Dulanty's Duplicity . . . Ah The English Labour Hijacked Manus O'Riordan Joe Keenan Labour Comment

page 16 page 9 back page IRISH POLITICAL REVIEW December 2007 Vol.22, No.12 ISSN 0790-7672 and Northern Star incorporating Workers' Weekly Vol.21 No.12 ISSN 954-5891

News From Limbo Evidence Excluded What is at issue now between the SDLP and Sinn Fein? Why is Dennis Bradley From Pearsons advising the SDLP about doing down Sinn Fein? If the SDLP recovered the ground which it lost through being gulled by David Trimble, what would it do different from Programme what Sinn Fein is doing? And if the SDLP remains an anti-Partition party, why is it so The Pearson brothers sided vehemently . opposed to increasing the presence of all-Ireland politics in the North through the expansion of Fianna Fail? with the British and A case has been made that Fianna Fail organisation in the North would upset the class- forfeited their civilian based politics that now exists there. In this argument, the SDLP is the party of the status, argues Pat Muldowney. Catholic middle class. It is not an argument that has been made by the SDLP. And in any case it is hard to see its relevance. Fianna Fail is hardly the class party of the The principal problem with RTÉ's proletariat. controversial Hidden History document- A difference between Fianna Fail and Fine Gael in the Republic in this regard is that ary broadcast on October 23rd was its the pretentious stratum of the middle class feels more at ease with Fine Gael, while the failure to mention the British Military vigorous, competent and thrusting element of the middle class,which takes a substantial Court of Enquiry in Lieu of Inquest into element of the working class under its wing, is at the heart of Fianna Fail. the deaths of the Pearson brothers, Richard Sinn Fein is becoming, socially, in the Catholic community in the North what Fianna and Abraham. Fail became in the South in the early 1930s. Is the SDLP intent on becoming what Fine This inquiry is the best single source of Gael became? hard evidence about what actually happen- ed and why it happened. But nobody who It does seem that the SDLP has become the pretentious party, though it is not clear watched the programme was given the what it is pretending to. When SDLP founder, Austin Currie, went South he joined fine slightest inkling of such an inquiry. Gael. But we cannot see that there is the same ground for pretentiousness as a party The British inquiry was held in Crinkle ideology in the North as there was in the South. The North is not a state, and not even Military Barracks, Birr, Co Offaly, on the best efforts of the SDLP and Sinn Fein combined could make it one. And the July 2nd, 1921, the second day after the electorate, within which the SDLP and SF compete, is less than half of the whole men's deaths. electorate. It took sworn evidence from doctors and eye-witnesses and the papers include It has been suggested that the SDLP should join forces with the UUP on the basis of a high-level police report stating the result middle classness, and thus constitute an Opposition within Stormont through which of the RIC investigation of the episode: "It normal politics might develop. But this would involve the disruption of the 'Constitution' is said by the C I [county inspector] Queen's which was in great part the work of the SDLP, and which was carefully designed to County that the two Pearson boys a few

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Carnival Of Reaction? war incidentally that led to a growth of To paraphrase Ms Byrne, can you imagine 40% in the area of Britain's empire. In the public outcry which would legitamtely Wearing a poppy today is not a sign that addition, many wars in which British follow were the French to start celebrating "we have grown up and finally opted to let soldiers fought and died since 1914 have their Algerian war or the Belgians their bygones be bygones". Quite the contrary been far from glamourous wars for Congo massacres? A sign sign of maturity in fact. The poppy is worn in member freedom. The poppy celebrates the Black and of letting bygones be bygones would countries of the British Commonwealth and Tan war in Ireland (1921), the be rather the abandonment by Britain of only, in remembrance of all who fought in murderous colonial campaigns in Iraq, this—yes—annual triumphalist carnival. all of Britain's wars since 1914. In recent Malaya and Kenya in the 1920s, 1950s Philip O'Connor statements by Mr Paisley and others, these and 1960s every bit as much as the poor wars have been characterised variously as Tommies of the Western Front of 1914- This reply to Andrea Byrne ("Louis's poppy fighting for freedom, the rights of small 18. No other country in Europe 'celebrates' love points to our blooming maturity", Sunday nations, democracy etc. The First World its military history in this way let alone Independent 18th November) was submitted War was not about any of these things, a glorifying their militarist colonial past. on 18th November, but did not find publication: At Sunningdale a power-sharing system C O N T E N T S was worked out between the SDLP and News From Limbo. Editorial 1 the Unionist Party under the pressure of Evidence Excluded From Pearsons Programme. Pat Muldowney 1 the London and Dublin Governments. The Carnival Of Reaction. Philip O'Connor 1 power-sharing Government was set up in Hidden History And The Pearsons. Paddy Heaney (letter) 3 January 1974 and ran until May. It fell because of the rigid Anti-Partition stance Editorial Digest (DeV In Schools; British Legion; IN & Prods; McGuinness; of the SDLP and the Dublin Government Selling Mementoes; Irish News; State Immunity?; Louise Arbour) 4 (C.C. O'Brien and G. FitzGerald in Index To Irish Political Review, 2007 5 particular). The Unionists had agreed to a Imperialism In The Soul Of The Englishman. Conor Lynch 6 Council of Ireland on the understanding Tony Blair's Resignation Speech. Report 6 that the Dublin assertion of sovereignty Ireland And The Last Crusade. Pat Walsh 9 over the North would be withdrawn. When Rudyard Kipling And The English, Ah The English. Joe Keenan (Part 1) 9 the duplicity of the Dublin Coalition on Palestine Solidarity. ICTU Motion (Report) 14 the matter was made clear in the Dublin Irish Labour And Northern Ireland. (Report) 14 Courts, a strong grass-roots Unionist Shorts from the Long Fellow (All Balls; More Balls; And Even More . . .; opposition emerged. It demanded that, The Oval Ball; High Society) 15 either the setting up of the Council of Ireland should be deferred, or a Northern John Dulanty—High Commissioner For Whom? Some Realities Of election should be held. The SDLP, Betjeman, Bowen And Anglo-Irish Relations. Manus O'Riordan (Part 1) 16 supported by the Dublin Coalition, would An Irish Examiner Debate On Elizabeth Bowen. Report 21 not agree to either, and the Sunningdale Biteback (Unpublished letters: Hidden History Or Hidden Agenda? Brian system as a whole was abolished in the Murphy osb; Pearsons, The Medical Evidence, Malachi Lawless; Political face of a Unionist General Strike in May Legitimacy?, Daithi O hAilbhe; War Crime?, Jack Lane; AHS And Irish 1974. And that is essentially how matters Times, Jack Lane; Coolacrease & Irish Political Rev, E. Courtney 22,28 stood for 24 years, until the Republicans Land Grabbers? Brendan Clifford (Part 1) 24 and John Hume (rather than the SDLP) Chipping Away At Ireland's Sovereignty. Tom Cooper (report) 28 negotiated the 1998 Agreement. Labour Comment, edited by Pat Maloney: The SDLP might have taken credit for Labour Hijacked back page Hume's achievement and flourished under Unity On The Left by John Ryan page 30 the GFA system, if it had not lost its bearings and fallen into illusion during prevent the emergence of that kind of "men of violence". those 24 years. But, without Hume to politics by providing that every party of In 1971 Brian Faulkner's Unionist make it do things in accordance with its any consequence should have a place in Government offered the SDLP a position real mandate, it no longer knew what to Government. of some influence in the old constitutional do. It was given the run-around by Trimble system. Agreeing to it would have set the for two years, and then, when he allowed There was within the Unionist SDLP on an independent course. Taken government to begin, it acted as if it was community a social basis for the rise of a by surprise in the remoteness of Stormont, taking part in an authentic democracy. popular party against the hegemony within Gerry Fitt agreed to take up the offer, and Now that it has been pushed to the the Unionist community of "the fur coat spoke of "Faulkner's finest hour". Then margins by Sinn Fein—with its better brigade". It kept trying to happen right he made the long journey back from the understanding of constitutional affairs— from the start, and eventually it did happen. Parliament building to the busy civilisation it is trying to subvert the system negotiated There was not the same social basis in the of West Belfast, and realised that it was in 1998 by undertaking the role of an Nationalist community for the rise of a No Go for an independent course of action Opposition jointly with the marginalised working class party against the SDLP. by the SDLP in real antagonism with Sinn Unionist Party. When one thinks of Paddy Devlin and Fein. Jim Gibney of Sinn Fein, in his Irish Gerry Fitt, founders of the SDLP, the Rather than go back to Stormont and News column of October 25th, gave it a category 'middle-class' does not spring to withdraw its agreement to Faulkner's lesson the GFA for slow learners: mind. proposal, the SDLP found an excuse to "Another false argument which withdraw from Stormont altogether. It set emerged out of the ministerial row is The SDLP/SF division, as it emerged up an Alternative Assembly in Dungan- the idea that the assembly needs a formal in the early 1970s, had a considerable non. This inspired an intensification of opposition. The assembly cannot have element of role-playing in it. The two the Republican war effort. The Govern- a formal opposition; a formal opposition parties sought the same object by different ment (the real one in Whitehall) decided is based on a parliamentary system which rests on democratic institutions means, and the different means ('constitu- to see whether a small administrative and democratic culture. The current tional' agitation and war) were in substance massacre would deflate the situation, but parliamentary arrangements have been complementary rather than antagonistic. SDLP leaders responded to Bloody carefully structured." The Catholic community was no longer Sunday by declaring that it was "United "These are novel arrangements and willing, after August 1969, to vegetate Ireland or nothing". A few months later are needed because the six county state under oppression in the old way. It had the old Stormont system was abolished. is not a democratic entity". been pressed into defensive military action by the Unionist assault and would not The SDLP held out against constitution- In fact it is not even a state. Its actual revert to mere 'constitutional' action until al approaches for about two years, until status has been deliberately obscured and some definite and irreversible constitution- the Prime Minister (Ted Heath) indicated the language for discussing it meaningfully al change had been achieved. The SDLP that, unless the SDLP agreed to negotiate has been retarded. was the constitutional alternative to the for an internal settlement, he would arrange "men of violence", to which concessions for Northern Ireland to be governed as an The "ministerial row" was sparked off might be made under pressure from the integral part of the British state. continued on page 4 2 Pearsons continued LETTERS TO THE EDITOR · LETTERS TO THE EDITOR· LETTERS TO THE EDITOR· days previously had seen two men felling a tree on their land adjoining the road. Had Hidden History And The Pearsons told the men concerned to go away and It will come as a surprise to many readersthat the Pearsons were so trigger-happy that when they refused had fetched two guns theyshot and seriously wounded an ex-RIC man as well as two Republicans! and fired and wounded two Sinn Féiners, In fact Bert Hogg lost a lung as a result. one of whom it is believed died." Compare this with the Irish military There has been a great deal of unfounded and ill-informed speculation resulting from report sent to GHQ by the responsible the recent RTÉ Hidden History documentary on the Pearsons of Coolacrease. officer Thomas Burke: The basic facts are as follows. About a week before the Pearsons were executed, an "C Coy (Kinnity) 3rd Battalion IRA roadblock at Cadamstown was attacked by the three elder Pearson brothers at about reported to me on 26/6/21 that some of 11.30 p.m. They shot three people: my father's relative Mick Heaney; Tom Donnelly their men have been fired on a few (both of these on guard duty while the roadblock was being constructed); and ex-RIC- nights previously, whilst engaged in a man Bert Hogg who had been arrested by Mick Heaney after leaving the Pearsons' house road blockade operation, by three men about ten minutes earlier on his way home to Lackaroe via Cadamstown village. armed with shotguns. As a result one of Mick Heaney was seriously wounded in the stomach and, though his life was saved their men was somewhat seriously in the short term, he never recovered and died of his wounds about five years later. Tom wounded. The men who fired were Donnelly was lightly wounded in the head by further Pearson volleys when he came to recognised by the men present to be three brothers named Pearson. Mick Heaney's assistance. Bert Hogg was shot in the leg and back as he ran towards "Having satisfied myself by inquiries Cadamstown from the Pearson attack. He made it home through Cadamstown village, from Coy Capt, Kinnity, and officers but lost a lung as a result of the attack. present at battalion council, that there Apart from Mick Heaney who was spirited to hospital after getting first aid from Dr was no doubt about the identity of the Brown in Kilcormac, all of the men on duty that night were arrested in their homes the men who fired, I ordered that these men following day by a party of RIC and British troops who took over the whole of be executed and their houses destroyed." Cadamstown. In the village, a British officer was heard ticking off one group of the RIC: This could hardly be clearer. Authorit- "Did it take ten RIC to arrest two men?". This party was heavily ambushed at Eglish, but ative investigations on behalf of both the succeeded in getting through to their base in Tullamore. elected Irish government and the British There is no mystery about any of this. I described it in detail in my book, At the Foot military government reported that the of Slieve Bloom (2002). Bill Glynn, the last surviving member of the roadblock party, Pearsons had, in effect, forfeited civilian died just a few years ago. status in becoming armed combatants on The resulting execution of two of the Pearson brothers had nothing to do with the side of the unelected imperial power. sectarianism or land-grabbing. In the Cadamstown area, most Protestants and most This does not lessen the tragedy for the Catholics recognized the democratic mandate which had been won by the independence Pearson family who had no personal movement. The most prominent Protestants involved in the local IRA at the time were responsibility for starting this war, no the Mitchells of Rahan. more than any other person in Ireland, of The most prominent local opponents of the independence movement were Fr whatever persuasion; a great many of Holohan, parish priest of Kinnitty, and the Pearsons. As to land-grabbing, when William whom suffered dreadfully. But it puts into Pearson sold Coolacrease back to the Land Commission, the first people to obtain land perspective the statement in the Hidden in Coolacrease, under the direction of Fr Holohan, were ex-British soldiers and other History programme: "There was no official people with no IRA connections. investigation into what actually happened These are the main facts which I made available to the recent documentary. What was that night." actually broadcast was entirely the responsibility of the programme makers. And it puts into perspective the mass of Paddy Heaney flimsy, dubious and unsupported speculat- ion in the documentary about motives of sectarianism, land-grabbing and possible lower leg; and about six glancing wounds physically possible for anyone located punishment for the lesser offence of in the back. inside the grove to see into the enclosed, spying. Informing by non-combatants Lt Col CR Woods RAMC (an army walled courtyard where the two brothers assists combatants to attack and attempt to doctor) examined Abraham Pearson and were shot. kill combatants of the other side. found extensive wounds on left cheek, left The Pearson execution was no war Combatants put their lives on the line. shoulder, left thigh and lower third of left crime, no act of ethnic cleansing, and no The Pearsons had become combatants. leg. In addition there was a wound through land grab. It was an incident in the war Both the Irish and British authorities the abdomen. forced on the Irish electorate by the were agreed on this. As to the second atrocity allegation, imperial government's determination to The British military court of inquiry that the men's mother and sisters were suppress the democratic government evidence puts paid to inflammatory forced to watch the men being shot, here formed on foot of the 1918 general election assertions made by Eoghan Harris in the is what Ethel Pearson told the court: and confirmed in office by further elections programme that the brothers were shot "My mother who was in a fainting in 1920 and 1921. deliberately in the genitals, in an act of condition was carried by my two sectarian hatred. There were no injuries to Dr Pat Muldowney is author of The Pearson brothers into a little wood we call the Executions in Co Offaly (published by The the genitals. grove and we all went with her by the Dr FW Woods examined Richard Aubane Historical Society, 2007). He is order of the raiders. researching a further work on the Coolacrease Pearson and found a superficial wound in "Six of the raiders, two or three of affair. Further reading on the left shoulder; a deep but not life- whom were masked, ordered my brothers down into the yard." http://www.indymedia.ie/ threatening wound in the right groin (which article/84547 is farther from the genitals than an ear lobe The grove has been grubbed out, but is is from the brain); another in the right clearly marked in the Ordnance Survey This article appeared in the buttock; superficial wounds in the left maps, which also prove that it is not Irish Times of 17th November 3 Limbo News sphere of operation of the British political sion of dissent—by nod and wink rather continued parties, and thus establish a common than direct order we assume—but was political ground for Protestants and kept within limits when Haughey brought by SDLP Minister Margaret Ritchie, who Catholics. That was consistent with its out Fianna Fail in Opposition. decided to withhold funding o the UDA anti-Partitionism. It felt that, without the through the Conflict Transformation communal antagonism of Catholic and Pat Rabbit, in a slick operation, ensured Initiative (CTI) on the ground that it had Protestant, Partition would die as an issue. the passing of the Labour Party leadership not decommissioned. Her move has been But now it is doing its best to prevent to another Stickie without a party election. understood as an electioneering tactic for Fianna Fail from organising. (And it will Eamon Gilmore has put the development the election Gordon Brown decided not to probably succeed. Bertie has always of the Labour Party in the North on hold. call when he saw how Cameron's Party retreated in the face of difficulties in the Labour must wait—again. Conference speech had influenced the North.) This can hardly be justified as It was not De Valera who made Labour opinion polls. anti-Partitionist. The SDLP seems to have wait in 1918. It waited because it didn't The SDLP has three Westminster seats. become a mere Partition Party. know what else to do. And now Labour is Alasdair MacDonald got South Belfast on waiting again to see how things work out, a split Unionist vote and will probably Garret FitzGerald (Irish Times 17 Nov) and it is acting as a drag on the Fianna Fail lose it. Eddie McGrady, who has asserts that cross-Border parties would initiative to bring real politics to the North. something like gentry status in South "put at grave risk the future evolution of In the meantime its Northern members Down, is nearing retirement, and Sinn political relationships within our island". must rest quiet in Limbo-land. Fein's Catriona Ruane is in the running for He does not say why, and it is not self- it. With an eye to that contest Mark evident. Durkan did not take a seat in the Executive He asserts that "the whole process of himself, nominating Margaret Ritchie who restoring peace" in the North "depended Editorial Digest was unknown to the wider public. It was on the fact that none of the various thought Margaret Ritchie might just get it government parties" of the Republic were EDUCATION MINISTER Mary Hanafin if she made a strong impression on the "directly involved in the Northern Ireland has distributed copies of Eamon De traditional electorate, so she set out to political scene". Again he does not say Valera's biography to 2,000 schools. De why. hammer the Prods. Valera was the founder of Fianna Fáil It was a party-political move of the The suggestion seems to be that, because they were not involved in the situation, and Fine Gael are insisting that this is essentially meaningless conflict of the party political and are calling for balance. SDLP with Sinn Fein, and it went against they were better able to impose peace on A biography of Michael Collins has the grain of Catholic-Protestant collaborat- it. But the peace was not imposed. It was ion under the Agreement. internally generated by Sinn Fein and been suggested. But Michael Collins John Hume, with Dublin usually being was not a founder of Fine Gael. He was The UDA is not a Protestant counterpart hustled along. The exception is Albert not even a member of Fine Gael's of Sinn Fein in its political aspect or of the Reynolds, who himself hustled London. predecessor Cummann na nGaedheal, IRA in its military aspect. There seemed which was only founded after his death. to be a slight possibility that it might FitzGerald sees "bipartisanship" in the Does a sympathetic biography of Dev become so when it made its first South as having achieved great things. As exist? And if one is to get party political we recall, what it involved was an agree- appearance 35 years ago. It didn't. It went about the matter surely balance would off at tangents into dead ends, encouraged ment to do nothing, except take Sinn Fein off the air-waves. be better achieved with a biography of in later years by the Stickies. The General Eoin O’Duffy. O'Duffy was a possibility of a Protestant working class He says bipartisanship was threatened founder of Fine Gael. He was the party's political development went awry with it, three times: always by Haughey. first leader. Could Fine Gael object to helped on its way by the erosion of "The first of these arose in 1980 Protestant industry. The CTI is an when Charles Haughey attempted to that? administrative measure for containing a call off the campaign against the IRA in THE BRITISH LEGION in Ireland was working class community in decay. It the United States which had been very put out by their WW2 veterans not initiated by John Hume in 1972." involves a necessary combination of being invited to the Queen of England’s genuine do-gooders, crooks, and militarist What we recall of John Hume in 1972 was anniversary bash at her embassy in poseurs who are no longer to be taken too inflammatory speeches which fuelled the Dublin. In the end its Chairman rang up seriously. Sinn Fein understands this and Provo campaign and led to the abolition of facilitates it. Margaret Ritchie affected Stormont. and invited himself. President McAleese not to understand it for the purpose of did the same. The matter was reported playing the Catholic card against Sinn We cannot extricate the second from by Liam Collins in the Sindo on 25th Fein in the Election that was called off. the tangle of words in which it is presented. November. Collins concluded in the "The third occasion… was when following refreshing manner: The loss of South Down to Sinn Fein Charles Haughey opposed the 1985 "This garden party was held at the would ease matters for Fianna Fail if it Agreement" . That Agreement was British ambassador's residence in ever did organise in the North. It would FitzGerald's crowning achievement. It Glencairn, near Sandyford, and the leave SDLP leader, Mark Durkan, as the was a goad planted in the neck of the "snub" was satirised in a poem written lone "constitutional nationalist" figure at Unionist community for the purpose of by Morgan Dockrell: Westminster, to keep company with the driving it crazy, and it nearly did. Or, as It matters not that Granpa Tom lone Ulster Unionist, Lady Hermon, and John Hume put it, it was a scalpel for Was decorated at the Somme, reduce the thing to its appropriate lancing the boil of Unionism. We did our That cousin Percy didn't shirk absurdity. best to counter its disruptive influence. So His Duty, fleeing to Dunkirk. did Mary Robinson, though on the Better for us to row by row The SDLP was vehemently opposed occasion of FitzGerald's 80th birthday Have gathered in the GPO. during the 1970s and 1980s to the she said she had been wrong to do so. H E decides we've no more clout, campaign to bring the North within the FitzGerald set his police to stifle expres- Which means that socially we're OUT." 4 THE IRISH NEWS seems to be falling the most successful battle of the Rising. has been arbitrarily extended by the over backwards with stories and articles JIM ("Jim Who?") ALLISTER, former Belfast High Court to cover all Minister- from the "other tradition". These are DUP and current Independent Unionist ial statements, whether delivered in mostly WW1 stories, so I suppose they MEP has been setting up a new Unionist Parliament or not. O Muilleoir might concern the Irish News’ own tradition as party on and off for some months now. have done better to bring his case in well. On the Eve of Remembrance Day His latest outing was at a dinner cum Dublin and should certainly consider Gordon Lucy shared is thoughts with us. jumble sale in Templepatrick on 26th taking it to Europe. After declaring the 1916 celebrations November. He said: LOUISE ARBOUR, UN High Commis- last year were a bit of a setback he says: "I have one piece of good news for unionism. Shortly, I expect the launch sioner for Human Rights has raised the "Mr [Dermot] Ahern claimed that of a political movement to provide a question whether a Veto, exercised in without ‘a shared past’ we cannot have ‘a voice for those presently [sic] the Security Council, to stymie an shared future’. Whereas the legacy of the disenfranchised, which will hold the events of Easter Week is divisive, there is initiative "to reduce the risk of or ending respectable traditional unionist ground genocide would not constitute a violation no greater shared experience than the once held by those who shamefully Great War" … "Sixty-four insurgents were swung open the door of government to of the genocide convention" (IT killed during the fighting of Easter week. IRA/Sinn Fein." 22.11.07). She is thus suggesting that Significantly more men died that same the UN Convention on Genocide does week on April 27 1916 when the Germans THE IRISH NEWS. Following the collapse not just over-rule national law, but also launched a gas attack at Hulluch near of the Sinn Fein-oriented and rather Loos, on the men of the 16th (Irish) the UN Charter—which makes the Veto Division." woeful paper, Daily Ireland, the Irish sacrosanct. We're tempted to ask how News went into a kind of flux. This many divisions she has! Lucy was particularly pleased resulted in a period of vibrancy as the about the unveiling of a WW1 memorial in Waterford which included the name paper tried to reposition itself. In INDEX TO Irish Political Review, 2007 of John Condon. John Condon was particular its letters pages were full of January 2007 fourteen years of age when he was killed! lively debate. In the last couple of months Settlement? Editorial Don’t people get hauled off to The Hague the paper seems to have settled into a The Haughey Blackwash: Moriarty Presumes. for that sort of thing these days? Over groove. By and large it is supportive of Editorial The Killing Of Saddam. Editorial The Non- the last year the Irish News has been the SDLP and the OUP. It gets very Person Of The Year. returning to its roots with a vengeance. sentimental about the good old Hibernian Tim O'Sullivan (Reader's Letter) days of the Parliamentary Party and the Ireland's Greatest Editor. John Martin MARTIN McGUINNESS had the British connection. Is The Irish Times View Of Irish History following to say in an interview with the Becoming The National Record? It has more news about the Catholic Irish Times on 8th November: Eamon Dyas Church than it has had for many years. A Meeting On Lebanon. Conor Lynch "I think I can say without fear of Its letters page (usually now only one Shorts (The Discreet Charm Of The contradiction that in the last six months page) is more and more parochial. By Bourgeoisie; From Borat To Boring; Carter Ian Paisley and I have not exchanged an contrast, both the Belfast Telegraph and On Palestine; Yegor Gaidar; Chump Of The angry word between us. That is the truth the News Letter have become quite Year; Brits Out!) Frank Aiken And The Question Of Reprisals. of the matter and I think the public will be readable. pleased to hear that. But there are Pat Walsh Budget 2007. John Martin individual members of the SDLP who STATE IMMUNITY? Former Minister walk past me in corridors in this building My Re-Education In Irish History. as if I didn't exist. for Justice Michael McDowell libelled Desmond Fennell "I think I have a far better working Mairtin O Muilleoir, the publisher of the Confusion. Niall Meehan (Letter as cut by the relationship with Ian Paisley than Mark erstwhile Daily Ireland, and its Editor, Irish Times) The Title Deeds Of Assassination (Part 5 of To Durkan or Séamus Mallon ever had with Robin Livingstone: he called them Be Or IRB). Manus O'Riordan David Trimble. I think that grates on fascist during an assault on he paper Reflections On The Campaign For Workers' them, it hurts them that the DUP and Sinn Control In Britain (Parts One & Two). Féin have managed not just to get this delivered just before publication started in February 2005. (The paper shut down Conor Lynch government up but run it properly in a Labour Comment: Cowen Calls The Shots, fashion that can deliver for the people." in September 2006.) The object of The Budget, Stamp Duty, And Mortage Relief MUSEUMS all over the world contain McDowell's intervention was to prevent the paper getting a circulation and was February 2007 exhibits tracing the histories of their SDLP 'Blues' Editorial localities and are often marked with delivered with all the authority of his Nazis In Ireland & Other Stories. little signs of thanks to their proud donors. office. However the Irish Government Brendan Clifford That seems to be no longer the way of has accepted responsibility for Mc Reflections On Palestine (Part One). Dowell's outrageous attack and pleaded Conor Lynch things in Ireland. Some months ago Letters To The Editor. (Custodians Of mementos of Tom Clarke were sold off State Immunity in response to libel Heritage/Eamon Dyas; Big Brother In for a small fortune. proceedings brought in the Belfast High Europe/Nick Folley; The Tricolour/Seán The latest cashing-in is the sale of a Court. It says that McDowell made his McGouran; Workers' Control: Some remarks in his capacity of Minister for Comments/John Clayden) letter from Michael Collins to Thomas Editorial Commentary. (Sinn Fein 'Threats'; Ashe for 260,000 euros by descendents Justice. O Muilleoir has been left with a 5th SF MLA Not To Stand; British LP Case; of Ashe. Other items on sale relate to £20,000 legal bill (IN 14.11.07). Lord Kate Hoey; Grand Committee; Conor Brady; historical figures like Countess Justice Higgins accepted the State MI5; N. Bank Raid; Michael Stone; Parole Markiewicz and Richard Mulcahy. The Immunity plea without 'looking behind Boards; Brendan Devine; Billy Wright total could reach 2 million euros. Inquiry; Garda Ombudspeople; British it', to see if McDowell's outburst was a Honours; Justice Seán O'Leary; NI Gay In the course of 2008, Athol Books valid exercise of his Ministerial powers. Rights; Catholic Maintained Schools; C of will be publishing an account of the The ruling seems to suggest that parlia- I Bishops; Propertied Anglo-Irish (1 & 2); IT 1916 Rising in North County Dublin mentary immunity from libel prosecution Books Reviews; Irish Ferries; Reynolds which was led by Thomas Ashe and was continued on page 26 5 Again it was Britain, along with Germany, that stirred up the hornets' nest Imperialism In The Soul Of The Englishman in the Balkans. None of this is to suggest that there is There is a strange kind of anti- ended up as individuals with no no American Imperialism. But it is by and Americanism that pervades much of constituency behind us—including large a project of elites. Imperialism is not British and Irish political society— Edward Heath and Harold Wilson. in the nature of Americans. Bullying may especially in the context of the Iraq war Margaret Thatcher was no freak. She be, but not domination—for all that they and the War on Terror. Anything that tapped into the very soul of England. may think that their system is second to goes wrong, i.e. disturbs people, is the Within a very short time she returned the none. Even their treatment of their own fault of the Americans. Things need to be country to its old ways of pleasurable but "back yard", Latin America, was more a done in the world and Britain is best at fruitless class struggle. And when that got case of keeping the Europeans out of the doing these things. Unfortunately the a bit out of hand she de-industrialised and place. stupid, crude and cruel Americans turn up set about atomizing the society and turning It is no accident that in the current and make a mess of everything. it into a collection of obedient individuals. turmoil in Iraq and Afghanistan, America There is another line also. This says "There is no such thing as society, only took its eye off the ball to its South; to the that Britain has given up all that sort of individuals and their families." There extent that it can count on no more than a thing but is being pulled into committing soon wasn't. couple of allies there any longer. No such bad deeds with the American imperialists I don't recall any resistance to this thing happened in the case of Britain. It by traitorous leaders, from Thatcher, process. The coal miners, for example, remained fully engaged in stirring things through Major and Blair, and now Brown. were not thrown out of work. Such a thing up in Africa and even started thinking it I have even come across that view from would have been illegal. They accepted could interfere in former Republics of the sources that I normally respect very much. redundancy payments. So did the others. Soviet Union. And it relentlessly pursues North Sea oil was squandered on this. its Anglicisation of Ireland and as much of There was a period in the 1970s when People called it Reganomics. But Regan, the rest of Europe as it possibly can. one could say that the political leadership the old right wing trade union leader, did in Britain was determined to put imperial not do this. American industry was The imperial impulse is ingrained in meddling and lesson teaching behind them preserved and the unions remain a vital almost every English person. The impulse and concentrate on remaking Britain in part of the American social system. that says "we know best, and we're going the image of the Christian/Social democra- It was not America that decided to go to to civilise, improve, help you whether you tic societies of Continental Europe. war when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990 like it or not; whether with tea and biscuits But Wilson and Heath were a very odd Iraq was its ally against revolutionary or at the point of a bayonet—you choose". pair indeed and they failed utterly. They Iran. But Kuwait was Britain's oil client Even the "anti-imperialists" are failed within their own parties and in the and Thatcher browbeat Bush Senior into imperialist. It's just that their targets don't country as a whole. There were a few of going to war, and prepared over 40,000 always harmonise with those of the State. us believers around who supported the British troops for the adventure before I'm sure Peter Tatchell is a sound "anti- social and economic policies on offer such John Major took over. And it was the imperialist". But he has mobilised the gay as industrial democracy and European Americans who stopped the war once its community and many others to support integration. Some, such as Jack Jones, goal had been achieved, something that any action against Zimbabwe should such were quite powerful. A lot of us were the British have criticized them for ever action be taken. And there are many on foreigners from another culture. We all since. the left who so hate Islam that they wouldn't

All of that was curiously symbolised in its globalisation, London the world's financial Tony Blair's politics. centre. Visit our great cities and compare resignation speech You stood for individual aspiration and them with 10 years ago. getting on in life or social compassion and No country attracts overseas investment 10th May 2007 helping others. You were liberal in your values like we do. … or conservative. Think about the culture of Britain in Great country You believed in the power of the state or the 2007. I don't just mean our arts that are It is difficult to know how to make this efforts of the individual. Spending more money thriving. I mean our values, the minimum speech today. There is a judgment to be made on the public realm was the answer or it was the wage, paid holidays as a right, amongst the on my premiership. And in the end that is, for problem. best maternity pay and leave in Europe, you, the people, to make. None of it made sense to me. It was 20th equality for gay people. I can only describe what I think has been Century ideology in a world approaching a Or look at the debates that reverberate done over these last 10 years and, perhaps new millennium. round the world today—the global more important, why. Of course people want the best for movement to support Africa in its struggle I have never quite put it like this before. themselves and their families, but in an age against poverty, climate change, the fight I was born almost a decade after the Second where human capital is a nation's greatest against terrorism. World War. I was a young man in the social asset, they also know it is just and sensible to Britain is not a follower. It is a leader. It revolution of the 60s and 70s. extend opportunities, to develop the potential gets the essential characteristic of today's I reached political maturity as the Cold War to succeed, for all—not an elite at the top. world—its interdependence. was ending, and the world was going through People are, today, open-minded about race This is a country today that for all its a political, economic and technological and sexuality, averse to prejudice and yet deeply faults, for all the myriad of unresolved revolution. and rightly conservative with a small 'c' when problems and fresh challenges, is I looked at my own country, a great it comes to good manners, respect for others, comfortable in the 21st Century, at home in country—wonderful history, magnificent treating people courteously. its own skin, able not just to be proud of its traditions, proud of its past, but strangely They acknowledge the need for the state past but confident of its future. uncertain of its future, uncertain about the and the responsibility of the individual. I give my thanks to you, the British future, almost old-fashioned. people, for the times I have succeeded, I ask you to accept one thing. Hand on Living standards and my apologies to you for the times I heart, I did what I thought was right. I may … have fallen short have been wrong. That's your call Look at our economy—at ease with … continued on page 7 6 be sorry to see the downfall of the Iranian pacifist. The body was funded by the long line of secret cabals, also known in Islamic Republic. The post-Protestant brutal philanthropist, Andrew Carnegie. the past as the Round Table, where the secularists are, if anything, more fanatical The British section is led by Anne British ruling class does its real business. than the Protestants when it comes to Clwyd, left wing MP and warmonger. It spreading the sword—sorry, the word. has close links to most NGOs and reports Last, but not least, there are the NGOs. Though the Protestants are still quite back to the Foreign Office. It had a self- These are powerful, ideologically-driven wedded to the old project. The Archbishop congratulatory debate in the Commons and well-funded bodies, run by well-paid of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, launched on 22nd November. Everyone agreed it executives. Non-Governmental Organisa- an attack on America in the November did splendid work promoting the principles tion is a misnomer. They get a lot of their issue of the Muslim journal, Emel, saying: of the Mother of Parliaments, though money and supplies from governments "It is one thing to take over a territory Jeremy Corbyn did bring up the matter of and their distribution networks take them and then pour energy and resources the elected MPs in Palestine being arrested to places where intelligence agents proper into administering it and normalizing by the Israelis. Corbyn made it clear that can rarely go. But most of them are it. Rightly or wrongly, that's what the he is not anti-Israel. riddled with spies. British Empire did—in India, for Save The Children may sound like a example. It is another thing to go in on Then there is the British Council which sweet group—and doubtless it contains the assumption that a quick burst of promotes the British view of the world many sweet people. But when its British violent action will somehow clear the through education and propaganda, aimed section began to report on the plight of decks and that you can move on and especially at teachers and children. It is children in Iraq, it was told to shut up by other people will put it back together, almost certainly her involvement with the the parent body, which got the bulk of its Iraq, for example." British Council that cost Irish-born money from the US Government. That's tellin' 'em! Margaret Hassan her life in Iraq. The In Ireland one of the most prominent The Americans have done terrible Council also facilitates the sitting of British NGOs is GOAL. Under its leader and things in Iraq. But I don't think they've yet A-Levels, and the study of the courses, set founder John O'Shea, it is most bellicose by such Boards as Oxford and Cambridge. in its demands for military intervention got around to strapping their enemies to the mouths of cannons and blasting them These bodies and others came in for (i.e. shooting locals) in Africa: to bits as happened in India. Or ripping particular praise in the Commons debate "The international community never as did the various scholarship systems. wanted to get involved in sending troops their bellies open and displaying their guts One of these, the Rhodes Scholarship, set to Darfur. Now that the African Union to dying prisoners as the British did in (AU) has stated it doesn't need any non- Ireland. All in the cause of good administr- up by the genocidal maniac and robber of the same name, was mainly geared to African troops, they have been given ation and normalization of course. giving an English higher education to key the perfect excuse to sit back on their The British imperial structure has an laurels, while genocide occurs." interrelated group of bodies operating all Americans, but has now widened its scope. Clinton was a Rhodes scholar. He He also condemned the sending of a 300 over the world and with roots in every managed to kill as many Iraqis as Bush but strong Irish force to Chad on the grounds corner of the country. Probably at the top that they were merely monitors. He has of the pile is the Inter Parliamentary Union, without all the fuss. So you can see what Archbishop Williams was getting at. even supported a boycott of China— a meeting forum of MPs from all countries whatever that might mean. Goal gets a lot with MPs. It was formed over 100 years Not mentioned in the debate was of its money from the British Government. ago by Sir Randal Cremer, originally a Chatham House whose capacity for secret trade union leader and member of the First plotting would shame the staunchest Free So Brown and Blair did not sell out to International, and later a Liberal MP and Mason. Chatham House is the latest of a the Americans. They are at the heart of

Global terrorism It is a test of will and of belief. And we can't I came into office with high hopes for fail it. Britain's future. I leave it with even higher In Sierra Leone and to stop ethnic So, some things I knew I would be dealing hopes for Britain's future. cleansing in Kosovo, I took the decision to with. Some I thought I might be. Some never make our country one that intervened, that This is a country that can, today, be occurred to me on that morning of 2 May 1997 excited by the opportunities not constantly did not pass by, or keep out of the thick of it. when I came into Downing Street for the first Then came the utterly unanticipated and fretful of the dangers. time. People often say to me: 'It's a tough dramatic—September 11th 2001 and the Great expectations not fulfilled in every death of 3,000 or more on the streets of New job'—not really. part, for sure. A tough life is the life the young severely York. Occasionally people say, as I said earlier: I decided we should stand shoulder to 'They were too high, you should have lowered disabled children have and their parents, shoulder with our oldest ally. I did so out of them.' who visited me in Parliament the other belief. But, to be frank, I would not have wanted it week. So Afghanistan and then Iraq—the latter, any other way. I was, and remain, as a person Tough is the life my dad had, his whole bitterly controversial. and as a prime minister, an optimist. Politics career cut short at the age of 40 by a stroke. Removing Saddam and his sons from may be the art of the possible—but at least in I have been very lucky and very blessed. power, as with removing the Taleban, was life, give the impossible a go. This country is a blessed nation. over with relative ease. So of course the vision is painted in the The British are special. The world But the blowback since, from global colours of the rainbow, and the reality is knows it. In our innermost thoughts, we terrorism and those elements that support it, sketched in the duller tones of black, white and know it. This is the greatest nation on has been fierce and unrelenting and costly. grey. earth. For many, it simply isn't and can't be worth It has been an honour to serve it. I give it. High hopes my thanks to you, the British people, for For me, I think we must see it through. the times I have succeeded, and my They, the terrorists, who threaten us here But I ask you to accept one thing. Hand and round the world, will never give up if we apologies to you for the times I have fallen on heart, I did what I thought was right. short. Good luck. give up. I may have been wrong. That is your Speech in full at BBC NEWS: http:// The British are special. The world knows call. But believe one thing if nothing else. news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi it. In our innermost thoughts, we know it. I did what I thought was right for our uk_politics/6642857.stm This is the greatest nation on earth country. Published: 2007/05/10 14:36:19 GMT © BBC MMVII 7 British tradition. They want to remake the the British ruling class, albeit a few rungs Along with the conquest of the Ottoman world, and in particular their nearest down the ladder, Never mind where that territories there was another project close neighbour, in Britain's image. (Heath and would leave the rest of us. to the heart of Liberal England. This was Wilson were the odd ones out.) Some of the worst elements among the the project of planting a Jewish colony in When one looks at the state of British West Brits in Ireland are to be found on the Palestine for British Imperial purposes. 'society', it seems unimaginable that any 'left'. They take their politics and their There was, of course, a Zionist movement people would want to copy that. But there prejudices directly from their counterparts that also had the same objective of are plenty of people in high places in in England. Such people are a poison in establishing a national state. But the Jewish Ireland who want exactly that. And high the Irish body politic. nationalists did not have the power to places is the key. They would like to join Conor Lynch realise it themselves in the region. During the nineteenth century a Christ- ian Zionist impulse developed within the Nonconformist wing of Protestantism in England. Their Bible reading bred a familiarity with, and imbued a strong Ireland and the Last Crusade interest in, reviving the Holy Land and Ninety years ago this month, on 9th and Jacob who remained where they creating a new Jerusalem. There was a December 1917, Jerusalem was recaptured were. But an independent Jewish State belief encouraged by reading the Old by Britain for Christendom. This event cannot be established all at once, even Testament that a Second Coming of Christ was treated in England as the major event did all the Rothschilds lead all their depended upon the return of the scattered of the war. Lloyd George imposed a news compatriots back to Jerusalem. The Jews to the lands of their ancestors. So embargo on reporters until he could country must be 'protected'—in plain what happened to the Holy Land mattered terms, annexed: a useful synonym in announce the news to the House of to Christian fundamentalist England since dealing with Oriental transactions might great Messianic promises and millennarian Commons (in those days parliament was be 'Egyptised'. And the conquerors are, still important). To celebrate the liberation predictions depended upon it. of course, the natural 'protectors' of the There was nothing ridiculous in the of the Holy City from the Moslem after territory won by force of arms. Such 730 years the bells of Westminster Abbey has been the rule and practice from belief and desire that Imperial power could rang for the first time in three years and before the era of Moses and Joshua. We be used to bring about an end to history they were followed by thousands of others know all about it in Ireland. When the and the Second Coming. And some Irish across England. objects of the campaign in Palestine Catholics like Tom Kettle and Francis General Allenby, the liberator of and Mesopotamia have been completely Ledwidge began to see things in a similar Jerusalem, and a descendent of Cromwell, achieved, a solid 'block' of Asian fashion as they sacrificed themselves to territory will lie between the Germans declared in Jerusalem that the crusades the cause. and the Indian Ocean. The Turks gave There was another factor that exerted a were over. On hearing him, the Arabs, the Kaiser's people a free passage from who had been encouraged into fighting gravitational pull on England from the Constantinople to the Persian Gulf. The Holy Land. Since the break with Rome the for the British and who had been fooled new occupants of Palestine and Meso- into seeing them as liberators, walked potamia will not be quite so accom- English Church had lacked a spiritual away. And they have found themselves modating. No one has hinted as yet at home. The Catholic Church had rebuilt walking ever since. the ultimate fate of Constantinople the spiritual home of Christianity in Rome The great outpouring of Christian itself: it was to have been the Czar's but when Henry VIII made himself pope triumphalism produced by the capture of property, but poor Nicholas would rest of the English he had to be content with Jerusalem was not confined to England. satisfied with less nowadays. England, Canterbury. at all events, is carefully building up a This is how The Irish News in Belfast saw The more English Protestants read their wall against German 'aggression' along bibles the more they yearned for their own the culmination of the last Crusade in its a line on which German eyes were cast editorial of 11th December 1917: spiritual home—in the original holy places covetously many years ago… There of Judea and Samaria. And what could be are really some arguments against a " 'Fallen is thy throne, O Israel!' The more of a riposte to Rome than to expose power of the Moslem in 'the Land of precipitate disclosure of the Allies 'war aims' : one excellent reason for silence its spiritual inauthenticity by trumping it Promise' has fallen at last: we may with the original article. assume that with the entrance of General being that the Allies do not know how Allenby's troops to Jerusalem an end much they can aim at with a prospect of Christian Zionism worked its way into has practically been made of Turkish getting it." the political classes of the British State as rule over Palestine… When the Holy the Nonconformists came to political It seems that by this time Ireland was Land has been fully rescued from power and it became part of the political completely in tune with British Imperialist Turkish domination, who will possess culture of Liberal England despite the fact and administer it? Official statements ambitions in the world and quite in unison that Darwinism seemed to undermine the regarding the re-colonisation of the with the Christian fundamentalism of the religious impulse toward the end of the country by the scattered Jewish race Manse that accompanied it. have been made. Observers can discover nineteenth century. no traces of enthusiasm for the project One of the major reasons why Britain Under the influence of Herbert amongst Hebrews themselves. As an entered the European war in August 1914 Sidebotham, a prominent Liberal journal- idea, nothing could be more was to avail of the opportunity it presented ist, and C.P. Scott, the influential editor of sentimentally attractive; as a practical to capture Mesopotamia and Palestine The Manchester Guardian, there proposition, we believe each child of from the Turks. Of course, there was a developed a Manchester school of Abraham would bestow a benison on Christian Zionism. The leaders of Jewish his brother who migrated from the lands problem—Turkey was not a combatant in the war at that time. It took a couple of nationalism in England, Dr. Weizmann of the Gentiles to the shores of Lake and Harry Sacher, were from Manchester Galilee and the slopes of Mount Olivet. months for Britain to find a cassus bellum. Thus might the storied little territory But it did on November 5th, over an themselves and the city became the hub become once more 'a land flowing with obscure incident in the Black Sea, and the for an Imperial Zionist project— milk and honey'—greatly to the content conquest of the Ottoman territories was particularly after Dr. Weizmann gave the of the descendants of Abraham, Isaac on. Prime Minister the secret to a new high 8 explosive that would kill Huns by the Holy Land forever, to bring peace and Irish nationalism came into political dozen. happiness to a people who had been alliance with the English Nonconformists oppressed too long!" (pp171-77). in the Liberal/Home Rule movement and The proposed Jewish colony in Pales- they came into military alliance with them tine was a British construction designed As the British advanced towards in 1914. By 1917 the Redmondites had as a foundation for Imperial hegemony Jerusalem many of them began to see become a mere mouthpiece for British and as another buffer state between India themselves as taking part in the last Imperial interests and they uttered no and potential enemies. It would end forever Crusade. All the Christian fundamentalism criticism of what was going on about the scheme of a Berlin to Baghdad railway imbued in English gentlemen by their them. And, of course, John Dillon was a and frustrate any designs the new potential Biblical education in the Public Schools personal friend and confidant of the leading rival, France, might have in the region. came flooding out in a great surge. They Liberal Zionist C.P.Scott. So the Devlinite The Balfour Declaration was issued in had reconquered the Holy Land for Irish News saw nothing wrong in the 1917 as Jerusalem was about to be captured Christendom after 700 years of Moslem plantation, ethnic cleansing and partition for the Empire. Lloyd George, the Prime occupation. And what would the Holy that was planned for Palestine despite Minister who authorised it, was raised by City and the New Jerusalem be without "knowing all about it in Ireland." an uncle, a lay preacher in a millennarian the Jews? Pat Walsh Baptist Church, and "was brought up in a school where there was taught far more about the history of the Jews than the Rudyard Kipling And history of my own land". The English, Ah The English In 1903, when an ordinary Member of Part One Parliament, he had drawn up a Jewish Colonisation Scheme for Theodor Herzl, My Boy Jack the founder of the Zionist movement. The colony was meant for British East Africa Regarding memory and the remem- Remembrance which takes place annual- but by 1917 the real thing was possible. brance of Remembrance Sunday there is ly in London on the nearest Sunday to The Prime Minister was not alone. Of one thing that has to be remembered. It the 11th November when the killing the ten men who had formed his War hasn't gone away you know. The British guns of the First World War were finally Cabinet at one time or another seven had Empire. It hasn't gone away. silenced. The ceremony at the Cenotaph come from Nonconformist families. Three Though it no longer exists as a may be a particularly British event but it were the sons or grandsons of Evangelical corporate entity, the empire is with us yet. is also a great Commonwealth occasion, preachers. They all had a close acquaint- As a series of ideological constructs, a with the Queen, as head of the Common- ance with the Old Testament and the people body of carefully sanitised historical writ- wealth placing her wreath at the of the book. ing, a pattern of domination and subordin- Cenotaph, and all the Commonwealth ation, as a military presence in regions High Commissioners including ours, The memoirs of Major Vivian Gilbert where once it ruled and the template of an placing theirs, in honour of all those, were published in 1923 under the title of aspiration to rule again, the empire is with especially those from their own coun- The Romance Of The Last Crusade—With us yet. tries, who lost their lives in war. Can it Allenby To Jerusalem. They open with a It is most noticeably doing business in be right that our High Commissioner piece about King Richard the Lionheart Afghanistan and Iraq. But really every- should do this remembering on our behalf and Sir Brian de Gurnay riding away from where it once was something of the empire, in this moving multi-faith service in Jerusalem after their failure to capture the something that is forever England, still London whilst we, here at home, are city: "In the heart of Sir Brian de Gurnay remains. busy with other, more important matters? was the thought of another and a Last "Remembrance Sunday really needs Crusade that for all time should wrest the Sandy Grant is a journalist on the the involvement of the people of all Holy Places from the Infidel" (p1). Botswanan Mmegi (The Reporter). He Commonwealth countries (and not just was born in the United Kingdom but in Chapter XII of Major Gilbert's book is their representatives in London), which called When Prophecies Come True and is 1983 became a citizen of Botswana. So means that the poppy should be made about the capture of the Holy City: this is Sandy Grant writing in his column available by all the High Commissions on Monday November 12th of this year: in Gaborone to everyone wanting to be "At last Jerusalem was in our hands! involved. The necessarily plastic poppy, In all ten crusades organised and "Last week, I rang the British High equipped to free the Holy City, only Commission to ask if in future it could a flower, is both a symbol (but what a two were really successful,—the first arrange for poppies to be made available symbol!) and a mechanism for raising led by Godfrey de Bouillon, and the last here and was astonished to be told that funds for the care of people suffering under Edmund Allenby… then at last they were there, as in other years, and from the effects of war, originally WWs we found ourselves inside the walls could be collected by anyone. 1 and 2 but now extended to cover those "I have no recollection of ever having themselves—the first British troops to in need after other subsequent wars. At march through the Holy City!… I previously seen a Remembrance poppy the moment, it may be that it is only recalled a quaint hymn I read many being worn in Gaborone and in this past British citizen residents in Gaborone week, when I have at long last been able years ago. It was written by Saint who identify with Poppy Day believing Augustine, or founded on words of his, to wear my own, I have come across that it is specifically their day, and their and was passed from mouth to mouth in nobody else wearing theirs. To me, this history. But is there any reason why this the middle ages to encourage recruiting is a real sadness. cannot be changed not least because ten for the Crusades… As I rode through "Remembrance Sunday used to be Jerusalem the words were on my lips… thousand Batswana served in various celebrated in Gaborone with a service at military theatres in WW2 and many We were proud that Jerusalem after the war memorial attended by the languishing for over four hundred years died? Since the end of that war, in 1945, under the Turkish yoke should be free President. Now that this domestic there have always been other wars at last… But above all, we had a great Service has been dropped, the country somewhere in the world, and now there should be made aware that it is still very and abiding faith in God, Whose mercy must be currently dozens raging and had granted us this victory… to free the much involved in the great Service of thousands being killed and injured. 9 "Instead of every country trying to Forces who killed so many anonymous of the British Legion, its Sunday at the remember those who died in all of its Irish, Indians, Kenyans, Iraqis, Germans, Cenotaph and its poppies, that had become localised wars, the United Nations could Japanese, Afghans, Singaporeans, all there was to all that, became once again adopt Remembrance Sunday and Poppy Burmese, Italians, Serbs and so many a façade. After a period of some twenty or Day as the one day in the year when the others in pursuit of whatever the imperial so years during which the empty entire world would remember, honour, war aims of the day may have been. (And sentimentality was just that and nothing regret and learn. It could be done. There isn't it interesting that, for Mr. Grant, the more it became again a mask. would be problems of adjustment, of Japanese of the last century did appalling course, and changes of thought and things in World War Two, but not MY BOY JACK practice would be needed. In the last apparently in World War One. Perhaps Following upon the break-up of the century, Europe, and Japan (in WW2) there should be some way that they, and Soviet Union, England's army was number did its best to destroy both itself and the Italians, can be Remembered with all three in the premier league of world armies much of the rest of the world but out of due solemnity for their part in England's with room on the wings to be inventive in that madness of killing a model of First War, and forgotten with ignominy in and with a license to kill. The empty remembering has emerged in London respect of the Second?) sentimentality of Remembrance Sunday which needs now to be adopted world There would certainly be a great deal was a mask again because all of a sudden wide. The poppy is its symbol of terrible to be said for the world setting aside at there was once again something to be sacrifice, youthful death, forgiveness least one day a year to remember the masked. and hope. killing ways of the British and perhaps "It could be worn on this one occasion give some thought as to how to keep the The mask that was worn this 11th. each year in recognition of the world's English War Machine at bay. In a way it's November 2007, when Poppy Day and terrible willingness to sacrifice a pity that England's victims would rather Remembrance Sunday coincided, had everything including itself in its pursuit forget their bloody encounters with the something to hide. Just what it had to hide of wealth and power. empire and let those still living get on with was alluded to on Independent Television. "Nothing has changed since 1945. what little might remain of their lives. But Only an allusion, but there it was in a But that little flower, the poppy, could that's just people for you; human beings production of the stage play My Boy Jack give the world that one day to be set who exist outside ideology, for whom (written by David Haig and starring him aside for reflection and thought." remembrance is not an exercise in wiping as Kipling) in which Rudyard Kipling your memory clear of all true trace of your campaigned for lambs to the slaughter in BRITISH LEGION actual activity in the real world. the trenches, secured a commission for his The model of remembering that Mr. And so, for the English (and for their short-sighted son in the Irish Guards and Grant, currently of Gaborone, Republic of dupes and hirelings) the remembrance of mourned the boy's death in the poem of Botswana, recommends to the world is Remembrance Sunday has nothing to do the title which he recited at the play's end organised by the Royal British Legion with commonplace human memory. It is for King George. which describes itself on its website as : an ideological construct designed to Grand Occasions of State and Statecraft "The Royal British Legion provides commemorate England's wars in the world are the business of the BBC and the BBC financial, social and emotional support by wiping the truth of those wars from the knows exactly how to arrange its coverage to millions who have served and are face of the world. The ideological construct of those occasions just so as to give a focus currently serving in the Armed Forces, of Remembrance Sunday begins in the to the crocodile tears of empty sentiment- and their dependants. Currently, nearly past as apologetics, dwells in the present ality. They know it is not a question of 10.5 million people are eligible for our as propaganda and moves into the future trying to fill out the emptiness but rather support and we receive thousands of as an aspiration to dominance. So buy a of how to build that vacuum into the calls for help every year. poppy, any of you peoples of the world, development of rising generations. As "The Legion was founded in 1921 as a buy a poppy. And pay for it with your Conor Lynch pointed out in a letter to the voice for the ex-Service community and children's blood. Irish Independent that the Indo was over 450,000 members continue to ensure somehow able to restrain itself from that this voice does not go unheard. Or Remembrance can be disremem- printing: Although the needs of ex-Service people bered, put to one side for the most part and "At last year's event, as the BBC have changed over the years, we are still celebrated in a more perfunctory fashion. cameras focused on the children present, there to safeguard their welfare, interests As was beginning to happen in England David Dimbleby declared that this was and memory. British service people are in important for them as they too would action around the world every day of the from the sixties on. In the seventies Remembrance Sunday one day be asked to risk their lives. The year. They know that if they need our monument recently unveiled in Britain support—now or in the future—the Legion was becoming irrelevant as its originals is always on active duty for them." faded away and substantial elements of to the 16,000 who have been killed since "The Legion will be needed for as British political society tried to realign the 1945 allows for a further 10,000 names." long as people continue to be affected past with an emerging post-imperial future. by conflict. It doesn't advocate war but Briefly then the future was Europe and The BBC knows better than to allude is simply there to support those who industrial democracy. But Heath was to anything behind the mask. It just wears have been prepared to make a personal succeeded by Thatcher, and Callaghan the mask with pride and uses it to sacrifice through serving in the British abandoned the Labour Party to its left monumental effect. Independent Tele- Armed Forces." foot; the Unions sabotaged industrial vision doesn't have that reflex, or hasn't democracy, then sabotaged themselves refined that reflex to the same sharp point The website makes a great point that rather than face up to the appalling of skill. Really ITV simply shouldn't be "There has only been one year (1968) consequence that was Arthur Scargill; the allowed anywhere near the Great Occasion since the Second World War when a British Soviet Union imploded and England of State and Statecraft that is Remem- Service person hasn't been killed on active became the hand in glove henchman of a brance Sunday. It is as well for the glorious service". So many wars and such an awful global power. Remembrance Sunday by fallen in the trenches of future wars to end lot of killing. And what Brit wouldn't be then had become relevant again. war that so far it has got no nearer the proud and anxious to remember all those Which is to say, the empty sentiment- Cenotaph than David Haig's clumsy wars and the members of the British Armed ality that had always been the public face drama. 10 And so to the nitty gritty of that ham private scenes for which, given the nature "On one side you had the magical, fisted piece of work, but briefly so. of them, there can be no evidence. A child inventive father, creator of the Just So Kipling had long been warning of the asks him: "Is Jack Dead?" He replies: Stories and The Jungle Books, providing dangers to Human Civilisation and the "Not certain, old man, not certain at all. a wonderful environment for a child to Empire that embodies it posed by the Not certain he should have gone at all". A grow up in. And on the other side you barbarous Hun. To no avail. Now war has little later, in bed with his wife, he sort of had the apologist for the British Empire been forced upon lazy, smug, unprepared breaks down and kind of confesses: "Do who tyrannically pursued his son's politicians and Britain's "Tiny professional you want me to get down on my knees and joining of the army and his involvement army", "Our army of 160,000", must face admit that I've murdered my son". in the fighting of the First World War. "their one and a half million". At the Then Private Bowe turns up and tells That clash, I thought, was a fascinating precise moment when England's war them how their son died. Followed by combination… against frightfulness is declared Kipling scenes of quite restrained, really very "…The poem My Boy Jack, written is shown stirring the masses to patriotic dignified, grief. The television play, but after Jack's death, revealed a father fervour. He calls for volunteers and not apparently the stage version, moves tortured—in hindsight—by the part he demands that young men who have no then to Kipling reciting My Boy Jack for played in his son's fate… taste for killing and being killed should be King George. Roll credits. Cut. … ostracised. "The chain reaction of a single death But Kipling's son Jack, like Kipling The problem with ITV's celebration of in Iraq is huge and yet in this particular himself, is shortsighted to the point of Remembrance Sunday as against the war we're talking about sometimes near blindness. Jack is keen to get into BBC's March Past the Cenotaph with 20,000 men in one day. Rudyard never action but keeps failing the medical. As a music and Missa Solemnis is bound up lost his faith in the rightness of the war last resort Kipling goes to see the hero of with the nature of sentimentality. but what he couldn't bear was the thought his youth, old 'Bobs', now Lord Roberts, Sentimentality is a completely superficial, that the country let those boys who fought now figurehead of the Irish Guards into entirely trivial and generally useless thing. down. After the war, he wrote a two-line which Jack is drafted forthwith, no There is only one area of social life in phrase, through the eyes of the sons who awkward questions asked, as a Second which it is of any use at all, and in that one died, which is: 'If any question why we Lieutenant in charge of a platoon of "twenty area it is of very great use indeed. died, tell them our fathers lied.' And raw recruits from Dublin". And off they Sentimentality moves unthinking masses. that, to me, sums up what happened all go to France. It can do so because being empty it is as inside Rudyard's head after Jack and all close as humanly possible to a raw emotion these other boys died'" (from, http:// Kipling himself is shown in this period that can be shaped to ideology. The BBC's www.memorabletv.com/2007/david- as the civilian member of an otherwise almost content-free blend of movement, haig-on-my-boy-jack.html). military committee, learning the appalling sound and colour is just perfect for grand statistics of death at the front and advising state occasions of thoughtless mass Now then, some remarks on all this. how they might best be presented, short of mobilisation. Independent Television and Not necessarily relevant to the play, or outright lying, for public consumption. David Haig tried too hard to be clever critical of it. Just some remarks. We are left in no doubt that Kipling knew about it and provided content. They should exactly what My Boy Jack was in for. have known that content can sometimes PREPARING FOR WAR provoke thought (as movement, sound England's first war against the world In France, in the trenches, Private Bowe and colour never can) and thought is was not something that it blundered into is forever complaining about the state of decidedly not what Occasions of State all unbeknownst to itself and ill-prepared. his feet. So, on the stage, in preparation for and Statecraft are about. Not at all. It had been in the works since Campbell- going over the top, Second Lieutenant Bannerman led a coalition of traditional Kipling gets on his knees before these The author, David Haig, did his best of liberals and liberal imperialists to victory sweepings of the slums of Dublin and course. The content of his play is a bland in the 1906 election. A gang of three washes the poor man's feet. Says Private mishmash of lies, half-truths, strategic liberal imperialist Ministers of State, Bowe as he does so, "Oh Jesus Christ, that omissions and misleading allusions which Asquith, Haldane and Grey, Chancellor feels good". (I really can't imagine what on any other day of the year would be fine of the Exchequer, Minister of War and David Haig thought he was doing in that and dandy and par for the course. But not Foreign Minister respectively, began scene. It raised in me the suspicion that on Remembrance Sunday. Not on a Grand planning for war with Germany. When Jack's death may have had more to do with Occasion of State and Statecraft. Not Campbell-Bannerman retired to spend an Honour Court of the Second Battalion amidst all the solemn sentimentality of a more time with his mortality in 1908 of the Irish Guards than any beastly mass mobilisation. No, No, Not Then. Asquith became Prime Minister. Then Germans. Or perhaps the Lord of England's David Haig was interviewed by many Winston Churchill joined the gang. When Far Flung Battle Line was offended by the newspapers on many websites to a script he became First Lord of the Admiralty in blasphemy and responded as he tends to (at least he gives exactly the same answers 1911 the liberal imperialists controlled all do in respect of such matters. But maybe to broadly similar questions). Extracts the offices of state that were required for that's just me.) from one would seem to cover them all: planning and executing a war policy. The And over the top they go, into the "The journey of My Boy Jack began war manoeuvres that this gang of four Battle of Loos, where Jack and Private in February 1985, when I was doing a engaged in were described by Charles Bowe reach the German trenches and Jack production of Tom and Viv on James O'Donnell: is shot to bits. Broadway. The American actor playing "At the end of 1905 the secret Jack's body isn't found and he is posted Eliot, Ed Herrmann, was a great 'conversations' of Sir Edward Grey with as missing in action, maybe wounded, Anglophile who particularly loved the French War Office began. Then also probably not dead. The Kipling family Rudyard Kipling. One day he handed commenced the evil policy of concealed goes into action to find Their Boy Jack, or me a biography of Rudyard called The alliances with France, Russia, and learn what has happened to him. Strange Ride of Rudyard Kipling by Belgium, 'to which,' in Lord Morley's Angus Wilson and in the front cover he words 'Grey has step by step been David Haig scripted Kipling's private had written 'here's hoping your Rudyard drawing the Cabinet on.' The first steps grief in the only way open to him, in comes to pass.'… were naturally elaborate and urgent 11 military preparations by the Secretary necessity, however, for such confiden- Ride Of Rudyard Kipling was no canter in of State for War, Mr. Haldane, which ces, did not, happily for the interests of the park. Simply by having read Wilson's went on ceaselessly for eight years. Mr. the world, appeal to him, and therefore biography Haig must know that. It's just Winston Churchill in his Four Great for eight years everybody was satisfied. knowledge that is better not shared with a Chapters of the War, wrote: 'The British He and Lord Haldane, with the know- television audience. Army went to France according to what ledge of Mr. Asquith, made preparations The kind of knowledge a television may be called the Haldane plan. for the war that threatened; their audience is ready to know in its bones Everything in that Minister's eight-year followers made perorations on behalf of about a matter like this is that the great tenure of the War Office had led up to the peace which preceded it" (quoted, writer expresses his grief in his work. So this and had been sacrificed for this. To ibid, p.52). that is the evidence Haig has provided, place an army of four or six infantry with the whole of one poem at the end of divisions, thoroughly equipped, and with Nor was the rest of the Cabinet aware the play and two lines which he suggests their necessary cavalry, on the left of the of what Asquith, Haldane, Grey and (later) in the interview(s) are a short poem . French line within twelve or fourteen Churchill were up to. So Kipling's As evidence of deep, tortured, grief days of the order to mobilise, and to hysterical claim at the beginning of David that is sparse, to say the least of it. But guard the home island meanwhile by the Haig's play that an ill-prepared British really it is difficult to appreciate how fourteen Territorial divisions he had Army of 160,000 was about to be over- either piece of verse is evidence of anything organised, was the scheme upon which, whelmed by 1.5 million Germans was not at all to do with the father's response to his aided by Field-Marshals Nicholson and entirely insane (he really knew better, but son's death. French, he had concentrated all his efforts he didn't actually know the especial details and stinted resources.' 'It was a modest of better that were only immediately avail- Kipling's son Jack was killed fighting plan; but it was a practical plan; it was able to the gang of four). But surely Haig as a Second Lieutenant in the Irish Guards consistently pursued and laboriously and could have found some way to point out during the Battle of Loos in the War to end minutely studied. It represented, approx- that Britain was in alliance with France War. My Boy Jack is some mother's son imately, the maximum war effort that and Russia and that it was the Germans lost at sea with no more said about it. It is the voluntary system would yield, who on every point of men and resources pretty well inconceivable that the use of applied in the most effective and daring were vastly outnumbered and over- his son's name in a poem about loss written manner to the decisive spot. It com- powered. Well he could have but he didn't, within three years of Jack's death doesn't manded the assent of almost all the and that's that. mean something but equally it impossible leading generals. When the hour struck to say from the poem just what the it worked with perfect precision and KIPLING something is that it undoubtedly means. punctuality. There was nothing to argue Now then the Kiplings and the death of about, nothing to haggle over. The Their Boy Jack (who was played on the The two lines which Haig quotes in the French knew exactly what they were night by the boy wizard, Daniel Radcliffe; interview(s) are from Kipling's Epitaphs going to get if Great Britain decided to all the better to engage a couple of coming Of The War, which is the generic title of a come in, and exactly when and where generations of cannon fodder down the group of thirty-odd very short poems. The they were going to get it; and mobilis- line). David Haig has said that his journey one Haig gives is called Common Form. It ation schemes, railway graphics, time- into Kipling's world began with reading is not just there without context, so here it tables, bases, depots, supply arrange- Angus Wilson's biography, The Strange is in its immediate context: ments, etc., filling many volumes, Ride Of Rudyard Kipling. Wilson explains regulated and ensured a perfect and that the Kiplings' efforts to find out what BATTERIES OUT OF AMMUNITION concerted execution. A commander had happened to Jack were mainly directed If any mourn us in the workshop, say whose whole life led up to this point had towards finding out where he was being We died because the shift kept holiday. been chosen. All that remained to be held prisoner. The details of Jack's death done on the day was to take the decision were not discovered by the Kiplings but COMMON FORM and give the signal.' On the whole the by H. Rider Haggard. Guardsman Bowes If any question why we died, British preparation seems to have been (called Bowe in the TV drama) was tracked Tell them, because our fathers lied. the most thorough in Europe…" (from down by Haggard and told his story of Ireland in the Great War, Athol Books, Jack's death to Haggard who then passed A DEAD STATESMAN pp 51-52) on a less horrific account to Rudyard and Carrie. I could not dig: I dared not rob: None of this was known to Parliament. Therefore I lied to please the mob. The first Lord Birkenhead, old Galloper It is clear that Haig changed the details Now all my lies are proved untrue Smith as was, who was not of that gang, mainly for the greater drama of a And I must face the men I slew. that government or that party (he was a fictionalised retelling. I would hardly What tale shall serve me here among Tory Unionist) wrote approvingly of comment on it at all except that the Mine angry and defrauded young? Grey's (and the others') secrecy, in The dramatic effect Haig was striving for is Sunday Times of 8th. June 1924: essentially false. He was looking for a That context is a very public one of soldiers at the front betrayed by laziness "I have often amused myself by dramatic example of the private grief of speculating what his reception would any father given definitive proof of his and deceit at home. Kipling did not count have been in the mad House of Commons son's death, with the additional burden of himself as one of the home front betrayers: to the contrary, he very much felt himself of 1906 if he had informed the collection guilt that he feels Kipling must have borne of hysterical sentimentalists who kept in Jack's case. And the problem for a to be one of the betrayed. So where is his him in office of his conversations, at the dramatist (or propagandist) of the case of tortured grief for Jack in those lines? time when they took place, diplomatic Rudyard Kipling is that on the one hand and military, with the French nation; Kipling was too private an individual to I can only think of one poem by Kipling and of the commitments deeply rooted leave evidence of such a clichéd response which seems to me to have been very definitely written in response to his son's in honour, if not in formal documents, in and on the other hand was too public a which he was gradually, dangerously, character not to have responded vigorously death. It is easy to see why Haig preferred but rightly, involving this people. The and openly to his son's death. The Strange not to mention it: 12 The Children After Jack's death it is hard to find any These were our children who died for our lands: they were dear in our sight. mention of him at all in Kipling's published We have only the memory left of their home-treasured sayings and laughter. work. He is not mentioned in the Autobiog- The price of our loss shall be paid to our hands, not another's hereafter. raphy, Something Of Myself (published Neither the Alien nor Priest shall decide on it. That is our right. 1937). Nor in Souvenirs Of France (1933) But who shall return us the children ? which recalls trips to battlefields of the Great War; there is nothing of Jack in that At the hour the Barbarian chose to disclose his pretences, but there is this complaint about the failure And raged against Man, they engaged, on the breasts that they bared for us, to make good on the recruiting posters of The first felon-stroke of the sword he had long-time prepared for us— 1914: Their bodies were all our defense while we wrought our defenses. "There followed, presently, a passionate They bought us anew with their blood, forbearing to blame us, propaganda that "Civilisation" should 'put Those hours which we had not made good when the judgment o'ercame us. Germany on her feet' because she was in They believed us and perished for it. Our statecraft, our learning economic ruin and her heart had changed. Delivered them bound to the Pit and alive to the burning After 'Civilisation' had sufficiently studied Whither they mirthfully hastened as jostling for honour— that ruin and satisfied herself, at some Not since her birth has our Earth seen such worth loosed upon her. cost, of the worthlessness of German currency, the mark returned to parity as a Nor was their agony brief, or once only imposed on them. machine-gun re-hoists itself over the The wounded, the war-spent, the sick received no exemption apparently abandoned trench. The Being cured they returned and endured and achieved our redemption, manœuvre to abolish her internal debt cost Hopeless themselves of relief, till Death, marvelling, closed on them. Germany no more than a few thousand old and unusable persons wiped out, perhaps That flesh we had nursed from the first in all cleanness was given by starvation. It was magnificent, and it To corruption unveiled and assailed by the malice of Heaven— was the first step of the real war which By the heart-shaking jests of Decay where it lolled on the wires— began at a quarter-past eleven on the 11th To be blanched or gay-painted by fumes—to be cindered by fires— November 1918." To be senselessly tossed and retossed in stale mutilation From crater to crater. For this we shall take expiation. His two volume history of the Irish But who shall return us our children ? Guards in the Great War really is Kipling's literary memorial to My Boy Jack. On this I simply can't speak to Kipling's private existing Germans may perhaps be the eight occasion Jack is mentioned; briefly, and grief, nobody can. The public expression million within your Borders? And precisely in passing. of that private grief I can speak to and it is because, to please this Contingent and to This is Jack's Company Commander, no cringing, milk and water thing of post- justify his hereditary temperament, Wilson John Bird, describing in a letter to the Christian piety. It is rage, and a passionate did not protest against the invasion and Kiplings the circumstances in which their call for vengeance. Not at all the stuff of absorption of Belgium, Wilson will not be son, who was commanding No. 5 Platoon able to save for them the sentimental of the 2nd. Battalion, went missing: prime time, ecumenical, Remembrance satisfaction of having a Fatherland to look Sunday viewing. back upon from behind the safety of the "No. 2 and 3 coys. were ordered to And Kipling's rage and passion for United States frontier. It seems a high attack, No. I and 4 being in support with vengeance was, all of a piece, a very price to pay for 'domestic politics'. picks and shovels. We advanced with one considered thing. He had been considering "Thank you for what you say about my platoon from each of No. 2 and 3 in it from the beginning of the war. boy. He was not seventeen till the 17th extended order, and the other 3 platoons of August, but he managed to get in by Sept. each Coy. behind in artillery formation. Your son led the Platoon in extended order Long before the Great War came to 6. He is in the Irish Guards. Suppose my only son dies, I for one, should not 'view from No. 2 Coy. We were shelled most of fruition Kipling hated the Germans (and the way but remained in this formation till loathed their welfare state, "The weak and with equanimity' Mr Wilson (however unswayed by martial prejudice) advising we reached the Wood, which was about the lame be blowed!"). Achieving the Great or recommending my country how to 500 yds. long and 70 yards deep. The 2 War did not give him pause. Less than six behave at the end of this War…" (from, leading platoons charged through the months into the "game" as he called it, he Lord Birkenhead, Rudyard Kipling, Wood, and when I got through with the felt that the game was running England's London 1978, pp281-82; Note: This is the platoons of my Coy. they were already way and was looking forward to the Galloper's grandson, the third Earl of digging themselves in about 30 yards the vengeance to come. So he wrote to his Birkenhead, finishing off his father's other side, and parallel with the Wood; at biography of Kipling, the first draft of this time we were under machine-guns chum, former American President, Teddy and casualties were getting numerous. Roosevelt, on 4th. December 1914 (while which was seen by Kipling's surviving child and banned by her from publication). "The Grenadiers and the Scots then the US was still neutral): came up on the right, and the Irish Guards "…the game reduces itself to plain In 1914 Kipling looked forward to the on the right flank advanced with them right up to the Puits and Red Brick House, killing. Our losses are not light, but by the complete destruction of the German state circumstances and training of the German which were about 300 yards from where armies the German losses are not less than and people. The "lie" that he spoke of in we were digging ourselves in. There were three times ours—which is a reasonable Common Form and elsewhere was the machine-guns in these buildings, and proportion. But don't believe the Germans politician's failure to deliver on that although they had been heavily shelled will slack off. They are good for at least a promise. It has nothing to do with the "old they opened from them a considerable fire million more losses on our front alone— lie" of Wilfred Owen's poem Dulce Et and also from another Wood just beyond. besides what they can stand from the Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori. That old Two of my men say they saw your son Russians. They ought not to weaken till lie, that it is sweet and fitting to die for limping, just by the Red House, and one they have lost a flat million of dead—not one's country, was Kipling's bedrock truth. said he saw him fall, and somebody run to counting sick and wounded. We have got The response to Jack's death which he his assistance, probably his orderly who is also missing. The Platoon Sergeant of No. our bigger artillery into shape on the rehearsed in December 1914 was the one Western front, and I believe are reaching 5, however, tells me your son did not go to them farther back than before… he felt cheated of from the Armistice to his the Red House, but remained with the "But has it ever struck you that if the death. Germania Delenda Est was not remainder of the 2nd Btn. digging game goes our way, the largest block of delivered on by the lying politicians. themselves in just outside the Wood, but I 13 think the former story the more correct and the political positions he made a firm Agreement. one, and I am very hopeful that he is a stand upon were trivial things, here today b) Seek meetings with the Minister for prisoner. and gone tomorrow, disturbing no-one as Foreign Affairs and the Irish EU "Your son behaved with great gallantry they passed. But he was, bone of their Commissioner to raise our concerns around and coolness and handled his men bone, strong pulse in their own heart's the issues raised in point a) above and to ask splendidly. I trust that your great anxiety blood, the firm rock of imperial principle for their support. may be allayed by definite news of his c) Make representations to the European safety soon. Please accept my most around which realpolitik revolved. His heartfelt sympathy. I had a great affection poetry was the medium of existence of TUC to organise a campaign around the for him." (from Lord Birkenhead, op. cit. Rhodes' War and Asquith's War, of issues raised in point a). pp 267 - 68) Campbell-Bannerman's Peace and Lloyd- d) To support and promote a boycott George's Peace. Kipling really understood campaign of Israeli goods and services In Kipling's history this substantial very little of it, but he enabled it all. similar to the boycott of South African goods account is substantially compressed: during the Apartheid regime. ICTU should "In the meantime, the 1st Scots Guards, It was altogether a coincidence that the work with affiliates, human rights and following orders, had come partly round Great War that Kipling set all his heart and humanitarian relief organisations to promote and partly through the right flank of the power upon was the Great War of Liberal such a campaign through a programme of Irish, and attacked Puits 14 bis, which was Imperialism's Realpolitik. But the business educational activities and media campaigns. reasonably stocked with machine-guns, of his poetry, as of his nation, was war. If e) To support and promote a policy of but which they captured for the moment. Kipling hadn't found the right war, we can divestment from Israeli companies as a Their rush took with them 'some few Irish rest assured that the right war would have means of encouraging the Israeli government Guardsmen,' with 2nd Lieutenants W.F.J. found him. to comply with International Law and to end Clifford and J. Kipling of No. 2 Company the human rights violations of the Palestinian who went forward not less willingly because Captain Cuthbert commanding He was no intellectual but he made the people. As part of this ICTU should the Scots Guards party had been adjutant imperial thinkers intelligible to mobilising encourage affiliates to apply and campaign to the Reserve Battalion at Warley ere the masses of the once and future democracy. for a policy of ethical investment against 2nd Battalion was formed, and they all He put Seeley and Dilke and the rest to a Israeli companies and other companies who knew him. Together, this rush reached a spirited rhythm that was its own music directly support the Israeli government’s line beyond the Puits, well under and marched them off to Flanders and occupation of Palestinian land and machinegun fire (out of the Bois Hugo Gallipoli. infrastructure. across the Lens–La Bassee road). Here f) To strengthen solidarity links between 2nd Lieutenant Clifford was shot and Just as there could have been no Great the Irish, Palestinian and Israeli labour wounded or killed—the body was found movements through exchange visits. ICTU later—and 2nd Lieutenant Kipling was War without the secret preparations of the wounded and missing." gang of four just so there could have been should initially facilitate a trade union no war at all at that time without Kipling's delegation to the Palestinian territories to Jack's death is later noted and his name poetry. Just so is he the most dangerous encourage greater awareness of the situation. is included in a list of the dead. figure of all to bring to mind and memory The BDC welcomes the establishment of Kipling's grief for his dead son was a on of all days a Remembrance Sunday. He the Trade Union friends of Palestine in private matter which remained within the raises too many questions and provides Northern Ireland and calls on ICTU to family circle. It does not provide the too many answers. Just so. encourage the formation of a similar group materials for a moving tribute to the Joe Keenan in the republic of Ireland. To facilitate this, families of the fallen of the War To End the BDC also calls on ICTU to host a seminar War. Those materials had to be worked up to further develop trade union solidarity almost from scratch by the author, the action. actor David Haig. Kipling's public reaction Palestine Solidarity to Jack's death was simply an intensifica- At the ICTU Biennial Conference (BDC), Motion 71, proposed by Derry Trades tion of his already blistering anti-German- held 3-6 July 2007 at Bundoran, the Council, was also passed. It will be found following motion was passed: on the Athol Website , along with a speech ism. All that had to be glossed over and made by Michael Robinson in proposing dumbed down to a TV supper for couch Motion no 70, Motion 70. commandos. What remained for public Belfast & District Trades Council: consumption was a washed out caricature Irish Labour And of a central character and a tepid drama This ICTU BDC is outraged at the that relied on fans of Harry Potter for its continue human rights abuses being suffered Northern Ireland audience. by the Palestinian people. In response to the The Northern Ireland Labour Forum destructive impact of the Israeli Govern- It is very striking how Kipling is only put a motion before the Irish Labour ment's actions on the daily life of Palestinians, Conference in Wexford, proposing that it shown as a poet at the very end of the play, and in pursuance of the existing ICTU policy and only then with the mawkish My Boy should be allowed to contest Local to campaign in solidarity with the Palestinian Government elections in Northern Ireland. Jack. Up to the last moment he is the people, this BDC calls on the ICTU to: creator of Kim and Mowgli, the author of The National Executive Committee a) Make direct representations to the proposed to Conference that the suggestion Jungle Book and the Just So Stories. At no European Council of Ministers to: point in the drama are we given the least be referred to a Commission on re- * Challenge the withholding of organisation that it was about to establish. clue as to the character of the EU funding for the Palestinian overwhelming literary achievement which Authority. A full report of the debate at the powered his unique public presence, of * Raise the EU’s failure to meet its Conference, along with the arguments of which we are also left unaware. obligations under International Law to a fringe meeting held on the issue will be oppose the illegal actions of the Israeli placed on the Athol Books web-site early Kipling was a public figure of unparal- Government. in December and will also appear in the leled influence. Really the spirit of his age * Call for the ending of the next issue of this magazine. walked in him. His poems moved on the preferential trading status afforded to face of the waters. He wasn't a politician, Israel under the Euro-Mediterranean www.atholbooks.org 14 Harris devoted the whole of his weekly father. This IRA man died about 5 years diary in the Sunday Independent to defend- later from the wounds incurred from the Shorts ing the Coolacrease documentary. For Pearsons shooting. from someone not used to reading Harris it was But all of this was dismissed. The British embarrassing. Apparently, the Senator Military Enquiry report was not mentioned the Long Fellow doesn’t know the difference between the and the motives of the author of the internal right groin and the genitals (in the case of IRA report and Paddy Heaney were ALL BALLS Richard Pearson); and the abdomen and impugned. The documentary the Killings at the genitals (in the case of Abraham When the producer/director Niamh Coolacrease has been a fiasco from the Pearson). Salmon was asked to explain why the revisionist point of view. The allegations But Harris is not one to let facts get in documentary didn’t refer to the British that the killings of the Pearson brothers in the way of an ideological position. Since Military Enquiry report she claimed that 1921 were motivated by a Land Grab or the facts as presented by the Coolacrease this report was only collating local rumours Sectarianism and by implication ethnic documentary do not stand up the last line gathered by the RIC. cleansing have not stood up. No evidence of defence is to attack those pointing out But it turns out that not only did the to support these allegations was given. All this. Pearsons shoot two IRA men, they also we had was the assertions of three academ- He claimed on Joe Duffy’s Live Line shot Bertie Hogg an ex RIC man who was ics: Terence Dooley, Richard English and that the critics of the Coolacrease docu- arrested by the IRA leaving the Pearsons William Murphy. mentary were “liars” and “holocaust house ten minutes before the shooting It was not mentioned that after the deniers”! Joe Duffy had to apologise on incident. So the RIC was not just recount- Pearsons sold their land that some of the his behalf, but no apology was forthcoming ing rumours, it was reporting on an incident people who obtained part of the land were from the Senator. Au Contraire! that it was directly involved with. ex British Army soldiers. None of the In his Sunday Independent columns he And it looks like Coolacrease will get other purchasers had any connection with continued his denunciations of the another outing on the big screen. The Irish the IRA. malignant influence of Pat Muldowney, Film board has even awarded a grant for There was no evidence of sectarianism the Aubane Historical Society and the the film. The film will be directed by Perry but this did not prevent the allegation Irish Political Review and all their pomps Ogden, who is also listed as a scriptwriter. from being made. None of the other Prot- and works. This time there will be no constraints re: estant farmers in the locality were Could it be their testicles extend broadcasting standards, so one can only molested. Indeed many participated in the everywhere?! imagine the end product. War of Independence. In this part of Offaly the wealthy and respected local Protestant AND EVEN MORE… THE OVAL BALL Biddulph and Drought families armed the But probably the most insidious aspect The critics of the documentary, most Cadamstown IRA unit, and the local of the documentary was not Harris’s false notably Pat Muldowney, have unearthed Protestant Mitchell family provided statement but the programme makers’ some details on the war of independence military training and a safe house to them. overall attempt to explain away reality. and the land struggle. There was no land A member of another branch of this They arrived in this locality in Offaly and agitation in Coolacrease in 1921 but about Protestant Mitchell family was a prominent attempted to tell the locals that their 30 or forty miles aπway in the town land and well-known Offaly IRA man. recollection of the past was different from of Luggacurran in Co. Laois there most But the most egregious allegation was reality. And this programme makers’ certainly was. made by Senator Harris who claimed that reality was something the locals should be Lord Lansdowne evicted 100 the Pearsons were shot: ashamed of. The original title of the docu- Luggacurran tenants in 1887, replacing “…very deliberately in the genitals, mentary had the word “atonement” in it. them with 30 Protestant tenants. Some of in their sexual parts, in their sexual In short the documentary was Orwellian these tenants came from Scotland and organs, what it really says is you are Ulster. This dispute had not been resolved the other, you are an outsider, we hate in its scope. you, go away and die.” The big problem for the programme by 1921. makers was an incident about a week Lansdowne was appointed Viceroy of The facts are that in the case of Richard before the Pearsons were executed. India and Governor-General of Canada. Pearson the medical evidence says that he The Pearsons had shot two IRA men And, of course is a well known name had: who were cutting down a tree to make a today because of the rugby stadium. This “a superficial wound in the left road block. This was a problem because it brings us to the naming of the said stadium shoulder; a deep but not life-threatening which is in the process of being rebuilt. wound in the right groin (which is suggests that the Pearsons were armed farther from the genitals than an ear combatants in support of the imperial The new stadium should be named lobe from the brain—Long fellow -); government, which makes other assumed after someone who has brought glory to another in the right buttock; superficial motives for their execution pale into Irish rugby such as Michael Gibson or wounds in the lower leg; and about six insignificance. It also undermines the Tom Kiernan. glancing wounds in the back.” programme makers’ attempt to portray But if it is a choice between receiving In the case of Abraham Pearson he had: the Pearsons as Amish like, pacifists. no money for calling it after an imperialist “extensive wounds on left cheek, left There is no doubt that this shooting by land grabber on the one hand and receiving shoulder, left thigh and lower third of the Pearsons took place. An internal IRA some money for naming it after some left leg. In addition there was a wound report said it was the principal reason for capitalist brand on the other, the capitalist through the abdomen.” their subsequent execution. A British brand would be the Long Fellow’s choice. No contemporary report in 1921—not Military Enquiry into the killings also even the propaganda department of Dublin referred to the shootings by the Pearsons HIGH SOCIETY Castle—deduced from this that the IRA of two IRA man and indicated that the The Long Fellow saw a bit of the High deliberately shot the Pearsons in the source for this was an RIC County Society documentary which was genitals. It is a complete fabrication. Inspectors’ report. commissioned by Kevin Dawson who also Local historian Paddy Heaney further commissioned the Coolacrease MORE BALLS confirmed this. One of the IRA men— documentary. None of it looked credible. But for two weeks running Eoghan Michael Heaney—was a cousin of his Justine Delaney-Wilson, the 15 investigative journalist at the centre of the the Sunday Tribune dragged the truth out more Stalinist than the Stalinist himself. documentary, claimed in an interview to of them. Delaney-Wilson had never told But my Communist father never placed have a tape of a Minister discussing his them about the tape: a very curious Soviet interests above those of his own cocaine use. But this was not told to RTE omission on the part of a relatively native land, and it was a decade later or Gill & Macmillan her publishers. They unknown journalist trying to get her book before I came to the firm conclusion that— were under the impression that she had published. even in respect of Dev's Second World only contemporaneous notes. It seems the Coolacrease documentary War neutrality—it was he who had, in RTE were quite happy to leave the is not the only suspect documentary that fact, been right. impression that such a tape existed until has been broadcast by RTE. But which country's interests came first for Irish-born Nicholas Mansergh during the period when he worked for Britain's wartime Ministry of Information? With JOHN DULANTY—HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR WHOM? the British spy John Betjeman as his close collaborator and reporting directly to him, can we at least say of Mansergh that he did Some Realities of Betjeman, Bowen his best to serve Irish interests as well as and Anglo-Irish Relations British, but with the latter remaining the defining primary loyalty in any clash of PART ONE interests? Or, can that order be reversed, The instinct to defend near or distant written in condemnation of that Soviet linked to my own conclusion that Betjeman relatives from perceived wrongs, insults invasion of Hungary, and I have also had in time been successfully 'turned or slights is indeed an understandable one. written in retrospective support of my around' by Dev's right-hand men Frank But it should not be accompanied by bad own mother's opposition to it during the Gallagher and M.J. MacManus {being history. It is therefore to be deplored that— 1956-58 period itself, as well as her under a particular personal obligation to this past November 6—the Irish Examiner arguments at that time with both my father the latter}, and became in effect a double closed down a correspondence where, in and Seán O'Casey who had each cham- agent who now pushed Irish interests to the course of polemicising on behalf of pioned the Soviet action. By 1968 I was the fore? If it was the case that Nicholas Elizabeth Bowen against Jack Lane's old enough to take a considered public Mansergh became aware that Betjeman account of her wartime British intelligence stand in my own right by writing an article had been so 'turned', and not only role, Dr. Martin Mansergh TD was facilit- in opposition to the Soviet invasion and acquiesced in it but also acted as an ated in introducing yet more statements occupation of Czechoslovakia, which accomplice in that project, perhaps his that will not stand up to historical scrutiny. action my father had also supported. In own priorities subsequently shifted to Martin Mansergh was born and raised in 1982 it was my father's turn to be outraged doing his best to serve British interests as England but, at the age of 28, he opted to by my own support for Israel's invasion well as Irish, but with the latter now join the Irish Department of Foreign and occupation of South Lebanon, to such becoming his primary loyalty. I am indeed Affairs in 1974. He resides in his family's an extent that we proceeded to engage in stretching the argument to allow for such ancestral home in Tipperary, and was in public dispute with each other in the letters a slim possibility, for that would have left last May's General Election elected a column of the Irish Times. {Displaying an Nicholas Mansergh, if ever 'caught out', Fianna Fáil TD for Tipperary South. I almost stereotypical cultural preoccup- open to the charge of operating as a wartime have never had the slightest doubt about ation with the family angle of this contro- 'foreign agent' deep inside British Govern- Martin Mansergh's own self-identification versy, this was subsequently reported in ment ranks. But I remain to be convinced as an unequivocally patriotic Irishman the New York Yiddish Socialist newspaper by the production of any solid evidence to committed to the service of this Republic. Morgn Freiheit under the he ding of "On prove that Mansergh himself ever made That, after all, is why Charlie Haughey the Irish Left: Father and Son Debate that decisive shift and thereby offset the promoted him. When discussing the role Israel"!}. compromised position he found himself of his Tipperary-born Anglo-Irish father in with regard to this country's interests, Nicholas Mansergh, however, he some- I have little doubt that most supporters whenever UK Ministry of Information times goes a step too far in suggesting a of Irish Political Review would now decisions hostile to Ireland were being conflation of his father's loyalties with conclude: "father wrong in 1956 and 1968; processed. This is not at all to doubt the those of his own. son wrong in 1982". So be it. But in the fact that Nicholas Mansergh had twin context of this article it is important for me affections for both Britain and Ireland. Any similar conflation is a mistake that to acknowledge one particular issue where German Abwehr intelligence officer I myself have made a point of avoiding I myself consider that my father had been Helmut Clissmann also had twin affections whenever called upon to defend the quite right, whereas I had been dead wrong. for both Germany and Ireland and was— integrity of my own father's reputation. Notwithstanding the Soviet Union's in the literal sense—even more deeply Even where there might be considerable condemnation of Ireland's wartime wedded to the latter. But at least the Cliss- overlap, fathers and sons exist as distinct neutrality—and its vetoing on that account mann family website is completely up political entities. Our own family political of Irish membership of the UN for a full front in acknowledging where his primary differences have, in fact, been publicly decade thereafter—my father's anti-fascist loyalty lay, when writing: "For two years highlighted by me. True, although I was history, Connolly Column (1979), he (HC) was seconded to the Foreign only 7 years of age at the time of the Soviet contained a sturdy polemic in support of Office in Berlin to deal with Irish affairs. suppression of the Hungarian Uprising in that same neutrality policy. In a book During his war service he did his best to 1956, I was in fact so bloody-minded review for the Irish Communist in the serve Irish interests as well as German— enough a loner as to stubbornly and defiant- following year I, in turn, publicly criticised but this is history". ly shout "Up the Russians" whenever my father on that score, arguing that—as taunted about that issue by other kids the State primarily responsible for the Indeed it is. And just as the Clissmann during the course of our childhood street defeat of Nazi Germany—the USSR had family was extremely fortunate that quarrels! In my "more mature" years, every right to make Ireland pay for such Helmut Clissmann's intelligence reports however, I have for over a 30 year period wartime neutrality. In other words, I was provided convincing arguments as to why 16 it was in Germany's best interests to accept pressure on the Irish government to Valera: "In the context of the war, he sees Irish neutrality, so equally was the increase its diplomatic representation, Churchill as having been concerned Mansergh family particularly fortunate a pressure which Father strongly 'simply to satisfy his own selfish imperial that the intelligence reports from Elizabeth resisted. It was feared that the move aims and personal lust for power'—which Bowen—a relative by marriage of was a prelude to invasion, with Shannon seems an odd verdict on the man who Nicholas—were similarly convincing as being attacked first. Such happenings saved Europe, including Ireland, from would have provoked the British. The to why it was in Britain's own best interests question was: would the British try a Nazism." Since it was actually Stalin who to also accept that same Irish neutrality. pre-emptive strike? … By the early had saved Europe from Nazism, one might But what if choices had to be made in the days of 1941, the immediate crisis of justifiably enquire what odd verdict Garret event of conflict? In the Irish Examiner on Christmas 1940 had passed." himself might have on Stalin. But that September 26th last, Martin Mansergh would be a detour from the principal throws reason out the window by arguing: There had indeed been real fears of a problem with his pronouncement, namely, "Why not acknowledge in this era of German invasion in 1940, but a British that he had torn Terry de Valera's quote excellent Anglo-Irish relations that she invasion threat also co-existed during the completely out of context. It had, in fact, was helpful to both countries and that, in course of that same year. Thereafter, right nothing to do with Churchill confronting a sense, she was an agent of both?" This up to 1944, further threats of invasion Nazism in Europe. Terry de Valera's own is a total non sequitur. A double agent is were either British or Anglo-American. antipathy towards Nazism and Hitler's one who begins by spying on country A on On November 6th Martin Mansergh war—from the very outset of the latter's behalf of country B, but is then 'turned rhetorically asked: "Which country invasion of Poland—had been made around', thereby changing sides in order bombed the North Strand in Dublin?" patently manifest throughout his memoir. to spy on country B on behalf of country Terry de Valera's own account was as The quote that FitzGerald completely tore A. Whatever about Betjeman, there is follows: out of context, however, specifically nothing to suggest that Bowen was ever "I will not easily forget the night of referred to the war crimes that Churchill compromised as a British spy. 31 May 1941 … I was awakened by the was quite prepared to contemplate In the Irish Examiner on November 6th sound of aircraft. I knew they were committing in Ireland itself. As Terry de Martin Mansergh writes: "Given Ireland German … It was only early next Valera related: morning that I heard that a bomb had was neutral in World War 2, by definition "The popular view today, and for fallen on the North Strand, causing sometime past, is to create the Britain and Ireland could not have been many casualties [incl. 34 killed— impression that the only threat of enemy nations, in that context". But that is MO'R] and considerable damage … invasion of Ireland during World War pure tautology. By the same definition, it Next day Éamon [Dev's doctor son] Two came from Germany. This is far is equally true that neither could Ireland visited the Mater Hospital and said he from the truth. Invasion by the British and Nazi Germany have been enemy was shocked by the wounds and injuries was just as likely, if not more so, and it received by so many of the unfortunate nations. Yet Ireland remained under threat is now known that the British had drawn victims of this bombing … Appalling of invasion from both, and from one more up detailed plans for this. What is so as this bombing was, my father than the other. The prospect of a German terrifying to realise is that, had Germany explained that this action by the German invasion had been a serious fear in 1940, invaded, Churchill, on the advice of his air force was not a deliberate attack on in which context I have frequently argued air chiefs, was fully prepared to order Dublin. Dr. Hempel, the German and sanction the saturation of large the following: Minister, and the German Government portions of the Irish population using "De Valera was left with no option apologised and, in due course, mustard and phosgene gases, calculated but to act ruthlessly and with resolve substantial compensation was paid. to cause maximum pain, suffering and against [Seán] Russell and his IRA Even Churchill indicated that this attack lingering death to countless Irish people, followers … for his actions in defiance could be attributed to other reasons, as both in the south and in the north. The of de Valera, specifically his 1939 the British had been successful in consequences of such diabolical action bombing campaign in England, 'bending' radio-beams which put the would have been horrific. It appears followed by his request for German aid German planes off-course. This had that there were no such plans by the to mount an IRA invasion of the North. been confirmed by one of the crew of Germans to use gas against the Irish. It If Russell's plan had materialised it the German planes engaged, who should not be forgotten that the British, would have had the knock-on effect of established the cause of the bombing and Churchill in particular, were quite either a German or British invasion and beyond doubt." occupation of Southern Ireland, prepared to wipe out large portions of bringing to nought de Valera's skilful the Irish population by using the most From the outset of war in September ghastly methods imaginable. This safeguarding of this State from both 1939 Terry de Valera himself had also war and fascism" (Sunday Independent, Churchill would do simply to satisfy January 9, 2005). taken an important personal initiative: his own selfish imperial aims and "Two boys who had been in the personal lust for power." In his family reminiscences, simply national school in Booterstown with entitled A Memoir (2004), Dev's son Terry me joined the British navy and appeared Perhaps Garret FitzGerald did not wish de Valera recalled: in uniform at Mass in Booterstown. I to believe Terry de Valera's home truths reported this at once to my father and "The summer months of 1940 were almost immediately the wearing of about Churchill. But de Valera's source indeed anxious. We never knew from uniforms by belligerents was forbidden, was impeccably accurate—Lt. Col. John day to day, indeed from hour to hour, as such displays clearly violated P. Duggan's book Ireland and the Third when the invasion might take place. neutrality. One of these young men, Reich (2004), in which this Irish military Things became more intense with the Tony Toft, was a stoker on the aircraft historian brought to light a secret British approach of August when the Germans carrier Courageous. He was lost when dropped bombs on Campile in Co. War Cabinet memo of 8th October 1940. the ship was sunk by a U-boat that Wexford, causing casualties [incl. 3 This revealed Churchill's concurrence with October. He was only seventeen years killed—MO'R], nor did the tensions an RAF plan to drench Ireland with poison- of age". ease or subside for the remainder of that gas in the event of any German troops year … Things came to a head again landing here. As Duggan elaborated: In an otherwise warm-hearted review with the approach of Christmas. On "A requirement was outlined, in the Christmas Eve, invasion seemed in the Irish Times (July 17, 2004) Garret event of the Germans setting up a inevitable. The defence forces were on FitzGerald was, however, to make the bridgehead in Ireland, of spraying their full alert. Germany was then putting following charge against the younger de landing sites and axes of advance with 17 poison gases, including mustard gas, course, one remains oblivious of the facts the latter that Brian Girvin bases his which would have caused incapacitating contained in British State Papers which, if references to Dulanty and Bowen, for we blistering of the lungs and respiratory de Valera had been aware of their contents, can be damn certain that Dulanty never tract. There was also a phosgene gas would have given him every reason in drew the Irish Government's attention to which would kill by choking. It would previous years to have had Dulanty Bowen. The Girvin references are, how- not separate Irish from German, and no arrested, charged with high treason and ever, not at all phrased in the manner thought seems to have been given as to the possible effects on the Irish civilian firmly placed behind bars in the interests suggested by Martin Mansergh. In his population, north or south. This could of national security. book The Emergency- Neutral Ireland hardly have been termed assistance to 1939-45 (2006) Brian Girvin actually repel the German invasion. A bomber In a review of Documents on Irish writes as follows: squadron at Feltwell in Suffolk was Foreign Policy, Volume V, 1937-1939, "A more objective and reliable account equipped with gas spray containers for Emeritus Professor John A. Murphy of Irish opinion was provided by Elizabeth the contingency." engaged in character assassination of the Cameron—better known as the novelist Irish Minister to Madrid, referring to him Elizabeth Bowen—who visited Ireland in In the Irish Times on 22nd January as "Leopold Kerney, recently described July 1940. Bowen was originally refused 2005 Martin Mansergh devoted his whole by one historian as a 'monumental fool'." permission to travel by the Dominions column to Terry de Valera's memoir. He Office as her trip involved spending some (Sunday Independent, December 3, 2006). time working on a novel; the Dominions alluded in passing to the fact that it had But see http://www.geocities.com/ been reviewed by Garret FitzGerald six Office was only prepared to sanction trips irelandscw/docs-KerneyReview.htm for to Éire at this time if it could be shown that months previously, but he expressed no "Leopold H. Kerney—Irish Minister to the visit was of importance for the national concurrence with that review. On the Spain 1935-1946", a vindication of interest. However, the Ministry of contrary, Dr. Mansergh enthusiastically Kerney's good name and patriotic wartime information insisted that Bowen could do embraced Terry de Valera's personal take role in my review of the website http:// some good while in Ireland. Betjeman on historical events, without entering any www.leopoldhkerney.com for the March- supported her trip, pointing out that critical caveat whatsoever. He actually April 2007 issue of History Ireland. In Dulanty and the writer Stephen Gwynn, wrote as follows: contrast, Murphy became unashamedly 'two people to whose voices we should certainly listen', supported her visit to Éire "As President of the League of Nations, obsequious with the following reference: Dev took an instant dislike to Mussolini, to collect information … Dulanty believed "John W. Dulanty, the High Commissioner that Bowen would provide independent telling his son he was 'an arrogant in London, reflected all that was best in bumptious little man'. He also told him and objective reports on the state of opinion that the intended Blueshirt march on the diplomatic corps, successfully in Éire, presumably ones that would allow Government Buildings was to be followed occupying the most important and for a more nuanced approach by the British. by a coup d'etat. The author complains: sensitive posting in the whole service". Whether Dulanty was acting on his own 'Some modern revisionists have tried to The tone for Murphy's review and initiative is difficult to judge, but de Valera deny or at least soften down these events'. adulation of Dulanty had been set by its was minister for external affairs and Joseph The memoir underlines the personal very title: "Inside the diplomatic pouch: Walshe maintained close contact with pressure that de Valera was under during tales of the King and I". Dulanty throughout the war". the Second World War. An old opponent, It is true that this Volume V of Irish While John Betjeman had indeed invoked Winston Churchill, smarting at British State Papers does indeed record Dulanty the name of Dulanty as a supportive collab- diplomatic defeats in Anglo-Irish relations as faithfully transmitting the marching orator in this project, it is also quite clear in the 1930s, was in power in London. The US Minister in Dublin, David Gray, was orders given to him by Dev. One example from the Girvin account that he is writing deeply hostile, trying to destabilise de is the following communication, on 23rd of Betjeman's own initiative. Less than a Valera. This elicits the comment: 'He was April 1937, to Sir Edward Harding, year before the outbreak of war, on 29th no match for Éamon de Valera. A lesser Permanent Under-Secretary at the UK October 1938, Betjeman had already rather man might well have yielded to the might Dominions Office, as dictated by Dev fawningly, and in an unashamedly and strength of the US and Britain, both himself: herrenvolk frame of mind, written to then and in the earlier part of the War'." "Our position had been made crystal Bowen: "Your book goes to prove my It is a pity, then, that Martin Mansergh clear when the President talked to Mr. contention that the Anglo-Irish are the abandons that de Valera perspective when MacDonald on the 15th of January last. greatest race of western civilisation" (John The position then clearly defined by the Betjeman—Letters (1994), edited by his seeking to present Elizabeth Bowen's President was that the ports were Irish and spying activities as other than what they Dublin-born daughter, Candida Lycett not British ports. The British had no right Green). were. It is, however, an even greater and there. They ought to leave and not seek to more reckless mistake for Dr. Mansergh return except on our invitation and with The important question in this context to argue that Bowen's activities had some our goodwill. We were not imperially is, of course: What of Betjeman's own Irish Government endorsement by minded nor had we any imperial interests. wartime activities in Ireland? On 23rd invoking the name of the Irish High The nearer we could get to a position of April 2000 a TV documentary on Channel Commissioner in London, John Dulanty. neutrality the better. The President had 4, entitled The Real John Betjeman, raised He writes: "Having had the chance to made it clear that in our own interests we this issue in the following manner: "But consult a personal communication from would not allow our territory to be used as a base of attack on Britain, but obviously there was another side to Betjeman's work Brian Girvin clarifying the part of the text we could only be at war when our interests in Ireland, something about which he of his book on Irish neutrality, I find I was were jeopardised and the Dáil had so would only speak 40 years later." This understating the position in saying that decided. Our first aim must always be to documentary reproduced an excerpt from …. John Dulanty, had foreknowledge and make our country safe for our own people a TV interview which Betjeman had given approval of Bowen's visits to Ireland … but we would see to it that a free Ireland not long before his death in 1984. In There is simply no answer to the point that was not a source of danger to Britain". response to a question as to what exactly a mission that had the prior approval and had he been doing in Dublin, Betjeman support of the Irish High Commissioner What can be found in the Irish State quite candidly replied: "I was the Press in London in June 1940 could not have Papers regarding Dulanty is one thing, but Attaché in Maffey's Office—one of what been a betrayal of the interests of this what can also be found on him in the they call Maffey's spies." Far more country" (Irish Examiner, September 6 British State Papers is quite a different revealing than this Easter Sunday and 26, and November 6). Unless, of matter. And it is solely from a source in documentary, however, was the press 18 coverage it stimulated on the following western front we had reached the patriotic Irishmen who said to me, 'You day. On April 24 the Guardian's Fiachra culminating point in the output of war ought never to have handed over the ports Gibbons reported that Betjeman's materials of all kinds. We had also a whole at such a time!'… The ports were British biographer, Bevis Hillier, had got his first series of terrifying novelties, some of a by treaty rights internationally recognised". inkling that Betjeman was a spy when he most intricate character, and weapons and interviewed Professor Nicholas Mansergh, devices of a most deadly nature, which In the immediate aftermath of the British were in readiness to be used by our troops of St. John's College, Cambridge. Hiller agreement to hand back the ports to Ireland, in the campaign of 1919, had it been de Valera himself did his level best to pointed out that—as Head of the Empire necessary. Therefore this ministry was at Division—Mansergh had been Betjeman's full extension, straining like a runner in a assure the British Government that he superior in the Ministry of Information race as he approaches the goal'". would never allow any enemy power of during the War and had read many of the Britain to use those ports against her. poet's reports from Dublin. "As soon as I And how did Dulanty perform on the This, however, provided another arrived in his room to talk to him, he outbreak of the Second World War? Joe opportunity for Dulanty to go behind Dev's [Mansergh] prefaced it by saying that he Carroll related: "But Irish neutrality did back and brief the British Government on would not discuss whether Betjeman was not appear quite so cut and dried in London supposed internal differences within the a spy. I hadn't even raised it", Hiller said. where the previous Friday, the day Irish Government. As Robert Fisk related: Germany invaded Poland, the cabinet was "Scarcely more than a week after his And, as for Betjeman's reported con- told by Mr. Chamberlain that he had latest meeting with Chamberlain, de Valera versation with Dulanty, one cannot avoid received a communication from Mr. De made it clear that—for the present at least— noting Brian Girvin's equivocal statement Valera about the latter's meeting with the he had no intention of placing Éire's Army that it is "difficult to judge" if Dulanty was German Minister in Dublin, Dr. Edouard under British tutelage. Frank Aiken was ill acting on his own initiative. For Brian Hempel. If war broke out, Hempel told de and de Valera, who had temporarily taken Girvin knows full well that 'solo runs' Valera, Germany was anxious to respect charge of the Irish Defence Department in were the very least of what Dulanty had the neutrality of Éire. The Secretary of his absence, came up with an unorthodox solution to his military needs. On October already been guilty of. Indeed, two of State for the Dominions, Sir Thomas Inskip 12 [1938], Dulanty and Walshe called at Brian Girvin's own reference works— (later to become Lord Caldecote), then the Colonial Office to tell Malcolm Joseph T. Carrolls' Ireland in the War said that it had been contemplated that at McDonald and Devonshire, his Under Years (1975) and Robert Fisk's In Time of least Britain should ask Éire to break of Secretary, that de Valera—'extremely War (1983)—provide enough damning diplomatic relations with Germany if anxious to get the Irish defences into a evidence from British State Papers of Britain became involved in war. The Irish good state, as he did not want to be 'caught Dulanty's activities, over and above the High Commissioner in London, Mr. napping' if there was trouble in Europe'— formal communications and reports whose John Dulanty, had informed Inskip that planned to appoint a French General as innocent character can be perused in the he thought that 'in a week Éire would principal military adviser to the Irish Army Irish State Papers. come in on our side as a result of attacks … MacDonald could hardly have expected such a proposal. He and Devonshire, For a number of years immediately on shipping'. It is curious, if Inskip's nonplussed by this sudden overture, prior to entering the Irish Free State's report is accurate, that Dulanty should thought it might be possible 'to get some diplomatic service in 1926, Dulanty had have expressed such a pessimistic view experienced and really good officer in the been engaged in private business in Britain. of Ireland's chances of remaining British Army who was an Irishman, to A Manchester Irish Catholic by origin, he neutral while in Dublin all resources resign from the Army in order to offer his had been active in Irish political were being mobilised to maintain services to Éire'. It was in keeping with the organisations in Britain before the First neutrality as long as was humanly unconventional tenor of this conversation World War, topping the poll in the annual possible." (My emphases—MO'R.) that Dulanty should have mentioned the election for secretary of the United Irish name of General Sir Hubert Gough, the League under the leadership of John Carroll shed further light on Dulanty's former Third Cavalry Brigade commander at the Curragh who had refused to order Redmond. But Joe Carroll also took note behaviour a year previously: "According his troops into Ulster during the 1914 of a British political career that had only to Sir John Maffey [the UK's wartime Home Rule crisis. [In other words, the formally ended in 1920: "The Irish High Representative in Dublin, later ennobled leader of the Curragh Mutiny—MO'R]. Commissioner in London, Mr. John as Lord Rugby—MO'R], in an interview Dulanty disclosed that Gough had privately Dulanty, curiously enough had worked with the Irish Times in 1962, the Irish told him on two or three occasions that 'his for Churchill in his election campaign in High Commissioner in London, John services were at the disposal of Mr. de Manchester in 1906 and as a senior civil Dulanty, 'could hardly believe his own Valera', although Dulanty agreed that servant in Churchill's Ministry of ears' when he heard the ports were being Gough's 'connection with the Curragh Munitions in World War One". given back and Maffey went on to say that incident' presented difficulties. De Valera If we look up Dulanty's Irish Times 'the blame for this incredible did not regard Gough as 'the right man for the post' but—no doubt attracted by the obituary on February 12, 1955 we can miscalculation is entirely attributable to mutinous reputation of the unrepentant further read: "The first recognition of his the British General Staff'." The Irish Times old General—nonetheless wanted 'very undoubted ability came when Lloyd of 4th July 1962 did indeed have Lord much … to discuss Éire's military problem George appointed him principal assistant Rugby reveal the following: with him'.[Or so Dulanty related—MO'R]. secretary to the newly-created Ministry of "This error of judgement was the cession MacDonald pointed out that de Valera's Munitions in 1917. Later he became of the Irish ports as a generous 'gesture' in original proposal would mean that a French assistant secretary to the British Treasury, 1938 … At that critical moment Winston officer would be given access to secret for his work in which he was awarded the Churchill, as so often in his life, clearly British defence papers in the hands of the CBE." Under the heading of "Had Terrible saw the danger ahead, but his warning was Éire Government—a difficulty which de Things Ready for Germans", the New York not heeded. Dulanty told me he could Valera had himself foreseen—but promised to consult Inskip …" Times for 23rd December 1918 provided hardly believe his own ears when he was the following report on what Dulanty's told that Mr. de Valera, in addition to a "Somewhat inevitably, Inskip informed wartime work had entailed: generous financial settlement, had also Dulanty eight days later [in a one-to-one got the Irish ports! [My emphases— get-together—MO'R] that the Chiefs of "London, December 22 … Winston MO'R]. The consequences of this fatuous Staff had convinced him that there were Spencer Churchill, Minister for Munitions, gesture were grim indeed. You would be 'insuperable objections' to de Valera's plan. said: … 'When the firing stopped on the surprised if I gave you a list of truly The British possessed 'certain devices and 19 equipment', he said, 'a large part of the been at war and might yet again invade. It and allegiance as follows: "The English value of which would be lost if it came to even exists just as clearly with respect to who settled in Cork remained English. the knowledge of a potential enemy' … relations between states that are the closest They liked it because it seemed like a part There was no question, he said, about his of allies. That is why US naval intelligence of England. She was afraid I'd expect her country's willingness to communicate analyst Jonathan Pollard is now in his to buy a picture." Such an assessment did, confidential information to the Éire 23rd year of imprisonment in the USA for of course, leave Glendenning somewhat Government, but if a French officer was appointed then some of this information his 'solo run' in divulging to Israeli perturbed: "A strange thing to say of a would be passed on to 'a foreigner'. To intelligence some US intelligence in member of a family who had owned land compound this unflattering reference to respect of Syria. There has been no escape in Cork and lived continuously on it for an officer in the armed forces of Britain's clause available for Pollard along the lines three hundred years. But that is how it principal ally, Inskip added that 'the French of Martin Mansergh's illogical formula: was". are not in any case very good at keeping "Why not acknowledge in this era of secrets' … Dulanty expressed his excellent US-Israeli relations that he was Yes, that's how it was. It was as a disappointment and then made a strange helpful to both countries and that, in a British patriot that Bowen had engaged in admission. De Valera, he said, wanted to sense, he was an agent of both?" US intelligence work in wartime Ireland. In improve the port defences while Aiken intelligence analyst Jonathan Pollard is The Mulberry Tree—Writings of Elizabeth was absent since he believed that the Minister for Defence would himself be spending his life behind bars because his Bowen (1999), Hermione Lee reproduced unwilling to undertake the task; therefore own government judged that his 'solo run' a letter written to Virginia Woolf on 1st 'it was important to get action taken while made him an Israeli spy pure and simple. July 1940 wherein Bowen, before leaving Mr. Aiken was away'. Inskip asked if the That 'solo runs' were the least of what London to embark upon her mission, Irish would consider a military adviser Dulanty should have been charged with informed her friend: from one of the Dominions and suggested was something known beyond any shadow "I think I told you I had asked the an Australian officer who was a Catholic, of doubt by Brian Girvin. And yet he Ministry of Information if I could do any but Dulanty again showed no enthusiasm. opted for obfuscation when referring to work, which I felt was wanted in Ireland. De Valera, he said, had already turned John Betjeman's invocation of Dulanty's On Saturday morning, I had a letter from down a proposal to appoint a South African support for his proposal to send Elizabeth them saying yes, they did want me to go. officer, General van Ryneveld, even Now it has come to the point I have rather though the South Africans had fought Bowen to gather intelligence in Ireland. a feeling of dismay and of not wanting to against Britain. Dulanty explained that Yet Candida Lycett Green's edition of her leave this country. I am to see Harold one of the reasons for de Valera's reluctance father's personal correspondence had long Nicolson on Thursday and go to Ireland on 'was due to the fact that Mr. Aiken made it quite clear that John Betjeman did Friday night next. I don't expect it will be represents the IRA Organisation and Mr. not wait for 40 years before alluding to his for very long. I shall be at Bowen's Court De Valera relies upon him to keep the IRA own role as a spy. To those he deemed first, but I expect they will also want me to lot quiet and behind the government'. discerning enough to rumble him he move about the place. I don't know much Dulanty 'did not think that any Dominion decided to strike first by coming out up till I've seen Harold Nicolson. I hope I soldier or sailor would be agreeable to Mr. front. In a letter to the writer Frank shall be some good: I do feel it's important. Aiken'. The Irish High Commissioner O'Connor on 7th March 1941 Betjeman As far as my own feeling goes I feel low at had revealed what the British must have going away, so can only hope to be some suspected for some months; that the declared: good when I'm there. It will all mean political divisions in Éire over which de "Delighted to hear from Sean O' Faolain endless talk, but sorting out talk into shape Valera was so exercised were also that you are back. Look at me, a bloody might be interesting. I suppose I shall also mirrored inside his own Fianna Fáil British spy (open) Press Attaché here. finish my book. But Ireland can be Cabinet. Aiken, who deeply distrusted Now can you both come in to Dublin for dementing, if one's Irish and may well be the British, and who throughout the war lunch? The O'Faolains are coming." To so now. If there's to be an invasion of was to regard Britain as a more serious which Candida added the footnote: "Sean Ireland, I hope it may be while I'm there— military threat than Germany, would never O'Faolain, editor of The Bell, was a man of which I don't mean frivolously—but if have countenanced a British or Dominions letters and a lover of Elizabeth Bowen". anything happens to England while I'm in defence adviser and would probably have Ireland I shall wish I never left, even for objected to the appointment of a As well as becoming her lover, this short time. I suppose the Ministry will Frenchman". [My emphases—MO'R]. O'Faolain had also sought to nurture a common sense of Irish nationality between give me a come-and-go travel permit". I am not rejecting out of hand the himself and the Anglo-Irish Bowen. It is possibility that, as the Second World War not Catholic sectarianism to conclude that Bowen was not at all hoping that she progressed, Dulanty became in time a he might have failed in that mission. For might be present in our midst for a German great admirer of Dev and thereafter loyally an outstanding Irishman of impeccably invasion of Ireland. Fears of such a German served the Irish Government. The process Protestant character had already invasion centred on a flanking operation by which one might eventually cease to pronounced that judgement a good sixty occurring simultaneously with a German function as a spy is often as grey an area as years ago. In her biography Elizabeth invasion of Britain. But Bowen did not all the process by which one might begin to Bowen—Portrait of a Writer (1977), want to be absent from Britain in any such behave as one in the first place. But Dulanty Victoria Glendenning related one unhappy event. The invasion of Ireland of which should not have been at large to exercise encounter that her own husband Terence Bowen wrote in this letter would have such options any further. I know of no set de Vere White had been instrumental in been a British invasion to seize the ports. of circumstances where the furnishing to bringing about in 1947. He had brought And Bowen would have presumed on Government A by a representative of Bowen to meet the artist Jack Yeats in his continuing to have permission to travel Government B of B's own confidential Dublin studio. The latter firmly believed back and forth between a free England Cabinet secrets can be described as in Wolfe Tone's principle of substituting and a British occupied Ireland. The anything other than espionage—even the common name of Irishman for reference to "if one's Irish" related to when voluntarily carried out with such Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter, for where she hailed from, not to any shared enthusiasm that no formal recruitment Jack Yeats was himself a committed Irish sense of national character or identity. On had been necessary. A clear concept of Protestant Republican patriot. But Yeats 5th January 1941 Bowen again wrote to espionage exists, not only with respect to felt he had nothing in common with Woolf, this time from Bowen's Court, of the relations between a Great Power and a Bowen. He scathingly summed up his "a trick of the Irish mind. They are very former colony with which it had so recently view of Bowen's own national identity religious". Bowen had not said "Irish 20 Catholic mind", but "Irish" pure and the recruitment of Irishmen into the British forces, a successfully in Ireland (without war) with no help simple. No sense of any shared nationality fact confirmed by Churchill in 1941 when he whatever from England or Churchill. He was neutral acknowledged "the considerable help which we were on England's second war on Germany just as the US there! "The Irish" are "They", the others. receiving by the enlistment in our forces of volunteers and the USSR were until they were attacked and he Nonetheless, it is, of course, a tribute to from Southern Ireland". After all, Miss Bowen and would no doubt have acted as they did if Ireland was the quality of her intelligence work that de Valera, whatever their differences, were bothaware attacked from any quarter. within months of her arrival here she had that the common enemy was fascism. As it happens, Bowen's published reports confirm I will let Mr Lane decide whether Elizabeth that for her, as for Churchill, fascism was not the quickly appreciated the strength of popular Bowen's wartime reports to theBritish Ministry of issue. The single Irish politician she really cultivated support for Irish neutrality and, as a Information on Irish public opinion amounted to (and deceived) was James Dillon because he was the consequence, proceeded to forcefully "espionage". only significant politician who wanted Ireland to argue against any British invasion—in I doubt if she found too many secrets or did any join the war that England had declared on Germany. Britain's own interests. harm. Her reports may have helped foster some Bowen describes her close study of him in an extant degree of understanding at a very difficult time in report and concluded he was a fascist but that mattered Manus O'Riordan relations between the two islands and for this, as for not a whit as he too supported war on Germany. To be continued many aspects of her writing, we must be thankful. Fascism was neither here no there for her or Churchill In this happier time in relations between the two when England was at war. Jack Lane countries it is interesting to recall these wartime experiences of one of Ireland's most distinguished BRITAIN DID NOT GO TO WAR TO DEFEAT REPORT writers. It is a pity Mr Lane employs a redundant An Irish Examiner Debate epithet—"Cromwellian"—to describe Miss Bowen's FASCISM (5.9.07) family history. We cannot be responsible for our Kathleen Fitzgibbon (Letters, August 29) says, On Elizabeth Bowen ancestors or be required to atone for their sins. "Miss [Elizabeth] Bowen and de Valera, whatever Indeed a trawl through all family histories might their differences, were both aware that the common Following the inaugural Bowen/ also produce as many thrilling tales as Mr Lane enemy [in WWII] was fascism". Trevor Summer School in Mitchelstown thinks will be found among Ms Bowen's ancestors. It is true de Valera achieved political power History is rarely so simple. Kathleen Fitzgibbon, democratically against the fascist movement in as reported in the September Irish Political Ireland but Britain, on the other hand, did not go to Mitchelstown Review, the following exchange of letters war in 1939 against fascism as such. is taking place in the Irish Examiner. Churchill had been, notoriously, an admirer and BRITISH DEEMED BOWEN REPORTS friend of Mussolini and he declared that a British ESPIONAGE (5.9.07) Hitler might be necessary in certain circumstances. ELIZABATH BOWEN (11.8.07) Kathleen Fitzgibbon says that she has "one, if not Britain went to war against its former ally in 1939 not Your report on the inaugural 'Trevor/Bowen' two, advantages over Mr Lane. I lived through the to defeat fascism as such but to assert its position as Summer School in Mitchelstown says that "The Second World War years in Ireland, and attended the the predominant world power. Other world powers, audience was thrilled to hear the voice of Elizabeth Trevor/Bowen school last August bank holiday such as the US, remained neutral until their own Bowen" from a recording that was part of Donncha weekend. " (Irish Examiner 29/8/07) interests were at stake. O'Dulaing's lecture on the writer. (Corkman, 9th However, on the actual point at issue—Bowen's From 1945 to the present, Britain has made August.) espionage reports to Churchill—Kathleen and I are effective propaganda use of Nazi crimes, in order to I assume that the recording, or the lecture, did not exactly in the same position because neither she give itself licence for continual warfare around the explain or elaborate on aspects of Elizabeth such as nor I could have read any of Bowen's 200 odd world. While Elizabeth Bowen's favourite Irish "…the vehemence with which she said 'I hate Ireland'" reports during the war or subsequently as they were person was the fascist-minded John Dillon, Churchill as reported by Roy Foster in his 1993 book "Paddy secret reports and the vast majority were destroyed. himself was in favour of world conquest and genocide and Mr. Punch", (page 122, emphasis not added). The few that survived were never published by her of inferior races—provided it was done by or for Neither, I assume, did it deal with her paid admirers until I did so a few years ago. Britain or its allies. Here is his testimony to the 1937 espionage activities here during World War II Yet Kathleen speculates that Bowen's objective parliamentary commission of Lord Peel, to decide which was her only real connection with Ireland and was to "foster some degree of understanding". the fate of Palestine: which produced her most valuable writing on Ireland Kathleen should really explain to us why a well "I do not admit that the dog in the manger [the though 99% of it appears to have been destroyed known writer and a very competent and capable Palestinian Arabs] has the final right to the manger, because it was classified as 'top secret.' person such as Bowen chose this peculiar and very even though he may have lain there for a very long May I suggest that any future Mitchelstown inefficient way to spread understanding! time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit, for Summer Schools deal with these aspects of Elizabeth People went to England for work during the instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Bowen's career as they tend to be ignored or explained Second World War, as they hadbeen doing ever Indians of America, or the black people of Australia. away though they were the central focus of her since the English Government had deliberately I do not admit that a wrong has been done to those relationship with Ireland. Exploring these would andsystematically wrecked the Irish economy. The people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher grade add some real value to Bowen studies. Irish people also joined theBritish Army in all of race, has come in and taken their place. I do not admit Of course, there are several aspects of her Britain's many wars over the centuries for much it. I do not think the Red Indians had any right to say, Cromwellian family history that would also be useful thesame reason. 'The American continent belongs to us and we are to explore at such Schools to add to our knowledge Bowen's reports to Churchill about the state of not going to have any of these European settlers of her and might also thrill audiences even more than public feeling in Irelandabout a possible British coming in here.' They had not the right, nor had they they were at the inaugural one. Jack Lane, Millstreet. invasion possibly helped to ward off that the power." Pat Muldowney, Derry invasion.Churchill in 1945 said he had the right to A 'SPY' WRITER IN GOOD COMPANY invade but chose not to. Bowen'sreports indicated (29.8.07) that resistance would be united and strong. A LAUDABLE EMISSARY, YES; The letter from Jack Lane on the Trevor/Bowen It is not me who classified her reports as espionage. A TRAITOR, NO (6.9.07) Summer School in Mitchelstown and Farrihy, They were treated by the British authorities as Jack Lane (Letters, August 20 and September 5) Kildorrery, Co Cork (August 20) gave an interesting espionage reports. They were kept secret at the time might desist from his continuing efforts to denigrate side-view on a great Irish writer. and most were subsequently destroyed. A few the memory of the writer Elizabeth Bowen, who is I have one, if not two, advantages over Mr Lane. survived through bureaucratic negligence. buried in Farahy Church, near Kildorrery in north I lived through the Second World War years in I did not drag up the Bowen family history. Cork, of which I am a trustee (my family and hers are Ireland, and attended the Trevor/Bowen school last Bowen flaunted it at us.It was Cromwellian in origin, related by marriage). He has two grievances in August bankholiday weekend. Those present enjoyed and the Bowens of the Big House lived asaliens particular against her: one, that she spied against a stimulating series of lectures. remote from the people to the bitter end. Ireland, betraying Ireland's interests/secrets to the Elizabeth Bowen's wartime activities did not Kathleen says that "After all, Miss Bowen and de British in WWII, and, second, on the basis of a pass without comment from two of the principal Valera, whatever their differences, were both aware fleeting, frustrated remark, that she hated Ireland. speakers. Ms Bowen was loyal to England at war, that the common enemy was fascism." When Mr Lane claims these were "the central but did not stop being Irish. She wasnot the only Irish I beg to differ. England went to war against focus of her relationship with Ireland", he is either person with shared or ambiguous loyalties. Germany, not fascism. Churchill had warmly being disingenuous or displaying his animus against Estimates vary for the number of Irishmen from welcomed fascism in Europe as the saviour of western a meritorious representative of the Anglo-Irish the South who joined the British forces, but there is civilisation and had hoped that, if it proved necessary, tradition, which some two-nations theorists would no dispute about the vast numbers who worked in a Hitler would have emerged in Britain. He went to like to see excommunicated altogether from the Irish Britain in wartime or the eight Victoria Crosses and war against Germany because as he graphically put nation and put down as English, quite out of kilter one George Cross awarded to men from this part of it in the 30s, "the Hun is either at your throat or at with today's pluralism and multiculturalism. the island. your feet," just as he would have put it during WWI. In 1948, Bowen said, "I regard myself as an Irish There is also no dispute about the astute manner De Valera did not share such sentiments. He had novelist. As long as I can remember I've been in which de Valera facilitated both this process and never welcomed fascism and had countered it extremely conscious of being Irish; even when I was 21 writing about very un-Irish things … All my life I've been going backwards and forwards between Ireland · Biteback · Biteback· Biteback· Biteback· Biteback· Biteback· Biteback· Biteback and England … but that has never robbed me of the strong feeling of my nationality." There is no sign of hating Ireland. It is generally accepted today that, within the Hidden history Or Hidden Agenda? limits of nationality defined by law, and she always qualified as Irish on that count, people should be free The following letter by Brian Murphy osb was submitted to the Irish Times to decide their own identity, not to have it on 9th November 2007, but failed to find publication posthumously confiscated from them by political ideologues. Dr Pat Muldowney's letter (October 29) on RTÉ's Hidden History programme (October Brian Girvin's book The Emergency: Neutral 23) was valuable at the time and has become of even greater importance subsequently. Ireland 1939-45 contains many debatable conclusions Dr Muldowney provided clear contemporary evidence that the two young members of but also useful new information. From this, it emerges the Pearson family, killed by the IRA at Coolacrease, Co Offaly, on June 30, 1921, had that Bowen wanted an acceptable excuse to travel to Ireland at the height of the war, and that the Irish high been killed for military, rather than, sectarian reasons. He then explained that his commissioner in London, John Dulanty, supported contribution to the RTÉ programme, on that matter, had been excised and that the her visit (unpaid) to Ireland to provide independent producers had persisted in portraying the killing of the Pearsons as a sectarian act. reports on the state of opinion. To give credit to Mr Since the publication of the letter, RTÉ, in the person of Niamh Sammon, director of Lane, he and the Aubane Society have done a public service in publishing some of her reports, despite the the programme, and Eoghan Harris, an influential voice on the programme, defended the lurid commentary accompanying them. depiction of the Pearson killings as sectarian on the Joe Duffy Liveline show (November Girvin assesses these reports, which were critical 5). of Churchill's more belligerent approach to Irish I would like to add to the evidence submitted by Dr Muldowney. neutrality, echoing the views of de Valera, Walshe, First, the testimony of Matilda Pearson, the victims' sister, is valuable. She asked the and the army chief of staff at that time. Bowen was sceptical of James Dillon, the one IRA raiders, who were burning the family home, why they were doing it and received the politician who wanted to involve Ireland in the war. reply, as recorded by herself, "Don't think we are doing this because you are Protestants. Dulanty's foreknowledge and encouragement of her It is not being done on that account." These words are taken from the King's County visit surely requires a reassessment of the theory she Chronicle of July 7, 1921, and are found in Alan Stanley's book on the Pearson family. This was some kind of traitor to her country and therefore not deserving to be considered Irish. was the book that inspired Ms Sammon to direct the programme on the Pearsons and was Britain and Ireland were not enemies. De Valera's used by Eoghan Harris to convey the idea the IRA were sectarian killers. Why, it seems policy during WWII was for Ireland to be vis-à-vis reasonable to ask, was this relevant evidence, from their own chosen source, ignored? Britain a "friendly neutral". Second, the positive interaction between Dáil Éireann and many Protestants during Bowen will be commemorated in a service at 1919-1921 provides conclusive evidence against the allegation of sectarianism. For 3.30pm on Sunday at St Colman's Church in Farahy. She will be honoured beside Bowen's Court, where example, the National Land Bank, created by the Dáil to tackle the issue of land, was her family lived for generations. If it had been left established by Robert Barton. Its leading directors were Erskine Childers and Lionel Smith standing when sold in 1959, though circumstances at Gordon. All three were Protestants. Is it credible that the Dáil would have put these men the time were not conducive to that, it would surely in charge of land reform, if they had wished to drive Protestants from the land? be a tourist attraction. It would also, like Strokestown House, provide a point of reference on the morals of Another example is provided by the Co-operative Society where, under the direction of landlords of Cromwellian descent, which Bowen Sir Horace Plunkett and George Russell, both Protestants, Catholic farmers worked herself wrote about. Dr. Martin ManserghTD, harmoniously. Another example is to be found with the Irish White Cross Society, founded Dáil Éireann in January 1921 with the explicit purpose of repairing the damages of war. That Michael Collins, a wanted man, was listed as a trustee did not prevent leading Church of Ireland NEITHER FASCISM NOR SAVING THE JEWS clergymen, the Jewish rabbi in Dublin, Dr Herzog, the Quaker James Douglas, and many WAS BRITAIN'S AIM (10.9.07) other Catholics and Protestants from working together. Pat Muldowney quite rightly points out that One could go on but sufficient has been said to enforce the case made by Dr Muldowney Britain did not go to war to defeat fascism (Letters, Sept 5). and to raise grave questions about RTÉ's programme. Are we dealing with a hidden history Churchill himself admitted as much in a famous or a hidden agenda? exchange with one of his generals, who bridled at returning the Cossacks to Stalin. The general argued that Britain had gone to war Pearsons: The Medical Evidence because of the sort of atrocity which certainly faced the returned Cossacks. The following letter from Malachi Lawless failed to find publication in the Irish Times Churchill did not argue (as he could have) that the Cossacks voluntarily sided with Hitler and deserved Niamh Sammon is correct in, her letter of Nov 24th, to highlight the importance of their fate. Instead, he called the general a fool for not evidence in establishing the historical truth of the killings at Coolacrease. In her documentary understanding that Britain had gone to war to restore film, broadcast by RTE.,Sen Eoghan Harris says the following re the above: "That's not an the balance of power in Europe, and for no other execution.That's an atrocity..... shooting them very deliberately in the genitals, in their reason. sexual parts, in their sexual organs; what it really says is... you are the other,you are an There is a subtle rewriting of history that suggests the Allies were trying to save the Jews. outsider,we hate you,go away and die" In fact, the Allies made no attempt to disrupt the Now the important fact in all of this is where they were shot. The medical evidence to railways on which the camps depended. There is evidence that news of the camps was the British Court of Enquiry at the time says the P earson brothers were shot in the groin, deliberately downplayed by the British government not the genitals.This is not rumour or lurid invention but the kind of cold unavoidable fact because it feared anti-Semitic sentiment would that is crucial to the difference between an atrocity and an execution. Ms Sammon, for some weaken the war effort if the truth were more generally reason, does not agree and included Sen Harris' statement in her film rather than sworn known. medical evidence. RTE broadcast this invention of Sen. Harris. I trust at least the Dail We owe Britain a lot for its stance against Hitler, just as we owe a debt to the old Soviet Union. But no Committee on Broadcasting, meeting this week, can get to the bottom of why and how this debt can obligate us to lie about the historical facts. was allowed to happen.It is important for public confidence in RTE. [Letter submitted 25th Tim O'Halloran, Dublin 11 November] More BITEBACK on page 28 NOT THE ONLY ONE (12.9.07) Not so. According to Jack Lane (Letters, Sept 5) and Dr SAVING THE JEWS: REWRITING HISTORY IS In fact, Dillon's view was shared by an earlier Martin Mansergh TD (Letters, Sept 6), former Fine NOTHING NEW (12.9.07) political associate, Frank MacDermot, a member of Gael leader and agriculture minister James Dillon In his letter headlined 'Neither fascism nor saving Dáil Éireann from 1932 to 1937 and Seanad Éireann was the only politician who wanted to involve Ireland the Jews was Britain's aim' (Sept 10), Tim O'Halloran from 1938 to 1942). J.A. Barnwell, Dublin 9 in Word War II. says "there is a subtle rewriting of history that

22 suggests the Allies were trying to save the Jews". people should be free to decide their own identity". And in 1945 the British Prime Minister said it had This is not such a recent phenomenon as Mr This is very true and Bowen was constitutionally an been within his rights to occupy Ireland if he had O'Halloran would think: it was already part of the Irish citizen by birth if she chose to exercise that right found it expedient. Bowen's espionage reports helped Nazi propaganda claim that the war between the two —but she did not. By the same token, I and millions him to decide it was not expedient. great Aryan nations, Britain and Germany, was a of others are legally British subjects being born here Mr. Mansergh obviously thinks that present-day result of the international Jewish conspiracy to take before 1948 but most do not exercise that right Britain would not be friendly with us if we tell the over the world. either. Nationality is not defined by law. Like home, truth about the past. He may be right. As Mr O'Halloran quite correctly observes, "the it is where the heart is and Bowen's heart was in Mr. Mansergh says that "Her choice of burial Allies made no attempt to disrupt the railways on England (and certainly not in Anglo-Ireland) and place in Farahy speaks for itself." Her husband Alan which the camps depended". she cannot and should not be robbed of that. She Cameron, who was certainly not Irish, had died at In fact, it has been reported that when such a simply adopted an Irish persona when necessary. Bowenscourt and was buried at Farahy in 1952. The suggestion was made, the then British Foreign It is regrettable and ironic that Martin actively estate was lost a few years afterwards including the Secretary, Anthony Eden, asked: "What should we helped to change the noble and generous aspect of house, Bowenscourt—which Virginia Woolf had do with all those Jews?" the Irish Constitution which guaranteed the once described as "a stone box". Over 20 years later Small wonder then that, as Mr O'Halloran puts it, opportunity of citizenship to all people born here. she (Bowen) wished to be brought back to be buried "news of the camps was deliberately downplayed by Jack Lane with him and if that was not possible to be buried the British government". Martin D. Stern, Salford with her mother in England. Perfectly normal things M7 4FQ to wish for, i.e.,—to be buried with one of those she ANGLO-IRISH WRITER WAS HELPFUL TO loved no matter where they were buried. A purely BOTH COUNTRIES (26.9.07) personal matter and not a political proclamation. WRITER DID AN EXCELLENT JOB IN HER Notwithstanding the offensive campaign over Mr. Mansergh might stick to the facts of her life 'SPY' REPORTS TO LONDON (17.9.07) many years by Jack Lane to blacken the memory of and leave her rest in peace in her afterlife. I can assure Martin Mansergh (Letters, Sept 9) Elizabeth Bowen, the holding of a Trevor/Bowen Or is nothing sacred in his fixation to renationalise that I have neither the inclination nor the power to weekend in Mitchelstown and the annual service at Elizabeth Bowen? Jack Lane excommunicate Elizabeth Bowen or anybody else Farahy show that many people in north Cork from anything they might wish to be. appreciate the area's association with a famous writer. What I seek to do is to make sense of Bowen's Having had the chance to consult a personal ILL-FOUNDED VENDETTA AGAINST WRITER activities during WW II. That is why I published her communication from Brian Girvin clarifying the WHO DID NOT BETRAY HER COUNTRY extant reports and while Martin describes my part of the text of his book on Irish neutrality, I find (6.11.07) comments on those as "lurid" I would describe them I was understating the position in saying that the I am not surprised that Jack Lane (Letters, as calling a spade a spade—just as her reports did. Irish High Commissioner in London, John Dulanty, October 8) is impervious to new evidence that his Was she a traitor to Ireland or a spy for England? had foreknowledge and approval of Bowen's visits vendetta against the memory of Elizabeth Bowen is I believe the evidence clearly supports the latter and to Ireland (Letters, September 9). ill-founded. There is simply no answer to the point as doing one's patriotic duty in time of war to the best According to Girvin, Dulanty pressed her case to that a mission that had the prior approval and of one's ability is normally a laudable thing I cannot travel and he was the person who suggested to support of the Irish High Commissioner in London see how I denigrate her as Martin claims. She did an Bowen that she offer her services to the Ministry of in June 1940 could not have been a betrayal of the excellent job. My admiration for her increases every Information as an unofficial correspondent. The fact interests of this country. time I read her reports. If Martin insists she was Irish that she was sponsored by Ireland's chief diplomat in Conor Lynch (Letters, October 9) is quite right then he is automatically making her a traitor which London—and her reports were helpful to the main that I disagreed fundamentally on radio with the is not considered very laudable and I would not cause of Irish neutrality as even Mr Lane anti-neutrality thesis in Brian Girvin's book on the dream of accusing her of that and have never done acknowledges—blows all the hate-mongering Emergency. That does not invalidate the information so. charges of treason and espionage sky-high. he has discovered in relation to Elizabeth Bowen. Martin invokes Brian Girvin's book "The "Unofficial correspondent" is a very accurate Given Ireland was neutral in World War II, by Emergency" in his case: "….the Irish High description of her work. Why not acknowledge in definition Britain and Ireland could not have been commissioner in London, John Dulanty, supported this era of excellent Anglo-Irish relations that she enemy nations in that context. If only a British her visit (unpaid) to Ireland to provide independent was helpful to both countries and that, in a sense, she invasion was to be feared or guarded against, perhaps reports on the state of opinion." However, Brian was an agent of both? Jack Lane would like to explain why Eamon de Girvin provides no actual evidence by Dulanty to Britain and Ireland were not enemies during Valera ordered the destruction of hundreds of files of support Martin's claims and the reference to an World War II, which is the other false premise. the Department of External Affairs on May 25, "unpaid" trip is actually by John Betjeman of the Indeed, there was a considerable coincidence of 1940, for fear they might fall into German hands British Embassy in Dublin. This latter reference interest, as evidenced by the close cooperation (Appendix 1 of Vol 5 of Documents of Irish Foreign indicates that the secret reports could not be the between the intelligence organisations in both Policy). matter in question here as the secret reports were countries and no obstacle was placed in the path of Which country bombed the North Strand in paid for by the British Government and the payments those who wanted to join the British or other forces. Dublin and whose submarines sank Irish merchant have been detailed by Heather Bryant Jordan in her Elizabeth Bowen declared herself as an Irish shipping, with considerable loss of life? biography, "Will the heart endure" (page 210). Martin national, which she was entitled to do, and that was If, nevertheless, Britain was, as alleged, the should keep up with the literature on this more than sufficient to make her so. Her choice of enemy, logically, does Jack Lane regret that Germany Of course, there is no doubt that Dulanty and burial place in Farahy speaks for itself. Dr Martin lost the war (as is hinted at in his North Cork everyone in the Irish Government would have Mansergh TD Anthology)? I do not have to renationalise Elizabeth welcomed all kinds of reports to London, open or Bowen, as Jack Lane never succeeded in secret, written and oral that helped ward off WRITER'S WARTIME ROLE: A QUESTION OF denationalising her. As for the plea to leave her to Churchill's desire to invade. But Bowen's reports rest in peace, who started this correspondence by SOURCES (9.10.07) were certainly not written for the benefit of the Irish objecting to a weekend in Mitchelstown being held government and they were not party to them. Martin Martin Mansergh refers to a private communication from Brian Girvin as proof that in her memory? I share the view of many that it is clutching at straws to try to prove otherwise. If the deserves to be cherished and vindicated. Irish government was in some way involved we Elizabeth Bowen's secret reports to the British government about Ireland during the war were not Underlying all of this is a habit of old-fashioned would surely have come across some copies ideological bullying, directed against a former ruling somewhere in Irish archives over the past 60 years. spy reports (Letters, 26 September). But a private communication is evidence of nothing. class that, post-independence, had become a Martin says "Britain and Ireland were not vulnerable minority. It is exemplified in the enemies." Was that why Ireland had to fight a war of The suggestion seems to be that Bowen was jointly commissioned by the British and Irish belligerent comment in the North Cork Anthology independence against England, and then a civil war that when Bowenscourt was destroyed and the insisted on by England? In 1940 Churchill denied governments to draw up these reports which the British Government marked 'secret' upon receipt of foundations dug up, "the difference that made to Ireland the right to neutrality. Irish independence Irish life was the addition of a good agricultural was a standing affront to him and Bowen's job was them, utilised them, paid for them and destroyed them after the War. And no copies have turned up in field". to advise him on the probable strength of Irish Jack Lane's dismissal of Bowenscourt, the Bowen resistance if he invaded. Irish archives. If "Britain and Ireland were not enemies during grave in Farahy and Anglo-Irish (ie, Protestant) He adds "De Valera's policy during WWII was Dublin as "a little piece of the English home counties" for Ireland to be vis-à-vis Britain a "friendly neutral". WWII" as Mr. Mansergh says then when did they cease to be enemies? Leaving aside the Six Counties, can only be described as vicious caricature, far Of course it was—friendly to everybody. That is removed from any spirit of pluralism or what neutrality means. Eamon de Valera was parts of Ireland were under forcible British occupation until the appeasement of 1938. The following year reconciliation. It is telling that the ideology behind pragmatic and sensible enough not to provoke any of so clear a demarcation was a positive inspiration to the major powers at war around him—just like all Ireland made preparations to meet England once again as an enemy. A British invasion was expected David Trimble and unionism at their most hard line. other neutrals. Dr Martin Mansergh TD He concludes that "It is generally accepted today daily in 1940 as my father and many others could testify as they trained in the LDF to counter it. They This correspondence is that, within the limits of nationality defined by law, now closed — Editor and she always qualified as Irish on that count, were not expecting the Germans in North Cork.

23 CHARACTER ASSASSINATION Lane regret that Germany lost the war (as is The Way p71). He does not say where his (LETTER SUBMITTED 11TH NOVEMBER 2007, hinted at in his North Cork Anthology". information about dumdums comes from. BUT NOT PUBLISHED) Nowhere in the Anthology do I say anything I suppose if the firing squad was using You are of course entitled to close a which even malevolent misrepresentation could captured ammunition it might have been correspondence at any point, but you are not present as support for the Nazis in the war. dum-dum. Long ago in the State Paper And I am amazed that any reputable newspaper entitled to introduce a fresh allegations of a Room of the British Museum I came across personal nature by one correspondent directed should give a politician space to assert that I against the other when doing so. This is what did, and then expect to get away with "closing the original typed copy of Memoranda you did on 6th November, when you allowed the correspondence". And Notes By Sir George Clarke While Martin Mansergh to assert that I was a "positive Most of the other matters in the Secretary Of The Committee Of Imperial inspiration to David Trimble" in his final correspondence are matters of opinion. These Defence, 1904-7. The following is from a sentence. That assertion is the reverse of the are not. They are indisputable matters of fact. Note of advice to the British delegates to truth. the Hague Conference On The Reduction The Irish Political Review, in which my Of Armaments: Editorial Note: Of great concern is the view of Trimble was expressed, opposed him "66B The Hague Conference at every stage of his political career, from his behaviour of the Editor of the Irish Examiner who assisted Mr. Mansergh by Notes On Subjects which might be Vanguard days to the time when as Unionist raised by Great Britain or by other leader he was subverting the Good Friday ending the correspondence after publishing Powers. Agreement from within, while being courted his lies. There is no recollection in living … by Martin Mansergh and his colleagues. This memory of a correspondence being closed II. Expanding Bullets is on public record in scores of critical articles, in the Examiner. The Editor should be An agreement to abstain from the especially during the years when Trimble was ashamed of himself. use of bullets which expand or flatten preventing the Agreement from functioning. The paper is seeking to make a mark easily in the human body… was signed Mansergh cannot produce a shred of evidence by 15 out of 26 Representatives at the in support of the accusation which he throws nationally and showed signs of being more open and fair than the other national papers last Hague Conference, Great Britain, out in his parting shot. Germany, United States, etc., His other piece of lying character in its letters and opinion pieces. That was short lived. dissenting. assassination is that I am a Nazi: "does Jack This Agreement, as drawn up, was evidently intended to forbid the use of the Dum-dum class bullet, while permitting the same effects to be obtained in other ways. We desire not to abandon the right to Land Grabbers? use expanding bullets in our small wars. There seems, however, to be no With regard to the killing of the Pearson suggest that the charge was false, but it is reason to oppose a complete brothers in Coolacrease, Co. Offaly in almost always arguable after an execution abandonment of all forms of expanding June 1921 there are a number of indisput- that it was a miscarriage of justice. But bullets in the case of civilized warfare. able facts of a general nature, and a handful that is not what the RTE programme The Powers might agree to prohibit of contemporary documents about the argued. What it did was set aside the their use when engaged in hostilities event —whose accuracy may be disputed indisputable facts of the situation and among themselves…" if conflicting evidence appears. present a world in which legitimate RTE gave its approval to a reconstruct- authority (the unelected Government) was The war against the Irish was a small ion of the event, by Niamh Sammon and confronted with an outbreak of criminality war, and the Irish were not considered to Fianna Fail-appointed Senator Eoghan motivated by land-grabbing and religious be engaging in civilised warfare. Harris, which simply ignored the both the bigotry, in which the land owned by the Stanley throws out another suggestion documentary evidence about the event Pearsons was grabbed by some of the that I had never heard of before: and the indisputable facts of the context in people who shot them. which the event took place. They assumed The Pearsons were shot so that their "A Roman Catholic man from Cadamstown (J. White), told us that the role of the omniscient author of a land might be grabbed, and they were shot the I.R.A. had adopted a quota for each novel who imagines the world which he in the genitals so that feelings of religious district, to be eliminated by a certain describes, and whose knowledge of events bigotry might be relieved. date. This may have applied to us" within that imaginary world is independent (p46; From a letter by Dave Pearson, a of such evidence as he cares to present in ALAN STANLEY younger brother of the men who were order to make a story. The RTE reconstruction was based on shot, written over 60 years after the event). The indisputable general facts are that a book published 84 years after the event in June 1921 there was in the 26 Counties by the son of a cousin of the Pearsons, How negligent of Peter Hart not to have a war between an elected Government and Alan Stanley. Stanley, too, treats activity seen that Republican GHQ allocated an unelected Government, which had not in support of the elected Government as extermination quotas of Protestants to even contested the election, and that the an outbreak of criminality inspired by Brigades! Pearson brothers were shot on the authority religious bigotry and land-grabbing. At Who allocated the quotes for the of the elected Government on a charge of the same time he maintains that the extermination of Protestants? Michael having acted in support of the authority of Pearsons were innocent—but innocent of Collins, I suppose. Assisted perhaps by the unelected Government. what? Of supporting legitimate authority Ernie O'Malley. All that is disputable with regard to this against criminals! Of being good citizens! He wants to have it every which way, R-R-REVOLUTION is whether the charge against the Pearsons I notice a review by Brendan O Cathaoir was well-founded. It is not disputable that but in the end that is not something that can be got. of a recently published memoir of Ernie they were shot by the Army of the elected O'Malley's: (IT Nov 24): "This memoir Government on a charge of having con- However he does not say they were provides an anti-dote to Coolacrease… spired with, and acted with, the unelected shot in the genitals. That is Sammon- An IRA atrocity on Offaly, however worth Government. Harris embroidery. What Stanley says is recording, was not representative… that there was a "barrage of dumdum Anything written by Ernie O'Malley is of The contemporary evidence does not rounds to the groin" (I Met Murder On value." 24 While preparing a book about the Young class had been disfranchised by the palpable and Keenan was soon Irelanders and Carlyle, I came across a establishment of representative local subjected to widespread intimidation. biography of John Mitchel by O Cathaoir government in 1898, and had given up the He was shunned, people refused to serve in which Mitchel, in mindless land after 1903. The Tory-Unionist ideal him in the local shops, and at night revolutionary phase, is admired, while the of a property-owning democracy came groups of young men gathered around stubborn, realistic, calculating reformer, close to being realised in Ireland through his home, banging saucepans… "In February 1915, 12 young men… Gavan Duffy, who refused to be provoked an alliance between William O'Brien's were literally dragged from their beds into wild revolutionary demagoguery, is vigorous but realistic land agitation and at 4 a.m.… by a party of 30 policemen dismissed as a mere bourgeois. Mitchel the Unionist Government of 'Bloody and taken to Carrickmacross barracks… was a more exciting writer, and a more Balfour'—which is another piece of Irish The Inniskeen United Irish League elegant one. He carries you away. Duffy history deleted by the revisionists. passed a resolution condemning the lodges you in the particularity of the high-handed and arbitrary action of the situation and makes you understand what This property-owning democracy police. Newspaper reports highlighted might be done and what is mere verbiage. wanted to govern itself, and voted to govern the “Inniskeen Sensation”… The circles which determined over itself. And the only reason there was an "The young men were released on generations which historical figures should Anglo-Irish War, and an IRA, was that the bail and bound over to the peace but the arrests did not have the intended effect. be kept alive and which should be British Government didn't want to let it Later in February, 44 new members discarded kept Mitchel alive and discarded govern itself. But to write down that fact were enrolled in the Iniskeen UIL. The Duffy both in verse and prose: plainly as the history of 1919-21—well, it local Ancient Order of Hibernians just wouldn't look good for Britain, would offered their support…; on St. Patrick's "You that Mitchel's prayer have heard, it? Day 1915, the Inniskeen AOH band “Send war in our time, O Lord!” planned to march down… to make a Know that when all words are said, point to Keenan but a large force of And a man is fighting mad, TERENCE DOOLEY police drafted in from Carrickmacross Something drops from eyes long blind; The appearance of Richard English, a and other outlying areas prevented the He completes his partial mind, revisionist mystifier, in Eoghan Harris's march… For a moment stands at ease, Coolacrease programme was not "James Meegan continued to harass Laughs aloud, his heart at peace." surprising. Terence Dooley's appearance Keenan. He was arrested and charged… Or something like that. in it was. While he claims somewhere to A resident magistrate was taken from have been influenced by David Fitzpatrick, Monaghan town to try his case. This Duffy is dull if literary excitement is Peter Hart etc, their influence is not evident simply added fuel to the flames… what you need. But it was Duffy who did in his books that I have read. He is a "Meegan was released on bail but things. And De Valera, who did things in historian while they are ideologically- the judicial system had been under- a later generation, followed on from Duffy inspired falsifiers. mined. At this stage the UIL [United In Inniskeen, 1912-1918: The Political Ireland League] decided to take matters rather than Mitchel, and has been dealt into its own hands by bringing the with accordingly. Our litterateurs, who Conversion Of Bernard O'Rourke (2004), he shows the development of O'Rourke, a interested parties to a specially back away 'moderately' from action when convened court of its own. Land courts the need for it arises, find solace from substantial Monaghan businessman, from were… nothing new in rural Ireland Mitchel in their studies. being a pillar of the Home Rule but it seems to have been some time I suppose O'Malley is Mitchel today. establishment in 1912 to becoming a Sinn since one was convened in south He made literature out of 'the revolution'. Feiner after 1914. The 'conversion' is not Monaghan and… this one was convened And Richard English, who contributed to a sudden emotional response to the 1916 as a consequence of the perceived failure the Coolacrease programme, and contrib- executions, but a gradual and reasoned of the official judicial system to settle utes to the academic task of removing the response to events after Redmond the matter. The court found in favour of committed the Home Rule Party to war on Meegan and ordered Keenan to 1918 Election from history, is "fascinated" relinquish his claim on the farm on by O'Malley, whom he has taken as the Germany. O'Rourke, a County Councillor and a receipt of payment of its market value, subject for his study of "the revolutionary which Keenan did" (p32-3). mind". And there is no doubt about it: Justice of the Peace, was in 1914 willing O'Malley, who came late to 'the revolution', to settle for Home Rule within Britain and Because of the way history has been unfortunately had a 'revolutionary mind'. the Empire. The trouble began when the written, not only by Fitzpatrick's He missed 1916 but helped to start what Home Rule Bill, after three years of counterfeit factory but by the preceding we call 'the Civil War'. conflict, was simultaneously enacted and generation, the significance of this incident suspended as a British wartime measure: will probably not be apparent to the reader. I grew up amongst people who a "O'Rourke became increasingly generation earlier had taken part in the uneasy by the fact that despite home The UIL was a land reform movement War of Independence, and I do not recall rule have been enacted, there were no developed by William O'Brien in the late that they spoke of it as the revolution. It immediate signs that Ireland was being 1890s when the factions into which the was for them a matter-of-fact business. treated any differently by the British administration. Local and national Parliamentary Party had been divided by Britain kept on trying to govern the country events in 1915 compounded his the Parnell affair were feuding with each when it had no right to, and it had to be suspicions. other. Under pressure from the UIL, the made stop. And I was not aware of any "The first of these concerned a local factions came back together under residue of Utopian expectations which agrarian conflict. In late 1914 Lawrence Redmond's nominal leadership. The UIL had been disappointed. Keenan purchased a farm at Keenogue then became the mass membership That is the history that has not been belonging to James Meegan that had organisation of the Party, while continuing written—not since Dorothy Macardle I been sold by the Land Commission to play an active part in agrarian reform suppose—certainly not by revisionists, because Meegan had defaulted on his when the situation required it. The who must make it "visionary" in order to payment of annuities… Keenan had Parliamentary leaders had little concern disparage it. taken over what was effectively an evicted farm and since the Land War with agrarian affairs, and they even Insofar as there was a revolution, in the days, anybody who did this was usually obstructed the great reform of 1903, sense of a social turnabout, it had already held in great odium by the local because their minds were on the high happened by 1910. The colonial landlord community. Local resentment was politics of Home Rule. But it was the UIL 25 that gave the Party a continuous presence for many years. O'Rourke was in fact a Kipling, Connolly & The Kaiser (Part Two). in the country at large. leading industrialist whose contribution Joe Keenan The Party was called simply The Party, to Irish industry at a national level was Irish Veto On India Joining Nuclear Club. David Morrison but it was either more or less than a party. as significant as his contribution to Irish politics at a local level" (p57). Venezuela & The Bolivarian Revolution (Part In conjunction with the UIL it constituted Two). Mark Langhammer both the politics and civil society of a This is a long way from the picture of Big Jim's 60th Anniversary. David Morrison burgeoning state, and it was accustomed Cathal O'Shannon At War. Brendan Clifford Republican Ireland as a criminal move- to do things that in England were not Labour Comment: Ireland Can Snore Away within the competence of a political party. ment of land grabbers and religious bigots With Labour. Then, in Monaghan in 1915, with Home presented by Niamh Sammon, Eoghan Harris and RTE. April 2007 Rule on the Statute Book, instead of being Bread And Butter Politics. Editorial drawn into closer collaboration with the Brendan Clifford To Be Continued Paul Bew: Thoughts On His Elevation. Dublin Castle administration in prepar- Jack Lane ation for the implementation of the Statute, Israeli Defence Force (Reflections On it found itself being set aside. So it Palestine, Part 3). Conor Lynch reasserted itself in its UIL dimension, INDEX Clash Of The Titans. Geraldine Kennedy vs. cibtubci bcontinued Aengus Fanning (Report) stymied the operation of Castle law, and Shorts (Worst Health Minister; Sindo settled matters with its own Court. Case; Defamation Law; Spain; Holocaust Cartoons) Campaign; IT 'Debate'; Socialism & Thoughts On Life, Death, And Funerals. Republicanism; French Presidential Election; That was the beginning of O'Rourke's Jack Lane Next French President) transition towards Sinn Fein—before the Dermot Desmond Statement. Report Unionist Vote Falls By 3.7% to 48.8%. Sinn Fein Party that won the 1918 Election A Patriotic Freemason At The Irish Times. David Morrison Republican Dissidents & The Election. had been formed. Then one thing led to Manus O'Riordan How The Irish Press Was Financed. David Seán McGouran another. Election Tit-Bits. Report It was announced in September 1917 Alvey Shorts (Housing Market; French Politics; Bono Editorial Commentary (Mahon Tribunal; Peter that O'Rourke was to be the Sinn Fein & National Identity; Ireland's Nazis) Mandelson; Northern Bank Raid; Omagh candidate in the General election, but in Kingdom Of Evil. B. Michael (report) Bomber; Community Policing; FF & North; March 1918 he announced that he would Kingdom Of Evil. B. Michael (Report) Loyalists & Funding; Liam Kennedy; Lynch not stand. South Monaghan was one of Barnardo And The White Commonwealth. & FitzGerald) Eamon Dyas Michael Cusack & Jewry. Manus O'Riordan the constituencies where the Home Rule Correction. Andy, Not Kim Bielenberg. Party was still a serious contender and it No Need For A Needle Search In A Hay Stack. Manus O'Riordan The Family And Children's Rights. Seamus was possibly thought that it would be best Kipling, Connolly & The Kaiser (Part One). Lantry for Sinn Fein to put up a candidate who Joe Keenan Cruise O'Brien On YeatsÖAnd "Herr Hitler". had no involvement in local disputes. Sean Institute For Workers' Control (Part Two). Manus O'Riordan McEntee stood and defeated T.J. Campbell Conor Lynch Kilmichael Yet Again Brendan Clifford Has Sinn FÈin Become The SDLP? Pat Walsh Molly Keane & The Critics. Julianne Herlihy (future leader of the 6 County Nationalist Closing Down Schools. Mark Langhammer Party) by a substantial, but not crushing, Venezuela & The Bolivarian Revolution (Part One). Mark Langhammer (Speech to the Irish Association) majority. Labour Comment: ICTU Oppose Tax A Cork Pogrom's Excluded Friday Night. Thereafter— Avoidance Schemes Manus O'Riordan "O'Rourke involved himself in the The Jesuit Republic: An Affront To Reason. administrative side of the revolution. March 2007 Pat Muldowney By mid-1919 the emerging counter state Northern Ireland:óBeyond The Fringes Irish Bomb Expert Takes On The Taliban. had significant financial commitments. Editorial David Morrison In September of that year, Michael In The Matter Of Albert Luykx And Flemish Labour Comment: The Law Is An Ass; ICTU & Business Expansion Scheme; ICTU & Collins launched the Dail loan… From Nationalism. Albert Luykx My Week In Iran. Desmond Fennell Nuclear Issue; Immigration: Forgotten Irish October 1919 to the end of January, by Nick Nolan O'Rourke collected £766 for the Dail The Casement 'Black Diaries'. Roger Shaw loan from just about every businessman, Editorial Commentary (SF Ard Fheis; Paisley May 2007 Then and Now; British? Conservative And small farmer and labourer in Warding Off The Inevitable? Editorial Inniskeen… By September 1920, he Unionist; R. McCord; UDA; Finucane; Collusion Report; 'Cold House'; NI Justice Peter Hart: A Last Gasp? Jack Lane had successfully raised over £5,700 Politicians And Pacifism (Reflections On throughout Monaghan, the most Ministry; Policing Devolution; PSNI & GAA; N. Bank Raid; MI5; CRJ; Oir. NI Palestine, Part 4). Conor Lynch successful contribution from Ulster." Ctte; All-Ireland Economy; Downey; Roger Casement (Reply To Roger Sawyer). Tactical Targetting; Flood Trib; S. Tipp; Tim O'Sullivan His house was raided and documents Mansergh; IT Misleads; PD Ethics; Blow Editorial Commentary (SDLP Hibernianism; relating to the loan discovered and he To Partnership; Labour/FF Coalition; Piano UUP Reincarnation; Sir Kenneth spent a few months in jail in Belfast. In Music Books; Gaelic; Rural Housing) Bloomfield; Electoral Weight; PUP Shorts (Run Rabbitte Run; Latest Trick; Reassured; R.D. Edwards on Paisley; Bertie 1922 he supported the Treaty. He was a Ahern; Irish Buses For UVF?; MI5 No Free State Senator from 1922 to 1938, and L'Exception Francaise; Health Service Shambles; The Beginning And End) Role-Model For FBI; Finian McGrath v. a Monaghan County Councillor until 1945. Ireland Helps Israel Military Complex. McDowell; Mattie McGrath, Tipperary Tim O'Sullivan (Letter) North; Daniel Cohn-Bendit) "By 1920, O'Rourke's solicitor could Das Kapital: A Critical Appreciation. Report claim that his client was “probably the Reflections On Palestine (Part Two). Conor Lynch of Book Launch wealthiest man in the county”. In 1920, Shorts (The Irish Times' Ideological Struggle; his Inniskeen and Dundalk mills were Iran & Nuclear Development. David Morrison (Report) The Irish Times' Political Struggle; The Irish prospering; he was the largest Recognising Israel. David Morrison (Letter) Times' Struggle Against Reality; The shareholder in Beleek Pottery… of Irish Destiny And A Jewish Victim Named Independent Group's Campaign; French which he was also managing director; Manus O'Riordan Presidential Election) and he was a shopkeeper and extensive Workers' Control Comments: a reply. Conor Harry Boland Was Murdered By The IRB (To farmer. Some years later he expanded Lynch Be Or IRB? Part 6). Manus O'Riordan his businesses to Dublin and he became Sinn Féin And Policing (Ard Fheis Resolution). Faulty Official Irish. Ted O'Sullivan a founder of Arklow Pottery of which Slavery Anniversary. Editorial Kevin Myers: a study of 'exceptionalism' in he was chairman and managing director Ruari Quinn Begs Some Questions. Jack Lane free fall. Nick Folley 26 Arrogance, Hypocrisy And Blind Partiality. Language Education. Pádraig Mc Sculpture; Global Warming; Dollars & David Alvey Fhearghusa. Guns; Pheasant-Shooting; Atonement) Ireland: Now And Then. Brendan Clifford Labour Comment: Immigration: US Debates— Old Irish And The Market (Part Two). John Labour Comment: Supreme Court Judgement Ireland Flounders; War Planes For Some— Minahane In Breach Of ILO Conventions. Fun For Others. The Professor And The Prince. Pat Walsh Labour Comment: Two Views On When And June 2007 August 2007 Why Labour Lost Boat And Vote; Eamon "The Greatest Nation On Earth". Editorial Something Rotten In The State. Editorial Gilmore byConor Lynch; Union Officials v. Remember 62 (election of 24th. June 2007). The Pain Of Democracy For The Irish Times. Elected Reps. byTom Doherty; What Left Editorial Jack Lane For The Left In Northern Ireland by Mark A Post-Election Coup. Editorial A Visit To Iran: Part One, The British Influence. Langhammer Irish Times Suppresses Debate. Cathal Brugha Conor Lynch (Letters) Readers' Letters (T. O'Sullivan on Casement; October 2007 Editorial Digest (Albert Reynolds; Harold Mick Maloney on coming radio programmes; ForwardsTo ? 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Conor Lynch 'Atonement: Ethnic Cleansing In The Geese; Robert Nairac; John Kelly; Crumlin The Great Debate (Ahern v. Kenny on Midlands'. Pat Muldowney Rd. Jail; Fake Guns; A Gas Of A Peace; television). July 'Errata'. Who Made The World?) Irish Men And England's Wars. Seán IRB Corrections & Questions From Joe Tokyo, 1945. General Curtis LeMay (Report) McGouran McCullough. Manus O'Riordan What Is To Be Done, Part Two, The Responses. The Irish Times Campaign Against Bertie Old Irish & The Market. John Minahane Joe Keenan Ahern. IPR Group Press Release Back In The Box. Wilson John Haire Unpublished Letters On President McAleese. Preventing The Future (Part 2 of reply to Prof. Collusion & A 'Truth Commission' In N.I. Conor Lynch & Joe Keenan Garvin). Brendan Clifford Niall Meehan (Unpublished Letter) Shorts (Irish Times Ideological Struggle; Irish Shorts (Irish Times: 1. Opinion Poll Strategy; RTE Gives Madame A Dig-Out. David Alvey Times Immigration Policy; A Christian 2. Corruption Strategy; French Election The Irish Times Must Be Held To Account. Newspaper; Damage Limitation; O'Toole's Special) IPR Group Press Statement Soap Opera) A Brief Summary Of "Bertiegate". Biteback: Reports On Iraq And Palestine. David Old Irish And The Market (Pt Three). John Labour Comment: The Nursing Dispute And Morrison Minahane) After; The Mid Cork Election Ballad Of On Nationalist Ideology. John Martin All-Ireland Politics. Report D.D. Sheehan. The Two Tiers Of The Irish Nationalist Mind. Jumping The Black Pig's Dyke. Joe Keenan Desmond Fennell Roy Johnston's Memoirs. Seán McGouran July 2007 Hornes On Display. Report (Book Review) Government Wins. Opposition Undefeated? fDoes It Stack Up. Michael Stack (Marianne Dev's Refugee Policy (Part 2 of "Ireland's Editorial Elliott; Christians Today; Tribunals) Nazis"). Manus O'Riordan Eyeless Towards Gaza. Editorial Judge Unionism & ZionismóSame Struggle? Se·n Bowen, Lane And Mansergh. Julianne Herlihy Mahon's Tribunal. Michael Stack McGouran Jottings. Brendan Clifford Irish Labour Party. Report (of Eoin Dillon The Indo's Guilt Complex. Se·n McGouran Labour Comment: The Heart Of The Celtic letter) Labour Comment: The Duodecimo Tiger? Renditions Report. Report Demosthenes, an obituary of John Wilson The Casement 'Black Diaries'. November 2007 Roger Sawyer (Letter) September 2007 Coolacrease. Brendan Clifford Mahon And The Leaks. Editorial Note Culture vs. Politics. Editorial Ireland Is In The Imperialist Camp. David Palestine Update. Conor Lynch Jihad. Crusade Colonisation. Editorial Morrison Allah Akhbar (Reflections On Palestine, Part A Visit To Iran: Part Two, Ethnicity And Boycotting The Cenotaph. Conor Lynch 6). Conor Lynch Nationalism. Conor Lynch Letters To The Editor (Headscarves In Iran, President On Religious Freedom In Iraq. Letters To The Editor (Romantic View Of FF? Desmond Fennell; Casement 'Black Diaries', Manus O'Riordan (Report) Reader (Co. Meath); China G.M. Williams; Roger Sawyer; Instant Revolution? Ivor Why A United Ireland Has Lost Its How Ireland Reached The End Of History I. Kenna) Significance. Desmond Fennell Kenna) ConquestPolitik. Nicollo Machiavelli A Curate's Egg (Review of Fennell's 'Behaving Harris In The Seanad. Jack Lane Seán O'Casey's Songs Against Sommery. Normally'). Jack Lane Shorts (Labour Debate; Celtic Tiger; Fianna Manus O'Riordan Shorts ('Destruction' Of Book Of Kells; Green Fail; The Irish Times Opposition; The Irish Shorts (Irish Times: Self Parody; English Party; PDs; Labour Party; FG; FF; Irish Times Refuge); Sacco & Vanzetti. Report of Language; The Law; Times; Long Fellow Was Wrong! ) l'Humanité tribute (trans. J. Martin) The State Broadcaster; New 'Creative Age'; Labour Representation: Some Background. Press Freedom: The Right To Misrepresent? New Allies? 'Nuff Said) Brendan Clifford Editorial End Of History. Hamid Dabashi (Report) Unionism & The Academic Boycott Of Israel. Hidden History Of 'Ireland's Nazis'. Manus The Killings At Coolacrease. Pat Muldowney Se·n McGouran O'Riordan (Report) Mahon Transcripts. Report IRB Corrections & Questions From Joe Editorial Digest (Dana; Bus Tours; Martin The Irish Times And "Herr Hitler": A McCullough. Manus O'Riordan Meehan; MI5; UDA; 1641; Postscript. Manus O'Riordan Getting Sophistication (Report, Trevor/Bowen Seagate; RUC Resignations Hornes On Display. Report Summer School). Julianne Herlihy Tokyo, 1945. General Curtis LeMay A Michael O'Riordan Letter On History & Hubert Butler Society Goes American. David (Report)Seán O'Hegarty. Peter Beresford Politics. Manus O'Riordan Alvey Ellis (Review, Report) World War Commemorations: Edward What Is To Be Done! Joe Keenan Hands Off Venezuela. Horgan; Jack Lane; Tim O'Sullivan (Letters) Editorial Digest (Northern Victims; O'Loan Coolacrease And The Pearsons. Daithi O Ersatz Intelligentsia. Brendan Clifford Insulted; Empey On Democracy; G a y hAilibhe (Report) Editorial Digest ((Election Quirks; British Derry; Shankill Welcome!; End Of Philosophy Of Nationalism. Brendan Clifford Labour; Problems For Caitriona Ruane; Sctarianism?; Carson; Limerick) (Book Review) Famine March; Hayes & Bloody Sunday The Indo's Guilt Complex (Part Two). Se·n High Court Ruling Against Irish Times Enquiry; Equality Commission) McGouran Deserves Support. (Irish Political Review Wrong Move From Fianna Fail On Irish Does It Stack Up. Michael Stack (Education?; Group Press Statement)

27 Kevin Myers' Niche. Seán McGouran Hezbollah Denied Entry To Ireland. David · Biteback · Biteback· Biteback· Biteback· Biteback· Biteback· Biteback· Biteback Morrison Labour Comment: Corporatism And Trade Unionism Political Legitimacy? Labour Comment is edited by Pat Maloney Shorts is by The Long Fellow The following letter has been submitted to the Sunday Independent by Daithi O hAilbhe …Where did legitimacy lie? Everything about the Pearsons story depends on the answer to that question. Since this state owes its existence to the first Dail and the IRA, conservatism should Chipping away at favour a perspective sympathetic to the IRA. That is not to say that the anti-IRA perspective is wrong, only that its advocates have all the work to do in making a case Ireland's sovereignty against the institutions that pioneered democratic self-government in this state. While the documentary included contributions from people on both sides of the debate, The following appeared in the Irish it avoided the issue of political context and it failed to mention key evidence like the British Examiner of 12th November 2007 Court of Inquiry. Its intent from beginning to end was to win sympathy for the Pearsons. As the producer of the documentary, Niamh Sammon could have presented the evidence in a way that allowed people to think for themselves, but that would not have achieved the The National Day of Commemoration moral effect she needed. That would not have landed the necessary political punch. [Letter —on the first Sunday of July each year to submitted 25th November.] remember those Irish who fell during both world wars and on service with the United Nations—is most welcome. War Crime? The barbarism inflicted on our great- The following letter has been submitted to the Sunday Independent by Jack Lane grandparents' generation during the Great War is at last being given official State Brendan Cafferty goes to the heart of matter as regards the Coolacrease executions. He recognition on this day. does not accept the legality of what was done and describes it as a war crime. (Letters, 25 November). He is quite logical in that he denies the legitimacy of the Irish State and It is important that the memory and therefore the right of its army to defend it (or indeed its right to exist) despite the sacrifice of these men is protected from overwhelming result for Sinn Fein in the 1918 election and the subsequent unanimous those would make political mischief out Declaration of Independence in 1919 by the those elected. Crimes are committed by of them. Honouring the Irish war dead criminals. Who exactly are the criminals in this situation? And how can they be brought should not be confused with honouring to justice? Mr. Cafferty should tell us. [Letter submitted 27th November.] the British Army. It is disappointing, therefore, that there is still a persistent campaign aimed at Aubane Historical Society forcing the full participation of the Irish State in the annual Remembrance Sunday And The Irish Times ceremonies of the Royal British Legion. After the AHS was denounced by the Irish Times (by columnist David Adams), This was further highlighted by the Jack Lane wrote in to protest. His letter did not find publication unveiling of a plaque in Galway recently You have yet again denounced The Aubane Historical Society in your issue of 10th to commemorate Galway's Great War November (‘Diehards reveal true colours’) comparing us unfavourably with professional dead. An Irish Army colour party was in historians. The Society and its friends must confess to lacking the skill of popular attendance, as was the British Ambassador, professional historians such as Peter Hart in interviewing the dead as displayed in his work David Reddaway, and Gaeltacht Minister on the Kilmichael Ambush. Éamon Ó Cuív. We live in a remote rural townland where the dead do not give interviews and we What an unusual country we have confine ourselves to republishing material of this world which the UDA and the become. Our army and Government professionals have neglected, such as Gavan Duffy’s Conversations with Carlyle, the participate in events to commemorate the poems of Eoghan Rua O'Sullivan and Piers Ferriter, a study of Edmund Burke, a survey armed forces of our former colonial of the authorship of Shakespeare, an account from contemporary sources of the Parnell overlords. Ireland is changing the way it split and the collapse of the Home Rule Party in Cork in 1910, Redmond-Howard on the projects itself politically and symbolically 1916 Rising, Elizabeth Bowen's wartime reports to Whitehall and about fifty more publications. in order to accommodate aspects of political Britishness. This process manifests itself in the Coolacrease And Irish Political Review acceptance of titles and awards by Irish citizens from the British monarch. In The following reply to misrepresentation of this magazine addition, monuments to Sir Francis Drake failed to find publication in the Irish Times and Queen Victoria have recently been Re David Adams' column (9th November), the Irish Political Review published, from erected here. This is an infringement on the British state archives, documentary evidence that the effective owner of the Irish Irish sovereignty and an attack on the Times, Major MacDowell, conducted the paper in secret consultation with Whitehall in republican and egalitarian ethos of the critical year of 1969. Bunreacht na hÉireann. Is it not time that I do not know what David Adams means by saying those documents "stand up to no the Irish Government stood by the examination". I am aware of no examination of them by Adams or anyone else in the Irish Republic? Times. Eileen Courtney (Editor) Tom Cooper

28 REPORT continued Chief Executive Officer, add aggravation to boring on the self-same spot. The Bangor the malady. He went on to outline the pitiable Erris plight has now got international lack of stroke units in the country and the attention and offers of support from several The SWP must be mellowing from when slowness in the rollout of breast cancer countries. I encountered them before. Refreshingly, screening checks. Politicians increasingly they identified themselves during the let it be known that they cannot interfere Ideas that emerged were as follows: meeting and declared they did not want to with the work of the Health Service Executive recording of more hard facts and suggest- direct People Before Profits in Ireland and (HSE) or other agencies. It may be about ions from those at the coal face, e.g., in the were not going to suggest introducing time an organised movement brought their Health Sector from employees, carers and democratic centralism to this nascent criticism and demands to the door of the parents of children with special needs, etc. movement. Well at least they won't strangle agencies themselves. As we were warned Registration of people's housing needs. It the new arrival at birth, I postulated. about our lack of impact if we are frag- was argued that many political actors had The two main speakers were Maura mented, many excellent contributions from left the pitch where one might question the Harrington, a teacher and Shell 2 Sea cam- the floor were raised. One nurse talked about very basis of Government and those paigner from North Mayo where locals who how her skilled and able unit was basically activising the transformation ought to be have faith in their own selfworth and basic undermined, reduced and ultimately halved obliged to fill the space. rights have been conducting an eight-year in impact over the last three years. This was struggle against the chosen site location for at a time when there was no discussion about Networking was essential between people Shell to bring their major gas option ashore cuts and the policy makers were formulating in different job sectors, activists, volunteers in our near Atlantic and the placing of a high the extremely expensive capital structures and users of County Council services. County pressure pipe of unfiltered gas through farms of co-location and the public private Council power both in elected office and the where proximity to domestic dwellings is partnerships. unelected officials to be held to public seriously inappropriate. Alongside her was accountm if necessary making our own Richard Boyd-Barrett of the Socialist There was plenty of time for questions media in the process. Also, it was felt certain Workers' Party, who is also an official and comments before the speakers' closing that the activity of citizens between elections spokesman for the Irish Anti-War group. remarks. Boyd-Barrett touched on the is what is most important. Some of the more housing situation facing young couples on experienced political attenders on the night Maura talked about the many overlapping ordinary means, the back-tracking by admitted that they all had made mistakes in facets of her campaign, introducing several Government in modest attempts to alleviate the past. titbits of information which were certainly the worst trends in the property market and This writer was hopeful we may now be new to me. One gem was the fact: resistance negligence in provision by the local into a new chapter going beyond phases to Shells chosen preferred scheme was able authorities. It was pointed out that many when some were obsessed with selling a to be easily bypassed by a mechanism called County Councillors who voted for particular paper and others spent all their the Strategic Management Bill of July, 2003. inappropriate developments went on to make time getting elected to various worthy Strange how such legislative development speeches about the tragedy of such decisions organisations in order to promote their own gets such little coverage or scrutiny through once they were safely secure in Dail Eireann. personal profile. Perhaps this is a growing the aegis of the mainstream media. As Maura He also touched off the Shannon Airport up for some of us of a certain generation. herself pointed out she and her neighbours issue, concerning military use; pointing to There was a time now long passed when have had to do a lot of learning themselves the irony of Aer Lingus pulling the economic students' unions in this country were over the last number of years. Beyond the carpet under the Mid-West region, where in dominated by Lefties. consistency of politicians; standards in the past such outcomes were forecast as the journalism and public crisis fatigue, there result of Anti-War Planes actions. Now that At one time people put faith in journalism has been gathering of knowledge about there are storm clouds gathering over Iran, as a ray of hope for some future societal elected legislators but more important the need to rekindle Anti-War work was development. We now read between the unelected agencies making daily critical agreed as being of critical importance. media's lines, confront it, and at times make decisions that affect all our lives. it so that we are impossible to ignore. The Amongst other tactics observed have been Maura Harrington had a lot of optimism. next couple of years have the capacity to be public relations overdrive, manufacture of She pointed out that in 2005, a Davitt League very interesting for this loose mature initial local pro-industry lobbies, the practice of was mobilised in response to the increasingly movement influenced by the traditions of multi-national corporations wheeling out irrelevant nature and the culture of back- the Left but not trapped by it. Various layers so-called objective experts to quell the slapping at the Humbert Summer School. of interaction along with multiplicity of capacity for disquiet on a sometimes naive Issues of the Ray Burke era when the natural tactics would seem to be the sensible public. resources of the nation were allowed to slip approach. Also, the pattern of delaying tactics out of the country's control are coming into whereby the Corporation can play a long focus again in the light of recently revealed In time some of the smaller Left parties war to undermine the morale of Bangor extensive oil and gas finds in our territorial may choose to officially affiliate inc. Irish Erris residents including through the courts waters on the continental shelf. She also Socialist Network, Irish Republican Socialist interspersed with sudden flashes of State explained how a responsible and Party, Eirigi as well as the already discussed aggression where Gardai on several empowering partnership had evolved Socialist Workers' Party and a number of occasions have, to say the least, been heavy- between the local farmers and people from Independents who are seen as of the Left. handed in confronting lines of peaceful outside who had come to help. They were Electoralism may be one of the planks but protesters. I will leave it to the reader to be comfortable enough to discuss politics must not be fetishised. Cork people have cognitive as to whether all this is a series of together as well as other topics while being shown that they still have respect for coincidences and unfortunate misunder- wise enough to realise they did not need to themselves and can only be pushed so far. standings. agree on everything. Ironically, an ecology Possibly, we are learning to be discursive Boyd-Barrett identified the health service driven campsite accused by the Mayo County without being side-lined into absolutist as an area in crisis. Extra A Grade managers, Council of damaging the environment had debate which gives the excuse to micro an Executive with no patient representative to move location. Afterwards, Shell were groups to wallow in obscurity and bitterness. or union people, along with the bonus to the caught and stopped carrying out illegal John Ryan

29 LABOUR continued LABOUR is suing outside advisers over "The new NEC membership is: Paul Dillon the handling of its pensions fund. (Dublin South); Brendan Carr (Dublin Central); During a briefing on the party's finances, Ted Howlin (Wexford); Ray Kavanagh (Dublin quite often, indeed, with shirking the delegates were told accounts were in the South East); Peter Keaney (Longford hard work involved in thinking of any black but that more fund-raising was Westmeath); Kathleen Lynch (Cork North kind. These options are not open to a Central); John McGinley (Kildare North); left-of-centre party. It has to stand for needed ahead of upcoming elections. They Marie Maloney (Kerry South); Jack O'Connor something. But what? were also told court proceedings had been (Kildare South); Seán Ó Hargáin (Carlow/ "Ever since the fall of communism, started following "errors on behalf of Kilkenny); Donna Pierce (Dún Laoghaire); efforts at revision and rethinking by professional entities" (Evening Echo, Mary Quinn, (Meath East); Marie Sherlock centre-left parties have been a Cork, 19.11.2007). (Dublin Central); Henry Upton (Dublin South spectacular failure. This has not ****************************************************************************** Central) and Labour Youth member Neil Ward prevented them from attaining FORMER Cork Senator Brendan Ryan (Dublin North Central)." (Irish Times, government office in several countries. has failed in his bid to become the new 22.11.2007) Significantly, however, by far the most Labour Party chairman. successful, and also by far the most Mr Ryan contested an election against right-wing, has been New Labour in Unity on the Left Britain under both Tony Blair and Waterford TD Brian O'Shea to take over Gordon Brown. Merely to mention from former Kerry TD Breeda Moynihan Cronin. Tony Blair's name in Irish Labour Report Of People Before Profits Meeting circles is enough to provoke a contempt- Meanwhile, Cork North Central TD uous response. Kathleen Lynch and Máire Sherlock, the Occasionaly, the Left or rather the small "But not many party activists would sister of Cork East TD Seán Sherlock, Lefts gather to consider the state of the like to turn the derision onto themselves were both elected to the party's ruling world. One such occasion happened in Cork by advocating public ownership of the National Executive Committee. on October 17, 2007. Before considering the means of production, distribution and ****************************************************************************** attitude of the top table or the range of exchange. "The party booked the three-day contributions from the floor it is worth noting "This is the dictionary definition of socialism. It is not Bertie Ahern's conference before the outcome of the what questions were posed on definition. election was known. It should have commencement of the gathering. "In point of fact, Bertie has never been a triumphant review of six months Some times beginnings in such meetings defined his own socialism. He has in Government. Instead, there's an can put one off completely or lead to simply explained, in his unique way, inevitable element of navel-gazing and confusion or frustration. In fairness, the that when he called himself a socialist pondering where it all went wrong." questions posed represented a more mature he did not mean he was a socialist." (Evening Echo, Cork, 19.11.2007). reflection than I had often experienced with (James Downey, Irish Independent, ****************************************************************************** the small Left in the past. Do we really live 19.11.2007). PARTY delegates blocked an attempt to in a democracy? Are we really protected by change its title from a democratic the police? In terms of the broad number of The future of Labour, as an idea, socialist party to that of a social regulatory state agencies what is the limit of as a community, is now in the hands democratic party. their competencies? of the Trade Union movement : it The move was proposed by the Dublin More important, I suggest why we the south-east constituency (and backed by general public might not alter or abolish will receive little support from the Ruairi Quinn) but was rejected by a some of these agencies and make them all Labour Party. large majority. Michael D Higgins made the more accountable. Later in the discus- ****************************************************************************** a passionate speech defending the sion there would be an expansion of the "The new party leader put in a very party's socialist stance, arguing that consideration of moving from an impres- assured maiden performance. He "social democratic" was a label for sion of current predicaments to a point, decided not to deliver a speech which the party would be very where we may as citizens be moved to act in attacking the Government, steering vulnerable to attack. a manner that is structured to work for away instead from negative comment. ****************************************************************************** change but while retaining freedom, diversity Perhaps he could have been a bit more "Henry Haughton, one of the longest- and open communication. violent in his approach and less lavish serving members of the Labour Party's with the earnest aspirations. The biggest National Executive Council (NEC), has The meeting was called by People Before cheer of the night came when he lost his place on the body after a recount, Profits (PBP), a group until recently seen as thundered: "Éamon de Valera would following difficulties with the original a front for the Socialist Workers' Party but never had taken fistfuls of cash in a count during last weekend's annual which may have the potential to evolve into conference. something more than this. The PBP title suitcase." (Miriam Lord, Irish Times, "The result of Sunday's election to 19.11.2007). seems to be borrowed from the post-Seattle the NEC in Wexford was challenged by protest movement worldwide which sought *************************************************************************** one of the losers, Brendan Carr, who to counteract the Global Corporate message "Cork South West Senator Michael learnt that he had been defeated only hours after he had been told he was of no alternative to neo-liberalism—with McCarthy argued that the party needs the idea that our world is not for sale. The to remain true to its core values. elected. "However, Mr Carr was elected in idea of self-education being combined with "Ireland needs, now more than ever, rallies and mass mobilisation whenever a party which places at its core the yesterday's recount, along with another values of equity and fairness. And candidate who was deemed defeated WTO or the International Monetary Fund inequality no longer affects just last Sunday, Ted Howlin, brother of met has been ongoing ever since and has working class people; lest we believe former minister, Brendan, in place of progressed through Genoa and across the inequality is ghettoised. Inequality is Mr Haughton and Adrian Kane. globe. Loosely arranged, it keeps a now clearly evidenced in the middle "Last night, Labour Party figures communications system based on the internet said that Mr Haughton, who is unhappy classes in society as well. One would and other Twenty-First Century methods of do well to remember this," said Senator with the way transfers were distributed, has “reserved his right” to launch a moving messages to a generation which McCarthy. (Evening Echo, Cork, takes such technology for granted. 17.11.2007). legal challenge to the outcome of the ****************************************************************************** vote. continued on page 29 30 LABOUR continued SUNDAY BUSINESS POST movement from which the party sprang a century ago. "However, "Penrose's frustration is "We should avoid reading too much only the tip of the iceberg. The relative into the fact that it has come into the Whatever excuse Willie Penrose had decline of trade unionism in the private open in this way. But several factors for echoing the continuous wail of the sector has left it the creature of a public have combined to make it imperative Dublin media to break the one remaining service culture that is perceived as old, that the party should engage in an outdated and inefficient by voters and worthwhile vestige of the Labour Party— exercise in revisionism; at the extreme, workers in the private sector. its links with the Trade Union movement, that it should consider breaking the link "Labour's association with the there is absolutely no excuse for Eamon altogether. unions may well tar it with the same Gilmore! "The party leadership is piqued by brush, despite Gilmore's legitimate He is a former senior official with the the cosy relationship that Bertie Ahern claim that Labour made modern Ireland. has enjoyed with the public sector union ITGWU (SIPTU), he surely understands "Labour's problem is compounded leaders throughout his leadership of the reality that a life and death battle is by the growth in employee share the Fianna Fail Party. going on between Labour and Capital ownership schemes in many privatised "Specifically and recently, they have (Globalisation) or does he? former public sector companies— maintained a deafening silence on the Is he happy that only 35% of workers in which blurs the lines even further issue that has infuriated more than half between public and sectional interest. the state are in Trade Unions? That half of the country, the massive pay increase "If Labour is truly to be a party of that 35% (630,000 members) are in the accepted by the Taoiseach and his the national interest, can it be tied to Private Sector, which accounts for just ministers. They are not independent what, at the end of the day, is a minority 18% of the total workforce. observers. Their members have been interest group? Can you be critical about Gilmore states: "…that his party had to the beneficiaries of the benchmarking the cloying impact of social partnership process which has created an enormous speak on behalf of an estimated three- on our democratic system when you are difference in average pay in the public quarters of the workers in the private aligned to one of its players? service and the private sector. They are sector who are not in trade unions" (Irish "What Gilmore does on this issue also certain of the pay increases under Independent, 20.11.2007). will, again, be interesting to see—his the “partnership” agreements. They room for manoeuvre is certainly greater enjoy far better pension arrangements. than that afforded to many of his If he was half a leader, he could have And they run no risk of having to change predecessors. turned the Wexford conference into a their status from privileged employees "Following the electoral funding powerful unifying force by appealing to to self-employed. reforms of the late 1990s and of the last those non-union workers to join a Trade "But the greatest anomaly is their few years, Labour is less dependent on Union—he "…intends to embark on a unrepresentative character. As Mr trade union funding than ever before. Gilmore points out, three-quarters of journey—physical and political to relearn "However, Gilmore will have to private sector employees are not union Ireland"—he will learn that working weigh the balance of risk between a members. Who represents whom, and people have never before faced such bold gesture, which would constitute a what? pressure or stress. Every weapon at their clear signal to the public that he knows "The world of work has changed disposal is being harnessed by employers Labour needs to change, and any move beyond recognition in the last decade, which would upset many of his own to undermine and circumvent Labour to say nothing of the last century or the members. legislation, Employment laws and legally last generation. So has the class system. "He will also recall that the last time registered industrial agreements. Most people consider themselves a fundamental change in the party's The use of Immigrant labour is a key middle-class. Indeed, most people ARE relationship with the trade union weapon in this campaign by the employers. members of a vastly expanded middle movement was undertaken was in 1930; class which in many ways, though not The Trade Union movement is running before then, the party and congress all, has more in common with the long- to keep up! Yet, the new leader of the were a single entity. affluent parts of society than with the Labour Party refrains from attacking "In 1930, they separated to allow traditional working class. Globalisation, the Government, or the anti- the Labour Party to broaden its appeal, "This new middle class naturally Trade Union media, and basks in the glory yet Labour's performance in the includes a majority of public service subsequent election was among its worst of praise bestowed on him by the O'Reilly workers, who have shown themselves ever" (Sunday Business Post, media in making the Trade Union tough and skilful at adopting the old- 25.11.2007). movement his number one target at his time methods of the upper working first conference as leader of the Labour class and who see their interests as well Party DOWNEY ADVISES GILMORE served by Fianna Fail's corporatist "Much more significantly, Eamon THE MASTER'S VOICE policies. We publish below two articles which Gilmore supported him. "What Willie "But it also includes people with was reflecting was a frustration of go to the core of what the Wexford lifestyles, aspirations and educational many people in the Labour Party that levels more closely in tune with those conference was all about, more so, what the trade unions have got too close to the prevailing establishment require of of the traditional middle class and government." (Irish Independent, upper middle class. Labour's middle- the Labour Party and where they see the 19.11.2007). class vote (higher than its working- role of Trade Unions. "This could be read as meaning that class vote) comprises elements of both. James Downey, like his employer, Sir they have become too much part of the "It makes better sense for the party A.J.F. O'Reilly, are not opposed to Trade establishment through the partnership to appeal to these voters (for example Unionism, provided the movement doesn't process. But that was not exactly what on Green issues, where it will have an get above itself. And one thing is for sure, either Mr Penrose or Mr Gilmore meant. exceptional opportunity once Fianna the Irish Independent believes that Trade "They meant that the public sector Fail's relationship with their present unions have grown much too close to Unionists have far exceeded their status partners ends in the normal way) than Fianna Fail. to try to present itself as a pale shadow by being tolerated by Taoiseach Ahern as "There is nothing new about either an equal partner in the partnership process. of Fianna Fail. But it has also to ask the phenomenon or the complaint. It itself, to what purpose? The ICTU, however, ignores at its peril has been a common grudge and worry "Both Fianna Fail and Fine Gael the anomaly that Benchmarking has creat- for generations. What is new is that we can get away with refusing to define ed and its consequences for other Trade should hear even a hint that Labour themselves, with shunning revisionism; might revise its relationship with the Unionists. continued on page 30 31 VOLUME 25 No. 12 CORK ISSN 0790-1712 Labour Hijacked THE LABOUR PARTY, in seeking to weaken the nexus with the Trade Union movement, is not cutting off its nose to spite its face—it's cutting off its bloody head to spite its body! We know that Emmet Stagg made a vigorous case for the liberalisation of cannabis at the opening session of the 62nd National Conference in Wexford on the November 2007: "decriminalisation, regulation and taxation of supply of marijuana/cannabis" but we weren't aware that the party had distributed free samples of the stuff to the delegates or that the leadership must have hogged the samples all to themselves before getting stuck into the Trade Unions. "Union bosses have been accused of from the best china. We're asking for Mr. Gilmore said that many in Labour "cosying up" to the Taoiseach Bertie the trade unions to come back to their were "frustrated" that Trade Union leaders Ahern, writes Fionnan Sheahan. natural home," he added later" (ibid.). "have got too close to government". "Labour Party enterprise spokesman "There is a disappointment in the Willie Penrose, TD said that his party Adopting a tougher approach with the Labour Party that while there is a formal expected more support from top union Unions, Mr. Gilmore said the party needed affiliation between Labour and the officials who were busy “drinking from to redefine its relationship with the Trade trades unions, that when it comes to the best china” with Mr Ahern." (Irish Unions. election time the support the party might Independent , 19.11.2007). "Three-quarters of those workers in expect from members of trade unions Party leader Eamon Gilmore endorsed the private sector are not in trade unions does not come across" (Irish Times, this criticism of the Trade Union leaders at all. As a party we have to speak for 19.11.2007 ) them as well." by Mr Penrose at the conference. "Labour receives some 40,000 Euros Mr. Gilmore said there was a dis- a year from affiliated trade unions, The Labour leadership also signalled a appointment in the party that the formal mainly from SIPTU and Unite" (Irish Examiner , 19.11.2007). shift in its relationship with the Trades association between the Trade Unions Unions and a more critical stance of Union wasn't matched by votes for Labour at election time. ATTACKING YOUR OWN! resistance to change. The present writer had hoped to "That mood clearly coloured the "Afterwards, Mr O'Connor told the continue from the November issue, which Irish Independent he wanted to remind reaction to the fiery speech by the focussed mainly on 'Vocationalism' or general president of Siptu, Jack Mr Penrose that social partnership was O'Connor, who had advocated going proposed by trade unions on the basis 'Corporatism' and the challenges facing into government with Fianna Fáil after of co-operation with European social the Trade Union movement. the election. O'Connor spoke on democratic parties" (Irish Independent, Then along came the Labour Party Saturday of the danger to the future of 19.11.2007). conference and Party leader, Eamon social partnership posed by the Gilmore's need to "redefine its relationship increasing use of agency workers." with the trade unions". (Irish Times, 19.11.2007). Subscribers to the magazine are regularly The Conference that "should never have offered special rates on other publications taken place" suddenly developed into one With SIPTU General President Jack of Labour's most historical political O'Connor sitting right in front of him, Mr. Irish Political Review is published by gatherings when Willie Penrose Penrose said Labour wanted something in the IPR Group: write to— commenced a virulent attack on the Trade return for its backing of Trade Unions. 14 New Comen Court, North Strand, Union movement and "received rapturous "We in the Labour Party expect trade Dublin 3, or applause from delegates". unionists to come out and support us PO Box 339, Belfast BT12 4GQ or * and not be behind the door and forget PO Box 6589, London, N7 6SG, or ***************************************************************************** about this palsy-walsy act with Bertie "A central theme of Mr. Gilmore's Ahern". Labour Comment, C/O Shandon St. P.O., Cork City. speech was that the future of Ireland and "With Bertie Ahern, drinking tea and everything else. Come out. Come Subscription by Post: the world was determined by scientific out. Come out." (Irish Independent, 12 issues: £20, UK; and economic forces beyond political 19.11.2007). € 30, Ireland; € 35, Europe. control. He said that the role of Labour politics was to be international and local Mr. Penrose received rapturous Electronic Subscription: without mentioning any national role applause from delegates at the conference € 15 / £12 for 12 issues or national polity" when he made his remarks. (or € 1.30 / £1.10 per issue) (Irish Political Review, Sept., 2007). "Forget about the trips to Farmleigh You can also order both postal and ****************************************************************************** and cosying up to Bertie. Forget about electronic subscriptions from: the trips to Merrion Square and drinking www.atholbooks.org continued on page 31