In Defence of Trotskyism No. 26

In Defence of Trotskyism No. 26 £1 waged, 50p unwaged/low waged, €1.50 A Marxist history of Ireland to 1916: The 1913 Dublin Lockout; its significance for revolutionaries today

It is over a hundred years since the great Dublin Lockout of 1913; what is its significant for today’s revolutionaries, what lessons must we learn from this great mass movement and why did it fail? What material and political conditions globally and in Britain and Ireland led to the strike?

revolution of private capitalist mass mobilisations against Where We Stand profit against planned pro- the onslaught of this reaction- WE STAND WITH KARL duction for the satisfaction of ary Con-Lib Dem coalition. MARX: ‘The emancipation of socialised human need. However, whilst participating the working classes must be We recognise the necessity for in this struggle we will op- conquered by the working revolutionaries to carry out pose all policies which subor- classes themselves. The serious ideological and politi- dinate the working class to struggle for the emancipation cal struggle as direct partici- the political agenda of the of the working class means pants in the trade unions petty-bourgeois reformist not a struggle for class privi- (always) and in the mass re- leaders of the Labour party leges and monopolies but for formist social democratic and trade unions equal rights and duties and bourgeois workers’ parties We oppose all immigration the abolition of all class despite their pro-capitalist controls. International finance rule’ (The International leaderships when conditions capital roams the planet in Workingmen’s Association are favourable. Because we search of profit and imperial- 1864, General Rules). see the trade union bureau- ist governments disrupts the The capitalist state consists, cracy and their allies in the lives of workers and cause the in the last analysis, of ruling- Labour party leadership as collapse of whole nations with class laws within a judicial the most fundamental obsta- their direct intervention in the system and detention centres cle to the struggle for power Balkans, Iraq and Afghani- overseen by the armed bodies of the working class, outside stan and their proxy wars in of police/army who are under of the state forces and their Somalia and the Democratic the direction and are con- direct agencies themselves, Republic of the Congo, etc. trolled in acts of defence of we must fight and defeat and Workers have the right to sell capitalist property rights replace them with a revolu- their labour internationally against the interests of the tionary leadership by mobilis- wherever they get the best majority of civil society. The ing the base against the pro- price. Only union member- working class must overthrow capitalist bureaucratic mis- ship and pay rates can coun- the capitalist state and re- leaders to open the way for- ter employers who seek to place it with a workers’ state ward for the struggle for exploit immigrant workers as based on democratic soviets/ workers’ power. cheap labour to undermine workers’ councils to suppress We are fully in support of all the gains of past struggles. the inevitable counter-

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2 The 1913 Dublin Lockout; its significance for revolutionaries today

By Gerry Downing, July 2013 sistence living typified by the Great Fam- t is a hundred years since the great ine of 1845-52. This was imposed by Brit- I Dublin Lockout of 1913; what is its ain, particularly the Whig/Liberal admin- significant for today’s revolutionaries, istration of Lord John Russell from 1846. what lessons must we learn from this great They wanted to clear the land for pastures mass movement and why did it fail? What for dairy produce following the repeal of material and political conditions globally the pro-Tory Corn Laws and were satis- and in Britain and Ireland led to the strike? fied to see upwards of a million starve and Ireland lost another mil- its bourgeois lion emigrate revolution in rather than the failed up- divert the rising of 1798; food exports union with to save them. Britain was It also had the imposed in happy conse- 1801. This had quences for profound eco- Roddy them of un- nomic and po- dermining the litical conse- McCorley Tory party, quences for who gained Ireland. In the the most from north of Ireland, the Presbyterian republi- their Irish rack-rented estates. cans (Dissenters) were suppressed and 32 The north was industrialised and de- of its leaders including Henry Joy pended on its close connections with the McCracken and Roddy McCorley, were empire. The Presbyterian population was hanged. But they did not suffer anything reintegrated into the sphere of influence like the reign of terror visited on the of the sectarian Orange Order (of course south, upwards of 20,000 died in the short there were always principled radical oppo- few weeks of the revolution and the reign nents) after 1798. But the populations of of terror that followed, mainly in north the southern cities were mainly unskilled County Wexford. labourers living often in single rooms in Dublin was the second city of the Em- the centre city town houses vacated by the pire at the time of the Act of Union in Ascendency ruling class as they moved to 1801. By 1913 the south was a rural back- the suburbs. Infant mortality was the water, taxed out of all proportion to its worst in Europe, disease, particularly the ability to pay, its industries and commerce killer tuberculosis, periodically swept the suppressed, its peasantry reduced to sub- tenements and ‘free labour’ vied for availa-

3 ble work on the basis of who would Meanwhile Britain had overcome the work for the least. As University College loss of its American colonies by the in- Cork’s Multitext Padraig Yeats says: auguration of the ‘Second Empire’ from “There was good reason for discontent 1783–1873. Australia and New Zealand in Dublin in 1913. Unskilled workers were conquered and in 1763 India was lived in desperate poverty. Housing con- added (formally following the defeat of ditions were deplorable. Overcrowding the Great Uprising in India 1857-1858) was a serious problem, and bred disease and Sri Lanka in the Kandian Wars be- and infection. Malnutrition was com- tween 1796 and 1818. Having defeat mon. The death rate in Dublin (27.6 per Napoleon in 1815 Britain grabbed the 1000) was bad as Calcutta, and the city’s Cape Colony, Mauritius, Trinidad and slums were amongst the worst in the Tobago, St. Lucia, Guyana, and Malta. world. Over 20,000 families lived in one- Irish peasants supplied much of the can- room dwellings. There were often more non fodder for these wars. than ten families in town houses that After the Great Depression of 1873-79 were built for one upper-class family in the modern global epoch of Imperialism the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. opened. Britain’s participation in the These houses became dilapidated when Grab for Africa gained it the modern- wealthy elites left them and moved to day lands of Nigeria, Ghana, Zambia, the suburbs. The houses were often tak- Zimbabwe, South Africa, Egypt and My- en over by landlords who rented them anmar and Malaya in Asia. William Mar- out, room by room, to poor families, and tin Murphy, the anti-Parnellite ex-MP they quickly became slums. There was and leading Dublin millionaire and chief little privacy. Facilities for cooking, organiser of the Lockout, had substantial cleaning, and washing were wholly inade- interests in Africa. The 1913 map of Af- quate. Sanitary conditions were worse. rica is a telling account of the politics of Many tenement buildings shared one the age: lavatory in a yard.” Politically the world had changed fun- In 1913, events occurred which made damentally from 1873 to 1913 and there clear the dreadful conditions of poverty is a large volume of literature analysing in Dublin. On the evening of Tuesday, 2 these changes. For revolutionaries the September 1913, at about 8.45 (just a fundamentals are summed up in Lenin’s week into the strike), two houses in Imperialism the Highest stage of Capitalism Church Street suddenly collapsed, bury- (1916). In a few sentences the differ- ing the occupants. The buildings were ences are that capitalism is now dominat- four storeys high, with shops on the ed by huge industrial and financial mo- ground floor. The sixteen rooms upstairs nopolies, these finance houses dominate were occupied by about ten families, the globe in this alliance and capital is over forty people. Rescue parties worked now exported to colonies to extract su- through the night digging people out. per profits from brutally exploited sweat- Seven were killed in this disaster and ed labour. The rise of organised labour many more were badly injured. [1] in the metropolitan countries has made this necessary and an aristocracy of La- 4 bour had aris- through the en here who whole array of accepted colo- commercial nialism and and individual- later semi- ist institutions colonialism as she has planted the sources of in this country wealth that and watered will buy off with the tears this skilled of our mothers layer of workers. The Reform Act of 1867 and the blood of our martyrs”. Shan Van extended the franchise and so made the Vocht (socialist newspaper) January, trade union branch secretary the object of 1897. Reprinted in P. Beresford Ellis the attention of politicians seeking his (ed.), “James Connolly – Selected Writ- members’ votes. This saw the develop- ings”, p. 124. ment of the trade union bureaucracy as a career-orientated middle class layer who Why was the Lockout different welcomed the booty of empire as the from and yet part of the Great source of their privileges. Unrest that swept Britain and its The partial gains made in the New Un- Irish colony in before WWI? ionism of the late 1880s when the un- It is the nature of the workforce the south skilled labour forced their way into politi- of Ireland in 1913, particularly in Dublin, cal consideration in the Bryant and May’s and its political and economic history that ‘Match Girls’ strike of 1888 and the set this strike apart as different from the ‘Dockers’ Tanner’ strike of 1889 led to Great Unrest in Britain itself. But it was the formation of the Labour party eventu- also very much a part of that great indus- ally. But the TU bureaucracy controlled trial movement. Falling wages and rising the movement; thus, the Labour party prices were destroying the living stand- was a pro-Imperialist party from the out- ards of the British working class in the set reliant on the booty of empire for its decade before 1911, when the Great Un- gains for themselves and for the labour rest began. Cynical trade union leaders aristocracy, the upper layers of the British sold out strikes and negotiated compro- working class. Ireland’s 1913 Lockout mises detrimental to their membership to fundamentally challenged this. offset the loss of international markets to James Connolly understood all this the more efficient rising capitalist powers background only too well: “If you remove of Germany and the USA, very much as the English army tomorrow and hoist the they have done today since 1985 defeat of green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you the miners’ strike. set about the organization of the Socialist A layer of women and young workers Republic your efforts would be in vain. lost confidence in the TU leaders and England would still rule you. She would began to embrace the politics of syndical- rule you through her capitalists, through ism whose most prominent members her landlords, through her financiers, were Tom Mann and Jim Larkin. The 5 movement grew to revolutionary propor- General Workers Union and broke from tions, embracing miners, dockers, seafar- the British TUC because he recognised ers, railway workers and even school stu- the social and national chauvinism of dents. 961,000 workers took strike action Sexton and his likes in Britain. in 1911. Asquith’s Liberal government The ITGWU now began using the rev- sent warships to the Mersey in 1911 and olutionary tactics Larkin had developed Churchill notoriously sent troops to To- in Belfast and which became integral to nypandy to put down the riots of 1910 the Great Unrest itself; sympathy strikes and 1911 and prevent the strike from and blacking, very militant pickets against winning. scabs and inspiring Jim Larkin is often propaganda for so- cited as a typical ex- cialism and revolu- ample of the syndi- tion. More im- calist leaders of his portantly the day. In one way he ITGWU began or- was but in another ganising women he was very different. workers and the un- Larkin supplemented skilled in the same his syndicalism with union as skilled men. revolutionary social- The conservative ism and Irish republi- George Lansbury, Ben Tillett and J principles of the la- canism, often in a very Hodge at the Labour Party Conference bour aristocracy were at Central Hall, Westminster, 9-8-1917 contradictory way. breached and the class Most syndicalists simply wanted to im- was acting as one unit in defence of its prove the conditions of workers under weakest members – it was now truly a capitalism and this meant accepting the class for itself, a condition that had never booty of Empire, including the super- been fully achieved in Britain itself de- profits gleaned from Ireland. In 1907 he spite the New Unionism and the Great had organised a successful strike in Bel- Unrest. Here they had turned this great fast as an official of the National Union potential into the safer realms of the La- of Dock Labourers (NUDL), whose gen- bour party and parliament. Instead of eral secretary James Sexton who had using parliament as a means to develop been a Fenian. But Sexton had become a the cause of the working class in revolu- British TU bureaucrat pure and simple, a tion it quickly became apparent that it defender of the status quo and Larkin’s was a substitute for this; they simply talk of revolution disturbed him greatly. wanted to advance the cause of the work- He expelled Larkin in 1908 on a trumped ing through parliament, they said. It -up charge of embezzling union funds he quickly became apparent that their ‘cause’ used for a strike in Cork, for which he had now become their own careers as later had him jailed. Larkin correctly im- servants and administrators of the capi- mediately formed the Irish Transport and talist system.

6 TUC and Ben Tillett betrays the says: “The union leaders would have been Dublin strikers carried along by the momentum of the movement.” But he produces no evidence But syndicalism was no answer to the to back this assertion. treachery of class-collaborating TU bu- On 9 December 1913, the TUC Special reaucrats. A rejection of corrupt leader- Conference met and predictably there was ship with no strategy to replace them a sell-out and betrayal of the Dublin strik- meant no leadership at all, no political ers. As Newsinger comments, talking perspective and no solution to the ques- about the reason for calling the confer- tion of the state and its unbending alle- ence: “In reality it was to decide what was giance to the capitalist class. On this rock to be done about Larkin.” the Great Unrest foundered and sections Ben Tillett, the dockers leader who Lar- of the British ruling class welcomed WWI kin had considered a fellow supporter, because of (probably unfounded) fears of “wielded the knife that struck the fatal its revival. Matters were different in Ire- blow”. This final decision not to support land. the Dublin workers led to defeat and in- Two more cases that illustrate the timidation with the full weight of the state treachery of the British TU leaders are used against the ITGWU’s members. [2] Ben Tillett and Arthur Henderson. As Tillett went on to support WWI and Laurence Humphries noted in his review denounced those Labour leaders like Keir Rebel City by John Newsinger: With Hardy and Ramsey McDonald who op- Many Dublin workers locked out and posed the war and failed to as act as re- their families starving, there was support cruiting sergeants for the killing fields of from British workers who sent £50,000 France, showing his essential Empire loy- worth of food parcels to the ITGWU and alism. So the treachery of the left bureau- its supporters. The leadership tried to se- crat should come as no surprise. Arthur cure a compromise settlement, but as Henderson was another matter, no one Newsinger observes, the Dublin employ- expected him to do any other as a right ers led by Murphy “did not want to inflict winger but what this former trade union defeat on the ITGWU, but to completely leader and now leader of the Labour party destroy it”. Larkin came to Britain. There did astonished even his closest followers. was tremendous solidarity support in He entered the cabinet in 1914 under As- Manchester. 130 NUR rail union branches quith, precisely to act as a recruiting ser- called for action. In South Wales, rail geant for the war, then became a member workers and dockers went out on unoffi- of the small War Cabinet under Lloyd cial Strike. George in 1916 and approved the death The response of the TUC leadership sentences on the 1916 Easter Rising lead- was to head off the movement and they ers, including on fellow socialist and trade called a special conference. Newsinger unionist James Connolly. Reportedly he criticises Larkin for agreeing to the TUC led the cheering in the House of Com- conference and feels that unofficial action would have resolved the situation. He

7 mons when it was reported that the exe- […] The right of the Irish to political in- cutions had begun. dependence never was, is not and never can be dependent on the right of the ad- Griffiths argued in favour of a dual mission of equal rights in all other peo- monarchy for Britain and Ireland ples”. Arthur Griffiths, pre-1916-Sinn Fein and His anti-Semitism was long-standing: the Irish Parliamentary Party were also “The Three Evil Influences of the centu- bitterly opposed to the Lockout as were ry are the Pirate, the Freemason, and the the right wing dual-monarchist nationalist Jew” (United Irishman, 23 Sept. 1899): of pre-1916 Sinn Fein led by Arthur Grif- ‘’(In) all countries in all Christian ages he fiths. The blog Work in Progress Political has been a usurer and a grinder of the World Flower, in response to a laudatory poor … The Jew in Ireland is in every obituary on the 90th anniversary of Grif- respect an economic evil. He produces fith’s death, makes the following observa- no wealth himself – he draws it from oth- tions on his politics: ers – he is the most successful seller of Griffiths backed the employers during foreign goods, he is an unfair competitor the 1913 lock-out – attacking Larkin and with the rate-paying Irish shopkeeper, the ITGWU for ‘undermining Irish trade’ and he remains among us, ever and al- and accused Larkin of being a British ways alien.” (The United Irishman, April saboteur and demanded that he be re- 23rd 1904.) [3] moved as leader of the ITGWU. Regular- In fact the Irish Parliamentary party, ly during the period from 1919-1922 whilst no friends of Larkin, had a long Griffith backed the use of the IRA running feud with William Martin Mur- against striking workers. Indeed, one of phy going back to his pro-British anti- his last actions was to meet with Farmers’ Parnell stance and so took a more neutral leader Laffin during the farm labourers position. As the Padraig Yeates explains: strike in East Limerick and ordered the “The Irish Parliamentary Party, whose IRA to declare martial law and break the members were mostly middle-class and strike. drew their support from the farming Some of the more enlightening pieces community, was hostile to the strike. written by Griffith: An intro to (John) Even those who felt sympathy for the Mitchel’s Jail Journal are: “His (Mitchel’s) plight of the striking workers feared that demolition of the “moral basis” of the the strike and lockout would distract at- Abolitionist case in his trenchant letters tention from what, to them, was the to the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. […] In much more serious struggle with Car- the essential work of dissevering the case son’s Ulster Unionists. John Dillon, Red- for Irish independence from theories of mond’s second-in-command, expressed humanitarianism and universalism. […] the party’s exasperation with the Lockout Even his views on negro-slavery have when he wrote: “Murphy is a desperate been deprecatingly excused, as if excuse character, Larkin is as bad. It would be a were needed for an Irish Nationalist declining to hold the negro his peer in right.

8 blessing for Ireland if they exterminated children would be secondary to those of each other”. [4] the Hierarchy in an independent Ireland. And what effect did the strike have on [5] the radical petty-bourgeois leaders of Irish nationalism: Yeates again: “Murphy The course of the strike would have broken the tramway strike The beginning and course of the strike is relatively quickly except for two things. well known and we will only sketch it in One was Bloody Sunday (31 August outline here from by Padraig Yeates: 1913), which enraged liberal as well as “Shortly after 10.00 a.m. on Tuesday, 26 socialist opinion in Britain, as well as Ire- August 1913—the first day of the Dublin land, and the other was his determination Horse Show, one of the city’s busiest to break the ITGWU through the use of events—drivers and conductors stopped the Lockout tactic. There were many un- their trams and abandoned them in pro- intended consequences of this strategy. test. About 700 of the 1,700 Tramways One of the most para- Company’s employees doxical was that the went on strike. The aid from Britain and city was filled with the interference that tension on the days came with it propelled following. Strikers separatist tendencies resented the workers within the Dublin who continued to op- trade unions. Another erate the trams, and was that radical nation- fights often took place alists, already becom- between them. Work- ing disillusioned with ers who usually dis- the Redmondite pro- tributed the Irish In- ject, saw the behaviour of the nationalist dependent— [owned by Murphy] though ruling elite in waiting as confirming all not employed by Murphy—refused to their worst fears. Far from being repulsed handle it in protest. Messrs. Eason and by Larkinism they sympathised with it. W. Co., the large city newsagents, were asked B. Yeats, George Bernard Shaw and AE by Larkin not to sell the paper. They re- (George Russell) all sided with the work- fused. As a result, dock-workers at Kings- ers, as did every signatory of the 1916 town (Dún Longhaire) refused to handle Proclamation. any Eason and Co. goods from England The power of the Catholic Church, or addressed to England”. demonstrated by the ruthlessness with Murphy, also appealing for support, which it suppressed the Dublin Kiddies issued a statement on behalf of over 400 Scheme, gave Southern Unionists a fore- employers that repeated his opposition to taste of what Home Rule would be like. the ITGWU. The employers drew up a The outcome of that battle gave fair pledge for workers, which stated that they warning that the rights of parents and were not, and would not become, members of the proscribed Union: “I hereby

9 undertake to carry out all instructions kin and other labour leaders were arrested given to me by or on behalf of my em- on the following charges: seditious speak- ployers, and further, I agree to immedi- ing and seditious intent to break the pub- ately resign my membership of the lic peace, and to spread hatred towards ITGWU (if a member) and I further un- the Government. They were released later dertake that I will not join or in any way that day. support this union”. 29 August. Official proclamation issued Those who refused to sign would be prohibiting the proposed meeting in Sack- dismissed. Angered by this document, ville St (now O’Connell St) on 31 August. thousands of workers refused to sign. Great meeting in Beresford Place. Before Many who were not even members of the 10,000 people, Larkin burned the Gov- ITGWU, could not sign it in conscience, ernment proclamation prohibiting the even though they had no dealings with gathering. Larkin or his Union. James Connolly 30 August. Police issued a warrant for wrote of one such case: “A labourer was Larkin’s arrest for using seditious lan- asked to sign the agreement forswearing guage inciting people to riot and to pillage the Irish Transport and General Workers’ shops. Riots in Ringsend, Beresford Union, and he told his employer, a small Place, and Eden Quay, during which the capitalist builder, that he refused to sign. police baton-charged the crowds and in- The employer, knowing the man’s cir- jured many protestors. James Nolan, cumstances, reminded him that he had a caught in the riots, died from injuries re- wife and six children who would be starv- ceived from police. ing within a week. The reply of this hum- 31 August. Although warned by the po- ble labourer rose to the heights of sublim- lice not to attend the planned mass meet- ity. ‘It is true, sir’, he said, ‘they will starve; ing, Larkin appeared in the window of the but I would rather see them go out on in Imperial Hotel, in disguise, to address the their coffins than I should disgrace them huge crowd assembled. He was immedi- by signing that’. And with head erect he ately arrested, and a riot followed. There walked out to share hunger and privation were riots throughout the city that night. with his loved ones. Hunger and privation—and honour. Defeat, bah! How can 2 September. The Dublin Coal Mer- such a people be defeated? His case is chants’ Association locked out members typical of thousands more”. of the ITGWU. Two tenement houses collapsed in Church Street, causing the Chronology of the Strike and immediate death of seven persons and Lockout serious injury to others. 26 August 1913. The strike began. Tram 8 October. Serious riots occurred in workers deserted their vehicles in protest Swords, Co. Dublin when striking work- when William Martin Murphy forbade ers tried to prevent farmers bringing cat- employees of his Tramways Company to tle to market. Police and civilians were be members of the Irish Transport and injured. General Workers Union. 28 August. Lar-

10 14 October. In response to the Commis- the rank and file of the British trade un- sioners’ Report, the Employers’ Federa- ion movement, who sent tons of food tion announced that they would end the and took sympathetic strike action when Lockout only if the ITGWU were com- they could. Connolly’s political education pletely reorganised, under new leadership, came in the Socialist League, a split from and that they would not promise to rein- the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), state every worker because they would Eleanor Marx was a member and Freder- not fire workers who replaced those on ick Engels was their mentor. He was also strike. secretary of the Scottish Labour Party, 16 October. A crowd of about 4000 affiliated to the Independent Labour Par- striking workers marched through the city ty (ILP) led by Kier Hardie. Connolly to protest at the employers’ statement. moved to Dublin with his family in 1896 20 October. Archbishop William Walsh and founded the Irish Socialist Republi- condemned can party and the plan to published the send children Workers Re- of strikers to public. He im- England for migrated to the the duration US from 1903 of the strike. to 1910 (a move he later 21 October. regretted) and The first fell under the group of chil- influence of dren set sail for England, amidst loud Daniel De Leon and the Industrial Work- protests from angry crowds at the ports. ers of the World, a revolutionary anarcho- 12 November. Labourers in Dublin port syndicalist group. stopped work. He read what little of Karl Marx’s works 18 December. Representatives of workers were available in English, he certainly and employers met again to try to reach understood the Labour Theory of value, agreement but discussions ended two for instance. He it was that tried to meld days later because of disagreement about the theory of the socialist revolution led the reinstatement of workers who had by the working class to the fight against been on strike. British Imperialism in Ireland and recog- December 1913 & January 1914. Striking nised the need for an insurrection to workers gradually began to return to work overthrow British and capitalist rule in and the Lockout ended by degrees. [6] Ireland. In that sense, he had developed a version of Trotsky’s theory of Permanent Connolly after the Lockout Revolution, not only must any revolution And how did the Lockout affect James today be led by the working class to be Connolly? Together with Larkin he was successful but also that revolution must inspired by the support for the strike by

11 be a socialist revolution; Connolly’s Work- sands injured in the brutal confrontations ers Republic. with scabs and the Dublin Metropolitan True he had not developed theory to the Police. level of the revolutionary Marxist move- Connolly co-founded the Irish Labour ment in Germany and Russia at the time Party with Jim Larkin and William O’Brien but he was far in advance of any British in 1912 as the political wing of the Irish self-declared revolutionary with the possi- Trade Union Congress. The latter had ble exception of Scotland’s John McLane. been founded in 1894 as a consequence of He did tend to identify the national ques- the British TUC continually ignoring Irish tion and the socialist revolution as the issues, even those pertaining to craft un- same thing which was a weakness in re- ionism. The new organisation was called gard to the Irish capitalist class, whom he the Irish Labour Party and Trade Union accused of essentially being a foreign im- Congress (ILPTUC). However, the body position. He meant literally that “the cause remained dominated by craft unions that of labour is the case of Ireland” as well as were mainly Irish branches of British- its corollary, “the cause of Ireland is the based unions, with the bulk of these locat- cause of Labour”. Neither Connolly nor ed in the north. To maintain unity political Larkin were atheists but both were strong- issues were never discussed. Only with the ly anti-clerical in that they recognised the arrival of Larkin and Connolly’s participa- baneful influence of the Bishops on the tion did the balance of power shift in this Irish workers and made strong propagan- uncomfortably compromised organisation da against them. Neither can be regarded from the craft to the industrial and service as Marxists but their subjective revolution- and from the north to the south. This ad- ary instincts in those years were unparal- vance was apparent in the ITUC pro- leled although Larkin drifted to the right gramme adopted in 1914 for, “the aboli- in the period of reaction in Ireland follow- tion of the capitalist system of wealth pro- ing the counterrevolution led by Collins, duction with its inherent injustice and Griffiths and the ‘free staters’ in 1922-23 poverty.” Syndicalism was the means to and after. [7] accomplish this aim. It was to be a short- lived victory; the conservative craft union- Conclusion ism could not be defeated by syndicalism; Larkin had been very successful in build- it reappeared in 1916 in Sligo when Con- ing his new union from 1908 to 1913 and gress President Thomas Johnson had dele- this success forced the hand of his greatest gates standing in respect for those who enemy, William Martin Murphy, the lead- had died in the Rising and in “foreign ing capitalist in Dublin who began the fields”. An ominous indication of its fu- Lockout himself on 26 August 1913 when ture role in Irish society was the fact that it he decreed that no ITGWU member took no part in the Lockout; Connolly and could work for his Tramways Company. Larkin were left to fight without official Eventually some 25,000 workers were in backing for fear of alienating craft union- battle against 300 employers led by Mur- ism, overwhelmingly Loyalist. phy. Five strikers were killed and thou-

12 The Lockout end- culty was Ireland’s oppor- ed in defeat for the tunity and that an armed striking workers but uprising for a Workers Re- the ITGWU contin- public was only possible ued to fight and during the war. He was bit- gradually the men terly disappointed with the and women re- betrayals of the German and joined the union British trade union and So- and it grew rapidly cialist leaders in particular again. The employ- who had abandoned all their ers had no stomach previous opposition to war for another lockout and pledges to turn the war so the result was into a civil war and voted really a draw, in war credits and entered war James Connolly’s cabinets to support their words: “The battle own capitalists in slaughter- was a drawn battle. ing other workers similarly The employers were unable to carry on betrayed by their leaders. their business without men and women who remained loyal to their union. The Notes workers were unable to force their em- [1] Yeates, Padraig. UCC Multitext: ployers to a formal recognition of the http://multitext.ucc.ie/d/ union and to give preference to organised Dublin_1913Strike_and_Lockout labour. From the effects of this drawn [2] Rebel City – Larkin, Connolly and the battle both sides are still bearing scars. Dublin labour movement John How deep these scars are none will re- Newsinger, Merlin Press £14.95 veal”. [3] Flower, C. 12/08/2012, http:// James Connolly and Jack White, an ex- www.politicalworld.org/showthread.php? British officer, founded the Irish Citizen 12453-Arthur-Griffith-%2831-March- Army (ICA) in 1913 in response to police 1872-%96-12-August-1922%29. John violence against the Lockout. This was Mitchell, a Fenian leader, fought for the the first and only armed workers’ militia Southern salve owners in the American in Britain and Ireland, reflecting the revo- Civil War and he clearly believed in their lutionary spirit of that age in Ireland. Alt- ‘cause’. hough numbering a few hundred they [4] Yeates, Padraig. Opus cit. remained intact after the defeat of the [5] Ibid. Lockout and adopted as their goal an in- [6] Ibid. dependent and socialist Irish nation. This [7] See Connolly A Marxist Analysis, by was the vehicle which propelled Connolly Andy Johnson, James Larragy, and Ed- into the 1916 Easter Rising. Connolly had ward McWilliams for a detailed analysis of become convinced that England’s diffi- Connolly’s political evolution and beliefs.

13 The Rights of Nations to Self- determination: Scotland, Wales, Ireland, the Basque Country, Catalonia and Spain ocialist Fight has been asked, what is ment but reaction is clearly very much to S our position on the Scottish Referen- the fore in that land also. dum due on 18 September 2014? And on Recognising the right to self- the national question in Spain, Britain and determination and that these are historic Ireland? Ireland and Spain are very differ- nations does not oblige us to advocate full ent; Ireland remains a semi-colonial coun- separation. We should advocate the His- try and Spain is an Imperialist country. panic Socialist Federation (including Por- Both Catalonia and the Basque country tugal). Full separation would leave these are economically very advanced parts of nations as pawns of other Imperialist Spain, Ireland, particularly the south, was powers (the right-wing nationalists in an economically exploited part of the Brit- both the Basque Country and Catalonia ish Empire, forcibly maintained in eco- make no bones about that) and would nomic backwardness for the benefit of tend to weaken class solidarity with work- Whig and Tory landlords during the nine- ers in Castile, Andalucía, Galicia, etc. On teenth and early twentieth centuries. the other hand, not recognising the right The north of Ireland was allowed to to self-determination would appear to develop economically in the linen and workers like supporting the repressive shipbuilding industries as part of the mar- central apparatus of the reactionary cen- kets controlled by the British Empire be- tral Madrid state against them. cause of it majority Loyalist population. The Basque country of northern Spain John Bull used the difference to divide and southern France has a stronger claim and rule and imposed the Orange state in to separation, or at least far more autono- 1920 to continue and deepen that tactic. my, given its history of severe repression Marxists demand full political and eco- under the dictator Franco and the contin- nomic separation of the whole of Ireland uing struggles of its liberation movement from Britain and national unity, which ETA and the numbers of political prison- must involve the defeat of reactionary ers held in Spain and France. Loyalism and the destruction of the Or- In that sense, it is more like Ireland than ange state. Scotland or Catalonia. But it is not an It would be economically and politically economically oppressed nation like Ire- disastrous for the Spanish working class if land was and now obviously still is with Catalonia and the Basque country totally the onset of the recession and austerity to separated; there are clear reactionary forc- pay the debts of foreign and native bank- es in the political ascendancy in Catalonia ers. Both demands for separation there- right now. There is a better situation po- fore have an overtone of a rebellion litically in the Basque country with more against subsidising the poorer and more leftist implantation in the national move- oppressed regions of Spain and keeping more of their wealth for ‘themselves’.

14 This is a con game, in reality the ruling the Roses (1455-87). Wales had been di- classes in Catalonia and the Basque Coun- vided into the northern Principality which try wish to ally with the US and other Eu- was Lancastrian and the southern border ropean Imperialists the better to exploit Marches which were more dominated by their own working class and poor. And England and were Yorkists. Henry VIII, a similar profit motives rule in the Scottish descendant of both houses, passed the act and Welsh bourgeoisie’s desire for inde- of union in 1536 as part of the battle pendence. against papal and therefore feudal landlord We would liken the situation in Spain to and ecclesiastical control of the region and Scotland within the UK. As a nation, it in England (dissolution of the Monasteries has the right to self-determination but we 1536-41, etc.) should oppose total separation and coun- The Scottish union in 1707 was from a terpose a Socialist Federation of Britain – very different and in a later historical peri- excluding the north of Ireland which is od. It was facilitated by the failure of the legitimately part of the Irish nation. There colonial ambitions of Scotland in the Dari- is a British nation, is there not? There can en Scheme. This colonial adventure in never be a ‘British Isles’ nation because of Central America bankrupted a whole sec- the history of national oppression in Ire- tion of the Scottish ruling class and land and its reflection in the consciousness demonstrated that Scotland on its own of the Irish working class and poor farm- was incapable of becoming a colonial ers. This is a fate not shared in the same power. The union was very unpopular degree at all by either Scotland or Wales, with the ordinary people; riots broke out despite the obvious discrimination im- and there was almost universal condemna- posed on Scotland by the Thatcher admin- tion of the loss of sovereignty. istration, via the Poll tax (first try it out on Daniel Defoe, who was hired to spy for the Scots). Historically these unions the English, claimed that “A Scots rabble (Wales in 1536 and Scotland in 1707) were is the worst of its kind,” but admitted that, voluntary acts of the ruling elites in the “for every Scot in favour there is 99 main, despite some opposition in Wales against”. Robert Burns referred to the un- and considerably more in Scotland. ion thus: “We’re bought and sold for Eng- Wales had been ruled by England with- lish Gold,/ Sic a Parcel of Rogues in a out opposition since the defeat of Owain Nation.” Glyndŵr’s uprising (1400 – 1415). The The Union may have been forced on the union was a consequence of the victory of majority in Scotland but the opposition the Lancastrian, Henry VII, in the Wars of was diverse. There was a growing influ-

15 ence of the Jacobites who wanted to re- to weaken that class solidarity by full sep- turn to feudal times and values – as the aration as opposed to a Socialist Federa- reactionary Walter Scott later rimed in tion. We will therefore call for a “no” The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805): vote in the referendum in 2014 and argue Old times were changed, old manners for a Socialist Federation. gone, /A stranger filled the Stuarts’ The solution advocated by Trotsky for throne; /The bigots of the iron time/ had Spain does seem to us to be the correct called his harmless art a crime. /A wan- Marxist position and does take into ac- dering harper, scorned and poor, /He count all the factors at play in 1931. We begged his bread from door to door; / would say that the essential class struc- And tuned, to please a peasant’s ear, / tures remain the same in Spain today, The harp, a King had loved to hear. despite the enormous numerical and eco- Economic necessity and security dic- nomic advance of the working class. The tates forced the hands of both the Eng- recession will bring these questions to the lish and Scottish ruling classes. The result fore once more, and in the immediate benefitted Scotland greatly. The later sup- future, we are sure. port for Bonnie Prince Charlie in 1746 Finally, a large part of our opposition to came from the Catholic Highlanders and total Scottish separation is based on an from the lowland Catholic gentry, Scot- assessment of the dangers of the rise of tish Episcopalians and from the nonjur- English nationalism. We are totally op- ing Anglicans in England and Wales who posed to an English parliament for this refused on principle to take the oath of reason. England is at the heart of an Im- allegiance to William and Mary. These perialist nation; English nationalism is a latter formed the ideological basis of the very nasty beast indeed if taken to its log- British Tories, the very name of which is ical conclusion as the fascist groups like taken from the outlawed supporters of the BNP and the EDL do. It is con- James II in Ireland. [2] strained within a British parliament, de- Economically both nations benefitted spite the West Lothian question. [1] In greatly from their connection with the trade union matters leaders from the Empire; the south of Ireland suffered the ‘Celtic fringe’. Ireland, Wales and Scot- opposite fate, disastrously declining in the land, tend to be more militant leaders of nineteenth century as seen particularly in trade unions. Scottish-based union the decline of Dublin from the second branches and regional bodies frequently city of the Empire in 1801 when the Act give a lead to the whole British working of Union became law to appalling pov- class. erty-stricken Dublin of the 1913 Lockout. Trotsky on Catalonia The industrial devastation imposed on This is part of Trotsky’s message on Scotland and Wales via the defeat of the Spain (Leon Trotsky: The national ques- miners’ strike of 1884-5. was similarly tion in Catalonia, 1931). [3] endured in the North East, Yorkshire, Once more on the subject of the timely South Wales, Kent etc. We do not want questions of the Spanish revolution:

16 1) To permit petty- bourgeois nationalism to disguise itself under the banner of C o m m u n i s m means, at the same time, to deliver a treacherous blow to the proletarian van- guard and to destroy the progres- sive significance of petty- bourgeois na- well as of Spain, will have to conduct a tionalism. struggle for federation. 2) What does the program of separa- 4) In the Balkans, the old pre-war So- tism mean? – the economic and political cial Democracy already put forward the dismemberment of Spain, or in other slogan of the democratic Balkan federa- words, the transformation of the Iberian tion as the way out of the madhouse cre- Peninsula into a sort of Balkan Peninsula, ated by the separated states. Today, the with independent states divided by cus- Communist slogan in the Balkans is the toms barriers, and with independent ar- Balkan Soviet Federation (by the way, the mies conducting independent Hispanic Comintern adopted the slogan of the wars. Of course, the sage Maurín will say Balkan Soviet Federation, but at the that he does not want this. But programs same time it rejected this slogan for Eu- have their own logic, something Maurín rope!). How can we, under these condi- doesn’t have. tions, adopt the slogan of the Balkaniza- 3) Are the workers and peasants of the tion of the Spanish peninsula? Isn’t it various parties of Spain interested in the monstrous? economic dismemberment of Spain? Not Notes at all. That is why to identify the decisive struggle for the right to self- [1] The West Lothian question refers to determination with propaganda for sepa- the debate in the United Kingdom over ratism means to accomplish a fatal task. why members of parliament from out- Our program is for Hispanic federation side of England – from Northern Ire- with the indispensable maintenance of land, Scotland and Wales – can vote on economic unity. We have no intention of matters that affect England only. imposing this program upon the op- [2] Tories, from the Irish word tóraidhe pressed nationalities of Spain with the aid meaning “the pursued”, i.e. outlaws. of the arms of the bourgeoisie. In this [3] The full document can be found sense, we are sincerely for the right to here: Leon Trotsky: The National Ques- self-determination. If Catalonia separates, tion In Catalonia https:// the Communist minority of Catalonia, as www.marxists.org/archive/ trotsky/1931/07/spain01.htm

17 Belfast Flag Riots: Good Friday or no Good Friday Agreement croppy won’t lie down anymore By Charlie Walsh

he unionists allege T that the reduction in the number of days that the Union Jack hangs over Belfast City hall to a total of 17 in all is a concession to Sinn Fein and to the Catholics. Reading Da- vid McKitterick in the English Independent on 10 January on the ongoing Loyalist protest in the north of Ireland over the flag issue drove me to the conclusion that the Loyalist Perhaps it’s time the Loyalists woke youth and workers have lost ‘their em- up and smelled the coffee. Because pire’ and their jobs in shipbuilding and after all it was British Imperialism and engineering but what they haven’t lost British capitalism that destroyed their is their anti-Catholic, anti-Irish bigotry jobs and put them on the dole and it and their anti-immigrant racism and was not the Catholic working class or their thuggery against Polish, Indian immigrant workers. The only hope for and Pilipino workers. the Loyalist working call if they are to Their days of supremacy over their escape from economic and political Catholic neighbours and their so- going nowhere is to break from their called ‘right’ to march wherever and reactionary racist and bigoted ideology whenever they like throughout the sic and get rid of their illusions in the counties while hurling racist and sec- Union Jack and monarchy and join in tarian abuse at Catholic, while attack- with the Catholic working class and all ing their homes, shops , churches and workers in Ireland (their only real al- schools those days are gone forever. lies) in bringing about a new Socialist Good Friday or no Good Friday Ireland where all their needs are met Agreement croppy won’t lie down an- and their problems solved because the ymore. bourgeois politicians north and south

18 Billy Hutchinson

have no answer to the huge problems and was the flag of British colonial- being faced by the Irish working class ism and the British empire. It is the including the Loyalist workers. flag of the British ruling class, the The working class has to fight for capitalist class. The flag of the British its own class interests independent of working class is the Red Flag and our all other classes and groups in society. anthem is The International. Only the working class organised in The many war crimes and acts of its own party can free itself from terrorism committed by British Impe- poverty, immigration, unemployment rialism in the heyday of British colo- and injustice. Only socialism in an nialism and the British empire, the international basis can bring about a slave trade which took 28 million Af- new world society free from poverty, ricans to work in slave plantations in disease, exploitation, oppression, the West Indies and America, north wars of conquest and famine. In such and south, the “famines” in Ireland a society need and not greed will be in the 1740s and in 1845-47, the the driving force and a society where “famine” in India in the 1870s- co-operation abd solidarity between perpetrated done under the Union nations will replace the anarchy and Jack. Similarly, the wars of conquest madness of the market and competi- by British Imperialism in Ireland, In- tion. “from each according to their dia, Aden, Cyprus, Malaya, North talents, to each according to their Yemen, Oman, Kenya, Iraq, Afghani- needs” will be the motto of such a stan and Libya to name but a few society. where wars were all fought under the And talking of flying the Union Union Jack in the name of civilisa- Jack, the butcher’s apron. The Union tion and British democracy, names Jack is the flag of British Imperialism that hid theft and plunder.

19 Ireland, the state of the nation: Burying the truth by Gerry Downing. 09/03/2017 How the Brexit crisis reveals in four great social and political corruption scandals the illegitimate nature of both states that were founded in the early 1920s in Ireland. Zionist Melanie Phillips voted Bigot of elanie Philips, the Zionist bigot, the Year by gay rights group Stonewall M wrote a column in The Times of in 2011. London on 7 March saying that “the claim to unite Ireland is tenuous since engulfing the ruling Democratic Unionist Ireland itself has a tenuous claim to na- party (DUP). The main concern of the tionhood, having seceded from Britain as UK government is to prevent exposure the Irish Free State in 1922.” Ireland as a of all these scandals and the emergence modern nation has existed since 1798 at of the political conclusion that this is an least, there are two states in Ireland, both illegitimate state. The scandal was a sup- of which are illegitimate because the Irish posed ‘green energy’ subsidy scheme nation has not yet been able to assert which resulted in, for example, one sup- right to self-determination in the whole porter of the Democratic Unionist Party Island. Of course, now, as back in in the (DUP) getting a payment of £1 million early years of the last century, the ques- simply for heating an empty barn. Some tion of the relations with global imperial- £490 million were or will be lost in this ism is of the first importance, but that we way. It is impossible to conclude that this must leave to a later article. was a ‘mistake’ but Arlene Foster, the The four scandals are: leader of the DUP, who refused to resign as First Minister until Martin McGuin- ness, her deputy and leader of Sinn Fein resigned, forcing the collapse and the new elections. The outcome left the DUP on 28 seats and Sinn Fein on 27, with the looming crisis of the exit from the EU, where the south of divided Ire- land will remain in hanging over all this. Previous DUP First Minister, Peter Robinson, was continually mired in scan- 1. the Renewable Heat Incentive dal after scandal. His wife, Iris, had an scandal, the ‘Cash for Ash’ scandal in affair with a teenager and it was claimed the north of Ireland. Only the latest of a he knew Iris got £50,000 from two de- series of appalling corruption scandals

20 velopers for her lover in exchange for stop the practices landed McCabe in an contracts. A police investigation found increasing desperate cover-up that went him innocent of all wrong doing, natural- right to the top of force and thence to the ly. Then TD (south of Ireland member of top of the Irish political establishment. He parliament) Mick Wallace alleged he had was hounded and victimised, false allega- benefited financially from the National tions, including an entirely false one of Asset Management Agency (Nama) prop- child rape, were fabricated against him to erties sale from corrupt speculators seized shut him up. by the Irish government following the On 30 December 2012 two senior offic- 2008 financial crisis. ers visited him in his home in Cavan and Allegedly payments were made to him directly instructed him to cease his crimi- and others from ‘US investor’ who nal investigations. Wiki tells this all result- mopped up the properties with their polit- ed in 1. the resignation of Garda Commis- ical assistance. Again, the missing millions sioner Martin Callinan in March 2014. 2. were explained away by a less than rigor- the vindication of Gemma O’Doherty, the ous inquiry. He eventually went in January journalist fired by the Irish Independent 2016 amid all these scandals to be replaced for her pursuit of the story. 3. the resigna- by Arlene Foster, who was almost imme- tion of the justice minister Alan Shatter in diately embroiled in her own corruption May 2014 and 4. The Taoiseach (Irish scandal. Prime Minister) Enda Kenny has conceded that he will resign over the next few months as a consequence of the cover up. Again, the continuing cover-up is a determination to limit the fallout to prevent any questioning of the legitimacy of the state itself revealed in these corrupt practices and the state cover-up that followed. 3. The Catholic order of Nuns, the 2. The Garda (Irish police) Ser- Bon Secours Sisters Mother and Baby geant Maurice McCabe (above), Home scandal; between 1925 and 1961 ‘whistleblower’ scandal ongoing from in Tuam, County Galway they illegally 2012 in the south. He was a station ser- buried of up to 1,000 babies, many of geant in Bailieborough, County Cavan whom did from malnutrition, in a septic Basically, this blew up from a realisation tank in the grounds. Women who had by McCabe that there was widespread cor- babies out of wedlock were sent there by rupt practices in the Gardai including the the Church with the families, the babies scrubbing of points from driving licences were taken off them and they were often for speeding and other traffic violations of confined as slave labour in Magdalene those who were politically ‘important’ or Laundries for the rest of their lives. It is who were prepared to pay. Attempts to rumoured that many of the babies were

21 sold to childless couples in the USA. Many died through ill treatment and malnutrition, in fact murdered, and were buried in the grounds of the homes, in the Tuam case, in a disused septic tank, without official death certificates or their families being informed. This is only the latest of scandals involv- ing the Catholic Church in Ireland and the evidence proved but the Gardaí now internationally. The attendance at Sunday attempted to prove she had killed her own Mass has dropped dramatically, even in baby, again without any evidence but the rural Ireland, over the past few decades Kerry Babies Tribunal supported the false and the ‘vocations’ to the priesthood have allegation. Left wing journalist Nell almost ceased – an increasing number of McCafferty wrote a book about the case African priests are moving to Ireland to called A Woman to Blame and John Barrett take up the slack. Their attitude to women co-authored My Story with Joanne Hayes, and children, was and still is, truly shock- all blaming the Gardaí for their appalling ing and this is no longer acceptable in treatment of Joanna. But the judges got in modern Ireland. on the act of defending the corrupt state, Most notorious among many paedophile they found for four Gardaí and a settle- priests was Brendan Smyth, born in Bel- ment was forced on the authors of fast in 1927 whose abusing spanned 40 €127,000. Both cases, and what obviously years and involved at least 143 children in lay behind them, contributed to the secu- Belfast, Dublin and the USA. The Roman larisation of Ireland and the marginalisa- Catholic hierarchy were aware of his activ- tion of the malignant influence of the ities and shielded him, thus ensuring he Church on the Free State in the south and continued to abuse over the most of those north of Ireland. latter years. The Irish government fell in There are fourteen such mother and December 1994 as a direct result of the baby homes in Ireland, all of whom may case. have their own pits full of the bones of The social attitude of the Catholic children murdered by these ‘holy women’ Church to women were not confined to with the assistance of Bishops and Cardi- that organisation as the Kerry Babies case nals, and the Irish government’s main which became known in 1984 concern now is to prevent all these homes showed. Joanne Hayes had a child out of being investigated and the murderers wedlock, who died in childbirth. She con- prosecuted. cealed the body. A second dead baby was Daniel McConnell and Fiachra Ó discovered in a beach close to her home. Cionnaith in the Irish Examiner report The Garda Síochána charged her with 20 January 2017: Garda Commissioner killing the baby on the beach, assuming Nóirín O’Sullivan (below) has re- without evidence it was hers. It was not moved the final roadblock to publish-

22 ing two key HSE reports into the to her desperate need?” The Health Ser- ‘Grace’ foster abuse sex scandal. The vice Executive Director General Tony HSE has for several years refused to O’Brien also apologised and revealed publish two expert reports detailing that at least 47 families were involved in what happened and who was respon- this whole affair. And he pledged as the sible, with the decision resulting in a Journal.ie reports: year-long delay to a promised State When asked if anyone involved in the inquiry.The refusal to publish was, it case was still working with children, said, on foot of a request from gardaí O’Brien said: who said that releasing the reports “I would not ‘make his life easier’ by pub- could jeopardise ongoing investiga- lishing the reports that would prevent any tions. convictions in the future. I will not give them a get out of jail free card by putting these reports out in the public domain… the reports are horrendous. Nobody will get convicted, nobody will get disci- plined… I have to hold the line on that and take criticism here today because of it. I will not do it, if the consequence is there will be no accountability. I just won’t do it.” It is obvious from this, that like the 4. The physical abuse and rape of three other cases, here there is an ongo- a mentally disabled young woman, ing investigation and in the end, no one “Grace” scandal for over 20 years. She will be prosecuted and jailed for the was lodged in a foster home in 1975 and most horrendous of crimes, because it is was physically abused and raped continu- not in the ‘interests of national security’ ally for over 20 years there, despite con- to bring these criminals to justice. But sistent reports to the authorities of what due to the dogged persistence of whistle- was happening from 1981. She was one blowers and campaigning journalists of a great many other victims and the these cases were forced into public con- main efforts of the Irish government sciousness and the resistance of the cleri- now is to prevent all the other cases be- cal, administrative and political establish- ing exposed. ment was overcome. On 2 February 2016 Enda Kenny apol- In the case of Ash for Cash the con- ogised to all the families of the abused stant political campaigning of ‘dissident’ mentally disabled people: “The question republicans and leftists groups like Eirigi is, in ticking its boxes, was the system and People before Profit forced the hand blind, was the system deaf, did the sys- of Shin Fein to protect their republican tem possess so little awareness, so little and radical base. In the McCabe case it accountability, that it could become a was the determination of the man him- stone to Grace, to her abject experience, self and Irish Independent journalist

23 Gemma O’Doherty, Historian Catherine Cor- These are more criminally whose persistence less at the burial ground. responsible than the abus- cost her her job. ers themselves and should In the Bon Secours serve very long prison Sisters scandal in sentences. We will not Tuam from 2012, hold our breaths awaiting historian Catherine that outcome. And this is Corless documenting not history, this is now or the deaths of 796 only the recent past. babies and toddlers there from infectious These four scandals are only the most diseases and marasmus-related malnutri- public and latest of a long series of similar tion; i.e. small babies were not kept clean affairs which continually attest to the and allowed to starve to death. That is truth that the states that emerged in 1920 called murder. On 7 March 2017, the and 1922 were and are equally illegitimate President Michael D Higgins commended and the imposition on Ireland of a neo- Catherine for exposing the scandal. She colonial status following the defeat of the was practically on her own in 2012 and Republican forces in the Civil war in 1923 Higgins nowhere to be seen or heard. was a vicious counterrevolution which led On the physical abuse and rape of the Ireland to this sorry state. Melanie mentally disabled young woman, “Grace” Philips, and many of the commentators it was explained that there were three on her diatribe, have no idea what a na- levels of authority in the HSE, the prima- tion is and how it differs from a ‘country’ ry and secondary levels regularly reported and a ‘state’. Ireland is a country and a the abuse of Grace and many others. The nation but it holds two illegitimate states, top level routinely binned their reports. neither of which represent the ‘nation’.

The Provisional IRA, From Insurrection to Parliament Tommy McKearney Pluto Press, 2011, London, Review by Gerry Downing 28/09/2016 Tommy McKearney’s 2011 book takes us found at the start of the book in the preface through the Troubles in the north of Ireland on page x where he tells us he will be using from their inception in the mid 1960s to the the term ‘Northern Ireland’ throughout and general election in the south in 2011. It is the generic term ‘Catholic’ instead of enthralling as a coherent narrative and ties ‘Nationalist’ or ‘Republican’. up many issues for the reader in the overall He thereby signals he accepts the legitima- picture he paints so well. I certainly under- cy of the border imposed by Britain in 1920 stood many things in their context much and accepts the ‘sectarian’, i.e. religious na- better after reading it. ture of the conflict, of which more later. But this review will concentrate on the On p. 208 in the Chapter A New Republic politics he espouses in the book with which and a Relevant Republicanism he sets out his we found many disagreements. The first are solutions. ‘At Easter 1916, the Irish Republi-

24 can Brotherhood and the Irish Citizen’s Ar- was not possible and Purdy was wrong to my prevented John Redmond’s party finding suggest it was unlike the Civil Rights move- an Irish settlement within the British Em- ment in the US (unqualified success?) be- pire. In a later era, Provisional IRA tenacity cause discrimination was less ‘intense and was a crucial element in undermining the blatant’ and if ‘the liberals in the North had Orange state.’ been able to win a constitutional option for Do we have to point out that the Republic reform’ and the ‘NIRC managed to sustain proclaimed in 1916 was never achieved and its initial hegemony’ reform might have been that the 1922-23 counterrevolution by the possible. (pp4-5). agents of British imperialism in Ireland The obvious conclusion from that is that CONSOLIDATED the domination of the the defensive revolutionary armed struggle was British Empire over a miserable 26-county necessary. The bulk of the book is then de- neo-colony and an even more reactionary 6 voted to a critique of the methods of the county Orange state? And, as he himself offensive armed struggle employed by the Pro- points out many times, the result of the visional IRA. Blatantly missing from this is a Good Friday Agreement (GFA) was to win revolutionary critique of the IRA methods over the Provisional IRA and Sinn Féin to a or any suggestions that such a revolutionary defence of the border and the establish- option ever existed in anything other than ‘a ment? semi-spiritual and Nationalist vision of the He tells us that the Orange state is gone ‘Irish Republic’’. He says (p. 3), and it has been replaced by a ‘sectarian state’ ‘From our perspective the Northern Ire- but we might be excused for thinking that, land state (and for other reasons the govern- like the Police Service of Northern Ireland/ ment in London) could not simply concede RUC, this state was still the old Orange state to the civil right demands in spite of the fact accepted/defended by former Republicans that they were indeed, by any standards on as well as Nationalists now. any contemporary ‘normal’ bourgeois demo- His prospects for the future involves a cratic government, straightforward. Yet, very vicious condemnation of present day founded upon partition, which was in reality ‘dissident’ Republicans. He says (p 204): more a partition of the population and soci- ‘Single-issue Republicanism focusing ex- ety in Northern Ireland than a geographic clusively on a unitary Irish state has shriv- division of the island, the Northern state elled because it has finally accomplished as could not deliver the usual passivity of most much as it was able to achieve. The reality is liberal democratic states in the post war, let only a small handful of people within Re- alone post-1920s) period.’ publican ranks promoted a semi-spiritual His understanding of the centrality of par- and Nationalist vision of the ‘Irish Repub- tition is wrong, his understanding of the lic’’. INEVITABLE posing of that problem in There is no mention of or defence of the ever serious struggle in Ireland is wrong and political or even human rights of hold-out his separation of the national and socialist Republican prisoners in Maghaberry or any- question is wrong. So while he goes into where else. great detail in accounting for and analysing He takes issue with Bob Purdy [1] and the actions of the IRA and Sinn Féin there is states unequivocally that reform of the state absolutely no account of or real analysis of

25 the Irish Republican Socialist Party or Éirigi, the Irish Labour movement and paralyse all both relegated to two passing references. advanced movements whilst it endured. To Whatever the political weakness of Seamus it Labour should give the bitterest opposi- Costello and his comrades (on bombings tion, against it Labour in Ulster should fight etc.) at least they understood that the revolu- even to the death, if necessary, as our fathers tionary task in Ireland combined both anti- fought before us.’ imperialism and anti-capitalism and there- McKearney tells us that even though fore the border was the central question that ‘Northern Ireland’ became a ‘militarised divided these questions in Ireland. And for society’ nonetheless it had ‘an indelible dem- that reason the deep state expended much ocratic hue’ (p. 4) and then goes on to sym- more effort and recourses in subverting that pathetically evaluate the views of pundits organisation and its military wing than it did O’Dowd, Rolston and Tomlinson on what the IRA at certain points. was the differences between ‘Northern Ire- So it is not a question of the ‘partition of land’ and ‘other bourgeois liberal states’ (p.6) the population and society in Northern Ire- and ‘most other liberal states’ (p. 7) in appar- land’ but the partition of Ireland that re- ent disregard that this is precisely what quires the overthrow of both British imperi- ‘Northern Ireland’ was not and is not. It was alism and Irish capitalism, north and south; and is an illegitimate, artificial state, like co- its direct colonial agents in the North and its lonial Algeria, Rhodesia and South Africa no less loyal neo-colonial agents in the were and like Israel and some of the south- South, both installed in the terrible counter- ern states in the USA like Alabama and Mis- revolutionary years of 1920-23. sissippi still are; states that are not nations James Connolly was correct in his analysis, but created artificially to defend the privileg- which McKearney obviously rejects. In his es of a religious of racial colonial minority article Labour and the Proposed Partition of Ire- thereby dividing the working class along land, published in the Irish Worker on 14 those lines. As he outlines so well that is March 1914, he made the following com- precisely what ‘Northern Ireland’ is and why mentary: it should be referred to as ‘the north of Ire- ‘And now that the progress of democracy land’ or the ‘six north-eastern counties of elsewhere has somewhat muzzled the dogs Ireland’ to reject the British imposition. of aristocratic power, now that in England He is therefore profoundly wrong to con- as well as in Ireland the forces of labour are clude in his introduction: ‘If we were to ar- stirring and making for freedom and light, gue, for example, that we will forever let our this same gang of well-fed plunderers of the differences about the ‘Border’ (why do we people, secure in Union held upon their own need these inverted commas?) divide us, dupes, seek by threats of force to arrest the then prospects for a properly developed march of idea and stifle the light of civilisa- opposition to neo-liberalism will be hope- tion and liberty … less’ (p.19). The total opposite is the case. Such a scheme as that agreed to by Red- We cannot develop a proper opposition to mond and Devlin, the betrayal of the nation- neo-liberalism, now enforced by Sinn Féin al democracy of industrial Ulster would in alliance with the DUP, without workers’ mean a carnival of reaction both North and equality and, given that the border is still South, would set back the wheels of pro- there, that ensures Loyalist supremacy and gress, would destroy the oncoming unity of

26 continuing working This understanding is class inequality and divi- profoundly one sided and sion. therefore incorrect. It Kearney is simply follows from this that the wrong about the grow- collapse of the USSR in ing equality that he 1991 should have re- claims is now happening moved that cold war because of the GFA. In threat and by the time of reality the Loyalist and the GFA Britain would Nationalist middle class are doing well out have been supported Irish unity. of it but the working class Republicans and Britain and Irish political leaders North Loyalists have got nothing but austerity. And and South opposed the mass movement that the Nationalists have got more austerity; the NIRC sparked from 1969 to the 1971 they are still significantly more unemployed introduction of internment and the 1972 than Loyalists and the Housing Executive is Bloody Sunday massacre, and the mass notorious for hiding its results but what hap- movement around the hunger strikes ten pens in North Belfast in gerrymandering and years later because they were movements of discrimination in housing just cannot be revolutionary proportions which threatened hidden. And the Loyalist working class still both Irish capitalism and British imperialism blame the ‘Catholics’ for their oppression and therefore the partition of Ireland. not their own ruling class—because of the And here we note the other great error, the border! wrong analysis of the relationship between The ‘Flags’ confrontation and ‘Peace the struggle in Ireland and the class struggle Walls’ as clear evidence of a growing far of the British working class. In his chapter right movement amongst Loyalist workers, on The War in England (p. 127) he speculates: whose Orange Lodges welcome all types of ‘The IRS’s English campaign certainly far rightists and fascist from Britain and Eu- made a powerful point, reminding Britain rope and whose youth attack immigrants far that its war in Ireland was not a cost-free more than the Nationalist community. The exercise. Whether in the long run it was the ‘Border’ is not alone physical but it is a polit- best option for Republicans is another ques- ical and ideological weapon against workers’ tion. Might a different approach to a British unity. It is a priority to demolish it in the working class battered and embittered by course of the struggle defeat British imperi- Thatcherism have paid higher dividends? alism and to overthrow capitalism north and Might it have been possible to create a firm south. political alliance with sections of Britain’s This error is reinforced by the assessment alienated and marginalised population that of Britain’s reasons for opposing democratic would have put real pressure on Westmin- rights for Nationalists (pp 59-60). He implies ster? We cannot know.’ Britain would have conceded to the NICR We can and do know the answer to that but for the cold war with the USSR; ‘its question and its came during the great NATO allies viewed remaining in Ireland as miner’s strike of 1984-5. As we wrote in a strategic asset that had to be kept within Class Consciousness and the Revolutionary Party: the Western alliance’. The struggle itself had made the miners and their communities open to political ad-

27 vances in all areas as Many did sterling work with- shown by the struggles of in the unions on Ireland but the Women against Pit the IRA tactic of the bomb- Closures, the Lesbian and ings of civilian areas in Brit- Gay support groups etc. ain and the north of Ireland The Irish and Black sup- made that unity very difficult port was reciprocated. But to achieve. it needed a real revolution- McKearney sees the solution ary party to concretise as a ‘new and different repub- those advances in terms of lic – one that is not merely new cadre for the revolu- independent but a republic tion. This largely did not that is socialist.’ (p.208). But happen, few miners actual- not one achieved through ly joined far left groups revolution (p. 209): but there was a huge influx ‘it is logical therefore to argue into the Labour Party. Here the obvious that ending the current constitutional posi- opportunity to qualitatively develop class tion of Northern Ireland within the United consciousness on vital issues for the British Kingdom would be a positive step towards working class – racism and Ireland – was ending sectarianism and replacing it with criminally rejected by the WRP and many normal class politics – a vital step towards other left groups to maintain unprincipled building a socialist republic’. relations with Arthur Scargill. Their ‘united One wonders what makes that former front’ with the NUM was unprincipled and IRA prisoner and hunger striker, Marxist of one sided, it amounted to an opportunist sorts, leading member of Congress ‘86 and rotten bloc with Scargill and the opportuni- Forthwrite magazines, different to the Offi- ty to win miners to revolutionary politics cials/Workers Party who slip-slided away was lost. This was a major factor in the from opposition to British imperialism and break-up of the WRP and other left groups Irish capitalism under the cover of after the defeat of the strike. However, it ‘Marxist’/Stalinist/Michael Collins two would be wrong to conclude that all is now stage theories (‘a vital step [ing stone] to- lost from that strike. The heightened class wards building a socialist republic?’) to em- consciousness still lives on even in the La- brace ‘normal (reformist) class politics’. bour party and in the trade unions. [2] However, despite its proximity to the Notes hunger strikes, the IRA/Sinn Féin leader- [1] IMG working class leader, author of ship had no such orientation. And none, Politics in the Streets, see Obituary: Bob Pur- apart from individuals and small groups like die 1940-2014, by D. R. O’Connor Lysaght, Workers Power, had this orientation in Brit- 4-1-15, http://tinyurl.com/zvgphr5 ain then. Learning from 1920 and early [2] Class Consciousness and the Revolutionary 1921 [2] the appeal should have been to the Party (2-8-15) http://tinyurl.com/j5d88ac British working class ranks and file and that [3] Hesitant Comrades: The Irish Revolution and fight should have been conducted within the British Labour Movement, Book Review: the unions against the pro-imperialist lead- Geoffrey Bell (Pluto Press, Feb 2016, ers of these unions. 273pp, £17) Review by Gerry Downing, http://tinyurl.com/j6nq94k ▲