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Home , Airey Neave, Dominic McGlinchey

Now days are dragon-ridden, the nightmare Rides upon sleep; a drunken soldier Can leave the mother, murdered at her door To crawl in her own blood, and go scol_ freei The night can sweat with terror as before We pieced our thoughts into philosophy, And planned to bring the world undir a rule, Who are but weasets fighting ,n hloJ\"",_ A rnother, murdered at her door, to crawl in her own blood, during the struggles to set up the independent Irish state... A mother, Mary McGlinchey, shot dead in Agnes O' at the funeral on 31 January as she bathed her nine year old son, who vainly shouted at the killers, "Leave Mummy alone,'. Mary McGlinchey,s death was the mosr INLA's bloody feud horrifying incident during the recent feud Paddy Dollard looks between two sections of the so-called Irish at some lessons National Liberation Army, in which 13 gangsterism, Kirkpatrick was promised _ ed the fire people died and 20 were injured. as INLA tore itself apart. and will surely get an early release. In The Provos Mary McClinchey was the wile of jailed return - who have sometim he helped put 30 others behind commented adversely- one-time INLA chief of staff Dominic bars. on INLA's wildt McGlinchey, and most counterproductive activitir and she is said to have been At that point McGlinchey, a dismissed killed revenge and denounced 'Me Fein, gangsterism in for her husband's sum- Provo, came out of jail. By mid 1982 he mary 'execution' of an INLA declared that the best contiibution INL activist. had made himself 'chief of staff', under could make Herself an activist, Mary McGlinchey may to the Republican strugp 'Direct Military Rule'. Probably was to provo have been involved in that killing. disband. With arbitration. 'direct military rule' was a means to con- truce exhaustion Under her husband,s rule as of was finallv fixed u Chief of tain warlords and try to create a strong There Staff, a system was in operation in is no sign thar the groupings ha INLA centre able to direct the organisation to disbanded. - Direct Military Rule it was called the job it supposedly existed for under which he had the - gangsterism probably right to shoot anv fighting the British. Bur McGlinchev - _- _But is the least r member was INLA's faultsl he lelt he had u ,.ason lo, captured in the 26 Counries, and has been INLA has a rvell_deservt shooting. He apparently used that right. in various iails since mid-1984. reputation lor Catholic ar Dominic for the sectarian quasi-sectarian McGlinchey's less than iwo In August 1984 John O'Reilly was or killir year reign of Protestants, in INLA was only one of the released on , and the train of events many of whom have nr more bizarre ,Republican even had a notional episodes in the that led directly to the feud was ser in mo- link with the Britis Socialist' state. organisation,s history. tion. O'Reilly set out to be 'chief of staff, INLA came out of a bloody split by getting control of the organisation's In November 1983 INLA people callin themselves in the Official Republican Movement in arms supply and arsenal. In April 1985 the Cathoiic Retaliation Forc he protestar 1974-5. The Olficials have since evolved beat information out of long-time entered a small Pentecostal socialist cJrulch into the quasi-Stalinist, reformist activist Seamus Ruddy, who had been at in predominantl Catholic 'Workers' Party'. The INLA and its organising INLA's supply weapons Armagh and spriyed the wor of shippers political wing, the Irish Republican from a base in Paris, and then murdered with machine-gun bullets. killin Socialist Party (IRSP), were led by him. With control of rhe \\eaponry. three and rrounding \e\en. Domini McGlinchey , a veteran ol the 1950s O'Reilly set about eliminating his rivals. _publicly admitted giving IRA. They proclaimed an anti-Stalinist gun to the killers. sort of socialism, and also the need to 'Me Fein' _ The INLA's political front, the Irisl continue the 'armed struggle' which the Republican Socialist party (IRSp), mad Jailed former Belfast operations ,,totally Officials had abandoned in mid-1972. officer a statement saying it was op Gerard Steenson had been implicated in posed" gut In 1977 Costello was murdered bv the to sectarian killings. thit wi 'Me Fein' robberies by his lormer deputy either hypocrisy Official IRA (which even todav a or an expression of thr has Kirkpatrick, and O'Reilly expelled him. inability shadowy existence). and the cenr;e ol lhe of those in or around the IRSI O'Reilly's opponents would make the who INLA/IRSP began ro disintegrate, really felt like that to aflect events same allegation of 'Me Feinism' against Maybe it was both. In such groups though it was still a force in Noithern O'Reilly tht Ireland. Three and his friends. They moved to men wirh rhe guns aluays rule. The ;Armr of its members died organise what became the ',s together with seven Provos Council' is lar more imporranr than thi during the Liberation Organisarion' (IpLO). fheV hunger strikes 1981. executive of the political party. of INLA became an demanded that INLA disband. 'alternative IRA' for Provos The striking paradox here is rhat thc dismissed for Then, in December 1986, the indiscipline and supergrass INLA and IRSP say that rhey are lefr_ other offences. Local system suddenly collapsed when 'warlordism' emerged the 30 wing socialists and Marxists, more aligned within the loosely jailed on Kirkpatrick's evidence won structured organisation. their to the working class than other nation-alist appeals. Once they were out on the groups like the Court cases in the mid-'80s established Provisionals. Manv of its streets, it was inevitable and immediate militant_s that the organisation was heavily infested sincerely believe this. How. then, . has such an with spies, provocateurs and informers. organisation become what i In In January 1987, O'Reilly have 1982 the INLA's deputy and an described above? operations of_ associate went to a hotel expecting ficer in Belfast, Harry Kirkpatrick, to The Provisionals and the Olficials are was parley with the Steensonites, and were organisations with arrested and turned 'supergrass'. He was a solid tradition and ambushed and killed. After that it was tit with the organisational the Jirst of a string ol 'grasses' . Admitting bone, sinews and for tat until Steenson was killed on 15 muscle six killings and invoivement in much selfl to enforce it. They are the March. The police made no attempt to in- mainstream. Anything to the left while serving ('Me Fein', or me myself) tervene, provocateurs and probably stok- still 'Republican' has not only to build an INLA

organisation and gain credibility, but also militarism of the left-wing Otticials in the groups, fighting to work out where (and for what) it stands. the British and Northern early '70s left Saor Eire high and drv. In Ireland state, and The problems INLA/IRSP laced when November organising robberies, 1971 one of its memberr, p.t.i with sizeable proportions it split from the Officials 1975 of the proceeds in had Graham, was found dead in a Dublin flai. 'going private'. already been encountered, ruinously, by He had been bound and gagged and The INLA's aspiration to be to the lelt the lirst attempt since the p.".r.ni shot through the neck. Troubles e..or?li"g to tt. of traditional Republicanism became, began to form a new left-wing police he had been tortured. paradoxically, a lactor in its degeneration. Republican group. It was a movement Aged 26, Peter Graham was a Trot_ Traditional Republicanism is a movement calling itself 'Saor Eire (Free Ireland) Ac_ skyisL In theory tion he was highly critical of with a strong and honourable tradition. Croup'. the 'Guevarist' current tt,.n piorninent was in For example, the idea that Protestant and . It formed, or rather given shape international Trorskyi:m, piecemeal, and rejecred rhe Catholic are equally Irish still has a real in the late '60s by idea thal socialism in Ireland Republicans (premature provos, could .ome grip, despite often Catholic-nationalist really) through 'permanent revolution, _ nul practice. who resisted the drift of the Ofiiciai tionalist ,growing Like anarchism, of which it is in struggle over, into some respects Republican movement away lrom the ,guerilla' an aberrant strain, Irish socialism, He began his careei Republicanism traditional militarism and towards has been a highly moral by believing was a goodthing ro L.i* movement. Stalinism a drift that made the official aDout guns rn"ir - the Ireland ol 1969. But The left Republicans (and partly movement incapable of defendins the then he got drawn into ,action,. this is Belfast prot6stant the true of the new leadership of the provos Catholics during the The alleged pogroms leaders of Saor Eire issued a around , too) relate of August i969 and led to the slalemenl lrom jail to this denouncing rhe re\r ot tradition in a contradictory way. The Provo,/Official split a few months later. lhe organi5ation old as a-political-gangsters. morality is dissolved by the supposedly Guevarism IRSP/INLA started bigger, with a real higher principles of socialism and an standing in the Republican milieus and a eclectic but, since the way dissident Republicans joined to .These up place in the Republican spectrum as the socialism is seen -as proceeding through with one or two people who called 'good' left-wingers resisting the nationalism themselves apostasy first, the effect is not io Trotskyists, but who, like of the Offlicials. It had a base in Belfast replace nationalist principles many Trotskyists, with socialist had come under the in_ and . It seemed to have prospects principles, but to replace nationalism fluence Guevarism with of in the late '60s. Saor Eire couid never dream of. morality by nationalism without moralitv. They believed in 'immediate armed strus_ Yet within a year independent ,left' gle', ,the socialists _ That is why you can get and they believed that what lriih former MP Bernadette Devlin Repu.blicans Revolution'needed - and acting like nihilist-s, people not having yet Eamonn McCann, lor example who who believe in achieved national - norhing. and recklessly kill unity was 90go na- rallied to the IRSP after its break with- the Prol.estanls. Darkley tionalist - was the most spec_ slogans. The clashes in the Nor- Officials, abandoned the organisation, tacular case. th, and the taking of direct control declaring glove-puppet of rhe it to be a mere of The 'left' Repubticans tend to have /ess streets by the British the new Army in August militarists. concern for the protestant workers than 1969, convinced them that their hourivas Neave old-fashioned right-wing Republicans. coming. The mechanism heie ii partly They started robbing banks mainly INLA killed Northern lreland 'securirv' p.ychological an urge ro be rough or exclusively in the South! - - and so that thev force personnel, including 'soft' targeti. realistic. and lo take accounl ol rheiealirv would be able to buy guns.- What guns It attacked Ian Paisley, reckless of the of Protestant opposition to the national they bought, or what they did with tliem, consequences of what Protestant workers struggle. is not publicly known. But such an rvould be bound to see as a straightfor- The Protestant workers are seen not in organisation, some whose members of wardly sectarian act. It pulled off surpris- social, class terms, but almost exclusivelv were pernr-anently on the run, also needed ing coups like killing Mrs Thatcher's as a calspaw of Brirain and a: the embodi_ money to keep its members going; and if 'campaign manager' and personal friend ment of sectarianism. By process you can get money a ol by robbing banks, you in the car park of the House redefining terms, non-sectarian don't need to stint yourself. socialism of Commons in 1979. is.equated (in terms of immediate activity) Saor Eire robbed man1, banks, caused No less a person than has with a narrow nationalist great alarm militarism, in_ to the Southern government, suggested that this was done by the CIA as capable ol laying any and was basis for class unitv. eventually said ro have shol an part of a plot to get a that Recklessness in relation protestant unarmed policeman to the in Dublin during a would be useful to NATO. Take powell's workers is justified bank robbery in terms of political in_ in early 1970. Some of its claim seriously or not, some of the IN- transigence against . leaders were eventually put on trial for LA's activities were very odd indeed. Thus the 'socialist' element becomes murder. They r.vere a acquitted but jailed on For example, in 1982 INLA killed the matter of sentiment, aspirations, other charges. and faith pathological Loyalist minor politician in the nationalist struggle somehow ,grow_ It had become essentially a gangster John McKeogh just as he was being ex- ing over' into socialism. The immediate organisation. It started with ideals. but posed for involvement in the scandal practice is nationalist or even Catholic- the proporrion of idealism to gangsterism about sexual abuse of boys in the Kincora communalist, for the -Catholics are defin_ began to change. So did the proportion of boys' home. This was and is a major scan- ed as 'the nationalist gangsters communit1,,. to politicians. The values and dal involving leading politicians in Nor- The objective conditions skills needed prosper just in Northern to or to survive thern lreland. The evidence suggests that Ireland fundamentally became those - those of a divi_ of the soldier or it has been suppressed so that it can be us- sion in the Irish people mean gangster. Propaganda, open political that the ac- ed by the state to blackmail and control cho.ic_c ol 'armed struggle- now against im- tivity, trade union work, class struggle difficult politicians in . It perialism' all that - is inevitably a choice for com_ had to be left to vague sym- may yet blow up in the Establishment's munalism against class politics. pathisers, people who by definition That were face. McKeogh's timely death helped holds both for the provo iocialists, with in an inferior Caregory ro rhe praclitioners them keep it under control. their strong of 'armed apparatus ancl high personal struggle'. The gun, and the ln the 'supergrass' trials, INLA was morality, and also lor ,left_ 'hard man' wielding the smalier it, became decisive. shown to have been riddled with spies and rving' groups. But the Wolfe-Tone Probably there were gangsters or semi- provocateurs. Lacking a coherent leader- Republican outlook of the latter dissolves gangsters in Saor Eire from the beginning, ship, it became the receptacle for dissident more easily in the acid of an eclectic bre.,v but in such cases the distinction betwee Republicans ol all sorts. As with Saor political militant and gangster becomes Eire, its socialism came to mean nothing blurred anyway. The development of the in practice. Continued p.36 Provos in the North and the competitive It became a loose conslomeration of on to see the North of Ireland mutual slaughter'? Well, without testants has not stopped Socialist conflict- in religious terms. No, going into the blood bath discus- Organiser from siding with does not want to sion yet again, it is now fairly ob- Republicanism against the British smash Protestantism or drive vious, given the current disarray state, or dampened its enthusiasm Protestantism into the sea. What within Unionism, that the Protes- for demanding British withdrawal it does want to do is smash tant community has neither the from lreland. This was not evi- Unionism and Loyalism. It also confidence, enthusiasm nor dent at the recent AGM of the autonomy wouldn't amount to wants to smash Brilish im- singleness of purpose to indulge Labour Committee on lreland very much. lf they would, then perialism and the Free Statism of in the mass slaughter which has when S0 supporters how distinguished are we to be sure that what the rich and powerful in the 26 been so often predicted, themselves by two interventions. happened before in terms of anli- One was counties. Since 1968 Unionism has been to argue against a Catholic discrimination wouldn't conference motion All lhese are very uorthy divided. It can say'no'with one calling for the happen again? disbandment of the murderously very practical ques- endearours, bul lhe reason in voice but it cannot agree on its This is a seclarian LJlster Defence one. It particular socialists seek the 'solution' to the'troubles', It Regi- tion. and a rather obvious ment and always has been a gross insult to a 'discussion' on this was is a pity the pamPhlet refuses to destruction of Unionism proposed- instead. go and prefers instead to Loyalism is because its str€ngth the Protestant community to say into this The other was to disagree with give over half of its pages to erec- has come from its conscious that hundreds of thousands of the view that members of the argumenls in a fic- policy of seeking to divide the them are just waiting'for the iing slraw should be banned in which the working class of Ireland, and of chance to wipe out all the Fenians tionalised discussion. from membership of the Labour come over the North of Ireland. As a conse- the] can; but it is even crazier O'Mahony supporters Party. The Orange Order, and good quence has reduced the Protes- still to say they would do so for said as clever, serious it one SO supporter, was nothing others come tant working class 1o what James purely sectarian reasons. Like all socialists and the but 'a social club'. over as simpletons and Connolly called'slaves in sPirit communities, the Protestant one It is not worlh a single sentence The caricaturing is so because they have been reared uP in the North of Ireland needs sloganizers. to answer this reactionary rub- that it is not even among a people whose conditions something positive to fighl for, over the top bish, Far better to ask comrades. good fiction. of servitude were more slavish and because they are split on this is this where your 'rights for Pro- But the fiction is not confined than their own', they are all the more weakened. testants' takes you? defence of to this section. The substantial Accordingly, no concession lo As the old Orange slogan puts it the Protestant terror -of the argument that is advanced is that the politics and practice of 'United We Stand, Divided We UDR? The right for the bigotry the semi-autonomy for Pro- Unionism/Loyalism can be sanc- Fall', and a political strategy of th€ Orange Order to be given a is the only alternative to tioned. which seeks to exploit the divi- testants voice in the Labour smash the Protestants, In the event of an uncondi- sions within Unionism weakens il Party? seeking to Well comrades. the sea or subiect tional British withdrawal does to the point of collapse. if that is the drive them into road wish nationalism' this mean, as the British media One further point must be Iou other socialists or them to Catholic Irish Republicans the error being and O'Mahony tells us that there made. It is claimed in the pam- to travel then Sad to say, the answer made only too be civil war, involving big phlet that its advocacy of some must surely be not made here is that will 'a an inch. - often by trourgeois commenlators forced population movements and sorl of Home Rule for Pro-

Note by the editor: At the LCI AGM the heads I win, tails you lose, they issue was the call to disband the UDR implied more British froops (in order to add: "The defeat of Argentina, carry it out), and therefore conlradicted nevertheless. resulted in the ad- 'Troops Out', SO supporters were not vance of the revolution in the 'against' disbanding the sectarian forces. Some of the best militant miners in the Southern Cone." Scottish coallield are members of Orange Any a'empr ar diarogue, discus, KitSCh-TrOtS Classless, meaningless and con- lodges. This shows that the issue is more tentless ideas of revolution' complex than fhe simple-minded approach 'the 'Green good, Orange bad' takes account of. il:l,"iT,lii"fJ'$:i:"TlJ:*.:"J':+ ta ngo and'the counter-revolution' Ceoff Bell will be replied to in the next issue this reason, the call for an open dorhinate LIT material. (In Cen- conference of Trotskyist groups By John Alloway tral America. 'the revolution' is pu1 out by the British Workers' petty bourgeois; in the Southern Revolutionary Party attracted in- support umong militant sections Cone, the same 'revolution' is terest on lhe left. of the Argentinian working class. proletarian...). And the revolu- But it was all a con. The con- Politically the LIT expresses tion is generally INLA just the most militant ference is not to be open at all. It about all the defects of post- and vehement pefty bourgeois na- will be no more than an interna- Trotsky 'Trotskyism' - although tionalism. tional fusion conference of the often more crassly than its com- On Ireland, they call for driv- petitors. WRP, the Moreno Group (the Until 1979, Moreno was ing the Protestants (and the feud Liga Internacional de los Traba- part of the MandelJed 'United Dublin government, 'the worst (although generally jadores, LIT), based in Latin Secretariat' Loyalists') into the sea. On the from page 19 America, especially Argentina, aligned to the rightward-moving Iran-Iraq war, they say the two acid arr and the very tiny splinter of the American Sr* P). Moreno finally countries should stop fighting ot eclectic brew of bits ot Marxism and various Third World Lambertist organisation led by broke with the USec over the each other and instead unite to ideologics. The smaller groups in- the Hungarian Michel Varga. Nicaraguan revolution, and had a crush the 'fascist enclave' of lack powerful There will be a grand fusion and shorl-lived link-up with the Israel, evitably a and stable centre, and can therefore easily the declaration of yet another 'Lambertis(' current based in Generally, though, the LIT's come to provide spurious and probably unstable France. Their fusion soon fell truuble is not so much awful a flag of conve- nience lor men', oddballs, or 'Fourth International'. apart, and the LIT was formed. positioris as grotesque ignorance 'wild sel f-serving gang\ter\. This is a shame, though not at Ultra-orthodox Trotskyists on of whatever it is they are talking nlain many questions today, in fact the The extent to which 'armed all surprising. For a transition aboul. Their slogan for South strugglc' degeneratc. period after it expelled its old Morenists have been among the Africa, for example, is: into 'a gangsterism varies according to the caudillo Geny Healy, the WRP most opportunist tendencies. In government of the ANC, the degrec to which the moremenr ir seemed as if it might be opening the 1950s, the Morenist paper PAC, Azapo and the independent involved in real struggle, its tradi- itself up to arguments and was 'Palabra Socialista' declared itself unions" which if means it tion, its base, and the strength of prepared to reexamine its own 'Organ of Revolutionary anything -al all (other than chaos) Workers' Peronism Under the its central apparatus to impose a sorry history. It was a bit like the - is a call for a bourgeois govern- political Communist Party in the mid-'S0s discipline of General Peron and ment. obiective. Nevertheless, the choice has to be made b1' when Stalin was denounced by his the Peronist High Command'. They have also called for ,self- Tha-t period In the l!)60s, they embraced \o(iali\r. .eli"liberating successor Khrushchev. determination for all races' (?) working-class- is now over. The rump WRP has first Castroism ("today (the and the right mass action or of all tribes to military' elitism. fallen under the ideological Castroite) OLAS (Organisation of representation govornment. in the Some honest and sincerc IRSP tutelage of the LIT one of the Latin American States)...is the So much for the demand of the - miliranr' se1 rhcy uill conrinuc ro largest and also one of the most only vehicle for power"), and workers' movement for an un- miserable would-be'Trotskyist' then . divided non-racial rr) ro build a revolutionar) South Africa. r,vorking-class party. No, thcy groups. The LIT are probably the most (No doubt we can expect an 'anti- uon't not unless they facc the The LIT, whose main base is in populist tendency claiming to be imperialist united front' on thes€ - the entire 'armed struggle Latin America (but hitherto have Trotskyist in the world. For ex- questions with Buthelezi fact that or revolutionary culturc had no presence at all in Britain), ample, when Argentina and Bri- even, given South Africa's- now' eclectic in which the INLA/IRSP has been is the tendency until recently tain went to war in 1982, the LIT massive foreign debt, Botha called for'national unity'of Ar- embeddcd is the opposite of fronted by Nahuel Moreno. himself). working-class politics. Moreno died earlier this year, and gentines, and for the unions to op- ln any rational serious discussion Working-class politics ends with it remains to be seen if the LIT en recruiting offices for the army. among revolutionaries, the LIT armed struggle. It does not begin can survive him. Under his In 19E4, looking back, the LIT would be washed down plug the with it. The lesson of the latcst leadership, especially in Argen- commented that British im- hole. 11 is a sad comment if on the murderous bloodletting among thc tina, the LIT built substantial perialism had been defeated: would-be Trotskyist movement "it INLA is that you cannot build a supporl, The ,Argentine Movi- would have unleashed a huge that they seem to be able to rcvolutionary socialist party as a miento al Socialismo (MAS) wave anti-imperialism dominate this Iatest of in the political adjunct to a military ior- seems to have quite widespread area," In a marvellous case of 'regroupment'. mation O Workers' Liberty no.7 page 36