Moriarty Tendentious! Jewish Identity Connolly & Pilsudski John Martin Wilson John Haire Labour Comment

page 7 page 29 back page IRISH POLITICAL REVIEW May 2011 Vol.26, No.5 ISSN 0790-7672 and Northern Star incorporating Workers' Weekly Vol.25 No.5 ISSN 954-5891

Queen to visit on 37th anniversary of the European Union: Dublin/Monaghan Bombings of 17th May 1974 Don't mention the war! "Irishwoman Catherine Day, the secretary general of the EU Commission, said the “shine” had gone off Ireland in Of Vampires And Other Blood-Suckers Europe, and we had lost goodwill. People . did not believe the Irish were “good Attention Shoneens. Let you all rise up and unite, for your hour is nigh. Unfurl your Europeans” anymore" (Irish Times, 2 brightest banners and raise them aloft. Reach under the bed. Take out those medals. April, 2011). Make sure your shoes are shiny. Heels together. Toes at an angle of forty-five degrees. This is undoubtedly true and some Arms held tight to the sides. Thumbs in lines with the seams of the trousers. Salute with prominent EU-philes here have been so right palm exposed Learn how to curtsy, bow and scrape. For the news has broken. She shocked by recent developments that they is to come amongst us. On the seventeenth of May, 2011. The Queen of England is on have had to think seriously about the her way. All cackling ghouls rejoice. Oh, the Somme, the Somme. Some are put out European project for the first time. John of pain by this. Others have had their pain increased. The sale of drink will soar, for Bruton is one of these. He had a long piece diametrically opposed reasons. She is to be the guest of said nation. Many citizens in the Irish Examiner to give us his believe Her domain still includes part of said nation. Some will be drinking 'for' Her. thoughts. So he begins at the beginning: "I Most will be drinking 'because' of Her. I might have one or two, myself. Poppies will hope to show this project has deep roots in come into bloom, early, too. But, where will She go? Her itinerary is unknown to me. post-war European history. It is part of a Nobody told me. Though I admit this does give me the hump, it is not the reason that process to build a structure of peace and I am the way I am. Other matters impinge. stability in Europe based on deep integrat- ion of European economies with one It is all so full of pathos. Bathos, too. By the seventeenth of May 1916, fifteen of the another" (Irish Examiner, 7.3.2011). leaders of the Easter Rising had been executed. Casement still awaited the hangman. By then, fourteen bodies had been put into unmarked, quick-lime graves, in a corner to the Straightaway, John gives us.the usual rear of a little known British Army burial ground in Arbour Hill. Consigned to oblivion. palaver about post-Second World War (Thomas Kent had been executed and buried in Cork.) All this was done in the name peace—as if nobody planned to have a of the ancestors of She who is to come among us. May, it seems, is a wicked month. structure for peace in Europe before that. 'Irish' elements of the British Army (I'll spare blushes and not name them) had been But why start in 1946? The project was employed to put down the Rising. Even more ingloriously, they had supplied the Firing founded because of what had happened Squads, too. The final indignity. Tried by British Army Officers. Sentenced to death. before 1946 and therefore it would be

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LIBYA: 20th April as saying: "The US, Britain and France— sometimes those countries contradict When Is Regime Change Not Regime Change? themselves. They talk about democracy, but when it comes to Libya, they say he In a written answer in Dáil Éireann on "Colonel Qadhafi and his family should {Qadhafi} should leave. It should be up 14th April 2011, Foreign Minister, Eamon surrender power and leave the political to the Libyan people. This should not be Gilmore, said: stage in order to allow the Libyan people dictated from any other head of state. It is "Calling for Colonel Gaddafi to relin- to peacefully determine their future", he against the principle of democracy." quish power does not amount to actively was seeking regime change—and arrog- Minister al-Obeidi should add Ireland seeking regime change". antly deciding on the Libyan people's to his list of countries contradict themselves. That remark is beyond parody. If the behalf that their future must exclude (Gilmore was replying to an interesting Qadhafi regime is no longer in power in Colonel Qadhafi and his family. question from Fine Gael Deputy, Eoghan Libya, the regime will have changed. So Libyan Foreign Minister, Abdul Ati al- Murphy, who asked for "details of all when, earlier in his answer, he said that Obeidi, was quoted in the Guardian on those Heads of State outside of the Euro- continued on page 14 sensitivity that is bordering on the unbelievable. Any rational being would C O N T E N T S have deemed this as inappropriate. It is so Page bewildering, so unconscionable, that it Queen's Visit On 37th Anniversary Of Dublin/Monaghan Bombing. beggars belief. But the Seventeenth of Lt. Col. John Morgan 1 May is the date that has been officially Don't Mention The War. Jack Lane on the EU History Project 1 proclaimed. One wonders if the seeds of Libya: When Is Regime Change Not Regime Change? David Morrison 1 self-destruction will grow and choke this Readers' Letters: Some Musings On The McCarthy Report. Eamon Dyas awful infliction. Surely, at least, they will Gambling Debts? Conor Lynch 3 have to change the date. Or has all sense Editorial Digest. (Queen Of England; Northern Elections; Constable Kerr) 4,22 of pride, or propriety, been lost. Either Unpublished Letters: Embracing the Monarchy. Forgetting The Past. way, heads are sure to roll. What will She History Howler. Donal Kennedy 5,35 say when She finds out? Who would be Queen's Visit. Pat Walsh looks back Queen Victoria and John Redmond 5 the one who walked Her into this? It is a Poems. What's In A Name?. At Traitor's Gate. 1981. Wilson John Haire 7,15,35 rare one. Will the Tower of London be re- Moriarty Report On Michael Lowry. John Martin 7 activated? What about Dublin Castle? The Gaddafi Creed. Report 15 Do I hear the clink of keys? Could it all be Shorts from the Long Fellow (Moriarty Squeaks; Haughey's 'Corruption'; Denis serendipity gone mad? Or does it matter, O'Brien; Beauty Contest; Fianna Fail On Moriarty; Honeymoon; Revealing anymore? Pictures; Totalitarian Liberalism) 16 Talking Down The Irish Economy. Report: John The Optimist. The Dublin/Monaghan atrocity Garret FitzGerald (Transcription and note by Philip O'Connor). 17 occurred while the Ulster Workers' Coun- Exports Up! John Martin 18 cil Strike, designed to scuper the Sunning- Es Ahora. Julianne Herlihy (Libya; Selling History; Gorbachev) 21 dale Agreement, raged in the North. There On Peter Hart And Other Matters. Jeffrey Dudgeon (Letter) 25 was mayhem there. The striking loyalists A Unionist Going South. Brendan Clifford (Reply) 26 ruled the roost. The British Security Fintan O'Toole Reflects. Editorial 28 Forces—stood by on Red Alert, as the A Question Of Jewish Identity. Wilson John Haire 29 region teetered on the brink. The whole Bolshevism From Larkin To Lozovsky. Manus O'Riordan (Part 2) 30 political system of the UK was under Naval Warfare. Pat Walsh (Part 10) 34 threat. Mr. Wilson, the elected Prime Does It Stack Up? Michael Stack (The Law; Violence And The Law; Minister, was powerless. His wings were Marriage) 36 clipped. He was out of favour with the Securitat. Decisive action was beyond Labour Comment, edited by Pat Maloney: him. He'd face mutiny and political Connolly And Pilsudski downfall. The Securitat and the USW (back page) Strikers had the same objective. Sunning- dale would have to go. There was the nod and the wink. Strikers struck and the Dispatched by fellow-Irishmen. Rushed, they had sought the maximum random Securitat watched over all, in a type of hastily, to their graves. Buried without a killing of innocent civilians. Thirty-four, hidden benignity. loved one present. In twos, threes and in all, perished. A coincidental bus strike fours; One by himself; day by day at in Dublin prevented a bigger blood-bath. In the Republic, at the time, it transpired dawn they were shot and put under. The Now, the anniversary of the Seventeenth that there was an absolute, inexplicable only kindness seems to have come from of May, grotesquely, we'll witness the absence of any security. It is mind- an occasional English soldier on guard- honoured presence in Ireland of the boggling. Turmoil north of the Border. duty in Kilmainham Goal. Let it be said, Commander-in-Chief of the Security Sleepy valley to the South. The threat of too, that the prisoners were permitted Forces responsible. I believe She should car-bombings, emanating from the Six religious ministrations before being be invited to the commemoration cere- Counties, was a stand-out. Near a certainty. executed. That was all. Soon the daisies mony in Talbot Street. There She could Dublin, the capital, and Border towns, would sprout. It would all be over. apologise. In which case it should, I such as Monaghan, were obvious targets. Forgotten. How wrong can you be? believe, be accepted. Atonement could There had been paradigms. The British begin. Perhaps it is all part of a master- Securitat, too, along with some misguided I doubt that Talbot Street, Parnell Street stroke. Though I, for one, won't be holding key Garda Chiefs, desired harsher State or South Leinster Street will be on the my breath. I'll believe in the Moving action in the Republic against Republican visitation list. Or The Diamond in Statues before I believe in that. (By now, paramilitaries. They would force the hand Monaghan town. These were the sites of 1400 hours on 31st March, all mention of of the Government. the horrific bombing of the Seventeenth the visitation planned for the Seventeenth They were foolish. Here existed a dire of May 1974, conducted under the aegis of May has ceased on the Television news. necessity for a Red Alert in the Republic. of the British Army and Intelligence Yesterday's gushing announcement has The Border towns in the Republic could Services (MI5) and utilising Irish Loyalist been replaced by silence.) be cordoned by a system of check-points. personnel of the UVF and UDA, as the The Boyne Bridges (10) could be similarly pseudo-gang. (A system the British had Is this all a gaffe or is it intentionally dealt with. So could the northern and initiated and perfected during the 'Mau malign? The latter is hard to believe. The north-western approaches to Dublin. Mau' war in Kenya.) outrageous, inconsiderate date selection Mobile patrols could link these three In the Dublin/Monaghan Bombings, for the visit in question shows an in- security lines. Psyops could be employed. 2 The media could, in a generality, convey the inaccessibility of Dublin and the Border LETTERS TO THE EDITOR · LETTERS TO THE EDITOR· LETTERS TO THE EDITOR· towns to car-bomb attacks. It was all so easy. Some musings on the McCarthy Report But none of this was done. All stayed We have a situation where the State has incurred debt due to a loan from the IMF/ECB and, as dormant. It was as if an invitation was a condition of that loan, it must show itself not only capable of paying back that loan but paying it being extended. Fáilte. It was accepted. back in a way that destroys the current State/private profile of the economy. In order to do that it must reduce the State sector to a fragment to what it was. Not only that but it must also get rid of In this environment, a major military thousands of civil servants directly employed by the Government. This is supposed to be balanced incursion was conducted. It was a conven- in some magical way (a la Cameron in the UK) by the emergence of thousands of new jobs in the tional, professional operation. It involved private sector funded by the 'Investment for Jobs' programme. This is a gamble of massive a Main Attack (three Bombs) on Dublin, proportions—almost on a par with the gambling instincts of the Finance sector that has got us where followed by a Supporting Attack (one we are. Although we don't know what will happen with regards to the end result of the magical bomb) on Monaghan, in order to create a 'Investment for Jobs' programme (that, after all, is the gamble), we do know for certain that a number of things will inevitably happen in the first stage of letting this Geni out of the bottle and these have diversion to enable all the Dublin parti- a direct implication for the Government and its ability to pay back the debt. cipants to gain safe haven, back in the Firstly, presumably the services now 'freed' from the constraints of State involvement (those North. supplied by the ESB, Bord Gas, Bord na Mona, Aer Lingus, etc.—I notice that CIE isn't mentioned) It would never have been attempted but will still be deemed to be marketable by whoever purchases them. But to realize that marketability for the absence of any security in the will require a cut in costs and will inevitably involve either a cut in wages or workforce (or more Republic. The bombers knew it was non- likely, both). So the new situation brought about by the commercialisation of these services will not existent. They knew it would stay so. result in a like-for-like arrangement in terms of either job numbers or wage/salary payments to the They had collaborators in key positions in new workforce. the Republic. It all went according to Secondly, there will have to be a significant outlay in redundancy packages paid for by the plan. In the fraught environment that Government to fund this commercial 'freedom'. existed; where mobs roamed and ruled; Thirdly, there will be a loss of tax income for the Government from the shedding of the 'surplus' while anarchy let loose; a covert military employees and also from the reduction in the payment to those lucky enough to be kept on by their operation—several months in the making new commercial masters. Fourthly, this does not include those thousands of jobs that will be lost from cutting the central —was launched. It penetrated through Government workforce. Again this will involve the payment of redundancy and the loss of revenue the heartland of the Republic, down to through the non-existent payment of income tax from those thousands of jobs now gone. Dublin. It completed its business there. Fifthly, on top of all of this will be the ongoing, and for an indefinite period, heavier payout in Unhindered. It withdrew successfully. unemployment benefit, rent support and whatever other social underpinning costs that goes into Then ninety minutes later—still unhindered assisting the newly created unemployed. —it gained Monaghan town and bombed I wonder what the net benefit to the Government will be if these costs (not to say the inevitable it, too. It is all quite mad. How could this hidden health costs that come with unemployment) are offset against the income from the sale of happen? Why was it let happen? these assets—a hell of a lot less than the headline figure I bet. Eamon Dyas

British military and Intelligence ran Gambling Debts? the whole operation. Their main man Brian Lenihan, Fianna Fail Finance Spokesman, has stated: "To be constantly demanding the dishonour of straddled both services. He is well known. our debt, as some TDs do,is not good for this country, does not help its interests, and is a form of economic He is 'The Vampire Sans Merci'. He has treason." He is quite right. But the crucial words are "our debt". If the Government borrows money on behalf been invited, on two occasions, by the of the Irish people, it must, of course, pay it back. But what about debts run up by foreign banks and Queen of England to Bucks Palace. There bondholders? These are not "our" debts. They are gambling debts. It is argued that if we do not compensate she has decorated him with an MBE and these people they will not lend again. Yes they will. They are as much gambling addicts as the man coming an OBE. out of the betting shop, except he cannot go to the Government to recoup his losses. Loyalist paramilitaries constituted the Former German Foreign Minister, Joschka Fischer, has said: pseudo-gang. They were mainly UVF "In the backrooms of Dublin it was our state-owned Landesbanks earning all the money to members, from Portadown, though some the delight of our state governments of all political persuasions. No one tells the people here that part. I don't see in this a master plan, but a bit of the reality is being kept from view. Ireland UDA personnel were involved, too. All could have gotten away well if Brian Cowen had said 'we will save Irish banks, but English banks of them are well known to the authority. and German banks are not our problem'" Quite a few are now dead. But some quite Paying people's inflated mortgages is another proposal doing the rounds and supported by the Sunday notorious ones remain. Independent. What exactly happened back then? For a long time houses were indeed seen a commodities, but At least five vehicles were used in the only in the sense that if at some future point the house was to be sold it could be sold at a profit. They were bought Main Attack on Dublin. These included for living in The 90s were different. Houses were bought with the aim of selling them on as soon as possible the three bomb-cars (taken that morning for profit. in East Belfast) and two getaway cars. Many people knew the the houses and apartments were being sold for ridiculous prices—the multiple of the The cars retained their number-plates, so buyer's salary showed all these people that the prices were, to say the least, way over the top. But the hope was that, later, the finger would point to Belfast that they could be sold quickly to someone else who was prepared to pay even more, with the banks throwing money at people. People knew very well that eventually the music would stop in this complicated 'pass the rather than to Portadown, which was the parcel' game. And it did stop. But the people caught in the end were playing the same game and hoping for centre of the operation the same results as their predecessors. All penetrated down from the North to They took a gamble and now they too want a bail out. They should be made to continue paying and not Dublin, through a labyrinth of second- allowed to declare themselves bankrupt. For the most part they are far from the worst off in society—indeed class roads (The Smugglers' Route) they type of people who run and write for the Sunday Independent. There is, of course the problem of through Monaghan/Louth, crossing the dependents. Fine, let them grow up. But let them only inherit if they to continue to pay up. Society, as society, Boyne at Oldbridge, aka The Obelisk has no responsibility for the casino years. Conor Lynch continued on page 4 3 Bridge. They proceeded to rendezvous at I know it all sounds quite insane, but I am in a possession of a letter (copy), the Car Park of the Coachman's Inn, near these are the facts. It gets worse. Ninety written by Mr. Michael McDowell SC, Dublin Airport. minutes later, at 1900 hours, a car-bomb the former Minister for Justice. It deals exploded outside Greacen's Pub in The with the Dublin/Monaghan atrocity. It Meanwhile, Robin Jackson, aka The Diamond, in Monaghan town. This was shows some naivete, along with the hard- Jackal, a notorious paramilitary loyalist the Supporting Attack. The bomb was headed, hard-hitting style of expression killer, had also gained the same Car Park. assembled in the home of a loyalist so typical of the man. He states, without He had collected the three Dublin bombs terrorist, Harris Boyle, in Portadown. (He any nonsense: in a farm-stead, well known to all and was killed later, along with Wesley Somer- sundry, in Glennane, in South Armagh. In "…From what I can see, there can be ville, when their own bomb exploded little doubt but that the car bombs in his chicken-truck, now bomb-laden, he prematurely in The Miami Showband question were assembled with the active crossed the Boyne at Oldbridge and made massacre.) The bomb was transported to assistance of members of British for the Coachman's Inn. (It had also been the Border. It was now positioned, most Intelligence. It would be hard to believe rehearsed, over and over, down the pre- that the Loyalist Paramilitaries had the probably, at Ward's Cross. There The vious months.) There, in the Car Park, the expertise and the capacity to manufacture Vampire armed it. three bombs were transferred to the three car bombs 20 years ago; but do not have It was now 1830 hours, approximately. bomb-cars. The Jackal returned north. and somehow lost that capacity in the One hour after Dublin had been devastated. intervening years… this suggests, in The three bomb-cars, one by one, But the Republic was still wide open. The turn, that they must have had outside entered the city traffic-flow. They made Monaghan bombers drove the bomb into assistance in making the bombs. their way, as rehearsed, to the city centre. the Republic. (The Vampire remained in Discounting, as I do, the possibility that They entered their selected city streets. the IRA assembled the bombs for the the Six Counties.) They had a bomb-car They parked their cars, as planned. The Loyalists, the only available candidate is and a getaway car. After some mis-adven- removed the bomb-dowels. Time-systems British Intelligence…" tures, they parked the bomb-car at were then in motion. The setting was But, did he tell Barron? If not, why Greacen's Pub and returned North in the 1730 hours. It was now 1715 hours, not? Must the little people always fight getaway car. As they crossed the Border, approx. The bombers withdrew. They the battles? Alone. at 1900 hours, their bomb exploded in proceeded quickly to a rendezvous, board- Another consideration is the Monaghan. They had had a free run. The ed a getaway car and returned north. institutionalised sectarianism of the Vampire must have smiled in satisfaction. monarchy, which is anathema to all It had all been well thought out. The The ready accessibility of Monaghan is pluralists and places the Queen of England bombs were proportionate in size to the the sorest point of all. The town lay there, beyond the pale. respective bomb-streets' traffic densities. all that time, a sitting duck. The Vampire The three streets were parallel. They ran had been a frequent visitor there. He had But, above all, the British authorities east-west. All led from busy thoroughfares a special relationship with a Branchman have always refused proper cooperation to rail and bus stations (Busarus, Tara in the town. A witness identified him as in bringing out the facts over the Dublin/ Street Station, Pearse Station, having armed the Monaghan bomb. He Monaghan Bombing. Important files have Connolly Station). The streets were had been assisted by an officer of the been withheld. So, when the head of that sufficiently far apart as to ensure that, if Ulster Defence Regiment. State is given the full honours of the Irish one bomb was located, the others would State on the very day that the Bombings not be readily discovered, in the follow- The State has all of this information. Its took place, I wonder has the world gone up street-clearing. Not in sufficient time, relevant principals have all be made aware mad! anyway. of the situation by me. I have given evidence to the Barron Enquiry. As a John Morgan The detonation time, 1730 hours (peak reward for my endeavours, the Barron Lt.-Col. Morgan (retired) has produced a city rush-hour), was chosen to ensure Enquiry misrepresented me grievously in military analysis of the Dublin/Monaghan crowded streets and high casualties. its eventual Report. It put me at some risk Bombing which is in the course of publication However, the bus-strike—not a planning too. Judge Barron, a former Supreme factor—helped diminish the awful cost. Court Judge, had erred badly. We fought But for it, the slaughter would have been it out in subsequent correspondence, Editorial Digest even more horrific. There was no warning. wherein I had made complaints. Barron The Queen of England Naturally. Errors had been avoided. Shape backed down. He agreed that he had erred and symmetry had been preserved. All in the matters complained of. He published Jeffrey Dudgeon of the Ulster Unionist three bombs could have been placed in two pages of Errata in a subsequent Party is attempting to win one of the Seanad Talbot Street, but this would have increas- Report. I had won. But my victory was a seats allocated to Trinity College. Referring to Queen Elizabeth's proposed ed the risk of discovery. A bomb could Pyrrhic one. Had he not retracted, I believe have been placed in Henry Street. Many visit to the Garden of Remembrance he he knew he was going back to the Courts. said: "It is a very heavy imposition on a more lives would have been taken there. I was bringing him there. Into the dock. British monarch to have to venerate those But, shape would have been lost. The There, the whole Dublin/Monaghan who waged war on her people and armed dividing line between clean and dirty outrage could have been teased out. He forces." Brian Ervine of the PUP (which would have been violated. The bombers' knew that. But I was deprived of my is connected with UVF), and admirer of withdrawal to a rendezvous in the clean opportunity. He backed down. He both Dudgeon and the UUP "said he would like to see a serious consideration by the (West-side) area, for their getaway, would published the Errata. Expert lawyers have been jeopardised. But such pit-falls Republic to rejoining the Commonwealth informed me I no longer had a case. I'm in return for the Queen's gesture" (News were seen. Professionalism ruled. It sure they were right. I was back to square Letter, 9th April). He is in the company of worked a treat. The blind-eye collusion in one as regards bringing the true facts into David Norris, John Bruton, and a good the Republic was vital, too. the public domain. Ignored. few others. 4 John Stokes is a publican in Fairview, was not mentioned. The Irish were a good Dublin. Some time ago he hung a large people, a people to be looked up to. What banner outside his pub saying the the Queen they will make of Queen Elizabeth's visit of England would not be welcome there. and the welcome from the gaimbín men I Queen's Visit The Garda took great exception to this and shudder to think. launched a campaign of harassment. The Queen of England's visit to Ireland Stokes gave a very good account of himself will include the Republican Garden of The last time the British Queen came to on the Joe Duffy show on RTE radio, in Remembrance; the British WW1 memorial Ireland, England was fighting in Africa as the teeth of sarcasm and opposition from at Islandbridge; Croke Park the scene of well. Some things never change. Duffy and his followers. Bloody Sunday on November 21st, 1920, In March 1900, the new Chairman of The Gardai then threatened to have when the British killed 14 people including the Irish Parliamentary Party, John Red- Stokes' late license removed through the the Tipperary player, Sean Hogan, after mond was confronted by a tricky problem whom one of the two main stands is named; courts. Stokes, never a member of any when Queen Victoria decided to visit political organisation, then removed the the Guinness Storehouse—actually the banner, though he continued to sell T- Diageo Storehouse, as Guinness no longer Ireland to raise Imperial sentiment and shirts opposing the Queen's visit, and that exists; Government buildings; Áras an recruit Irish cannon-fodder for the war it seemed to be the end of the matter. Then Uachtaran: all in Dublin. Then its the was fighting to expand the British Empire on the night of the 8th of April, a large National Stud in Kildare and the Rock of in South Africa. Irish Nationalists had force of armed Gardai and Special Branch Cashel and on to Cork where she will visit been pro-Boer and had greeted the early raided the pub and arrested John Stokes the English Market and the Tyndall British defeats with favour. National Institute. and two members of his family. Redmond knew he had to make some The police claimed to have "found" Her visit to the Garden of Remem- a few bullets and some cocaine in an brance takes place on May 17th and, as public statement about the visit but, since outhouse at the back of the pub. Stokes Gerry Adams, among others, pointed out the war had turned in England's favour by was well known for his opposition to the is particularly insensitive. It is the 37th this point, he thought it would be politic to drugs trade—which is more than can be anniversary of the day that her soldiers show moderation. The Queen had announ- said for quite a few members of the Gardai! bombed Dublin and Monaghan. ced that, in recognition of their services in As the Queen's visit approaches it is a South Africa, Irish soldiers in the British certainty that people opposing the visit The following letter was sent to the Irish Army were to be granted the right to wear will be be harassed and arrested, to the Examiner on 5th April, but was not published point where a virtual state of internment the shamrock on St. Patrick's Day (and could exist over the days of the visit. God Embracing The Monarchy Kipling had rewritten The Wearing Of bless you ma'am! The Green to celebrate this little national Mr. Stokes and his two relatives William Regan (5 April) says we need to recognition for the loyal Irish). were released without charge within 48 move on and to embrace the British monarchy. Redmond announced in the House of hours. He says that if he Jewish people and Europe Commons that the Irish people had receiv- can get over Hitler's crimes Ireland should be Reaction to the visit by her supporters in ed with "gratification" the announcement the South has been mostly of an economic able to get over the past. kind—more British tourists, more British I'm unaware of Hitler being welcomed by permitting the Irish Regiments to wear the investment, etc. Pathetic really. Cork any free people after or during the Second shamrock and that the royal visit would be Lord Mayor, Labour's Michael O'Connell World War. treated with respect. John Dillon was stated: " It will be a great boost not just for The London Times today is full of the furious at Redmond for "falling on his Cork city but for the southwest region as it crimes committed by the British in Kenya in hands and knees to crawl" to the Queen, will really bring us world attention and the first eight years of Queen Elizabeth's reign, and William O'Brien apparently set out to help promote us as a tourist destination." crimes repeated by them in various countries, "smash Redmond" (Letters And Leaders Cork Chamber of Commerce Chief Exec- including Ireland, which won them promotion, utive Conor Healy recalled the visit of Of My Day, Vol II., p448.) And, if it hadn't decorations,knighthoods and peerages. been for the Boer War, and the closing of King Edward VII in 1903: "We welcome I do hope that if Queen Elizabeth visits the visit from a business perspective—the Irish ranks, Redmond's career as Party Cork's Butter Market, nobody is so naive to UK is obviously a major export market for Chairman might have been very short. Irish business and traditionally a strong think that butter wouldn't melt in her mouth Donal Kennedy tourist market which has declined some- But then the British Prime Minister, what in recent years and this gives us an Lord Salisbury, made a famous speech as opportunity to promote the Cork region This letter was sent to the and win back that business." Fianna Fáil Irish Examiner on 13th April Grand Master of the Primrose League, Senator, Labhrás Ó Murchú in Tipperary admonishing the Irish for their pro-Boer said: "I know Cashel Town Council was Forgetting The Past sentiments and signalling that a great anxious that she would come and I'm pretty militarization of English society was about The news that Queen Elizabeth will be sure they will give her a special céad míle to be put into place to meet any challenge visiting Cork's English Market led to my fáilte." That's the gaimbín men! ahead. The trustees of Muckross House near finding out that the Butter Market there has John Redmond made a reply to the Killarney went all the way and asked her been closed since 1920. to follow in the footsteps of her great- Could this closure have been connected speech of Lord Salisbury's, in which he great-grandmother Queen Victoria who with the activities of those praised by Lloyd tried to atone for his miscalculation in visited Killarney and stayed in Muckross George that year, which were "getting the grovelling to the Queen's visit. He argued House in 1851—as people were still dying right men" such as Lord Mayor MacCurtain that, despite what some Irish people might of starvation—though they did not, of or in burning down the co-operative think, loyalty to the Empire never got course, mention that bit. creameries founded under the inspiration of Ireland anywhere and there was only one But what about Ireland's reputation, Sir Horace Plunkett? It’s nice to know how thing England really understood: its good name? This writer has in recent much of that is forgotten now, and how a years been in New York, Spain, Iran, matured Ireland can believe that butter "Certain he was of this, that to those enthusiastic persons who believed that Syria, Lebanon and Palestine. Coming wouldn’t melt in a gracious lady's mouth. Ireland was likely to reap some substantial from Ireland meant something to people. Donal Kennedy Something honourable. The Celtic Tiger benefits from a Royal visit and a British 5 wearing of the green (laughter)—to those (cheers)…" (Freeman's Journal, 14 May, dishonouring Ireland, you have, with a simple-minded persons who had been 1900) courage which makes us all proud of you, declaring their belief that the best way to raised a protest, and cried aloud, 'The obtain the concession of Irish rights was The Freeman's Journal was much visit of the Queen of England is a political to conciliate English opinion, to earn happier with Redmond's new attitude to action, and if we accord her a welcome English gratitude by services to the the Royal visit, but could not resist chastis- we shall stand shamed before the nations. Empire; this frank and brutal speech ing the Leader for his previous foolishness The world will no longer believe in the would, come as a douche of cold water. If in its Editorial: sincerity of our demand for National this speech of Lord Salisbury represented Freedom.' "Mr. Redmond's able reply to Lord the real voice of the ruling classes in And in truth, for Victoria, in the Salisbury will be thoroughly approved. It England, it was well that it had been decrepitude of her eighty-one years, to did not need Lord Salisbury's brutal made (hear, hear). The somewhat excited have decided after an absence of half-a- candour, however, to prove to any intel- and fevered condition of Ireland would century to revisit the country she hates ligent Irishman familiar with the history be steadied and reinvigorated by this and whose inhabitants are the victims of of his country, that the sacrifice of Irish application of iced water, and the Irish the criminal policy of her reign, the surviv- life in South Africa, the hysterics of the people would see more clearly than ever ors of sixty years of organised famine, music halls on Saint Patrick's Day, and that so far at any rate as those for whom the political necessity must have been the frustrations of the flunkeys on the Lord Salisbury spoke were concerned, terribly strong; for after all she is a woman, occasion of the Queen's visit, would be the work which Ireland had to undertake and however vile and selfish and pitiless absolutely barren of result to the country. in the future was once more to make it her soul may be, she must sometimes The proper attitude to such demonstrat- inconvenient and dangerous to withhold tremble as death approaches when she ions is Lord Salisbury's own one of Irish rights (cheers). They were obliged thinks of the countless Irish mothers who, contemptuous indifference. The three by the speech of the Prime Minister to sheltering under the cloudy Irish sky, men who died at Manchester, and the recall the fact that it was not by watching their starving little ones, have three who were murdered in Mitchels- conciliation, nor blind loyalty that cursed her before they died. town, did more for Ireland that all the Catholic Emancipation was won (cheers). Every eviction during sixty-three years thousands of Irishmen that ever died 'for It was not by conciliation that the Irish has been carried out in Victoria's name, the pirate Empire'." Church was reformed, the Irish Land and if there is a Justice in Heaven the Acts passed, and the franchise won for In 1900, Redmond and the Party were shame of those poor Irish emigrant girls the mass of the Irish people; and Lord still with the Fenians—in spirit at least. whose very innocence renders them an Salisbury had by his speech made it easy prey and who have been overcome perfectly plain that so far as he and his But by 1914 they had gone over to recruit- in the terrible struggle for existence on a friends were concerned it was not by ing Irishmen for the "pirate Empire". foreign shore, will fall on this woman, conciliation nor by loyalty that the Below is a more straightforward view whose bourgeois virtue is so boasted and remaining Irish grievances were to be of the Queen's visit: in whose name their homes were redressed. He sincerely hoped that the destroyed. If she comes to Ireland again lesson would not be lost upon Ireland or Maud Gonne before her death to contemplate the ruin her representatives. "THE FAMINE QUEEN (1900) she has made it is surely because her "... Lord Salisbury spoke of the dangers 'The Queen's visit to Ireland is in no ministers and advisors think that Eng- ahead to the Empire. If those dangers way political', proclaims the Lord land's situation is dangerous and that her came to a head, if the opposing forces of Lieutenant, and the English ministers. journey will have a deep political import- which Lord Salisbury spoke were to dash 'The Queen's visit has no political signifi- ance. England has lived for years on a upon these shores, there was one spot cance, and the Irish nation must receive prestige which has had no solid where they would not be perceived as her Majesty with the generous hospitality foundation. She has hypnotised the world enemies or invaders (cheers). Lord for which it is celebrated', hastens to with the falsehood of her greatness; she Salisbury spoke of the necessity of repeat Mr. John Redmond, and our servile has made great nations and small nations safeguarding the heart, as he called it, of Irish members whose nationality has been alike believe in her power. It required the the British Empire. He (Mr. Redmond) corrupted by a too lengthy sojourn in the dauntless courage and energy of the Boers did not know whether the Premier was enemy's country. to destroy forever this illusion and rescue speaking only of Great Britain or whether 'The Queen's visit to Ireland has nothing Europe from the fatal enchantment. Today he included Ireland; but every man knew at all to do with politics', cries the fish- no one fears the British Empire, her that, so far as Ireland was concerned, monger, Pile, whose ambitious soul is prestige has gone down before the rifles Ireland would welcome, instead of reject- not satisfied by the position of Lord Mayor of a few thousand heroic peasants. ing, the contingency to which he referred and who hankers after an English title. If the British Empire means to exist she (cheers and a voice—'No'). The one great 'Let us to our knees, and present the will have to rely on real strength, and real remedy for the danger would be to make keys of the city to her Most Gracious strength she has not got. England is in the heart sound, to conciliate Ireland, and Majesty, and compose an address in her decadence. She has sacrificed all to getting to turn it from a hostile into a friendly honour.' money, and money cannot create men, nation (cheers); but no; in his remedy 'Nothing political! Nothing political! nor give courage to her weakly soldiers. Lord Salisbury left Ireland entirely out of Let us present an address to this virtuous The men who formerly made her great- account. His remedy was to provide for lady', echo 30 town councillors, who ness, the men from the country districts the arming of the British people... and for when they sought the votes of the Dublin have disappeared; they have been the universal creation of rifle clubs (a people called themselves Irishmen and swallowed up by the great black manu- laugh). That was an admirable suggestion. Nationalists, but who are overcome by facturing cities; they have been flung For his part he believed every people royal glamour. Poor citizens of Dublin! into the crucible where gold is made. ought to be armed (cheers); but this rem- Your thoughtlessness in giving your votes Today the giants of England are the giants edy of Lord Salisbury did not apply to to these miserable creatures will cost you of finance and of the Stock Exchange, Ireland. In Ireland they were not permitted dear. It has already cost the arrests of who have risen to power on the backs of to have volunteers (hear, hear); they were sixteen good and true men, and many a great struggling mass of pale, exhausted not permitted to bear arms. Therefore, broken heads and bruised limbs from slaves. The storm approaches; the gold Lord Salisbury's proposal to meet the police batons, for you have realised—if which the English have made out of the danger before us all was to Ireland an somewhat late—the responsibility of blood and tears of millions of human insult, and so far as the rest of the Empire Ireland's capital, and, aghast at the sight beings attracts the covetousness of the was concerned was puerile and absurd of the men elected by you betraying and world. Who will aid the pirates to keep 6 their spoils? In their terror they turn to Victoria, their Queen. She has succeeded in amassing more gold than any of her subjects; she has always been ready to Moriarty On Lowry cover with her royal mantle the crimes Part One and turpitude of her Empire, and now, trembling on the brink of the grave, she rises once more at their call. Soldiers are The Moriarty Report is not an objective was allowed in to the relevant market needed to protect the vampires. The Report into political corruption. After (Iraq), competition would depress prices. Queen issues an appeal in England, the fourteen years of investigation costing So, in this instance, conferring a favour on struggling mass of slaves cry 'Hurrah'; tens of millions of euros it could not avoid the largest beef exporter was in the interests but there is no blood in their veins, no being a defence of the record of the Tribu- of the State and therefore a finding of strength in their arms. Soldiers must be nal. A finding of 'no corruption' would corruption was unwarranted. found, so Victoria will go herself to fetch The part of the Moriarty Report which them; she will go over to Ireland—to this have invited ridicule. people who have despised gold, and who, This is not to say that the findings of the has just been published is divided into two in spite of persecutions and threats, have Report are automatically untrue. However, volumes. The first largely deals with the persisted in their dream of Freedom and it is not a detached, even-handed examin- money trail or alleged payments by Denis idealism, and who, though reduced in ation of the evidence. In this writer's opin- O'Brien to Michael Lowry. The second numbers, have maintained all the beauty ion the lengthy and expensive nature of volume looks at the awarding of the mobile and strength and vitality of their race. the process must have influenced the result. phone licence. This article will analyse Taking the Shamrock in her withered the first volume. A later article will deal hand she dares to ask Ireland for soldiers —for soldiers to protect the exterminators The Moriarty Tribunal succeeded the with Volume 2. of their race! And the reply of Ireland McCracken Tribunal. McCracken found The most important aspect of the Report comes sadly but proudly, not through the that, although Charles Haughey and Mich- is the awarding of the licence to the Esat lips of the miserable little politicians who ael Lowry received money from business- consortium. The award enabled the win- are touched by the English canker but men, there was no evidence of them giving ners to become very wealthy. If it could be through the lips of the Irish people. favours in return. So while the politicians proved that there was corruption involved, 'Queen, return to your own land; you this would have very serious consequences will find no more Irishmen ready to wear were severely criticised he fell short of the red shame of your livery. In the past concluding that they were corrupt. for the State. All other issues pale in they have done so from ignorance, and Moriarty, on the other hand, concluded comparison, but Moriarty did investigate because it is hard to die of hunger when that Haughey was corrupt on the grounds two separate issues: the first related to one is young and strong and the sun that he gave a "real and tangible" benefit Lowry's tax evasion; the second related to shines, but they shall do so no longer; to Ben Dunne. In this writer's opinion the a favour requested by Ben Dunne. see! Your recruiting agents return un- evidence for this was flimsy (see Irish successful and alone from my green hills and plains, because once more hope has Political Review, January 2007 and the TAX EVASION revived, and it will be in the ranks of your "Shorts by Long Fellow" section of the Lowry's tax evasion was covered in the enemies that my children will find current issue). McCracken Tribunal and Moriarty employment and honour! As to those The payments to Haughey were dealt discovers nothing remarkable on this who today enter your service to help in with in Part 1 of Moriarty's Report, which matter. For the record it was found that his your criminal wars, I deny them! If they was published in late 2006. Part 2 of the company had a tax liability of euro 1,26 die, if they live, it matters not to me, they Report dealt with payments to Michael million. Of this 707k related to underpay- are no longer Irishmen.' Lowry and was published in March 2011. ment of taxes and 555k related to interest Pat Walsh and penalties. He also had a personal Political corruption occurs when a income tax liability of euro 192k. 64k holder of a political office uses his position related to underpayment of tax and 129k to obtain favours either for himself or related to interest and penalties. WHAT’S IN A NAME others to the disadvantage of the State. In Lowry was one of those businessmen the case of political favours given to others, who liked his customers to pay part of his Interacting globalisation has there are two elements: the first is the fees through the company and part in the Many blame-games and names payments made by private citizens or cor- form of a "bonus" which was kept off the Peacekeeping and all that jazz porate entities to politicians; the second books. All of this is very interesting and is Errand of mercy to put out the flames element is the favours given in return. certainly illegal, but it has nothing to do Recoiling at the sight of the civilian However, it could be argued that these with political corruption. Political corrupt- population elements are necessary but not sufficient ion in this instance could only occur if Inextricable, after the mould to prove corruption. In order to prove Lowry used his political office to gain Accepting the daily proclamation political corruption it must also be shown favourable treatment for his tax affairs. Like humanitarian bombing. Then the that the State was disadvantaged as a Moriarty found that there was no evidence polls result of the favours being conferred. So, that this occurred. Indeed he admits that Installing the puppet, worm-holed for example, a reading of the Beef Tribunal Lowry could have avoided some of his Slowing down, to come, the apocalypse Report in the 1980s shows that Larry company's tax liabilities by winding it up. Mollifying the eclipsed. Goodman contributed substantial sums to Moriarty also admits that the evidence Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. Also, the State indicated that his customers were very Wilson John Haire conferred a benefit on Goodman by giving satisfied with the service he gave them. 18th April, 2011 him favourable export credit insurance Again there was no suggestion that any terms. But a very strong case was made political influence was used to win that, if more than one Irish beef exporter contracts. 7 BEN DUNNE corrupt act would need to be committed in tax and that he was amenable to improper Although Lowry had a number of order to keep the rents at their inflated influence from Ben Dunne is allowed customers by far the most important was value. influence a Report on the question of Ben Dunne. So was Lowry Dunne's kept Also, on page 410 of the Report we are corruption in the awarding of the mobile man? Moriarty comes up with only one given a different view of the value of the phone licence. incidence of Dunne's influence on Lowry. benefit to Dunne. He says that the Dunnes The decision to grant the licence to Esat This occurred in April 1995 when Lowry were claiming an annual rent of £890k was made in October 1995. There followed was Minister for Communications. and the arbitrator had decided that the rent a period of negotiation which concluded Dunne made a phone call to Lowry was £640k a year. Moriarty doesn't do the in May 1996 with the formal award of the asking him to use his influence to resolve sums, but on this basis the value of the licence. Moriarty could find no evidence a rent dispute with Telecom Eireann and benefit over 7 years would have been of any corrupt payment by Esat before the Dunnes Stores. Telecom Eireann was rent- £1.75 million and not the £2.38 million he awarding of the licence. In my opinion, ing a property owned by Dunnes. The calculates on page 31. This is an example the evidence that he adduces after the dispute was being arbitrated on by Sherry of the Report being more like a statement award is very weak. FitzGerald, a property firm partly owned for the Prosecution than an objective, The following was the evidence examined: by Mark FitzGerald, the son of Garret dispassionate analysis of what happened. 1) Verbal evidence of Barry Maloney FitzGerald (a fellow member of Fine Gael). So, were Dunne and Lowry "profoundly 2) Payment by Telenor, an Esat partner Lowry contacted FitzGerald a couple of corrupt to a degree that was nothing short to Fine Gael times on an informal basis. The exact of breathtaking"? The first thing to be said 3) Payment to Lowry by David Austin details of the contact are disputed. Lowry is that the "corruption" failed in its imple- 4) Mansfield property transaction claims that he was trying to speed up the mentation. It was "attempted corruption" 5) Cheadle property transaction 6) Doncaster property transaction process of rent arbitration while FitzGerald which did not succeed in its objective. The 7) Share transactions in Esat said that Lowry wanted him (i.e. Fitz impression given was that the attempted Gerald) to contact the Sherry FitzGerald corruption was fairly half-hearted. Ben VERBAL EVIDENCE OF BARRY MALONEY employee directly involved in the arbitra- Dunne said in evidence that his phone call Barry Maloney was a College friend of tion process and suggest that the rent to Lowry was "spontaneous". He did not Denis O'Brien. Maloney was a successful should be doubled. consider the implications of what he was businessman in his own right and was Moriarty finds FitzGerald's evidence doing. That is, he was not only attempting employed as a senior Executive in Rank more convincing and in truth it is difficult to use personal contacts to obtain an Xerox in the USA before O'Brien appoint- to see why the latter would lie. If one advantage, but that he was involving a ed him as Chief Executive of Esat Digi- accepts FitzGerald's evidence Lowry's public office holder whose duties involved fone. Esat Digifone was the successful intervention was "corrupt". There is no protecting the interests of the State. bidder for the mobile phone licence. It doubt that the intervention, if successful, Lowry, made two informal attempts to consisted of Esat Telecommunications, would have been to the disadvantage of exert influence. To Mark FitzGerald's led by Denis O'Brien; Telenor, a Norweg- the State. Telecom Eireann, a semi State credit, he considered the approaches im- ian telecommunications company; and a company, would have been forced to pay proper and refused to make any contact Dermot Desmond investment company a higher rent than would have been other- with his employee conducting the rent IIU. The ownership of the consortium was wise the case. review. There was no further pressure or divided 40%, 40% and 20% respectively. Predictably, Moriarty is ecstatic. Here threats exerted on FitzGerald and the arbi- Maloney claimed that, around October is evidence of corruption! Voila! He tration was allowed to proceed untainted. of 1996, he had a conversation with O' describes this as being "profoundly corrupt If FitzGerald's evidence is correct— Brien in which O'Brien said that he had to a degree that was nothing short of and it probably is—the behaviour of Dunne made a payment of £100k to Lowry; £100k breathtaking". and Lowry was improper, but in my to another unnamed person; and £100k On page 31 of the Report he claims that opinion to call it "profoundly corrupt to a that got "stuck with an intermediary". the value of the benefit to Dunne was degree that was nothing short of breath- This was done shortly after the awarding £2.38 million in the short term and £7.35 taking" is an exaggeration. of the licence in May 1996. million in the long term. The £2.38 million O'Brien has not denied that a conversa- figure is calculated by multiplying the THE MOBILE PHONE LICENCE AWARD Except for the involvement of Michael tion, or at least a similar conversation, difference of the rent which Dunne was might have taken place. However, he gave looking for (£10 per square foot) and what Lowry, there is no connection between Lowry's tax affairs, his relationship bet- two mutually exclusive but not contradict- was actually decided (£6 per square foot), ory explanations. Firstly, he was being multiply by the area of the premises ween Ben Dunne and the awarding of the Mobile phone licence to the Esat consort- jocose. The reason for the joke was that he (85,000 square foot), multiply by the term was frustrated by Maloney's unwillingness of the lease (7 years). ium. As indicated above, the implications for the State are far more profound if a to pay consultancy fees following the I have no idea where Moriarty gets the finding of corruption is made regarding award of the licence. This was a source of £7.35 million figure. He says that the Esat. The fact that the terms of reference embarrassment to O'Brien who had to capital value is measured by 15 times the of the Tribunal—as well as Moriarty's meet the relevant people socially. I don't annual rent. So, if this is accepted the long interpretation of them—are so broad is, in find this explanation implausible. It has term benefit would be (15 x 4 x 85,000), my opinion, problematic. also been my experience that successful which is £5.1 million. But, it is doubtful If a person is charged with being a bank businessmen are driven by ego. They often that calculating the "long term" value is of robber, it is considered inadmissible as like to pretend that their influence is far any relevance. The term of the lease was evidence that he might also be a wife greater than it actually is. only 7 years. Rents would be reviewed at beater. This principle does not apply to the O'Brien also gave another explanation. the end of the term at which point another Tribunal. So, the fact that Lowry evaded He said that at the time it was very clear 8 that he was about to become an extremely transfer the funds via an offshore account The ubiquitous David Austin paid wealthy man. By contrast, Michael Lowry's to Fine Gael. When the time came for the £147k to Michael Lowry in Autumn of business was in serious trouble and his deed to be done, Telenor insisted on docu- 1996 via an offshore account. By co- political career was in ruins. O'Brien, who mentation (those damn Scandinavians!). incidence in August 1996 O'Brien had seemed to share a similar right-wing Austin decided to invoice them for "con- concluded a two part payment totalling political perspective, had thought of mak- sultancy services". 150k (the first one amounting to 50k, the ing a payment to Lowry, but then thought When the payment was received by second 100k). Moriarty thinks that the better of it. O'Brien denies that he ever Austin, he transferred the funds to Fine payment was in effect a payment of 147k made any payment to Lowry. Gael. It seems that it belatedly dawned on to Lowry from O'Brien and the payment The problem with Maloney's evidence Fine Gael that all of this might not look to Austin was just a smokescreen. is that the Tribunal could not find any good. What followed is the stuff of pure Here again we return to the evidence of corroborating evidence. The amounts that comedy. The party decided that it had to Barry Maloney that 100k was "stuck with Maloney gives don't tie in with any trans- give the money back. But who to give it an intermediary". But at the time of actions known to have been received by back to? It decided to return the cheque to Maloney's conversation it wasn't stuck Lowry. Moriarty makes great play of the Telenor since this was where the payment with an intermediary it was safely in an phrase "stuck with an intermediary", but had come from. But Telenor had already offshore account owned by Michael elsewhere in the Report any evidence of been compensated so it had to give it back Lowry. Secondly the total amount involv- payments being "stuck with an intermed- to Esat. Esat did not want to take it back ed was not 100k but 147k. iary" occur after Maloney's conversation. because acceptance would imply that there O'Brien claims that his payment of was something improper about the original 150k to Austin had no connection with the PAYMENT OF $50,000 BY TELENOR payment. payment of the 147k from Austin to Lowry. This payment was initiated by David At the time some enterprising charities His payment to Austin related to the Austin. Austin is a person who appears suggested that if nobody else wanted the purchase of a holiday home in Marbella. quite often in this Report. He was a Smurfit money well… The original price agreed in July 2006 was Executive who was also an enthusiastic Moriarty does not claim that the 165k, but Austin wanted the use of the supporter of Fine Gael. He was a lifelong payment had anything to do with the Esat house until the Autumn of 1997 when the friend of both O'Brien and O'Brien's father. award. Nor was there any suggestion that Ryder Cup was played in Spain. Accord- He also was a friend of Michael Lowry on Lowry had any involvement in the trans- ingly, the purchase price was reduced to the basis of a shared interest in politics and action. Indeed the legal advice that Fine 150k. horseracing. Lowry claims that his friend- Gael received was that the payment did The Report goes into the detail of the ship with Austin was very close and at not come under the terms of reference of transaction and finds it extraordinary that times they were in almost daily contact. the Moriarty Tribunal. But Moriarty a competent businessman like Austin In 1995 Austin was retired and living in justifies his interest in this by arguing that, couldn't find the deeds of the house; and the UK. Fine Gael's finances were in very even though Lowry did not participate in that the legal formalities were not com- bad shape. Its debts amounted to about £3 the US funding event, the fact that he was pleted until 1998. million. Austin had the idea of copying a Fine Gael trustee placed it under the I don't know why Moriarty finds this Fianna Fáil and embarking on a fundraising terms of reference of the Tribunal. extraordinary. I don't find it in the least drive in the United States. The idea was to Earlier we have seen that Moriarty surprising. Also the rather loose attention organise a dinner in New York at which attached great significance to Barry to legal formalities would not be at all the Taoiseach John Bruton would appear. Maloney's evidence that O'Brien said that untypical of transactions between close In November 2005 Austin approached his 100k was "stuck with an intermediary". It friends. longstanding friend Denis O'Brien. It was could be said that in this instance a sum of It is very interesting that, for all his agreed that a contribution of $50,000 for a money was stuck with an intermediary. analysis, Moriarty doesn't give an opinion table would be made. But this is hardly corroborating evidence. on the value of the Marbella home. Was it This approach by Fine Gael and David The amount involved was not £100k, but worth 150k or 165k? This would seem to Austin was probably injudicious, given $50k, which equalled about £31k at the be an obvious question but the normally the awarding of the licence only a month time. Secondly, this amount was not stuck voluble Moriarty doesn't pronounce on it. before and formal contracts had not been with the intermediary at the time Maloney It seems that Moriarty wanted to avoid the signed. O'Brien says that he suggested had his conversation with O'Brien. It was detail of the sale of the Marbella house. that Telenor (a 40% member of the Esat only in 1998 that Fine Gael attempted to Media Reports indicate that O'Brien had consortium) would contribute, since that return the money paid to them by Telenor. to practically force the late David Austin's company wanted to become involved in So what does Moriarty conclude? He widow to appear before the Tribunal to Irish affairs. Also, at that time Esat was says: confirm that the house had indeed been not in a position to come up with that "Any suggestion that the payment by sold and that they had vacated it perman- money. Telenor was legitimate as an expression ently in October 1997 as stated by O'Brien. of interest in Irish affairs, but not by any This version of events is disputed by other entity or shareholder within the So what conclusion does Moriarty come Telenor which claimed that it was always Esat Digifone consortium was specious to? After all his bluster about the legal its understanding that Esat would compen- and untenable." documents not been in order, he doesn't sate Telenor for the payment. Moriarty This reads more like a sneer than a deny that a sale of the Marbella property suggests that the payment was routed detached conclusion of a judge wishing to did occur. His contention is that the 150k through Telenor to hide its true source keep within the terms of reference of his that O'Brien gave to Austin did not relate (O'Brien and Esat). Report. to this sale but was used to transmit 147k The arrangement was that Telenor to Lowry. But, if the sale did in fact take would pay David Austin and Austin would PAYMENT TO LOWRY BY DAVID AUSTIN place, then there must have been two 9 payments of 150k to David Austin: one to Austin (and Lowry was able to produce a However, ownership of the Mansfield bribe Lowry and the other in consideration document from Austin confirming repay- property was vested with Lowry. Moriarty of the house. But Moriarty couldn't find ment of the loan), Moriarty concludes that adduces no convincing evidence to support the second payment. And if O'Brien was the only reason that the so-called loan was this contention. The only thing he comes intent on putting 150k into Lowry's account repaid was that Lowry became aware of up with is that Lowry sought taxation through an intermediary, why complicate the setting up of the McCracken Tribunal. advice on the capital gains transaction. matters by buying a property from the But as we will see later the same prudence Moriarty believes that such advice would same intermediary? did not apply to later transactions involving not have been sought for such a small The payment of 147k by Austin to associates of O'Brien. investment of stg£25k. Therefore Lowry Lowry was a loan for the purposes of a Moriarty often uses a circular argument must have really owned 100% of the refurbishment of a property in Carysfort to 'prove' his case. So, if it is assumed that property. Again, I find Moriarty's argu- Avenue, Blackrock, Co. Dublin. It might O'Brien paid Lowry 150k via David Aus- ment very unconvincing. be said that it was a coincidence stretching tin, proof that the assumption is correct is There are at least two reasons why credibility that roughly the same amount the fact that O'Brien concealed his payment Lowry would have sought taxation advice. of money left O'Brien's account and then to David Austin from the Tribunal. But After his recent experience of having had ended up in an offshore account owned by this logic only works if it is assumed that all prospect of ever again holding high Lowry. But is it really so implausible? O'Brien is guilty in advance. If, on the public office destroyed through revelations Austin had a very close relationship with other hand, O'Brien's version of events is of tax evasion, it would be very understand- O'Brien and it appears that Lowry had accurate, and the 150k payment to Austin able that he would want his tax affairs in also a very close relationship with Austin. related to a property transaction, then it is order. Secondly, Lowry intended to make Following the sale of his Marbella prop- perfectly in order for O'Brien NOT to a number of investments in the UK. The erty, Austin had 150k in cash. What could declare the transaction to the Tribunal taxation advice he would receive for the he have done with it? In the circumstances since it had nothing to do with Michael small transaction would also have applied it does not seem far-fetched that Austin Lowry. to other transactions. would lend the cash to his friend Michael Here we have another lacuna in the MANSFIELD TRANSACTION Lowry. Moriarty investigation. We saw earlier At this stage a foreign reader of the Moriarty attaches great significance to that Moriarty had no interest in the value Moriarty Report might well think that, if the fact that the transactions were routed of the Marbella property sold to Denis "Paddy" is corrupt, he is not very good at through off-shore accounts. But neither O'Brien, but here he seems uninterested in it. All these transactions take place and yet O'Brien and Austin were resident in Ire- the nature of the taxation advice given to there is a persistent pattern of the money land. At one stage Moriarty suggests that Lowry. It seems to have been quite detailed failing to end up in the corrupt politician's Lowry, rather than Austin, wanted the and expensive, since Moriarty concludes bank accounts! What's the matter with 147k to be transferred to an offshore that the expense couldn't be justified by an these people?! account. He thinks that such an open and investment of a mere stg£25k. Presumably, If Moriarty is correct in his suspicions, sociable person such as Austin would not the advice would have included calculat- it is a very sad reflection on our educational instruct Lowry to open an off-shore ions of anticipated gains and costs, but system that O'Brien was apparently still account so as to receive the 147k. Here, in Moriarty gives no details about this which trying and failing to pay off Lowry 3 years my view, Moriarty is grasping at straws. would have been very relevant to his after the license award. In March 1999 a The idea that a sociable person would not theory. stg£300k payment was made from an contemplate clandestine transactions is account controlled by O'Brien to a lawyer just nonsensical. We already know that he CHEADLE TRANSACTION in the UK. The payment was made by The second UK investment was in did precisely this for the $50,000 Telenor Aidan Phelan, Denis O'Brien's accountant. Cheadle. The original plan was that Lowry payment. And Lowry had no direct con- According to O'Brien this stg£300k was would invest 100% in this property. Aidan nection with this transaction. owned by Phelan and related to consult- Phelan did not wish to participate in this In November 1996 Lowry's political ancy work surrounding the Esat Digifone investment, amounting to stg£445k. How- career was in ruins. He was forced to bid. ever, he lent Lowry the balance of the resign from the Cabinet following revelat- The stg£300k was for the purpose of funds he had in the English lawyer's ions of tax evasion in connection with engaging in property investment in the account and introduced him to Woodches- transactions with Ben Dunne. He may UK with, of all people, Michael Lowry. It ter Bank. Lowry initially obtained approval well have felt that he would not be re- seems that the prudence which led Lowry for a loan from Woodchester on the basis elected to the Dáil and decided to divest to pay back his 147k loan to David Austin of a guarantee given by a Cork business- himself of the property in Carysfort did not apply to doing business with man called John Daly. For once this person Avenue in January 1997. He repaid his another O'Brien associate. The initial prop- had no connection with Denis O'Brien. loan of 147k plus interest to David Austin erty investment was in Mansfield and Unfortunately, Daly, having signed the in February 1997. So the transfer of funds would cost stg£250k. Lowry paid Stg£25k guarantee and faxed it to Woodchester, which had supposedly originated with in to the same account opened by the then got cold feet and decided that he Denis O'Brien had reverted to Austin, or English lawyer. According to Lowry the would not send the original document to to use Barry Maloney's phrase had "got arrangement was that he would buy a 10% the bank and therefore the guarantee was stuck with the intermediary". The only share in the property and Phelan would not validated. It appears that Aidan Phelan problem (apart from the amount involved) own 90%. The surplus of Phelan's funds was very embarrassed by this. He had is that according to Maloney this had would remain in the lawyer's account for introduced Lowry to the bank, with which already happened by October 1996. future property investments. he had a close relationship, and Lowry Instead of coming to the obvious conclu- Moriarty's contention is that the person had failed to deliver as regards obtaining sion that Lowry was repaying a loan from behind the transaction was O'Brien. a guarantee. Secondly, there had already 10 been a legally-binding commitment to of who had owned an asset could be Moriarty doesn't speculate as to what this purchase the Cheadle property. Phelan deduced from how the sales proceeds were might mean, but it is at least a possibility stepped in to the breach and borrowed distributed. However, at this stage since that Lowry wanted to find a purchaser for from Woodchester to finance the invest- the parties involved are aware of the Trib- both properties. Before selling the property ment. Lowry had ceased to have any unal's scrutiny, Moriarty could argue that Lowry himself would buy the properties financial involvement in the Cheadle any distribution of the proceeds not from Phelan and then sell on to the pur- investment. It was now 100% owned by according with his theory is unconvincing chaser making a very substantial profit. In Phelan… or at least that is how it appeared. as evidence. order to implement this plan he needed to But Moriarty knows better. However, late in 2000 there was a possi- give the impression to the English lawyer, Moriarty believes that the efforts of bility that both the Mansfield and Cheadle Christopher Vaughan, that he had had a Lowry to borrow from Woodchester were properties would be sold together in one greater financial involvement than was an elaborate charade. There was never deal to the same purchaser. Moriarty dis- actually the case. any intention for Lowry to borrow from covered documentation from the prospect- Woodchester. The funding was always ive purchaser's lawyers indicating that THE DONCASTER TRANSACTION going to come from Aidan Phelan and Lowry's consent was necessary for the Denis O'Brien does not dispute his Phelan was merely a front man for Denis handing over of the title deeds to the involvement in the purchase of the Doncas- O'Brien. And, although the source of the properties. The implication seems to be ter Rovers stadium. The plan was to funding was to come from O'Brien, 100% that this is proof that Lowry owned both purchase the stadium with a view to ownership would be vested in Lowry. properties. But in my view the fact alone developing the property as a retail centre It's certainly an interesting theory, but that Lowry owned 10% of one of the and relocate the stadium on the outskirts the evidence to support it is pretty flimsy. properties would have been an impediment of Doncaster. The deal was done around Unfortunately the Woodchester's files to the transfer of ownership of both 1998. It appears to have been a complicated relating to the transaction are incomplete. properties in the same deal. deal involving retention clauses. This gave This might be considered suspicious if we Moriarty mentions in passing that the rise to a legal dispute with the vendors. didn't know about Irish banking practice lawyer for the vendors, Christopher Vau- Unfortunately for O'Brien he used the which seemed to operate on the basis that ghan, wanted both properties to be valued same property agent as Lowry and Aidan the wealthier the client the sloppier the separately. He doesn't draw any conclu- Phelan had used for the Mansfield and paperwork. It also seems that when Wood- sions from this, but one reason why this Cheadle investments. This was a person chester was taken over by Investec Bank might have been necessary is that the two based in Northern Ireland called Kevin some files went missing. properties were NOT owned by the same Phelan, who was not related to Aidan The bank official dealing with the trans- person (Michael Lowry) and Lowry did in Phelan. Perhaps because the same property action was Michael Tunney. Although fact only own 10% of the Mansfield agent was used, the same lawyer, Christo- there has never been any documentation property and had no financial involvement pher Vaughan, was used for legal advice. to show involvement by Denis O'Brien in with the Cheadle property. And to really put the cat among the pigeons the loan of stg£420k by Woodchester to The deal to sell the Mansfield and O'Brien's accountant Aidan Phelan was Aidan Phelan for the Cheadle investment, Cheadle properties fell through. However, also involved in a professional capacity in Moriarty still believes that O'Brien was it is interesting to note the proposed sale the deal. involved. price. It was stg£1.3 million. Remember, If that wasn't bad enough, Lowry had The basis of his belief is the evidence of only a short period before, the purchase only recently been introduced to Kevin bank officials who had a peripheral price of Mansfield was stg£250k and Phelan and was sniffing around. It is involvement in the transaction. Michael Cheadle stg£445k. So it looked like the important to emphasise at this point that Tunney does not deny that he might have owners of the properties would make a the Doncaster deal was in train before the given the impression to his colleagues that killing. Mansfield and Cheadle deals. The Mori- this was a Denis O'Brien transaction. Mori- arty narrative is not in chronological order, But how must Lowry have felt about all arty asks rhetorically: if Denis O'Brien which can be confusing, but is in the order of this? If his evidence is to be believed, he had no involvement in the transaction in which he discovered the evidence. came very close to owning 100% of the why would bank officials be under the Moriarty's interest in the Doncaster deal more valuable property (Cheadle) but impression that that was the case? arose from a series of articles published in ended up not owning any of it. All he had Well, I can see why Tunney might in The Irish Times by Colm Keena in 2003. was 10% of the smaller property (Mans- certain circumstances have given that The article included details of a letter field). So what could have been a jackpot impression, even if there was no foundation written by Christopher Vaughan to Mich- was only likely to result in a very modest to it. He had authorised a loan of stg£420k ael Lowry dated 25th September 1998. capital gain. The other galling point from with the most flimsy paperwork imagin- This letter followed meetings with Lowry's point of view is that he seems to able. How could he have justified such an Vaughan over the previous two days. The have had a much more 'hands on' role in action, especially to the new owners of the letter indicates that he had not realised the property transactions than Phelan. bank? It is very plausible that he would Lowry's "total involvement" in the Doncas- Phelan had used his financial clout to have said something like: Phelan is an ter transaction. It seems that the only extract Lowry from the Cheadle deal and "O'Brien man"; it's an O'Brien transaction; reason that he had come to the conclusion yet Lowry was under a moral obligation to don't worry about it; it will be repaid. that Lowry had "total involvement" is that help sell the Cheadle property with no Lowry gave that impression to him and But the hard facts of the matter are that, benefit for himself. Lowry had been present at a meeting with if Phelan had defaulted on the loan, the It seems that Lowry wanted a greater Kevin Phelan in which the details of the bank would have had no legal recourse to piece of the action. Aidan Phelan in his Doncaster deal were discussed. Vaughan O'Brien. All else is speculation. evidence to the Tribunal suggested that said in evidence that Lowry had no input In normal circumstances the question Lowry was "running in the undergrowth". before or after the deal. 11 Moriarty attaches great significance to to Lowry is biased. It certainly is not an any convincing hard evidence to show this letter which is the sole piece of even-handed objective investigation, which that there were corrupt payments made to evidence linking Lowry to the Doncaster one would expect in a Tribunal process. Michael Lowry. He relies on speculation deal. He further goes on to say that Vaugh- It would not be quite accurate to say and hearsay. And the speculation and an is an "experienced and astute solicitor" that there is no evidence linking Denis hearsay is just not plausible. and couldn't have been mistaken about O'Brien payments to Michael Lowry. But John Martin Lowry's involvement. But this "experien- the evidence is circumstantial. To an ced and astute solicitor" was inaccurate outside observer it is certainly surprising about the dates of the meetings he had that O'Brien seemed to have entangled Don't mention the war! with Lowry. He was also inaccurate about himself, albeit indirectly, with Lowry in continued the times and venues. He also consistently various business transactions after the managed to misspell Aidan Phelan's name award of the licence. But there were other crucial to explain how and why the EU in his documents as well as showing sloppi- extraordinary coincidences that could not project arose from the previous events. ness in the drafting of letters. have had a sinister implication. For exam- The fact is that it was the experiences of It is beyond the scope of this article to ple, one of Lowry's customers in the meat- the generation of European leaders who discuss the constitutional aspects of the packing business had also done business had lived through two World Wars that Tribunal. Nevertheless it is worth mention- with Kevin Phelan, the property agent determined them to avoid such events ing that the Tribunal lawyers did not involved in the UK investments. And it again. It was not based on some idealistic consider it appropriate to even ask The seemed Phelan always used Christopher wish for peace but an effort to save Europe's Irish Times journalist Colm Keena for the Vaughan, the English solicitor. internal conflicts from being used by source of this document or other docu- A benign interpretation would be that Britain again to exacerbate those conflicts ments that were leaked to the Tribunal. On Ireland is a small place and within that to the point of war. That is why Britain the other hand, confidentiality did not small place there were only a very small was initially excluded—and excluded apply to the solicitor/client relationship. number of Irish people involved in itself—from the efforts at European inte- Moriarty denies this was the case. But the investing in the UK commercial property gration until the Union proved a success. Tribunal was able to obtain two versions scene in the late 1990s. It is possible that, It then joined on the basis that 'if you can't of confidential advice to Denis O'Brien if an Irish person wanted to become beat them you had better join them'. senior from his solicitor. involved in this area, there was a very The economic policies of the Project The mere existence of the Tribunal bec- strong possibility that he would have had were just that—economic policies—to ame a handicap for Denis O'Brien's ability dealings with Kevin Phelan. help achieve its political aims. But these to do business. When a legal dispute arose Lowry's position as Minister for Com- aims themselves were not an economic over the Doncaster Rovers property one munications would have put him in contact policy. The founders knew, again from of the vendors obtained the letter of 25th with Esat employees, which would explain bitter experience, that politics determined September 1998 referred to above and attemp- his relationship with Aidan Phelan. economics and not the other way round. ted to blackmail Denis O'Brien Senior. More important, O'Brien had a close Naturally John does not mention any of The property agent Kevin Phelan also personal and business relationship with this. He is far from being alone in having became embroiled in a dispute with O' David Austin. Michael Lowry had also a a 'don't mention the war' syndrome about Brien over fees for consultancy services. close personal and business relationship the history of the European project. Those It is widely believed that he was the source with Austin. Under the circumstances it magnificent men and women in the for the leaking of various documents to does not seem extraordinary that Lowry European Parliament have a plan to write The Irish Times. And yet, because Phelan and O'Brien's paths would cross. the history of Europe but it has run into is resident outside the jurisdiction, he could The malign interpretation, which Mori- trouble: not be compelled to account for his role in arty believes, is that O'Brien wanted to "Despite opposition from EU govern- the various UK transactions, neither could make payments to Lowry a significant ments and amid deep cutbacks to national museums and galleries in Britain and the English vendors of the Doncaster Rov- amount of time after the awarding of the other countries, the European Parliament ers property be compelled to submit to licence. O'Brien might have felt some is planning to spend at least £58 million questioning by either lawyers for Denis sympathy for Lowry, but it is difficult to on its own “House of History”. On O'Brien or even the Tribunal's lawyers. believe that he would take the risk of Thursday they will spend £2.2 million as making such payments. What possible down-payment. The project, aimed at SHARE TRANSACTIONS benefit could there have been to O'Brien? fostering a “common historical memory” I am reluctant to bring the reader up The licence had already been awarded. for the EU is to go ahead even though MEPs are unable to agree on a common another garden path. This relates to share Lowry was no longer a Cabinet Minister, transactions following the flotation of Esat. understanding of fundamental European so there was nothing that he could give history, including what happened during Errors were discovered in the allocation O'Brien in return. The benefit was zero the Second World War. Parliament of shares to David Austin. The errors were and the risk was enormous. officials have been deeply embarrassed corrected and Moriarty has to conclude: Could Lowry have been blackmailing because plans to begin Europe's history "there was no evidence that connected O'Brien? It doesn't seem plausible. If this with Greek civilisation up until today this transaction, or indeed the initial share was the case, any payments would have were sunk because MEPs were split on transaction on behalf of Mr Austin, of every significant event for the last 200 which $50,000 was funded by Mr. further compromised O'Brien. And what years. Because of deep divisions between O'Brien, to Michael Lowry, within the could Lowry have had to blackmail O' German, Polish and East European meaning of the Tribunal's terms of Brien with? If there was anything, it would deputies over interpretations of both reference, or in any other respect" most likely have implicated Lowry as World Wars the official EU version of well. history will have to begin in 1946. CONCLUSION Disputes over the exhibitions continue to Moriarty's Report on alleged payments Moriarty completely fails to provide rage with many East European MEPs 12 angered over pilot display that suggest in UCD at a crucial moment, that avenue would the rest of world have to experience that the first direct elections to the EU of thought was firmly closed off. John Europe's problems? The rest of the world assembly in 1979 somehow triggered the Bruton is not going to reopen it. He is coping very well, thank you very much, fall of Berlin Wall and the collapse of the and it would cope even better if Europe Soviet Union. Derk Jan Eppink, a Belgian probably does not even know it was ever centre-right MEP, said: “Nobody wants closed off. stayed well out of its affairs. to be involved in this, when people cannot "To sustain an economic and monetary even agree what happened in the last war. After a potted history of the early years union we need to create a true European It is self-aggrandisement at the expense he says: "The goal of the Treaty of Rome Demos and a European patriotism. That of the taxpayer. If the parliament wants was never simply a free trade area. It was is needed to make politically acceptable this project then it should get donations always more than that. It was an economic the occasional transfer of funds from one from Federalists, well paid MEPs them- part of the union to another, that help a union." (ibid.) For him there was no politics selves or companies who want to support single currency to work. We have not it.” Hans-Gert Poettering, a German at all involved. We then get another a long created this patriotism as has unfortunate- Christian Democrat MEP and the former potted history of technical efforts towards ly become all too obvious. But that is an parliament president, has made the “house a single currency but major events like argument for another day." (ibid.) of history” a personal mission. “If we'd Britain's entry, Thatcher's assault on the asked the other EU institutions for finan- whole concept, enlargement, the destruct- John has got matters the wrong way cial assistance at this stage, we wouldn't ion of the Commission's authority by Pat round if he believes we need a European have got it and it would have been the end Cox and the Liberals, the war it initiated in Demos and a European patriotism to sus- of the project”, he admitted to MEPs on tain economic union, but that we can and the budget committee two weeks ago. the Balkans, the support for all USUK must create the latter first. He seems to The £53.2 million start up cost of the wars and their threatened wars, the forced museum and £6.3 million in estimated acceptance of the Nice and Lisbon Treaties, think that this economic union can be annual costs, not including staffing, have are all blithely ignored as if they never created and then the Demos and patriotism led the parliament's budget committee to mattered. Instead, he gives the impression will emerge to crown it on 'another day'? complain “there is still no overview of that for decades all development was John seems to have fallen for the econ- the global cost of the project available”…" omic determinist view of these matters— (Bruno Waterfield, Brussels, 23 Mar 2011). focussed on and determined by internal reports on currency plans. But, despite all sort out the economics (particularly the If the EU is such a simple and straight- the expertise, they contrived to miss out banks at the moment) and all else will forward project, as John Bruton and many on having a banking policy: hence our follow. It's an attractive notion to lazy others seem to think, it becomes incredible current problems. All the significant minds—to be euphemistic. But all Euro- that such a body as the European Parli- political developments, which go to make pean history (and Marx) refutes that notion. ament cannot even agree on the issues of up Europe's real history, are simply ignored No wonder our EU-philes have nothing to WWII after all that has been written and by John. contribute to the EU's problems. said about it! That war has been turned into a nice cosy morality play by British He muses that: "I am not sure it is GERMAN ANGST propaganda—Good versus Evil—but, sufficient to rely on heads of government Some leading Germans also see the when any specific aspect of it is inspected policing one another to ensure that solution in purely economic terms. The in any detail, the nice story disintegrates. commitments are delivered. While small solution is for Germany to pay for all the And if Europe today cannot get its head countries may submit to peer pressure problems because they are guilty of round WWII then the project that is based from big countries, I am not sure the causing them. on the fairy story about it will also process will work in reverse, when bigger "Germany should admit its part in causing European crises, says former disintegrate. Reality will just keep upset- countries are the ones needing to respond" minister. Two leading figures have asked ting the plan as it has already done. (ibid). He reminds me of someone who Germans to look a little more critically at has just woken up (John van Winkle?) to The most ironic aspect of all this is that themselves, writes Derek Scally. The EU the reality of inter-Governmental relations. is facing “creeping death” unless Ger- the one country in the EU that could be If he is not sure at this stage of his life that many seizes the eurozone crisis as a objective about the War is Ireland. At the large States try automatically to put their chance for final European integration, time it saw the War exactly for what it interests before smaller countries, one German philosopher Jürgen Habermas was—another British attempt to do down and former foreign minister Joschka wonders what planet he has been on all his a Germany that had become the major Fischer have warned. Mr Fischer said life. He seems oblivious to the fact that the power in its region. Ireland knew Mr. Berlin was being disingenuous in factor- European project created a unique mechan- Churchill quite well and, when he encour- ing out the culpability of German banks— ism, the Commission, to try to equalise particularly state-owned institutions—in aged war, they knew he spoke from the relations between States but that it is now the Irish financial crisis. “We are currently heart. After all, didn't he explain suc- useless in that role thanks to Pat Cox's going about sinking 50 years of European cinctly: "The Hun is either at your throat great achievement. That 'achievement' was history”, said Prof Habermas at a Berlin or at your feet". Concerns about Jews, event organised by the European Council about the most significant fact in creating Poles, Fascism, Democracy, etc., had on Foreign Relations" (Irish Times, 7 the current incoherent mess that is the EU. absolutely nothing to do with it. Ireland, April, 2011). But John is as blind to that as he is to because of what it had learnt the hard way, everything else of significance. As with John Bruton and the European had the measure of the War and should "To conclude, I would say the problems MPs the world here begins after WWII have been able to write its history better and we are presented with the reality of a than most. This should have been a distinct- the European Union faces are challenging not only politically, but intellectually. collapsing EU and the possibility of an ive contribution it made to the European But they are problems the rest of the easy "final" integration, simply if Germany project. But as its leading and most influen- world will have to face sooner or later." would accept its guilt—again—and hand tial academic historian, T.D. Williams, over the money. Fischer explains: "Aware- was a MI6 operative and was put in place The first half is very, very true but why ness of a historical-moral obligation was 13 the source (in the EU) of German restraint Remember, the US/UK claimed Secur- and readiness to adopt the position of ity Council authority for invading Iraq in others and to defuse conflicts through Libya & Regime Change March 2003 in Resolution 678 passed in advance payments", he said. So it's continued November 1990 for the very different reparations time again for Germany. There purpose of expelling Iraqi forces from is no doubt that, if this was simply an pean Union that the European Council Kuwait. economic or banking problem, Germany has formally called on to step down". Of course, there may be a more general could solve it without much of a problem Currently, it seems that Colonel Qadhafi political price to pay in claiming authority as Germany is doing quite well with a low way beyond the obvious meaning of a is the only head of state that the EU has value Euro. But the Germans are not, any Resolution. Perhaps, Russia and China, more than anybody else, some sort of called on to step down.) who allowed Resolution 1973 to pass by economic autonomons. They were tradi- abstaining in the Security Council, will be tionally the 'poets and dreamers' of Europe. WHO DO THEY THINK THEY'RE KIDDING? less inclined to sit on their hands in future. The Germans were reluctant joiners of the In their letter to various papers on 14th But, it is absurd for them to be complaining, Free-Trade, freewheeling, globalist world. April, Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy were as they have been doing, that US, UK and They hardly knew what credit was until also reluctant to use the phrase "regime France have been acting beyond the terms very recently, and plastic money was weird change" , while saying they wanted regime of the resolution. It's even more absurd to them. They would not even shop at change. They wrote: for South Africa, which voted for 1973, to weekends. Banks were there to serve "Our duty and our mandate under UN be complaining. The US, UK and France industry. But they were persuaded legally Security Council Resolution 1973 is to were always going to interpret the resolu- and otherwise to join the brave new protect civilians, and we are doing that. It tion as authorising whatever they think is wonderful world of Globalism and now is not to remove Qaddafi by force. But it necessary for the rebellion to succeed in they are blamed for the inevitable slump is impossible to imagine a future for overthrowing the Gaddafi regime. that followed the credit bubble. They may Libya with Qaddafi in power." feel a bit confused. And if they pay the Who do they think they're kidding? Of STALEMATE bills what will they get in return? A return course, they are trying to "remove Qaddafi Up to now, the Imperials have been to the system that caused the problem? pinning their hopes on destroying Gad- by force". Hardly an inspiring prospect! dafi's forces from the air and giving air But Mr. Fischer has a bigger prize in They have been attempting to destroy support to the rebel forces in the Benghazi store for Germany: as much of Qadhafi's armed forces as area as a means of achieving regime "“If Germany no longer sees integration possible; they have been giving air support change. However, the rebel forces don't as its greatest interest, the EU will not to the armed rebellion against his regime; show much sign of becoming effective. just stagnate but decline”, he said. The they have admitted to supplying non-lethal The US, UK and France seem to be time had come to take the bull by the equipment and training to the rebel forces strangely reluctant to arm them, even horns and make a final push for European (they haven't so far admitted to supplying though the arms embargo imposed by integration. “I think the people who want arms); they have now got boots on the Resolution 1970 was specifically cancelled Europe should come out and say where in Resolution 1973 in the context of taking they want to be”, he said. “The goal isn't ground, albeit in limited numbers. One could be forgiven for thinking that action to protect civilians. Could it be that something diffuse, the child needs a name. they are worried that arms they supply What we are talking about here is the they want the rebellion to succeed in might eventually fall into the wrong hands? realisation of the United States of overthrowing the Qadhafi regime by force Europe”…" At the time of writing (24 April) a with their help. military stalemate exists. The Chairman Mr. Fischer, as German Foreign Minis- NATO Secretary-General, Anders of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral ter, made a singular contribution to the Fogh Rasmussen, once foolishly took the Mike Mullen, has admitted as much. The current political state of the EU. He was an provisions of Resolution 1973 about best way to protect civilians and minimise enthusiastic supporter of Enlargement, protecting civilians literally and suggested civilian casualties is to have a ceasefire, as Globalism, and every war in sight, not to that NATO would be prepared to bomb soon as possible, and to take up offers of mention Lisbon and all else that has rebel forces if they were threatening mediation from, for example, Turkey, discredited the project. Now he thinks that civilians. He said it only once. which has offered to mediate from the the awful reality will disappear if people, outset. and the Germans in particular, put another WHAT IS AUTHORISED IN RESOLUTION 1973? But that is intolerable to the US, the UK concept in their minds (after paying the There has been a lot of media chatter and France, because that would leave bills) and ignore all current experience. about what actions by NATO are author- Qadhafi in power. So, the likelihood is Lie back and think of the U.S.E! But I ised under Resolution 1973. Arming the they will continue to bolster the rebels, think that most Germans might adopt the rebels? Providing forward air controllers and turn civil unrest into civil war. Whether attitude of 'Fool me once, shame on you; to the rebels to identify targets for NATO they eventually succeed in making the fool me twice, shame on me'. bombers? Training the rebels? Putting rebel army into something that, with close There are regular outbreaks of shock foreign troops on the grounds? Targetting air support from NATO, can take control and outrage when neo Nazis appear in the Qadhafi? Academic lawyers and politi- of more territory from Qadhafi remains to news but the awful reality is that, when it cians have given their various opinions ad be seen. What is certain is that a lot of comes to German and European history, nauseam. civilians will die in the process. they may well begin to make more sense But, the truth is that if you are a veto- The overthrow of Gaddaffi may require than their denouncers. Because their wielding member of the Security Council, substantial numbers of NATO troops on denouncers are the very people who admit as the US, UK and France all are, you can the ground, something which the US, the that they just cannot explain or deal with make a Security Council resolution mean UK and France are reluctant to commit to, Europe's history. And it is now clear that what you want it to mean, because, even if because they don't want to become if you cannot deal with Europe's past you you stretch its meaning way beyond embroiled in another country after their cannot deal with its present or future. The credibility, you are immune from sanction experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan. That, past is not past. by the Security Council for doing so, since rather than Resolution 1973's ban on "a Jack Lane you have a veto. foreign occupation force of any form on 14 any part of Libyan territory", is what is Recollections Of My Life by that, to save this land, my people, all the deterring them. If necessary, NATO troops Mu'ummar Qaddafi (extract, 8.4.2011) thousands who are all my children, then so could be portrayed as "a liberation force", be it. as journalists have already been The Gaddafi Creed Let this testament be my voice to the speculating. world, that I stood up to crusader attacks So, the likelihood is that bolstering the "In the name of Allah, the beneficent, of NATO, stood up to cruelty, stood up to rebels will continue for the foreseeable the merciful.. future. For 40 years, or was it longer, I can’t betrayal, stood up the West and its remember, I did all I could to give people colonialist ambitions, and that I stood WAS A MASSACRE IMMINENT? houses, hospitals, schools, and when they with my African brothers, my true Arab The US, UK and France constantly and Muslim brothers, as a beacon of light, justify their intervention in Libya on the were hungry, I gave them food, I even made Benghazi into farmland from the when others were building castles, I lived grounds that it has saved many, many in a modest house, and in a tent, I never lives, especially in Benghazi. desert, I stood up to attacks from that forgot my youth in Sirte, I did not spend In his weekly address to the American cowboy Reagan, when he killed my adopt- people on 26th March, President Obama ed orphaned daughter, he was trying to our national treasury foolishly, and like told them that Qadhafi was threatening a kill me, instead he killed that poor innocent Salah’a’deen, our great Muslim leader, "bloodbath". But he reassured them: child, then I helped my brothers and sisters who rescued Jerusalem for Islam, I took "We're succeeding in our mission. from Africa with money for the African little for myself… We've taken out Libya's air defenses. Union, did all I could to help people In the West, some have called me Qaddafi's forces are no longer advancing understand the concept of real democracy, “mad”, “crazy”, but they know the truth across Libya. In places like Benghazi, a but continue to lie, they know that our land city of some 700,000 that Qaddafi where people’s committees ran our coun- try, but that was never enough, as some is independent and free, not in the colonial threatened to show 'no mercy', his forces grip, that my vision, my path, is, and has have been pushed back. So make no told me, even people who had 10 room mistake, because we acted quickly, a homes, new suits and furniture, were never been clear and for my people and that I humanitarian catastrophe has been satisfied, as selfish as they were they will fight to my last breath to keep us free, avoided and the lives of countless wanted more, and they told Americans may Allah almighty help us to remain civilians—innocent men, women and and other visitors, they needed “demo- faithful and free." children—have been saved." cracy”, and “freedom”, never realizing it Translated by Prof. Sam Hamod. April 09, 2011 http://www.information clearinghouse.info/ Two days later, he asserted: was a cut throat system, where the biggest article27856.htm "We knew that if we waited one more dog eats the rest, but they were enchanted day, Benghazi—a city nearly the size of with those words, never realizing that in Charlotte (NC)—could suffer a massacre America, there was no free medicine, no that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the free hospitals, no free housing, no free AT TRAITOR’S GATE world." education and no free food, except when people had to beg or go to long lines to get That implies that, without NATO inter- A remaindered Libyan monarchy, soup, no, no matter what I did, it was never vention, Gaddhafi might have killed nearly Prince Mohammed el-Senoussi, 700,000 people. enough for some, but for others, they king-in-waiting, The view that a massacre was imminent knew I was the son of Gamal Abdel Nasser, welcomed by Benghazi with anarchy, in Benghazi is based on a speech made by the only true Arab and Muslim leader exiled in London, Foreign Office free. Qadhafi on 17th March, in which he we've had since Salah' a' Deen, when he threatened "no mercy" for his enemies. claimed the Suez Canal for his people, as Khalifa Hilter, a CIA asset, He did say: "We will have no mercy on I claimed Libya, for my people, it was his exiled in Langley, Virginia, them". But by "them" he clearly meant footsteps I tried to follow, to keep my now a preset armed rebels, who stand and fight, not all people free from colonial domination— rebel commander with an arms cornucopia. the city's inhabitants. He also said: "We from thieves who would steal from us— have left the way open to them. Escape. Now, I am under attack by the biggest Let those who escape go forever" and that Nuri Mesmari, former Chief of Protocol, force in military history, my little African "whoever hands over his weapons, stays absconded to Paris, at home without any weapons, whatever son, Obama wants to kill me, to take away October, 2010, he did previously, he will be pardoned, the freedom of our country, to take away will see tribal Libya devolved protected". our free housing, our free medicine, our when entering the lion’s den. But the best evidence that he was not free education, our free food, and replace planning a massacre in Benghazi was that it with American style thievery, called All three handed NATO the key he didn't perpetrate a massacre in the other “capitalism”, but all of us in the Third to unlock cities his forces recaptured, either fully or World know what that means, it means the gateway to Africa partially, including Zawiya, Misurata, and corporations run the countries, run the to plunder that rainbow crock, to rid the continent of Eastern exotica. Ajdabiya. There is no doubt that world, and the people suffer, so, there is considerable numbers of civilians have no alternative for me, I must make my been killed in the process of regaining Wilson John Haire stand, and if Allah wishes, I shall die by control of these cities, but it cannot be said 23rd April, 2011 that massacres have occurred. following his path, the path that has made (Strangely, in their letter on 14th April, our country rich with farmland, with food Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy didn't claim and health, and even allowed us to help On-line sales of books, pamphlets to have saved any lives at all, merely, that our African and Arab brothers and sisters and magazines: "tens of thousands of lives have been to work here with us, in the Libyan protected" by their action.) Jammohouriyah, https://www.atholbooks- David Morrison I do not wish to die, but if it comes to sales.org April 2011 15 £38.8 to £23.6 million. He then reduced it in numerous articles in the media before further to £16 million. Moriarty concluded Lowry was supposed to have discussed that Haughey had therefore conferred a the matter with O'Brien. "real and tangible benefit" on Dunne. The economist and An Bord Snip Shorts It seemed that all Fintan O'Toole's supremo Colm McCarthy also dismissed from fantasies had come true. At long last proof this Moriarty finding for different reasons. of corruption had been found. The only He said that the nature of the competition the Long Fellow problem with the scenario is that Ben for the mobile phone licence was such that Dunne refused to avail of the "real and the winner was in effect bound to make a MORIARTY SQUEAKS tangible" benefit. He rejected the Revenue fortune and was therefore never likely to In January 2007 the Irish Political Commissioners offer of a reduction in the encounter problems obtaining finance. Review reported that, after nine years and family's tax liability of £22.8 million! The competition was based on tens of millions of euros in legal fees, the And when he brought his case to the qualitative criteria and was designed so Moriarty Tribunal had "brought forth a Appeal Commissioners the tax liability that the winner would have had no difficul- mouse". Four years later the squeaks have was reduced to zero. ty in competing with the existing State become more high pitched, but still nothing It is clear that the legal basis for the monopoly. McCarthy believes that such of substance has emerged. Revenue Commissioners' tax demand was licensing competitions should be on the It will be recalled (but only by those very shaky. Pairceir made the calculation basis of a bidding war between the candi- with very long memories) that in Part 1 of that obtaining £16 million was better than dates. No allegation of corruption could his report Moriarty noted that Charles nothing at all. Unfortunately Dunne also be levelled against the highest bidder and Haughey had received 11.6 million euros knew that the tax authorities' case was the State would also have obtained a in private donations by 1988. Moriarty weak. windfall revenue gain from the process. concluded that this had a value of 45 And yet the so called £22.6 million million euros in 2006. His calculation was reduction in Dunne's tax liability is FIANNA FÁIL ON MORIARTY not based on inflation, which would have presented as a "real and tangible" benefit, Why should anyone vote for Fianna given 19.7 million at 2006 prices but was even though if the offer had been accepted Fáil? In the past the answer might have based on the ratio of contributions to the the Dunne family would have been £16 been that it defended the interests of the then Taoiseach's salary. Since the Taoi- million poorer! State. Its project was to undermine the seach salary had increased by much more Treaty settlement and thereby give the than the rate of inflation from 1988 to DENIS O'BRIEN State the maximum room for manoeuvre. 2006 he was able to arrive at the 45 million When Moriarty gave his verdict on It is therefore disappointing to hear figure. Haughey, the former Taoiseach was on Micheál Martin defend the Moriarty It's a pity that Moriarty couldn't find the his deathbed and was therefore not in a Report. time to redo his calculation in 2011. The position to defend himself. His family The first part of the Moriarty Report recent 30% reduction in the Taoiseach's were angered that he had not been afforded related to Haughey and by extension salary would have put a serious dent in the the opportunity of responding to Fianna Fáil. The second part dealt with value of Haughey's receipts! preliminary findings. But no such over- Lowry and by implication Fine Gael. sights were possible against Denis O'Brien Perhaps it was too much to expect Martin HAUGHEY'S "CORRUPTION" who had employed a battery of lawyers to to resist the temptation to 'put the boot in' Moriarty's predecessor, Justice Mc defend his interests. to Fine Gael, but there is a higher State Cracken, found that Haughey was innocent As a result Moriarty could not sustain interest at stake. If Moriarty is vindicated, of corruption. While Haughey received his initial finding that the award of the the State may be liable for loss of earnings money, McCracken could find no evidence licence was illegal. When the final report from the unsuccessful candidates for the that he gave anything in return. It could be eventually emerged, it was hardly critic- licence. And why did Martin think it was said that the former Taoiseach was an ised at all by the media. O'Brien made a necessary to criticise O'Brien for defending ungrateful "f***er" or that he was too robust defence of his reputation on radio his reputation? arrogant (or principled) to allow himself and television but received little attention If it is accepted that the State is corrupt, feel any obligation towards his bene- in the print media. His radio interview on Fianna Fáil is not likely to benefit from the factors. It seems he thought Ben Dunne the Pat Kenny show was not made political consequences. There are only was an awful eejit. available for download unlike the rest of two tendencies which could benefit: Sinn Moriarty, in contrast to McCracken, the programme. Fein who have only recently accepted the found that Haughey had conferred a favour legitimacy of the 26 County State; and the on Dunne. But the evidence for this was BEAUTY CONTEST substantial West Brit element in the society pretty flimsy. The Revenue Commission- The analysis from Colm Keena of The represented by The Irish Times, which has ers put in a tax demand against the Dunne Irish Times and former Supreme Court always denigrated Fianna Fáil's efforts in Family Trust for £38.8 million. The Judge Catherine McGuinness on the developing the State. Dunnes disputed this on the grounds that Marian Finucane show (27.3.11) was quite the legislation making such a Trust liable superficial. They both felt that a Sunday THE HONEYMOON for tax had post-dated the setting up of the Independent poll indicating that "the It is perhaps churlish of the Long Fellow Trust. Haughey, following representations people" believed Moriarty was somehow to criticize the media's heart-warming from Dunne, requested that the head of the significant. love-in with the Government. The course Revenue Commissioners Seamus Pairceir However, an interesting insight into of true love never did run smooth but there meet Dunne. Haughey gave no direction the workings of the Tribunal was given by is no sign yet of an end to this honeymoon. to Pairceir and, according to Pairceir he Eileen Gleason, a former Marketing There was no ridicule heaped on the himself, had intended to meet Dunne in Executive with Esat. She dismissed Minister for Finance Michael Noonan any case. Pairceir had already met a Dunne Moriarty's finding that Michael Lowry when he described the date of the Bank Trustee following representations from was conferring an advantage on Denis Guarantee as the "blackest day in Ireland Alan Dukes. O'Brien by telling him that the lack of since the Civil War broke out". But there Arising from the meeting Pairceir financing was a weakness in the Esat bid. was no Civil War on 30 September 2008. agreed to reduce the tax demand from She argued that this was well documented Quite the contrary, Fine Gael and Sinn 16 Fein supported the Guarantee and Labour hours. Although most of the assets were the outbreak of the First World War turning only opposed it on pedantic grounds. Dublin properties, the buyers were "from the international conflict into a domestic But, if it was the "blackest day", the the country". It is true that the properties conflict. logic would be to reverse it by "burning were purchased at prices of about 40% of Ireland has the means to emerge from the bondholders", but no such action is the peak, but this would put them at levels the economic crisis. Pretending that 'burn- being contemplated by this Government. similar to prices in continental Europe. ing the bondholders' is a panacea is a way To quote Joe Higgins, the troops which The picture of Ireland's economic crisis is of avoiding the task of reforming our tax Eamon Gilmore mustered to challenge more complicated than the one presented system. "Frankfurt's way" have not even departed last November. from Dublin Bay! In his recent influential article in Vanity TOTALITARIAN LIBERALISM The Government is more concerned Fair, Michael Lewis said that Ireland's Whatever about the rights or wrongs of about optics than reversing the policies of crisis was different to that of Iceland. the Corrib Gas project, the Long Fellow its predecessor. The idea that reversing Ireland borrowed to buy herself, while has some sympathy for the two Gardaí the reduction in the minimum wage is of Iceland borrowed to buy other countries. caught having a private joke about rape. It any significance is doubtful. The manner So, in Ireland, while there were many people could be said that the joke was in poor in which it intends doing it is laughable. In who were sunk into the mire of unsustain- taste, but it was only offensive because it order to avoid annoying employers, it will able debt when the bubble burst, other was inadvertently revealed to the targets reduce employers' PRSI by 50% for those Irish people (the vendors) made a fortune. of the joke through a video recording. earning under 356 euro per week. This The call to "burn the bondholders" is a It used to be a liberal demand that the will cost the State 400 million euro. populist policy designed to prevent people private thoughts and conversations of It is doubtful that reducing employers' from thinking about the massive transfer citizens should have constitutional protect- PRSI for the low-paid will have any effect of wealth that occurred within the country ion. But it appears that the content of some on employment. But as Sinn Fein's Pearse when the bubble burst. The Long Fellow private conversations are not allowed such Doherty pointed out it will give employers agrees with V.I. Lenin who advocated at protection. an incentive to reduce the pay of their existing employees. It seems that the Government is Report of the views of 'JohnTheOptimist', expressed on Irisheconomy.ie, 3rd April desperate to prove that it can tamper with the existing IMF/EU deal even at the price of new more onerous conditions being Talking Down The Irish Economy imposed on it. The price of the reversal of the reduction in the minimum wage "Garret Fitzgerald is a truly great states- ards, barely one-third of Ireland's long- appears to be the dismantling of the Joint man who has served this country for half term average growth rate between 1958 Labour Committee structures. Here is the a century. The 'celebrity doom econom- and 2007. spin that The Irish Times puts on it in its ists' are not fit to lace his boots. Although I have repeatedly challenged one of the front page article (16.4.11): he had retired from politics by the time the leading 'celebrity doom economists' to "The revised document states that the post on here and explain why, if all the Good Friday Agreement was negotiated, targeting of sheltered sectors of the growth between 1997 and 2007 was a company—a reference to the pharmacy, he laid the groundwork for it in the 1970s fraud, as he has repeatedly claimed, then legal and medical professions—would and 1980s. Even is his mid 80s, he shows how come the recession bottomed out in be examined, as would the joint labour infinitely greater grasp of economic and early 2010, leaving GNP around 75% committee structures setting out pay rates, demographic statistics than the wretched higher in real terms than it was in 1997, a terms and conditions for workers in other 'celebrity doom economists' who dominate far larger increase in that time than that of sheltered sectors". the Irish media. virtually every other OECD country? To The newspaper's conflating of the While one can argue all day about the no avail. restrictive practices of highly paid profes- nitty-gritty of every economic forecast, Regarding specific economic forecasts, sionals with structures designed to protect and who was right and who was wrong, the 'celebrity doom economists' got it the living standards of low paid workers is the broad picture is that the central argu- spectacularly wrong in late 2009 and early odious. ment of the 'celebrity doom economists' is 2010 about Ireland's export growth in false. Not only that, they know it is false, 2010. They ALL forecast that the volume REVEALING PICTURES but continue to promulgate it because of exports from Ireland would FALL in It is said that a picture tells a thousand 'doom' is now a lucrative industry for 2010. It ROSE +9.4 per cent. Do they words. But a picture can also distort reality. them, and anything which undermines mention this now in any of their daily When the IMF arrived in Ireland last their 'doom' prognostications must be 'doom' commentaries? Of course not! November the front pages of newspapers airbrushed away. Because, as I said, 'doom' is now a lucrative in this country and abroad showed the Their central argument is that ALL the industry, and anything that undermines lead negotiator Ajai Chopra walking past economic growth that Ireland experienced 'doom' is a threat of those making a lucra- a beggar. The message conveyed was that up to 2007, especially that between 1997 tive income from predicting 'doom'. They we were a mendicant nation. The fact that and 2007, was a fraud, a hoax, a Ponzi also failed spectacularly to forecast that the beggar in the picture was a Roma scheme, a property scam, etc etc etc etc, GNP would RISE by +4.0 per cent between gypsy was not allowed give perspective to blah blah blah, ad nauseam. This they Q1 2010 and Q4 2010, a failure which the image. repeat endlessly in every media outlet they now neatly get round by claiming However, when Chopra and the boys day-in-day-out, week-in week-out. This that it is GDP, rather than GNP, which returned last month, they were photo- has indeed been very damaging. It has matters, a complete reversal of their graphed passing the Shelbourne Hotel, undermined international confidence in previous position. which was overflowing with people. The Ireland's ability to grow out of its debt Frankly, we should seriously consider accompanying article in The Irish Times problem (which is not significantly worse putting the 'celebrity doom economists' (16.4.11) told us that the event was an than that of many other OECD countries) on trial for high treason, unless they were auction for distressed assets in which a in coming years, even though the growth born in Russia, in which case the treason total of 15 million euros was spent in five required is very modest by historical stand- charge obviously wouldn't stick. 17 I have a feeling that, with a new Govern- ion by O'Connor: which we'll get back}— be renegotiated and there had to be multi- ment in power, and the economy clearly yes—we have money of our own which lateral agreement with the other side, and upturning, we can expect a backlash .... put in, so in fact the total amount we we couldn't impose this, and that was against the 'celebrity doom economists'. need to borrow to do this is between 5 and perhaps not clear enough. And I under- Their era is passing. But, they will put up 6 billion which will cost us 250 million a stand {interruption by O' Connor: no ...} a strong fight, as they now have such a people are concerned about that. year. So it's not as bad as people think ... financial investment in 'doom'. Let's sup- BOC: Speaking of the idea of burden sharing BOC: I know but Garret at the same time and of default, and everything, the other more pose, just for arguments sake, that Garret it's kind of if you think, people are saying "only Fitzgerald is proved correct and that reas- playful aspect of your column today, I thought, 24 billion", do you think we should ... but that was that—not 'playful', none of this is playful— onable to good economic growth occurs National Pension Fund was our own pension in coming years to bring down the debt but you were basically saying that, you feel fund, you can understand that it's very hard for that, a lot of the lack of faith that the markets burden, improve living standards and people to ...., given that this is the fifth bank and the people internationally have in Ireland employment prospects. That is, exactly as bailout, we've been told before that this is it, do now, is the fault of the celebrity columnists for occurred from 1987 on, the last time there you agree ... talking about the possibility of default. was a similar situation. Where would that Garret: I entirely agree, there is no Garret: Yes, that doesn't help us, and leave the 'celebrity doom economists'? It question about that, it's miserable to have there's no basis for it at all. I've just given would leave then sunk at the bottom of the to do this {interruption by O'Connor: but you figures ... {interruption by O'Connor: ocean, that's where. Totally discredited it has to be done}, but it is a lot less bad Who do you have in mind specifically...?} and a laughing-stock. Their lucrative than people thought. Reading the papers income from the 24/7 peddling of 'doom' I'm not going to name people, but if you've the last couple of weeks you'd think it was been watching your television or read the would be gone. Does anyone seriously a vast sum, several times that, so it's not as think that they want that to happen? Sean papers you can see people talking about bad as it looked like being. The other thing Lemass once said: "a rising tide lifts all default in a way that has damaged us. boats". He was wrong. A rising tide in that's clear now is that, a lot of the money Because everything said here, in the elect- Ireland over the next few years will sink that the banks lent, they lent elsewhere, ion campaign and now, by people on quite a few boats, as Messrs McWilliams, not in Ireland, and it's not doing us any television and radio, it all gets back to Kelly, Gurgiev et al may well find out." good, particularly. So, by dealing with Europe, and the effect is, it undermines those loans, starting early next year, we our credibility, so I think people should be can raise 73 billion there, in order to pay Report: Transcript of Interview with very careful about what they say ... and it's Garret Fitzgerald, The Saturday Night back some of the money we've been lent… all nonsense, in fact, BOC: This is the deleveraging of the .... Show, RTE 1 television, 2nd April 2011 BOC: But, at the same time, Garret, it has to But we are going to lose 14 billion, they've be said that to blame people for talking about built in costs of 14 for getting rid of that 70 default for the lack of confidence in this country, Optimism On Economy billion, haven't they ... when it's actually certainly, the last government "Brendan O'Connor (BOC): After the Garret: Well, I'm not sure of the exact and their carry on for two and a half, three, week we've ad there's kind of one question on figure, I'm sure you're right though, you years, and the new government we have now everyone's mind: what happened to us.... I lose a bit ... that's built into the whole deal. and so on... Are they not the ones who lost the was reading your piece in The Irish Times At least that will deal with the problem of confidence in the country, with a series of today and I suppose there were two major the money the ECB has been lending in to appalling decisions, which, which ... things I took out of it. One is that you're very us at one percent. Garret: Yes, of course they were, but very positive about this, this bailout, this fifth BOC: OK, so, now the other feeling that is at this stage what we need is to try and bank bailout, which, as you know a lot of out there—and I'm conscious that we don't restore our credibility and to be talking people aren't positive about. You know, people want to bamboozle people with figures, ok?, out there watching feel angry that we're but people feel a bit conned by Fine Gael, don't about default, which would destroy all our pumping more money into this black hole. they? Because they feel, you know, Noonan living standards completely because if we Garret FitzGerald (Garret): Well, and Enda Kenny to an extent and in fairness, defaulted we would lose the deal we have, people should be clear about what's invol- Labour as well, you know, Gilmore, Frankfurt, the bailout deal, and we have nowhere else ved. We had already committed between it will be our law not Frankfurt's law, and they to borrow from, did seem to promise us, in the run-up to the BOC: But then, on the other hand, what {sic.} 10 billion in to the banks, and then election, that they were going to take on the it was seen that even more might be needed. these guys will argue is that we have no chance bondholders in a serious way, that there would of paying off that kind of money So this study was done, making very pessi- be some kind of, not a default, but that they Garret: That's nonsense, and they mistic assumptions, to arrive at a figure would get some kind of a burden sharing shouldn't be saying it, which can be relied on as the maximum situation going, they promised us that they were going to do what Fianna Fáil hadn't BOC: But like it's not just them either, we're likely to need for the banks. And managed to do. Then they got the chance and Garret, like, a lot of international commentators, that showed another 8.7 billion was they came back and they said "well, actually from both the right and the left, and a lot of, you needed. Now we have provisions for that, guys, it's very tough out there, we can't do it". know, Nobel, we've had Nobel economists and because the bailout last November provi- People feel a bit let down, don't they? everything saying it, the markets have priced in a high inevitability almost of an Irish default, ded {interruption by O'Connor: 25 billion} Garret: Well, I think it would have even after the confidence boosting measures of 35 billion but only a third will therefore be been better in the campaign if those two the other day the markets, nothing really needed for that. But then the {European?} parties hadn't spent so much time {laugh- changed on that score, so ... Central Bank felt, to be sure to be sure, ing} attacking each other, and promising, they should up that to 34 billion, em, 3 seeming to promise things, which couldn't Garret: Yes, we have a problem there. be secured without agreement on the Euro- billion of that would be temporarily into You see the markets are these people, you peans and the IMF. So it would have been lend this money, buy bonds, or who make the banks, the Government would probably better had those promises not been made. get back in three years time, there's interest {interruption by O'Connor: ... should have assessments of how good our credit is, and on it in the meantime, but of that money— said it was impossible ...} But in fairness none of these people have any expert on it's not going to cost us that much—but it has to be said they did say, it was Ireland, they have experts on France, first of all we are going to deal with some clarified during the debate, after the first Germany, Britain etc.,. but none on Ireland. of the subordinated debtors, and {interrupt- week or so, that in fact this would have to They don't understand our economy and 18 all they hear is this default rubbish coming think that Irish people, in the long run, are United States, we were undertaxed by 4 from people here, and the result s they are pretty sensible, and there's more to come. billion, it's probably about two and a half not making a fair judgement of the situation And we will have further tax increases, billion now. So, we all believe these things, ... we're stuck with that and ... probably mainly in property taxes and in but we don't realise, we've been so cosseted BOC: OK, so you think that all the measures the water charges, both of which we should in the past, by Governments and what we've taken, remember, we kept doing these have had long ago, {interruption by BOC: they've done, that we don't understand what a mess we're in, that we're overpaid things on a Sunday, to reassure the markets on but hang on, can I ask ...} but we had, we a Monday, and everything, but the markets and under-taxed ... So there's a lot to be would end up unconvinced again, do you think had {BOC: sorry}, you know, a property done, and it's going to be painful for the that all of that is kind of peripheral, that what tax, the residential property tax, which next couple of years ... to get out the far they're doing is listening to the loudest voice in invented, which was abolished in the mid- end. this country that's saying 'default' and 90s, and ... if it were only there now ... BOC: OK, Garret, now I'm conscious that everything BOC: But is the time to re-invent it, Garret, we don't have much time left. But can you give Garret: You won't get an immediate when at least 300,000—I think it's a lot more— us anything positive about the next few years positive reaction to what's just been done, of people of my generation are in this awful {audience laughs} where the future, is there from some of these people. But the fact horrible hole of negative equity, where their hope? {audience laughs} properties aren't actually an asset, they're a that the reports from all of these capitals Garret: Yes, we've seen the worst. But huge liability for them, it has probably ruined we are going to have to see further cuts, in are pretty favourable, that they do really their lives in fairness, and they will probably spending, and hope {audience laughs}, accept—the serious people really do accept never recover from it. And then we shove a and tax increases to get out the far end, and —and the other Governments accept property tax on them, it's kind of ... to pay again we have probably, it could probably be ... obviously, and the EU accepts, and the another two years before the economy Garret: It will be necessary to make IMF, that this a serious assessment, and starts to recover, though we can't be certain this is a worst case, and that we've finally provision to deal with people who've been about that. But, on the other hand ... got this thing sorted out, we know what hit in that respect. It's probably ... there's a {interruption by BOC: Do you suggest...} the worst case is, and get on now with huge mortgage problem. In this assessment that what we have going for us is that we sorting it out. of our, of the banks, allowance is made for are a very successful exporting country, BOC: I suppose as a cynical layman, I think them, it makes very tough assumptions on and over the last twelve months there has that it's that they're patting us on the head today the mortgage side that the banks are going been a huge increase in exports, and not because we've been suckered into putting to have to cope with, just the big multinationals from America, another 24 billion of our money into paying off BOC: But you and I know that Irish people, yes, there doing very well, the pharma- their reckless debts, you know what I mean, despite what anyone says that it's going to get ceuticals, but the majority of Irish indi- and their reckless gambling, but anyway, more and more closer to a tipping point, Irish genous sectors are in fact increasing their Garret: But I don't think we should be people will pay their mortgages, if they can at exports ... and have you seen the output at so cynical about people who have provided all, they will ... all?—and in time, that increased output such massive aid to us, without which Garret: We have a good record, and will require more workers, so you will be we'd be busted at this stage may I also say that if there still is a problem moving to a point where more workers BOC: Ok, now Garret, can I ask you, I'm a the end of the day, banks in the past, and will be needed, in industry, and as people conscious of people watching at home, ok?, building societies, have been reasonably recover confidence, they'll be more willing and there's people at home, ok, we've had, what is it, two years of austerity effectively, we good about that, we don't have massive— to spend, and that will increase employ- sucked now what , 20 billion out of the economy eh—taking back of houses that other ment also ...... countries have, but it is a huge problem. BOC: Am I right in saying, I seem to hear Garret: I don't know about that, but a So, the two really damaging things are recently that exports aren't actually great at unemployment and the mortgage interest. creating jobs, in general, and we've started lot, hearing this phrase then, we heard 'export-led BOC: So people have endured, some people The issue of reducing pay, obviously no one likes it, but we have been paying growth' then we heard 'jobless export-led have endured unemployment, what, the ulti- growth', and I mean, meanwhile Garret, a lot of mate eh pay cut, people have endured pay cuts, ourselves, mostly, we having been paying people will say that, the domestic economy, people in the public sector have had their eh ourselves more than other countries. Do where we're trading with each other, where the pension contributions, eh, diminished, we've you know what a doctor gets in France? In vast majority of people work, is being ham- had tax increases, all kinds of new taxes as France—I saw it in The Irish Times about mered every year, and it's going to be hammered well, more on the way, and then the universal four months ago, the French Government more to pay this 24 billion, isn't it? social charge thing in January, which seemed decided that the GP rate was to go up from to completely sucker punch a lot of people, and 22 to 23 Euro, what is it here? It's nearly Garret: All recoveries, including so people feel that they are doing all this to pour export-led recoveries, take time before money into the banks, and like can they take, is three times that. {interruption by BOC: Yea} And this runs right throughout they reach the point where extra jobs are there three more years of this austerity, sucking required. At this early stage, I mean more money out of the economy? Do you think society, we've all been overpaid. Ministers that people can take it, Garret? were overpaid, Ministers' pensions are employment has been cut, you have a overpaid. And unfortunately apparently, labour force which still has the capacity to Garret: Well, I think people have been the last Government, didn't feel it could produce to export, without extra workers very patient with the appalling mess left to cut the pensions. We have to volunteer if needing to be employed, and we're at that us by the previous Government which, we want to, and not everybody wants to stage, but then you come to the point since the beginning of the last decade has volunteer, so we have this problem.... and where that growth continues and you do been wrecking our economy in a series of the one thing ... need more workers and when people see different ways, and people obviously are BOC: But you know Garret a lot of people there are more workers they are more don't feel that they're overpaid, ... people, you willing to spend at home, and that spending bound to be very angry and upset, and know, who aren't Ministers, or doctors at home creates employment. That takes everyone is suffering as a result. And so Garret: I know they don't feel it. And time ... and I'm just saying it might be two it's not surprising, these reactions. On the d'you know the one thing is that we think years before we see the recovery. Recovery other hand, people have accepted it, with, we are overtaxed, in fact we're under- takes time {interruption by BOC: so we'll eh, ill grace, you may say {BOC: Yes!}, taxed. Our taxes now on people are much see the recovery in two years time then but they're not rioting in the streets, and I lower than in any European country or the you say} ... and it will be rapid, more 19 rapid, because I believe, I think we have a the invaders were the victims: a purging great capacity for growth and our growth theme enthusiastically taken up by Holly- rate, when we get out of this mess, will, at wood movies such as The Deer Hunter least for some years as we recover, will be es ahora * and Platoon. higher than the rest of Europe, will be After Vietnam, USUK became much catching up, in the middle of the ... WAR IN LIBYA more cunning in their strategies of deceit {interruption by BOC: you mean as fast as "We do not lack communication, on when making war and thus modern we went down we could shoot up again?} the contrary we have too much of it. We conflicts had "embedded" journalists and yes, that's right, we have an open economy, lack creation. We lack resistance to the ever more strategic language. Iraq was we go down when there is trouble and present" "liberated" , people were killed by "friendly when things recover we go up faster… G. Deleuze and F. Guattari fire", and entrenched war was "mission (Transcript by Philip O'Connor, who "Had journalists questioned the decep- creep". Language itself became totally comments : What the hell is going on? tions that led to the Iraq war, the invasion debased and even when the American After a bruising election campaign in would not have happened." President, George "Dubyia" Bush dismis- which catastrophist economists were given John Pilger. Guardian, 10 Dec. 2010 sed torture as "an asset" in obtaining front page billing, and utopian "New "If men could learn from history, what information, with the accepting of "water- boarding" as a legitimate technique, the Republicans" were unleashed on us with lesions it might teach us! But passion and party blind our eyes, and the light which "new world order" of "regime change" by their utopian answers, they are all now Rumsfield and Cheney became part of our being reined in, and the structure of the experience gives us is a lantern on the stern, which shines only on the waves "water-cooler" conversation. The "mad deal negotiated by FF is being implement- behind us!" jihadists" had to be stopped otherwise ed without change as the practical and Coleridge, we'd all burn in our beds. Better far that effective way forward? And everyone is from T. Allsop, Recollections, 1831 they and their children were burning in selling it now to us, in its new "positive" theirs. And if we inadvertently saw burning FG-Lab clothing? So, like Iraq, it was just In December 1917, in a private convers- bodies—we were assured—that they had all about achieving regime change and ation between the Prime Minister of been used as "human shields" by their Britain, David Lloyd George and C.P. wiping out FF as a serious force!!) "bad dictators". Scott, Editor of the Manchester Guardian, So now to Libya for another rerun of the former admitted: "If people really the same scenario. Today, Good Friday, knew the truth, the war would be stopped 22nd April 2011, France 24 showed us a Exports Up! tomorrow. But of course they don't know, clip of Robert Gates, the US Secretary of and can't know." In the wake of this—the Defence, stating that American Predator The country's exports surged in First World War—the war to end all wars, Drones were being used to bomb "strategic February with provisional CSO figures Edward Bernays, a confidante of President targets" in Gaddafi-held areas in Tripoli showing a rise of 11% in goods and services Woodrow Wilson, coined the term "public and other cities. The "rebels" are also sold abroad. Imports fell by 3% in the relations" as a euphemism for propaganda being helped by Britain and France. same month. "which was given a bad name in the war". Germany, Spain, Russia and China have The Central Statistics Office said In his book, Propaganda (1928), Bernays refused to participate with them—and even preliminary figures for the month showed described PR as "an invisible government the UN has asked for the "conflict to be exports totalled ¤8.1bn, while imports which is the true ruling power in our stopped" and "discussions to start" for country", thanks to "the intelligent mani- were almost ¤4.3bn. over a week now. I have seen President pulation of the masses". This was achieved As a result the seasonally adjusted trade Gaddafi being feted by his people in Tripoli by "false realities" and their adoption by but such trifles are mere incidentals to the surplus rose by 33% year on year to the media. (One of Bernays's early succes- progress of a war against him by USUK/ ¤3.83bn for the month. This is the highest ses was persuading women to smoke in France/Italy/Canada and Denmark. trade surplus since December 2009. public. By associating smoking with wom- The Italian island of Lampedusa has Compared with February last year, exports en's liberation, he achieved headlines that been swamped by Tunisian/Egyptian and were up 14pc, while imports rose by 18%. lauded cigarettes as "torches of freedom".) Libyan refugees—over 20,000 of them However, both the Irish Independent John Pilger, one of the few thought and they were given temporary resident and Irish Times tried to play down the provoking journalists left in the media permits by the Italians who want them to significance of the latest figures. But they meditates on the above and said it only be dispersed throughout the EU. Some of were superseded by Richard Bruton, Fine impacted on his understanding when he them were put on trains to France and Gael's Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and was a young journalist in Vietnam. PR were stopped at the border by President Innovation, who said, “I am pleased that terms like "pacification" and "collateral Sarkozy. Italy cried foul and said France was in breach of the Schengen Agreement. this reassuring positive trend in the growth damage", and later "quagmire", became But the EU found in favour of France, in our exports over recent months has "staples of a news vocabulary that recog- nised the killing of civilians merely as stating that French Interior Minister Claude been maintained”, adding that the Gueant was "entitled to grant entry only to February trade figures were a reflection of tragic mistakes and seldom questioned the good intentions of the invaders"—not those with sufficient means to support the efforts of his Government. that the latter were ever called that. Almost themselves". M.Gueant stated that France As the Coalition took office in March, no reporter ever used the word "invasion", "had applied the letter and the spirit of the it must be the best Government in the but "involvement" and other such euphem- Schengen Agreement". history of the State. Its policies have had isms. And the infamous My Lai Massacre But the real problem for the EU is that retrospective effect! in 1968 was not reported from Vietnam, many countries, including France, are John Martin even though a number of reporters knew having to combat the fact that immigration (See http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/ about it (and other atrocities like it), but by has become a major battleground. And in exports-soar-11pc-during-february-as- a freelance in the US, Seymour Hersh. what has been seen as a shift in policy, Mr. imports-fall-says-cso-2627338.html and http:/ The cover of Newsweek magazine called Gueant said that "as well as increasing the /www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/ it an "American tragedy" implying that expulsion rate for migrants, he also wanted 2011/0422/1224295255376.html) to cut the number of work visas issued It Is Time 20 each year by 20,000". He added: "We see it, "is to foster a sense of British heroes to everyone. For those in power, must listen more to the French people and national identity". Schama writes, this makes history as a discipline not only useless but dangerous too". bring forward precise solutions to address "At a moment fraught with the possibil- what they expect of us". The problem ity of social and cultural division, we In the London Review of Books, Vol. though is that attacking and interfering in need citizens who grow up with a sense 33, No, 7, 31st March 2011, the Letters the internal affairs of those countries in of our shared memory as a living, urgently page exploded at Evans and his 'take' on North Africa has the affect of displacing present body of knowledge." history. Robert Tombs from the University people and not unnaturally these migrants Or as the popular historian Dominic of Cambridge noted that he had been part run to those countries who are waging war Sandbrook puts it, "we need to return to 1, of a think-tank, which issued a pamphlet against their leaders. So how can any the stories that make a nation's collective in 2002 and he "advocated less emphasis country thus involved then state that they memory", 2, "that fire the imagination", on skills and more on knowledge, a less need not account for their actions? It is and 3, "that bind the generations"—New constraining examination system, and a pure nonsense and the height of hypocrisy. Labour's curriculum favoured "themes" curriculum in GCSE and A level History Bombing Libya equates to fleeing mig- over "actual content"—what "we need is that would move away from teaching rants. Thus also the freezing of oil/gas a return to narrative history". Schama history as disconnected fragments— assets of those countries equates to fleeing went on to develop his Gove-like theory dismissed by Evans as “a return to narra- economic migrants. In the end, it is that stating: "Our children are being short- tive”." Moreover he asked of Evans "Is it simple and that solvable. changed of the patrimony of their story, unreasonable for schoolchildren to gain a which is to say the lineaments of the whole basic knowledge of the history of the HISTORY AND HOW IT IS SOLD story, for there can be no true history that country in which they live?" Christopher Now that I have found that the History refuses to span the arch, no coherence McGovern wrote that he "helped write the channel is part of my Sky package, I have without chronology." Evans theorises that current National Curriculum for History" been dipping into its fare now and then. the running here has been made by "a self- and he too is "sadly displeased with Evans". What has amused me is that Fergal Keane appointed pressure group calling itself "The mass exodus of pupils when the and Roy Foster have sold the history of 'Better History', formed in 2006 to advise subject becomes optional at age 14 is Ireland as The Story Of Ireland. But when the Conservative shadow education team". testimony to the failure of the curriculum. it comes to USUK it is very certainly their Its leader is a former schoolteacher, Sean Evans underplays the importance of "History" that is commodified. And what Lang. Gove wants "school history to place narrative and the way in which children, a to-do there has been recently about the far more emphasis on factual knowledge, especially young children, need it to make history of Britain. When that most respect- including the lives of kings and queens". sense of the world and its past". ed historian, Richard J. Evans, Regius Facts are the essential thing here and Evans Evans argues that "narrative is unreli- Professor of History at Cambridge, Presi- is concerned that the whole enterprise is able", but doesn't mention the degree of dent of Wolfson College and author up-playing an essentialist "Britain centred subjective judgement involved in selecting amongst other books of In Defence Of narrative". And ultimately it will be a and using historical evidence in the class- History, wrote a piece about the subject in "celebratory history", for how otherwise room. He sees the "transmission and the London Review of Books, Vol. 33, No. "could it serve as the cement of national regurgitation" of facts as "calamitous", 6, 17th March 2011, such was the blow- identity"? but "fails to acknowledge the extent of back from letter-writers that even I was But surely Evans argues that British factual ignorance revealed in survey after taken aback at the swell of opinions. Evans society is a multi-ethnic one and therefore survey". began by quoting Michael Gove, the its history should reflect that fact? As he And so it went but—whatever the nature Secretary for Education, who addressed goes on to further elucidate: of polite discourse—what seems most the Tory Party Conference last October: "National identity is a complex, many- definite to this reader is that Anglo-centric "One of the under-appreciated tragedies layered thing, and to treat it as if it were History is now prevalent in Irish schools of our time has been the sundering of our simply and exclusively the culmination of a and academia. The island-theme is not society from its past. Children are growing centuries-long march of events within the Ireland but England and our Oxbridge- up ignorant of one of the most inspiring narrow confines of the British Isles is a educated historians are not in the least stories I know—the history of our United radically ignorant form of dumbing down." apologetic—they positively glow in their Kingdom. Our history has moments of "History is by its nature a critical, orientation. The Irish Daily Mail, 22nd pride, and shame, but unless we fully sceptical discipline. Historians commonly April 2011, laments that somebody "put understand the struggles of the past we see one of their main tasks as puncturing gunpowder and glass in a drink bottle and will not properly value the liberties of the myths, demolishing orthodoxies and present. The current approach we have to tried to blow up the Wellington monument exposing politically motivated narratives history denies children the opportunity to in Trim, Co. Meath. There was only some that advance spurious claims to hear our island story. Children are given minor scorching to the statue but the objectivity. Schama advocates the return a mix of topics at primary, a cursory run Defence Forces attended the scene and of “storytelling in the classroom” as the through Henry VIII and Hitler at sealed it off before making the area safe." “necessary condition” of debate and secondary and many give up the subject Having driven to Trim some two years analysis since distinctions can be made at 14, without knowing how the vivid ago, away in the distance I saw this formid- “between just and unjust conflicts” and episodes of our past become a connected able statue rising over the hinterland of students can develop “analytical know- narrative. Well, this trashing of our past this lovely County and thought it was ledge of the nature of power”. has to stop." some Irish hero. When we stopped and I But Evans, Gove, Schama and their got out to look, there loomed hugely this Simon Schama is the person tasked stone monument to the loser of the Battle allies are confusing history with memory. with the job of putting things right and, as of Waterloo. Had not the great Prussian Gove stated, he "has agreed to advise us "History is a critical academic discip- General Blucher arrived at 2 pm and saved on how we can put British history at the line whose aims include precisely the Wellington's bacon, it would have been heart of a revived national curriculum". interrogation of memory and the myths it curtains for him. The Irish Daily Mail Evans gave a side-swipe at Schama by generated. It really does matter to noted that, though he had been born in referring to him as teaching in New York. historians that there isn't any evidence Ireland, "he denied his Irish roots" and But anyhow Evans says that "the first task that Alfred burned the cakes, or that famously said: "Being born in a stable of the curriculum", as Gove and Schama Nelson and Wellington weren't national does not make one a horse". 21 "He changed his name from Wesley to collapses into Sinn Fein and Unionism is Wellesley and was a powerful but not Editorial Digest, split down the middle. By attacking the popular landowner in Ireland, he was DUP for not being sectarian enough, Elliott deeply disliked by the 19th century Northern Elections is trying to stem the flow of voters to the community and has long been a hate On 5th May Northern Ireland voters will DUP. But mostly he is worried about figure among hard-line Irish Republicans. decide three different matters. Apart being outflanked on the 'right' by the Christened the 'Iron Duke' Wellington from elections to the Northern Ireland Unionist dissidents of the Traditional served as British prime minister from Assembly, and to Local Government, Unionist Voice (TUV). 1828-1830. His death in 1852 was marked there will be participation in the UK For a while the DUP was also worried by a grand funeral and the honour of a Referendum on the Alternative Vote about the TUV. But then, at the General burial in St. Paul's cathedral alongside Election, Ian Paisley Jnr. wiped the floor system. If this referendum is carried, Lord Nelson." with the TUV's leader, Jim Allister, in there will be proportional representation Fittingly or not—this piece was filed North Antrim. in Single Member Constituencies (as DUP joins the bigots? The early days of the by Ali Bracken, the Crime Correspondent happens currently in Dail By-eletions) in election campaign saw the UUP and the for the Irish Daily Mail. elections to the Westminster Parliament. TUV concentrating on the bogeymen of Assembly Elections Martin McGuinness becoming First Mini- MIKHAIL GORBACHEV Numbers of candidates. There are 218 ster. This is something beyond the bounds Hello magazine, No 1169, 11th April candidates for 108 seats—theoretically of possibility and those who want to keep 2011 celebrated the former Soviet leader's giving everyone almost a 2 in 1 chance of sectarianism at the centre of Northern 80th Birthday in style. The Nobel Peace a seat, but in reality meaning that most of politics know this very well. Prize laureate marked his personal mile- the main party candidates will be elected. Ulster Unionist Assembly candidate for stone with a glittering gala concert and The DUP has 44 standing; Sinn Fein 40; Fermanagh/South Tyrone, Kenny awards ceremony which cost a reputed £3 the UUP 29; SDLP 28; Alliance 22; TUV Donaldson, wrote a letter to the Belfast million and was attended by VIP guests, 12; Green 6; UKIP 6; People Before Profit Telegraph (7th April) ostensibly condemn- including former Californian Governor (SWP) 4; Socialist Party (Militant) 3; BNP ing the killing of Constable Kerr and Arnold Schwarzenegger, Israeli President 3. There are 15 Independents. extending his sympathies. But the bulk of Shimon Peres, Earl Spencer, the former Of much interest is the fact that there the letter was making a 'case' for pinning UK Prime Minister Sir John Major, and will be no UUP candidate in Foyle (Derry). the blame for the killing on Sinn Fein. This was not a one-off. Since Constable many more luminaries of world politics, The Party muttered something about not getting papers in on time. But the dogs in Kerr's death there has been a constant movies and industry. Billed as Mikhail the street know that Michael McGimpsey's stream of letter to the papers pushing the Gorbachev: The Man Who Changed the cancellation of the proposed local cancer same line. Some, like that from Mr. Don- World, the gala was held in London's unit would lead to a humiliating votr for aldson, acknowledge their authors' UUP Royal Albert Hall. Tickets sold like the UUP in the area. (It should be noted affiliation. Others appear to be from private wildfire with the glamorous audience that Stormont Ministers are effectively citizens—but these are usually paying anything from £195 to £100,000 mini-Prime Ministers in their autonomous recognisable as coming from inveterate for seats or an exclusive box and giving Departments. So any credit or blame is UUP letter writers. Mikhail repeated standing ovations. The theirs and theirs alone.) Jim Allister of the TUV got in on the act on American movie actor and Oscar winner Who are real sectarians? The Saint 8th April, with letters to the Belfast Kevin Spacey said: "I think you could look Andrews Agreement decided that the First Telegraph and the News Letter—old Jim around the world now and you see that Minister should come from the largest is slowing down a bit! After a lot of other there are still people fighting for freedom Part rather the, as was then the case, from stuff, he says: "The organisation that and there is a kind of a direct link to the largest designation. To ensure weighted murdered Constable Kerr shares the same Mikhail Gorbachev. And yet I don't think voting, all MLAs must designate DNA as IRA/Sinn Fein, the same goal and he's received the kind of due or kind of themselves Unionist, Nationalist or Other. the same methodology". respect or kind of adulation that I think he For the moment at least the largest desig- Majority voting. The TUV wants majority deserves." Arnold Schwarzenegger said nation is Unionist—of whatever hue. Tom rule in Stormont. The DUP wants laws Mikhail "is widely credited with laying Elliott, leader of what is left of the Ulster passed provided the proposers get a 65% the foundations for Russia's transition to Unionist Party, has been attacking the majority. It is highly unlikely that the the democracy and helping to end the Cold DUP for its agreement to de-sectarianise real government, the British Government, War in the late 1980's and early 90's". the selection of the First Minister and will permit either of these proposals. allowing for the possibility of a Sinn Fein Guests at the high-security event also Unionist pacts against Sinn Fein have been First Minister. Here is the "moderate" urged from many in both the UUP and the included fellow Nobel Peace Prize winner bigot on his web site on 25th March: and former Polish President Lech Walesa, DUP. But these have only come to fruition who referred to the ground-breaking "The fact is that the possibility of Sinn in West Belfast and North Belfast. How- Fein ever taking the First Minister's post negotiations he had with Mikhail during ever, the UUP, in particular, is relying on only emerged following the legislation transfers from the SDLP, especially in that time. Proceeds from the evening, which resulted from the DUP/Sinn Fein which also included video messages from areas like South Down, or from the Alliance deal at St. Andrews... Following the deal Party in areas like East Belfast and South Bill Clinton, Sting and Bono, went to the done... the rules inexplicably changed and Belfast. Raisa Gorbachev Children's Institute and the First Minister will now be drawn from Macmillian Cancer Support. The ex-Soviet the largest Party, irrespective of designation." In their latest spat the UUP has condemned President used the evening to introduce the DUP for "achieving nothing" in govern- Until 11th April the DUP more or less ment. The DUP has replied that it {along the inaugural annual Gorbachev Awards stayed out of all this. But then Peter with Sinn Fein, of course!} achieved many to his personally chosen winners "who Robinson, fearing he was being out- things, some of which we include here: included CNN founder Ted Turner, World Unionated, unfortunately joined in the fray free travel on bus and rail for over-60s; Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee and and said that people on the doorstep were regional rates frozen for three years; water Kenyan engineer Evans Wadongo, 25 who very worried about this matter and there- charges deferred indefinitely; largest single developed an inexpensive solar lamp that fore so was he! Let's hope this is a passing investment in Northern Ireland, £520m, has helped change the lives of tens of phase. creating 800 jobs; £150 to each of 150,000 thousands of Africans". The only way there could be a Sinn households to help with heating over the Julianne Herlihy © Fein First Minister is if the SDLP vote cold Winter; free prescriptions for every- 22 one; 800 new homes last year; and on and prisons. Three such charities are called: industry already employs 90,000 people. on. Forty measures in all. Egg appeared No More Prison; Revolving Doors; and The UFU supports a British House of on the face of the UUP. The SDLP seems Unlock. Should be interesting! The DUP Commons report on the CAP. Its President, wisely to have stayed out of it. rules out water charges in this Assembly. John Thompson, said: The SDLP launched its election campaign It wants the devolution of Corporation "We are particularly pleased that it on 7h April in Belfast's Hilton Hotel. Tax, focus on renewable energy and the concludes that the first objective of the Margaret 'Poppy' Ritchie gave a long agri-food business, automatic benefit CAP, should be to maintain and enhance rambling speech promising, well, nice payment to pensioners and others on the EU's capacityto produce food with a significant degree of self sufficiency... the things. According to the Newsletter, she benefits. UK should press for the EU to argue more "pledged to make Northern Ireland a better Sinn Fein policies: A levy of £400m on strongly for recognition of environmental place", and "said that the Party was local banks, international accessibility to and animal welfare standards within trade 'brimming over with ideas'". That sort of all British documents relating to collusion agreements otherwise when consumers buy thing. The SDLP said that it is running 28 and deaths during the war, a new cancer cheap food imports produced to lower Assembly candidates and 150 local unit for Derry, no water charges, regenera- standards, the EU is effectively exporting Government candidates. That must be tion of the Maze site, reinstate the 50/50 the adverse environmental impacts which it near enough the entire membership! policy on police recruiting, no increase in wants to avoid." SDLP, Derry. The following is part of a the cap on tuition fees and a referendum on The Conservative Party position on the letter that appeared in the Derry Journal, a United Ireland. May elections to Stormont is wierd. Here 8th April, under a pseudonym: Gerry Adams has called for a 32-county is Lord Feldman at a recent Tory dinner in "...the article in last Tuesday's Derry referendum on unity, which he knows the Province: Journal by Pol Callaghan [SDLP] is without damn well will not happen. But Margaret "The truth is that we all want to see a doubt the best case of delusional thinking I Ritchie has called for a 6-county referen- politics which is more relevant an responsive have seen since Comical Ali claimed victory dum which could easily happen—at the to the needs of people in Northern Ireland, in Baghdad. stroke of the Secretary of State's pen—and and we all want to see a politics which is "Mr. Callaghan tells us that the election especially now when there is, just, the more credible, more constructive, and more results in the south 'bodes well for the chance of a Unionist majority. But what long-term. So today, let us make this pledge SDLP''. The SDLP have been inextricably would happen if there was a nationalist to Northern Ireland: our party will offer that linked to Fianna Fail for years, even to the victory? The British Government certainly new politics... by working together, we can point of contemplating merging not that wouldn't force unity. The Protestants would make sure that more and more people in long ago. In recent elections in the North oppose it, by armed force if necessary, no Northern Ireland go into the polling booth we have been tripping over Fianna Fail and vote Conservative." (Newsletter, 6 April) ministers and politicians canvassing for the matter how many poppies Ritchie wears. And one thing the Protestants are not short The Conservative Party is not contesting SDLP while every SDLP election leaflet the Stormont election!!! that fell through our doors had the obligatory of is guns. Ann Cooper was a candidate for the Tradi- photo with Brian Cowen or Bertie Ahern. It SDLP policies include re-introducing pres- wasn’t that long ago that Pol Callaghan was cription charges, more private finance in tional Unionist Voice in a by-election last boasting that Brian Cowen congratulated the provision of social housing, devolution year in Castlereagh. A case arose when him on his co-option to the Assembly. of tax-varying powers, cutting the number Revenue and Customs staff were caught "The irony of this article is that Margaret of MLAs and a vast range of pious wishes. witholding payment of benefits to people Ritchie, leader of the SDLP, has said Alliance Party and Greens want to bring in from ethnic minorities. Ann sent the recently that the 'SDLP doesn’t interfere in water charges. The Greens also want to culprits a message: "Well done lads. Sorry IRISH politics'. Yet we have Pol Callaghan reduce the number of MLAs from 108 to you got caught. You deserve a medal. We claiming victory and attempting to align 80, a moratorium on road building (which need more like you." the SDLP to Fine Gael and Labour, the would come as relief to the South which She has now switched parties and is parties that have just announced water seems to pay for most of it), and a crash standing for the British National Party in charges, 25,000 public sector job cuts and home insulation programme employing East Belfast. We seem to remember the privatisation of state assets—to name a 15,000 people. Alliance wants 20% of UDA leader, Jackie McDonald, announ- few... if I were Pol Callaghan and his children in integrated schools by 2020, cing at the time of attacks on Roma people colleagues in the SDLP I would be cautious less tolerance for illegally erected flags in South Belfast that there would be hell to in looking for green shoots of recovery on and emblems, Stormont Departments pay if the fascist BNP tried organisind in the backs of the Irish Coalition for Cuts." down from 12 to 8, like the Greens, MLAs Belfast. Now we'll see if he was serious. Margaret 'Poppy' Ritchie appears to want down from 108 to 80, minimum pricing of (According to the Belfast Telegraph, 13th to have her cake and eat it. She is insisting alcohol, and holding down student fees. April, The BNP has 39 members in the that the British Government guarantees An Election Debate was held on UTV on North.) funding for the North for the next 25 years, April 20th. The consensus among the Health Policy has caused a spat between even if there is a United Ireland in the Belfast newspapers was that Robinson unionists. Michael McGimpsey, UUP meantime! (News Letter, 16th April). On and McGuinness gave a very good account Minister for Health, got into trouble for the banks, she states: "As for Martin of themselves, while Elliott, Ritchie, and cancelling a planned radiography unit at [McGuinness] his big idea is another levy especially Ford, did quite badly. Altnegelvin Hospital in Derry. ( He now on the local banks—£400m over the Budget The Ulster Farmers' Union has submitted says he has changed his mind and may period. Does he not realise that while it a manifesto to all parties. At the core of revive the plan by 2016.) He said he did might be populist and a clever stroke to to this is the retention and non-dilution of the not get enough money. Pater Robinson, have a pop at the banks our four local Common Agricultural Policy. Other issues DUP leader, said there was a constant banks are in no position to pay" Poor include land eligibility, the future of less increase in the health budget, which there banks! favoured areas, a Department Of Agricul- is, and that he was going to see that the unit The Alliance Party's main proposals are ture and Rural Development budget for was opened. that the public housing organisation, the 2011-14, groceries code adjudicator, In an otherwise meaningless debate Housing Executive gets involved in the animal/plant health, better regulation , and organised by the so-called voluntary sector, provision of private housing; new rules climate change. DUP health spokesman said that the last against the display of flags; a 20% target "It has been estimated that with proper four years have been characterised by for pupils attending integrated schools; support and investment the Northern Ireland record levels of investment: "They have more mixed housing estates. agri-food business could grow its sales by also been marked by a failure to deliver on DUP policies. The most startling one is 40% over the next 10 years and create up to much needed reforms by the minister". Peter Robinson's proposal the charities 15,000 new jobs over that period." Including The possible nature of such reforms? "Sinn and private companies should run the peripheral jobs, the UFU estimates that the Fein's Caral Ní Chuilin called for 23 consultants' salaries and bonuses to be Margaret 'Poppy' Ritchie, announcing the The Irish News (7th April) announced the capped to allow monies to be redistributed postponement of the SDLPs election press 1,000 people had gathered in front of in the health service." [Belfast Telegraph, conference, said: "Now is not the time for Belfast City Hall the previous day to protest 8th April] party politicking or electioneering". against the killing of Ronan Kerr. The A recent investigation in the South found Which was, of course, itself a fine bit of Dublin Evening Herald said there were that money was being poured into the party politicking and electioneering. It 7,000 people. Both were wrong. The health service, only to be sucked out again was designed to put down Sinn Fein's protest at the City Hall was a Trade Union by consultants, managers and others such decision to go ahead with its press protest against cuts in education and the as lawyers leeching off the service. The conference on the grounds that the incident banner on the platform clearly labeled it as same is true, though to a much lesser should not be allowed to interfere with the such. At the beginning, protesters were extent, in the North, though there has yet democratic process. read a tribute to Constable Kerr and the been no proper investigation. There have, Alex Maskey, Sinn Fein Leader, has Belfast Telegraph distributed posters based however, been several investigations protested about the length of time the on its front page among several people showing Health Executives and Consult- suspects in the Ronan Kerr killing have which it then proceeded to photograph. It ants swanning around the world on huge been held without charge for questioning. is perfectly possible that most or all of expenses, with photographs showing their One since April 2nd, another since April those present sympathised with Ronan lavish homes and lifestyles. 5th, and the third since April 8th. As this Kerr. No one can tell. Care for the elderly has been taken up by is being written the police have applied for Attendence at Mass for Constable Kerr by Peter Robinson. He complains that 50% a further 6 days in all cases. The police Orange Order and UUP leaders, Tom Elliot of such care in the North is provided thinking is clear. After one week, most and Danny Kennedy, is to be overlooked publicly, compared to only 20% in Great people will crack and confess to anything. by the Orange Order, according to all the Britain. Though he congratulates the South If they don't, then they must be really Belfast paper, at least this once. Over- Eastern Health Board for matching the "hard men" and need to be detained for looked but not condoned. (This writer has British figures. He goes on: "Opening up longer. (Two of the prisoners held over not yet been able to find out whether social care to proper tendering and allow- the Kerr killing have, as we go to press, Ellion actually went to mass or merely ing the most cost-effective provision is been released "unconditionally". No attended the funeral.) The official position clearly essential." Either Mr. Robinson surprise there. It was a mixture of the of the Order states: "you should not has never see private care facilities at first usual fishing expedition and intimidation.) countenance by your presence or otherwise hand or he has shares in granny farms. Catholics are now stated to number 30% of any act or ceremony of Popish worship". the PSNI. Whatever one's view of the Orange Reformation is a group within the Local Government Elections killing of Constable Kerr, it is ridiculous Order standing for tradiononal values and There will be contests in the existing 26 to portray him, and other Catholic PSNI against such notions as an Orangefest on Councils. There were proposals to reduce members, as some kind of exceptional the 12th July. It has proposed that Elliot these, firstly to 7, and then to 11, with heroes. Some may well be, others are not. and Kennedy be expelled for attending wonderful titles like North North East and Pay for police officers is among the highest Constable Kerr's funeral: "We believe the such like. There was no question of creating in the North. It is the standing down of the Roman Catholic mass is blasphemous and Councils on the basis of areas that people Provisional IRA plus a very high salary an affront to the once-and-for-all sacrifice could identify with—such as the six Coun- that has been attracting most Catholic of Christ on the cross No Protestant ties plus city Councils for Belfast and recruits and only seldom some sense of should ever attend Roman Catholic wor- Derry. But, it was objected, Fermanagh social duty. ship. We call for these members to be has a much smaller population than Antrim. Cardinal Brady, head of the Catholic expelled from the Orange institution, along So What? This doesn't affect the Church in Ireland, said: "I'm calling on with others who have recently met with the workings of areas in, say, Germany or Catholic parents and teachers to Parades Commission, contrary to Grand Spain. But the North seems to have picked encourage their children to consider this Lodge policy. Rules are rules and they up the anally retentive attitudes of England [joining the PSNI] as their vocation in life. must be upheld." where, a good few years ago, local author- I'm also calling on people if they have any Peter Robinson, who attended, is not an ities were "evened up", and places like information about this crime to report it." Orangeman. But he has received criticism Huntingdonshhire, with which people Bishop of Derry, Seamus Hegarty, said: from the Free Presbyterian Church. The could identify, were abolished. "This crime against a man who served and Rev. Ian Paisley, however, has refused to protected the public, is a crime against all comment on Robinson's attendance. Constable Kerr in our society... I reiterate my support, Free Presbyterian Minister in Lurgan, Rev. Ronan Kerr, a Catholic member of the both personally and as the Bishop of the David Creane says: "The sight of Protestant PSNI, was killed by an under-car bomb Diocese of Derry, for those who serve the church leaders, politicians and Orange- near Omagh on 2nd April. There has been community as police officers and the right men standing shoulder to shoulder with much talk about avoiding a "return to the of young men and women to join the police." IRA/Sinn Fein at the requiem mass in past". But there has been already one Interestingly these comments appeared Beragh last week was deeply saddening." "return to the past". This is in the hysterical only in the Belfast News Letter. By and His colleague, Rev. John Greer of Bally- and mindless competition among politi- large the two Protestant papers have been mena, added: "They were present for an cians, media pundits and others, to see relatively measured. The Catholic Irish act of idolatry and therefore they were who can sound most publicly "outraged". News has lost the head altogether. guilty". Though not a member of the FPC, In the past the Alliance Party always won Ulster GAA President, Aogan Ó Fearghail, the TUV's leader, Jim Allister. is a regular this competition hands down. Sinn Fein said: "We believe that any civilised society attendee at the the Rev. Greer's service. also condemned the killing of Constable needs a police force and we are committed Martin McGuinness has been criticised by Kerr and, apart from the dissideng wing of to seeing that people who come from a opponents for claiming that Ronan Kerr Unionism, this was accepted as sincere. nationalist background would remain and was a Sinn Fein voter on the grounds that But Sinn Fein refused to feed the down- be committed to a policing service". Bar- he was using the man's death, and the market media feeding frenzy and were agh GAA Club Chairman, Gearóid Ó Trea- sympathy it engendered, for electoral measured and constructive about the whole saigh, stated: "Ronan Kerr was a Catholic purposes. McGuinness said: "I don't thing. The Irish News devoted its first 13 and a Gael, who joined the PSNI because think I was politicising his death. It has pages (4th April) to the incident, the Belfast he wanted to play his part in making our never been contested that he was an Telegraph, 9 pages. To be fair, the Tele- society a better place. Many members of Irishman, that he was nationalist-minded, graph carried a couple of reasonable articles our club were aware of Ronan's career that he was republican-minded, that he about possible dialogue with the path and supported on his choice." (Ronan was a supporter of the GAA." Not quite "dissidents". Kerr had played for Baragh as a teenager.) proof that he was a Sinn Fein voter, though. 24 Reader's Letter With The Economics Of Partition, and So there is no doubt of his view on such most importantly for me, the ICO pamphlet cleansing. Indeed he adds the conflict in arguing the Two Nations Theory against the north also failed his ethnic cleansing On Peter Hart Michael Farrell, a convincing case was test. And Other Matters made against Irish nationalism's core ana- Talking however of errors, Niall lysis. The pamphlets' persuasive argu- Meehan writes of "just one veteran of the ments created a reasoned way out for me. ambush, Ned Young" being alive in 1998, I ask if I may reply in the first instance Mental breakdown was another route. I while the Southern Star carries a picture to Brendan Clifford's article Hard On could name a couple of dozen people who of Young in a December 1989 article and Hart which responded to my letter in the were spared by those writings and several describes him as "Ned Young, Dunman- November 2010 issue of the Irish Political who went the breakdown route. way, one of the few surviving veterans". Review, and largely leave Niall Meehan's I honestly believe as a consequence of Ned Young, who it is said could not challenge on the Dunmanway massacre to Athol Street's efforts, many lives were have been interviewed by Hart as he was another time? saved because of the Provisional IRA and incapacitated or later dead, passed away Brendan Clifford is surprised at me its Trotskyite allies not having a monopoly in November 1989. writing I was not "aware of the level of of left wing views in Ireland or any radical violence inflicted on southern Protestants Protestant support. The effectiveness of Saying of the Dunmanway killings that in the 1916-23 period". their efforts was significantly reduced and "there is not a shred of evidence that they The key word is "level". I was aware in their efforts were legion. were done by the IRA" is like saying the 1969 (the time of awareness he refers to) The fact that the Two Nations Theory Northern Bank robbery was not the modern that southern Protestants had experienced became so popular in Belfast amongst IRA's work. violence, indeed that their population had young radicals from both Catholic and No-one else in Cork in that time except been decimated, particularly in the border Protestant backgrounds—perhaps a third the IRA, operating as the IRA, or as un- areas. I did not know the details although of the PD adherents adopted the position— official sectarian killers, had the organis- this was only 45 years previously, hardly was hugely significant, if largely unnoticed ation and discipline to kill ten Protestants a greater distance in time than the late or commented upon since. in a couple of nights and it is silly to 1960s are to the present! It was, as stated, but rarely grasped, pretend otherwise. My reading then would have included still a theory. The Ulster Protestants had The question here is not who killed Paul Blanshard's book The Irish And the potential to be a separate Irish nation, them but were they cruel sectarian murders Catholic Power, so I knew much more it was argued, but had not then chosen to designed to avenge and to terrorise. And about the difficulties southern Protestants so become. They remained British. why is the oft-quoted list of informers faced after partition. Events before were The Provisionals thus failed to prosper inaccessible to modern researchers? 'history' to me as dead as were the events to the degree they might have. The pity is They were certainly successful in the in Belfast of the 1920s. that re-assessment of one-nation certainties terrorising case. Just as the student revo- Since then, books like Alan Parkinson's, never occurred in the broader nationalist lutionaries were culpable for unwittingly Belfast's Unholy War: The Troubles of the community to any extent (and particularly starting a sectarian war, so were Repub- 1920s (2004), have opened up that period. not amongst trade unionists and the licans and their allies, whose fight for Gerard Murphy's book The Year Of controlling Communist Party of Northern Irish independence led, down the military Disappearances has now done the same Ireland (CPNI)). food chain, to sectarian violence and for Cork. Despite inevitable criticism for We had a very long war, as a result and population shift, despite their diet of Wolfe certain speculative conclusions, he partly because London effectively con- Tone's uniting of Catholic, Protestant and provides a wealth of shocking detail. ceded to the politics of the IRA and Dissenter. The scale and intensity of the killings in nationalism, despite never being able to The reduction in the Protestant popula- both cities is disturbing, and the fact that concede militarily. That concession dates tion in Northern Ireland is the greatest they went largely unrecorded in a narrative back to partition for all British parties, and achievement of Gerry Adams and the IRA. or historical sense since is surprising. Andy to Gladstone for the Liberals and the And perhaps also from 1919-23 in the Boyd's Holy War In Belfast was almost a successor Labour Party. south, except for the installation of an set text in 1969, yet it only dealt with 19th It was the CPNI's iron grip on the entirely new ruling class which has only century violence. unions that ultimately blocked the attempt this year been consigned to history, like of the Campaign for Labour Represent- Redmond's Irish Party. We are in many Brendan Clifford points outs that BICO ation to make the necessary headway. ways returning to 1911. wisely warned the student revolutionaries With no Labour Party, there was no of People's Democracy in 1969 saying, alternative outlet for politically-minded Did Peter Hart "look for facts to hang a "the factual circumstances would if they working class activists. pre-conceived view on"? Perhaps. Most succeeded in unsettling the situation lead historians and commentators seem to. to Protestant/Catholic conflict and not to In relation to Niall Meehan in his However that is not to say that he ignored socialist revolution". Spinwatch article (and related one in the details that took away from any expected Student revolutionaries do not think of IPR) pointing out my error of transposing or hoped-for conclusion. consequences, especially when they are Peter Hart's book title, The IRA And Its Facts do "matter" but errors are in- not historically minded. This is true of Enemies with that of his The IRA At War, evitable. Single disputed facts like the most young people. They do anger instead. I plead guilty. "dead" witness are rarely enough to base an argument against a book on, and that is BICO unquestionably provided an However the phrase of Hart's I quoted, my criticism of those who rely on com- intellectual and actual refuge for many "what might be termed ethnic cleansing", plaining about so few errors. such radicals and revolutionaries, both was in the latter book, also appearing, as Catholic and Protestant. They were Niall states, in Hart's replica chapter in Cllr. Sean Twomey at a meeting of recognising that their protests, especially Unionism In Modern Ireland. Macroom Urban District Council, that the insistence on the right to march through On page 246 of The IRA At War, Hart was reported in the Southern Star on 20th Protestant areas, had not just aroused did definitively declare "what happened November 1971, suggested of Unionists sectarianism, but had helped to generate a in southern Ireland did not constitute that "these people were not Irish and were war. ethnic cleansing" and then explains why. in the wrong country. They should be 25 repatriated the same as happened to the uage bore traces of where it had come of one-nation certainties never occurred French in Algeria. France was a bigger from, because that is in the nature of in the broader nationalist community." and stronger country today for doing." language. The Provos failed to prosper!! If this was the view in 1971, it is plain What I wrote was found to be readable The Ulster Protestants remained it was a view held to a greater degree in the by three sides of the four-sided situation. British!!! same area in 1921. There was a phase in which Whitehall The 'Two Nations Theory' remained a The decline in the Protestant population could not do without it. The minds that theory!!!! in Cork between the censuses of 1911 and were tightly closed against it were Jack 1926 was some 49% in Cork City and Lynch's Government and the Opposition The Provos destroyed the Northern 40% in the county. This massive fall is that had it on the run. But where it had Ireland system in 1972. They established indicative of a near-complete loss of some practical effect was in the Northern at least consultative rights for the Dublin confidence by that community, especially Catholic community. And it would have Government in Northern Ireland affairs in on the part of less well-off Protestants. had considerably greater effect there if it 1985. And they gained a devolved system It did not end then, as there was a had had any real effect in the Protestant in Northern Ireland in which the majority recrudescence of anti-Protestant action in community. Maybe it did ward off some does not rule, and established a substantial 1935 when Dunmanway featured again. nervous breakdowns, but I was not a presence in 26 County politics when the (Read the Sunday Independent article by therapist. A mere handful of Protestants 26 County parties wanted to have done Tim Fanning of 22 February 2009). got a practical political grasp of the with all-Ireland politics. situation. Two Nations only a 'theory'? With the There is much more I could write but I I went on to unearth the political culture new Northern Ireland system structured wish first to prove I am not shirking a of the Ulster Plantation and its Antrim/ on the assumption that it states a fact! And charge of avoiding challenges. Down precursor. I did this for my own with the Constitutional nationalists, who Jeff Dudgeon benefit, and I got a lot from Steel Dickson declared in 1970 that the Ulster Protestants (DU Seanad candidate). 7 April 2011 and John Paul. Contemporary Protestant were part of an Irish nation, and that it Ulster took no more interest in this than would bring out the Irish nationalism in Reply did nationalist Ireland. I got to understand them, having failed to gain a single recruit why this was so. Protestant Ulster re- that I heard of. A Unionist Going South made itself in the most thorough religious Nostalgia about forty years ago has If Dudgeon means that the Ulster event that ever happened in Ireland: the Protestants did not declare UDI [Unilateral little relevance for today. It might be that 1859 Revival. Its living literature all what I wrote then had some effect in Declaration of Independence]—then in related in one way or another to that event. 1974 I used up whatever credibility I had enabling some Ulster Protestants to remain All that went before—the burden of the blinkered Unionists when they might gained with them in 1969 to deter them history of a century and a half, which from that course of action when the Secre- otherwise have suffered nervous break- included Enlightenment, Volunteering, downs. Martin Mansergh has laid it against tary of State was encouraging them United Irishmen, Orange Opposition to towards it. My pamphlet Against Ulster me that I saved Ulster Unionism when it the Union, the foundation of a Belfast was on the verge of collapse. Perhaps Nationalism, had a wide circulation in University by self-help, the campaign for 1974. some specks of middle class froth on the Catholic Emancipation, the traumatic entry surface were in danger of being blown (Around 1975 I spoke at a London into Parliamentary politics after 1832— Conference on Northern Ireland organised away and they were saved and restored to all that was sloughed off in the amazing Unionist communalism by what I wrote. by the Greater London Council and was religious event of 1859. I found out this at asked what I thought of the prospects for It seems that that is what happened to the Evengelical bookshop facing the Jeffrey Dudgeon. But I had little concern Ulster nationalism. I said I had done my Academical Institution. The Institution is best to destroy them and I thought the with the sense of well-being of finicky a collapsed University, constructed by the elements in Unionism. danger was past. In the course of discus- United Irish generation in the process of sion, it turned out that the term was being If Ulster Unionism had been on the its decline. The 'Athens of the North' was verge of collapse, I would have let it used in two entirely different senses. The a flash in the pan of history. It gave way questioner meant Ulster Protestants bec- collapse. to the Ulster of the Bible and the Empire, What I was concerned about was a oming Irish nationalists, while I meant the as displayed in one of the Orange banner Ulsterish nationalism that was being situation, not one of the elements that on the Twelfth. And now the Empire is constituted the situation. I did my best to promoted by the Northern Ireland Office gone. (or Whitehall) amongst the Protestant describe the situation, so that those Anybody who is not at ease with the engaged in it might take reasonable paramilitaries. Merlyn Rees, disgruntled Bible and the Empire is a lost soul in post- by his failure to break the Ulster Workers' account of elements of it about which they 1859 Ulster. A handful of middle-class had very mistaken ideas. Council Strike, and begin the process of Presbyterian families stood apart, fastid- establishing a United Ireland, sought to What I wrote was obviously written by iously, from the vulgar spirit that has a Republican—somebody who was a persuade Loyalists that Britain intended driven Ulster in the past century and a to ditch the Six Counties and they had product of the Republican culture of the half, and they were lost souls. A.T.Q. Munster countryside, but who in accord- better begin to make their own arrange- Stewart was one of them. I have known ments for an Ulster State. With the backing ance with the spirit of that culture felt others. there was nothing he could not do if he had of Whitehall, there seemed to be some a mind to do it. (An Craoibhin Aoibhinn, Dudgeon says that it was significant possibility of a serious Loyalist develop- a Protestant gentleman, imbibed the spirit that the 'Two Nations Theory' became ment on those lines. The possibility of of that culture from the Connacht peasants: popular with young Catholic and Protest- Ulster Protestants becoming Irish nation- "Ni raibh rud ar bith so domhan nach ant radicals, but remained a theory: alists was, as ever, nil.) dearfhein mar ba mhaith liom e" *). So I "The Ulster Protestants had the poten- What might the Northern Catholics have wrote an impartial, objective account of tial to be a separate Irish nation, it was done if they had discarded 'one nation the situation—but one in which the lang- argued, but had not chosen so to become. certainties'? What else was there for them They remained British. The Provisionals to be than Anti-Partitionists? That was * There wasn't anything in the world that I thus failed to prosper to the degree they something Ulster Unionists never grasped couldn't do if I liked. might have. The pity is that re-assessment —not even Dudgeon, apparently, for all 26 that he hung around Athol St. for many At a critical point McCartney organised time as they regarded BICO as crudely years. a big meeting in Ulster Hall and made a dogmatic because it did not follow the speech which put off a number of Catholics most recent fashion in Marxism-Leninism, So there are two nations. So what! who had come along to see for themselves invented by Louis Althusser. I had no That was a reasonable question. In the that there really was a new departure in time either for Althusser or for the first instance I hoped that Dublin would which they might take part. This was the 'nuancing' of a stark situation. take on board the fact of actual national first speech he made in that context that Lord Bew and Professor Patterson then division, discard the sovereignty claim, was not written for him, at least in outline, tried to recruit a group of academics in and begin a process of rapprochement on by David Morrison or myself. A mild order to do 'entryism' in Athol Street. It different terms. Lynch rejected that criticism of it was made in Workers' was a strange idea. Nothing came of it. proposal on the instant, supported by Fine Weekly. McCartney was indignant. He They kept their distance and joined the Gael and Labour, and continued to stir up was not going to be dictated to by BICO. Stickies instead. Which was certainly a Anti-Partition sentiment on the ground of He had asserted his freedom. David and better career move. "one nation certainties", while deploring myself resigned from the CEC. McCartney violence of course. I then proposed that denounced us both at a CEC members' Dudgeon played an active part in the the North should be properly governed meeting as agents of a sinister organisation. destruction of both the CEC and the CLR. within the democracy of the State that He asked why had had not been asked to By destruction I mean reduction to a held it. join that organisation. It was because he Unionist Family context, which was The twenty years I spent on the effort to was free and incorruptible. BICO, Athol achieved through separation from BICO. do that were not entirely wasted. Thanks Street, (whichever), then decided that (In the case of the CLR Hoey, assisted by mainly to David Morrison, that issue people who belonged both to it and the Dudgeon, did this by informal personal became the main discussion point on CEC would have to leave one or the other. appeals to Protestants, and siphoned most Northern radio for about two years (1986- That left the CEC entirely free of sinister of them off, but misjudged some. She set 8) and a political agitation was got up in Athol St. influence. It promptly went into up in its place a merely Unionist body, support of it that angered John Hume, and rapid decline and within months was a which was lavishly funded and soon Dick Spring (Irish Labour). It failed ghost of itself. collapsed. It was called Democracy Now!) because Protestant Ulster would not have I drew up a response to McCartney's I understand that Dudgeon was for a it. But, in the course of failing, it estab- denunciation and sent it to the CEC time a paid worker in the Robert Mc lished that Ulster was not British. So it Executive, suggesting that it be circulated Cartney United Kingdom Unionist Party. was not time wasted. it to the membership and saying that I I don't know what happened there. I took The Six Counties were excluded from would publish it if it wasn't. And I asked no interest in those who retreated to the the political life of the British State, when for a private meeting with a couple of Unionist Family from the attempt to the British State set them up as Northern officers of the CEC to answer to them democratise within the British State. They Ireland in 1921. The Ulster Unionists did McCartney's question of why he had not opted de facto for communal attrition. not like being separated from Britain by been invited to join BICO. Because of the And I accepted around 1991 that com- their own little Home Rule set-up, but the rapid collapse of the CEC I didn't bother munal attrition was all that was possible in British Unionists persuaded them to publishing the document. But maybe its the North, while seeing that Sinn Fein was operate a system that they knew was bad, time has come. the only party that stood for something lest something worse was done to them by beyond that. Britain. And then they were excluded Some years before this, in the early And now Dudgeon, as a Protestant from British political life. We established seventies, BICO had set up an organisation ethnicist, follows Gerry Adams into the seventy years later that they had become called the Workers' Association For The politics of the Republic. My attempt at addicted to their own wee system—even Settlement Of The National Conflict In British democratisation failed. Republican though they had lost it in 1972—and that Ireland to agitate on the Two Nations tenacity is working. they had become incapable of British view. It was free to take on a life of its What political baggage is he taking politics. own, if it was able to. We hoped that it South with him? A denial of the relevance When twenty years of effort began to was. Dudgeon complained that the real of fact to belief, as advocated by ex- achieve a noticeable degree of success, power was in BICO, not in the WA. The Senator Harris, who denounced me as an and to infringe on the comfort zone of only real power was the power of thought. Imperialist/Orange stooge before becom- Protestant communalism, the Unionist Athol Street had a printing machine which ing adviser to diehard communal Union- community exerted itself to crush it. The printed a magazine for the WA without ism. Dudgeon says that the IRA must breaking up of the Campaign for Labour taking any part in the editing. But, since have done the Dunmanway killings and Representation and the Campaign for Dudgeon complained about not being in the Northern Bank robbery, though there Equal Citizenship had nothing to do with BICO—which he had never asked to is not a shred of evidence that they did nationalist opposition. It had to do entirely join—it was put to him that he should join. either, because—well, just because they with Unionist opposition, especially by He refused, on the grounds that he was not must. And the last time I spoke to Lord Unionists who had taken it up as a bright a Stalinist. It was put to him that Athol Bew he said he had no problem believing idea but were disturbed by the prospect of Street was full of people who were not that the IRA switched off the cameras at its realisation. Whether the disturbance Stalinists, including actual Tories; and Castlereagh high-security barracks, was induced by communal pressure or that he would be free to demolish whatever walked in, went straight to the files they arose spontaneously within each indivi- he could find in the way of Stalinism, But wanted, and walked out again, in broad dual, I do not know. he still refused. daylight, without leaving a trace. Well, The WA magazine was conducted by there are believers everywhere, but I The CLR was wrecked by Kate Hoey Lord-to-be Bew and Professor-to-be incline towards the attitude of Doubting MP, its President and its most eminent Patterson. They complained at a WA Thomas in such things. supporter in Britain, and by Alan Johnson, meeting that the BICO position was not Regarding what Sean Twomey said in subsequently a Home Secretary and sufficiently "nuanced". They were free to 1971: somebody is feeding Dudgeon tit- Foreign Secretary. The CEC was wrecked 'nuance' it to their heart's desire in the bits. And it's easy to guess who. Much by Robert McCartney, its President, magazine. But they didn't. They wanted more influential people than Sean Twomey actively assisted by Jeffrey Dudgeon. BICO to 'nuance' it for them—at the same said things like that in 1971. I know. I 27 went around the Republic disputing the public during a Butler Conference in Fintan O'Toole Reflects matter, when Dudgeon's nominator for Kilkenny. I went along to it with Pat the Senate denounced me for it. Muldowney, who had been very active in Fintan O'Toole, the bright boy from the As evidence that it was the IRA that did the attempt to democratise the North as bottom who is paid a vast sum by the top Dunmanway in 1921 (and it is the only part of the British State. His father was people to be an angry guru for the native elite, evidence he adduces), it is absurd. It was Butler's neighbour, and was as industrious has been railing against the corruption of the not 1921, but 1922. And, if the past is a and forward-looking a farmer as one could native system for as long as anyone can remem- different country, then so was 1921 in wish, but had never seen the inside of the ber. The meaning of 'corruption' to the Irish 1922. And in 1922 there was another Butler House. It reminded me of the Times was anything that fell short of com- body in the area which might have done threshing in Stakehill over forty years pletely individualistic meritocracy—a thing the killings, and done them without leaving earlier. that cannot exist and is impossible to measure. a trace within Republicanism in the form The spirit of Ascendancy long outlived On April 11th he turned his anger on the of accusations when the three-way split the fall of landlordism. victims of the crisis of Finance Capitalism. among Republicans over accepting the Canon Sheehan appealed to the former The victims are not the 'poor'—"they are used 'Treaty' was manipulated into 'Civil War' landlords to play the part of Protestant to having their dignity insulted": they expect by Britain a few months later, when no country gentlemen to the peasantry. They nothing else and therefore they are socially inert. holds were barred. Why did none of these refused. From what I know of the North The victims are the middle classes who rival forces amongst Republicans not point Cork peasantry—and I know something expected better and should be enraged when the finger at one another as the 'guilty about them because they produced me things got worse for them. They "should be party'? and I lived as one of them into my twenties out on the streets", but they aren't— Then the decline in the Protestant —I would say that, if the Protestants had "the thwarted generation has so far kept its population since 1911 is adduced as responded to Canon Sheehan's appeal, the rage and despair firmly behind the front doors evidence. I apologise for harping on facts peasants would have appreciated it very of its massively overpriced houses". to a disbeliever in them, but it was the case much, and would have eased them into the that the Protestant population, with few part. But who should the thwarted generation be exceptions, lived a life apart from the Going by my own experience, and by out on the streets raging against? The scape- people. Its status was undermined by the what I have found out, I have to say that I goat has been slain. The Fianna Fail demon 1903 Land Act. The movement which do not think it can be said that the has been put away. Who is there for the brought about the Land Act, thereby Protestants were excluded in any meaning- thwarted generation to rage against, unless it knocking down the supports of the Ascen- ful sense. As a body they refused to play. just bays at the moon, except itself? Whose dancy stratum, appealed to the Protestants The individuals who played got on very business was it, in such a thorough democracy —who clearly could no longer live as they well. (There was not a possible counterpart as Ireland has, to see that the State was run had lived for two centuries—to engage of that for Catholics in the North.) well? Not the poor: "most of those who suffer with the life of the people. For that purpose poverty are ground down by it". And what it broke with Redmond's Home Rule Party, When I went North I tried to get to else was there but the middle class? in which the Catholic Hibernians had know something before I spoofed. And I O'Toole's article is an inarticulate plea for become the organising agent, and appealed spoofed against my own side on the basis a ruling class. But we can't have one. We to the Protestants to join them in a few of ascertainable fact. Dudgeon is going never had one. The English ruling class that departure. It fought the 1910 Elections on South as an ethnicist Know-Nothing who we had for centuries was not part of the the issue of Redmondite sectarianism and takes up Gerard Murphy when even society—any more than its remnant, the Irish took all but one of the Cork seats. But the Professor Fitzpatrick, his ultimate inspirer, Times, is now. In England itself the ruling Protestants on the whole did not respond. disowns him. (And a propos Fitzpatrick: class, which ruled for centuries, engineered a In my area the campaign against I find that he is the younger brother of deferential democratic successor to itself, and Redmondite sectarianism was particularly Sheila Fitzpatrick, an Australian academic vehement and successful. The Redmond- it still exerts a degree of influence. But we specialising in the Soviet Union, who have nobody to supervise us—except the ites did not even contest the second 1910 realised that the reality of things could not mysteriously-financed, mischief-making. Election there. I know of no evidence that be as depicted in Cold War ideology. twelve years later they were rapid anti- And, when he was embarking on an Irish Times. Protestant bigots. Moylan had the tacit academic career, she advised him not to So we must cope as best we can with support of many Protestants in his area, go in for a big subject where the compet- ourselves alone, without rulers, with ignorant and when he said Loyalist he was not ition was tough. Ireland would suit him.) plutocrats, and without those restrictive, understood to mean Protestant. And, corrupting, obscurantist traditions that we thirty years after 1922, I was out of joint Finally. I notice that Dudgeon blames discarded a generation ago. on the score of religion with the community the failure of the CLR on "the CPNI's iron where I lived and would have been happy grip on the unions". We had broken the The free middle class—how was it not to carp. All I recall was indifference in the "iron grip" of the Communist Party (which free?—failed in what was supposed to be its matter of an attitude towards Protestants. was suffering from the end of the Cold historic function. And its angry guru is left And it was my own attitude. The local War and the break-up of the Soviet Union), baying for the moon. Protestant presence was small, and wished and the CLR pressure on the Labour Party Or is for De Valera's Ireland that he is to keep to itself. It was off putting. was increasing fast, when Kate Hoey baying? The Ireland he was active in wiping decided to break up the CLR on a sectarian out? I saw the fall of the last Protestant Big basis and take the Protestants up a cul-de- He is now unhappy about "the rise of neo- House in my part of Slieve Luacra. It was sac. Has would-be Senator Dudgeon really liberalism" and wonders whether he is not a bought by a peasant. All the locals helped forgotten the parts he played in that and in ridiculous person. At least he says: "You have with the first threshing, in order to be the RMcUKUP? to wonder whether the 1960s and its culture of amazed by the relics of Ascendancy life- Oh, bother those facts! protest were entirely ridiculous". style kept up in it until the end. It then Brendan Clifford And he begins to see merit in consensus became a farm-house. and collective action, i.e., in curbing the Available from Athol Books: individualist will in social affairs. Work that About ten years ago Hubert Butler's Against Ulster Nationalism. €10, £7. out, and what you get is what he was railing little Ascendancy house was opened to the The Economics Of Partition. €10, £7. against as corruption only the other day. 28 On my visit to Israel in the 1970s I was to have this discussion again. In Jerusalem A Question Of Jewish Identity I was in a restaurant which had the religious code that meat and milk can't mix. You had your main meal in one section of the I found the article: The Jewish Anti- 'How many?' restaurant and if you ordered coffee with Fascist Committee, Some Context (Irish 'It's full up', said a Soviet Government milk then you moved to the other section. Political Review, April 2011) going some official. Beside this restaurant was the main bus way in opening up the question: why did Early Zionists had thought of the British garage. In walks a mechanic in overalls the Soviet Union back the establishment colony of Uganda as a homeland. The and orders a meal and also orders a coffee of a Jewish homeland on what was Pales- Soviet Government would have been with milk which he wants to put on the tinian land, resulting in murderous ethnic aware of this. So why did they agree to same tray. He is told by the staff he can't cleansing on a massive scale. Are the Jews Palestine being yet another homeland for do this. There is an argument which draws a race or are they only called Jews because the Jews? the attention of two orthodox Jews. They of their faith Judaism? The Soviets during WW2 topped the promptly push him out of the restaurant. It wasn't an issue in the Communist list with a the biggest death-roll of up to 25 He is a Yorkshire man and he is shouting Party of Northern Ireland (CPNI) because million, so, would they be all that con- that he is a Jew as much as they and we were isolated from the small Jewish cerned about another's people's loss even protests that these two professional relig- community of mostly small business men if it was substantial? (German losses were ious men should get a proper job like him. and women whom we tended to think of as to eventually top Jewish losses') If the He managed to hold on to his tray and sat a foreign element who voted Unionist. Soviets, and Russia today, put out as much down on the pavement outside. I was The only Jew I had ever met as a teenager PR about their dead as Zionism I expect curious enough to talk to him even though was a joiner in the Belfast shipyards. He they could have blackmailed the entire he was still in a temper. was said to have been an instructor of world emotionally, especially Britain. He said he had no religion, even back in unarmed combat in the RUC, before In a number of the CP branches we had Sheffield. He said no one in his garage had returning to his trade. His background Polish Jews who had been taken to areas any as well. I began to wonder if Judaism was Yugoslavian, being a deaf-mute he in Siberia for their own safety as the Nazis was a mainly middle-class faith . I didn't was difficult to get to know. rampaged through Poland. These Poles think the building workers and the others The situation was very different in were grateful to the Soviet Union for their doing working-class jobs had much time England. The Soviet act brought the survival. They spoke of working in the for religion. It's doubtful they approved of Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) forests and fishing on the lakes and of the quite sizable section of the population and the Young Communist League (YCL) their friendships with the Siberian people. being full-time religious to such an extent unknowingly into the Zionist sphere. If Many went on to join the Red Army. that many are living on Government bene- we thought about it at all, we would naively Others preferred the British Army. The fits to survive. conclude the Soviets, being the first to Soviets didn't stand in their way and saw I have read Shlomo Sand's: The Inven- liberate the death camps, would make to it they got safe passage by way of Iran. tion of the Jewish People, which delves sure the Jews had a homeland with the Then there were those left-wing Jews into the enormous amount of proselytising ability to defend themselves. Of course who had been in the RAF during WW2 that went on all over Europe for centuries we forget that the Jews already had a and had gone on to fly aircraft, supplied up until the founding of Israel in 1948. My homeland in the shape of Birobidjan, the by Czechoslovakia, in the 1948 drive own personal look at Israel made me see a Jewish Autonomous Oblast (region) in against the Palestinians and their Arab mini United States, multi-racial, excluding the Soviet Far East. The size of Switzer- neighbours. So we had these discussions Palestinians. land, and on the Chinese border, it was in the CP branches and on social occasions You go into a German-Jewish café and first conceived as an idea in 1928 by the during the mid 1950s. They were our they sit a tankard of beer in front of you Bolshevik Government. It still exists and friends and some of us married into Jewish almost automatically. In an Austrian- is expanding with twenty-five new communist families. Jewish patisserie it had to the finest Yiddish-speaking schools built. They The Jews made dynamic left-wingers Austrian cakes. French Jews look French. made a film about their region in 2002 and they were always prepared to go that Dublin Jews, some I met, were just Dublin- with the title: L'Chayim, Comrade Stalin. extra mile in militancy. The only match ers. But, when pushed, they were Jews-as- It was open, and is still open, to any Jew they had were the Irish and Scottish Trade a-race, with or without religion. One of from around the world to settle in. Those Unionists in the CP. We saw the Jews as the problems Israel had was the influx of who went there during the 1930s obviously living in England but not being English. Jews when Communism was declared null survived Nazism. Birobidjan is under We saw them as being friends of the Irish and void by Gorbachev in the Soviet continual attack today from Zionist propa- and Ireland. There was no doubt in our Union. Most of these Soviet Jews had ganda, who say it was first conceived as a minds that they were a race. If you thought never practised religion yet they declared Soviet gulag. A number of rabbis from otherwise you were corrected immediate- themselves to be Jews. Israel are now resident there and claim to ly. A Jewish CP member once introduced have started a religious revival, with a Getting back to 1950s London and their me to a friend of his saying: 'Jew meets greater emphasis on the teaching of membership of the CPGB and the YCL: Irishman'. My reply was: 'Should it not Hebrew. Sometime in the late 1950s the kissing be: 'Jew meets Catholic?' Back in the 1920s during negotiations stopped. A more harsh version of Zionism A discussion followed in which I became overt in the CPGB. This movement for the establishment of a Jewish homeland admitted to being an atheist. They said one of the Jewish leaders asked for the they also were atheists: 'If an Irishman was led by the late Dr Max Joffe, a Crimea. He was told there were people can be an atheist then why can't a Jew be psychiatrist and very active member of there. His answer: one as well?' the Party. He had fled South Africa where 29 he had been involved in the anti-apartheid member, I was trusted by the American German fighter. Actors in the British film movement. He had also been a member of exiles to do work in their homes. I got to industry usually kept their Jewish identity the South African Communist Party. He know them all. None of them ever visited hidden from the general public. Howard mainly lectured at the YCL branches Israel. They stuck to their Communist was very successful in covering up to be around Golders Green, Swiss Cottage, ideas until they died. They were forever the quintessential Englishman. His true Hendon and Finchley which had a majority grateful to the Soviet Union. At a couple identity was still being discussed many of young Jews. of their funerals it was a left-wing affair years later at social gathering of Jews. For whatever reason I don't know I without religion. There was a certain pride in Jews knowing began reading the Jewish Chronicle. In it In the meantime, within the CPGB, the that some successful people were of their was an article on anti-Semitism. It was Trade Unionists continued to organise in group. This is in spite of the blatant Zionist quite extreme in its message that, if you factories and building sites. I don't think propaganda that Jews are already special. weren't Jewish, you were bound to be anti- the Industrial Section of the Party were I found that quite a few Jews in everyday Semitic. It couldn't be helped, that's how aware of what the intellectual side of the life feel insecure. The discussion then you were born. Maybe it was genetic or Party was doing to their movement. The turned to the then Catholic Archbishop of maybe it had something to do with Western CP just didn't know how to deal with the Paris. In my eyes he had once been a Jew culture over the centuries. Zionists. Mostly they did nothing, for who had converted to Catholicism. But It seemed that the unfortunate Rosen- they didn't want to drive out these mostly most secular Jews were seeing a Jew who bergs were not only sent to the chair for middle-class elements who would have had managed to become the Catholic supposedly supplying atomic secrets to accused them of anti-Semitism. Anyway, Archbishop of Paris, and remain a Jew. the Soviet Union but they were also a the revolutionary path had disappeared This was Jean-Marie Lustiger. human sacrifice the anti-Semites demand- and the whole terminology of the CP was ed each generation. watered down. The days of discussing the He was made a Cardinal in 1983 by Articles of this nature appeared fre- Dictatorship of the Proletariat were long Pope John Paul. His mother died in quently in the Jewish Chronicle written gone. The young slick Party Zionists were Auschwitz-Birkenau. On a visit to Poland by a 'Dr. Millar'. One week his photograph also gone, leaving to join outright Zionist he described himself on Polish TV as a appeared. It was Dr Max Joffe. The next organisations and to sign up for military priest, a Christian, and a Jew. He reminded time at a meeting of my Party branch I told duty in Israel. his audience that as well as three million him I had read his articles in the JC. He Jews dying in Poland there were also three said: 'YOU reading the Jewish Chronicle!' Are the Jews a race or a religion? The million Catholics dead in Poland, some- and walked away. I sure got a dose of his Jews, like the Irish, like to find out which thing the Polish authorities had been asking sudden middle-class snobbery and disdain. prominent people are Jewish, or Irish. the Zionist organisation to acknowledge One actor, Leslie Howard, known for his for years. Obviously a lot more discussion I informed the EC of the Party about role in the film Gone With The Wind, was is required on this subject. what I had learnt. But alarm bells were killed during WW2 when his plane was Wilson John Haire already ringing there. I was asked to shot down over the Bay of Biscay by a 10th of April, 2011 transfer to a branch of the CP which had a majority of Jewish members. From there I was able to attend some YCL meetings in the same area. Israel was the main discussion. They were no longer branches that had anything to do with Communism. Bolshevism From Larkin To Lozovsky One branch had decided that the Irish Part 2 were all fascist and they were arranging to leaflet Camden Town, an Irish area at that In the July 2010 issue of Irish Political himself in the Profintern—the Red Inter- time, in order to bring them to their senses. Review I described the British Intelligence national of Labour Unions. All the EC could do was close some of campaign of character assassination In Part One I have already cited the these branches down. against the outstanding union leader Jack transcript of that 1952 trial of the Jewish The Jews I was now meeting at Party James Larkin Jones—launched in the Ant-Fascist Committee (JAC), and the meetings were hostile, anti-Irish and sup- immediate aftermath of his death in April introduction by its Editor, Joshua Rubin- porters of the then existing British Empire. 2009—as a case of the 1920 New York stein, to its 2005 abridged edition. In that The cheery, generous, working-class Jews trial of Big Jim Larkin being repeated in introduction, which had been previously had disappeared to be replaced by stern history as farce. This was indeed the most published in The New Republic on 25th young middle-class men with briefcases. appropriate categorisation, because—both August 1997, Rubinstein highlighted the Amazingly Dr Max Joffe continued his immediately and later comprehensively— key role played by Lozovsky: Zionist work, unhindered, in the CPGB, it proved so easy to refute the MI5 slanders "Once the trial got underway, the and continued to write his obnoxious against Jack Jones. But I further mentioned indictment and Fefer's testimony were articles for the JC. He couldn't rope in all that there were a number of other candi- demolished by several defendants, in Communist Jews to his programme though dates for regarding Larkin's New York particular by Solomon Lozovsky. Lozov- he also moved in the circles of exiled trial as having been also repeated in history sky, too, had signed a confession after American Communists like Bernard as tragedy. Foremost among them was the eight nights of non-stop interrogation. Vorhaus, a former Hollywood Director As he explained to the court, he under- 1952 Moscow trial and execution of stood it was hopeless to resist and decided and Producer. Nor was he able to bring in Solomon Lozovsky—a man little known to wait until his trial when he hoped to Larry Adler, the musician, nor a few Jewish to Irish audiences, if at all, beyond the fact speak his mind to a broad public audience American actors. I was a self-employed that during the 1920s he had been the or at least to party leaders. In this he was carpenter at the time and, being a CPGB principal protagonist of Big Jim Larkin disappointed, for Lozovsky's only 30 listeners were three judges, his fellow Lenin's words of expulsion in January Later I realised that I had been mistaken. defendants, and a stenographer. Lozov- 1918 had, indeed, been particularly harsh: I was expelled from the party for my sky's testimony lasted for six days and errors in December 1917." "that membership of the Party by a was the emotional high point of the trial. person who holds an important post in His words deserve to be remembered, The Presiding Officer interrupted to the trade union movement and is especially his opening statement." point out that during the investigation debauching that movement with shoddy Lozovsky had testified as follows: Lozovsky had proclaimed: bourgeois ideas, not only compromises "In December 1917 I was expelled "As you know, my family name is the Party and demoralises all organisatio- from the Russian Communist Party for Dridzo. This name cannot be translated nal work among the proletariat, but causes the second time because of my opposition into any language. When we asked our enormous practical harm to the urgent to party policy during the October father what it meant he told us that, task of organizing socialist production Revolution and on trade union issues. according to a story passed down from by the trade unions; that joint work in the Zinoviev announced the decision to expel father to son, a distant ancestor of ours ranks of a single Party is impossible with me from the party, adding, as he read out was among the 800,000 Jews who fled a person who does not understand the the resolution, 'Promise that you will from Spain in 1492 when the chief necessity for the dictatorship of the renounce your views as I have done, and inquisitor, Tomás de Torquemada, issued proletariat." you can continue to carry out the same a decree compelling Jews either to convert During World War Two Lozovsky line as you did before, and the party will to Catholicism or leave the country within became Vice-Chairman of Sovinform- retain you.' ..." two months. I became Lozovsky in 1905 buro, tasked with handling all information Lozovsky: "Absolutely correct. Zino- at the Bolshevik Congress in Tammerfors viev really did say this to me, but his (Finland), where I met Comrade Lenin from the Soviet battlefronts for dissemin- advice was monstrous to me. I didn't and also Comrade Stalin for the first ation to the foreign press. In 1941, upon understand how a person could stay in time. My father was a Hebrew teacher. being told of foreign news reports that the party and continue working under- He knew the Talmud; he knew Hebrew German soldiers could see Moscow with ground against it. I said that I would not very well and wrote poetry in ancient their binoculars, Lozovsky famously do that. I believe that what it says in the Hebrew. My mother was illiterate. My retorted that "the Germans would un- indictment about my expulsion from the father taught Hebrew grammar, prayers, doubtedly see Moscow, but as prisoners party for double-dealing is wrong both and Russian grammar. The fact that a politically and legally. What does double- Hebrew teacher taught his son the Russian of war". In actual fact, Lozovsky and Nazi dealing mean? It means to remain a party language shows he was not a fanatic. I propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels were member and conduct subversive under- was religious until the age of about constantly monitoring each other's state- ground activity against the party. But if a thirteen." ments. Goebbels repeatedly made note of person speaks out openly, can you really Rubinstein observed that: Lozovsky in his wartime diaries. At the say that he has been removed for double- height of the German offensive on Moscow "Lozovsky, in other words, after three dealing? There is a difference between and a half years of complete isolation, in October 1941, Goebbels remarked how being removed for double-dealing and subjected to brutal threats and interrog- "the Jew Solomon Lozovsky exerts every being removed for wrong behaviour, for ation, preserved his dignity and had the conceivable effort, to save psychologically, openly stating one's opposition to the presence of mind to compare this Soviet that which, on the whole, is not to be party line. So this language has nothing to do with me. I have never been a double- military tribunal to the Spanish Inquisition saved". and make clear that his judges were no dealer. In January 1918 the First Trade better than Torquemada". Union Congress was convened, and as Here is but a small flavour of some of the secretary of the Central Council of Rubinstein continued: Lozovsky's own testimony from the 436 Soviet Trade Unions, I announced the "Lozovsky then proceeded to take apart page abridged transcript of the trial itself: start of the Congress... In my talk about the tasks facing the labour unions, I the indictment as no defendant in a Soviet "I plead guilty to nothing. Allow me to proposed the notion of independent trade political case had ever done before. Could explain in detail... I turned 74 years of unions, which was a political error and the JAC hand over the Crimea to Ameri- age at the end of March. This is not a could not withstand the slightest criticism, can imperialism? Lozovsky reminded the mitigating circumstance, but rather an but this was my point of view. Is this judges that in 1945 'Roosevelt flew into aggravating one. That is item number really double-dealing if I said in print the Crimea [for the Yalta conference] one. The second aggravating circum- myself that I talked about this and if the with a large group of spies in numerous stance is that in politics allowances must party knew about it?" airplanes. He did not come here to see not be made on account of age, contrary either Fefer or Mikhoels, or to worry to what Bergelson believes... " Turning to the principal charges against about settling Jews in the Crimea, but for "On November 14, 1917, the Decree far more serious matters… What could on Workers' Control was published with him, Lozovsky pointed out: Hofshtein, Ostrovskaya, or Zuskin… pass our amendments. As executive secretary "Do you know what the situation was along to him?' As for charges of espion- of the Central Council of Soviet Trade at that time (June 1941)? The secretary of age, Lozovsky made clear that copies of Unions, I started preparing for the first the Central Committee would give me all correspondence were saved by the All-Russian Congress of Trade Unions. instructions to put together a radio committee. 'What kinds of spies make And here I had serious differences with broadcast immediately in Yiddish for copies of their dealings?' he asked the the party line about bringing the trade propaganda in America. We had to arouse judges." unions under the control of the state. millions of people against the Hitlerites because of their brutality. And here you're Rubinstein provided a further character Comrade Lenin felt that the trade unions were very important as a link in the saying that there was a nationalistic rally, reference: system of the dictatorship of the prole- and Lozovsky did it all. It's like some "Lozovsky was not afraid to speak his tariat, as a school of Communism. At the kind of fairy tale—there was no Central mind. He was actually expelled from the time, I feared that the trade unions would Committee, no government, just Lozo- party twice, in 1914 and then again in be turned into a department or ministry of vsky and a couple of Jews who did 1918-1919 on Lenin's personal orders labour and would lose the opportunity to everything. It's astonishing. I organised a for saying that the dictatorship of the choose their leaders and build their rally according to party directives. Every proletariat was a foolish idea. Lenin, organization from the bottom up, so I speaker received instruction from the however, soon regained confidence in opposed state control of the trade unions. Central Committee. I read every speech, him." 31 as did (party leaders) Alexandrov and not do the Soviet Union any good. But 1942 he had a conversation with you Shcherbakov. Is it really possible to because I had no objection in principle to about anti-fascist organisations coming imagine that the radio committee, which settling Jews in the Crimea or elsewhere, into existence in the United States and was not subordinate to me, would I looked at their draft, and all I said was, about contacts with rich Jews." broadcast appeals and speeches on the air 'Why do you write about the sufferings of Lozovsky: "I declare all of this to be without Central Committee approval? So the Jews? That's well known. Why are poetic fabrication. An organisation came the rally took place. Tell me, is the writer you padding the letter? Cut the poetry into being that raised funds for the Soviet Ehrenburg a subordinate of mine? Do and leave in your arguments about re- Union. This was a positive event... they speak according to my instructions? settlement.' On the whole, I had my doubts Russian Relief raised 93 million dollars Recall the list of speakers. Ehrenburg how this would be carried out in a practical for the USSR. Even Fefer says that I set says that his mother's name is Hannah, sense, but I had no political doubts about the goal: to raise funds to assist the USSR. throwing that in the fascists' faces. And it. I saw no nationalism in it, and no plans Not for Jews, not for the Jewish Anti- suddenly someone says that this means a against the Soviet Union. Besides, I told Fascist Committee, but for the Red Army return to being Jewish. My mother's name them that they didn't have the right to aid fund. What is nationalistic about a was Hannah, too. Am I supposed to be write on behalf of the Jewish Anti-Fascist proposal to raise money? Was I delighted? ashamed of that? What kind of strange Committee, because the question raised I don't know. I am not the sort of person psychology is this? Why is this considered went beyond the committee's jurisdiction who goes into raptures, and in general, it nationalism? Our task was to show the and its mission. But as Soviet citizens, is not recommended for a diplomat to go whole world that we were robust and they were free to send their proposal to into raptures. I am a restrained person, confident in battle. In September 1941 the Soviet Government on their own though a passionate orator. And here that response made its way around the behalf. It says rather naively in the every word is being transformed into world. I laughed at Goebbels, and this indictment that 'they demanded of the evidence of nationalistic, criminal behav- went round the world in hundreds of Soviet Union that the Crimea be handed iour... I have already said that I was millions of copies thanks to the capitalist over to the Jews'. This is hard even to pleased with the fact that in the United newspapers. Goebbels wrote that when read. In actual fact, what they did was to States, thanks to our propaganda cam— he reached Moscow, he would skin me apply to the Soviet government, as paign, an anti-fascist committee of artists, alive... " advised by Comrade Molotov, with a writers and scientists and a Jewish com— "In the testimony that I signed (I will proposal that was rejected, based on what mittee, part of the America-wide explain later why I signed it), it says that considerations I do not know. I repeat organisation Russia Relief, had come I knew about Lina Shtern's bourgeois that I did not see in this any far-reaching into being. The head of the committee of views. That's not true. I slandered her, hostile plan or anything like that... " artists, writers and scientists was the and I would like to take the opportunity Presiding Officer: "Defendant Lozovsky world-renowned scientist Einstein. He here to apologise to her. I cannot look her ... Both Fefer and Bergelson confirm that was a convinced Zionist, but, like many in the eye because of the slander, which you formed the Anti-Fascist Committee academics, he was more engaged in was coerced out of me. I didn't know her with nationalistic goals in mind and were mathematical problems than in political at all. I knew that there was such a person the ideological leader of all the commit- ones..." as Academician Lina Shtern, but I didn't tee's subsequent anti-Soviet activity." "It needs to be said that there are know her personally... " Lozovsky: "As to Bergelson, I think millions of Jews in the United States who "I haven't read Yiddish in sixty years. that the court's awareness and his own are are of Russian origin. The bourgeois Can I really bear responsibility for the getting mixed up here, and it is even hard elements among them were well disposed fact that a newspaper that came out under to understand all that he has said. So, a toward the Soviet Union, not because the direct control of the Department of person writes in Yiddish that the October they sympathised with communism, but Agitation and Propaganda of the Central Revolution gave the Jews equal rights! because the Soviet army was saving Committee printed nationalistic articles? What is nationalistic about that? As millions of Jews from Hitler, and this I am stating here nothing that was written regards the creation of the committee for made a tremendous impression on all in Eynikayt had anything to do with me nationalistic purposes, I have to say that Jews. This was why they raised funds to directly or indirectly. When I was told the Slavic committee was created for help Russia, and they raised funds from that they needed a Yiddish writer, I would Slavic purposes, (etc, etc)... If you look at absolutely everyone, wherever they could help them, and that was it. To write for a the question this way, then everything find them. The bourgeoisie made a Yiddish newspaper, a writer had to write that was done was sheer nationalism. I business out of this, but there were in Yiddish. But when Bergelson suddenly categorically assert that the statement hundreds of thousands of ordinary people says that if someone writes in Yiddish, that the Jewish Ant-Fascist Committee who sympathised with the USSR and that is nationalism; that means that what was created for nationalistic purposes is gave help from the depths of their souls. is on trial here is the Yiddish language. a total fabrication. The committee was So the delegates from the Jewish Anti- This is beyond my capacity to grasp. created not by me, but by the Central Fascist Committee went to see those Write in the language of the Negroes if Committee of the party. There was not people who wanted to do something to that's what you want. That's your business. one committee, but five. In this case I help in the struggle against fascism..." The point is not what language someone should be held responsible for the other "The (court's) expert commission drew writes in, but how they write. There are committees as well. Why make an conclusions based on the analysis of 122 times when national feelings shift to allowance for the other committees? Once documents. It is clear that some of there nationalistic feelings, and a communist again I assert that the committee was documents are from (the Soviet Yiddish ought to know that... " created in order to rouse people against newspaper) Eynikayt, which was run by "I cannot say who was involved in fascism. There were slogans that went someone else and they have nothing to do drafting the letter about the Crimea. I like this: 'Jews of the world united against with me. 40 to 50 articles, at any rate, know that three people came to see me fascism' ... These slogans came from the went through the Jewish Anti-Fascist about it: Mikhoels, Epshteyn, and Fefer. Central Committee of the party... It was Committee, and some of them were sent I told them at the time that this matter a great slogan for exposing fascist abroad when the Jewish Anti-Fascist looked very difficult to me from the sympathisers. I assert that Bergelson is Committee was no longer part of the practical standpoint because Jews were getting things mixed up. I think the court Sovinformburo system. Were these all urbanites, and the Crimea had to be can see that he is. Fefer's testimony about articles nationalistic? Yes, they definitely settled in two to three years, which could how I became concerned ..." were. I have read some excerpts. Their mean transferring entire collective farms absurdity would jump out at any Soviet there. It would take fifty to sixty years to Presiding Officer interrupts Lozovsky: reader. There are excerpts from Markish's settle Jews in the Crimea, which would "At the beginning he testified that in nationalistic poems and Fefer's works, 32 and articles that are socialist in form but campaign, and that the Jews want to ed as a teenage IRA activist into the nationalistic in content. I answer annihilate all of the Russians. This is Communist Party of Ireland by Seán politically or criminally for the fact that what Col. Komarov told me. I ask you, (Johnny) Nolan, whom some readers will the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee let what sort of language is this? Is this recall as the sphinx-like manager of the such nationalistic articles through while fitting language for a Soviet person, a it was part of the Sovinformburo system. Soviet functionary? ... I was completely Party bookshop from its opening in 1942 But I state with full responsibility that stunned by Komarov's statement that Jews until his death in 1988. My father related these articles were not examined by me. want to wipe out all the Russians. Further to me how in later years Johnny Nolan The question may arise: Why did we on he said that I should confess to all the told him of his one short-lived defiance of allow through, at Soviet expense, the accusations; otherwise he would hand Moscow. The first CPI had been founded articles of Imam Hodzhi, who preached me over to his investigators... They would in 1921 by James Connolly's son, Roddy, the struggle against fascism based on the leave me to rot in a dark, cold cell and but when Big Jim Larkin returned to Koran? But it was necessary, and we did beat me with rubber nightsticks so badly it..." that I wouldn't be able to sit down. Then Ireland from his New York imprisonment, "When I read the third volume of Fefer's I said that death would be better than such he showed nothing but disdain for the 'collected works' {Itzik Fefer's 'accus- torture, to which they answered that they fledgling party, whose dissolution the ations' against his co-defendants— would not let me die right away, that I Communist International insisted upon in MO'R} I understood what it was all about. would die slowly... Then I decided that it 1924. Instead, Comintern boss Grigori Fefer's testimony touches on about a would be better for me to say something Zinoviev threw his weight behind Larkin's hundred people unknown to me and whom incriminating about myself and sign "Irish Worker" League, as well as placing he keeps on slandering, but he says not a everything that they put in the record and word about himself. In my testimony I then tell in court how the deputy director him on the International's own Executive, slandered myself and two women. What of the investigative division for especially which led Big Jim to proclaim, with a I said about these two women was untrue. important cases, Col. Komarov, was characteristic lack of false modesty, that I am referring to Lina Shtern and Polina conducting the investigation, and what he had been "elected by the working classes Zhemchuzhina Molotova {the imprison- sort of un-Soviet actions he was permit- of 32 countries of the world as one of the ed Jewish wife of Foreign Minister ting. That is why I signed such a record. 25 Commissars to rule and govern the Molotov—MO'R}. Fefer clearly slander- You say that this is inconsistent. It is very earth". ed a lot of people, and I have information consistent; I had no other choice... I about this. For example, Marshak asked wanted to live until the court convened As far back as 13th September 1912, to translate Fefer's poem, and in this and inform the court about everything... James Connolly had written to William statement Marshak is also vilified. Fefer I had no other way to survive until the O'Brien to complain of Larkin in the testified about Ehrenburg, who was never court proceedings except to sign that following terms: "I begin to fear that our involved in specifically Jewish matters, testimony... I had the right to incriminate friend Jim has arrived at his highest yet Ehrenburg was vilified too. What is myself, but I felt that it was morally elevation, and that he will pull us all down the political significance of all this? I will unacceptable to incriminate other people. with him in his fall. He does not seem to be completely candid. There is a very I have told you everything, Citizen Judges, carefully thought-out criminal intention and you will of course determine what is want a democratic Labour movement; he here to draw as many people as possible correct in these accusations and what are seems to want a Larkinite movement only." into the ranks of the accused and then go lies. By the nature of the work I did, by More than a decade later, the latter out with a bang, to draw in as many the nature of my activities, through my construction still remained Big Jim's people as possible, so that it leaks out duties at the Central Committee, I was preference. It became increasingly clear abroad through the Israeli Embassy or involved with bourgeois circles and that Larkin had not the slightest intention Mission... I declare that Fefer is doing all bourgeois newspapers all over the world: of ever allowing the IWL to develop from of this in order to launch a campaign Yiddish ones, American ones, English abroad against the Soviet government ones, French ones. Why are you singling a Larkinite fan club into an effective through the agency of Israeli Missions out the Yiddish newspapers and dealing Communist Party. In 1927 a frustrated vis-à-vis the closure of the Jewish Anti- with them separately?" Roddy Connolly, aided and abetted by a Fascist Committee and Eynikayt. That is Presiding Officer: "Because you are young Johnny Nolan, set up a Revolution- the political meaning of all this." accused of being a Jewish nationalist and ary Workers' Party, but this defiance of maintaining ties with bourgeois Jewish the Comintern lasted barely two months, In other words, Lozovsky charged that reactionaries and not American or British before the RWP also knuckled under and Fefer—the one male defendant who had ones. You were involved in hiring non- dissolved itself. not been subjected to any form of torture party staffers at the Sovinformburo. Tell Nolan was to relate to my father the whatsoever, not even sleep deprivation— us what percentage of them were Jews 'dialogue' that had taken place in Moscow had now graduated from the role of Soviet and what their ratio was to the total number of employees." between Connolly and Lozovsky, and secret police informer to that of Zionist Lozovsky: "I did not do that kind of while I did not doubt the political truth of provocateur, on the basis that the more calculation. I never felt drawn to Jews that historical anecdote, I did feel that the Soviet Jewish victims the merrier for the and never denied that I was a Jew. A direct quotation had been linguistically purposes of an Israeli anti-Soviet cam- person who denies his nationality is a embellished in the re-telling. But now I paign. The Presiding Officer then asked bastard." am inclined to the conclusion that—even Lozovsky: "What did you sign the This unexpected use of what might be in "the way he tells 'em" sense—it contains interrogation record for?" called 'bad language' on Lozovsky's own far more literal historical truth than not. Lozovsky: "Let me explain why I behalf only adds to my appreciation of his signed it. Because over the course of When Roddy Connolly protested that Big strength of character, considering the Jim was impossible to work with, Lozov- eight nocturnal interrogations Col. vehemence of its expression by a man Komarov kept telling me over and over sky is said to have told him in no uncertain whose self-control was so evident through- again that Jews are low, dirty people, and terms, according to Nolan's account: "I all Jews are lousy bastards, and all out his trials and tribulations. And it here know Larkin's a bastard! But he's the only opposition to the party consisted of Jews, provides an excuse for some momentary bloody bastard we've got in Ireland!" that Jews over the Soviet Union are light relief to recall a 1927 anecdote. In conducting an anti-Soviet whispering the mid-1930s, my father had been recruit- But to return to his own 1952 trial, after 33 his declaration that "a person who denies his nationality is a bastard", Lozovsky Naval Warfare further proclaimed in his final statement to the court: Part Ten "The only document that is the primary It appears from the memoir of M. adopted by England, France, Russia, battering ram of the accusation is the letter to Comrades Molotov and Stalin Drouyn de Lhuys, the French Minister of Prussia, Austria and Turkey as a mutual about settling Jews in the Crimea. This Foreign Affairs at the time of the Declara- Treaty and many other States subsequently letter contains hints of nationalism in it, tion of Paris that a main object of Britain followed. but since it was not written for publication, was to put an end to the practice of The US had not developed a functional I did not believe that it required careful belligerents issuing Letters of Marque and naval defence force for its commerce at editing... I think the Americans would Reprisals to the subjects of neutral States: this time. It feared that the Royal Navy have been willing to pay dearly for an "What influenced especially the would have been free to capture US vessels agent such as myself, but they won't live English Government was the fear of so long, and neither will those who are without fear of reprisal if it gave up the America inclining against us, and lending slandering me now... I have said every- threat of using privateers. It saw the use of to our enemies the cooperation of her thing and request no favours. I need either privateering as its best defence against hardy volunteers. The Maritime complete rehabilitation or death. I have naval aggression and the threat of blockade population of the United States, their given my entire life for the cause of the enterprising marine, might furnish to by granting Letters of Marque and Reprisal party and do not wish to be a parasite. If Russia the elements of a fleet of privateers, to privateers to carry out raids against the court finds me guilty of anything at which attached to its service by Letters of British shipping in the event of war. all, then I would ask for the opportunity Marque and covering the seas with a to appeal to the government to substitute Letters of Marque were Government network would harass and pursue our execution for punishment. But should licenses authorizing a private vessel to commerce even in the most remote waters. anything come to light indicating that I attack and capture enemy vessels, and To prevent such a danger the Cabinet of was innocent, then I ask that I be bring them before Admiralty Courts for London held it of importance to conciliate posthumously readmitted to the ranks of the favourable disposition of the Federal condemnation and sale. They were first the party and that the information about Government. It had conceived the idea of used in England, but Article I of the US my rehabilitation be published in the proposing to it at the same time as to the Constitution lists issuing Letters of Marque newspapers." French Government and to all the and Reprisal in Section VIII as one of the Solomon Lozovsky, a Stalinist casualty Maritime States, the conclusion of an enumerated powers of Congress alongside of the Leninist regime—was executed on arrangement, having for its object the the power to declare War. (Because the 12th August 1952. The guilty verdict suppression of privateering, and permit- United States has never renounced privat- against him was posthumously annulled ting to be treated as a Pirate every one, who in time of war should be found eering by treaty, in theory it could still on 22nd November 1955 without, of furnished with Letters of Marque. This issue Letters of Marque today. After the course, any hope of resurrection from the project, which was in the end abandoned, September 11th attacks the Marque and dead. More significantly, there has never is evidence of the disquiet felt by England. Reprisal Act of 2001 was introduced in been any campaign mounted to have his We thought, as they did, respecting Congress which would have granted the good name restored. Perhaps it is because privateering, a barbarous practice which President the authority to use Letters of Lozovsky took his stand as an impressively marked too often, under an appearance of Marque and Reprisal against specific courageous and unrepentant Bolshevik to patriotic devotion, violence excited by the allurement of lucre. At former epochs, targets. Congressman Ron Paul has the very end, defiantly staring death in the justified by the fury of war, it was able in recently advocated the use of Letters of face. Unlike Itzik Fefer, it can indeed be the midst of numerous iniquities, to give Marque to deal with pirates operating in truly said of Lozovsky that he was neither rise to some heroic action, to transmit the Gulf of Aden.) an outstanding Yiddish poet, nor a long- even to history some glorious names. But The Americans made a distinction standing Soviet secret police informer and we considered it to be incompatible between privateering and piracy (or provocateur, nor a martyred, if belated, henceforth with the usages of civilized buccaneering), a distinction which the Zionist. Lozovsky both lived his life to nations, which cannot allow private persons to be armed with the rights of British either never made or had forgotten. the full—and finally yielded it up—as a war, and which reserve their terrible (Captain Kidd was hanged as a pirate at proud Soviet Communist, as he would application to the public power of Wapping despite having a Letter of Marque also die a proud Russian Jew. Joshua Established States…" (Sir Travers Twiss from King William of Orange when his Rubinstein was spot-on when he astutely DCL, FRS, Belligerent Right on the High Whig backers refused to continue to observed: Seas, Since the Declaration of Paris support him as a privateer.) The Royal (1856), p.10). "Only the martyred Yiddish writers Navy had, of course, been the innovators are mentioned at August 12 commemor- Dispatches reveal that Britain feared and greatest exponents of piracy and ations. The other defendants who lost Russian issuing of Letters of Marque and privateering in establishing the British their lives are rarely, if ever, mentioned, perhaps because their careers as loyal Reprisal to Americans who would harass Empire against the Spanish and Portuguese Soviet citizens do not fit comfortably British merchant shipping in the absence during the Elizabethan period. That had into an easy category for Westerners to of the Royal Navy, and take English trade been called the ‘heroic age’ of Drake, honour." as a consequence. Frobisher and Hawkins in Britain and it I have no such inhibitions about that The most notable State to refuse to sign was in this time that England laid the life-long Red. I accordingly salute the the Declaration of Paris was the United foundations of her future supremacy by memory of Big Jim Larkin's old Profintern States. States were invited to join it on the means of brigandage, theft and maritime protagonist—that proud and courageous condition that they sign up to all of its terrorism. Jewish Bolshevik, Solomon Abramovich provisions and commit themselves to For the US there was a distinction— Lozovsky. making no subsequent arrangements in privateering could be described as State- Manus O'Riordan the event of war. The Declaration was sponsored private naval warfare, whereas 34 piracy was a form of naval activity engaged 1981 there is wealth to stun. in by private individuals for personal gain. 46 days without food. 1 This 'Gold Coast’ was built But this distinction was rather blurred by Bobby Sands (27) died 5th May, 1981. the English innovators and exponents who on your dying solitude. Adversarial politics. No one won? Safe now, no bother, combined privateering with piracy by 66 days without food. the others allowing naval commanders to personally But Whitehall sniggers, imbued. conquered Malone, keep their booty as reward for their naval They built more walls but not your grave, now home. terrorism. And even in the time of Nelson since you died, more walls than you ever had, 7 this remained a vital form of encourage- to improve apartheid. Kevin Lynch (25) died 1st August, 1981. ment for Royal Navy commanders and It had to come to this, their crews as prize served as a form of 2 political-prisoner status shunned. pension when they returned to life on Francis Hughes (25) died 12th May, 1981. 71 days without food, land. More than spiders have spun, in this loose protectorate since your day was done. of Xerox magnitude, 59 days without food. The United States offered to sign up to bereft of British or Irish symmetry, A sunk and corroding ship more a planned the Declaration of Paris on condition that gets more gratitude. asymmetry. another Article be included forbidding the Titanic Quarter. molestation of all private property at sea They hope to renew Belfast 8 (aside from ‘contraband’ of war). Whilst with this loss. Kevin Doherty (25) died 2nd August, 1981. most countries were favourable to this But you gave no quarter. Your loss is our gain, A scenario that will run and run. addition to the Declaration Britain stead- your memory on our hearts 73 days without food. fastly refused to add it. embossed. How many more wars, In the 1870s Sir Henry Maine called for how many more ceasefires Britain to accept this American addition 3 as a prelude. Raymond McCreech (24) died 21st May, 1981. because, he argued, England had the most The empty dumps gape Out of politics they took the gun, to gain from it as it would protect its food as nestlings greeting the mother, your gun. hustle for the take. supply from its enemies. Maine argued 61 days without food. that, because Britain was the foremost And peace into servitude. 9 maritime trading nation and now depended They dismiss your times, Thomas McElwee (23) died 8th August, 1981. on its population being fed by the system these bureaucrats, This territory was not constructed for peace, on their upward climb. it is moribund. of Free Trade it had established, it was 62 days without food. greatly to its advantage that it should 4 Back to Whitehall agree to the United States proposals. Patsy O’Hara (23) died 21st May, 1981. and its belligerent attitude. The argument was that England was The peacemakers became rotund. It knows it’s doing wrong, the great carrier of the world, and it was in 61 days without food. but doing right, War tourism accrues her capacity as a carrying nation that she rehearsing though the blood never dried, for a Southern swansong. would be disadvantaged in a war. By and like a silent horror film exempting mercantile ships from capture there is no thought, 10 England would be able to carry on her no sound. Michael Devine (27) died 20th August, 1981. trade, as securely in war as in peace, and A heart-rending sacrifice, 5 be able to bear the strain of a war without and what was won. Joe McDonnell (30) died 8th July, 1981. 60 days without food. financial distress to her merchants. Ay, the building is soon begun. Perfidiously they slew. 61 days without food. Can something deliberately broken But by 1870 the tide had begun to turn The wind on Belfast Lough lead to evolution, on Manchester Capitalism and a new more blew in the entrepreneurial hood something glued back vigorous Imperialism had started to to build expensive flats, yacht basins, with the enemy’s solution. while around the waterfront emerge in Britain that had further call on the homeless chastened. the war-making potential of the Royal Wilson John Haire 20 October-13 November 2010 Navy. 6 Pat Walsh Martin Hurson (29) died 13th July, 1981. Note: Malone – once a Protestant middle-class From coastal Holywood to Bangor stronghold, now mainly Catholic middle-class

The following letter, submitted to Irish people were killed—14 British civilians, 14 Irish civilians Under the direction of Ireland's Minister for Defence, Times on 9th April, failed to be published , 3 Republican prisoners—when British forces opened fire Cathal Brugha, and her Army's Chief of Staff, Richard on crowds attending the Dublin-Tipperary fooball match". Mulcahy, and Director of Intelligence Michael Collins. History Howler the Dublin Brigade and other soldiers of Irish democracy, I opened my Irish Times today (Saturday 9 April) I doubt your correspondent meant to convey the false shot dead members a British murder gang. They were not expecting to see letters, if not from the usual revisionist impression that British forces killed 14 British civilians civilians but were on the military, or paramilitary RIC suspects, at least from the main parties in the Oireachtas, that day. payroll. from Irish National Ex-Servicemen, the Irish Military But it seems to me plain that he or she was determined Amongst their surnames were Dowling, History Society, and from some of those charged with the to assert that as many British as Irish civilians were killed Woodcock,Price, Keenlyside. Montgomery, McLean, teaching of history in Irish Schools and Universities. that day. Newbury, Ames,Bagalley,Bennett, FitzGerald, They cannot all have been so overcome with joy at the So, let's clear any misunderstandings out of the way. McCormack and Wilde. revelation of details of Queen Elizabeth's proposed Earlier in November 1920, in London's Mansion House, I really think Ireland urgentlly neads a Campaign for itinerary, that, like yourself, they failed to recognise, an the British Prime Minister had boasted that his forces Real History, and an anti-Poppycock League,to alert a historical howler on page 7 on Friday April 8th. "were getting the right men" and virtually gloating how cheated citizenry to the dangers of infection from I quote—"On Bloody Sunday, November 21st, 31 they were burning down Irish creameries. Tommyrot. Donal Kennedy 35 New Year in the new Criminal Courts being a barrister is about. It is intended as Complex in Parkgate Street. The reader is a funny book and perhaps it is for a barrister Does expected to guess the city in which Green but it tastes sour to anyone who has been It Street and Parkgate Street are because my involved in the perimeter of The Law. Stack information is gleaned from that paper of Up mis-record The Irish Times which is VIOLENCE AND THE LAW ? published in Dublin which gives you a How is it that Irish society readily toler- THE LAW clue to what is intended. ates and even approves the clubbing and The very fact that the legal profession Another example of the sort of thing beating, with bloody results of protesters and journalists refer to 'The Law' as mean- that goes on every day in the courts is the —be they students protesting in Dublin or ing barristers, the Courts and the Garda case of Patrick Kissane in Killarney citizens protesting in Mayo against the Siochana shows us that the laws of the District Court on 19th April 2011. Mr. Shell pipeline? These protesters are State are "honoured more in the breach Kissane is accused of setting up a Facebook innocent people. Protesting is not a crime than in the observance". If it were other- page insulting Travellers. The Facebook or an offence—yet—in our society. We wise, The Law would be the law of the entry which has since been deleted said: can see on TV and on print media, innocent State and of the society we live in. The "Promote the use of knacker babies as people being clubbed and injured and the new Fine Gael/Labour Coalition Govern- bait", and some other racist remarks. The rest of us are to think "that's allright, we ment may do something about the enorm- charge is brought under the Prohibition of agree that people should be beaten-up ous and non-productive cost of dealing Incitement to Hatred Act 1989 which officially in this circumstance". And yet with breaches of our laws. But don't hold makes it an offence "to publish or distribute there is no way society will tolerate the your breath. The lawyers know very well written material… likely to stir up hatred. beating of proven criminals or the parental what works for them. They know that the Publishing online is treated the same as in chastisement of unruly children. A house- muddle and inefficiency and the, mostly the print media. A conviction in the District holder has by law to be very careful how intentional, finagling and woolliness of Court carries a maximum fine of ¤1,270 he/she defends themselves from an what goes on among lawyers is to wind up and/or six months in gaol. Surprise! attacker—"proportional force" the law the clients and therefore the lawyers' fees. Surprise! On the day set for the trial, the says. That is when you are attacked in Take as an example the day the Special lawyers agreed to ask for the case to be your home, you must calm down and Criminal Court sat for the last time in heard on a later date and the Judge carefully assess the attacker's conduct and, Green Street Courthouse on Friday, 18th (surprise!) agreed and adjourned it to 19th because "proportional force" implies December 2009. This was the courthouse July 2011—three months more of suspense proportional to the force used by the in which Robert Emmet was tried and it after already waiting six and a half months attacker, you must allow the attacker to was in this courthouse that since 1972 the since the alleged offence on 1st October strike first and then you can respond with Special Criminal Court tried Mr. Martin 2010. The prosecutor told the judge in proportional force and until the attacker Ferris, Mr. Peter Robinson, Mr. Dominic court: "This is a rather unusual charge wounds you, you are not legally allowed and Mrs. Mary McGlinchey, Mr. Dessie and we'd like to get the DPP's views on the to wound the attacker. Is that it? Isn't this O'Hare and many more. Nicky Kelly was whole thing". why robbers enter houses with impunity? tried there and he and his co-accused were Now either an offence was committed Isn't this why whole neighbourhoods are convicted on false confessions beaten out or not. That is for the court judge to terrorised and destroyed? Because no one of them by The Law. The Court said they decide. What is so complicated about it is allowed to shout Stop. If the smaller must have beaten themselves. that all the lawyers involved do not know infringements were stopped and stamped Photographers were allowed to photo- what to do without making work for out, there would be no bigger stuff. The graph the judges for the first time in Green another lot of lawyers in the (Director of whole concept of policing needs to be Street on 18th December 2009 and in the Public Prosecutions) DPP's office and then changed. Police should be arranged so photo we see the three judges robed and coming back into court on 19th July 2011 that two by two patrol an area on bicycles bewigged, the judges' usher helping Mr. when it could very probably be adjourned which move silently. And then there should Justice Butler to sit on his chair, a man and again on the grounds that it is a "very be squads of six or seven parked unobtrus- a woman presumably court officers and unusual case"? When are the judges going ively at intervals in cities and towns ready the backs of bewigged heads of some to stop this adjournment stuff? It is to swoop onto crime scenes and, yes, the barristers. All eight of these people and appalling anti-social behaviour and is Garda should be given proper powers to probably many more not in the photo were defrauding the people for the benefit of use their batons whenever a criminal earning their living there on that day. And lawyers. The Minister for Justice, Mr. activity is in progress. And, yes, persons what did they do? They did nothing. Alan Shatter TD, is himself a lawyer. Will in their home should be immune from Absolutely nothing. There was in fact he put a stop to this running sore of "adjourn- guilt and from prosecution where they are work which they could have done but in ments"? Many cases are adjourned mult- resisting an intruder whether or not the the time-honoured way of all court lawyers iple times. It seems the adjournments go intruder is violent. Any person must be they intentionally dodged the work. The on and on for as long as the lawyers and allowed to eject an intruder from the work available on that day was to deal judges think they'll get away with it. I was person's home and property. To do so is a with five cases before the Court. All five involved as a witness in a case which was basic human right without which society matters were adjourned until the New adjourned twenty times and the two descends into chaos. Year. It was December and December for barristers and two solicitors each billed The Law is a month for celebrating dinners fees for the twenty adjournments. MARRIAGE and conviviality. Too bad for defendants The US recession has coincided with a whose cases may already have been A Night At The Inns And Other Stories fall in the divorce rate. Does this stack up? adjourned on previous occasions and very by Henry Murphy, published by Blackhall Love or money? likely would be adjourned again in the Publishing in 2008, gives a taste of what Michael Stack © 36 PILSUDSKI continued in easy and pleasant living not at all several years been in declining health. On conducive to successful military training, 12th May 1935, he died of liver cancer at and found plenty of time and opportunity Warsaw's Belweder Palace. have fought for their country if the whole to meddle in trade on a big scale, but His death took place exactly 19 years world had opposed them." p125. failed to further the Polish cause." p82. from the day James Connolly was executed "I went straight to the War Office {Lon- "The political situation was far more at Kilmainham Jail in Dublin. don} to see General Ironside, who had complicated, but I was finding out fast The Polish Communist Party immed- succeeded Lord Gort as C.I.G.S. that in Poland there is always a political iately attacked Pilsudski as a fascist and crisis on tap. I have a great love and "I was met with the remark: 'Well! capitalist, despite the fact that fascists admiration for the Poles, but I cannot Your Poles haven't done much.' I felt that themselves did not see him this way. the remark was premature, and replied: deny that they thrive on crises and produce them with unfailing punctuality and Mainstream organisations of ethnic 'Let us see what others will do, sir.'" minorities expressed their support for his p125. without any provocation!" p79. "Pilsudski was a Lithuanian by birth policies of ethnic tolerance, though he and obstinacy is one of their most marked was criticized by, in addition to the Polish LLOYD GEORGE AND HENRY WILSON traits. One day I was trying, quite in- communists, the Jewish Labour Bund, 1920 effectively, to persuade him to some and by Ukrainian, German and Lithuanian "I arrived in Paris in time to have action, when he volunteered the remark: nationalists. dinner with Mr. Lloyd George and Sir 'I'm Lithuanian and we are an obstinate On the international scene, Pope Pius Henry Wilson and I gave them my report people.' My answer to that was, 'So I see!' XI held a special ceremony May 18th in verbally during dinner. p81. and we both laughed, but I have often the Holy See, a commemoration was con- "It was the first time that I had met Mr. wondered since if there has been a great ducted at League of Nations Geneva head- Lloyd George, and I felt that he listened man who was not obstinate." p78. quarters, and dozens of messages of con- to my tale with rather a superficial interest, "The war against the Czechs proceeded dolence arrived in Poland from heads of but he was very agreeable and told Sir equably, and more or less on a domestic state across the world, including Ger- Henry that I was to have everything that basis. The Poles have a natural aversion many's Adolf Hitler, the Soviet Union's I had asked for. to the Czechs, partly because they are "Sir Henry Wilson was a delightful Joseph Stalin, Italy's Benito Mussolini neighbours and therefore prone to quarrel- and King Victor Emmanuel III, France's man, with all the Irishman's love of politics ling, and partly because the Poles look as well as his love of fighting, and he was Albert Lebrun and Pierre-Étienne Flandin, down on the Czechs, for being, like the Austria's Wilhelm Miklas, Japan's Emper- about our only high-ranking soldier British, 'a nation of shopkeepers'. To the or Hirohito, and Britain's King George V. capable of competing in the same field as agrarian Pole, commerce is a despised the politicians or 'Frocks,' as he always occupation to be left to the Jew, and they After a two-year display at St. Leonard's called them. He loved to describe himself had great contempt for the Czechs who Crypt in Kraków's Wawel Cathedral, as purely a simple soldier, but he could thought otherwise. Their chief bones of Pilsudski's body was laid to rest in the play all the political games as well as the contention were the coal mines at Teschen, Cathedral's Crypt under the Silver Bells, best of them, and he served our country but there was never any serious fighting except for his brain, which he had willed well in his dual role. He was a great between the two nations, and we could for study to Stefan Batory University, and personal friend of Marshal Foch, and cross the Czech line more or less at will." his heart, which was interred in his mother's England and France owed much to their p89. grave at Vilnius' Rasos Cemetery, where close relationship. "Poles are very vivacious and gay, it remains. "The next day Sir Henry took me to see especially the women, but they all seemed The 1937 relocation of his remains, Marshal Foch, and Foch asked me if the possessed by a racial sadness that knows made by his long-standing adversary Poles, had asked for any particular gene- little of joy or even contentment. Though Adam Sapieha, then Archbishop of ral. Before leaving for Paris I had discus- they have humour, they are apt to take Krakow, incited widespread protests that sed the matter with Paderewski, and knew themselves too seriously, and are naturally included calls for Sapieha's removal. that they wanted General Gouraud who, indignant when the rest of the world does In July, 1899, Pilsudski married a as a very heroic figure, would have appeal- not follow suit. Their strength is their ed to the fighting qualities of the Poles. political activist, Maria Juskiewicz in the courage, their faith, their loyalty and their Evangelic-Augsburg Confession Church The Marshal regretted that General Gour- patriotism, and from the highest to the aud could not be spared, but told me to at Paproc Duza in the province of Lomza. lowest, with or without education, they Maria was a divorcee, so therefore could return later, when, having given the matter can sacrifice themselves to an idea—and his close attention, he would have decided not be married in the Catholic church, so that idea was always Poland, even when Pilsudski converted to Protestantism. on the appointment. On my return Foch it existed only in their imagination." p100. Since May 1906 Pilsudski had known told me that he had appointed General De Wiart refers to zakuszka which Henrys, and he added that I could go back consisted "of an infinite variety of exotic Aleksandra Szczerbinska (Comrade Ola), to Warsaw 'et faites son plus grand eloge', dishes washed down by smooth gulps of a determined and energetic activist. She for he had proved himself a most succes- vodka with a feel of satin fire. Vodka was fifteen years younger that Pilsudski. sful commander. Coming from the Mar- burns delightfully when it arrives at its Maria Pilsudski would not agree to a shal, this was praise indeed. destination, and makes conversation very divorce. The situation lasted until her death "General Henrys was a comparatively easy. Perhaps that explains why the Poles in 1921. young man, of a smart military appear- are such brilliant talkers." p99. He married Aleksandra in October 1921 ance, but he was a failure in Poland. His having already returned to the Catholic ****************************************************************************** task was a difficult one, and made more Church in 1916. "I am not going to dictate to you what you difficult by Pilsudski's dislike of the A revolutionary, a great soldier without write about my life and work. I only ask French. The French Mission consisted of formal training, a man of rare audacity that you not make me out to be a 'whiner some fifteen hundred French officers, and will power as well as of great insight and sentimentalist.' Pilsudski who were responsible for the training, into European politics—that was Jozef equipment and general needs of the Polish ****************************************************************************** Pilsudski. Army. They were under the direct orders of Henrys and needed close supervision DEATH It is easy to understand how Connolly and very firm handling, which they did By 1935, the great man, Pilsudski appreciated these traits—all of them could not get. Instead they indulged themselves himself, unbeknown to the public, had for be attributed to James Connolly himself.

37 never was a miracle more timely, for the Poles with everything that they had set PILSUDSKI continued issues at stake were tremendous. Had out to get. There was nothing more to Warsaw fallen, there can be no doubt that keep a military mission occupied, and the "Early in my relations with Pilsudski Poland, a great part of Germany and work was taken over by Colonial Clayton, he said to me that I could believe implicitly Czechoslovakia would have become the Military Attache, who had been with anything that he told me. On the other Communist." p86. me and had made a great success in his hand, he said that if he told me nothing I "General Briggs, who had been my post." p96. must not be surprised at anything that commanding officer in the Imperial Light POLISH CULTURE might happen. He stuck to his word, and Horse, came to see me in Warsaw. He De Wiart's reflections on the Polish only failed once to tell me his intentions. was chief of the British Military Mission He warned me of his designs on Kieff, to Denikin who commanded the White nation are interesting: {Kiev}, telling me that he would take it Russian troops. Denikin had started a big "The Polish landlords still lived in with Ukrainian troops under Petlura. I offensive against the Bolsheviks, and he feudal splendour, in a luxury unsuspected went back to England to report, and on was advancing so fast that it looked as if by western Europeans, and quite unaffect- returning found that he had taken Kieff, he would reach Moscow. Briggs had ed by the growling of their eastern neigh- but with Polish forces instead, as he had been sent to ask me to persuade Pilsudski bours. There were no staff difficulties; been unable to get the Ukrainians to to join in the offensive. I took Briggs to servants came with the hope of serving attack in time. see Pilsudski and explain the situation, their lifetime in the great houses, and "Pilsudski was a very superstitious man, and to ask him personally for his co- were not concerned with their evenings and having taken Kieff he admitted to operation. During the interview I could off and labour-saving gadgets. Instead of feeling uneasy, for he told me that every see that Pilsudski was not in the least Frigidaires, great blocks of ice were cut commander who had attempted to take impressed by what Briggs was telling from the frozen rivers in winter and placed the Ukraine had come to grief. Later, him, and when Briggs had left Pilsudski in the ice-house, which would then be when he had been forced to retire from said that Denikin would fail to get to flooded and the door left open. The whole Kieff, I asked why he had attempted to Moscow, and, worse still, that he would mass would freeze into one block of solid take it against his superstitions. His soon be back in the Black Sea. In view of ice which lasted a whole year. answer was that he felt that his luck stood Denikin's rapid advance this seemed a "Polish culture is French by adoption, so high that he thought he could risk it, fantastic statement to make, but Pilsud- and in all the great houses one found but he added: 'You see, I was wrong!' ski's judgement rarely failed, and I had French furniture, French pictures and such confidence in him that I reported tapestries, but with all their beautiful BRITISH FRIENDSHIP this at once to the War Office." p94. ornateness mixed with a delightful feeling "He hated the Russians with intensity, of comfort, so rarely found in France. "The Poles understand warmth, and and though he had no particular liking for WINSTON CHURCHILL guests are never found huddling round the Germans, he felt it wiser to be on good "I returned home to report, and Mr. the one inadequate fire, which makes a terms with them, and during his lifetime Winston Churchill, who was then at the visit to an English country house like a relations remained good to all appear- War Office, asked me to lunch. Mrs. trip to Sparta. They are great gourmets, ances. He had a great admiration for Winston Churchill and Jack Scott, his the food excellent, and the chef a most England and for all the British institutions, secretary, were the only other people at honoured and important member of the but at times he was justifiably bitter about the lunch. It was the first time that I had household." p99. our attitude towards Poland. Invariably met Mr. Churchill. I was immensely "Pilsudski had no liking for the French, we opposed Poland in each and every flattered by the idea of discussing with so and resented being in the French sphere crisis, and there were many. Even great a man what was at that moment an and made to feel dependent. There was Paderewski was moved to say to me: 'We important situation. {1919}. Mr. Church- constant friction between him and the cannot be wrong in every case'." p77. ill wished me to get the Poles to join in French military and diplomatic represent- Denikin's offensive, but I repeated Pilsud- atives. The French were hardly tactful Early in 1920 there were signs of the ski's warning, and I remember Mrs. and did not like any assistance to be given Bolsheviks starting a new offensive against Winston Churchill saying: 'You had much to Poland except through French chan- Poland, and in May or June a considerable better listen to General de Wiart.' I hasten- nels, regarding any gesture from another force advanced from the north-east. This ed to point out that it was not my opinion country as a sign of meddling. Their that I was giving, but Pilsudski's, and that Bolshevik force was commanded by Gen- attitude added considerably to our he had never put me wrong." p95. eral Budieny and was largely composed difficulties." p78. of Cossacks. "Within a very few weeks Pilsudski had proved a good prophet, for Denikin "I was seeing Pilsudski daily, and once was back in the Black Sea. GERMAN INVASION OF POLAND 1938 when I asked him what he thought of the "Pilsudski had only once kept silent situation, he shrugged his shoulders and "My next stop was Paris. Our Military with me. He had been planning to retake said that it was in the hands of the Attache took me to lunch at the Ritz, Vilna from the Lithuanians, and knowing Almighty. It was the only time I ever saw where I saw several French friends. They that I should have to inform my Govern- him shaken out of his almost oriental were all equally bitter and disgruntled ment, who would have done everything calmness, but he was not so shaken that with Britain for having stuck to her word in their power to stop him from succeed- he could not plan a masterly counter- to declare war on Germany if Poland was ing, he could not tell me of his plan. attack, which brought him victory in three invaded. The French with their usual "I cannot remember our Government weeks." p85. realism, failed to see why we consented agreeing with the Poles over any question, "The Bolshevik advance from the to ally ourselves with the Poles when it and there were many : Danzig, that first north-east continued steadily, until they was geographically impossible to help nail in Poland's coffin; Vilna; Eastern were only fourteen miles from Warsaw, them. The French were labouring under Galicia; Teschen; the demarcation of the when the Poles counter-attacked. The the impression that if Britain had not Russian-Polish frontier; and Upper Bolsheviks were exhausted, and as soon declared war the Poles would not have Silesia." p95. as they saw the Poles stand and prepare to fought. It was far from the truth, but the "By 1924, the five wars that Poland fight, they retreated and continued to French psychologically had no under- had been engaged in had all ended, {the retreat until they sued for peace." standing of the Polish mentality, or they Germans, Bolsheviks, Ukrainians, "The battle near Warsaw has been would have known that the Poles would Lithuanians, and the Czechs} leaving the called 'The Miracle of the Vistula,' and continued on page 37 38 after his plane crashed on the way to deep-set eyes of searching penetration, PILSUDSKI continued Yugoslavia. heavy brows and a drooping moustache In 1943, he was sent to China as Winston which was peculiarly characteristic." p76. Churchill's personal representative to " Causes, politics and ideologies are Jozef Pilsudski was of Lithuanian better left to historians." p15. Chiang Kai-shek. descent, he was born at Zulov, in the Despite this, we discover that his family province of Vilna, December 5, 1867. in Belgium had immense political influ- THE POLISH MISSION At the end of the Great War, Carton de According to the 1978 edition of ence, and a progressive influence, at that. Encyclopaedia Britannica, Pilsudski had His cousin, Henri Victor Marie Ghis- Wiart was sent to Poland as second in a go at reading Karl Marx's Kapital, but its lain, Count Carton de Wiart, was the twenty command of the British Military Mission -third Prime Minister of Belgium from under General Louis Botha. After a brief abstract argument got the better of him. 20th November 1920 to 6th May 1921 in period, he replaced General Botha (First After the Russian Revolution was put a Government of national union (Christian- Prime Minister of the Union of South down in 1905, a split occurred within the Democrats, Liberals and Socialists). He Africa). Poland desperately needed all the Polish Socialist Party: the Left wing want- was from an aristocratic family. help it could get, as it was engaged with ed to delete from the party's programme Elected in 1896 to the Belgian House of Bolshevik Russia (Polish-Soviet War), the stipulation that its main aim was an Representatives as a member of the Cath- the Ukrainians (Polish-Ukrainian War), independent Poland; they broke with Pil- olic Party's reform-orientated left wing, the Lithuanians (Polish-Lithuanian War) sudski's group, which insisted on that he served as Minister of Justice (1911–18) stipulation. and helped secure passage of child-welfare and the Czechs (Czech-Polish border conflicts). There he encountered Ignacy "Pilsudski had a remarkable career. As legislation (1912). In 1945 he reorganised a young man his sympathies had leaned the Catholic Party as the Social Christian Jan Paderewski, the great pianist and too much towards the left, and he had Party. He remained a Member of premier, Marshal Józef Pilsudski, the Chief been deported to Siberia. Later he joined Parliament until his death in 1951. of State and military commander, and the newly-formed Polish Socialist Party A member of the Jeune Belgique General Maxime Weygand, head of the {PPS}, whose chief object was to free (Young Belgium), a nationalist literary French military mission in mid-1920. Poland from its oppressor, Russia. Again movement, he wrote novels and treatises Charles de Gaulle was attached to the French he was imprisoned, but his partisans, to depict a uniquely Belgian national spirit. military mission. with a high degree of courage and ingenu- "In 1891, I was dispatched to the ity, engineered his escape. They disguised One of his tasks soon after his arrival themselves as Russian officers, went to Oratory School at Edgbaston, near was to attempt to make peace between the Birmingham. Cardinal Newman founded the prison armed with forged papers and Poles and the Ukrainian nationalists under this school." p13. walked out with Pilsudski. Early in 1914 "In 1897, it was decided to send me to Simon Petlyura. The Ukrainians were he was pledged to fight with his Legion Oxford, and in a rush of optimism I was besieging the city of Lwów (Lvov; Lem- on the side of Germany, but the Germans put down for Balliol." p14. berg). He was unsuccessful and formed a were afraid of him, thought he wielded "… war was in my blood. I was deter- negative view of Petlyura, especially after too much power, and in their turn impris- mined to fight and I didn't mind who or oned him. In 1918, as the symbol and Ukrainian forces machine gunned his train, soul of Polish opposition, Pilsudski was what. I didn't know why the war had killing two Polish officers aboard. started, and I didn't care on which side I appointed Chief of State, and inspired his was to fight. If the British didn't fancy me friends and followers with blind faith and I would offer myself to the Boers … PADEREWSKI supreme confidence. Causes, politics and ideologies are better "We arrived in Warsaw on the night of "I was lucky enough to make friends left to the historians." p15. February 12th, 1919, and were met by with Pilsudski straight away, which made Paderewski, the Minister of Foreign my position very much easier, and I was De Wiart fought in the Boer war in Affairs … Paderewski was an inter- one of the few foreigners to achieve such which he was twice wound. He lost an eye national figure of renown. He had found a relationship. in the East African campaign of 1914 and his way into people's hearts with his "There was great opposition to him later one hand. music, and remained there determinedly from the Polish aristocracy, they staged a In the First World War, he was wounded for his political ends." p75. coup d'etat which he foiled, and it says much for his statesmanship that many of eight times. Ignace Jan Paderewski was a leading From 1918 to 1924 he lived in Poland the aristocrats afterwards became his pianist of his time, remarkable for both his firmest supporters, realising that he was as Commander of the British Military musical culture and his mind. With his Mission. the only man fit to lead Poland." p77. fingers, Polish music, especially Chopin De Wiart was posted to the Six Counties "Unfortunately, Pilsudski had the defauts de ses qualites, for he was a very to the command of the British 61st Division became an instrument of propaganda. He jealous man, brooked no opposition, and in preparation for World War II. would speak at public meetings in America and then sit down at the piano on the when anyone rose higher than it suited He was Commander of the ill-fated him he got rid of him. His ruthless platform and win the audience by his love- Central Norwegian Expeditionary Force. dismissal of Paderewski, Sikorski and His one active command in World War liest expression of eloquence in melody. Korfanty were instances of his jealousy, II was not a success, but the blame could and he lost these three great patriots, two GENERAL PILSUDSKI not be put on him in this cauldron of of whom, Paderewski and Sikorski, stood "The day after our arrival we went to high in the eyes of the world. politics. As de Wiart said about the pay our respects to the Chief of State, campaign, "...war and politics seem bad "Meddling in politics taught me the General Pilsudski. Since those days it has bitter lesson that they invariably walk mixers, like port and champagne. But if it been my destiny to meet many of the wasn't for politicians we wouldn't have hand in hand with ingratitude, and when great men of the world, but Pilsudski Paderewski was dismissed, although he wars, and I, for one, should have been ranks high among them—in fact, for done out what for me is a very agreeable had many friends and enemies, his friends political sense, almost at the top. His let him go without a murmur. Their life." appearance was striking to a degree, and memories were fickle as well as short. He spent two years in an Italian prison his air that of the conspirator. He had continued on page 38 39 VOLUME 29 No. 5 CORK ISSN 0790-1712 Connolly and Pilsudski

Marxism-Leninism, of one kind or he {Connolly} recognised Pilsudski's was declared to be a social-patriot. If another, was the ideology of the 1970s Polish Socialism as being of a kind with Luxemburg or Lenin had had occasion to into the mid-80s, its influence encompas- his own Irish Republican Socialism, and characterise Connolly's politics during in his alignment with Germany in 1914- sing all but the eccentric right-wing fringe his lifetime, they would undoubtedly have 16 he was again in tune with Pilsudski." bracketed them with Pilsudski's politics of the academic world. (Connolly and German Socialism,Brendan and called them social-patriotic." p22. For 10 or 15 years, the politically-correct Clifford, Athol Books, p3, 2004). view was that Lenin founded a system of "The Polish Socialist Party (PPS) was PILSUDSKI: THE MAN founded in 1892 on a programme of socialist democracy which was perverted So what was it about Pilsudski that so building socialism in a re-established by Stalin, and that the future lay in a impressed James Connolly? restoration of Leninist democracy. Over Polish state." p21. "Connolly, like Pilsudski, established The present writer is grateful to Caoimhin 10 years before the Soviet collapse, Bren- a nationally based socialist organisation. de bHailis, a Cork scholar who passed on dan Clifford argued that 'Leninist demo- Rosa Luxemburg and Lenin argued that a 1955 Pan paperback titled: "Happy cracy' was a mirage. It was Lenin who socialist organisations should be based Odyssey—The memoirs of Lieutenant- founded the Soviet State as a system which on states, and both condemned nationalist General Sir Adrian Carton de Wait, VC, forms of socialist organisation. could only be run from the centre by a KBE, CB, CMG, DS.", with the advice "Connolly, like Pilsudski, combined party which monopolised power. Because that "all you ever wanted to know about Clifford dismissed the notion of Leninist nationalism and socialism ideologically, and deliberately set out to develop strong Pilsudski is in here". democracy and argued that Stalin had nationalist feelings in the socialist The writer was sceptical at first, but de handled Lenin's system in accordance with movement. Luxemburg and Lenin both Wiart, despite his Imperial attachments the principles inherent in it, he was condemned the advocacy of nationalism and dismissal of politicians of all hues, classified as a Stalinist and denounced by in the socialist movement, and they portrays a mighty objective view of Pilsud- regarded the blending of nationalist and believers in the mirage. ski, probably the honesty of one soldier socialist ideology as a particularly rep- Clifford drew attention to the fact that towards another. in 1917, Stalin, who was the Bolshevik rehensible and vicious exercise. 'Social- patriot' was one of the worst terms of De Wiart's own story is a classic in leader within Russia until the return of abuse in the Luxemburg-Lenin vocabul- itself but must be told elsewhere! The Lenin, had accepted the "bourgeois ary. It was roughly equivalent to the term following is a bare outline of de Wiart's democracy" of the February Revolution 'fascist' in the inter-war period. Pilsudski background. as an adequate framework for socialist development, and had set the Bolshevik Subscribers to the magazine are regularly Carton de Wiart: offered special rates on other publications party on a course of socialist development "Lieutenant-General Sir Adrian Carton within it. Lenin won him over to the Irish Political Review is published by de Wiart VC, KBE, CB, CMG, DSO (5 project of socialist revolution by proletar- the IPR Group: write to— May 1880 - 5 June 1963), was a British officer of Belgian and Irish descent. He is ian dictatorship when he got home, and 1 Sutton Villas, Lower Dargle Road once embarked on it, Stalin saw it through! Bray, Co. Wicklow or considered by many to be one of the most remarkable figures in British military This is the international context in which PO Box 339, Belfast BT12 4GQ or history, renowned for bravery, his striking Brendan Clifford relates James Connolly's PO Box 6589, London, N7 6SG, or character and the sheer adventure of his views to Jozef Pilsudski and the Polish Labour Comment, long life. He is thought to be a model for Socialist Party (PPS). C/O Shandon St. P.O., Cork City. the character of Brigadier Ben Ritchie TEL: 021-4676029 Hook in Evelyn Waugh's trilogy Sword CONNOLLY AND PILSUDSKI of Honour." (Wikipedia). Subscription by Post: "I was born in Brussels, a Belgian, the "I demonstrated that his international 12 issues: £20, UK; orientation as a practising socialist € 30, Ireland; € 35, Europe. son of a successful legal man, and with an politician was towards the Polish Irish grandmother to produce a small Socialism of Joseph Pilsudski in the first Electronic Subscription: quantity of British blood in my veins." instance, and towards the wing of the € 15 / £12 for 12 issues p11. De Wiart was a Catholic. German Social Democratic Party that (or € 1.30 / £1.10 per issue) "… I have no politics and am utterly supported the German war effort from You can also order from: uninterested as to what party is in power." August 1914 to the end of his life. In 1898 https://www.atholbooks-sales.org p212. continued on page 39