Bowen, Lane, Mansergh Roy Johnston Saving the Future Julianne Herlighy Seán McGouran Labour Comment

page 20 page 12 back page IRISH POLITICAL REVIEW October 2007 Vol.22, No.10 ISSN 0790-7672 and Northern Star incorporating Workers' Weekly Vol.21 No.10 ISSN 954- 5891

Bertiegate: media- Forwa rd——To ? inspired "death by a When the DUP was manoeuvred by Whitehall into agreeing to share the offices of a devolved government with Sinn Fein, it was said by the Whitehall Ministers who brought tho usand cuts" about that situation that normal politics has broken out in Northern Ireland. Normal As a media-generated controversy politics was defined as "bread and butter politics" by Secretary of State Hain. He did aimed at inflicting political damage on not . explain how 'bread and butter politics' could arise out of the Northern arrangement, where the local government does not raise the money it spends. The bread and butter is Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, ultimately forcing supplied by the Government of the state. All parties in the North want as much of it as him from office, ‘Bertiegate’ is dead in they can get. There is unanimity about that. the water. If Unionists wanted less and Nationalists wanted more, there would be grounds for at Ahern is not a corrupt politician. During least a semblance of normal politics. But the two major parties are working class parties a marital separation in the early nineties (with burgeoning bourgeois elements, as behoves working class parties in a capitalist he needed some financial payments from meritocracy) and they both want to be given more bread and butter to distribute. And the friends to keep his political career on the two middle class parties, which have been marginalised, would not dare to say that they rails. He couldn’t afford to process the wanted less. payments through a bank account for fear The only instance of bread and butter politics we have seen happening is the that his separated spouse might lay claim manipulation of the DUP by the Secretary of State six months ago. He announced that to them. When the controversy hit the Whitehall would impose a substantial increase in Rates and would introduce Water Rates unless the DUP agreed to share local government office with Sinn Fein by a certain date. headlines beginning in September 2006, The bills for the new rates were drawn up, printed, and delivered to every home in explaining these payments posed a Northern Ireland, with a notice that they would Not come into effect if the devolved problem for him, primarily because he administration was formed. What this amounted to was a massive bribe to the electorate didn’t wish to re-open old wounds in the which Paisley did not feel he could reject. He therefore decided to allow Sinn Fein to now friendly relationship with his return to Office, and to implicate it as far as possible in the 'Northern Ireland state'. estranged wife, or embarrass other members of his family. Our basic objection to the 'Northern Ireland state', which we set out over thirty years As the then Minister for Finance, being ago, is not that it was Partitionist but that it did not exist. The state in Northern Ireland in receipt of financial payments from has never been anything but the British state. Most public services were provided and businessmen friends was also clearly a administered by the state—i.e. Whitehall—after 1921 no less than before. What the source of embarrassment; but no corrupt- 'Northern Ireland state' consisted of was an exclusion from the politics of the state. Its own political life consisted only of the communal antagonism of Protestants and ion was involved, the sums involved were Catholics. That is all it could be. Therefore we never condemned it for being what it had relatively minor and the arrangements to be. continued on page 2 continued on page 4

Iran: Part 3 they should lower their gaze and guard clothing must hang loose so that the their modesty ; that they should not shape / form of the body is not apparent. Social Customs display their beauty and ornaments The female clothing must not resemble In a recent article Desmond Fennell except what must ordinarily appear the man's clothing. The design of the described the women on his plane donning thereof. " (Quran : 24.31) clothing must not resemble the clothing " Say to the believing man that they of the non-believing women. The design the hijab as it began its descent into Teheran should lower their gaze and guard their must not consist of bold designs which airport. In practice this means putting on modesty ; that will make for greater attract attention. Clothing should not any old scarf at all. That fulfils the purity for them, and God is well be worn for the sole purpose of gaining requirements for women in Iran. In the acquainted with all they do." (Quran : reputation or increasing one's status in three weeks that I was there I on ly once 24.30) society" (from the Muslim Boutique). came upon a woman wearing a veil and "Clothing must cover the entire body, only the hands and face may remain It is seldom adhered to and the main she was a pilgrim from one of the Gulf thing seems to be a gesture endorsing the States. Below is the 'line' on dress. visible (According to some Fiqh Schools). The material must not be so basic moral character of the Islamic State. " Say to the believing women that thin that one can see through it. The The normal dress for Iranian women is a continued on page 5 third party which supervises and mani- C O N T E N T S pulates the whole thing. Page If there actually was 'a Northern Ireland Forward——To?. Editorial 1 state' this development could not have happened. Something different would Bertiegate, Media-Inspired 'Death by a Thousand Cuts'. Daithi O hAilbhe 1 have happened during those fifty years, if Social Customs. Conor Lynch (Iran, Part 3) 1 Northern Ireland was a state. A state produces a form of politics appropriate to Letters To Editor. W.J. Haire on What Is To Be Done; Dick Kenny on its functioning. The form of politics that The Burning of Cork, with reply by Manus O'Riordan 3, 15 existed in Northern Ireland was irrelevant Baghdad, 1917. General F.S. Maude (Report) 5 to the functioning of the state. Editorial Digest. 6 Professor David Fitzpatrick, the Aus- Tokyo, 1945. General Curtis LeMay (Report) 6 tralian who has been running a revisionist What Is To Be Done . . . Joe Keenan (Part 2) 7 factory in Trinity College for twenty years, published a book called The Two Irelands President McAleese. Joe Keenan, Conor Lynch (Unpublished letters) 8 (Oxford University Press 1998), in which Shorts from the Long Fellow (Irish Times Ideological Struggle; he explained that there were "two Irish Times Immigration Policy; A Christian Newspaper; Damage Limitation; revolutionary movements" in Ireland O'Toole's Soap Opera 10 ninety years ago. In each of them there All Ireland Politics. Labour Party: Wexford Motion; Reg Empey in the Past 11 was "subordination of individual choice to communal solidarity". Both went on to Jumping The Black Pig's Dyke. Joe Keenan (Fianna Fail in the North) 11 establish states. And— Roy Johnston's Memoirs. Seán McGouran (Book Review, Part 1) 12 "Each new government was immediately threatened by civil war, Dev's Refugee Policy. Manus O'Riordan ('Ireland's Nazis', Part 2) 17 leading to ruthless suppression… Bowen, Lane And Mansergh. Julianne Herlihy 20 Furthermore the political alignments cemented in the two civil wars continued Jottings. Brendan Clifford 22 to dominate political debate, restricting the opportunity for social and economic Labour Comment, edited by Pat Maloney: reform" (Preface). The Heart Of The Celtic Tiger? Could it have escaped his notice that the Welfare State, established after 1945 by Ernest Bevin and Clement Attlee, came Allowing that Northern Ireland must have taken part in the politics of the state. to Northern Ireland as a matter of course? exist—the necessity of it being that the That willingness is usually presented as The North was excluded from the political British state insisted that this segment of support for the Union. But the tangible process which led to that development, itself should take this form—the obnoxious form in which 'the Union' presented itself but it got the end product because it was feature of it was that the power of policing was the political vacuum of Northern part of the state. was devolved to the Protestant community, Ireland filled by the Orange Order and the Leaving politics aside, life in Northern and also that there was a marginal element RUC. Being excluded from the political Ireland was lived within the institutions of of gerrymandering. This meant that the life of the British state, the Catholic the British state. The source of trouble did communal antagonism was conducted on community therefore lined itself up ideo- not lie in Unionist prevention of social grossly unequal terms. The effect of the logically as anti-Partitionist, even though reform, but in the exclusion of the Northern recent change is to provide a level the political parties of the Free State also Ireland populace by Britain from the battleground. shunned it. political life which led to that great social This political predicament of the reform. But what is the battle about? Catholic community gave rise to the Paddy Devlin, when he was a leader of It was never really about Partition. By Provisional IRA when the situation was the SDLP, published an academic treatise the same token it was never really about thrown into flux by the wild Unionist in which he asserted that the British social the Union. It was about the political assault of August 1969. We saw it being welfare system was put on a confessional vacuum called Northern Ireland which forged as a profoundly ambiguous (sectarian) basis when being set up in made each community adopt shibboleths movement during the Winter of 1969-70 Northern Ireland. It was a groundless with little practical political meaning. and we did our best to head off the war. It assertion, but it was swallowed by the For Unionists the Union was reduced was a product of 'the Northern Ireland Dublin intelligentsia as one of the to the mere ceremonial symbols of the state', not of the Treaty. Anti-Treaty grievances fuelling the war. The truth is state—the Crown, the Queen, the Union Republicanism gained a lease of life nearer the opposite—that the war was Jack, etc. In Wales and Scotland the through association with it, but was facilitated by the dispassionate admin- Union was maintained incidentally sloughed off twenty years ago. The Provo istration by the British state of its welfare through mass participation in the party leadership, dealing strictly with the system in its Northern Ireland region. conflict of Labour against Tory by people situation that gave rise to it, has demon- Professor Fitzpatrick wrote what he who frequently expressed contempt for strated immense political skill in making did out of honest ignorance. Honest ignor- the symbols. The Ulster Unionists were its way from war to political office in ance is no less profound among the deprived of everything but the symbols. alliance with Paisley in the 'Northern meticulous 'revisionists' than amongst The Catholic community remained Ireland state'. It is true to its origins. others. There is however a pre-emptive Nationalist because there was nothing else Where this has led it is to making a go of quality to it: a sense that it better not to for it to be. The structure of Northern the Northern Ireland state which is not a know too much. Ireland was an affront to its sense of self- state—to success in politics without Sinn Fein, through being successful, is respect. We know from experience that a politics—to bread and butter politics in beginning to discover facts of life about substantial segment of it would willingly which the bread and butter is laid on by a the North which we tried to draw attention

2 to almost forty years ago. We tried to inform the SDLP in its early days, but it LETTERS TO THE EDITOR · LETTERS TO THE EDITOR· LETTERS TO THE EDITOR· didn't want to know. Perhaps it was never successful enough to feel the need to know. At any event, it had no wisdom in this matter that Sinn Fein might have learned from. Nor have governing circles in Dublin A Comment On What Is To Be Done ever troubled to inform themselves about Thanks to Joe Keenan (Irish Political Review Sept 2007) we are reminded of the two the North—so Sinn Fein will get nothing strands within the recent Northern military struggle. It was easily enough forgotten. useful from them either. It must fend for There is indeed a huge difference between Nationalist (Hibernian) and Republican itself. trends. The SDLP was thought to now contain most of the Nationalist movement once Its first effort to establish a rapport with represented by the corrupt Harry Diamond who held a seat in the old Stormont regime. the Protestant community was by way of But obviously the more militant section of Nationalism took up the armalite alongside the Somme. A worse approach could the anti-Imperialist Republicans. hardly be imagined—unless Sinn Fein is It makes you wonder if the Sinn Fein leadership is doing a De Valera when they bang trying to realise Arthur Griffiths' ambition on about a United Ireland. Can such a thing happen under the present North and South of becoming a partner in Empire. political set-up and be designated a successful anti-Imperialist victory. Their long Their great-grandfathers were actually rambling political statements have no substance and therefore no reality. at the Somme in 1916 alongside the Ulster A possible successful anti-Imperialist struggle would have to involve the entire Volunteers but, when they came back to island of Ireland with the destruction of the Protestant nation as its first goal. Such a fight Belfast, they found that the shared could leave hundreds of thousands dead. experience of killing Germans had Achieving it by political means, as Sinn Fein now advocates, would, as Joe Keenan established nothing at all in the way of says, be a step back into the British Commonwealth. The academic revisionists of Irish fellow feeling between them as Irish. There history and most of the Brit-mesmerised media in the South seem to look forward to was no good reason why it should. that day. What passes for British culture now permeates the South. Sit in any rural Back in 1969, when we said that railway station and it is Sky News and Sky Sports on the waiting room tv screen. Listen Protestant Ulster had the quality of a to the Anglicised accents on Irish television and radio. Even in the mostly Gaelic Dingle national body, that the culture of Irish it was possible to hear the younger generation use English soap-opera accents. nationalism exerted no gravitational pull Discussing this with the owner of a hotel had him hot under the collar. He denied the on it, and that the application of force England content of these new accents and preferred to think of them as mid-Atlantic. would fail to dissolve it as a political bloc, West Britain could be more west than we think? we thought it was only sensible to Of course there had to be someone in the South supporting the Northern Republican reconsider the usual way of depicting the and Nationalist struggle or life would have been all that more difficult for the fighters. Home Rule conflict, and to set out the The Ho Chi Minh Trail saw munitions filtering Northwards from Southern beaches, Unionist case of that time as at least having arms dumps were ignored. One or two old ones were discovered and given wide the validity of success. We did that in publicity at the time. pamphlets published in 1969 and the early Yes, August, 1969 did mark the era of the craven government, as Joe says, but all seventies. integrity wasn’t lost in the end. Northern Catholics are aware that they have been abandoned over the years and they Thirty years later Articles 2 & 3 of the have had to make the best of a bad job. What you can now call Nationalist (Hibernian) Southern Constitution were amended. The representation at the new Stormont plays the game of love-thy-neighbour but that’s only 'one-nation' conception was abandoned for political convenience. Mutual hatred and loathing is the reality of the day. The streets by practical implication. But there was no reflect this discord. follow-through, either by revisionists or Wilson John Haire their antagonists, with regard to the 16 September, 2007 ideology of the Home Rule conflict. But Martin Mansergh—said to have had a part in the 1998 Agreement—delivers on Radio BOOK LAUNCH Sponsored by: The Aubane Eireann an unreconstructed rant about Historical Society, Aubane, Carson (Radio Eireann 30.10.06). Buswells Hotel, Dublin Millstreet, Co. Cork Northern Ireland is now accorded a [email protected] sacred right of self-determination—which Mansergh inclines to place with the Wed. 31st October Protestant community, rather than the 1.00pm general population—but at the same time Carson is given the old-fashioned treat- ment. And what sense does that make? "Myths from Easter 1916" Mansergh also condemns absolutely by Eoin Neeson the act of war to which Partition in the form of Northern Ireland led. That strikes Speakers: us as equally unreasonable. We tried to prevent the war, but that is a different Manus O'Riordan (Chairman) thing. The war did not result from Partition. Brian Lenihan TDTD, The establishment of Northern Ireland Minister for Justice, Equality was wantonly made the means by which and Law Reform Partition was enacted. That was not & Carson's doing. It was done by the British Máire Óg MacSwiney-Brugha Government after Carson ceased to be All Welcome continued on page 4 3 part of it, and he spoke against it in Because of this everything now depends this stage because now that the Parliament. on the Opposition. Taoiseach’s evidence at the tribunal Mansergh's concern seems to be to has failed to live up to the dramatic burnish his own nationalist credentials "The public will remain mired in billing which some gave it, many within Fianna Fail, where there appears to confusion unless the Opposition parties commentators have moved on to be a degree of scepticism about them, are prepared to draw their own suggesting that the defining moment conclusions from the evidence already will come when the tribunal publishes rather than to find ways of dealing with out there and provide the public with a its report, which they confidently predict the Home Rule conflict which would clear alternative version of what will be damaging for him… allow some possibility of rapprochement. happened. "…However, in its report, the But he is after all the chief Fianna Fail "If they do that Ahern could face tribunal will not and indeed cannot propagandist on the issue. And he insists political death by 1,000 cuts, as he decisively rule on whether or not the that we must all start from the attempts to face down his political Taoiseach’s explanation of these lodge- accomplished facts of Partition and opponents on the one hand and deal ments is accurate. Its function will not Northern Ireland—two distinct facts which with the unremitting pressure of the be to rule on whether Ahern’s story he treats as one. Stirring up the old resent- tribunal on the other." about the payments is credible but rather ments is hardly the way to do that. whether there is any basis to Gilmartin’s allegation. The latter question arises Collins concludes the article with an from the tribunal’s term of reference; unashamed rallying of the troops to keep the former does not. up the pressure against the target. "Those hoping for adverse findings Bertiegate against Ahern on this point are likely to "He (Ahern) will have to come back be disappointed. To date the only at a later date to account for the ‘dig ‘evidence’ to support Gilmartin’s out’ money, his savings of £50,000, his allegation of a bribe is that of Gilmartin continued purchase of the house and the issue of himself and he has proved an unreliable Quarryvale itself and his involvement witness in public and private testimony arose solely out of the circumstances of in that tale. to the tribunal…. the marital separation. In short, from "It means that he will be in and out of "…Others were hoping that the beginning to end the campaign against the the tribunal on a regular basis over the tribunal report will rule that Ahern has Taoiseach has been much ado about year ahead and that is where the real impeded or obstructed it or failed to damage is likely to arise as he is mired nothing. comply with its orders. The pace and in one controversy after another." extent of Ahern’s co-operation with the tribunal has been far from ideal, but it The penny is beginning to drop among has not been so deficient as to meet the some journalists that they are not now If the Opposition are foolish enough to relatively high bar required for a ruling going to take out their quarry. So what are take instructions from Stephen Collins that it was obstructive. The tribunal’s they to do? Some have invested so much they will fully deserve another drubbing chairman has already indicated a charge of non-compliance is not being made. in the story they cannot countenance giving from Fianna Fail at the polls. Recognising that the story is in danger of dying Collins "This payments controversy did not up. Others have a firmer grip on reality fatally wound Ahern politically last and perhaps a shred of decency. contrives to keep it going by any other autumn or during the election campaign means available. Is this ‘journalism and it is not fatally wounding him now. Stephen Collins, the Political Editor of creating the news’ or what? The publication of the tribunal report itself will not fatally wound him either. the Irish Times, has distinguished himself By way of contrast the line been taken There is still every reason to believe he throughout the controversy as a will get to go at a time of his own commentator with a political axe to grind. by Irish Times columnist, Noel Whelan, choosing." He is the author of a sympathetic history shows definite concessions to the real of the Progressive Democrats. Following world. Whelan was every bit as bad as his That dollop of reality places the story in the General Election he wrote an article colleagues in dishing the dirt against the a very different perspective to that provided seeking to dissuade any potential partners Taoiseach until the General Election by Stephen Collins. In his own way Whelan of Fianna Fail from dealing with Bertie on results were declared. From that point on is saying that ‘Bertiegate’ is dead in the the grounds of supposedly unanswered he seems to have recognised that the will water. It will be interesting to see whether questions regarding his finances. of the electorate is something that should the Irish Times and other sections of the Notwithstanding the mandate the party be respected. media follow the Whelan or the Collins had received to form the next Government, line in future coverage. I expect that the Collins was still hell bent on keeping One of his recent columns entitled, Irish media will continue to milk the non- Fianna Fail from office. ‘Ahern’s flawed testimony will not bring story for everything it is worth in the about downfall’, published on Saturday coming months and years. September 22nd is interesting mainly A more recent article shows him up to because it is addressed to his colleagues as his old tricks. In an opinion piece published Noel Whelan deserves credit for much as the reading public. Here are some in the Irish Times on Friday September attempting to bring his colleagues down extracts: 21st he exhorts the Opposition parties to to earth but it is too late to retrieve the inflict "death by a thousand cuts" on Ahern. "Unlike the Moriarty tribunal, which good name of the Irish journalistic inquired into payments to Charles The column opens with the usual disparag- profession. Bertiegate is dead in the water Haughey and is still inquiring into and the time for investigating the real ing comments about the Taoiseach’s payments to Michael Lowry, the Mahon credibility, then it knocks up against tribunal is not an inquiry into payments scandal behind the story—how the Irish reality: to politicians per se. Neither is it a Times, through its leading role in the media, "So far, though, there has been no tribunal of inquiry into payments to threatens the health of Irish democracy— knockout punch to undermine Ahern’s Bertie Ahern or into his personal is at hand. version of events and likelihood of one finances. landing is remote." "It is worth reiterating that point at Daithi O hAilbhe

4 was the hairstyles. Masses of hair done up didn't like those pretend holy men. And I in shapes that would do credit to 1960s didn't like this lot now. I decided to leave models. Think of the character Wayne in before I took it into my head to shove one I r a n "Auf Wiedersehen Pet" and you're only of those feather dusters where the sun continued beginning to get the picture. don't shine. My first thought was that this lot were I'd wondered what Friday would be not exactly kitted out to repel the American like in a Shia society. Well it also reminded headscarf which may or may not cover all hordes should they invade the country. me of my childhood—but in the best of the hair. A tunic or kind of mini-dress But a friend of mine who has spent some ways. People troupe off to the Mosque at over trousers or jeans. Socks seem to be time in Iran tells me that homosexual various times. Otherwise they have a lie- optional. These clothes are certainly not relationships among young men are quite in. Slowly, around 11am, the shops start loose and bust and bottom are, if anything, usual before marriage. Maybe this is what to open. Families and courting couples emphasised. Clothes come in all varieties President Ahmadinejad meant when he take to the parks, go for walks in the of colours. But black is usually worn in said that there were no homosexuals in countryside and play games. Friday, like offices dealing with the public, sometimes Iran in the way that there were in America. Sunday in Ireland, is the big day for sport. with a long outer cloak—in much the way Even if he was wrong about that. Football and other games dominate the that men in such places are expected to TV. Offices and factories are closed. But wear suits. The religious ethos is probably so all- some building work goes on, as well as Long coverall black clothes were pervasive in Iran that you hardly notice it. repairs to public services. Transport runs mainly worn by pilgrim women and in It is not, as they say, in your face. I came with reduced services, except for those places where such garments are traditional. across the Islamic Study Centre by accident travelling long distances or to places of I can remember when they were traditional when looking for something else. They entertainment. in West Cork. 'Islamic' garments are most took me to a photographic exhibition about often the traditional garb of the area. women. The idea seemed to be to The "rules" for segregating men and Damascus is a major centre for Islamic concentrate on the character in the faces. women on public transport are little short schools and for the teaching of Arabic. Their explanation of the dress code, of the bizarre. On buses there are separate When I was there last year I came across something about looking different outside entrances, with the women's door normally many Western men, and some, women, to how women looked in the home, didn't in the middle so that they sit at the rear. In dressed up in all the gear. They looked make a lot of sense to me, and seemed to taxis there is a lot of changing seats to sort completely stupid and out of place. It was be a bit off the top of their heads for an out who sits where. On the Teheran Metro not their traditional form of dress and it unbeliever. there is a women-only carriage on all didn't suit them. I asked them why I never heard calls to trains. But women can also sit in any of (One thing that did strike me after the prayer from the Mosques, even on Fridays. the other carriages, where men and women plane landed in Tehran was the Did they not do that? In Sunni Jerusalem sit where they like. Then on long-distance overpowering smell of booze on the airport or Damascus they'd almost deafen you. sleeper trains there is no segregation at bus and the number of visitors who just The head man, a Professor of English at all! about staggered up to the passport control. the University, said there were calls to There is also no segregation on planes. This amused the police more than anything prayer in Shia Islam also. But these had to There is a flat rate of about $22 on all else. The ban on alcohol is pretty well be at such a low volume that they didn't internal flights, though some travel total—though wine is available to annoy the local community. Otherwise agencies will add a sometimes hefty Christian priests for religious ceremonies.) they would have the local authorities down charge. But only tourists fall for that one. on their heads! And then only once. Iranian women tend to be big boned The flight always includes a very good with very full lips and large eyes. They There was one moment, however, when meal, free newspapers and constant top- are distinctly beautiful and are not at all the thing did get on my nerves, and that ups of cold water. There are special trucks averse to the attentions of men, provided had to do with my own background. for the disabled with lifts that reach up to they are not simply leered at. They will Pilgrims visit Mashhad to see the tomb of a separate entrance on the plane. Not the also begin conversations with totally the Imam Raza. He is believed to be the precarious way that disabled people are strange men. This is in contrast to the only man in charge on the day of judgement hauled up the steps in the rest of the world. Western woman I met in Iran. It was in and it's as well to keep in with him. It was on one such flight that I Tehran airport and I offered to let her Muslims also believe that he will be experienced one particular attitude to ahead of me as we arrived at a snack bar at accompanied by Jesus, who can religion. The group of passengers around the same time. I got a mouthful of feminist presumably grass up the likes of me! me were clearly scared of flying. A lot of abuse for my troubles. Living in Spain for I decided to visit the shrine. The crowds praying and feeling beads was going on. the last eight years, I was quite unprepared weren't great and were very orderly— Gestures were made in my direction to get for this. mostly families. But lay officials insisted involved. Finally some of my fellow Now the get-up of the men was on ordering everyone about by shouting passengers started making the sign of the altogether another matter. In Teheran or and waving feather dusters (for some cross at me. I made the sign of the cross in Abadan or other places I'd noticed that reason) at us. They reminded me of some reply and everyone relaxed. I was now many young men were done up to the men from my childhood who tried to playing my part in assuring that the plane nines and gave particular attention to their make themselves indispensable in one or would not land prematurely. hair. But it was in Mashhad that things two of the churches in Cork. "Bigging Conor Lynch really struck me. themselves up" as they say these days. I To be concluded Mashhad is the religious centre of Iran. It is also the centre of the perfume industry. Baghdad, 1917 There is mile after mile of perfume shops. "Our armies do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but as Most of them are full of young men trying liberators. Your wealth has been stripped of you by unjust men... The people of various scents and then sniffing at each Baghdad shall flourish under institutions which are in consonance with their sacred other. It all seemed very peculiar. But the laws." thing that really knocked me sideways General F.S. Maude, commander of British forces in Iraq, 1917

5 and Ulster flag in the corner. (The other John Madden from Cork and sentenced "chuckle brother" wasn't present.) The to eight years in jail. They were released caption read: "First minister Ian Paisley in 1962 at the end of the Campaign. At Editorial Digest yesterday presented members of the Wild the time of their arrest the B-Specials Geese Association, a cross-border wanted to kill them with a grenade and Labour's Sister Party? After Dermot community venture that brings together this was prevented by an RUC man Ahern's statement about Fianna Fail serving and retired soldiers on the island present. John later became a founder organising in the North, South Down of Ireland in a common bond of member of the Provisional IRA. He SDLP Cllr. Carmel O'Boyle said Fianna friendship, with certificates from the became a Sinn Fein MLA for Mid- Fail had supported the SDLP "through United Nations Association. Pictured Ulster but left the party in 2003. all the difficult times. Now they want to with Mr. Paisley... are Jim Fee, chair of Crumlin Road Jail. The jail, along with support us in delivering a real republican the Wild Geese Association, and Colonel the nearby Girdwood Barracks, is to be alternative to the people of Northern Hubert McAllister, president..." This redeveloped to include a leisure centre, Ireland by inviting us to merge with Association was formed at the beginning businesses, playing fields, a hotel and them. Such a move would surely restore of this year and has already affiliated to other tourist facilities (up the Crumlin hope for northern republicans who must the British Parachute Regiment Road!?!), but NO HOUSES. Ardoyne is be completely disillusioned with Sinn Association. After the Treaty (should bursting at the seams and housing in the Fein and their political antics." Mitchel that be Articles of Agreement?) of area is desperately needed. But the McLaughlin for Sinn Fein said: "Irish Limerick, one option open to the defeated declining Protestant population fears the citizens should not be denied their Irish armies was to join the English establishment of more Fenian territory. constitutional right to participate fully armies. This was rejected and the Irish (Catholics tend to wish to stay in their in the life of the nation just because they armies went abroad seeking to enlist in areas, which usually have a very mixed were abandoned behind an artificial the army of any country likely to be at pattern of housing, while Protestants, border imposed by a foreign power." war with Britain—something never too whose areas tend to be almost exclusively (Irish News Every Day.) So Sinn Fein difficult to find. These were the Wild working-class, tend to move away when are still in favour of a united Ireland! Geese. Anyone joining the English they get the chance.) So we can expect Meanwhile Ogra Fianna Fail seem to armies would be considered a mere the ritual weekend fighting on the have jumped the gun and claim that they mercenary at best and a traitor at worst. interface to continue for the foreseeable have recruited 50 members at Magee The term Wild Geese was also adopted future. College in Derry, and are actively by the Patricios, Irish-Americans who Fake Guns. The Belfast Telegraph on recruiting at Queens during Freshers' opted to fight for Mexico against US Week. September 16th reported that uniformed aggression, and by Irishmen fighting for and masked IRA men carrying what Giant's Causeway. After DUP Minister the Boers against the British. So far this they said were imitation firearms Arlene Foster said she "was minded" to misnamed Association has been finding marched through the centre of Belfast give permission to North Antrim it difficult to recruit in the Free State to on Sinn Fein's March For Truth. Sinn businessman, Seymour Sweeney, to this "cross-border community venture". Fein said it was just a bit of street theatre. build a private visitor centre at the Giant's Robert Nairac. The Irish News on The DUP's Sammy Wilson said: "The Causeway to replace the old one September 10th reports that Stephen next thing we will be hearing is that they destroyed by fire, the Belfast press have Travers, a survivor of the Miami Show- want to go to the Arts Council for a had a field day. It transpires that Mr. band massacre near Newry in 1975, is grant. Or maybe even an Oscar for Sweeney is a member of the DUP and a convinced that the man who ordered the some of those who acted." friend of Ian Paisley junior. No one is killings was the late and unlamented A gas of a peace. The Police have saying that young Ian has done anything SAS Captain Robert Nairac. The Band corrupt. Nigel Dodds, who at first announced that they have used CS gas was stopped by a UDR patrol. Two of just under 1,000 times in the last three supported Ms Foster, says he is back in the UDR men were planting a bomb on favour of the project being taken over by years. In other words an average of once the band's bus when it exploded a day. the public sector. Now another business- prematurely, killing both of them. The man has said he will do the job for soldiers were then given orders to kill all Who made the world? Lisburn Council nothing and hand the place over to the the band members in an attempt to cover has voted to write to all schools in its area urging them to teach the theory of Government. With any luck the matter up what had happened. Dual- will drag on and the Giants' Causeway membership of most of the UDR soldiers "intelligent design" to their pupils. The will be spared, at least for another while, with the UVF allowed the paramilitary Protestant parties (the DUP and the OUP) voted for. The Catholic parties (the SDLP any Visitors' Centre. It's nice the way it group to be blamed for the atrocity. is. and Sinn Fein) voted against. This may John Kelly. The funeral of John Kelly Two-headed Corkmen. Government seem like the Catholics have gone off took place in Maghera on September God. But the Catholics believe in the inspectors recently visited the offices of 8th. He became a household name when The Corkman in Millstreet. They found who and the why of creation. Evolution he was tried and acquitted of arms they can take or leave. But Protestants, that the levels of radiation there were 20 smuggling alongside Charles Haughey times those permitted at nuclear power or large numbers of them, believe also in and Army Captain James Kelly in 1971. the how and the when. stations. It's good to know that even if James Kelly's widow Sheila was at the the rest of the Free State is sleepwalking funeral. Also there were Martin Meehan back into the British Empire, the Rebel and Francie Brolly from Sinn Fein, Tokyo 1945 County may be taking steps to preserve Francie Mackey of the 32 Co. "I suppose if I had lost the war, I would its independence! Sovereignty Movement, Gaelic games have been tried as a war criminal. The Wild Geese. On September 19th the commentator Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh, Fortunately, we were on the winning side." Irish News printed a picture of Rev. Ian Gerry McGeough, Bernadette Mc Paisley with members of the "Wild Geese Alliskey, and SDLP leader Mark Durkan. —US General Curtis LeMay, Association", who were holding their John Kelly was from Belfast and took commander of the 1945 Tokyo fire banner—a green emblem with a harp part in the 1956 IRA Campaign. He was bombing operation. surmounted by a crown plus a shamrock captured on active service along with

6 company of Mr. Edwin Poots, the better name for that press gang trade I can Northern Minister for Culture Arts and only say that Hibernianism is alive and Leisure, I visited for the third time the well and living in Aras an Uachtaran. Irish Peace Park at Messines in Belgium. Alive and well? Okay, not so well. The Park was opened a few years ago Alive and kicking anyway. And kicking by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, His over the traces. What Is To Be Done... Majesty King Albert and myself, to honour the memory of the men of the 36th Ulster Division and the 16th Irish Our President, God Bless Her, did not Division who fought shoulder to point out that the 36th Ulster Division was The Responses shoulder at Messines and Wijschaete in the Ulster Volunteer Force, organised in a cause they saw as bigger than its old companies under its old NCO's and I have been hearing some criticisms in themselves and their divisions. Those Officers, fighting under its own banners. Belfast and Dublin of last month's who worked so hard to create that Carson demanded those rights for his men Hibernianism article. One of these memorial knew that this troubled and and he got them. Redmond demanded the concerned the futility of vulgar abuse. conflict-ridden generation needed to same for his Volunteers and was dismissed Another was that the Ancient Order of be reintroduced to the voices of those with all the unconcern he merited. The who fell at Guillemont, at Ginchy, at Hibernians is no longer a power in the 16th Irish Division was a collection of old land. Taken together I suppose they equal Messines and Wijschaete because their voices would exhort us to use our best Irish regiments with Redmond's National a complaint that vulgar abuse to be of endeavours to build the peace, the Volunteers scattered among them, fighting some utility should be topical. reconciliation, the better world that they under English banners. Point taken. dared to dream of… But then how am I to describe an Irish … Nor did our President, God Bless Her, President, God Bless Her, and her saying "The First Minister has long had an point out that the Ulster Volunteer Force association with this Museum and with the likes of this: and the National Volunteers, whom British championing the memory of those who strategy had brought together for the "It is an honour to be here at the fought and died at the Somme and other moment (and such a moment it was) on opening of this exhibition commemorat- battlefields of the Great War. It is an ing the Battles of Guillemont and interest we have in common and I am the Somme, were each of them preparing Ginchy, part of the heroic struggle of sure he shares my great satisfaction that to slaughter the other on the Four Green the Battle of the Somme fought over over recent years more and more people Fields of Home. The Green Fields of ninety years ago. Congratulations to Dr have found it possible to acknowledge France were just a training ground for the Ian Adamson, Carol Walker and all the the full reality of what happened and to fight that Redmond and Devlin, Carson members of the Somme Association take pride in the comradeship and and Craig were determined should follow for this labour of love which allows the courage of the men of the 16th Irish and directly upon the end of the Great Warm stories of those who fought and died to the 36th Ulster Divisions. And in so Up. Let any who doubts that read Pat be honoured and respected and better doing, we have taken those tragic Walsh's fine book on Irish Imperialism known by a new generation." memories, those names of grandfathers where he quotes Redmond's deputy John "Last year two very significant events and fathers, brothers and uncles, in the history of this island, the 90th husbands and sweethearts out of the Dillon MP addressing the National Anniversary of the Battle of the Somme shoe-boxes in the attic where they had Volunteers in Belfast in March 1915: and the 90th Anniversary of the Easter lain in restless uncertainty for decades. "…when the war is over, and when Rising, were the subject of elegant and We have restored them to the light of we shall commence to resume the thread moving official commemorations in respect and of pride so that they have of Irish politics, that section of the Irish Dublin. Both events shook and shaped become a powerful, recovered, shared nation which has done best on the the destiny of this island. In the memory and indeed a wonderful battlefields of France, will be the generations since, Irish men and women healing. strongest in the struggle which may have often looked back at those times "First Minister, I congratulate you then be thrust upon us." through very different prisms, so and the Deputy First Minister and all different and so riddled with conflicting your colleagues in the Executive for the Dillon succeeded dead John Redmond viewpoints that the sheer reconciling tremendous start you have made on as head of the Irish Parliamentary Party power of this remarkable platform of your journey of partnership towards a just in time for its destruction (in the shared memory was overlooked and new society in Northern Ireland and a neglected. new mood of good neighbourliness South) at the hands of Sinn Féin in 1918. "This exhibition is part of that across this island. platform—a place to stand together in "There could be no better monument As far as Our President, God Bless Her, shared respect and a place to help us to the brave men of Guillemont and is concerned the momentary alignment of grow in understanding of those difficult Ginchy." imperial forces was "part of the heroic times. Here, in recalling these battles of struggle of the Battle of the Somme". Guillemont and Ginchy where the 16th In last month's article I defined Heroic struggle indeed. Murderous Irish division fought so bravely in the slaughter more like! most outrageous conditions, we recall Hibernianism as a movement that Joe the courage and generosity of so many Devlin organised "to be the moral fibre England did not embark on the first of young Irish men, from every and the backbone of Redmondism". I really its twentieth century world wars for—as background and belief, from Antrim to should have pointed out that historically Our President, God Bless Her, put it— Cork, whose sacrifice forged our shared the AOH and its Grand Master are most peace, reconciliation and a better world. history, our shared memory. They conspicuous for their role as British Army Germany was England's major economic showed us that there is no contradiction recruiters of Northern Nationalists for the rival and had therefore to be destroyed. between working together collegially, killing fields of France and the Middle The multi-national Austro-Hungarian in friendship and good neighbourliness East. James Connolly had the measure of Empire was, at least on its Austrian wing, on missions of common concern and interest while continuing to hold that Grand Master of a man and his AOH, a force for peace and stability in central differing views and identities… as evidence of which please do read his Europe which had to be destroyed to … article from 1916 which is reprinted in the unleash the chaos on which England has "Back in June on the 90th anniversary Autumn issue of Church & State. always thrived. The multi-national Turkish of the battle of Messines Ridge, in the So until someone comes up with a Empire was a force for peace and stability

7 in the Middle East which had to be What I berated de Valera for was his continued to insist that there could be no destroyed to unleash the chaos on which role in breaking the national polity which military solution to partition. Fianna Fáil England has always thrived. And that is existed in Ireland prior to, and to a lesser in the North would have been an absten- what the Great War was about, chaos, extent after, the second Dáil's reluctant tionist party, and perhaps Northern destruction and the enrichment and and half-hearted acquiescence in England's Nationalists would have preferred to vote expansion of the British Empire. Oh to be Articles of Agreement (the 'Treaty'). I for the candidates of some other party that heroic in such a cause! No thanks, I'm won't now repeat the details of how he did would have taken seats in Stormont and happy enough being abusive in opposition that. I also stated that I found the ruthless Westminster. Northern politics would have to such a cause. hypocrisy of de Valera's machinations been enormously complicated in the event. disgusting, and spoke of his 50 year career And thinking on it, if a term is accurate Could that really have been a bad thing? of hypocrisy and dissimulation. Looking is it then proper to label it abusive? Organising Fianna Fáil in the North back on the article I think I am probably might have led to some form of Answers on a postcard please to the critics guilty of having understated the case. group, present address unknown (no such representation for Northern Nationalists Just how my de Valerite critic knows number, no such zone). in Dáil Éireann, or it might not. I don't what would have happened if Dev had know. I only know that there is no behaved other than he did is entirely Finally on this I think it is appallingly necessary reason for it to have led to the beyond me. We can only know what did ill-mannered of our Head of State, God anti-partitionist war which my de Valerite happen as a result of the ways in which he critic takes for granted. And I am positive Bless Her nonetheless, to mention the did in fact behave. That was a complete Somme without mentioning the victims that the 1969 collapse of party and state moral collapse of the state he built in his of our coming together in courage and would thereby have been avoided. But own image. Does my critic want me to maybe not. Maybe the worst would have friendliness for a great cause and so on. I deny the collapse? Or praise the politics refer of course to the Germans we all happened regardless. But face it, in the that led to the collapse? Or what? killed and maimed in our glorious real world in which de Valera acted just as The way in which de Valera conducted he did, the worst did happen! communal sacrifices (the Protestant and his politics was convoluted and secretive. the Catholic communal sacrifices) of 1916. Joe Keenan It was hypocritical in the strict sense of To be continued Fair enough, a lot of us were killed but we that term, having a public face which took very many young Germans with us utterly belied the private truths of the who had never done us a pick of harm and matter. It was ruthless in slaughtering the intended Ireland still no harm in those political innocents (like Charlie Kerins) Unpublished Letters days and weeks and all we spent butchering who took the public face at face value and them. Don't they deserve some mention, a acted on it. And it had consequences. De The following two letters on President word of apology perhaps? Our President, Valera's way of doing politics left his God Bless Her even so, must hope no one McAleese's speech at the Somme successors with a glaring contradiction have been submitted to the Irish News passes a copy of her lack of diplomacy on that simply could not be resolved. We to the German embassy. But then no one want to extend our independent Republic JOHN REDMOND would be so tactless, would they? to 32 counties, but if we do that it will President McAleese has said that Moving on then to the strange case of cease to be an independent Republic. When Catholic and Protestant Irishmen met on de Valera. My berating of de Valera has that contradiction exploded into daily the Somme in a spirit of "courage and been criticised as follows: politics in 1969 de Valera's state and de generosity"; that their sacrifice in that "A couple of questions about JK's Valera's party collapsed in a heap. The battle of the Great War "forged our shared What is to be done politics of the Republic have gone on, this history". She did not mention that each "JK says that De Valera was correct way and that, since then. We've had the was preparing upon their return to make to choose independence from Britain development of a murderous drug-fuelled war upon the other. for the 26-counties over a united Ireland, gang culture. We've had a Celtic Tiger. As the leading Redmondite, John but then proceeds to berate him for And de Valera's state and de Valera's Dillon, said at a meeting of Volunteers in "(1) not organising Fianna Fail in party are still lying in a heap. Belfast: "when the war is over, and when the North, and "(2) not stating publicly that he had we shall commence to resume the thread chosen independence over a united I don't pretend to know how Irish politics of Irish politics, that section of the Irish Ireland and put a united Ireland on the might stand now if they had developed nation which has done best on the long finger differently than they did from the War of battlefields of France, will be the strongest "Surely, not organising Fianna Fail Independence on. I am well aware that in the struggle which may then be thrust in the North was all of a piece with such things are simply unknowable. Just upon us." (Freeman's Journal. 8th March, choosing independence over a united let me say this. 1915.) Joe Keenan Ireland—organising in the North would Of course it was "impossible for any have been a statement that Ireland was Catholic nationalist politician in De YOUNG GERMANS? a single polity and therefore should be Valera's day to adopt a public position of President McAleese (Irish News 11/9/ united forthwith. "As for not stating publicly that a abandoning part of the nation". But the 07) commemorated the battles of Guille- united Ireland was on the long finger, corollary of that is that it was entirely mont and Ginchy recalling "the courage surely it was impossible for any Catholic possible for de Valera to have adopted a and generosity of so many young Irishmen, nationalist politician in De Valera's day public (and even a private) position of not from every background and belief ... whose to adopt a public position of abandoning abandoning part of the nation. And I see sacrifice forged our shared history, our part of the nation. no reason why he could not have done that shared memory". This Hibernian "And if he had adopted such a by giving a political voice to that part of nonsense is getting out of hand these days. position, it would have left Northern the nation which he in fact had abandoned. The men at the Somme may or may not Catholics with no option but to settle Why could de Valera not have organised have been brave. But they were there to for a life in the UK—in other words, the Fianna Fáil in Northern Ireland, especially fate that JK (rightly) fears that Sinn kill young German men. What harm had Fein are going to lead Northern after the Republic was formally established the Germans ever done to the Irish—of Catholics into today would have been in 1948? Such a thing would not have either tradition? Indeed, what harm had forced upon them much earlier." been an act of war. He could easily have the Germans ever done to the English?

8 Britain launched a war on the Germans, and on the Turks, for The Rise And Fall Of Imperial Ireland. Redmondism Imperial purposes and no other. In The Context Of Britain's War Of Conquest Of South The cause for which Irishmen died in that war was ignoble. We Africa And Its Great War On Germany, 1899-1916 by Pat should be sad at the loss of our young men. We should not commemorate these battles as though they were honourable Walsh. 594pp. Index. ISBN 1 0 85034 105 1. €24, £18.99. affairs. Let the dead rest in peace. Conor Lynch Postfree in Europe, from: Athol Books, PO Box 339, Belfast, BT12 4GQ.

II Back to the future! I've got every class and clan, I've got every race of man, McAleese's Muscular Christianity From Esquimaux to foolish Irishmen, There's Arabs, Jews and Japs, and some flat-nosed negro chaps, President MacAleese has been catching up with the propaganda Who'll prove to all that I'll be boss again; of WWI, 90 years on and regurgitating it. At the 16th (Irish) Mike O'Leary from Macroom, and Sheikh Haffi from Khartoum, Division Exhibition at the Somme Heritage Centre on 10th Have enlisted in the cause of sanity, September 2007 she quoted Tom Kettle's widow saying that he There's the Gurkhas and the Sikhs, and the Mongos and the Mikes, fought for "Ireland, Christianity, Europe…. (and) a reconciled All fighting now for Christianity! Ulster". The propaganda about fighting for Christianity was Chorus discredited in Ireland as soon as it first appeared. The following contemporary anonymous satire (though it might be by Sean III O'Casey) summed up the feeling of sensible people who saw There's Dagos and Fijies, and now I've got Chinese, through this nonsense. Does President MacAleese really expect us There's Cannibals and Hottentots galore, to swallow it now? Does she take us for complete eejits? Jack Lane There's men from God knows where, with feathers in their hair, To stop the Hun from landing on our shore; So Pat my cordial friend, I'd like the war to end, We're fighting now for Christianity Or else 'twill drive me to insanity, (Air: "Killaloe") 'Tis for 'Faith and Fatherland,' that all the Allies stand, I For we're fighting now for Christianity! Sez John Bull to Pat one day, as he came along the way, Chorus I'd like to tell you all about the war, For as I boss 'the show,' small Nations all should know, IV The causes that I'm really fighting for; I've Freemasons on my side, who you know are true and tried, Well I found that Kaiser Bill was an anti-bilious pill, You've heard of Viviani on the sly, I couldn't stand his 'swank' and vanity, Who tried to stop the sun, if he couldn't stop the Hun, So I started making war, and when they asked 'What for?' And put the stars from shining in the sky; I say 'I'm out for Christianity!' 'Tis a just and blessed war, tho' slaughter I abhor, For I couldn't 'stick' the Kaiser's vanity, Chorus: So Pat my gallant son, now's the time to get your gun, For all the little Nations, For we're fighting now for Christianity! And all my poor relations, for every grade of real humanity! Chorus: I've the Jingoes, Japs and Jews, And the Kaffirs and Hindoos, by "Sliabh Ruadh". They're fighting now for Christianity!

Eoin Neeson: TWO LAUNCHES with discussions: all welcome at Teachers' Club 36 Parnell Square, Dublin Myths From Easter 1916 Index. 222pp. ISBN 978-1-903497-34-0 Jack Lane and Brendan Clifford — € 20, £15 Brendan Clifford — Memoirs Of William Sampson, The Christian Brothers' Launch in Cork by with A Brief Review Of History Of The Great War, Maire Og MacSwiney-Brugha Irish History (1807). first published in monthly and Brian Murphy osb— instalments in 1914-18. at Edited by Kenneth Robinson. Index.Illus.292pp.ISBN 978-1-903497-36-4 (Pamphlet) ISBN 978-0-85034-118-1 Quality Shandon Court Hotel €20, £15 €7, £4.50 Saturday, 3rd November Walter Cox's Union Star, Joe Devlin: What Now? 2.30 pm a reprint of his 1797 paper His Confrontation of the British Hosted by the Lord Mayor A Belfast Magazine No.31. Parliament, February 1919. Book signing: Liam Russell's bookshop, 12 noon ISBN 978-1-874158-18-9 (ABM No. 32.) ISBN 978-1-874158-19-6 €7, £4.50 €7, £4.50 Launch in Dublin: Launch Friday, 26 October, 7.30pm Launch Saturday, 27 October, 7.30pm details to be announced on website: Available November: www.aubane.org The Shakespeare Conspiracies by Brian McClinton Untangling a 400-year Web of Myth and Deceit Aubane ISBN 978-1-874158-18-9. €25, £18.99 Aubane, Historical Millstreet, Society Co. Cork Athol Books PO Box 339, Belfast, BT12 4GQ ORDERS: www.atholbooks.org [email protected] [email protected]

9 was strikingly outlined by one of its society is like that. All societies have a columnists Nuala O' Faolain when the history. France fought a revolution to limit phenomenon first emerged ten years ago: Church power. And it was only at the Shorts "The Irishness of de Valera's constit- beginning of the twentieth century that ution made identity unavoidable. Jules Ferry established the principle of from Irishness was an anthropological acne separation of Church and State in which broke out no matter what education. the Long Fellow poultices you applied. Like leopards, Institutions like societies have a history. you couldn't change your spots. But the And The Irish Times is certainly not a IRISH TIMES'S IDEOLOGICAL STRUGGLE Irishness that Mary Robinson kick- tabula rasa. Indeed it proclaims its The failure of The Irish Times's political started was much more credible. Not allegiance to Christian values in the campaign in the 2007 election means that only could you change your spots, you could change your breed, skin colour, Memorandum and Articles of Association its ideological struggle must be stepped gender, place and still be Irish, along of The Irish Times Ltd and The Irish Times up. Above all the Irish people must be told with other identities" (The Irish Times, Trust Ltd (the body which has ultimate that the State is corrupt and has failed. 30.3.98). control). The directors of The Irish Times And, since the people persist in re-electing The Irish Times believes that immigrat- Ltd and the Governors of The Irish Times Fianna Fail, the people must understand ion offers an opportunity to escape from Trust each have to swear an oath of secrecy their own corruption. our national identity. This year the heading every year which includes the following: On 18th August it carried an article at on its St. Patrick's Day editorial was: "The promotion of a society where… the top of its Opinion & Analysis section "Rebranding Ourselves". Note: not re- the quality of spirit is instinct with with the heading: "Integrity has had a low branding our products but ourselves. Christian values but free from all profile during first 66 days". The article Its editorial of 16th August denounced religious bias and discrimination; was written by a Dr. Elaine Byrne, who the Minister for Immigration Conor recently completed her doctorate at the So if O'Toole becomes Editor of The Lenihan for supporting Garda policy University of Limerick on the history of Irish Times he will have to commit himself preventing Sikh recruits from wearing Irish Political Corruption. to the promotion of Christian values turbans on duty. The editorial believes It begins with the doleful words: "Sixty- notwithstanding what he thinks the State's that our policy on immigration should be six days have now passed…" There then role should be. "a two-way integration process". This was follows a litany of examples of corruption. followed up on 22nd August with an article But the list is particularly unimpressive. by a UCD academic extolling the virtues DAMAGE LIMITATION One of the examples is Deputy Lowry of multiculturalism. But multiculturalism The Mahon/Flood Tribunal is not going who: is a failed model. the way The Irish Times would like. It has "…is currently being investigated In the UK the rate of mixed marriages failed to lay a glove on Ahern and the by the Moriarty tribunal for certain longer it goes on the more likely the financial dealings and the awarding of among the daughters of Pakistanis is 1%, whereas the corresponding rate for Alger- Tribunal itself will come under scrutiny. the State's second mobile phone licence That is the only conclusion that can be in the mid-1990s, when he was minister ians in France is 25%. The recent riots in for transport, energy and communications." France had nothing to do with race, but drawn from the line of questioning put to were in the tradition of working class Bertie Ahern by Des O' Neill, the Tribunal But no evidence of political favouritism lawyer. Most of O' Neill's questioning has been found against Lowry despite social uprising that marks the history of that country (see Le Monde, 13.11.05). relates to Ahern's alleged lack of co- exhaustive investigations which extended operation rather than the substantive to a property deal involving Doncaster The pro-American President of France Nicholas Sarkozy had to abandon his allegations themselves. That Ahern is Football Club. No civil servant could be responsible for the delays and not the found to suggest any influence exerted by proposals to introduce elements of the multicultural model such as positive Tribunal is the thrust of the cross- Lowry re: the awarding of the licence. examination. It is a last-ditch defence by For no particular reason Byrne in the discrimination. The French remain attached to republican values. the Tribunal itself against the unavoidable penultimate paragraph makes the follow- conclusion that the 10 year exercise has ing contemptuous remarks about one of A CHRISTIAN NEWSPAPER been a complete waste of taxpayers' our most distinguished elected represent- money. atives, the Minister for Justice Brian On 28th August Fintan O'Toole pronounced on the subject of cultural The original chairman Feargus Flood Lenihan: has rushed to the defence of Mahon by "The Minister may be familiar with diversity. The Long Fellow agrees with O'Toole when he suggests: "creating a claiming that the mode of operation of the the story of Rip Van Winkle who, when Tribunal has been proper and that Ahern reprimanded by his wife for his public realm in which all religions are carelessness, 'had but one way of reply- respected because none is invoked". But will be cleared of all wrong doing. It is ing to all lectures of that kind, and that, O'Toole is not serious. And he doesn't obvious that Flood wants the whole process by frequent use, had grown into a habit. expect to be taken seriously because: wound up as quickly as possible before it He shrugged his shoulders, shook his "typically… we are opting for an unjust, discredits the judiciary even further. head and said nothing'." unsustainable and potentially explosive The key question relating to the The final sentence from the University muddle". We are doomed, despite Tribunal's credibility is the alleged 45,000 of Limerick academic has the following O'Toole's exhortations for us to 'cop on to dollar lodgement. The Tribunal claims infantile "clincher": ourselves'! that this round figure amount, if translated "…a word search of the 86 page The column is typical of O'Toole. We at the AIB bank's exchange rate, would programme for government, which took are awful. The state is awful. Our history equal the exact amount in Irish pounds the Green Party and Fianna Fail 10 is awful. The only point in advocating credited to an account controlled by Ahern. arduous days of talks to agree upon, reform is to contrast the possibility of a The Tribunal has no evidence to suggest revealed not a single entry for the word better society with how awful existing that this lodgement had anything to do trust". society is. with the allegations it is supposed to In O'Toole's simple-minded world investigate re: Quarryvale. Ahern is being IRISH TIMES'S IMMIGRATION POLICY society should be a tabula rasa on which put in the invidious position of having to The Irish Times's policy on immigration he can write his prescriptions. But no prove a negative.

10 The Supreme Court has already found "This motion has the potential to politics. The policy of the 'Unionist the Tribunal's practice of withholding mark a small but critical step in Family' (UUP and DUP alike) of evidence from parties that would clear transforming the political dynamic "Prods" versus "Taigs"—with the Brits their names to be unconstitutional. throughout the island of Ireland. paying—is unsustainable and "For too long the electorate north of abnormal. Politics hates a vacuum. And the Border have been forced to choose O'TOOLE'S SOAP OPERA governmental politics is the only real between the myopic and one- But Fintan O'Toole's recent pronounce- alternative to communal politics. Bring dimensional historical narratives of it on". ment on the Tribunal is that the truth either nationalism or unionism. The doesn't matter. All that matters is Belfast Agreement has essentially Further commenting on the refusal of plausibility: served to institutionalise this already Mark Durkan to rule out a merger with existing sectarian political division. "It is rather unfortunate, therefore, Fianna Fail, Langhammer said: that while those involved in the financial "Fianna Fáil's ambitions to organise transactions in question are undoubtedly in Northern Ireland are nothing more "The Labour Party will determine in telling the truth as they remember it, the than a different shade of the “four green our November conference at Wexford truth turns out to be so implausible… fields” nationalism already embodied whether Labour will open the way to "Michael Wall, for example, reaches by Sinn Féin. governmental politics and contest local into his safe and for 'no particular reason' "The Labour Party has the potential elections. Mark Durkan's flirtatious pulls out £30,000 before heading off to to offer a viable secular and socialist response to the Fianna Fail initiative Dublin. He has no idea what it is to be alternative. A strong active Labour tells Labour delegates all they need to spent on, except that it was to refurbish Party operating on all-Ireland basis has know about the state of health of the a house he didn't own" (18.9.07). the potential to act as a fulcrum for all 'sister party' relationship" progressive groups on the island who So Wall has "no idea" what the money want to ensure that access to affordable is to be spent on "except"… he does have house, equality in education and the an idea! It is for refurbishment of a house! protection of public services are pushed Certainly it is "implausible" that anyone to the top of the political agenda. would intend to spend money on a house I hope that delegates to the Labour Jumping The Black they didn't own. But the truth can be Party conference grasp this opportunity implausible if you leave out some of the and begin the difficult but critical task Pig's Dyke facts. And O'Toole is not interested in of giving everyone on the island a chance to vote for a party committed to supplying all the facts. One pertinent fact secular and socialist politics. Patrick On September 16th. the Sunday Inde- is that although Wall did not own the Nulty (Labour Party member)… Dublin pendent reported that Fianna Fáil is to set house when he withdrew his money, he 15." (Irish Times 26.9.07). up "a committee under the chairmanship had put down a booking deposit and had of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dermot no reason to suppose that the sale (with all Ahern to seriously explore the idea of the ancillary costs: stamp duty, legal fees TEXT OF MOTION: Conference instructs the NEC bring advancing Fianna Fail as a political party etc) would not go through. forward the requisite amendments to into the North". It quoted the Minister as But let's not restrict ourselves to the Articles 5a and b of the Labour Party saying: truth when there is a parallel universe Constitution to facilitate contesting the "After May 8, and in the context of called "plausibility" which is much more next local government elections in the Northern Ireland executive up and congenial to O'Toole. And in this universe Northern Ireland. running, we are looking at the option of Ahern is not really the Taoiseach but a Submitted by: N.I. LABOUR Fianna Fail becoming an all-Ireland, character in a soap opera. FORUM 32-county party." Constituency: Northern Ireland "…people see him as a soap opera character who is expected to get into Dermot being the third most senior scrapes. But even soap operas have to EMPEY WEDDED TO THE PAST Fianna Fail politician, I think we can take operate within the limits of plausibility". The Labour Forum has welcomed the it that the matter is finally done and dusted. prospect of Fianna Fail organisation in But as ever the devil is in the detail and the And so O'Toole concludes that the Northern Ireland and rejected the criticisms detail is as ever devilish. universe of "plausibility" must shape the of the move by the leader of the Ulster Taoiseach's destiny: "The idea of Fianna Fail setting up in Unionist Party, Sir Reg Empey. (The the North has been raised at the last two "It is rotten luck for the Taoiseach DUP seems to have treated the matter as that the truth, as told so far, wouldn't Fianna Fail ard fheiseanna, and also in of being no concern.) The following is a that context, a merger with the SDLP pass muster on Fair City, Coronation press release issued by the Forum: Street or even Crossroads. And that has been suggested before. characters the public stop believing in "At this early stage, it is thought that get written out of the script." Labour Party welcomes Fianna Fail move. as a first step the establishment of a Friends of Fianna Fail organisation in Unfortunately for O'Toole the reality is Labour Party National Executive mem- ber, Mark Langhammer has welcomed the North is being looked at. that the public no longer believes in The "But the issue of contesting elections Irish Times. the challenge of Fianna Fail organising in the North is a long way off, and and, in time, contesting elections in North- described by sources as "not even on ern Ireland and has issued a stinging rebuke the agenda at the moment." REPORT to Sir Reg Empey—who has criticised the "Fianna Fail will, however, be All-Ireland Politics move. Commenting on Sir Reg Empey, looking, in the short-term, at aligning Mr Langhammer said: itself with a Northern party in the North- The following letter has appeared in the press: "Sir Reg's knee jerk reaction is a bit South parliamentary forum. It is most "In November the Labour Party will rich. As far back as 1986, the Ulster likely that the SDLP would be such a hold its annual conference in Wexford. suitable party. Perhaps one of the most pertinent Unionist Party rejected the organisation of British governmental parties— "A leading figure in the SDLP has motions up for discussion will be a Labour and Conservative—in favour already called for a merger with Fianna motion to change the Labour Party Fail. constitution to allow party members of communal attrition. The UUP expelled members campaigning for "Tom Kelly has become the first contest elections at local level in member of the SDLP's high command Northern Ireland. equal citizenship and access to British 11 to support fusion with the Republic's The kind of people who can be expected Sinn Féin is an all-Ireland party, albeit largest party." to join Fianna Fáil under the banner of not one that is confused as between the giving the Shinners a free run anywhere in 'independent' and the 'united' elements of The SDLP's membership base has Ireland are precisely those people who Ireland's national aspiration. The worst become so insignificant over the last will be straining at the leash to chase those that the appearance of another all-Ireland decade that a merger with Fianna Fáil is same boyos everywhere in Ireland. The Republican party can do to the Shinners is unlikely to do Destiny's Soldiers any harm disgruntled Republicans of South Armagh shake, and hopefully wake, them up. The at all. A large influx of new members from and South Derry and the disillusioned Labour Party has for several years now the Republican heartlands of Tyrone, SDLP members of West Belfast and West been organised nationally, albeit with Fermanagh and Armagh can be expected Tyrone are well used to electoral politics illusions and inhibitions about queering to have a good influence on the character and not at all used to sitting through counts the pitch for its sister party the SDLP. In of this new party (or whatever it might call they haven't a candidate in. Fianna Fail all likelihood the SDLP's reaction to itself) on the Northern political scene. will soon find that, this side of the Black Northern Fianna Fáil will open the Labour However, a straightforward merger with Pig's Dyke, it's in for a penny in for a Party's eyes, destroying its illusions and the SDLP would immediately pose one pounding (and divil take the hindmost). casting aside its inhibitions. Then there's very awkward question for Fianna Fáil. Fine Gael which is unlikely to let the The great question of abstention, or not, at Now then, how does the idea, which Soldiers of Destiny boldly go while its Westminster. really does seem set to soon become a Blue shirts wave idly in the wind of them fact, of Fianna Fáil organising in the North passing. And who knows, those Soldiers In a merger Fianna Fáil would inherit look likely to pan out in the longer term? may even recall to mind the air and lyric of the SDLP's still fairly substantial corps of their Destiny. All in all, on every side, no representatives in the Northern Councils, The most that any Irish nationalist can bad thing! the Northern Assembly and at Westmin- expect over the next long haul of years is Bearing in mind always that the the recreation of the national body politic ster. After the next General Election, which Hibernian Question is hovering around, can be expected sometime sooner rather which, before what occurred between the just waiting its moment to be posed. Any than later, the SDLP will have at least two 'Treaty' negotiations and the Boundary suggestion that Ireland can be united under Commission fiasco, really did span and and possibly three seats at Westminster. the aegis, or tied to the apron strings, of Durkan's seat is safe. MacDonnell's seat is involve the whole Irish nation. That is a Old Mother England must now and forever problematic. It appeared for some time long way from a truly united and fully be rejected with all the force at this nation's independent Ireland, but it is the essential that, with Eddie McGrady retiring, his command. Whack Fol the Diddle. South Down seat would go to Sinn Féin. precondition of winning that full measure That is now very much in doubt as of freedom. Joe Keenan McGrady's substantial local base can be expected to transfer in a body to his nomin- ated successor (especially if that is SDLP Book Review Assembly Minister, Margaret Ritchie). Century Of Endeavour Roy H. W. Johnston And Sinn Féin, perceived to be living the Lilliput Press / Tyndall Publications €40.00 high life behind closed doors of well- funded, highly-paid jobs for the boys (the Shinnercures unkind people call them in Roy Johnston's Memoirs the North), has lost electoral momentum, in the North as well as over the Black Pig's Part One Dyke. As of now it seems likely that the This very bulky book is subtitled A may explain the recent closure of the SDLP will hold South Down. Biographical and Autobiographical View Guinness plant in London's Park Royal. So what should Fianna Fáil do with at of the Twentieth Century in Ireland. The The job in west London appears to have least one, perhaps as many as three, import of which is that Roy Johnston tells been interesting but largely routine, RJ Westminster seats? Holding on to them is the story of his father Joseph ('Joe') had time to help expand the Association just not on the cards. We would advise Johnston as well as his own. His father is of Scientific Workers and become a mem- them to avoid any rows about abstention referred to as 'JJ' and Dr. Roy Johnston as ber of Acton Trades {Union} Council. He as such and simply take the polite option 'RJ'. There is a tendency to reduce the kept in with the Labour Party and of refraining from interfering in the internal many people who move through these Communist Party factions, and worked affairs of another state. End of problem. two lives, especially Roy Johnston's, to for the Connolly Association. Even if Dev's wee divils reject the their initials. It makes reading about minor He seems to be implying that the Con- merger option they can expect to be 'characters' slightly confusing, especially nolly Association was not merely not part brought up against this Westminster as there are inevitably a large number of of the CPGB (Communist Party of Great Conundrum in short order. Dermot Ahern 'Mc / Mac's'. Britain) but was at odds with the parent is quoted in the Sindo as saying that he body. This does not seem to be the case, does not intend to give Sinn Féin a "free ROY from evidence from other quarters (nearly This first part of this review will take everybody else on the Left in GB). The run anywhere in Ireland". the story up to the launching of the 'Civil CA was not like, say, the Indian Workers' That hardly squares with the idea of Rights' strategy in Northern Ireland Association, which was genuinely autono- fighting elections in the North being "not (chapter 7, part 1, page, 209). It deals with mous, and tended to keep itself equidistant even on the agenda at the moment". A the period 1961-1966, and is sub-titled from Labour, the CPGB, and the Maoists. Northern Fianna Fáil party (under 'Politics heats up'. RJ returned to Ireland (The Trotskyists tended to want to dissolve whatever name or formal appearance) from London in 1961, getting a job with such 'autonomist' groups, unless they which backed away from fighting Gerry Aer Lingus, having worked for Guinness proved a useful source of recruits.) Adams in West Belfast would be here in London. The latter's 'science' was done C. Desmond Greaves (CDG) looms today and going going gone tomorrow. in Dublin, the technology in London. large in this section of the book. He is Not even on the agenda is just not an There was not a large enough cohort of quoted at length on a number of occasions, option. technologists in Ireland at that time. This and has a very large entry in the Index. RJ

12 first encountered him in 1948. CDG was be a more economic (in the sense of the world will not magic them away. The on one of his political 'fishing' expeditions producing more food for smaller above pairing may look odd but the two in Ireland. He was at that point interested expenditure) use of the land. But it is a groups arose at roughly the same time in in John de Courcy-Ireland, and the Fabian classic example of the academic in politics response to the same set of problems— Society in TCD (Trinity College, Dublin). not noticing that 'economics' is not the be- occasioned by the collapse of the 'Northern RJ was a member of the Prometheus all and end-all of politics. This procedure Ireland' entity. The 'Provisionals' have Society which had been started in St. by FF was part of the working out of the become a substantial group, with a Colomba's College, and was (just about) redistribution of the land, from the Anglo- politicised cadre. The UDA (Ulster present in TCD at the period of CDG's Irish Ascendancy caste to the people. Defence Association) has degenerated into visit. Justin Keating was attached to the There is no indication that FF interfered if a group of gangs making money out of Prometheus Society (and the Fabian the 'thirty acre' men wished to form drug-dealing and other criminal scams. Society), while attending UCD (University themselves into co-operatives. There are The point being that RJ's political (and to College, Dublin). further somewhat pointless 'digs' at this an extent social) perceptions have been RJ claims that even at this period he 'thirty acre' business, on page 146, for distorted by propagandist nonsense about was a 'Connolly' socialist and not a 'Stalin- example, in the context of TCD's John Fianna Fáil and the Provisionals. ist'. The Stalinist orientation of the CPGB Kells Ingram model farm. Other references read very like social and the USSR (which he describes on RJ mentions Father McDyer of Glen- snobbery, on page 17, he complains page 151 as "state-capitalist") repelled colmcille, Co. Donegal, in Chapter 7, and partition 'crippled' the co-operative move- him. I am not disputing this, but he had the it is implied that he sent IRA personnel to ment, and about [Sir Horace] Plunkett alternative of working in the Labour Party. do voluntary work in co-operatives there. being 'burned-out'. There is a somewhat The Irish Labour Party was small, but But he nowhere mentions Muintir na Tire snide aside on "one Edward (sic) de quite enormous compared to the Irish Wor- or Macra na Feirme, founded by Roman Valera" [the 'sic' provided by RJ—IPR] kers' League (which became the IW Party, Catholic priests. There is no mention of attending the British Association for the then Communist Party of Ireland). Labour the Irish Countrywomen's Association, Advancement of Science Conference in was in government with Clann na set up in 1926, which was entirely secular Dublin in 1908. The attendance of David Poblachta (upon which the hopes of many in inspiration. Formerly the United Houston, who "taught science at St Enda's 'progressives' rested), and admittedly, the Irishwomen, in 1916 it helped found the Patrick Pearse's school" is noted. De Blueshirt Fine Gael. One would have Women's Institutes in England and Wales. Valera is mentioned in one of RJ's italicised thought that the party founded by Connolly The UI / ICA was a 'spin-off' from asides in the text. "The culture link between would have been the forum for a Connolly- Plunkett's co-operative movement of science and the emerging national elite ite, especially someone specifically anti- which JJ (and RJ) both approve. Despite via de Valera was also flawed… when de Stalinist. But 'Britain' seems to have the Ulster Presbyterian small farmer Valera set up the Dublin Institute of exercised a fascination for both Johnstons. origins they seem to have absorbed an Advanced Studies…" he displayed a Ascendancy or 'Anglo-Saxon' attitude to "limited understanding of the nature of JOE the land of Ireland—it would be better, the process of transformation of scientific Joe Johnston was the product of a meaning more efficient, without all those research into social utility." County Tyrone, Presbyterian, small farmer people living on it. On the next page (18) RJ notes Sydney family. Nearly all his siblings, including Gifford Czira's memory of the 1910 Sinn the girls (quite unusual at that time—the ROY IN DUBLIN Féin Aonach na Nodlaig, which featured turn of the last century) got a second and RJ worked in the Dublin Institute for Harry Ferguson's aircraft (this is Harry third level education by way of scholar- Advanced Studies (set up by De Valera— Ferguson the tractor man). RJ seems to be ships. JJ was a Classicist but became an possibly to get round the sectarian implying that the "innovative entrepren- economist, specialising in agricultural squabbling between TCD and UCD). JJ eurial" spirit abroad in Ireland at that time economics. RJ quotes much of his father's seems to have been prepared to acknow- was dissipated, presumably by the likes of strictures on Irish agriculture, in particular ledge that this was not all one-way traffic. Dev and FF. The waste of talent in the his interventions in the Senate he was a RJ seems to dump all the blame on Michael course of the Great War, the War of Inde- representative of TCD, losing his seat to Tierney, he writes (p147) that Tierney and pendence, and 'Civil War' is not referred W.B. Stanford, in 1948. There is a problem UCD were hostile to TCD "on Catholic- to. Neither is the fact that with Harry in that Ministers in question (Frank Aiken nationalist grounds". This was in the Ferguson and Dunlop resident in Belfast, and Seán Moylan) are not allowed their context of rivalry over who was to get the it is something of an achievement that the 'spake'. One is left with the notion that JJ Agriculture and Veterinary courses. JJ city did not have an extensive car industry. was simply speaking into a void. Aiken disapproved of TCD dropping the 'Arts (Rex McCandless of Crossgar held dozens and Moylan are mentioned, in a slighting requirements' for such degrees. He wanted of patents in this field—he was also a sort of way. They were both Fianna Fáil the students to have a French or German world famous racing motor cyclist.) (FF)—of which more anon. (presumably language) option. This was The Aonach na Nodlaig is noted as "a It is claimed that JJ ran actual farms at to get them to look to "the Continent" major public event", apparently publicised two different periods, in two different rather than to "Britain". The Tierney in largely by The O Rahilly, "with extensive places. One (during the War) was near question was presumably the Blueshirt participation by Northern industry". But, Drogheda, the other near Clonmel in the intellectual, of the 1930s, which may be a as noted above 'Northern industry' faded fifties and sixties. There was also a model secondary reason for RJ's ire. The same after Partition. Ferguson, Dunlop and farm attached to TCD's agricultural person leaned towards Bolshevism in the others out-migrated. With the exception department. But it seems to me that JJ was 'Civil War'. of Faulkner, from the small capitalist class more in the way of being a 'gentleman RJ takes every opportunity to have a himself, 'Stormont' Ministers simply held farmer' than sharing the experiences of 'dig' at Dev and Fianna Fáil: mostly they their hands out to Westminster. The bustl- the '30 acre men'. FF is attacked for are standard 'Sticky' ('Official' Republican) ing, entrepreneurial, industrial North of purchasing land and parcelling it out in 'tropes'. He seems to be still a 'Sticky' at Ireland is now an economic dust bowl, thirty acre lots. JJ felt farmers they should heart. For example, FF set up the Provi- hoping to earn money from 'ghoul tourism' be encouraged to set up co-operatives, or sional IRA. (The Provis, like the UDA, based on our recent blood-letting, and the be employed on large mixed farms. It is are an unambiguous fact of life in Belfast Titanic. The latter is only one of hundreds probably accurate to say that such would and the North, all the wishful thinking in of great liners built in Belfast. But even

13 natives of the place could be forgiven for the rise of de Valera." station seems to have been deliberately thinking that it was the town's one attempt In that case he must have been embarrassed organised so that much of Northern Ireland at a big boat. when the same fascist invited him back could not receive the signal. Some of into the Senate. these problems are technical and geographical PROTECTION Dr. Roy Johnston's interpolation is —in the Newry area it is difficult to pick JJ was opposed to Protectionism, being difficult to understand. A label is some- up signals from anywhere—except the in essence a Manchester Liberal. RJ appears times used to cover such people as he mindless commercial (one man and a wee to endorse this stand. The protection of mentions: 'revolutionary despot'. Crom- lad) Omeath station. But many Northern- local industry "was the root of all govern- well became a despot / dictator because ers still have to go to pains to get RTÉ's ment corruption, with politicians bought the English Republican State lost faith in signal. Allegedly, the homes of UDA by protected capitalists, as exemplified in itself. RJ and a number of similar intellect- officers can be pinpointed quite easily. the Indian National Congress process, uals seem to hope something similar will They are the ones with television aerials and repeated in Fianna Fail". (Page 18, happen to the Irish Republican State. on three metre high masts, to get the signal surely this is the wrong way round, 'Éire' Bonaparte seems a more blatant case of from the 'donkey cart Republic'—for the became at least quasi-independent before military adventurism but the French sport. Radio Éireann comes across clear India). Ireland (inevitably a small Republic was enfeebled by the extra- as a bell in the flatlands of Lancashire.) economy) and India (potentially a huge ordinary 'self denying ordinance' of the This aside on a World Service is fairly economy) had both been parts of the City members of the first National Assembly neutral, but it is the only one in the book. of London's Empire. This slating of India in refusing to stand for election in sub- Page 323 mentions JJ's final political emerges from a book, The Political Future sequent Assemblies. The people who had acts as part of an "anti-EEC" campaign, of India, by James Johnston, uncle of RJ, been forced to construct a Republican but RJ does not say what he felt about such and a former member of the ICS (Indian State simply absented themselves from matters. Having been in, at the least, the Civil Service), who produced a number of politics. Napoleon became a monarch 'catchment area' of the CPGB, and at that other books in the 1930s, Can the Hindus and reinstituted the Church, because that point still in the 'official' Republican Rule India? and Hindu Domination in was what la France profonde wanted, and movement he would have been opposed India—RJ writes that James Johnston "was more to the point, needed. To that extent to the EEC. The CPGB's, the CPI's (and very critical" of aspects of Hindu culture. he was a despot, but he left the land the Workers' Party of Ireland-to-be) Where did Muslim culture stand in his settlement intact, and even the returned grounds were, in essence, Soviet—the estimation? Judging from the titles (not Bourbons left the land in the hands of the USSR did not want a Christian / Social usually the best approach, admittedly) peasantry. Napoleon Bonaparte remained Democratic potential superpower on its these books may have been Partitionist in a revolutionary in that his forces carried doorstep. 'Both wings', as it was put those effect, certainly the Muslim League must the basic principles of the French Revolu- days, of the Republican movement were have welcomed them. tion to every land in mainland Europe opposed to 'Europe', for reasons that would There is an obsession in this book with (and England could not completely not have embarrassed an English 'Euro- the wickedness of Fianna Fáil, and its cordon-off Ireland from the infection). skeptic'. JJ, characteristically, opposed founder Dev, who is never referred to as Putting Hitler in the context of 'repub- membership because of the CAP (common such, despite RJ's minor obsession with lican democratic reform movements' is a agricultural policy). His reasoning was diminutives. JJ developed a "devastating bit odd. It may refer to his giving some Manchester Liberal: it would interfere critique" of FF policies in the 1930s. substance to the 'socialist' bit of National with trade. That any other policy would Presumably this was despite the fact that Socialism. It may also have to do with the depopulate the land appears to be of no 'amid the bulks of actual things' FF's fact that in certain sections of Irish society account. (The current Administration in policies were quite successful. The econ- today, any old nonsense is entertained in the US is subsidising the agricultural omy was in better shape in 1940 than it regard to Dev and FF. Lenin was hyper- sector, not because it has problems with had been in 1930. When JJ was voted off democratic in his propaganda, especially 'agri-business', or fears that America may the TCD Senate panel, De Valera reinstated in The State and Revolution, which is not be able to feed itself. The motivation him, in 1951, as part of the Taoiseach's practically Anarchist. In his practical is that the term 'American farmer' is in panel of nominees. Dev is compared politics he had no problems in ignoring danger of becoming as antiquated as 'Wild (page 57) to Mugabe, an analogy which is vulgar matters like majorities, not even West'.) Anthony Coughlan, who is clearly not meant to be flattering to either within his own Party. When Stalin took mentioned frequently in this book is still man. However, the process RJ is discuss- the Soviet State in hand, every 'Stalinist' opposed to the EU on vaguely nationalist ing, the distribution of the land from convention was already in place. He / 'anti-imperialist' grounds. This is despite 'commercial farmers' to the people who simply used them to make the USSR the the fact that membership of the Union has actually work it, is essentially the same. superpower that smashed Hitler's war boosted output in Irish agriculture. The Except that in 'De Valera's Ireland' the machine and balanced-out the USA for EU has been very solicitous of minorities process was quite painless for the owners half a century. since its inception: without it a number of of large farms and estates. He quotes a Dev was a republican, a democrat, and 'lesser used' languages would be extinct or Senate debate of 22nd February 1944 in a substantial reformer (see above on the— in a very bad way. Undoubtedly the which JJ claims that Cromwell led a Fascist peaceful—redistribution of land): quite increasing dominance of the 'Anglo-Saxon' revolution (page 91). JJ complained that why he is being turned into a bogeyman is economic liberal approach in the EU will Senate debates were 'censored'—largely difficult to understand. There are a number make life difficult for them and make the because some of his remarks weren't of asides about Dev, most of which seem term 'farmer' redundant as it very nearly is reported in newspapers—but this was in intended to demonstrate his narrow- in Great Britain. the middle of the second World War. RJ's mindedness. In footnote 25, page 376, Dr. Johnston's attitudes to Irish politics interpolation here reads: Chapter 11, he mentions "de Valera's (which consists mostly of a blind loathing "JJ here identified the historical earlier scheme for developing a Radio of Fianna Fáil, and thereby, an increasingly process which has perverted republican Eireann World Service". Dev's notion is odd attitude to its opponents), and the democratic reform movements into undated. (It would be interesting to know build-up to the explosion in the North, throwing up autocratic leaderships such will be dealt with in the next part of this as Cromwell, Napoleon, Hitler and who put the kibosh on this, given that Stalin. He was perhaps hinting 'Athlone' was not available to all of the Six review. implicitly at a similar process behind Counties, and the Irish national television Seán McGouran

14 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR · LETTERS TO THE EDITOR· LETTERS TO THE EDITOR · LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

wounded. Something was happening all years acknowledged historian) silence on The Burning Of Cork the time and some of it went unreported. this matter has been deafening. He was This was a planned campaign of arson and silent because he knew the real story of Mr. Manus O Riordan's review of the pillage and premises were selected for Kilmichael was reflected in the savage Burning of Cork has only recently been destruction. Evidence of this was given way the Auxilliaries behaved on that brought to my attention. I would ask you by Florrie O Donoghue Cork no. 1 Brigade Saturday night the 11th of December. to publish the attached as my reply to his Intelligence officer, when he told the story Evidence does exist which indicates we review. If you do publish my reply, please of the auxilliary officer who tried to prevent were not told the truth about Kilmichael. publish the entire reply without any the looting of one shop by the black and New evidence on Kilmichael and other changes. Dick Kenny (Cork) tans, during the burning of Cork, and the actions which took place during the war of reply he got from the Tan was “we don't independence would not diminish peoples Manus O Riordans critique of Jerry give a damn this is the shop that was admiration for Commandant Tom Barry Whites and Brendan O Sheas book The pointed out to us”. and the other prominent people in the war, Burning of Cork in the March/April issues This campaign was carried out by the but would rather renew interest, as the of the Irish Political Review, has only Auxiliaries and Black and Tans and characters are revealed as human beings recently come to my attention. became a campaign of revenge for the and not the “paragons of perfection” they I would describe both his articles as annihilation of all their comrades at were told they were. At this stage it would being contrived and "all over the place" Kilmichael and the reports in the press be unpatriotic not to reveal the truth. and one would wonder at times what he concerning the condition of the bodies In the months of 1921 the IRA had was really on about. after the ambush. Part of the campaign suffered reverses in the 3 Brigade areas at The fact that the jewess Sarah Medalie was carried out in a "covert way" with Dripsey, Mourne Abbey, Upton, Crush- died as a result of a raid by the Black and some of the Auxilliaries masquerading as malanive, Clonmult and Clogheen, plus Tans on the Friday, night before the members of the so called “Anti Sinn Fein the capture of 5 weapons dumps in the No. burning of Cork and this was not mentioned Society”. 1 Brigade area, and the arrest of Con in the book was regrettable. However it However the provocation caused by Conroy, the IRA intelligence officer who would have been just as regrettable if she the ambush of the 2 lorry 20 man convoy worked as a clerk in the adjutants office at had been a Catholic, Protestant, Atheist or of Auxilliaries 300 yards from Victoria Victoria Barracks Cork. It would seem Communist. Barracks at Dillons Cross changed all the British were getting to grips with the He criticizes the book for describing that. The Auxilliaries ran amok, burned 6 IRA and were on their way to winning the the period prior to the arrival of the Black houses at Dillons Cross and then burned a war on the military front. The IRA and Tans as being a civil war between the large part of the City, 2000 people were volunteers shortage of arms and equipment RIC and the IRA. Yet it was a civil war in put out of work, 5 acres of property were and their lack of proper training meant so far as Irish men were fighting Irishmen, destroyed and in todays money the damage that a military victory for them was not the IRA were fighting the RIC and civilian would have been 250 million Euro. The possible. General Strickland wrote in his spies and informers. Cork was a loyalist reprisal shocked Ireland and along with diary on the last day he spent in Victoria town. the hunger strike and death of Terence Barracks before the evacuation in 1922 Manus goes on to castigate the book for McSwiney for the second time in four “and so this is the end of two and half years saying, from a British point of view, the months brought international attention to of toil, a year ago we had a perfect civilian population were legitimate targets. the war in Cork. It was a huge own goal organization and had them beaten, a short Of course they were, does he really believe by the British Government, an observer time more would have completed it that when the IRA attacked the British and wrote “Cork is heroic, noble, immortal thoroughly”. Sir Neville Macready, disappeared into the crowd, that the British and its ruins are a monument to her love G.O.C. of British forces in Ireland, in would not feel justified in attacking the for liberty and humanity.” December 1920 asked Lloyd George for crowd. They would not be saying to just 3 months, that was all that he would themselves “we cannot do this because it Manus is critical of what he calls the require to “clear up this mess”. is historical fact that we should not be neat cause effect picture of ambush retaliat- However on the public opinion front here in the first place”. Remember an IRA ion as presented by the authors in respect the British were very definitely losing the volunteer in Cork city cold throw a bomb of Saturday night the 11th of December war. Major Bernard Montgomery who at the British and go home and have his 1920. I wonder what book was he reading? was brigade major in Victoria Barracks supper. Did he see the 2 letters captured by IRA Cork in 1921 wrote “my own view is that Manus suggests that there is a thread intelligence which were written by an to win a war of this kind you must be running through the book which blames auxilliary who had taken part in the burning ruthless, Oliver Cromwell or the Germans the IRA for British reprisals. This is of of Cork. To his sister he wrote “I just would have settled it in a very short time. course wrong, the authors only tried to put escaped the ambush in which 8 of our Nowadays public opinion precludes such the reprisal attacks in context—does boys were wounded, but arrived later as a methods, the nation would never allow it anyone really think that the British would reinforcement. We took a sweet revenge”. and the politicians would lose their jobs if have tried to burn the city if there was'nt a To his mother he wrote “the burning and they sanctioned it”. war on? sacking of Cork followed immediately on Manus would have us believe that the the ambush of our men”. War is all about The burning of Cork had a huge effect burning of Cork was part of a pogrom cause and effect. on British and world opinion and was which started with the death of the jewess It has been accepted by observers instrumental in forcing Britain to agree to Sarah Medalie. including the then Bishop of Cork Daniel a truce on the 11th of July 1921, seven I should point out, from the 21st of Cohalan, and historians of the period, that months later. Manus O Riordans failure February 1920 to the 10th of December the ambush at Dillons Cross provided the to acknowledge this about a city had had 1920, 12 business premises, 2 private pretext to the Auxilliaries to burn Cork as such close family connections with, is houses, 5 clubs, 2 parish halls and 1 union a reprisal for Kilmichael. Florence O hard to understand given his readiness to hall had all been destroyed by fire, 4 Donoghues (Cork No. 1 Brigade adjutant acknowledge the part played by the people had been killed and 20 were and director of intelligence and in later burning of the Custom House in securing

15 the same truce. One possible explanation than the two described by him as "only "pogrom" in order describe those anti- for this could be, that when Manus thinks recently brought to my attention". Yet Catholic mob attacks, involving both death he has a “good story” all truths and loyalties these two articles alone refute Dick and destruction, which bedevilled Ulster- go out the window. Kenny's innuendoes and false allegations. society at various stages in its history, The facts are that in the March issue I without there being a single Jew in sight. The jewess Sarah Medalie, was not the specifically referred to the victims of The I now stand corrected by current dictionary only victim of that weekend, and Manus Burning of Cork as "the Catholics Jere- definitions as to my previous more liberal describes the authors failure to mention miah and Cornelius Delaney" as well as usage of the word "pogrom". But, for no her name as bizarre and he calls for "the Jewish Sarah Medalie", while in the less valid reasons, Dick Kenny should “elementary humanity” for her. In all April issue I also wrote "Catholic also cease defending the abuse of the term there were 17 victims on that weekend, 6 O'Sullivans and Jewish Spiros were no "civil war" by Gerry White and Brendan people died and 11 were wounded. more spared the 'neighbourly' attentions O'Shea, which they have chosen in order To me Manus O Riordans failure to of the marauding Tans of MacCurtain to misname the War of Independence mention the names of the Catholic priest Street Barracks than were Catholics and waged by the Army of Dáil Éireann against Canon Thomas Magnier and volunteer Jews—and indeed Freemasons as the "Fascist dictation" of Britain's RIC, to Tadgh Crowley was not only bizarre but well—spared the rampaging raids of the quote the exact phraseology used by Frank quite sinister. These two people were Tans from Tuckey Street Barracks on the Crozier himself, the first commanding murdered by Cadet Sergeant Vernon Hart night of Friday, 10 December 1920—the officer of the RIC Auxiliaries. The Oxford as a reprisal some days after the Dillons commencement of a Tan pogrom against dictionary defines "civil war" as "war Cross ambush. Likewise his failure to the citizenry of Cork as a whole. So between citizens of the same country". mention Cadet Spencer Chapman one of much for the 'scene setting' by White and Only in respect of a nine county Ulster the auxilliaries who died from his wounds O'Shea of the 'deceptive' normality with might it be in any way reasonable to argue after the ambush, and his failure to mention which Saturday's Christmas shopping had that this term could be used to describe the the eleven other wounded auxiliaries, most supposedly commenced". Nationalist/Unionist conflict, where there of whom were wounded below the waist were indeed substantial bodies of citizenry and would have lost their manhood—but Dick Kenny objects: "Manus would supporting opposite sides of that same sure they were only christians and worse have us believe that the burning of Cork War of Independence. But much though I than that, they were British Christians and was part of a pogrom which started with deplore the politics of the Southern not deserving o Manus O Riordan''s the death of the Jewess Sarah Medalie". Catholic minority who voted Redmondite “Elementary Humanity”. It is true that the original Russian use of in the 1918 General Election, it would be the word "pogrom" specifically involved slanderous to label such Nationalists as Jewish victims. That is why, in accepting traitors who somehow provided a domestic the need for a more precise use of language base for a "Civil War" against the Repub- in today's circumstances, I have also come lican majority, for there was not in fact Manus O'Riordan to agree that this term should no longer be any body of Redmondite citizenry who replies to Dick used as a soft option in order to describe supported the RIC in waging Britain's war the 1904 anti-Semitic agitation in against Dáil Éireann. Kenny: Limerick. In my April essay "GAA Dick Kenny writes that "when Manus Founder No Blooming Anti-Semite", And that is the main problem with the thinks he has a 'good story' all truth and accessible at www.anfearrua.com/ White and O'Shea approach to such loyalties go out the window". Given the story.asp?id=2126 on the "GAA history. I myself have no personal axe fact that my articles have long been biased Unplugged" website, I quote historian whatsoever to grind in respect of these in the direction of my father's sentiments Dermot Keogh's own re-assessment in two writers. When they write good history, when singing "The Boys who Bate the that regard "The story of the Limerick I have no hesitation in praising them, as I Black-and-Tans were the Boys of the 'pogrom'—which really does not deserve did in the August 2006 issue of Irish County Cork", I am bemused by his charge to be called a pogrom—has been told Political Review, for their very realistic of disloyalty to my Cork roots and view it more than once". And I go on to comment: and cogently argued assessment of Easter as an example of a certain type of Leeside "Now I myself must plead guilty to the 1916 in Cork. But when such professional parochial paranoia that my father also usage of such terminology. The original historians' pursuit of what they want to made damned sure he would escape from. meaning of the Russian word 'pogrom' present as a "good story" proceeds to But the charge that I am a liar to boot is not translates as 'chaos' or 'devastation'. I have exclude any reference whatsoever to the so amusing. For, after stating the often used the term 'pogrom' to describe death and arson that had already taken obvious—that "the Jewess Sarah Medalie the mob attacks on the persons and property place in Cork City on December 10 1920— was not the only victim"—he goes on to of both Jews in Limerick in 1904 and presumably for the purposes of further charge that not only am I callously German nationals in Dublin 1914. If, heightening the dramatic impact of their indifferent to other casualties on the however, accompanying deaths are taken narrative of the Dillon's Cross ambush on grounds that "sure they were only to be a necessary component of the later December 11 and the total destruction of Christians", but that my alleged "failure to understanding of both the word itself and the city centre that followed—it is time mention", inter alia, "the Catholic priest the actual phenomenon of 'pogrom'—as it for somebody to blow the whistle on such Canon Thomas Magnier" is, in his view, is indeed currently defined in standard bad "history". "not only bizarre but quite sinister". English dictionaries—then the only I would hate to think that any act of circumstances in which that designation There is one key area where I do agree omission on my part has even partially should now be employed would be in with Dick Kenny, when he writes that fuelled Dick Kenny's dark thoughts that I respect of the Orange pogroms against the "war is all about cause and effect". He am operating according to some "sinister" Catholic minority in Ulster and the 1920 further writes that "Dillon's Cross provided set of protocols. When he writes that my Black-and-Tan pogrom against the the pretext to the Auxiliaries to burn Cork views are "all over the place", this has an citizenry of Cork, which involved the as a reprisal for Kilmichael". Precisely! A element of truth, but only in the sense that death of several Catholics and one Jew". pretext is not a cause, and the cause was such views have been further expressed in Indeed, for many decades now it has indeed the success of Tom Barry's ambush several other Irish Political Review articles been standard practice to use the term at Kilmichael on November 28, 1920.

16 Dick Kenny can be excused if my article to that effect in the March 2001 issue of Hidden History Of Ireland's Nazis Programme Part Two Irish Political Review had not also been brought to his attention. Subsequently updated under the title of "Forget Not the Boys of Kilmichael!" and published in the Dev's Refugee Policy 2005 edition of the Ballingeary Historical Society Journal, it can also be found online This May the Irish-language TV station had been accessed by the producers of at www.indymedia.ie/article/69172 where TG4 transmitted Stráinséirí, a Ireland's Nazis, a spin would have been I wrote as follows and hopefully mentioned documentary detailing the experiences of put on this old Jew's last few words that enough murdered and tormented various immigrant communities in Dublin, would have twisted their meaning beyond Christians for Dick Kenny's satisfaction: both past and present. It was sensitively all recognition. produced by the daughter of a Breton "Kevin Myers proceeds to re-echo immigrant who had arrived in Ireland Many other elderly Dublin Jews had Peter Hart's incorrect claim that Séamus after the Second World War in order to shared the pain of immediate family loss Ó Liatháin was 'the only person killed evade a French death sentence for as a result of the Holocaust, among them by the Macroom Auxiliaries before Kilmichael'. They were in fact in the collaboration with Nazi Germany, but being a neighbour across the street from process of establishing a reign of terror whose story—intended to be a central us, to whom my mother became both over what they regarded as the feature—was to be cynically pulled from friend and confidant. While 90 percent of untermenschen ('lesser breeds') of the the January transmission of RTE's so- Dublin's Jewish community had originated West Cork Gaeltacht. Sunday after called documentary Ireland's Nazis, all in in the Kovno (Kaunas) province of Sunday the Auxies systematically that network's own squalid corporate Lithuania, Mrs. Green was Polish, having descended on Ballingeary at Mass-time interests and the media 'principle' of left her Warsaw home as a young woman in order to corral and abuse the villagers 'looking after one's own'. I myself in the early 1930s for an arranged marriage as they emerged from worship. And in participated in the Stráinséirí document- with a very much older Lithuanian-born a 'shoot-to-kill' mission on November ary, relating my childhood experiences of Dubliner. She did not, however, discover 10, 1920 they murdered the unarmed Volunteer Críostóir Ó Luasa in the the 1950s and 1960s. For I had grown up until she reached her new home on Victoria neighbouring townland of Túirín Dubh. in that South Circular Road neighbourhood Street that her husband was in fact a Hart chose to make no reference which was then coming towards the end widower, and that living in that same whatsoever to this murder, nor to the of the era when it had been colloquially house were five sons of the same subsequent encounter between the known among Dubliners as "Little generation as herself. To say that she gloating Auxies and the local parish Jerusalem", that initial area of significant instantly felt homesick would be an priest and Gaelic scholar, an t-Athair and concentrated Jewish immigration and understatement. And in more ways than Donncha Ó Donnchú, at whom they settlement over the course of three decades one. All her life Mrs. Green continued to gleefully roared 'There's work for you from the 1880s. (Nowadays it is among hero-worship Marshal Jozef Pilsudski— back there!' …" the areas of significant and concentrated the Polish socialist nationalist leader with "Eoghan Harris presented the Muslim immigration and settlement.) whom Connolly had identified most marauding Auxies of Macroom as being closely during the First World War, but guilty of no more than going on 'a routine patrol' through Kilmichael … This programme treated all minority whom Trotsky would brook no opposition He also argued the following on their communities—Jewish, Muslim, Black in dogmatically denouncing and behalf: 'My account does not depict the etc.—quite sympathetically, and it also "scientifically" classifying as a "real Auxiliary Officers—as Cork Republi- contained archival footage of Dublin's fascist". But, fraught as her new domestic can folklore does—as faceless digits Jewish community during the 1960s. One set-up in exile would be for both herself who got their just deserts. If that were sequence featured an elderly Hassidic Jew, and her own two Dublin-born children, true, the comrades of the dead men as he closed the hall door of a St. Kevin's particularly when widowed after only a would have taken a savage revenge. Parade house converted into an ultra- few years of marriage, she came to Far form doing so, the Auxiliaries Orthodox synagogue and went on to appreciate and love that Ireland beyond around Macroom remained disciplined'. describe, in heavily-accented English her own four walls as having been her No revenge? Within a fortnight of Kilmichael, on December 11, 1920, the which he had still some difficulty in salvation. For, with the exception of two centre of Cork City was destroyed by articulating, that same neighbourhood brothers who had also emigrated from fire in an Auxie-led pogrom. Days later, where he had settled and raised his own Poland, all of Mrs. Green's family ended on December 15, the Macroom Auxies family: "When I came to Dublin over 40 up as Holocaust victims in the Nazi also murdered the parish priest of years ago, I would say in the whole district crematoria of Treblinka extermination Dunmanway, Canon Magner, shooting nearly every second house, every third camp. him dead by the side of the road. The house, was Jewish. And all the Jews were Auxie murderer in question was, by living in very harmony, very nicely, very Two streets away from us on Longwood ironic coincidence, also named Hart…" religious, 'til the War broke out". At which Avenue, my contemporaries included the "Britain had indeed altered the point a look of such sadness crossed what children of the Hassidic Jewish Bleier character of warfare prior to Kilmichael, had been—at the very start of that same family. I was to learn from Sarah Bleier, but Kilmichael in turn altered the course sentence—a smiling face. No further when we were about 14 years of age, that of the War itself … And the attempts by assorted revisionist scribes to denigrate elaboration followed, nor had there been both of her Yugoslav parents had been the Kilmichael ambush, which struck any in the original TV programme where inmates of Auschwitz Extermination such a mortal blow against the most I had first seen this footage during the Camp and that Mrs. Bleier was in fact the powerful Empire in the world, is seen 1960s. But I myself knew what he had in one and only survivor of her own family. to be incapable of withstanding the mind—certainly not any wartime Small wonder, then, that their first-born light of day." development in Ireland itself, but the son had been life-affirmingly named Holocaust perpetrated on his people in Yidele ('little Jew'). The Bleier parents And, at the end of the day, that's about Central Europe (though ignorant of the had come to Ireland as post-War refugees the size of it! particular details of his own personal loss). in order to cater for the religious needs of Manus O'Riordan I was now acutely aware that if this footage 137 orphaned Jewish children from Central

17 and Eastern Europe who had also been com/story.asp?id=2127 in some the Irish government was making a admitted to Ireland in 1948, after surviving considerable detail, with regard to both further appeal on behalf of the Jewish the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. his distorted analysis of Big Jim Larkin's families ... Walshe [also wrote] on 19 Having known by sight, but not by name, response to Jewish immigration in the April pointing out that they had so far the elderly Hassidic Jew who regularly early 1900s and his misleading examin- failed to secure permission for the Vittel accompanied the Bleier males to the St. ation of a number of 1930s case studies, group to come to Ireland and that the Irish representative had been instructed Kevin's Parade Synagogue, I therefore where he confused issues of immigration to make further efforts. He understood assumed that his look of sadness on TV procedure with those of refugee policy. It that there was 'very little chance unless was related to the loss of his own parents is obvious that it was Keogh's history that they have relatives here and even then and/or siblings during the Holocaust. But also provided the source for a number of very doubtful'. Walshe could afford to when I recently enquired as to his name, both wartime and post-war case studies be emphatic because he had on file two his story became even more tragic, through drawn upon by the producers of Ireland's recent reports from Con Cremin [Irish his loss of two generations after him. For Nazis, but without any acknowledgement Minister] in Berlin which indicated that I then realised that I had already read being given by them to Keogh for his the fate of the Vittel Jews was already accounts of Aaron Zvi Steinberg, who had specific original research. Indeed they sealed. He [Cremin] concluded that no immigrated from Czechoslovakia in 1926. had 'good [sic] reason' to avoid giving exit visas would be provided for Jews, even those with relatives in Ireland. On The Dolphin's Barn Synagogue wedding such credit. For in these later case studies April 19 Walshe requested Cremin to in July 1937 of his daughter Ettie to her Keogh's own handling of his material is make a further intervention on behalf Antwerp-based husband had indeed been above reproach and constitutes a direct of the Vittel Jews. Replying that he was a particularly joyful celebration for refutation of the 'documentary' spin put on making representations as instructed, Dublin's Jewish community. But within a them. Here are some excerpts from Cremin asked Walshe whether matter of five years that same young couple Keogh's thoroughly objective narrative of cognisance had been taken of his and their Paris-born son were to be rounded wartime issues, with my own emphases despatches of 24 and 27 March. Walshe up and transported from Drancy to and bracketed clarifications added: replied that Irish motivation was 'purely Auschwitz, for immediate extermination humanitarian', and even if there was on 4th September 1942. This, then, was "Meanwhile, the US envoy in little hope he simply wanted Cremin to Dublin, David Gray, had seen [Secretary try again ... When Cremin reported on the reason why Mr. Steinberg, as the father 4 July, he had definite news that the and grandfather of the only Jewish citizens of the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs] Walshe on 9 February 1944 to Polish Jews at Vittel were in a camp in of Ireland to perish in the Holocaust, had eastern Europe … Cremin added that momentarily on camera expressed a look discuss President Roosevelt's setting up of the War Refugee Board. Walshe the official he spoke to said that the of such sadness. But there is more than told Gray that the Irish government was 'German authorities had been treating human empathy involved in providing prepared in principle to receive 500 (our) application with all possible this explanation. Nowadays it has also Jewish refugee children. Gray sent news goodwill because it comes from Ireland become a political necessity to place it on of the offer to Washington, and on 22 instead of as would be done normally record. For otherwise his statement that March he sent Walshe a copy of refusing it out of hand'. While Cremin Dublin's Jewish community had been Washington's reply: 'Please inform the continued to use his diplomatic skills in appropriate Irish official that this the macabre world of wartime Berlin, living in harmony "til the War broke out" Herzog cabled de Valera and Walshe would be recast by the mentality of the Government accepts with deep appreci- ation the generous and humanitarian later in July: 'REFERENCE OUR Ireland's Nazis programme and its media COMMUNICATIONS MATTER JEWISH offer which we understand the Irish cheerleaders into a charge that he had REFUGEES VITTEL ABOUT WHOM Government is prepared to make to suffered as a victim of some wartime receive and provide haven for 500 YOU WERE KIND ENOUGH TO MAKE INTERVENTION REGRET INFORM outburst of anti-Semitism on the part of Jewish refugee children'. Gray also Ireland itself, perhaps even going as far as asked Walshe whether the Irish YOU THAT REPATRIATED REFUGEES to also suggest that Ireland had been guilty government would be willing to guaran- FROM THAT CAMP DEPORTED FROM VITTEL ON 18.4.44 AND 16.5.44 TO of handing over Ettie Steinberg and her tee admission after the war to an addi- UNKNOWN DESTINATION … WE infant son to their Nazi murderers! tional 500 Jewish refugee children. Such a commitment, Gray said, might enable FEAR THAT THEY HAVE ALREADY the War Refugee Board to induce the BEEN SENT TO DEATH CAMPS IN "A warm house for Nazis, but a closed POLAND. MAY I ON BEHALF HOUSE door for Jewish children" was how Eoghan Swiss government to accept larger numbers of refugee children from Vichy ISRAEL WHILE THANKING ESTEEM- Harris headlined his acclamation of that ED GOVERNMENT FOR PREVIOUS for the duration of the war…The formal "documentary" in the Sunday Independent decision to admit the first 500 Jewish INTERVENTION APPEAL YOU MAKE last January 14th, reiterating the charge children was taken the same day by de CALL TO GERMAN GOVERNMENT that de Valera, "for nationalist reasons, Valera; he told Walshe he would make HOLD UP DEPORTATION THESE ran a government which warmed a cosy a decision later on the admission of a PEOPLE. IN FACE CRUEL TRAGEDY house for Nazi refugees but shut the door further 500 Jewish refugee children WHICH WILL SHOCK HISTORY TILL END OF DAYS … WARMEST THANKS on Jewish children", making Ireland a after the war. Gray was informed of the GREETINGS YOURSELF TAOISEACH." country which saw "the fascists being decision and responded gratefully to the news…" "De Valera cabled Herzog on 24 welcomed with open arms". And that is July: 'doing everything possible'. And how this "documentary" had indeed "[From Palestine] Chief Rabbi Herzog [formerly the first Chief Rabbi he was. Walshe cabled Cremin on 28 presented matters, suggesting that it was of Ireland] sent his next cable [to his long- July relaying the contents of Herzog's the Irish Government itself that had stalled standing friend, de Valera] on 5 April: telegram. On 2 August Cremin reported any action on an agreement in principle to 'EXTREMELY PERPLEXED. 235 that he had raised the question of the admit Jewish refugee children towards JEWISH REFUGEE FAMILIES IN Vittel Jews and hoped to get the the end of the War, until it was far too late VITTEL VICHY FRANCE FOR WHOM information … A newspaper clipping to save them from perishing in the YOU ONCE SUCCESSFULLY INTER- reported that 225 Vittel Jews were in Holocaust. CEDED ARE AGAIN THREATENED Auschwitz, Silesia, where they faced WITH DEPORTATION WHICH MEANS extermination in the 'bath-houses'. ALAS CERTAIN EXTERMINATION. Walshe cabled Cremin on 9 August Dermot Keogh's 1998 history—Jews with surnames and the number in the in Twentieth Century Ireland—has been PRAY MAKE IMMEDIATELY SUPREME EFFORTS SAVE DOOMED family, but all efforts proved futile … criticised by me online at www.anfearrua. …' De Valera replied on 18 April, saying Based on Swiss sources, Cremin

18 informed Dublin on 28 August that 163 in Eire its appreciation of their Briscoe, together with two members of of the Jews in Vittel had been removed humanitarian initiative with regard to the Paris-based Joint Distribution in April and 129 in May, while some threatened Jewish internees of Committee which cared for Jewish had escaped by committing suicide. concentration camps in Germany'. They refugees, met [Minister for Justice] According to the historian Natan Eck, encouraged a further intervention in Boland on 12 February 1953. Briscoe the families were sent to the exterminat- Berlin. David Gray was critical of the wanted to find a home in Ireland for ten ion camp at Auschwitz where they were board's 'hardly tactful method of Jewish families, approximately twenty put to death …" approach' but asked Walshe 'if in your adults and twenty children. The official "On 14 August Aaron S. Brown of own way you could suggest to the minute of the meeting recorded that the the US legation in Dublin wrote to German authorities that the safety of minister adopted 'a sympathetic Walshe concerning Ireland's agreement the inmates of these camps were a matter attitude'. Briscoe, advised to put his in principle to accept 500 Jewish refugee of concern to your government'. Walshe request in writing, wrote to Boland the children from France and requesting replied to Gray on 26 January that the following day: 'As verbally explained, that the agreement be extended to Irish government had immediately there is small hurriedly constructed Hungary. The Irish government wired Cremin in Berlin to approach the temporary camp to house 100 orthodox readily agreed … Walshe told US German authorities about Birkenau and Jewish families who have escaped from envoy David Gray … who wrote to the Oswiecim (Auschwitz). Cremin behind the Iron Curtain into Austria. US ambassador in London [indicating reported on 1 February that the camps They are mostly of Hungarian or a veto by the US itself on the admission in question had been evacuated and the Czecho-Slovakian origin. Their of adult Jewish refugees to Ireland— inmates transferred to a more central position is very dangerous and the Joint MO'R]: 'In the course of our discussion camp. This news was immediately sent Distribution Committee, which main- with the Irish government it was agreed to David Gray …" tains these people, are fearful of the that in all existing circumstances five "In the context of the crying need consequences which would flow to hundred was as many as the Jewish to try to stop the mass slaughter of these people if by any chance or act population in Eire could reasonably be the Jews, the project to bring 500 they should again come under the power expected to support and as many as the orphaned Jewish children to Ireland of the Communist authorities.' The Irish economy could reasonably be lost its urgency. The German authori- minister instructed one of his officials, expected to absorb. The quota is limited ties were simply not prepared to allow Peter Berry, to prepare a memorandum to children inasmuch as for security this to happen … What conclusions for him on the subject. Berry told the reasons it was considered undesirable may be drawn from the evidence departmental secretary, Thomas J. both from the American and Irish presented above? Firstly, de Valera Coyne, on 16 February that Boland, viewpoint to permit the entry of adult responded positively to every over- who was going to speak about the matter persons from Axis countries.' … Irish ture to try to assist a specific group of to do Valera that afternoon, wanted the diplomatic missions abroad continued, Jews in danger of being deported to application examined as 'a matter of nevertheless, to petition on behalf of the death camps. Secondly, Ireland's urgency'. Berry proceeded to outline Jews in the death camps … On 29 diplomatic service was active in trying his views on the subject: 'The Depart- November Cremin reported from Berlin to save Jews. Thirdly, Ireland was ment has refused literally hundreds of on his enquiries about the 12,000 Jews prepared to receive two large groups applications on behalf of refugees of deported from Kaunas in Lithuania … of Jewish children as refugees." good character of Catholic and Christian Cremin got nowhere. On 13 December [Keogh, pp 180-191]. religions whose plight was no less he told Walshe that he had seen the pitiable than that of the group in question same Foreign Office official and Keogh went on to provide ample now … There is a strong anti-Jewish followed instructions. But the official, evidence of the anti-Semitic prejudices of feeling in this State which is particularly who appeared to have talked to higher Peter Berry in the Department of Justice. evident to the Aliens Section of the authorities, could not see that the The TV 'documentary' drew on this Department of Justice. Sympathy for question of Lithuanian Jews concerned evidence, but without the caveat—entered the Jews has not been particularly Ireland at all … However, Cremin excited at the recent news that some continued to press the case of the Jews. by Keogh himself—as to how Berry had thousands are fleeing westwards He maintained close contact with the been overruled and defeated by de Valera. because of the recent round-up of a Swiss legation in Berlin and was kept But perhaps one of the most blatantly number of communist Jews who had informed of their actions in this area. cynical distortions of historical context by been prominent in Governments and He cabled on 21 December that a the "Ireland's Nazis" producers was to Government service in Eastern memorandum he had prepared on present some of Berry's statements on European countries.' …" Jewish refugees had been handed back screen as if they related to the simultaneous "Coyne—with Berry's assistance— to him by an official at the Foreign presentation of a discussion as to whether prepared a memorandum for govern- Office. There was no justification, he or not to admit Jewish refugees fleeing ment. Dated 28 February, it continued was told, for an intervention by the from Nazi genocide. The TV viewer to oppose the admission of the refugees: Irish; the persons concerned were not 'Although the Jewish community in Irish and did not have any Irish needed to be very quick-sighted indeed to Ireland is only 3,907 persons, according connections. As the enormity of Nazi notice that the Berry document being to the 1946 census, there is a fairly crimes were being catalogued, Chief flashed on screen carried the date 1953 strong anti-Semitic feeling throughout Rabbi Herzog cabled on 28 December: and did not at all relate to Nazi genocide the country based, perhaps, on historical 'PRAY MAKE SUPREME EFFORT NOW but rather to Communist repression. The reasons, the fact that the Jews have SAVING BUDAPEST JEWS. IMMINENT case actually involved a number of remained a separate community within EXTERMINATION. HEARTRENDING Orthodox Jewish families who were the community and have not permitted TRAGEDY. GREETINGS ANTICIPAT- seeking refuge from the religious themselves to be assimilated, and that ORY THANKS.' Walshe replied to discrimination they were suffering under for their numbers they appear to have Herzog on 17 January 1945: 'Have been the Communist authorities in Hungary disproportionate wealth and influence.' doing everything possible behalf The memorandum was circulated to Hungarian Jews'. Walshe had kept in and Czechoslovakia, whose repression of the other departments in preparation contact with US envoy David Gray the Catholic Church had in fact been even for a cabinet meeting." about what could be done. 'This is just more severe. Here again, it is Keogh "Briscoe's ministerial sources had what we want', Gray told him on 19 himself we have to thank for providing the kept him informed about the January after Walshe had ordered yet narrative that refutes the dishonest development of the case. He knew that another diplomatic intervention. The character of that 'documentary' spin: the matter was very delicately balanced US War Refugee Board had Gray and had to be allowed to take its convey to 'the appropriate authorities "[The Jewish Fianna Fáil TD] Robert administrative course without unwel-

19 come pressure from any lobby group. That did not happen. Charles Jordan, of the Joint Distribution Committee, had been in the delegation which had seen the Minister for Justice about the matter in early February. Impatient with the Bowen, Lane and Mansergh delay, he expressed his disappointment at the lack of development in a letter on 11 March to the chief rabbi of Ireland, "It says much for the British Civil Girvin and then related by Mansergh . . . Immanuel Jakobovits. He explained to Service that, in an hour of grave peril Anyone who wished to leave the UK Jakobovits that he had phoned Briscoe for the nation, it has actually been able during WW2 had to obtain an Exit Visa a number of times and had simply got to find something for John Betjeman to from the Dominions Office which would 'the curt reply that nothing had happened do." permit them to visit Ireland. The main yet'. Jordan urged the chief rabbi to take (Sir) Norman Costar, conversation purpose of the Exit Visa process was to with Dr. Nicholas Mansergh, 1941. action through the Jewish Represent- prevent people, who were liable to be ative Council. Briscoe in turn received a curt note from Jakobovits: 'It is most "I think I was a spy." conscripted to try and avoid that fate. disappointing that the impetus created John Betjeman, in conversation Many Irish people were refused Exit Visas by our visitors has not apparently been with Frank Delaney, 1982. because they were resident in England. maintained and that this vital rescue One method of showing entitlement to an work is experiencing such delays.' The I have been reading the correspondence Exit Visa was to provide evidence of chief rabbi wanted Briscoe 'to ascertain between various people in the Irish residence in Ireland and so people applied the present attitude of the government' Examiner but have been most struck by to the High Commissioner in London, and inform Jordan accordingly. that of Jack Lane and Dr. Martin Mansergh, John Dulanty, for a letter from him certify- Jaobovits also said that he was contact- TD. I can't for the life of me fathom why ing that the person involved was normally ing Herman Good of the Jewish Dr. Mansergh has persisted with his resident in Ireland. John Dulanty did not Representative Council in the hope that all three of them might bring influence version of Bowen's "activities" (as one of invite people to travel to Ireland—he to bear on the responsible authorities. her biographers coyly put it) when there is merely responded factually to their request Briscoe told the chief rabbi on 19 March already so much information out there in for a statement of their normal residence that a simple phone call to him would the public domain. And to give fair dues to in Ireland. We were ourselves a Dominion have enabled him to explain that 'the Mr. Lane, when he and his historical after all. decision by the Government was society found her espionage reports—at delayed on account of principle invol- least those that were extant—in 1999, Girvin brought out his book The ved, which meant, also, the possibility they immediately published them in Emergency Neutral Ireland 1939-45 in of admitting East German Christian pamphlet form as 'Notes on Eire' 2006. He refers to Bowen's activities families equally destitute and deserving Espionage Reports to Winston Churchill, (capitalized by one biographer) as of refuge as Ireland is a Christian country'. He added that he would also 1940-'2'.. What is the problem? Dr. "unpaid" (p167). During the Bowen have been in a position to inform the Mansergh last letter was—for a former Centenary Conference in University chief rabbi of a favourable decision, diplomat—quite tetchy and I rather think College Cork in 1999, one of those bright news of which he had just conveyed to in the circumstances, quite inappropriate. young American scholars, Heather Bryant the JRC." He accused Mr. Lane of an "offensive Jordan gave a paper in which she stated "The cabinet decision on 13 March campaign over many years… to blacken how she found one account of the amount 1953 had indeed gone against the recom- the memory of Elizabeth Bowen". Well let of moneys paid to Elizabeth Bowen for mendations of the Department of the facts speak for themselves. He (and I her war work. The Ministry of Information Justice. The subtle wording of the think fatally) uses Brian Girvin to back up paid Bowen £115 and 10 shillings for her minute revealed the delicacy of the his claims. Anyone familiar with Mr. espionage during 1944-45 when really the situation in the cabinet: victory came to de Valera only after a struggle … Girvin's work, and in this I yield to no- war was over and won by then. This was Briscoe, who had requested the one, would know that he—of all people— even then a fairly substantial sum of admission of ten families, had to be could never be accused of smuggling too money. In today's terms, it would be the content with five. This marked the much scholarship into his history books. equivalent of £10,000 to £15,000— end of the post-war struggle to admit Dr. Mansergh, mortifyingly, allows depending on which index is used. As Jewish refugees, and, most Girvin's nonsense about John Dulanty, Heather explained she had put this into significantly, it ended in defeat for the Irish High Commissioner in London her book How Will the Heart Endure: the Department of Justice." [Keogh, to be placed before us—all in such a way Elizabeth Bowen and the Landscape of pp 220-223]. that it looked as if our High Commissioner War, which was published in 1992. So had himself sought out and sent Bowen to there is simply no excuse for anyone to "Defeat for the Department of Ireland. Girvin writes that "Dulanty deny the true nature of Bowen's work in Justice" was in fact the heading that Keogh believed that Bowen would provide Ireland. She would have been outraged, himself had given to that narrative. But independent and objective reports on the one imagines. On some of her journeys who would ever have guessed at such an state of opinion in Ireland" (p167). He back to London, she had such sensitive outcome form the Ireland's Nazis cites no source for this, and anyway what's information that she had to inform the narrative? And who would have belief got to do with the practicalities of relevant authorities in person. She anticipated the brass neck of Part Two of politics during a world war? Bowen describes in her usual surreal way how she that same 'documentary' in throwing already had decided to work for the was stopped by "bayonets while she stated consistency to the wind by presenting Ministry of Information and communic- her business" on a trip to the Dominions Berry as an Irish hero for fingering Albert ated that to her friends. After all, one of Office. She also had to visit the War Luykx at the 1970 Arms Trial? For, at the her great friends was Lord David Cecil Office with top-secret information and in end of the day, Peter Berry's universal and his brother was Lord Cranborne, Head a state of war, only top-brass on a need-to- xenophobia easily transferred from Jew to of the Dominions Office. know basis even knew where these were Fleming. located. Manus O'Riordan The reality was much more prosaic Dr. Martin Mansergh stated in his letter To be continued than the ambiguous account given by to the Irish Examiner (26.9.07), that

20 "Elizabeth Bowen declared herself as an dated cheque on a bank that was falling". Mansergh, OBE, was working in the Royal Irish national". Can he produce the source But, after the repressions, the Indians Institute of International Affairs at for this amazing contention? I would find subsided into a more or less supportive Chatham House, London. Martin was this very hard to accept in the light of her attitude. So too, Ireland had to tread a very schooled in an English Public School— many public utterances and even in her tight line with England, not certainly out King's School, Canterbury, which was correspondence. When the war was over, of friendship but out of a rightly-based privately funded but part of that establish- she wrote to one of her dearest friends fear. ment of Public Schools which even saying "I had such a good war; I cannot recently were denounced for their still say I'm ashamed of the fact, as I don't think Why Dr. Martin Mansergh ever had to fierce grip on England by the BBC broad- I had a good war at anybody else's go to Brian Girvin for help with his caster, Jeremy Paxman. There was a play expense". After the war and back in response to Jack Lane's letters, I will never at end of term (Martin was about 18 years) London, the man whom she "admired fathom. His own father worked in the The Importance of being Ernest by Oscar enormously—Churchill" was put out of Ministry of Information (MOI) and surely Wilde. Micheal MacLiammoir did the office. In her biography of Bowen, Victoria his private papers would contain a lot of honours, and at dinner, Martin in answer Glendenning finds her in 1948 more than information relevant to those days. The to MacLiammoir said he was 'Anglo-Irish'. a bit peeved at the new order in England Irish had acquiesced to Dr. Nicholas The great actor replied: That's a term we with a Labour Government in office. Now Mansergh's position as he had to be must abolish". This gave pause to what she felt herself to be increasingly Irish but involved with External Affairs on various Roy Foster termed "a mick-on-the- her reasons are not ones linked to a liking matters. In Bevis Hillier's biography of make"—though he obviously wasn't for a growing into that nationality. As she John Betjeman, the latter accepted that the referring to the likes of Martin Mansergh! frankly writes to a friend: young historian who was later to be Master Interestingly enough, in Terry de "Selfishly speaking, I'd much rather of St. John's College, Cambridge, "was Valera's marvelously underrated 'Memoir', live my life here (i.e., at Bowen's Court). appointed to be John's opposite number in he remembers the flamboyant Mac I've been coming gradually unstuck London". "He was taken into the MOI as Liammoir and Hilton Edwards striding from England for a long time. I have 'a sort of one-man Irish Office'". But there down Grafton Street before they became adored England since 1940 because of the stylishness Mr. Churchill gave it, is another interesting fact about young famous, when Terry was on his way to the but I've always felt, 'when Mr. Churchill Nicholas and that was that he was involved Four Courts. Michael "was generally goes, I go'. I can't stick all these little in both Ireland and India on account of the dressed in black and wearing his full middle-class Labour wets with their Commonwealth. stage make-up, his clearly died black hair Old London School of Economics ties Of course there was another mysterious showing in the light". Also there was the and their women. Scratch any one of Tipperary man who headed up the MOI shy poet Austin Clarke… and the prima those cuties and you find the governess. and that was Brendan Bracken, later to be donna Margaret Burke Sheridan, "for Or so I have always found." Lord Bracken. But as the Observer whom Puccini had such a high opinion When one looks at Lane's 'Notes on observed in his obituary, (10.8.1958), and affection". Apparently when Dev was Eire' and the dates of the unearthed reports Bracken's war work did not begin and end inaugurated as President in 1959, amongst were 1940-42 and then when we read at the MOI, though while there, "there the distinguished guests was Micheal Heather Bryant Jordan's report that in was no kid glove nonsense about getting MacLiammoir. When introduced he said 1944-45, Bowen was still being paid for the required information. The Bloomsbury Terry said that they had first met at her work, the only conclusion can be that undergrowth was thinned out, pruned into Blackrock College— Elizabeth Bowen worked in Ireland right shape and trained. The Ministry" (which "when he came to give lessons in through the war and that work was not had hitherto been a joke to the press) stage make-up to the principals in our conducted nor paid for—for the benefit of "began to function efficiently and do a Gilbert and Sullivan operas. Mac this country. useful job of work". And he founded the Liammoir threw back his shoulders, last of his journals and not the least— and with that characteristic pout of his History Today. heavily made-up lips, said, When was One other matter Dr. Mansergh seems that? I replied: In the 1930's.' His dark to be exercised by and that is the nature of eyes sparkled. Placing his hand on my Ireland's relationship to England during Dr. Martin Mansergh TD also exercises shoulder, he said with mock seriousness: the war. Yes, we were neutral, but Eamon himself a lot about the nationality of Dear boy, you are mistaken. It must de Valera was exceedingly careful of the Bowen, which never troubled her in the have been my father!" threat posed to this country by Churchill's slightest. But I sense in reading his letters Terry de Valera often went with his England. There is a memory recalled in that the matter is closer to home. Both in mother to the Gate theatre and came to his A Memoir by Terry de Valera that his Kevin Rafter's unchallenging biography know MacLiammoir "better in later father got a mid-night telegram from of Dr. Martin Mansergh, and in an address years". The Longfords were very grateful Churchill promising him the North if he he himself made in Farahy Church for Terry's mother's support for the Gate yielded the ports. There follows a beautiful (5.8.1995), Martin Mansergh offers an and were thrilled when Dev nominated account of the young boy looking at the insight into his own hyphen identity. His Lord Longford as a Senator. agitation and grief of his father who had to ancestors were Cromwellian though, make a statesman's decision. In the end, according to Rafter, Mansergh jibbed Nowadays our intelligentsia always rant he rejected Churchill's pseudo offer. I am about that term. But Rafter was having about Dev's dark days and I often think reminded of another Dominion State, none of it and according to a parchment in that something like Charles 11' aim as India, when it too was subject to bribery to the possession of the National Library of expressed in the wonderfully worded "Act enter the war on the allies' side. Churchill Ireland it recorded: "Appointment of Brian of Indemnity and Oblivion" in 1660 has sent Sir Stafford Cripps to get India invol- Mansergh to be a lieutenant to the troops been implemented "to bury all seeds of ved in the war and they were promised of Capt. Redmond in Lord General future discords and remembrance of the that if they did, after the war, they would Cromwell's Regiment." former". As Jack Lane has continually get their freedom. Gandhi and his 'Quit Martin Mansergh was born in Woking said, "false history serves no one". But we India' movement were violently repressed on Christmas Eve in 1946. He was five or will have to wait a while before its seed by the British. Both Gandhi and Congress six when he first visited his father's house and those who foster it will have to make refused Cripp's blandishments with in Friarsfield, two miles outside Tipperary their account before the Irish people. Gandhi famously calling the offer "a post- town. At that time his father Nicholas Julianne Herlihy

21 for understanding the North. Within a ence, making a formal alliance with Ger- functional democratic state the word many which undertook to recognise Irish 'democracy' loses all definite meaning. independence. The 1916 Insurrection- Jottings The parties bandy it about as a mere slogan, aries no more had an electoral mandate for accusing each other of being undemocratic making war on Britain than the Home I spent over twenty years (from the late as a matter of course. Democracy is Rule Party had for making war on Ger- 1960s to the early 1990s) trying to get the reduced to a mere ideal. Each party is many, Austria and Turkey. But that simi- Six Counties integrated into the political convinced that it embodies this idea, and larity does not establish a moral equality system of the British State, so that the two that conviction is strongest in the parties between Home Rulers and Republicans in communities locked into the antagonism which have least success in winning elect- the matter of going to war without an on which the spurious 'Northern Ireland ions in the actual democracy of the state. electoral mandate. state' was founded might have the oppor- Why did Fine Gael never again win an tunity to lose themselves in the very election after 1932? Why did the Labour The Home Rulers might have sought different political antagonism through Party never come close to winning an an electoral mandate for war on Germany which the British state functions. The election? Because Fianna Fail over-rode etc. by the simple device of resigning their British state is the only actual state in the the democratic spirit of the Treatyite state seats in Parliament and then contesting North. The 'Northern Ireland state' does by establishing a corrupt and authoritarian them on a war programme. They chose not deal with affairs of state. It is a sub- system of realpolitik—the argument goes not to do so. And then, when their ordinary ordinate arrangement of the British state, something like that. But it did whatever it electoral mandate ran out in December and communal antagonism outside the did by winning elections—elections 1915, they continued to sit in Parliament politics of state is all that could ever happen which, unlike those held in Northern Ire- as unelected members and to take part in in it. land, were part of the business of setting the British war effort, which by this time During these years I took little notice of up a Government in the state. had become reckless and catastrophic. affairs within the Irish state. I only noticed With the word democracy thus reduced If the Home Rulers had sought a war how successive Governments behaved to practical meaningless, I suppose it was mandate in the Autumn of 1914, they towards the North. I found Jack Lynch, only a matter of time until the democratic would probably have been given it. If they Garret FitzGerald, Conor Cruise O'Brien event in which the state was founded was had sought it any time before the five-year and Peter Barry to be the worst troublemakers conjured away altogether—a thing which term of the 1910 election expired, they —by which I mean that they aggravated has been done most comprehensively by a would possibly have got it. All the resour- communal antagonism by the various former Taoiseach of that state, John Bruton. ces of the state would have been put at 'initiatives' which riled the Protestants their disposal in the election campaign. without offering any realistic prospect of When I looked southwards again in the The Republicans could not have sought settlement. And, by that test, Haughey 1990s I found that, while there were many a mandate for their war. Therefore, like was by far the best Taoiseach. He seemed histories of the Insurrection, there was no everybody else, they made war without an to understand what a futile Constitutional history of the democratic event which electoral mandate. entity Northern Ireland was, and in the preceded the War of Independence—the They reason they could not have sought course of editing a weekly publication in General Election of 1918. The fact that a mandate for war, (or for independence, Belfast for 20 years I did not notice a there was an election seemed to have been which amounted to the same thing, as single mischievous speech by him. He did forgotten. So in the first pamphlet I wrote Britain made it abundantly clear that not say or do anything that drove the on Southern affairs—a review of the Ireland could not gain independence by Protestants crazy, as Lynch did in 1969- authoritarian reviews of the Michael voting for it, but only by defeating the 70. FitzGerald and Peter Barry did the Collins film by Lord Bew and Ruth Dudley Empire in war), was that the electoral same some time later. And FitzGerald did Edwards—I pointed out that the film was basis of Government was set aside for the it a second time in 1985. a whitewash of the British Government, duration of the Great War on Germany, In the early 1990s I concluded that rather than of the Republicans, because Austria and Turkey. what I had been attempting in the North the Election that preceded the war of was hopeless. Every British politician I Independence was not presented in it. When there was a return to elected discussed the matter with—and there were Here is a summary of what seem to me Government, in December 1918, the group many of them, including some who became to be the salient facts. that had made war on Britain without a Cabinet Ministers—took the point of my mandate in 1916 formed a party, contested argument quickly. They agreed that Catho- Home Rule Ireland went to war against the General Election, and won it on an lics and Protestants would probably have Germany without an electoral mandate in independence programme. The party that settled down in British party politics in September 1914, and two months later, made war on Germany without a mandate Northern Ireland, as they did in Liverpool still without an electoral mandate for war, from 1914 to 1918 was comprehensively and Glasgow, if that possibility had not it went to war against T urkey and contri- rejected by the electorate in 1918. been closed off to them. But they were buted to the British conquest of the Middle then persuaded by higher authority behind The Sinn Fein mandate of December East which is the source of our present 1918 was not only electoral, but also demo- the scenes that it would be well for them to War On Terror. Home Rule militarism drop the matter. Which they usually did. cratic. In 1910 only a minority of the adult merged itself into British militarism and population had the vote. The mandate Whitehall had a purpose for Northern Ireland, subordinated itself to Britain's war aims, which did not include settling it down given to the Home Rule Party in 1910 was never uttering a word of dissent as Britain not for war, and was not democratic. The within the political life of the state which expanded the war by fair means and foul— held it. Parliamentary franchise was democratised by collaborating with Mussolini to lure (or brought so close to democracy as made Much the same thing happened with Italy into the war with the offer of part of the Unionists—though I imagine that more little difference to the outcome) by the the Austrian Empire, and by invading Greece 1918 Reform Act, which was in reality a intimidation was used with them than to compel it to declare war on Turkey. with the British MPs. concomitant of the Conscription Act, and In 1916 a Republican grouping in the democratised franchise was applied in I then began to take an interest in the Ireland raised a small, ill-equipped, army, Ireland, even though Conscription was not. internal politics of the South, but with an and went to war with it against Britain in All parties sought a retrospective idea of democracy which I'd developed support of a declaration of Irish independ- mandate for their doings in December

22 1918. In Britain the War Coalition (which intervention in the affairs of the South was having done nothing. By confining the in 1916 ousted Prime Minister Asquith to help with the disruption of that agitation to that issue we made it so and brought the Unionist Party to commemorative event. I was associated powerful that it scared the bourgeoisie. dominance without an election) won by a with the late Dennis Dennehy in the Dublin (We were 'Stalinists' you see, and operated landslide. Sinn Fein won by a landslide in Housing Action Group. To highlight the the "stages theory", instead of merging Ireland. The Liberal Party, which had housing situation and the philistinism of everything into a general revolutionism.) started the war in 1914, was split by the the national bourgeoisie Dennis arranged When the North went into flux—in fact formation of the 1916 Coalition, and the to be imprisoned in Mountjoy as a a few months before it—we set ourselves Asquith faction (which had refused to homeless person for squatting in a vacant against the pseudo-revolutionary agitation participate in the 1916 Coalition) was Georgian property, and to be at a critical there, arguing that it had no ground in the rejected by the British electorate on much point in a hunger strike at the moment realities of the situation. The position we the same scale as Asquith's Home Rule when the Declaration of Independence, took up, if we were wrong about the facts allies were rejected in Ireland. with all its fine phrases, was being com- of the situation, was counter-revolutionary. Ireland in its first democratic election memorated in the Mansion House. It all It was then that I developed an utter voted for independence, but the first went off perfectly. The hunger-strike set contempt for the governing strategy in the democratically-elected British Govern- off all kinds of memories and reflexes. Republic, and particularly for the dregs of ment took no heed of the election result in The centre of Dublin was in turmoil. The De Valeraism (i.e., arousing expectations Ireland and carried on governing the Mansion House proceedings were spoiled. about the North which there was no inten- country. That is why there was war in BICO was the talk of the town. In the tion of filling) in the shape of Jack Lynch. Ireland in 1919-21. outcome something was done about I suggested in a pamphlet issued in housing. And Muriel MacSwiney early 1969 (while we were developing the That is how the matter appeared to me, (Terence's widow, Maire's mother) made housing agitation in Dublin) that the Anti- coming to it as an outsider after a long contact with us from France. Partition rhetoric of the Dublin establish- involvement in Northern politics in a way Another effect of what we did in 1968-9 ment should be set aside, and the Ulster that certainly was not nationalist. It is also —in conjunction with a marvellously Protestants negotiated with as a distinct how it appeared to another outsider. reckless revolutionary student movement social entity. That was the “two nations Maire MacSwiney's autobiography was called The Internationalists—was that theory". It became evident in August that published last year. Both because of the elements in governing circles in the it was a theory that corresponded with contentious matter of the kidnapping, and Republic were made to feel that they were social fact, and it became the agreed view because it has the form of a coffee-table living precariously over a volcano. We of all who were responsible for the Dublin book, I was not inclined to read it. But I pushed the agitation as hard as we could, agitation. read it because it was available to me but we knew when it could go no farther. In the midst of the August crisis Lynch when nothing else was, and I found it very If the State had crumbled, we would have made his fierce Anti-Partition speech, and interesting. She came to Ireland (by what- seen what we could do with the situation. followed it up that Autumn with a specific ever means) as a German girl in her early I did not expect it to crumble, but in those repudiation of the two-nations view. His teens. Weimar Germany at the end of its things one never knows. Our object was conduct thereafter was to stir up anti- tether was what she knew, and German to put such a scare into a once-radical Partition feelings and to punish actions to was her language. She does not see that bourgeoisie that had gone decadent that which they gave rise, insofar as he found Democracy, Nazism and Communism they would be motivated to do something it safe to do so. were party-political choices available to about the particular issue of housing. And the German electorate in the early thirties. we took effective measures to prevent the John Bruton's article, which gave rise Professor Garvin might have a word with movement from lapsing into the general to this one, is a review of yet another book her on the matter. He asserts that the revolutionism that the Republican about 1916 (The Long Revolution, a Germans voted against democracy, which tendency that came to be known as the collection edited by Dermot Keogh). is an absurd concept in general, and has no Stickies the following year were trying to Bruton particularly commends a contribut- semblance of realism as applied to German develop. ion on the doctrine of 'the just war' as society then. (I know of only one case People at the top of society do not find applied to 1916, by a Jesuit priest, Seamus where democracy was put to an election. it easy to judge what is going on at the Murphy: President Museveni, who runs Uganda in bottom when routines are broken. And "As we know from the recent Iraq the British interest, asked the Ugandans in the routine of politics for the Dublin and controversy, the bar for a “just cause” an election, or referendum, if they wanted Cork bourgeoisie were well and truly for war is set quite high. It requires democracy. I forget how they voted. It broken in January 1969. And, before the unprovoked armed interstate aggres- didn't matter. Democracy depends on bourgeoisie could get over their scare and sion, or genocide. Ireland was not more than votes.) settle down again, Northern Ireland went subject to either of those in 1916. A 'competent authority' is also required to Maire MacSwiney came to Ireland as into flux. Only 8 months separated the declare the war, and Murphy concludes Terence MacSwiney's daughter, but also two events. The bourgeoisie were still that the 1916 leaders had not been given as a German—and I suppose with a better feeling threatened by the first when the this competence or authority by the insight into democracy than can be got second came along, as they thought, to Irish people for their action. Murphy within a democracy. And thus, discovering reinforce it. Many of them had the contends that 1916 moved the work for Ireland as an outsider, she saw the 1918 hallucination of Ireland as one great Irish independence “away from the Election as a particularly significant event. cauldron of revolution. democratic parliamentary mode, to an In 1968 she was looking forward to the elitist military mode”, a bad move, he That was the view from the top. At the feels… Murphy believes true repub- half-centenary commemoration of the bottom things looked different. licanism means prior democratic event. She went to the Taoiseach (Lynch) involvement of the whole people in and asked what was planned. Nothing The powerful agitation in the South important decisions, not simply was planned. But her query led to the was powerful because it was directed at a leadership by secret societies or by cobbling together of a commemoration of particular issue which made sense to military elites" (Men Of 1916 Wanted the first meeting of the Dail for January people because it was evident that A German Victory, Irish Indep. 4.8.07). 1969. something could be done about it, and that The US, the UK, Poland, and a few It so happens that my only significant the governing strata were negligent in others invaded Iraq, which had not attacked

23 them and was not committing genocide, state (deliberately devised for the Six cold hand of the Catholic Church the and they destroyed the Iraqi state and Counties at the time of Partition) that country was paralysed" reduced the populace to a state of nature. eventually led to war in the North. —until the 1948 Coalition broke the There is an authority in the world for I don't know how 'just war' theory spell—and then abased itself before the deciding whether wars are just and applies to this provocatively undemocratic Catholic Hierarchy as no other Govern- punishing states which engage in unjust enclave of the British state. I'll have to get ment ever did! war. I have not heard that this authority— the book and see what Fr. Murphy says Dev was "despised, rejected" in 1923, the Security Council of the UN, for there about it—which I expect is nothing. I can but then suddenly, beyond the comprehen- is no other—judged the USUK war on only say that, in human terms, given the sible realm of cause and effect, he was in Iraq to be unjust and punish them for it. circumstances of the preceding half command over the society that had rejected This means that, under the rules which century, the Northern Catholics had him and crushed him. actually apply in the world, the war on stronger reasons, or motives, for making Sean McBride, the great man of the Iraq was just. And that means the bar for war, than the Irish electorate had in 1919. Rainbow Coalition, who sacrificed Noel a just war could hardly be set lower. Accordingly, they made war in much more Browne to the Bishops, was "a shadow of The Security Council did not authorise difficult circumstances with a much a gunman"; nevertheless, he "did the state the invasion before the event. Such stronger will. If the same strength of will some service". authorisation was not required to make it had been operative in the South after 1918 Lemass is given a pat on the head for lawful. The US and the UK, as Vetoist to give effect to a formally much better opening communication with the North, Powers, are laws unto themselves under democratic case, there would have been as are Donagh O'Malley (for education), the UN system. They can do nothing no destructive Treaty arrangement. Dick Spring (for foreign policy!?!), and illegal unless they choose to indict them- the PDs. Then came the ogre: selves. But, after the event, the Security (As to the Treaty, I published a little "Charles Haughey may have seen Council authorised the war retrospectively book recently about the establishment and himself as a creator of Modern Ireland… The truth is that he did more harm to (as the Irish electorate authorised the decline of the Free State in 1922-1932, this country than Oliver Cromwell and Rising) by making military resistance to and I have been sent a copy of a review of Lloyd George… He and his lovely the Occupation illegal. it in Books Ireland which says that the fellows robbed the State of inestimable I seem to recall that Bruton did not thesis of the book is that the publication of amounts of revenue", support that War. No more did I. But I do the Irish Press was the cause of the decline depriving boys and girls of education and not mistake my dissent for a rule about of the Free State. It is no such thing. Most old people of places where they might just war which actually applies in the of the book has to do with the profound have died with dignity. affairs of the world. And there must be political crisis of 1927, long before the Ologón, ologón, ologón! limits to mere subjectivism. Irish Press was founded. That crisis demonstrated that the Free State was an All of this is best understood as a case Fr. Murphy's idea of a just war, as incoherent authoritarian concoction which of self-loathing, flimsily disguised as presented by Bruton, rules out the possib- did its best to prevent political development history. Houlihan was a rather distinguish- ility of resistance to an imperialist state within its own structures, and thereby ed part of the Ireland he has come to hate. which is not committing genocide and subverted itself.) He did not hate it while it existed. He was which does not allow its subjects to nowhere in sight when we spoiled the organise themselves into a representative Con Houlihan, writing in the Sunday 1969 celebrations, or when we declared body with the object of opposing it. Independent (12 Aug: A Pint-Sized History war on the Church. Although he struck no The vagaries of the Great War, as it Of The People Who Have Made Us What blow against it, that Ireland crumbled and impinged on Ireland, actually did lead to a We Are) says that Modern Ireland began he found himself living amongst the ruins. situation in which a democratic electoral on 11th July 1921 when we stopped And now he picks this bit, and that bit, out mandate was given for the establishment fighting the British Army, and was reborn of the ruins at random like a magpie so that of an independent state. I assume that is in 1948 when Fianna Fail lost a General something might be left to him. ("These I why there is no history of the 1918 Election, Election and the first Rainbow Coalition have shored against my ruin", as Eliott and no history of the War of Independence "came to power". He hates Fianna Fail, put it.) as an event made necessary by the British and hates Charles Haughey only less than Fact has nothing to do with this kind of response to a democratic election. This De Valera. Michael Collins was the man. history, but I think I should mention that matter is much too serious for minds made He "chose the peaceful path". But "A his figures for the 1922 Election are self- timid by indoctrination that the recent war leader had emerged to challenge Collins" evidently absurd: 486,419 votes for the in the North somehow followed from the and spoiled it all. That was Dev. Treaty giving 58 seats, 133,864 votes formation of the IRA to give effect to the The Anti-Treaty group, he says, was against the Treaty giving 35 seats. Leaving democratic election mandate of 1918, soundly defeated by three to one in the aside the matter that the Election was held rather than from the bizarre mode of Election of June 1922, but instead of taking under a threat that Britain would punish a government set up in the North after his beating Dev decided to "wade through wrong result by launching a war of re- Partition. Irish blood" and there was a Civil War. conquest, it was held under the terms of a But I lived on the battlefield all through Then, in April 1922, having been beaten pact between Treatyites and Anti-Treaty- the war, publishing material against it and at war too, he ordered the Republicans to ites, sanctioned by the Dail, which Collins doing my best to shift people onto a differ- dump arms—and Houlihan's father, in a only broke on the eve of the election. ent line of action. Democracy therefore Flying Column in Tipperary, "laughed at Under the Pact each side undertook to has more definite meaning for me than it the order" because they had no arms to vote for the other in certain constituencies, had for Southern academics—who, as far dump. regardless of the Treaty issue, so that it is as I was aware, did nothing at all in the Overwhelmingly rejected by the impossible to divide the vote on Treaty/ war—and it is plain to me that it was electorate, and beaten to the ground in Anti-Treaty lines. Houlihan gives the undemocratic action by Britain that caused war, Dev formed a party— British/Free State propaganda figure. the War of Independence—a fact which "with a ballot paper in one hand and has far-reaching implications for the post- a ballot paper in the other hand. Then Some years ago I reviewed Houlihan's 1918 history of Europe—and that it was began a famine of the spirit: between introduction to a reprint of a Canon the undemocratic variant of the British the strong hand of Fianna Fail and the Sheehan novel, in which I think I

24 commented on the profound difference in we pay hospital consultants in this country. culture between the Cork/Kerry FUTURE continued The first benchmarking process cost the borderland of Slieve Luacra and the North exchequer at least 1.4bn euros a year. For this Kerry culture centred on Listowel. "North ****************************************************************** money the public sector unions were supposed of Inverary all is chaos", Macaulay said. "Since 1987, almost half of the to deliver greater efficiency in the public And west of Scartaglen one is likely to run improvement in workers' purchasing sector. into pockets of West Britain lurking power has come from tax reductions This hasn't happened. Instead, workers beneath the surface. I first came to and just under one-half from actual pay ended up with the worst of both worlds, understand this forty years ago when I increases." (Garret FitzGerald-Irish paying even more for crummy, unreformed was plotting with Dennis Dennehy (who Times-14.7.2007). public services. came from thereabouts) to put a scare into ****************************************************************** THE WORKPLACE the Dublin bourgeoisie. But, long before "Better to be a Social Partner" was the that, around the age of 10 when I was an BENCHMARKING headline used by the Sunday Tribune altar boy, I had come across it as a raw fact "Carroll suggests that the old ITGWU (8.7.2007) introducing the Chairman of the when we were sent a curate who was was 'in essence the prime mover in this National Centre for Performance and offspring of an important family in regard [Social Partnership]: 'The public Partnership, Peter Cassells, former general Castleisland, and he broke down during sector union were secondary to the general secretary of the ICTU. the October Devotions, while meditating union approach.'" (p.30). This was John "People always say to me, are you for or on the Sorrowful Mysteries, and could not Carroll, former ITGWU general secretary. against partnership — my answer is yes. I'm continue. People were astonished. It was If the public sector unions were indeed for it in the way I've described it, where a secondary factor when the Programme people are empowered, developed and the reverse of a situation described by treated fairly. I'm against it when people are Somerset Maugham as having happened for National Recovery was launched in 1987, they quickly reversed the process exploiting people, not paying them fairly, in Spain when a preacher saw his where management is hierarchical and old- congregation overcome by what he was until today the chief beneficiary and raison d'etre for continuation of the process is the style, where we're here to give the orders telling them about the Passion, and he and you're here to do a job. If a company public service and their benchmarking. calmed them down by saying that it had all organises itself along traditional lines, it Though Carroll was correct — without shouldn't be surprised when the staff and happened a long time ago, and it might be the involvement of the private sector, such that it had never happened at all. I don't unions equally respond along traditional a process was academic. lines." (Sunday Tribune-8.7.2007). suppose anyone said that to our over- People still recall the former general For the man or woman in the workplace : sensitive curate, but I know that they had secretary of the INTO, Joe O'Toole arguing Social Partnership is little more than the public a robust attitude to such things, and were on RTE radio that without the unique profile of Peter Cassells, Jack O'Connor and not given to ologóning about anything. contribution of the teaching profession the IBEC's Turlough O'Connor. Forty years ago the West British Celtic Tiger would not have happened — it A real concern is that social partnership underlay in North Kerry was buried deep was now payback time. exists at the level of business, trade union and under the layer of national morale. I was Joe was going grand until a listener rang political elites — there has been no progress only aware of its existence because of in and asked him why the Celtic Tiger in building partnership in the workplace. hadn't happened 50 years ago if the teachers scruples that Dennis Dennehy kept According to former union leader, Phil were so good. bringing up. He was much more nationalist Flynn, "everyone has to bear responsibility Ireland now has some of the best-paid than I was, but it was a problematical for this failure. Most local arrangements tend public servants in the developed world but nationalism shot throw with scruples to be consultative, often involving only a very some of the worst public service. thrown up by the underlay. I was not limited degree of joint decision taking." A large part of the sky-high public sector nationalist at all, but I was a product of the "Progress in building partnership in the wage bill is due to the benchmarking substantial culture of Slieve Luacra which workplace has been disappointing, almost was simply non-English, with no process, which was supposed to bring public the mirror opposite of what has been problematical British survivals, but which sector wages into line with those in the achieved at national level. As Professor Bill had taken certain things from British private sector. Roche of UCD wrote in a recent ESRI The reality is that most public sector literature and made them its own when report: 'A decade on from the emergence of wages are now much higher than those partnership at the workplace as a core issue, concluding that it could only keep itself being paid for comparable private sector functional by adopting the English it is hard to avoid the conclusion that progress jobs. in this area remains patchy and the language. Our borrowings from English Late last month, the OECD published a momentum has dropped.' literature were uprooted from English report on the Irish education system. Bill Roche says the trade unions have culture and made our own. I probably had It found that Irish primary teachers with been 'invited to become social partners' but more bits of English literature in my head 15 years experience were paid 24% over they increasingly appear unwelcome in the than Dennis had, but I had nothing of the the OECD average while post-primary workplace. Meanwhile, on the ground, the English literary style that was evident in teachers with a similar length of service emphasis on the public policy of investment him—and the English bits were mixed up were paid 18% more than the OECD in the development of skills and associated with German bits and French bits and average. work practices as a primary driver of Russian bits (all picked up locally) and During the nurses dispute this year, the competitive advantage 'falls well short of therefore were not Anglicising. And of Irish Nurses Organsiation (INO) made great such a vision.'" course Gaelic bits. It still grates on my to play of the fact that its members were The term Corporation Tax is barely mentioned in the book, if at all, however, the hear Danny Boy sung to that tune instead underpaid and "deserved" a 10% pay increase. term 'Corporatism' is listed three times in the of Maidin in mBeara. book's index and is in fact referred to The Listowel Writers' Festival seems In 2005, the last year for which full figures are available, the average Irish throughout the book on seven separate to have developed into a British literary occasions — in the next issue of Labour event, as a one-sided and mindless nurses salary was 56,000 euros. By Comment, we'll reveal the extent to which the development of an element that I was comparison UK nurses are still being paid much maligned and misunderstood aware of in Dennis Dennehy's complex an average of just stg.£30,000 (43,500 'Corporatism' and the two papal encyclicals euros). make-up forty years ago. are at the heart of the process which claims to A German hospital doctor would happily be "at the heart of the Celtic Tiger"! Brendan Clifford work for a third of the 200,000 euros plus To be continued Incredible, indeed!

25 FUTURE continued a predominately voluntary capacity held a O'Driscoll puts it, 'Limerick had a negative unique position as a powerful labour cloud hanging over it.' Prendergast asked relations institution. Most of its findings O'Driscoll if he was being serious and was were non-binding recommendations to assured he was. O'Driscoll describes what "SOLDIERS OF REALITY" employers and unions rather than legal happened: "Ahern himself tells a story about trying requirements. But its standing was such "When he was convinced were were to help resolve an issue in the Dublin Port going to run a progressive operation, he that 80% of its recommendations were said, 'I will let you progress it here, but if and Docks Board, which sums up how accepted by all parties. extensive his intelligence sources are, and there is a need for union representation, I'll just how deep Fianna Fail's roots are within be there. But if there isn't, I won't make a all segments of Irish society. His 'buddy' is In recent years it has developed powers big issue.' He said he wanted me likewise the Chairman of the Board, the senior shop to make binding decisions on employment not to join the FUE [the employers' union]. steward is one of his Fianna Fail activists rights particularly through the 2001 He asked me that, because I told him my in East Wall, and another friend works for Industrial Relations Act and the philosophy was one of independence, management: 'All of them are politically Miscellaneous Provisions Act (2004), the sorting out our own arrangements; we didn't supportive of me, from one extreme to the combined effect which allowed unions to want third parties. I probably got more other. So I can sit here in my office and get represent workers in non-union companies pressure from FUE for being a non- member! They were quite nervous that the three views: the board's, the (where there is no collective bargaining) in management's and the trade union's. We these companies were coming in and the Labour Court and to secure legally weren't joining. have that all the time. Probably the only binding decisions on legitimate claims. sector we tend not to influence is the legal "O'Driscoll describes Prendergast as a sector. We tend not to be in that game. In "The High Level Group opted not to go very experienced union official who could every other part of Irish life I think we are down the route of giving workers a statutory easily have organised in Wang 'because I the predominant group.' right of recognition as applies in the UK, was totally inexperienced and had a young "Ahern also believes that in many USA and other European countries. There team'. Looking back, he says that respects Fianna Fail is to the left of the was still a fear at government and IBEC Prendergast realized that the 'realities' of Labour Party. 'Dare I say it, the Fianna Fail levels that this might put off FDI [Foreign job creation were far bigger than the smaller parliamentary party are a long way left of Direct Invest] firms, while the trade union goals he might have had." (p.64). Labour who tend to get involved in preferred to stick with a voluntary system The trade union movement had played a ideological arguments. Our people get as opposed to overly legalistic solutions in major part in setting the country to rights involved in practical arguments because traditional IR areas." (p.93). but, by the mid 1990s, it looked like there they are down at the post office, the pub, But now in the era of Social Partnership would be no substantial union membership the old people's home. It might not be the we find ourselves reverting to the Courts dividend. In fact, as employment began to greatest ideological, intellectual thing. But and Lawyers — as if life in this state isn't really accelerate in the 1990s, unions scored it's a pragmatic thing.'" (Saving The Future- plagued enough by the dead hand of an numerical gains in overall number but the p.181). archaic judicial system. crucial density level, which measures the ****************************************************************** proportion of union members to the number TRADE UNION ACT (1941) of employees in the workforce, came down In February of this year, the Supreme "Attley says that the union people with inexorably. Court ordered the Labour Court to rehear Billy Attley, former SIPTU President, the Ryanair case, on the issue of employees' 'the problem' said nothing at all in the agrees this was a 'massive annoyance in rights in the workplace, saying that the end and the announcement of what was to become an historic deal was made. that the longer you stay in the process, Labour Court had not used "fair procedures" institutionally, your are damaging your own in its January, 2005 recommendation. It "Perhaps the remark by Federated Union ability. The basic marketing strategy of a also awarded costs against the IMPACT of Employers (F.U.E.) Director John Dunne, all the more powerful as it came union is to drive pay up!' He says the trade union. recruiting field was made up of those who The Supreme Court said the Labour from the employer 'side', sums up the were 'disenchanted' with 'bad employers'. Court needed stronger evidence to conclude scale of their achievement: 'The same people, if they hadn't been in the trade But Attley says this level of discontent that the airline had no collective bargaining 'doesn't happen in the big American arrangement in place, and said collective union movement, would have been CEOs companies, because they have sophisticated bargaining procedures could exist even if of some of Ireland's biggest companies. That's a reality. They were substantial IR systems which effectively are far greater workers were unwilling to use them. than the traditional Irish systems, so it is a According to "Saving The Future": "The people. They showed and demonstrated huge drawback.' legislation has not been popular with very significant leadership qualities." "A survey of new job announcements in employers and, since the Supreme Court (p.41). They might even have become leaders of 2001-03 showed that new unionised jobs ruling, several unions believe it has been in the multinational sector had become rendered toothless." IBEC? scarcer and scarcer, 'especially as many are It says the Government will have to ****************************************************************** now in services rather than manufacturing' decide whether or not to amend the "PATRIOTISM IN ACTION" (Industrial Relations News 2004). Just one legislation, or "look for an entirely different "Chairman of FORFAS Eoin O'Driscoll, of the seventeen major new international approach to dealing with employee who worked in several multinational firms companies setting up in Ireland for the first representation rights in the workplace, such in Ireland and abroad over the past twenty time over that three-year period had as opting for the more conventional model years, recalls that Wang, with which he recognised a trade union, while only four used in other democratic societies — was involved at the time, had insisted on a of 22 companies announcing expansions considered that the new jobs would be straightforward statutory [union] non-union set-up. Local ITGWU branch official, Frank Prendergast, who was also a unionised. An earlier 1996 survey — which recognition." prominent local Labour Party leader, had looked at 51 new job announcements in "Straightforward Statutory come to O'Driscoll and told him the union 1994 and 1995 — had found that two of 32 Recognition"? So this is where Social was going to organise in Wang. O'Driscoll new companies recognised unions, while Partnership has led us after helping to "turn recalls: 'I remember sitting across the table ten out of eighteen announcing expansions Ireland from an economic basket case into from him and saying, 'Frank, if you want to provided for recognition." (Industrial one of Europe's most successful unionise us, you probably can do it. All I Relations News 1996). (p.91) economies." can say is the growth planned here probably Since 1946, the Labour Court acting in won't take place if that happens.' As continued on page 25

26 FUTURE continued workers was underwriting billions in Country % subsidies to the Irish "economic basket Netherlands 17.45% All the major issues are covered in case", the Industrial Development Authority (I.D.A.) were luring global United Kingdom 25.00% "Saving The Future": Benchmarking, China 30.60% Union Recognition, Union Membership corporations with their then 10% Corporation Tax and highlighting the Belgium 32.56% and Recruitment, Globalisation, the choice France 33.45% enormous rate of the same tax in Germany between the voluntary code of industrial Germany 42.51% relations or the more straightforward and France. USA 44.63% Statutory process. Corporation Tax in Ireland is the lowest Japan 44.72% in the E.U. The book reverberates with the opinions Source - Deloitte & Touche, 2007 of the main players of the Social McCreevy, our European Commissioner Partnership era: trade union, political, is now an indefatigable opponent of SUBSIDIES ROLL IN European tax harmonisation — calling on social and even religious. Even last year, 2006, the fastest growing Europe to adopt the Dublin model, i.e. economy in Europe was still raking in millions In his foreword to "Saving The Future", bring down your Corporation taxation to in subsidies from the EU. "Ireland received the 12.5% level in Ireland. Peter McLoone, former General Secretary 979 million euros net from the EU last year, of IMPACT trade union declares that the However, how could the European far in excess per head of population than book fills "a significant gap about our labour movement support such a principle, many less wealthy member states." (Irish it would merely mean handing further recent economic and social history" which Examiner-25.9.2007). often ignores or downplays the importance billions to capital at the expense of labour In total, Ireland received 2.46 billion euros, of social partnership." just when labour's slice of global wealth 32m euros less than in 2005 and paid in declines daily through globalisation. 1.48bn euros, a rise of 40m euros over the This is true of all aspects of labour and The following is taken from the IDA previous year. The funds received represented industrial history in recent years—it is Ireland website: 1.63% of gross national income — higher just ignored. Corporate Tax Rate in Ireland than Slovakia and the Czech Republic. The corporate tax regime in Ireland Ireland's payments to the EU were 0.98% of combined with competitive operating GNI. However, an equally serious failing costs and availability of highly skilled would be to exaggerate the benefits to The biggest contributor continued to be labour continues to provide investors Germany followed by France, Italy, Britain, organised labour for its role in Social with a uniquely high return on their Partnership in the recent boom and this investment. The corporate tax rate in Spain and the Netherlands. tends to happen in "Saving The Future". Ireland is 12.5%. Corporation tax is charged on the profits of a company. THE LABOUR PARTY Yes, Social Partnership played a major "Profits" for corporation tax purposes In last month's "Labour Comment" column role in the development of a prosperous consist of income (business or trading (Sept. 2007), we highlighted the dreadful economy, so did the education system; a income comprising active income, and dichotomy of the labour movement whereby investment income comprising passive skilled workforce and a stable political industrial labour played a core role in creating income) and capital gains. Capital one of Europe's most successful economies regime. Ah! but what was the real key? gains arise on the disposal of capital and, political labour sat on the sidelines "I believe that there are important assets. lessons, good and bad, to consider: Ireland operates a classical system "sucking its thumb". 1. To use taxation, or rather a lack of of company taxation. Under this Even more galling : many of the erstwhile it, in a creative way. The great Irish system, tax payable on corporate leaders of political labour were themselves take-off in the last decade has been due dividends is independent of the tax former leading trade union figures. to inward investment, particularly in paid by the company paying the Had they developed a serious critique, high-technology industries and in dividend and no credit is available to they would have made some contribution, but financial services. Investors don't want shareholders for tax paid at the alas! factories for their money, what they corporate level. A company resident The most apparent anomaly of course, want is to keep the profits they make. in Ireland for tax purposes is subject throughout the 'Partnership' process has been 2. Ireland has been wonderfully to corporation tax on its world-wide flexible with tax. It still is. I recently income. With some exceptions, a the trade union willingness to accept wage met the chairman of a company that has company incorporated in Ireland is control without some reciprocal form of price just moved 300 jobs here. Why? automatically considered to be Irish control. Benchmarking is the other major Because of our taxes. Nobody is going tax resident. A company is also anomaly which makes a total joke of the trade to say that publicly, because there is no considered to be Irish tax resident if it union principal of equality regardless of status. point in attracting attention. People will is managed and controlled in Ireland. But 'price control' would smell too much say that it is due to the skill of the of 'old labour' in a political movement that workforce, or improving infrastructure, Corporate Tax Rates has surrendered itself totally to the doctrines and so on, but the real reason is tax." of Globalisation and the free market. Country % (Sunday Independent-17.4.2005). "A central theme of Mr. Gilmore's Ireland 12.50% speech was that the future of Ireland and Poland 19.00% And the author, no other than Sir the world was determined by scientific and Netherlands 25.50% Anthony O'Reilly, owner of Independent economic forces beyond political control. United Kingdom 30.00% News & Media. He said that the role of Labour politics was China 33.00% ". . . . but the real reason is tax." (The to be international and local without Belgium 33.99% 12.5% Corporation Tax). mentioning any national role or national France 34.43% polity." (Irish Political Review-Sept., Membership of the European Union Germany 38.60% had nothing to do with it? 2007). USA 39.50% The Labour Party is doomed to irrelevancy Japan 39.54% unless it bases itself on the working class. It The Dublin establishment have damn Source - Deloitte & Touche, 2007 short memories — this has even spread to Percentage increase in profit required to must show that it is ruthless in pursuing the the labour movement. achieve the same distributable income interests of that class and ignore the bleating available in Ireland of the media. While the tax of German and French continued on page 26

27 VOLUME 25 No. 10 CORK ISSN 0790-1712 The Heart Of The Celtic Tiger? "SAVING THE FUTURE—How Social Partnership Shaped Ireland's Economic Success" by Tim Hastings, Brian Sheehan and Padraig Yeats. Blackhall Publishing. €20. Throughout the Sixties, the big debate rosters and holidays must become remains unique." (IMPACT NEWS-July/ in the labour movement was the impact accepted areas of democratic decision. August, 2007). Automation was going to have on our But in the end, all of this will count for lives. Hours of work would be cut with very little if workers do not eventually The book was sponsored by the prices and wages remaining the same. By have a controlling influence over IMPACT trade union, a public sector union this means we could enjoy the increased investment policies." and they deserve credit for this publishing This was the late Jim Blake, ITGWU wealth resulting from automation in the venture. leader in Cork addressing the ICTU It is an outstanding insight not just into form of more leisure. conference in Killarney in 1973. "In the long term, for example, what the 20 year history of Social Partnership should our attitude be to leisure? After and industrial relations but an astute public utilities have been brought to a MARKET GOVERNS ALL account of the role played by politics in satisfactory level, should we aim for a Where today is the vision and the that process over the years of the "Celtic 30, a 20 or even a 10-hour week? Or aspiration to raise humanity to a higher Tiger". Written by journalists, it has a should we endeavour to keep people level? New Labour has been joined by New dynamism and fluidity that a book by employed for a reasonable proportion Unionism or to paraphrase Mr. Churchill, academics would completely lack and the of each week just to give them "Capitalism is the worst form of an information comes straight from the horse's something to do? Many professional economic system, except for all those mouth. people do not regard their work as other forms that have been tried from "It doesn't claim that social drudgery. Is this attitude likely to time to time." become so wide-spread that the question partnership was solely responsible for of shorter hours becomes irrelevant?" the Irish economic miracle, but it has SOCIAL PARTNERSHIP made a significant contribution in (The Impact of Automation-Victorian "Saving The Future tells the inside Fabian Society, Melbourne-1962). shaping modern Ireland. This book will story of how social partnership helped to fill a significant gap in the discourse turn Ireland from an economic basket about our recent economic and social INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY case into one of Europe's most successful Then in the Seventies, along comes the history, which often ignores or economies and analyses the 'hidden downplays the importance of social debate on Industrial Democracy and dynamics' that allowed a highly disparate partnership, and the contribution of Workers' Control. The Bullock collection of individuals and workers and their unions," states Peter Commission on Industrial Democracy in organisations to successfully work McLoone, former General Secretary of Britain was probably the high point in this together in a way that, after 21 years, the IMPACT trade union. debate, it would have led to a major extension of the considerable social power These achievements are huge: Subscribers to the magazine are regularly the working class had at that time in 1977. offered special rates on other publications "Between 1991 and 2003 the Irish It wasn't Workers' Control, but it most economy grew by an average of 6.8% certainly would have nudged society in Irish Political Review is published by per annum, peaking at 11.1% in 1999. that direction if the trade union movement the IPR Group: write to— Unemployment fell from 18% in the late 1980s to 4.2% in 2005, and the Irish had bit the bullet — they didn't. 14 New Comen Court, North Strand, Not prepared to embrace industrial Debt/GDP ratio fell from 92% in 1993 Dublin 3, or to 38% in 1999. Throughout the 1990s, power themselves, the trade unions PO Box 339, Belfast BT12 4GQ or Irish living standards rose dramatically prevented anyone else contemplating a PO Box 6589, London, N7 6SG, or to the point where the country is now, at change in direction. The British electorate Labour Comment, least by some measures, one of the changed all that, they mandated Thatcher C/O Shandon St. P.O., Cork City. richest in the world, and has the fourth to go in and carry out the necessary highest GDP per capita in the world. changes! Subscription by Post: But, paradoxically, Irish people are the 12 issues: £17.50, UK; most heavily indebted in the Euro 25, Ireland; Euro 30, Europe. 1973 ICTU CONFERENCE Organisation for Economic Cooperation "It is essential that any philosophy Electronic Subscription: and Development (OECD). of industrial democracy should include (Cosmopolitan Ireland-Globalisation Euro 15 / £12 for 12 issues and Quality of Life-Kuhling & Keohane- the concept of a full share in the routine (or Euro 1.30 / £1.10 per issue) day-to-day operations of a company. Pluto Press-2007-Page One). You can also order both postal and Pay and conditions, bonus and electronic subscriptions from: productivity schemes, safety, work www.atholbooks.org continued on page 27