committee". The Bishop was not Among those who stood was none other the national books in the Department of for turning and denounced "vested political than Bishop Paul Colton, Bishop of Cork, Finance, with purple faces and purple interests", and even went so far as to add Cloyne and Ross. There followed a Who's prose as well. The combative Shadow that "the entire system of appointing VEC Who of the elite of Ireland. Some of the Finance Fine Gael spokesman, Michael members should be overhauled". The names would be nationally familiar. There Noonan TD, warned that tax hikes would media was behind the Bishop and of course were the 'Commanders', Dr. Attracta be "significantly higher" than even the Fine Fail, seeing their chance, took the Halpin, NUI Registrar, and her husband, darkest predictions up to now. The country high moral ground and accused the Fine Emmanuel Kehoe, TV critic. These were quaked anew as Noonan spelled it out: Gaelers of "adopting a 'grab all' mentality followed by the 'Knights of Justice' author, "The figure of adjustment that was pub- and snubbing a minority religion". That is James 'Turtle' Bunbury of Lisnavagh lished in the Government plans was how Tim Brosnan, Cork City VEC Fine Estate in Co. Carlow, Patrick Guinness 'of €7.5billion, with lower rates being pro- Fail member, put it to the Evening Echo on Moyne', son of Desmond, and father of jected, the figure is going to be significantly 1st October 2010. Jasmine; David O'Morchoe—The O' higher than that". He said the scale of the The good natured former County Mayor Morchoe—CB, MBE, retired British planned "structural correction" could be Tom Sheehan was now well and truly in Army man and chief of the Murphys of as much as €12billion, given the Inter- the dog-house. After first appealing to the Leinster. (He was the elderly gentleman national Monetary Fund had already general public by stating: who, as the Irish Political Review pointed estimated that "Ireland would need to find "My motivations are sincere and genu- out, had to be helped by our President €10.7billion over the four years". ine. I've served on boards of management MacAleese in a Poppy Day ceremony in Labour Deputy Leader Joan Burton at primary and secondary schools …. I Dublin and who had a bar for all his told us that: "our creditworthiness had have spent a lot more doing voluntary been called into question and our global work. We have been looking for a new medals!) Last but not least, Professor Ferdinand von Prondzynski of Knockdrin', credibility shattered". Figures that were school in Buttevant for years and that is "very challenging" meant the country's my main motivation." recently retired president of Dublin City University and keen blogger. very sovereignty was "in peril" as politi- But for Tom—the game was up. Within The Grand Prior of the Order of Lazarus cians tried to avoid "the cold embrace of two weeks he had resigned and Canon of Ireland, barrister Bernard Barton SC, the IMF". All of this was predictably Salter took up the suddenly vacated seat. then asked the postulants to promise splashed across the media and provoked The Irish Times, which with Fintan O' solemnly to obey the statutes of the order, widespread anger and fear. Toole has been backing a systematic attack to uphold its "high ideals of Christian Unlike the French, the nation took to on schools under the patronage of the devotion, service and charity" etc. the airwaves and letters' pages of our Catholic Church, did not contradict the In a previous private ceremony, as national dailies to bemoan fate. Some Bishop at any stage, nor did any other Phoenix revealed, former President Mary thought that the only saviour was the IMF, media or politician. Certain members of Robinson had been made a 'Dame' and which was pretty tragic if it were not so Fine Fail played a dirty game but then who had also been in receipt of a Grand Cross funny to see the people's faith in an would blame them for not seizing a once- of Merit (GCMLJ). Dean Robert Mc institution that is a very different beast to in-a-lifetime shot at the moralisers that are Carthy was made an Ecclesial Commander. their rather pathetic grasp of its nature. Fine Gael. Bishop Paul Colton showed by Despite the presence of two RC priests, But there was a surprising positive input this episode that he is not afraid of taking (a give-away term as it is not used by from Declan Ganley (formerly of Libertas on the secularists and their "political Catholics) according to Phoenix, at the who fought against the Lisbon Treaty agenda". He, being born in Derry, shows ceremony, "the Catholic Church has ratification). Ganley, a very successful he is a power player of no mean ability and pointedly refused to recognise the Order businessman said "bondholder investors is quite at ease with the public/media of Lazarus as a genuine ancient chivalric in the nationalised bank should be forced knowing that. Not only is he Bishop but he order, as it does, for example, the Order of to take a loss on their investment". Mr. is also Chairman of the Board of Governors Malta". But I am not surprised that the Ganley's position directly contradicted Catholic Church is not involved as in Finance Minister Brian Lenihan TD, who It Is Time 2008, according to my own research, insisted last week that "full bonds in Anglo 23 must be honoured despite the ¤34, billion well to do by us taxpayers) and write their brought back to France. Despite wide- cost to the taxpayer of bailing out the letters to the media, the day may come spread criticism, the General got his gold failed property lender". The former also when alternative practices have to be and wasn't thrown by American and British dismissed Brian Cowen as a "tragic figure" considered if they remain the sole targets grandstanding. Looking to today and the and much of his Cabinet as "dead wood". of budgetary cuts. recent Summit in Deauville of President Ganley went on to acknowledge that: Sarkozy of France, Chancellor Angela "we live in a country with a gangren- THE HISTORY OF THE IMF ET AL Merkel of Germany and President Med- ous banking system, but rather than The IMF, and the World Bank really, vedev of the Russian Federation, perhaps amputating it, we've chosen to keep their came from American muscle, which soon there is hope that Europe may turn around corpses on life support. We are allowing became apparent in the complex negations to its former objectives and reject those their poison to transfuse freely into the over the future shape of the global mone- who have made it what it was never rest of the economy and it is a serious tary system that dragged on from 1943- supposed to be. There has been little talk mistake… The Government has its hand 1945. The question at issue went to the of Fort Knox in recent years—I wonder in our pockets, taking from us and giving heart of Britain's post-war aspirations. how much gold does it contain now? to people most of us have never met, and John Maynard Keynes was the chief British who don't care about our country and negotiator and what he aimed for was a MANIFEST DESTINY community." "form of managed global liberalism, An American economist, John Perkins, He also spoke in powerful language embodying the essence of the economic who was profoundly affected by his work about "our country being run into the vision that he had preached since the for that Pax Americana began his account ground, her children into exile and her 1920's". But the Americans: with the starting point of Manifest Destiny, future sold to those that should have been "proposed a new, more flexible version the— forced to eat their investment failure". of nineteenth century orthodoxy. They "doctrine, popular with many Ameri- There is no denying that that precise too wanted a managed global system, but cans during the 1840's, that the conquest analysis meets that of many ordinary Irish one in which strong currencies and strong of North America was divinely ordained; people. By 5th October 2010, the Irish economies called the tune, as under the that God, not men, had ordered the Daily Mail had some of the heavy creditors gold standard of old days. The final destruction of the Indians, forests, and to whom Anglo owes money to and whom settlement—reached at a historic inter- buffalo, the draining of swamps and the Lenihan has consistently "vowed we must national conference in Bretton Woods in channelling of rivers, and the develop- protect by paying this huge financial New Hampshire in the summer of 1944 ment of an economy that depends on the burden" . An internet blogger revealed included a little balm for the British. A continuing exploitation of labour and some of the names of the biggest hitters: 'scarce currency' clause was supposed to natural resources. The Monroe Doctrine, Frankfurt Trust, Investment-Gesellscjaft ensure that countries in massive and originally enunciated by President James mbH, Pioneer Investment Kapitalarlia- persistent surplus could not impose Monroe in 1823 was used to take Manifest Destiny a step further when, in the 1850's gegesellschaft mbH in Munich, KBC Asset deflation on the rest of the world." and 1860's, it was used to assert that the Management NV in Belgium, Barclays Nevertheless, in essentials the Bretton right to invade any nation in Central or Wealth Managers France..... Amongst Woods agreement: South America which refused to back US the big names, the firm that has been "embodied the American vision. The policies. Teddy Roosevelt invoked the accused by some of sparking the credit International Monetary Fund (IMF) that Monroe Doctrine to justify US crunch and subsequent runs on the euro it established was effectively under intervention in the Dominican Republic, amid the Greek crisis, Goldman Sachs. American control, while its operating in Venezuela, and during the 'liberation' The Trinity College economist, Dr. Con- principles were tailored in Washington of Panama from Colombia. A string of stantin Gurdgiev, who seems to have right- and New York. It was less a powerhouse subsequent US presidents—most notably wing views insisted that: "The Irish State of global Keynesianism than the guardian Taft, Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt— stepped in and nationalised a bank that of pax Americana." relied on it to expand Washington's Pan- was basically run by crooks lending to American activities through the end of property speculators. The Irish people Keynes preferred to take away what he World War 11. Finally, during the latter are taking losses that would rightly have could—which was not much—but like half of the twentieth century, the United been shouldered by bondholders". He also Churchill, another Whig Imperialist, con- States used the Communist threat to expressed grave doubts about some of soled himself that the British would help justify expansion of this concept to these same investors giving economic Americans to become honorary Britons countries around the globe, including advice to the Department of Finance con- and the latter to become honorary Ameri- Vietnam and Indonesia." sidering their conflict of interest. But, as cans. The only problem was that the Ameri- "But Panama with its Canal Zone had the courts go through the fallout, gradually cans had no wish to be anything of the to be brought under American hegemony. the real picture will emerge as parties take sort, though it took a long time for it to Once action was initiated by covert means, next in were the economic 'sold- cases to sort out the mess. sink into the British mindset—if, indeed it iers' and they came for the assets having ever did. As Churchill famously said to I have a huge problem with helping worked out a 'master development plan' financially, investors who should be Charles de Gaulle on the eve of the first. The plan would create a justification declared bankrupts—who lived the high Normandy invasion, 1944: for the World Bank, IMF, and USAID life when they had it and viewed the little "This is something you ought to know: investment of billions of dollars in the people as if they didn't matter—now each time we have to choose between energy, transportation, and agricultural expecting the old/ the sick/ the young Europe and the open sea, we shall always sectors of this tiny and very crucial parents etc. to pay for their outrageous choose the open sea. Each time I have to country. It was, of course, a subterfuge, a building developments when the dog in choose between you and Roosevelt, I means of making Panama forever in- the street knew that these buildings were shall always choose Roosevelt." debted and thereby returning it to its not wanted nor needed. And the politicians Later on, when de Gaulle became puppet status." would want to have a better understanding President of the Republic of France, he As elected Presidents were assassinated of what is ahead, other than their canáning showed he had taken good heedance of by the US if they couldn't be talked around and frightful antics in the Dail. For the the British Premier's sentiments and caused to become their puppets and hand over poor eejits who ring Joe Duffy to lance an international incident when he demand- their countries assets, the US elite and their boil of frustration (which he is paid ed French gold stored in Fort Knox to be certain corporations became very rich. 24 Omar Torrijos of Panama went down in a became John F. Kennedy's Secretary of The SDLP took no heed. The Strike "fiery plane crash", as did so many others. Defence and went on to become President began in May. Athol Street issued a series Arbenz, Mossadegh of Iran, Salvador of the World Bank. The writer of the of Strike Bulletins during it, at first advising Allende of Chile and on and on it shame- economic book being part of this new the Government how it might ward off fully continues. imperial dispensation himself called those catastrophe, and later, after the SDLP had But the economist who went public institutions and corporations involved in declared that it was facing a Fascist mentioned one especial malevolent destroying so much of the world's resour- politician/business man who really came ces and beggaring the inhabitants of counter-revolution which must be put out on top. His name was Robert Mc mineral/oil/diamond rich nations the down, advising the Strikers how to deal Namara. He began his career with Ford corporatocracy. with Government provocations and hold Motors and ended up as the first non- To be continued in the next issue. to the reasonable demand on which the family President of the company. He then Julianne Herlihy. © Strike was called. (I wrote these leaflets, but I am told that the new University at Coleraine has put them on some web site as being written by somebody else, a Hard On Hart? Protestant.) The SDLP, living out a delusion, A puzzling thing about Jeffrey Dud- there. And I, for one, would have been destroyed Sunningdale. Devolution was geon's comment on Peter Hart (Irish happy to have it refuted, so that I might get off the agenda of practical politics: that Political Review, October) is his statement on with analysing Soviet political econ- was obvious. (It took 25 years to restore that, without Hart's books, he "would not omy, which I thought had gone awry. it, on terms that would have been regarded be aware of the level of violence inflicted as impossible in 1974.) on southern Protestants in the 1916-23 The idea that there had been genocide period". of Protestants in the South was not only The campaign to bring the Six Counties Dudgeon was the first person associated entertained for reasonable discussion, but within the democracy of the British state with the People's Democracy that I spoke was published as something that seemed was immediately launched by Athol Street, to. That was I think in 1969, before to have been the case. in June 1974 I think. The intensity of day- August. After August BICO launched a It was not until after the collapse of the to-day politics in the Belfast flux ended propaganda assault on the PDs as frivolous Sunningdale power-sharing Government and there was time to think of other things. middle class revolutionaries playing with in the face of the Protestant General Strike It began to be clear that the idea of revolution in a volatile situation with a of May 1974 that I had time to look at the nationalist genocide of the Southern New Left Review unconcern about facts. history of the South. Protestants was not grounded in facts. It We bombarded them with awkward facts, Though we had become doubtful about was the passionate vision of some bewild- chiefly about Protestants, and said that the the viability of the Northern Ireland Con- ered Fine Gaelers and I could not find any factual circumstances would, if they stitutional entity, we decided to support facts to sustain it. I do not recall that a succeeded in unsettling the situation, led the project set in motion by Willie formal repudiation of it was ever published. to Protestant/Catholic conflict and not to Whitelaw, after he had brought the SDLP That is why I say I find it puzzling that socialist revolution. After the events of back from its dead-end Dungiven Parlia- Dudgeon, who was close to Athol Street August, many who had been associated ment, and to see if a new form of Devolu- all through the 1970s and 1980s, never with the PDs, both Protestants and Cath- tion could be made workable. In March came across the idea of a campaign of olics, gravitated towards BICO and some 1974, when the new sub-Government had violence against Southern Protestants until became members of it. Dudgeon was one been in operation for two months, and he read Hart's book. of the first and he hovered closely around seemed to be working well, we saw that it Athol Street for about 20 years. was endangered when the chicanery of When I saw Hart's book publicised Athol Street is a more accurate name Conor Cruise O'Brien and Garret at with sensationalist headlines in mass circ- than BICO for the centre around which a Sunningdale was brought to light and they ulation newspapers, I was interested to variety of people of different outlooks stood by it. see what he had found that I had failed to congregated in those years. Among those We then asked for a meeting with the find. And I saw that he had found nothing. contacting it were a number of young Fine SDLP leaders (now Government Ministers) He did not draw conclusions from evid- Gael professionals from Dublin. They to discuss what might be done to safeguard ence. He looked for facts to hang a pre- came along with the idea that there had Power-Sharing. The request was made in conceived view on. At best he engaged in been a war of genocide against Protestants a letter by Michael Dwyer (who died wishful extrapolation from groups of facts. in the South connected with the War of recently) to Paddy Devlin. Devlin replied I do not think this was all his own work. Independence and the Civil War. The that his Government was in no danger, He was working to order. It is known idea was given a hearing. In the Northern and that, if it was, he would not turn for from other sources that academics emerg- Ireland flux caused by the August events, advice to a body that could hold its general ing from Trinity were told to find facts no idea was treated in Athol Street as meetings in a phone booth. that would tie in with the dogmatic position being unthinkable on dogmatic grounds. that the War of Independence was a sectar- All dogmas had failed. Athol Street was An ad hoc group of Protestant shop ian war masquerading as something else. notorious for saying in September 1969 stewards announced that, in the light of that the Protestant/Catholic division was a the Dublin chicanery, they would call a As for Jeff Dudgeon's other remarks: national division. Open, and open-ended "Constitutional Stoppage" against the Sun- With regard to the false surrender at meetings were held to discuss the history ningdale arrangement, unless the Council Kilmichael, I thought the most that could and politics of Ulster and of Ireland. If of Ireland section of it was called off, or an be suggested on the strength of what anybody had a case to make against the election was held which showed that the evidence Hart presented was that there "two nations" they could have made it arrangement still had Protestant support. had been a fight to a finish, without inter- 25 ruption, with no quarter contemplated by either side. When Hart found accounts of · Biteback · Biteback· Biteback· Biteback· Biteback· Biteback· Biteback· Biteback the battle that did not mention the 'false surrender', the extrapolation he made was that there had been a genuine surrender Nama And Associate Professor Lucey which was accepted but not honoured. With regard to there being too many The following letter was submitted to the Irish Times but not published. It must therefore be asked how serious the Irish Times is as a newspaper of reference, facts in Hart's book to check them all: the especially when it is considered the very silly letters that are published. fact in question (an interview with a dead The Irish Times, of course, is a propagandist newspaper. But even propagandist man) was not a run-of-the-mill kind of newspapers must attempt to keep in touch with the real world if they are to be effective. fact; it was not an incidental fact without It is quite interesting the general contempt that the various professionals bearing on the thesis of the book; and it who contribute to irisheconomy.ie hold the newspaper. was not any old book, but a Trinity If I might comment on Brian Lucey's piece, 'Taxpayer will have to pay for bondholder doctorate of philosophy, published for a payout' (Irish Times 5 October). There are (at least) two points of detail on which the world-wide market by Oxford University associate professor is in error. These are his remark that "there has been a massive change Press, as part of its "Re-Writing Irish in the operation and scope of NAMA" and second that "in most modern states there is History" series. a banking resolution mechanism". I know nothing from direct experience On the first, his point is that the agency is unexpectedly rejecting or sending back to about proper academic practice. I have no participating institutions significant amounts of eligible assets: he speculates this is to make room for 'Anglo' loans. Even in the first tranche it is clear that NAMA was refusing academic credential, even of the most transfers—as it is by statute enabled, indeed required to, as a reading of the National elementary kind. Dudgeon has an elite Asset Management Agency Act 2009 shows. The most pertinent section of the Act in this education—the best in the North, I was respect is section 84—Decision about acquisition of eligible bank assets. Section 84(1) given to understand, with Lord Bew as his states inter alia "NAMA is not obliged to acquire any particular, or any, eligible bank school companion. And I was given to asset of such an [participating] institution on any grounds". A close reading of Part 6, understand that a Ph D is not an examin- chapter 1 (of which section 84 is a central provision) provides one with a clear, ation in received knowledge, but is award- intelligible insight into the entirety of the asset transfer (and rejection) process and the ed for research into uncharted territory, relationship in this respect between participating institutions and NAMA including supervised and judged by experts in the duties on both sides as well as the relationship between the institutions and connected subject. So facts matter. And the fact that debtors, associate debtors, sureties and guarantors. The end-point of the process is the the particular 'fact' in question was let pass service of the acquisition schedule. The focus by the way of Part 7 of the Act is review and rights of review in relation to acquisition. There is no question of a massive change by the academic experts who made Hart a in the agency's operations as suggested by the associate professor and refusal is an Ph D is what suggests to me that he was obligation in statute if the circumstances suggest, including as provided for at s.84(1) and writing to orders of an academic coterie 84(4)(a) to (n). which had become contemptuous of the As to bank resolution, three points may be made. First, Ireland does not have such a Irish capacity for thought, and believed regime, a serious shortcoming. Second the Minister has this year repeatedly indicated, they might authorise whatever they fancied most recently again on Thursday 30 September that the intention is to introduce without fear of contradiction. And I do necessary legislation (and legislation is necessary). Readers may make what they wish not say they did not have grounds for that of such statements, I am inclined to take them at face value appreciating the difficulties contempt. there are in drafting such an Act. Third, it is not at all the case that "in most modern states there is a banking resolution mechanism". There are no more than a handful of states in The Dublin Establishment wanted to the world with a statutory resolution provision. There is no EU state with such a provision hear the kind of thing that Hart said. He apart from the UK , which only introduced resolution in 2008 (provisionally), making was acclaimed not only by the mindless it permanent in 2009. Nor does the EU have a community-wide resolution regime and History Department of Cork University, will not on the Commission's own reckoning until at earliest, late 2011. The one country but by the national press, and influential that has the longest-standing resolution regime is the US , which has had resolution since figures in the political and semi-political the 1930s—and of course the US is considered by many as the epicentre of the current stratum of the State. And, having invested northern hemisphere banking collapse. Resolution did not work in respect of Wall Street as 'the Street' was excluded from the scope of the regime—or rather was allowed to heavily in Hart's sensationalist rubbishing exclude itself. In the US , as in Canada and Japan , two other countries with resolution, of the War of Independence they were not the regime has extended only to lenders covered by deposit insurance (in the US provided going to drop him out of pedantic concern by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., FDIC). With the enactment in June of Dodd- for factual truth. I recall that solid upholder Frank the US now does have comprehensive statutory resolution in Title II—Orderly of official dogmatism, John Bowman, in Liquidation Authority. his Radio Eireann archive programme, Feargus O Raghallaigh playing some uncontentious statement about the War of Independence in which But, within the history trade, it was mander who cannot make his subordinates some fact was uttered that was beyond seen that Hart had let the side down, had carry the can. question, and saying its accuracy was made it a laughing-stock in the eyes of the vouched for by scholars like Peter Hart. natives, and there is no doubt that he was Hart's first book was mindlessly acclaim- The latest approving mention of Hart marginalised instead of lionised in his ed by academia. His book on Michael was by our Finance Minister (who is show- later years by the controllers of patronage, Collins was slighted with equal mindless- ing an English competence in dealing who had directed him onto the wrong ness, and with equal disregard of its merits, with the financial crisis), at Beal na Blath, track and then punished him for not being because he had become damaged goods. I in his speech to the children and grand- more circumspect in the way he took it. had helped to damage him, and do not children of the soldiers Hart described as Of course the fault was theirs, but they regret it, but I saw that he had profited murderers of the serial kind. were in command and it is a poor com- from the experience and become a historian 26 instead of an industrious hack. But the academic authorities in Ireland and but the main weight of the State supported shine had been rubbed off him, and he England and circulated with great eclat them. Dudgeon seems to have retained an infringed on Tim Pat Coogan's territory throughout the world. obsolete Ulsterish stereotype of the Irish. with his book on Collins, and so it was And, as to the Dunmanway killings, As to Casement: his book on him is disparaged. there is not a shred of evidence that they certainly littered with mistakes but, as A big meeting was laid on for him in were done by the IRA, even though it books go these days, it is not bad. It is Belfast by Queen's University. It was might be an unshakeable article of Ulster certainly more like history than the book chaired by Richard English, who intro- Protestant faith that they must have been. by his Casement colleague, W.J. Mc duced him by dwelling on the sensation- There was an exchange of letters on the Cormack. I think I said in a review of it alist material of the Cork book. Hart did subject in the Belfast Irish News earlier that there are worse books. But his approach not respond to the invitation to continue in this year. If Dudgeon had something to is essentially unhistorical, as is that of his that line. He was studiously restrained in say that would have helped to sustain that adversaries, on the issue of the Casement what he said. I would have said something belief, he did not say it. Diaries. He is not interested in the actual in support of him, if I had not somehow Hart gives the appearance of saying the history of the Diaries, and they could not failed to catch the Chairman's eye when IRA did it, but doesn't actually say it. That interest themselves in that history either. not many others were trying to catch it. is something that was changed between The Diary issue begins with the circula- I would say that Hart had the potential the PhD and the book. The fact was tion of documents to important people by to be a good, industrious historian but was deleted but the atmosphere remained. the Government and the King in the Sum- ruined by the academic authority that he mer of 1916 for the purpose of making served. And, when he seemed to realise Then there is Hart's "understandable sure that Casement could be safely hanged what had happened, he did not have the and antagonistic view of the violence of for doing the kind of thing that the Govern- resourcefulness to be able to free himself. the emotionally uninvolved non-participant" ment was urging subjects of the Austrian The interview with the dead man was (Dudgeon). Did Hart not know what that Empire to do and then complaining when going to haunt him for ever. I suppose he war was, which he set out to become the the Austrian State hanged them. Those could not deal with it because that would historian of? Or was it that he did not documents, of which there seems to have have blown the whistle on the history know what war was? And did his shock at been a great many, then disappeared racket in Trinity that produced him. discovering that it was war, and what war without trace. What happened to them? was like, justify his playing fast and loose Neither side in the Casement dispute I found that I was mentioned in the with facts? If the subject traumatised him, knows or cares. They prefer an argument Cork book, I suppose for the purpose of surely he should have left it. about handwriting which can never be ingratiation. I suppose it is second nature I don't know if he was emotionally resolved. in that business to ingratiate oneself, even uninvolved at the start, but his writing The disappearance of those documents with minnows. And I suppose he assumed struck me as verging on hysteria. struck me as very remarkable. I doubt that we were committed on his side because of War was not the only thing that was even the Soviet Politburo could have what we had been doing in the North for going on in Ireland during those years. circulated a document so widely and then more than twenty years. Lord Bew had There was intensive political development, caused it to disappear without trace. certainly been of that view. The last time leading to an election victory followed by That is the beginning of the history of I spoke to the latter, about twenty years war when Britain resorted to military rule the Casement Diaries, and since neither ago I think, he expressed surprise that I, in the face of comprehensive electoral side in the dispute was interested in it, I who might be seen as the first revisionist, defeat. Hart did not write about that at all. decided to leave them to their little game. was not going along with the revisionist He abstracted the War from its political Over forty years after 1916 a document nonsense being churned out in the name preconditions and its ongoing political was put in the Public Record Office as of history because of a concern about context and presented it on the Irish side Casement's Diary. There was no way of facts. (The school of strict Althusserian as a kind of extreme rowdyism motivated telling if it was the 1916 document. During Marxism, in which he lived for many by anything except democratic political that forty years there was chatter of the years, subordinated fact to theoretical pre- development—feuding, faction-fighting, dubhairt bean go dubhairt lei* kind. conception.) Strawing, etc. Twenty years after 1916 Moloney pub- I got a footnote in Hart's book as saying If he disliked the War, he must have lished a book about the Casement fraud. that Slieve Luacra was Irish-speaking even disliked the politics more. He was roundly condemned about ten though, in everything I wrote about it, the years ago by Dudgeon's colleague, Mc I can make no sense of Dudgeon's point I made was that it was not Irish- Cormack, for doubting the authenticity of comparison of Hart's discovery of war in speaking, and that it had not waited to be the 1916 documents,which nobody had Ireland with the "Irish nationalism's eroded as an Irish-speaking community, seen since 1916, and whose existence was response" to the invasion of Iraq and but had a pre-emptive change of language not officially admitted, and of which Afghanistan. What was that response? I in the early 19th century and transferred nothing had been heard during that twenty have seen Sean Fitzpatrick on television much of its culture to English. years that was not of the an old woman gung-ho for giving it to the gooks—or told me' kind. (One person who had been As to Meda Ryan's book on Tom Barry whatever the current slang is. I don't shown something in 1916 was still there and what Dudgeon describes as the know if he was an Irish nationalist, but in 1959, an Associated Press reporter, Ben "supposed Dunmanway Protestant there was certainly much Irish American Allen. He went to look at what was put in informers", it is no more comparable with support for those wars. And the Irish the Public Record Office and said it was Hart's book than is Dudgeon's own book Government supported them. And Senator not like what he had been shown in 1916. on Casement. It is not an academic treatise Harris was Chalabi's adviser on the eve of And he said that in 1916 he had asked to given a PhD Imprimatur by the premier invasion. On the other hand, there was University after scrutiny by the foremost some spirited agitation against the wars, * A woman told me that a woman told her. 27 be allowed to take the document and this by Alan Johnson (then a Trade Union Representation. He said to me that it confront Casement with it. He was not leader, now shadow Chancellor of the would be a very good thing if O'Brien allowed.) Exchequer), who, being English and on could be got for the CEC. I agreed, but It seemed to me that a condemnation of the make, could naturally see nothing said O'Brien would never join a movement Moloney for not recognising the authen- wrong with Union Jackery. And so based on my ideas. But I did not discourage ticity of a document that had disappeared, Democracy Now appeared, extravagantly him from trying to get him. and whose existence was not acknow- Unionist and lavishly funded. And, we O'Brien declared around 1970 that I did ledged by the State that made use of it in gave the thing up as hopeless. And John not exist. I was an unacceptable existence 1916, was profoundly irrational and Hume did not even try to hide his relief. to him. A culchie, never met with in unhistorical, and a sign that there were Ulster affairs were back in proper order academic or fashionable political circles, ulterior motives at work. I think that again. and saying the things he said. In the mid- Dudgeon, in his book, acknowledged that 1970s O'Brien underwent a sea-change. there was something odd here. But it Dudgeon was very much part of all Whatever he had been before that, he then didn't concern him. that. It might be that he actually believed became what I saw as a kind of fascist— It never concerned me whether Case- that David Morrison and Athol Street were the Pareto kind. But, if he had been ment was queer or not. When the holding things back and that, with loads of willing to join McCartney in the movement homosexual movement was getting going money and many VIPs, Democracy Now that was kept on the rails by David Mor- in Belfast forty years ago, I suggested the would do things much better than Athol rison, I would have welcomed him. Of Casement Society as a name for it. It was Street. I thought he had understood better course he didn't. His approach by then only a realisation of the Whitehall chican- than most from the Protestant side that was that the Croppies needed putting ery in the matter that made me think the Catholic participation was indispensable down, which was not our view at all. Diary was probably a fraud. I have never to what was being attempted. But he O'Brien was later Dudgeon's party looked at what came out of the blue in participated in Democracy Now with a colleague in the RMcC UKUP. And there 1959. That's for the manipulable Irish to will, helping it towards rapid extinction, is a remarkable election leaflet of that wrangle over. The 1916 affair is about the its job done. party in which Dudgeon figures. British state. And then he joined Robert McCartney's I noticed that that that CLR and CEC And of course Dudgeon is Protestant fundamentalist Unionism, becoming a were missing from Dudgeon's C V in the and British now. Ulsterish British that is. paid official of the Robert McCartney blurb on his Casement book, but his job United Kingdom Unionist Party (its with the RMcC UKUP was included.. For twenty years he took part in an official title), and he was given time off During the 20 years when Dudgeon attempt to make Ulster British in a different from the Civil Service for the purpose. was associated with Athol Street, we took way—a way Catholics could take part in And he was joined in the RMcC UKUP by some trouble to establish an accurate —the way Welsh coal-miners were British a very big VIP indeed, the world-famous historical understanding of Protestant when they voted Communist—a way in C.C. O'Brien. Ulster, and we produced a body of the which one could say To Hell with the Before McCartney reverted to Protest- only Ulster Protestant historical literature Queen and Union Jackery and just take ant communalism in substance, if not in in print. Unfortunately that kind of part in the political conflict in the state. veneer, he was President of the Campaign approach was not reciprocated. for Equal Citizenship, an all-Party We established that there was in the Brendan Clifford counterpart of the Campaign for Labour Catholic community a willingness to be British in that way. The participation of high-profile Catholics in the campaign gave it a bite—a credibility—in Britain that no Protestant campaign could have had. And David Morrison's tactful but Naval Warfare determined handling of it carried it to Part Four lengths that I did not think possible when In previous parts of this series British content did not match the titles. In fact, I had the idea of starting it. By 1989 it had intentions with regard to naval warfare many of the German titles were themselves become a powerful presence at British against Germany have been examined. changed for the English translation in Party Conferences and the Party leader- However, it is also interesting to look at order to provide a more aggressive intent ships had difficulty finding a counter to it. how Germany saw things in the period to the content. Then it was wrecked suddenly from before the Great War—particularly since One such example was a book by within by a reversion to Unionist commun- Redmondite propaganda used supposed General Von Bernhardi, a retired Cavalry alism on the part of most of the Protestants German malevolent intent to recruit for officer, entitled Germany And The Next involved in it. This began with the black- the Imperial forces. War. Bernhardi's book was mainly a guarding of David Morrison by Boyd After Britain had declared war on warning to Germany's growing pacifist Black in the Irish Times—a paper which Germany, a number of English translations movement that England was a deeply had resolutely refused to give any publicity appeared of books written by Germans— militaristic State, that despite being to the campaign till it saw it could help to including those of Von Bernhardi and governed by supposedly anti-war Liberals wreck it. Then Kate Hoey, an Ulster Von Treitschke—with the purpose of the leopard had not changed its spots. And Protestant who had become a Labour MP exposing the evils of 'Prussianism'. These it advised the disbelieving German anti- in England, joined the campaign, and was editions appeared with titles that suggested militarists of the necessity of preparing made its President, decided to found an that Germany was, for years, planning a for the inevitable war that was coming even better campaign and siphon the great war against England. However, a their way. Protestants off into it. She was assisted in reading of these books suggests that the 28 Martin McGuinness has recently "Author Of Twixt Greek And Turk, The it may be called, the American Medi- spoken in an admiring way of Tom Kettle, Far Eastern Question, The Middle Eastern terranean, direct with the Pacific, and who helped put many Irishmen in British Question, Indian Unrest Etc." thereby Great Britain's absolute command of the sea has, it must be confessed, uniform by telling them that it was their As Foreign Editor of The Times, from suffered a serious blow." duty to 'fight for civilisation' against the 1899 until 1912, and Foreign Office 'German barbarian'. Diplomat without portfolio, Sir Valentine Frobenius also noted that England did Professor Kettle's famous article Chirol played an important part in both not simply seek control the routes geo- Europe Against The Barbarians, written England's strategic reorientation (toward graphically but, what was also important, for the Liberal Daily News, was typical of France and Russia, and against Germany) "was clever enough to be able to frustrate the Irish anti-German war propaganda and altering the public perception of every attempt of the German Empire to that popularised the Great War in England Imperial policy. He was involved in Leo acquire points of support or at any rate and Ireland. It contained fervent denun- Maxse's first proposal of alliance with coaling stations on the coasts of the seas ciations of "Prussianism," "German France and Russia, and worked with of the world". militarism", and the "gospel of hate and Edward Grey and the chancelleries of Consequently: force", which Kettle argued, led to a Europe to see it to fruition. "Germany's mercantile marine and Teutonic desire for universal domination. A closer look at Frobenius's book shows navy are obliged to rely for their coal In the article Kettle mentions Bernhardi, that it is not quite as Chirol might have supplies on the depots of other nations who became, with Nietzsche, one of the wished it to be. It is well worth reading for and principally of England. In addition to twin ogres of British war propagandists. It its analysis of Britain's position in the the fact that our ships have to pay the was argued that von Bernhardi had nur- world—which had come about through prices asked for this hospitality and the tured in Germany a spirit of aggression its mastery of the seas and its control of advantage goes to the foreigner, it becomes that was now having serious consequences world trade. Below is an interesting a serious question where we are to find anywhere on the globe, friendly nations for the world. passage which describes the process by who will be able to provide our ships with Before the Home Rule Bill of 1912 which Britain built and secured this fuel in time of war. The harbours of Professor Kettle wrote a scholarly domination by engineering the maritime England and France will assuredly be introduction to a translation of a French global market: closed to us, and it is more than doubtful biography of Nietzsche by Elie Halevy. In "With wonderful acuteness she has whether the Colonies of small European it he had written "the duel between ever been successful in finding and, States would, in face of Great Britain's Nietzsche and civilisation is long since regardless of others, annexing in all parts threats, dare to remain open to us." over" (p7). And he suggested that of the ocean such spots as control the And it was also noted that, whilst the important routes. By means of Gibraltar Nietzsche was a useful antidote to other Powers had begun to develop their the entrance to the Mediterranean is "Darwin, Spencer, and the English school closed, through Malta the connection own undersea communication cables, it in general" (p18). But in 1914, when the between its western and eastern basins, was in Britain's power to cut these immedi- Home Rule Bill had been 'placed on the and through Cyprus she has assured the ately in the event of war—something Statute Book', he changed his opinion, entrance to the Suez Canal, which with which the Royal Navy did in fact do just believing Nietzsche to be the greatest threat Egypt is absolutely hers. By that means prior to Britain's declaration of war on to civilisation in the world, thus lining up she controls the shortest waterway to Germany. in support of England's Darwinian war on India, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific. But she is also in a position to exercise Germany. her influence over the longer route round Frobenius's first chapter, entitled Great Africa by means of St. Helena and Britain, was an analysis of a book, The Whatever else can be said of Bernhardi Ascension as well as her African colonies, Day Of The Saxon by Homer Lea, an he was certainly proved entirely accurate whilst the outlet from the Red Sea to the Anglophile American, who believed that in his assessments. Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb is closed by the it was in England's interest to destroy Anyway, Bernhardi's and other German Island of Perim. The road to the Pacific Germany as a commercial competitor. proceeds further through the Straits of books were not translated and republished Interestingly, Frobenius disagreed and Malacca, and at this spot a British Naval in England to be read with any objective Harbour was recently built at Singapore. thought that, whilst it was possibly in understanding of the German point of "It should be possible for the European Britain's interest to destroy the navy of a view. In fact they were probably not meant States by construction of railways to free commercial rival, it was not in her interest to be read at all. The titles were the themselves of England's lordship of the to destroy Germany's army, since this important thing—produced to present a water routes, and Russia succeeded in would conflict with the Balance of Power closed case against the German. And, if establishing a connection with the Pacific that had been the principal of British policy by means of the Siberian Railway, but the the books were read, passages would have for over 200 years: desire, thereby to obtain a constantly had to have been taken out of the context open harbour, was frustrated with the "I should put against Homer Lea's of their general argument in order to gain help of Japan. Germany commenced the proposition, that Great Britain to maintain the understanding that the publishers construction of the Anatolian and Bagdad her position as a World Power must desired in the audience. Railway; but soon thereafter England annihilate Germany that is to say not only The present writer came to this conclu- succeeded in wresting from Turkey the rob her of her fleet and cripple her important terminus Koweit and so commerce but also destroy her land forces sion upon actually reading some of these the view that England can have no desire books. multiplied the obstacles which she was already in a position to impose to the to annihilate our army. That would be With regard to naval warfare a good outlet from the Persian Gulf by possession contrary to the whole of her policy to of the Island of Bahrain and the Ras date. A strong Power on land on the example of this type of thing was The European Continent is indispensable to German Empire's Hour Of Destiny By Dschask. Only one sea-route, a recently created one, has been withdrawn from her so that she may induce it to go to war Colonel Hermann Frobenius. It was issued British influence: the Panama Canal on land against any State which might with a Preface by Sir Valentine Chirol, which connects the Caribbean Sea or, as become dangerous to her sea power… 29 This is the principle on which she has from the latter plan. Its co-operation, that is what may be called the British or always played the political game with the therefore, as an organic portion of our 'maritime method'. Powers on the mainland… Therefore enemy's forces is only to be looked for if "With these premises we may now England has no object in annihilating Great Britain actually has no other means endeavour to picture to ourselves the Germany's land forces. On the contrary of reaching her special goal." probable procedure of Great Britain in her object in war can only be the case of a conflict with Germany. She destruction of the latter's Navy, sparing if Frobenius was accurate in what he would, of course, most of all desire possible her Army." said—England had taken great care not to entirely independent action for her land forces, and if she is assured, through the get bogged down in unlimited commit- As evidence for his view, Frobenius preparations and available numbers of noted that Britain, to facilitate her own ments on the continent with large armies. her allies' forces, that the latter will be global expansion, required conflict to The English aristocracy had waged its able to deal alone with our armies, she continue on the Continent, and therefore wars with mercenaries (a large part of its will be able to preserve for herself this seldom wanted wars to be won there army being Irish) and through the acquiring independence through being able to choose the theatre of her operations. If outright. He cites the example of the Seven of Continental allies. Britain was careful to make sure that, whilst its Balance of she cannot be certain of this, and if the Years' War (The First World War, 1756- independent action of her expeditionary Power wars were limited commitments to 63), when England ditched her Prussian force becomes doubtful, then she will allies once French maritime power had itself, the conflict would hopefully require have to take part as an organic unit in the been destroyed and North America and unlimited commitments from both its allies larger operations. India secured, with the intention of letting and enemies on the Continent and in that "In that case a landing in Belgium, her former ally and enemy battle it out way the rest of the world would be Britain's. previously entirely freed from the influence of German troops, would enable whilst England moved on to pastures new. One can state here that Frobenius's historical argument was undone by poli- the British troops to furnish an extension Attempting to reconcile Britain's record of the French left wing. Let us assume tics. The Liberal Imperialist coterie that in destroying maritime competitors with that the British expeditionary force would her Balance of Power Policy led Frobenius planned the war against Germany, with by this means, or some other, join the to conclude that England's Great War on assistance from the Unionist military French left wing and take a timely part in Germany would be a limited one, with the establishment, may have envisaged a the operations; and if we assume that the same limited objectives of former times: limited Balance of Power war on the first great success will have been obtained over our army and that the latter has its "If we examine the history of England traditional model. The commitment of 100,000 men to the French left wing, hands full with the French forces, then we must acknowledge that she at times the curtain will draw up on the second act along with the Royal Navy, was probably exerted herself to the uttermost by the of the operations of the British troops, as utilization of individual portions of her what was expected to finish the job on they will then be able to free themselves armament, navy, and finances, but never Germany. Objectives, in some quarters, from the undesirable 'unlimited' method has known that demand on the whole of may also have been limited to the destroy- and be able to proceed independently, her population by calling out every man ing of German commercial activity and its that is to say, they will seek 'a limited area capable of bearing arms as Prussia and of operation'. Germany did in 1813 and France in 1870. naval development. However, the neces- sary activation of support from the Liberal "According to Great Britain's War She was careful to avoid this by never Game this can only be the German North backbenchers (and Irish Party) neces- having in view unlimited aims, which is Sea coast, to the harbours of which the a brilliant illustration of Clausewitz's sitated a different character of war—in German fleet, as being the weaker, will in precepts. She never, with the exception fact, a new character. This was 'the war for our view have retired. The British Navy of her colonial wars, desired to completely civilization' which represented an un- will be ready lying in wait for the German annex any country, or completely limited commitment to the destruction of ships which will be driven out by the annihilate any enemy. artillery of the land forces attacking the "The objects which she desired to attain Evil in the world. And this had the effect of both increasing the commitment and fortresses, and will be ready to destroy it, by her own powers were also limited; as was done at Port Arthur." with the exception of certain over-sea the objectives of the British State in relation possessions, the destruction of hostile to Germany and the other enemies it There are undoubtedly some important marine forces or commercial interests. acquired in fighting its Great War. insights here in relation to Britain's waging This may have arisen partly from a very of both World Wars on Germany—and clever policy and partly also may have From his analysis Frobenius goes on to the events of 1940 are particularly relevant had its reason in the sentiments of the people… predict the likely tactical approach Britain here when England ditched the French at "The English people never had any would take to waging war against Ger- the first sign of disaster. But, in relation to feeling or sympathy for the exacting many. He describes it as necessitating the first war of the two, if it was the British military service necessary for wars on contact with the coast to ensure a quick intention to conduct its military affairs in land, which presses the rifle into the departure if things went wrong, independ- this way the strategy was derailed by the hands of the masses and tears them from ence in military activity and objectives, unexpected extent and quality of German their hearths and homes. She either and concentration on the main objective resistance. employed mercenaries for this purpose or knew how to make her allies bleed for of obliterating Germany's maritime Frobenius concluded from his assump- her, and as far as the latter were concerned capacity: tions that Britain's limited objective of the war easily became an unlimited one… "Therefore, all through we see the destroying the German naval capacity "This illustrates the whole peculiarity endeavour to keep up communication would produce a conflict of objectives of England's conduct of wars on land. with the base, that is to say, for England, within the Grand Alliance against They presume that their continental ally with the sea coast, in so far as practicable Germany: will have to conduct an unlimited war, as harbours are available for embarkation, "It seemed to be the opinion in France the chief burden will be gradually put on and to avoid every decisive action so to him. It is on the other hand emphasized long as this is not enforced by the situation; that Great Britain would quite unselfishly as typically British that the expeditionary and at the same time to avoid too close a devote her forces to the interests of France. force must, if possible, be kept away junction with the operations of the allies: This is, of course, quite out of the question, 30 as this State (England) has never sub- Sir Valentine Chirol introduced Fro- of Europe. The British fleets in the East, ordinated her own interests to those of benius's book as an illustration of the on both shores of North and South other states or nations, but on the contrary aggressive intent of Germany. However, America, and in the Mediterranean have been lessened to strengthen the fleets in has, in many instances, made their forces if anything, it exposes little aggression on home waters, so that Lord Roberts said in serve her own ends and interests. Therefore Germany's part and instead reveals the October, 1912, that the only sea on which a great diversity of interests, evidenced by legitimate concerns held in Germany about the British fleet was master was the North their divergent wishes, appears to arise what was happening in relation to its Sea. The British naval forces will become between England and her allies; Great encirclement by three Great Powers in further concentrated in ratio to the German Britain desires to annihilate our navy whilst alliance, intent on waging war upon it for construction… if possible sparing our army ; France and various reasons. "The 'relations' between Great Britain and Germany are in continuous dis- Russia would like to destroy the German cussion, that rises to a certain intensity Army and preserve the Navy as a counter 'What is to be done?' was the question when the British naval budget is debated to be subsequently employed against the being asked in Germany about the in Parliament or when some European increasing predominance of England." situation. Unfortunately, no answer could question bubbles. These 'relations' are be found. likely to sharpen in international import- The diverse coalition assembled against While Frobenius's book is, in some ance until the German navy reaches its Germany led Frobenius to be both optimist ways, too clever by half, a much more programme development, which will be between 1916 and 1918" (p165-7). and pessimist about future prospects. His realistic assessment of Britain's position concluding paragraphs argue that Ger- with regard to Germany was made by an But Elmer Roberts then enters into the many had no martial intent or desire for American, Elmer Roberts in his 1913 book, world of prophecy: war, but rather was wrestling with the Monarchical Socialism in Germany. dilemma of the necessity of protecting its This book is a very interesting account "I venture into the difficult field of conjecture as to the probable course of growing trade by building a functional of economic and social life in Germany events. Ethical considerations will naval capacity whilst at the same time before the Great War. It describes the prevent the small war party in Great realizing that this process put the country German State, as Frederic Howe did, as a Britain from provoking war while the on a collision course with England: virtual socialist one, within a monarchical German navy is building. When the "To be sure England has at present system. It has a wealth of detail about the German navy has reached its programme every reason for not seeking war with public ownership of facilities and the large maximum and nothing happens, because Germany without cause. It is said that the reinvestment of profits from them in a Germany will not throw her inferior navy relations of the two States are happily against Britain, a long peace will probably socialized system benefiting the common follow in which suspicions and animos- developing on the lines of an under- citizen and at the same time producing standing and rapprochement; it is ities will diminish. The British people becoming acknowledged that they can starting economic achievement and will become accustomed to a certain work with and alongside each other on progress. diminution of their international position, many points and questions, that their Its final chapter deals with the growth but with an immense place in the world, interests are identical in many respects. of the German Navy in relation to this a place constantly maintained, perhaps And as you call into a wood so a socialized state. And Roberts contests the constantly increased, through their conciliatory echo replies. But it must not spiritual and intellectual contributions to view (held by Frobenius) that Germany's mankind" (p167). be forgotten that it was England that naval programme was the primary source brought about this menacing coalition, which is at bottom unquestionably of the antipathy of Britain and the It seems that everyone was (and is?) unnatural, because it has no common preparations for war on Germany: inclined to make the same mistake in interests, and it was England that exerted "If Germany had never built a ship nor relation to the good intentions of the British herself to estrange us from our few sold a yard of cloth abroad, the political State with regard to commerce and war. remaining friends. It can hardly be genius of British statesmen would have believed that our blood relationship singled her out as the enemy of England carries the slightest weight with England, because of Germany's immense and As Balfour said to Henry White, the and that she would refrain from attack growing position on the Continent. The American Diplomat, in 1907, in relation because we have never yet crossed swords political policies of Great Britain are the to the question of Britain accepting the with each other. ones that drive her into hostility against challenge of fair commercial competition: "Why should England have ever had Germany. Added to these are the trade "That would mean lowering our standard the idea of fighting us, as long as we had competition, usually much exaggerated, of living. Perhaps it would be simpler for not the audacity to build a fleet in order to and the rise of the German navy. us to have a war." shield our coasts and our great and Relatively British trade has not expanded increasing trade? It was that—just that— so fast as that of Germany, but it is good Pat Walsh which completely altered our relations. and profitable, making the financial If, therefore, Great Britain has reasons position of the United Kingdom still the for not proceeding rashly and is carefully first in Europe. restraining herself, we must nevertheless "The German navy is serious for Great not conceal from ourselves that she will Britain, not because the safety of the On-line sales of books, pam- seize every favourable opportunity of British Isles is endangered nor because attacking us unawares and delivering her Germany has any aggressive policy phlets and magazines: declaration of war with the first shells at against her, but because the British our coast resorts. Even if she is in favour political position throughout the world https:// of peace her allies will presumably not be will be reduced by reason of the existence inclined to perpetually burden themselves of the navy. www.atholbooks- for nothing with an armament which "That position has already been greatly sales.org cannot be long supported, especially by changed by the rise of Japan in the Far France. If she thinks the proper moment East, of the United States in the Western has arrived, England will not hang back." hemisphere, of Germany on the continent 31 our planes will not carry bombs but raised on many occasions with the singing pilgrims. of this hymn. Political purist might see this as some kind of support for Nazism WHEN 4 but it was really to do with annoying the When the planes stopped bombing did it Brits. Large notices, put up by the Stor- 1 bring peace, mont and the British Governments, around When the night is perfumed by the when thousands still fled the city every the periphery of the Falls Road district woodbine. night. during WW2 warned: 'Out of Bounds to When bats fly low on their sonic signal. When Rome was more defamed than the British Troops'. So hostile was the When the sky is full of ack-ack shrapnel. Third Reich. population. When nerves are fortified by Tony wine. When did a thousand lives lost bring The British propaganda machine was When a tractor ploughs a field with cowled release. pouring out stuff about bringing demo- lights. When Stormont called its frightened sub- cracy to Nazi-occupied Europe but didn't When a father runs a mile to the phone. human. seem so keen about the Catholics of the When a mother in labour starts to moan. When class-attitude scorned its own North. When a midwife faces the blackest night. people. Much of what William Joyce (Lord When German planes drop flares on When Churchill decried those Armagh Haw Haw) said proved he knew about Carryduff. steeples. modern everyday life in Northern Ireland. When she climbs into her Austin Seven. When he called on Stalin to be his This was dismissed by the British authori- When four miles of twisting lanes is crewman. ties as a myth. But there was no doubt he enough. When world war made no difference in was being kept up to date by newspaper When a still-born birth means Limbo not Belfast. reports or by someone with a finger on the Heaven. When population means mere arithmetic. pulse of the North, possibly through the When on the back seat a shoe-box to bluff. When some went to war with the rest German Embassy in Dublin. On one When as rotten fruit it falls from the stem. aghast. occasion he cited the Portadown town When the same flag meant different hall clock as being three minutes slow. 2 politics. Seemingly a trivial piece of information The two-note drone of the German When war comes, time to remember the but accurate. It brought a chill to the bombers. past. listeners when they thought German agents From the bright lights of the Irish Free When in World War One they died were everywhere. We were already being State lunatics. told to look out for German paratroopers to the pitch-black of County Down. Over- in the countryside by the British Minister ate In 1797 Franz Joseph Haydn wrote for War. melting planes, ships, humans. Starlings Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser (God Save The war was not popular among the clamour. Emperor Francis). In 1922 it become the Protestant population. A move to introduce The B' Specials are knocking on doors, German national anthem: 'Das Deutsch- conscription to Northern Ireland was met Catholic doors, for someone saw a lantern landlied' (Land of the Germans). The with strong ripples of social unrest. This on a hill and heard a fenian banter. first line reads: "Deutschland, Deutsch- attempt was withdrawn as it would also be The lone gun pounds the sky and causes land Über Alles" (Germany Over All). difficult to enforce in the Catholic areas. gore: Haydn wrote it as an anthem for the WW1 and the enormous causalities of jagged metal kills a dairy farmer. birthday of the Austrian Emperor Francis only twenty years back was still affecting The empty exhausted, unhealed mother 11 of the Holy Roman Empire. a lot of families and this disenchanted dreads In 1841 the German poet August most Protestants about yet another war. the loud heartbeats of the alloy hammers. Heinrich Hofmann von Fallersleben re- My father who was 18 years old in 1918 Heinkels soar high after the city bled. wrote the lyrics for Germany. Though told me how in his district off York Road, The Belfast dawn—blazing panorama. 'Germany Over All' may seem chauvinistic Belfast, whole streets had their blinds Tune to Lord Haw Haw, laugh at what he to the outside world this song was an drawn, signifying each house had someone said. inspiration for German unification: a dead. I myself remember the crippled— single Germany, rather than petty States. physical and psychological—who seemed 3 Alongside the new German flag it was one to be everywhere, in the streets and at Germany Calling, Germany Calling. of the symbols of the March Revolution work. WW2 veterans in comparison were Reich Station Hamburg and Station 1848. They were not addressing the outside invisible. Bremen, world, and are still not doing so today. A British journalist like Robert Fisk Station BXB, that airs the venom. Later both Catholic and Protestant was still calling the industrial Protestant Blame your English masters for the religious lyricists attached their own worker cowards in his heavy tome: In mauling, words. Long before WW2 it was a hymn Time of War, subtitled Ireland, Ulster and you Catholics who await liberation. for the Mass in many Churches in North- the Price of Neutrality. This work was That white-haired boy gets his Easter eggs ern Ireland. (I am using the official name published in 1983 by Andre Deutsch, soon. Northern Ireland here. In my opinion the Brandon/Ireland. We shall help bring this tyrant to his term Six Counties is wishful thinking and It seemed to Fisk that they preferred to doom, only leads to the notion that the term stay at home during WW2 and manufac- killer of Boers, this aberration, Twenty-Six counties doesn't recognise the ture planes, ships and munitions, providing pioneer of the concentration camp. Republic of Ireland, whereas it has in the Luftwaffe didn't bomb their places of Sing: 'Praise the Lord: Ye Heavens, Adore place a constitutional democratic work. In this book he sneers at how they Him.' government.) ran like hell when a German reconnais- Deutschland Deutschland Über Alles, During my days in the Young Workers' sance plane was sighted overhead. same vamp. League and the Communist Party of Fisk once wrote about the oppressed of Sing lustily at Mass, kick up a din. Northern Ireland I met fellow Catholics the world but, in writing about Ireland, Climb the Black Mountain with a lighted from the Falls Road who, when attending North and South, he didn't think his lamp, Mass during WW2, said the roof was continued on page 34, column 2 32 Why not? Golden Circle names were was done by Dev and his Government in Does involved. That is why not. Some of the 1932 after the awful Depression then. names are emerging in the course of civil Example has to be given by our leaders if It cases in the High Court but most of the they want to lead and be followed. Stack names are hidden from the ordinary people CROKE PARK AGREEMENT Up who are being saddled with paying back Also known as the Public Service ? the debts owed by the Golden Circle to the Agreement 2010-2014, one of the key banks. Getting paid back is what Banks do provisions in the Croke Park Agreement and they are being paid back because the THE GOVERNMENT is paragraph 1.3 which states: "This The Irish people are very frustrated and Banks have the names and addresses of Agreement will enable Public Service very angry at the way the country is being the Golden Circle and the Golden Circle, numbers to reduce substantially over the misruled. One only has to look at the Red under pressure to repay, has used its power coming years …." The Government Sea Poll in the Sunday Business Post, 24th in Government to make the ordinary people introduced a moratorium on Public Service October 2010 to get such a flavour. The pay instead of themselves. Via NAMA. Dr. recruitment. The aim is to reduce staff scenario unfolding since September 2008 Peter Bacon is on the verge of getting numbers from 310,172 to 306,805 by the is a reluctance or inability or perhaps even credit for the idea. But something like it end of 2012. This level of reduction is an unwillingness to effectively govern the was done before in England by Henry ridiculous in view of the fact that, if no one country. People feel disempowered. VIII and Thomas Cromwell. When Henry died in service or left for a job outside the Ordinary people who have the ability to was short of money, his Chancellor public service, the average numbers retir- do ordinary jobs, like running a panel- Thomas Cromwell got the idea of 'blame ing each year should be one-fortieth i.e. beating business or managing the family the monasteries for made-up mispractices' 7,754 which means 15,508 retiring home, know that they could run the country and he systematically confiscated, i.e. between 2010 and 2012. Where did the better than those in Government do it. The robbed, all the monastic properties thus Government's figure of 300,367 reduction respect and mystique with which those in throwing tens of thousands out of work, come from? Is it that once more we have Government were viewed once is now out of house and home, and destroying proof that the Department of Finance gone and the more common perspective what was up to then the system of social people cannot count and are unable for today is that elected representatives are welfare. The priests, monks and nuns were simple arithmetic? It does not stack up. like mediaeval robber-barons who rob the murdered as were Catholics who did not turn over to the new faith. The ordinary What also doesn't stack up is that many, poor citizen at every possible opportunity perhaps all Local Authorities are getting and who have no conscience about it and people of England were reduced to abject poverty while the King and his robber- around the moratorium on recruitment by no care for the good of the people or for the forming limited companies which then barons/princes/dukes prospered as a direct country. It has become visible that proceed to employ staff outside the Public result of what were basically criminal enormous salaries and expense accounts Service and such limited companies are and sheer fiddling, fraud and crookedness laws. funded by contracting for the local Council are everyday life for those in power without In Ireland today, there are daily reve- or by issuing invoices to the pubic for even the slightest regards for the financial lations of the greed, outright fraud and services rendered—services which form- state of the country or for where all the oppression being perpetrated on the people erly were provided by the Council. Thus money is coming from. by Government Ministers, TDs, Senators, the employment embargo is broken and, and County Councillors and by some worse still, the affairs of the limited com- Even judges are involved—asking for pany are secret and not subject to oversight €500,000 expenses for three Tribunal public servants. They award themselves salaries and "allowances" out of propor- by any Government Department nor by judges recently was a 'last straw' for many tion: to inflate expense claims, to take the Comptroller and Auditor and General who had believed in the system. unnecessary foreign travel, to take time nor by the Local Government Auditor. Likewise Taoiseach Brian Cowen TD's off when they should be working and then The process is an open invitation to cor- insistence that he did not know of Anglo- to award public contracts to their friends ruption and fraud and needs to be firmly Irish Bank's insolvency on the night in and acquaintances, etc. etc. The list seems stamped out by the Government before it September 2008 when the blanket Bank to be endless. Basic ethics is regarded as gets any further. Guarantee was given. Taoiseach Cowen's foolishness e.g. Public servants routinely insistence confirms either his dishonesty take sick days off even if they are well. BERTIE AHERN (which we'd prefer not to believe) or his They take hours off to enable them to cash Bertie Ahern was really pushing his incompetence. Because he had earlier non-existing pay cheques. They take Teflon Taoiseach image recently when he attended a meeting at which Anglo's Tuesdays off after National Holidays to posed crouching in a kitchen cupboard for situation was the item on the agenda. Not compensate themselves for the slowness a British tabloid newspaper. Has he lost it, to have known on 29th September 2008 of non-existing turf-driven trains. Classic or what? Does he think this sort of lark about Anglo's then insolvency shows cases of "give them an inch and they'll will enable him to run for the President of massive incompetence on Cowen's part. take a mile". There are some public Ireland? Maybe he thinks he can pull the But then that incompetence has emerged servants (don't we call them Civil any wool over our eyes as he often did before. since in the remarkable lack of activity more?) who are the guardians of moral And maybe he will be right! Maybe the over the two years. rectitude when it comes to ordinary Irish people are so lightweight that they Why were all the Directors of Anglo people's rights to a Council House or to an have forgotten that Bertie lost creditability immediately, or even six months later, not Old Age Pension or to a Medical Card. and the office of Taoiseach over the Mahon arrested by the Gardai for questioning? Tribunal's investigation of a claim that Prima facie there was criminal activity in They have all lost the respect of ordinary Bertie received €80,000 from developer putting Anglo into the position it was in. people. It is high time they started to earn Owen O'Callaghan in connection with a Billions of euros just cannot vanish. In respect again. A good start would be for planning matter. Bertie denies the alleg- effect, Anglo was robbed and plundered elected public representatives to cut their ations. He also denied his State driver's and little has been done about it. own salaries and allowances by 50% as allegations that he took a briefcase full of 33 cash to Manchester and he forgot "sterling" The pilot had probably awakened to the lodgements to Accounts set up in the situation by then but it was too late. In the PROTEST continued Drumcondra branch of Irish Life and Perm- cockpit the system controlling air speed anent. Also, Bertie is still a TD and, even and altitude failed, and the display screens money, having no value of its own, gener- though regulations specify that every TD would have gone blank. It is thought that ally loses value if it is merely saved. It must supply a Tax Compliance Certificate the flight sensors—pitot tubes—failed must be invested to hold its own. within weeks of a General Election, Bertie simultaneously. There had been 36 has not done so. Why is he allowed so previous incidents of pitot tubes failing Money that holds its own value is much latitude? Why is that august body— due to freezing temperatures and a refit obsolete. Money only holds its value by The Revenue Commissioners not taking had not yet been done on Flight 447. We being invested. Putting it in the bank is action? It doesn't stack up at all. have heard of eastbound flights in daylight investing it—but it is the necessary mini- across the Atlantic during which the crew mum of speculation. DEPARTMENT OF FINANCE routinely spread newspapers over the Jim Power made another point in his The Department of Finance's perceived cockpit windows "to stop the glare" and article: lack of numeracy is of vital concern to us "why look out—there is nothing to see "Having printed a lot of new money over with regard to Ireland's contribution to the anyway—the computer is flying the plane". the past couple of years, the US central EU Budget. Unlike the Member States, It is time that all countries would make it bank is now on the verge of engaging in the EU has a sensible rule that it cannot illegal to use automatic controls without another bout of money creation, or borrow to balance its budget. However, supervision at all times by a qualified pilot 'Quantitative Easing Mark 2'. There is no what it does is to spend and then divide the or captain on watch in all planes. And also guarantee this will work, because the business sector is still not terribly interested expenditure among the Member States. in ships because it is known that ships frequently sail on automatic pilot without in investment, while the personal sector is Part is taken from the Member States as a more interested in saving than spending percentage of each State's VAT Receipts anyone being on watch on the bridge. (similar to Ireland)" (Ir. Exam. 22.10.2010). and another part is taken from each State Michael Stack. © as a percentage of its Gross National And we all thought Robert Mugabe Income. All of the Member States' gross was the only man that printed money! national incomes have to be known before WHEN the sums are done so this takes time. It is concluded HOME OWNERSHIP to be expected that Ireland's contribution colonial mindset would show because it The Irish state has probably the largest for 2009 will be reduced by an over- was all about WW2. You drop the dishes, per centage of home-ownership in the payment for the last two years, according or whatever you are doing, forget that European Union. Out of a population of to the Comptroller and Auditor General. Britain still had a brutal colonial empire, 4.45 million, there are 1,800,000 principal Very big sums of money are involved and and rally to the flag, for this is fascism. He private residences. When the state intro- it is vital that the Department gets it right. must have been aware, as a leading duced a Property Tax on Second Homes, The calculations are based on our VAT journalist, that Britain helped to create a return of €40 million was anticipated— Receipts and on our Gross National Nazism in Germany through their unneces- it surpassed that figure by €10 million. Income. sary humiliation of that nation after WW1. A relatively huge part of our National When I worked in the Belfast shipyard They might sing about and vote for Income comes from the activities of: from 1946 onwards I began to realise that James Connolly but you can bet your (a) USA companies and other foreign there were a greater number of veterans bottom Euro, they won't be acting like companies trading in Ireland and from WW1 than from WW2. I have never him. (b) Companies trading out of Shannon heard a former soldier from WW2 say he "The Irish are not philosophers as a and Dublin Financial Services Centre joined the army to fight Nazism. (One I rule", Connolly stated. It would appear and these companies produce high knew said so, only after he had joined the that they are doing a lot more thinking in incomes but relatively low Corporation CPNI.) Many of the soldiers had joined this crisis and, if the Labour movement is Tax and, mostly no VAT. So are their the British Army around 1936-37 due to to persuade and coax them into direct activities costing us a lot in terms of our economic conditions or with a wish to be action, they will have to put across a contribution to the EU budget? Not taken out of the then bleak Northern mighty convincing case, not a lot of slogans enough information is publicly available Ireland. I worked with one who felt he had and rhetoric about millionaires and the to answer these questions. been caught out by the outbreak of WW2. 'Celtic Tiger'. One day a teenager asked him his advice Middle Ireland will need a few more AUTOMATIC PILOT about the British Army as a career. It was hair shirts before it is convinced that its Shouldn't automatic flight controls be 1950 and the Korean War was raging. His gains from the 'Celtic Tiger' are all lost. banned by law? Is it right that several answer: "Wait until it's all over and then That is not to say they will forever tolerate hundred passengers' lives are trusted to a join the Catering Corp". arbitrary or unending economic cuts— computer or even three computers? On A couple of former Belfast soldiers but by that time the Left and the Trade Flight 447 out of Rio de Janeiro on 1st who had entered the undamaged parts of Union movement will be leading from June 2009, 228 people were killed when Germany in 1945 thought that country behind if they don't start doing some the plane was flying itself by computer. It had made a good life for its people. I was serious thinking themselves. flew into a large thunderstorm. Investigat- shocked and thought of them as fascists. Money may not be the prime motive for ors believe that a smaller storm in front of But they weren't particularly interested in the French protests but it would be a brave the larger weather front confused the politics. Anyone who provided a place to leader who would appeal to Middle Ireland plane's radar system and it flew on into the live, a steady job, enough food and clothes, or Lower Ireland, for that matter, solely large thunderstorm. Automatically. The schools, and healthcare for them and their on the intrinsic value of Time. Modern crew were nominally there on duty. But family had their support either through Ireland would think that Bishop Lucey the computer was flying the plane. Right voting or non-voting. They left the had risen from the dead again. into a huge thunderstorm. Messages from ideology to those who already had all of Whatever about the Fianna Fail the plane's flight computer (that word this. renaissance—a renaissance of the Labour again!) stated that Flight 447 suffered 24 Wilson John Haire movement seems light years away! critical faults in just 4 minutes 16 seconds. 12th September, 2010 Pat Maloney 34 ated, but even if true, it is meaningless moving their cash to instant access PROTEST continued when taken in isolation. It tells us little accounts as concerns mount about their about the state of the economy and nothing future finances. "'In Ireland, people can get together, as about the prospects of each individual According to figures from personal in the Croke Park agreement for instance. child. finance advisers, Bonkers.ie, Irish people French people are not able to do that', have €64.5 billion in savings accounts, Being born in Ireland confers a host of says Ms Avouac-Morrison. 'The Irish which doesn't include pensions, shares or other benefits that more than offsets that people are very flexible. They understand investment products. liability. If each child is liable for a share that it's not sustainable. People are not There is even more money on deposit of the national debt, then each child must realistic in France. The Irish are stoic; in Irish banks once corporate deposits are be credited with a share of the national they can reach a consensus'." added in. wealth. That wealth is considerable. We For households alone the average sav- Ms Pratschke comes back to this idea face major economic difficulties but we ings work out at €43,851 per household, of solidarity in France: are still among the richest countries in the according to Simon Moynihan of Bonkers "The Irish are a nation of individuals, world. and perhaps the sense of society is not .ie. quite as developed. Not only are people saving like mad but "What I would say is that there is a lack there has been a change in their savings of flexibility or willingness to change habits which mirrors the turbulent econ- quickly in France." (Irish Independent, Our health and social services may not omic times. 23.10.2010). be ideal but they are far better than those available to most of the world's population. Between May 2009 and May this year, The Cork writer does the middle-class Each child born in Ireland is fortunate by the amount of money in long-term deposit a real injustice—for the only substantial world standards, with an entitlement to accounts went from €15.1 billion to €10.2 and successful protest throughout the crisis practically free health care and free educ- billion—a drop of €4.9 billion. was that organised by the Irish Congress ation. State services could, of course, be However, the amount of money in of Trade Unions in Dublin on Saturday, improved. Waste could be eliminated, notice or instant access accounts increased February 21st last year. A crowd of 50,000 management improved and, if our debt by €4.9 billion to €17.2 billion over the was anticipated : 100,000 turned up. Out servicing costs were lower, we could spend same period. of that protest, the single biggest bene- more. Not only are people saving whatever ficiary was the middle-class, which suc- Those are real concerns. But let's not they can, but the panicky times we live in ceeded in retaining Medical Cards when forget what we have. means they want immediate access to that they reached 70 years of age, the only money and so are reluctant to tie it up for embargo being that your income did not ***************************************************************************** six months or a year. exceed €700 per week, and your spouse "The Irish are not philosophers as a The problem is the Government cannot was permitted the same, coming to €1,400 rule, they proceed too rapidly from get the business sector interested in invest- a week. thought to action." James Connolly. ment, while the personal sector is more The average weekly earnings for the ***************************************************************************** interested in saving than spending but majority of Irish workers at that time then this has always been an aspect of the wouldn't even reach €700 a week—so this THE THRIFTY IRISH capitalist system. was primarily a concession to public Figures on household finances reveal service retirees, who in the main are the that a total of €97 billion is on deposit in In his weekly column in the Irish bulwark of the Fianna Fail vote, when current and saving accounts and that the Examiner, (22.10.2010) economist Jim they have their senses about them. For the likes of the Cork writer, it will amount owed to the banks in standard Power related a visit he made to an suit him just fine if the workers of Europe consumer loans has fallen by €6 billion in economic conference in the US. will do the protesting and the snug, the last year. "One idea suggested last weekend in conceited Irish middle-class will reap The State's 414 Credit Unions, alone, Boston to get consumers spending is to whatever benefit accrue, and sure if not— have deposits of €12 billion. impose a tax on savings. In other words, all them Froggies and Manuels are half A report on household finances, pub- one would be forced to pay the equivalent of an interest rate to the savings institution mad anyhow, so we lose nothing. lished by the Central Bank (4.10.2010), said between 2003 and mid-2009 Irish for the privilege of saving. The hope is We can go back to the comfort and this would discourage saving and get security of our 12.5% Corporation Tax! households borrowed much more than they saved. In the last 18 months this trend people spending. "I personally find this a bizarre idea, IRELAND: STILL A RICH COUNTRY has been dramatically reversed. but the very fact that such a notion is But do the advocates of 'direct action' The amount of standard consumer loans owed to the banks has fallen by €6 billion being mooted tells us a lot about the ever analyse this perceived 'apathy' of fragility of the US economy. The one Irish workers? in the last year. However, the total owed on credit cards, student loans and over- message I came away from Boston with The economic situation is bad, but is in Ireland, we cannot sit back and hope drafts rose by €4.9 billion. making it sound worse than it is, or trying a strong international recovery will ride to express it in popular sound bites, doesn't All right, not all households have sav- to our rescue." (Ir. Exam. 22.10.2010). help. It only serves to dampen the prospect ings. Many families are just one bill away There is no such thing in modern capital- of a renewed confidence that is essential from financial ruin due to unemployment to economic recovery or indeed, the or severe wage cuts and tax hikes. ism as saving in the old-fashioned sense. democratic involvement by the mass of But in those homes where there is the Saving is only possible through invest- ment. Gold sovereigns might be saved by the people. It doesn't help people to chance to put even a few Euro aside, some understand what needs to be done to tackle furious saving is going on. being put in a stocking under a mattress. Because they were themselves a product— our current difficulties. Irish households have, on average, a commodity—they would hold their value Some experts reckon each Irish child at almost €44,000 stashed away. birth will be saddled with more than And they do not want this money locked with relation to other commodities. Paper €40,000 debt, that figure is a bit exagger- away into fixed-term accounts, with many continued on page 34

35 VOLUME 28 No. 11 CORK ISSN 0790-1712 Not On Our Knees Yet, James! The Dublin media and intellectual between commercial activity and leisure This view—that the French way of life Ireland are in a desperate quandary! time. Money, you discover is not the prime is under threat as Sarkozy tries to move motive for them. Time is what they cherish. the country to a more market-driven type Half of Europe is in revolt! Millions It is because they believe President of economy—is common among the are on the streets of France, Greece and Sarkozy is trying to steal their time (by demonstrators. Spain but in the Republic, which is affect- extending the retirement age from 65 to The deal goes like this: the people work ed by some of the most dire aspects of the 67, or from 60 to 62 for those taking early for relatively low wages and pay high financial collapse, the population is in retirement) that so many of them have taxes and the Government provides free slumber. The commentators just cannot taken to the streets this week. pre-school care, education, health care, understand where our fighting spirit has But it would be a mistake to view these pensions and proper social welfare vanished to. current disturbances as just another week allowances. on the streets . . . . "People pay very high taxes, but there's A couple of Sundays ago (17.10.2010), "It's very complex. It's not just about an awful lot that the ordinary person gets The Mail on Sunday dedicated a full page having fun with placards. I think it's back, and they don't want to see it eroded. to the 'dilemma': The writer blames the about protecting the kind of world they They don't want to see the fracturing of society that has happened elsewhere," Famine for our servile attitude . . . . The have created here in France. There is a sense that 'we're all in this together'," says Ms Pratschke. Church has also played a part . . . . Eamon says Sheila Pratschke, director of the de Valera and his Government colluded in To Sarkozy and the Globalisers that Irish Cultural Centre in Paris. kind of social protection comes at too this. And Haughey was no help either. "French people are very pleased and The writer concludes that: "If we were proud of the balance they have. They like high a price. "'The social safety net—I'm all for it, French, the revolution would have started their time off and their weekends. They are very family-oriented. Many people but it's too expensive', argues Caroline long ago". Aye, if the cow had . . . ., she Feely, a wine grower at Chateau Haut would be a bull! travel home to their families at the week- end. They want to keep all of that lifestyle. Garrigue in Saussignac in the south-west The protests are not just about pensions, of France: 'The social charge is enormous. According to the Evening Echo in Cork: but about everything else," she adds. I used to give out about PRSI when I lived "We're as mad as hell, now we want to get (Irish Independent-23.10.2010). in Ireland, but it's nothing compared to even… but the hard-pressed lower and the social charge in France. If I earned, say, €10,000, €4,700 of that goes on middle income families…" are a "people social charges, and that's before you pay who have a history of not protesting". Subscribers to the magazine are regularly offered special rates on other publications any income tax.'…" The writer goes on: "Unlike pensioners, who avail of free public transport and Irish Political Review is published by Genevieve Avouac-Morrison, a French have the time to march on Dublin, families the IPR Group: write to— woman living in Dublin: "There is a lot of simply don't have the time or energy to 1 Sutton Villas, Lower Dargle Road anti-Sarkozy feeling. People think he just protest". Yes, this is what the man wrote! Bray, Co. Wicklow or isn't a very good President. Sarkozy has Even RTE has got worked up—they PO Box 339, Belfast BT12 4GQ or made it about the rich against the less well dedicated a segment of This Week (17. PO Box 6589, London, N7 6SG, or off. The number of millionaires in France 10.2010) to the issue. Labour Comment, has exploded under him. In many ways, I Mick Barry, the Socialist Party Council- C/O Shandon St. P.O., Cork City. see these protests as a kind of class lor on Cork City Council, is urging the TEL: 021-4676029 struggle." Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) to Subscription by Post: organise a 24-hour General Strike. 12 issues: £20, UK; The scale of protest in France has left € 30, Ireland; € 35, Europe. many Irish people wondering whether (i) THE FRENCH Electronic Subscription: they are over-reacting to relatively minor In France social life revolves around € 15 / £12 for 12 issues changes, or (ii) we are under-reacting to the family and there is a strict code of (or € 1.30 / £1.10 per issue) the massive cuts that await us. social interaction. You can also order from: The French are proud of this balance https://www.atholbooks-sales.org continued on page 35