Ireland: Harry Boland's Myers in Freefall Now And Then. Murder. IRB, 6 Nick Folley Brendan Clifford Manus O'Riordan David Alvey page 19 page 11 page 16 IRISH POLITICAL REVIEW May 2007 Vol.22, No.5 ISSN 0790-7672 and Northern Star incorporating Workers' Weekly Vol.21 No.5 ISSN 954-5891

Peter Hart— Warding Off The Inevitable? A Last Gasp? "Never! Never! Never! Och alright then" : that's the headline of the April issue Peter Hart's latest effort to defend his of the Loyalist Shankill Mirror. thesis on the Irish War of Independence Why was it alright then? Paisley says it's because the alternative would have been took the form of a review of John worse. . But the alternative of joint British/Irish rule was entirely lacking in credibility. Borgonovo's book, Spies, Informers And Paisley, who has never been a ranting simpleton, must have had other reasons for doing The 'Anti-Sinn Fein Society': the what he did. intelligence war in Cork City 1920-1921, He has let down many people. Dublin die-hards, such as Conor Cruise O'Brien and in History Ireland, March-April 2007. Bruce Arnold, were relying on him to hold the line against the party for which they have In case readers need reminding, Hart's an irrational hatred. But he sold the pass and opened the gate—and now they can only thesis is that— gnash their teeth as public statements are issued jointly in the names of Martin "…the Dail had no legal standing McGuinness and Ian Paisley. and was never recognised by any foreign government. Nor did the IRA, So why did he do it? And why did he give an implausible reason for doing it? as a guerrilla force acting without We take it that he pretended to be frightened by the alternative in order to frighten uniforms and depending on their stubborn elements in his party. The alternative of London/Dublin collaboration was civilian status for secrecy, meet the requirements of international law. The likely to be much ado about nothing. Bertie Ahern has never had a Northern policy, and British government was therefore even if he had, it is unlikely that Gordon Brown would screw the Unionists for him. within its rights to give courts-martial Perhaps Paisley, who has been waiting for Gordon during the past year, reckoned that the power to order executions" (Irish Tony would try to do something drastic during his last weeks in office unless a Times, 23 June 1998). concession was made on March 26th. And the Water Rates had to be taken account of. And furthermore But those considerations do not explain the way Paisley has been acting since he made "Nor were members of the IRA the concession. No doubt he is still waiting for Gordon, but he is doing more than that. protected by the Hague Convention, He is attempting to bind the Provos into 'the Northern Ireland state'. the basis for the law of war on land. The British government and its forces were Once of his first actions was the letter he sent to the Secretary of State, jointly with not at war in this sense. To be recognised Deputy First Minister-to-be Martin McGuinness, instructing him to vacate Stormont as belligerent soldiers, the guerillas Castle—an old centre of aristocratic power that became the site of the Unionist Cabinet would have had to be fighting for a when the 'Northern Ireland state' was concocted. It is far removed from the gaudy responsible established state, wear a Stormont Parliament that nationalists have grown accustomed to attending. recognisable uniform or emblem, carry It is only forty years since Paisley undermined Captain O'Neill. Now, having their arms openly, and not disguise continued on page 5 continued on page 3

Reflections On Palestine Part 4 along the street with me, giving their much approved of by that wonderful views and asking for mine. Their know- discovery of the 21st century, the ledge of the world and its history is Inte rnational Community. Politicians And Pacifism extensive except, in many cases, when it Of course people help their friends and comes to their next-door neighbours. families. That is socially a good thing— I don't tend to get along with politicians Languages are taught at a very early age. within limits. But most people with a lot and tried to spend most of my two visits to of money in Palestine have got it through Palestine speaking to people in the streets I was taken to task on a few occasions the normal unpleasant ways that people and in the cafes or in their homes. This was by "high ups" for perhaps talking too use to acquire more than their fair share of very easy as everyone wanted to speak to much to "the wrong type of person" and the social wealth. Robbing from the 'State', the stranger—if only to find out who he is was introduced to politicians. Mostly I s uch as it is, is unusual. and to make sure, as far as is possible, that was pleasantly surprised. They were Robbing from the State, usually covered he is not a spy. But generally Palestinians decent, hardworking, welcoming and, so legal fig leaves, is the norm in American are simply a sociable and curious people. far as I could see, honest. What little politics and has become almost an art It was normal for both adults and corruption there is seems to be the province form among the Blairs, the Jowells, the children to introduce themselves and walk of advisors and hangers-on who are very Milburns, etc., in Britain. In Israel continued on page 2 Ghandi's campaign, or such knowledge is C O N T E N T S discounted to fit the pacifist ideology. Warding Off The Inevitable? Editorial 1 This is partly Ghandi's fault. His writings Peter Hart, A Last Gasp? Jack Lane 1 from that period are full of philosophy and spiritualism. But he was not a fool and Politicians And Pacifism. Conor Lynch (Reflections On Palestine, Part 4) 1 presented himself as an alternative to a Roger Casement. Tim O'Sullivan Replies To Roger Sawyer 3 mass armed movement blooded in the 1939-45 War, on both sides. Editorial Commentary. (SDLP Hibernianism; UUP Reincarnation; Sir Kenneth He operated in a world of superpowers, Bloomfield; Electoral Weight; PUP Reassured; R.D. Edwards on Paisley; Bertie both of whom were ardent anti-colonial- Ahern; Irish Buses For UVF?; MI5 No Role-Model For FBI; Finian McGrath v. ists. One of them, the Soviet Union, was McDowell; Mattie McGrath, Tipperary North; Daniel Cohn-Bendit) 6 prepared to pour weapons into any serious anti-colonial movement. While the other, Das Kapital: A Critical Appreciation. Report of launch 8 the United States, called for independence Shorts from the Long Fellow (The Irish Times' Ideological Struggle; The Irish Times' for the colonies before they turned for Political Struggle; The Irish Times' Struggle Against Reality; The Independent help to the Soviet Union. (That started to Group's Campaign; French Presidential Election) 9 change in 1950 with the Korean War, but by then Britain was out of India.) Today, "Harry Boland Was Murdered By The IRB". Manus O'Riordan who is there to call to for help against the (To Be or IRB?, part 6) 11 remaining superpower? Faulty Official Irish. Ted O'Sullivan (unpublished letter to Irish Times) 14 In those days Britain was a bit of a Kevin Myers, a study of 'exceptionalism' in free-fall. Nick Folley 16 pariah insofar as it tried to reoccupy its Arrogance, Hypocrisy And Blind Partiality. David Alvey colonies. And there were deep misgivings in the new British Labour Government (2 letters replying to Kevin Myers, from Irish Independent) 18 about colonialism—though I wouldn't put Ireland: Now And Then. Brendan Clifford it much stronger than that. (Consideration of Tom Garvin's Preventing The Future 19 It might be noted here that Israel also emerged from the international situation Labour Comment, edited by Pat Maloney: existing in 1947-8. The Zionists portrayed Supreme Court Judgement In Breach Of ILO Conventions themselves as fighting an anti-colonial from Socialist Voice (back page) war against Britain. This helped them get the Soviet Union to push through the corruption is massive. The Sharon scandal Government refusing to abide by previous support they needed for the Jewish State is the mere tip of the iceberg. Indeed I accords with Israel. The Israelis have never in the United Nations. have noticed that whenever the Inter- been asked to declare that they will abide national Community takes sides in the by these same accords. Nor are they taken Next year is the 60th anniversary of the internal affairs of a country, it takes the to task for breaking them. founding of the State of Israel and we will side of the crook, or of the most crooked. hear no end of guff about its "War of A great hero in Palestine is Mahatma Independence". I looked at many memor- The problem that I found with Palestin- Ghandi, especially among Fatah politi- ials to this "war" of 1948 and saw little ian politicians was their meekness. Time cians. There is the notion that Ghandi other than the Haganah or the Irgun taking and again I heard them calling themselves brought about Indian independence by something or somewhere without any "soldiers for peace". And they meant non-violent means, and that all Palestine resistance from the British. pacifists. Their plan seems to be a combin- needs is a charismatic figure to follow Returning to Ghandi, Indian independ- ation of absorbing suffering with making Arafat and the world will support his ence was not achieved peacefully. Some dramatic public concessions. All with an peaceful leadership of the Palestinian 26 million people died in the chaos left eye on the International Community. people. This is a serious view held by behind, or even fomented, by the British. Well, the Israelis will dish out all the influential and decent people in Abbas' India became first two states and later suffering they can absorb and more, and Party. (Mind you, I didn't hear anyone three states. It has no lessons for the nobody will give a damn. This I tried to consider Abbas to be fit for that purpose!) Palestinians. If the charismatic of Fatah explain. Even their Arab neighbours won't These leaders spend a lot of time abroad dreams ever emerges, he should bear in care. They regard the Palestinians mostly or dealing with officials from the mind the fate of almost all post- as a pain in backside, a source of trouble International Community. They listen to independence Indian leaders, including who can't sort themselves out. America lectures about terrorism and are Ghandi himself! and England, who constitute the embarrassed by them. The International International Community, are every bit as Community, with a little prodding from My impression of Palestinians, and of enthusiastic as the Israelites for a bit of the Israelis, portrays the Palestinians as a most Arabs in the Middle East, is that they applied smiting. They have no respect for bunch of murderers and wasters. The are indeed pacific. They have no aptitude anyone who puts up with it. Palestinian leadership has itself internal- for, or inclination towards, war. But some- Concessions offered are instantly ised these opinions, is ashamed, and is times, under extreme pressure, Arabs who forgotten as more is demanded and determined to rid its people of their bad have taken the trouble to study and to reciprocation is denied. Any time that the ways. understand Israel, suppress their Palestinians are taken to be in breach of This is a harsh verdict. But I can come inclinations and devote themselves to some accord, Israel and its friends create to no other on the basis of my preparing and organising for war. an international outcry. I am told that conversations with Ministers and officials Nazrallah in Lebanon is one such Israel is in breach of some 30 UN and spokesmen. person. He has studied the Israelis. He resolutions and nobody cares. speaks their language, literally, and he After the Mecca Agreement there was There seems to be little knowledge of knows their minds. He has even developed much fuss about the new Hamas-led the Indian independence process or of a certain kind of empathy with them. And 2 he has gone on to defeat them on the battlefield. I have actually met a few LETTERS TO THE EDITOR · LETTERS TO THE EDITOR· LETTERS TO THE EDITOR· Palestinians like that. They were for the most part refugees and still well down the political food chain. But they are the future. Or if they are not, I believe that there is no Roger Casement: future. Tim O’Sullivan Replies To Roger Sawyer Palestinian politicians are of the opinion I wish to reply to comments in Roger Sawyer's letter (March 2007) regarding "The that all other methods but Ghandi's have been tried and have been defeated. They Casement 'Black Diaries'—An Overlong Controversy in Outline (Part 3)". are the products of the two Intafadas. The He referred first to errors of fact. Intafadas were long drawn-out uprisings. I had been led to believe that a series of extracts, two or perhaps three, from Casement Uprisings are usually acts of desperation the Flawed Hero, a biography by Roger Sawyer had appeared in the Sunday Press in the and are seldom successful unless they mid 1980s. In fact, only one extract appeared in the paper. By using the term "serialisation" lead to a more deliberate form of warfare. in place of "series of extracts" an impression was suggested that perhaps the whole book The Palestinians have never gone to could have been week by week reproduced in the newspaper. "Serialisation", properly war with the State of Israel. (There were so called, is a 19th century practice unknown in contemporary western press publishing Palestinians in the Arab Legion which where a complete book was reproduced in instalments in a newspaper or periodical. saved East Jerusalem and the Old City in In the article regarding Colm Tóibín and his article on Casement for his 2001 book 1948. But the Legion is not remembered "Love in a Dark Time", I stated that Roger Sawyer and Angus Mitchell were interviewed as having had anything to do with the Palestinians.) for the article. I accept Sawyer was never interviewed by Tóibín. Mitchell was only They have not even conducted any kind informally interviewed via having his views sounded out at a social occasion. of defensive war. They occasionally loose In his letter Dr. Sawyer pointed to the preface to his 1997 book on the 1910 diaries off a few shots or rockets, but the Israeli where he claims he had "entered the controversy from the opposite position" meaning Defence Force has roamed at will through he had originally been a proponent of forgery. As he has admitted himself to me recently Palestine. Life could be made impossible he never wrote a book, pamphlet or even a letter to the editor of a newspaper in support for the IDF in towns like Nablus or Hebron, of the forgery position. He says he was convinced the diaries were genuine from about and large casualties caused, but this does 1960. His career as a supporter of the forgery thesis where he claims he "entered the not happen. controversy" was quite an uneventful one. War is not in the nature of Palestinians He referred then to two omissions. Reinhard Doerries had indeed withdrawn permission and there has not yet arisen an organised for the RIA (not the IRA), that is the Royal Irish Academy, to publish an edited version force with war as its purpose. The suicide bombings, though they terrified the of his address to the Casement symposium of 2000. He regarded it as being unfaithful Israelis, were not military activities. to his original contribution. His talk centred on "Roger Casement in Imperial Germany Their undoubted effectiveness arose as an Emissary of Clan a Gael". It was not focussed on the diaries matter and so not from a pacifist and not a military directly relevant to what I was writing about. Sawyer referred to how a number of mentality—a kind of duty to die, to be a contributions to the conference were not subsequently published and others substituted martyr, in exchange for the taking of life. contributions they had not made. This matter again, I would feel is not relevant enough But nothing was there to build on the to be include in a summary article where so much has to be compressed and so much success of the suicide bombings. Therefore more has to be disregarded. they were seen as a waste and, in the case The second omission he referred to concerned the 'black diary' entry for 31 August of many politicians, yet another thing to 1910 which included the words "…Took room 'Le Cosmopolite'. Hotel dreadful…" be ashamed of. This jars with a letter Casement wrote on 3 September (FO 371/968) where he says "On Conor Lynch arrival at Iquitos the members of the Commission took up their quarters in the house of the Peruvian Amazon Company while I became the guest of Mr Cazes." Dr Sawyer believes I should have presented my reference to this in a more even-handed way. My Peter Hart purpose was to present, within a short space, the sort of arguments Angus Mitchell was continued employing to support his case that forgery had occurred. I was not intent on trying to distil themselves as civilians. None of these the weight and potency of each point various parties employed as I was engaged in conditions applied. It is of course true summarising as opposed to acute analysis. In summarising such a long controversy one that international law favours estab- has to leave an awful lot out. I agree one could explain this discrepancy by theorising lished states, but if any group can claim that Casement had at first accepted a room at the hotel and then rejected it after closer belligerent status when using political inspection and then found a room with Mr Cazes. However, it is odd that such a turn of violence, then so can the INLA or the LVF. The Oklahoma bombers would events; ascertaining what was wrong with the hotel, rejecting it and then finding also conceivably have a right to POW alternative accommodation, is not detailed in the diary in the least. So, I must agree this status" (Irish Times, 22 July 1998; How discrepancy is not absolute proof of forgery. Yet it is quite strange and odd and does did we fail to notice that the INLA and prompt one to wonder. the LVF had won massive electoral I appreciate Dr. Sawyer's taking an active interest in my series of article and his victories in their area of operation, as the Republicans of 1918-21 did?). helpfulness in answering questions I recently put to him

With this apologia for State violence, On Hart's view, the Irish War of for self-determination. All their actions Professor Hart precludes legitimacy of Independence is reduced to series of a are to be condemned and denigrated. Hart's any kind for national liberation armies. wanton criminal acts. The Professor goes logic has a perfect internal consistency. Britain held Ireland by conquest, but the even further than that: looking for all sorts legal framework covering its State viol- of ulterior motives amongst the Volun- Of course, the Prof. ignores the clear ence was legitimate and binding. teers, who only took on the guise of fighting result of the 1918 Election which estab- 3 lished the new legality, on an electoral no wild assertions, and no questions going vital importance to the republicans—it basis for an Irish independent state. He a begging. was a vital weapon. They had a vested also ignores the wholesale promulgation interest in it to prove their case to world at the time of the right of all nations to self Hart tries to claim that, because there opinion. How then could one be considered determination. It was the issue of the day. were a majority of ex-soldiers executed, as truthful or as untruthful as the other? Britain convinced millions that the war it this proves his point that groups such as Hart is defying common sense by started in August 1914 was for the freedom those were picked on. suggesting that this was the case. of small nations and up to 50,000 Irishmen In the middle of a war the only intel- died for it in that War and millions of ligence that matters is immediate military But what is believable and unbelievable others elsewhere. The Russian Revolution intelligence. Who is likely to be a good is a very arbitrary and optional matter for of 1917 ended Russia's participation in source of this? Surely, it is people with Hart and facts are easily created or dispen- the War and developed an effective prog- military experience who have fought for sed with to make his case. In his 'classic ramme that encouraged and supported the one side and who are likely therefore to work' on the War in Cork there is the colonial world to rise up and establish have an instinct for what is useful infamous treatment of what he regards as their national rights against all the Imperial intelligence to that side in these circum- "the most trustworthy" source, the 'Official powers. Then the USA joined the War stances. In other words, ex-British soldiers. report of Army intelligence on the and Woodrow Wilson's '14 Points' justified These would also have the means of rebellion'. Hart quoted half a sentence it essentially on the basis of nations' right discovering such information because of from it which appeared to support his case to self determination. The world was their local knowledge—and might have and excised the next sentence that flatly thereby saturated with talk and actions needed the reward. Is this a surprise? If contradicted his thesis; then he uses a insisting on the rights of nations to self there are thousands of them in the war document that was a proven forgery and, determination. It was the spirit of the age theatre, is it picking on them to pay atten- when all else fails, he interviews the dead. and millions in all continents were set in tion to them, and is it a surprise that they It is rather rich to see this type of person political motion on the basis of it. Some turn out to be good at spying. Only a fool advising on what is and is not believable. peoples began to think in nationality terms would think otherwise and Mr. Hart is not In legal jargon he is a discredited witness for the first time in their history. a fool. and his case would be thrown out of court But for Mr. Hart none of this was meant That said, only a infinitesimally small years ago. He would never be called as an to apply to Ireland although it had a national proportion of ex-soldiers actually did spy expert witness on the truth. movement for generations—it was to be for England; far greater numbers used the great exception to what was happening their military experience to fight for Irish Hart seeks to damn Borgonovo with all over the world. How strange. independence, or remained generally faint praise, as having produced "good sympathetic to the Volunteers. If all the material for class room discussion", saying It means that Hart's case flies in the face thousands of ex-soldiers in Ireland had that his "aim of advancing the debate is of obvious realities and therefore he has to supported Britain, Ireland would never admirable". rely on all sorts of spurious arguments, have won independence. distortions, and lies to make his case. If He criticises Borgonovo for not dealing with periods and conflicts outside the one has to defy the reality of a situation Another of Hart's lines of defence is to period of his book. how else could one operate? What a strange question Borgonovo's faith in the career choice to have made? trustworthiness of the head of the IRA's And what is his own assessment of the There could hardly be a greater contrast intelligence operations in Cork city, Florrie period in Cork city? Rather than Borgo- in John Borgonovo. About 10 years ago O'Donoghue—"but the author is inclined novo's hard-headed, factually-based he came across some of Hart's initial work to take Florence O'Donoghue at his word". analysis, he sees only "mayhem in the and immediately detected flaws in his If Florrie could not be trusted, then streets of Cork at that time" and adds: arguments. On the basis of what he had Borgonovo's thesis could indeed be chal- "What emerges instead is a picture of then researched he could not accept that lenged. But what evidence does Hart have predators hunting and killing opportunist- the War of Independence was some sort of to support his suggestion, or rather his ically right up to the final bell". tit for tat with the IRA picking on certain insinuation, about O'Donoghue? None Is this really the best our Professor can groups such a Protestants, ex-soldiers, whatever. On the other hand Borgonovo do? It is a pathetic effort at analysis and an and others, through sheer prejudice of one has done a detailed study of O'Donoghue— admission that he has lost the plot and sort or another. his character, his ability—and has publish- cannot make sense of it. He resorts instead He made a detailed study of the ed a fascinating book on him as a person to the best tabloid headline tradition. Is intelligence war in Cork city during its and as an intelligence operator. It makes a this his idea of "advancing the debate"? most intense phase to see if Hart's argu- most compelling case for O'Donoghue's Jack Lane ments made sense. They did not. He said trustworthiness. So we have to choose so. He took, head on, the toughest, nastiest between an insidious unproven assertion The Origins and the Organisation subject of all—the execution of civilians by Hart and a hard detailed study made by of British Propaganda in Ireland for spying and informing. If prejudice and Borgonovo. Take your choice. 1920 ulterior motives were given an opportunity Hart then says that British claims that by Brian P. Murphy osb. to express themselves it would be obvious the majority of those executed as spies Foreword: Prof. David Miller. and clear-cut in this area. were innocent are "presumably… as ISBN 1 903497 24 8. 100pp, Illus. Bibliog. He came to the conclusion on the basis believable as the IRA claim to the Index. Aubane Historical Society + Spinwatch., Feb. 2006. E9, £6. of all the available evidence that spies contrary". were executed because they were spies Britain had to defend the indefensible The two John Borgonovo books and for no other reason. And that is usually in 1919-21 in Ireland. Brian Murphy has referred to above are published by the accepted as a good enough reason in the established how they sought to do this. Irish Academic Press. They are: middle of a war. Borgonovo's method- The truth was a problem for them and, Peter HartSpies, informers And The 'Anti- ology is to painstakingly gather and present when lies would not suffice, verisimilitude Sinn Fein Society': the intelligence war in as much of the unvarnished facts as can (the appearance of truth) took its place, Cork City 1920-1921 and now be located. No speculation that the quite deliberately and consciously. By the Florence And Josephine O'Donoghue's facts don't back up, and no innuendo, and same token, the facts and the truth were of War Of Independence 4 remain attached to the Union by voting Catholic aspiration long pre-dating the Unionist from outside its politics, while formation of Provisional Sinn Fein. Warding Off The Inevitable? governing the Catholic community outside It was our reckoning thirty years ago the democracy of the state. that a quarter of the Catholic community continued Catholics would undoubtedly have was predisposed to take an active part in participated in the democratic politics of the politics of the British state, given the destroyed the Unionist Party, he aspires to the state during the two generations after opportunity of doing so. Some Unionists re-establish O'Neillism on a sounder basis. Partition if it had been open to them to do took that as meaning that a quarter of the Apart from Brian Faulkner—who was so. (In the 1940s they tried to force their Catholics were Unionists. They would destroyed by the diplomatic trickery of way in by electing an MP on a mandate of not see that taking part in the democratic Doctors O'Brien and FitzGerald at taking the Labour Whip, but they were politics of the state was a very different Sunningdale in 1973 and their intransi- rebuffed.) In the 'Northern Ireland state' thing from being Unionist in 'the Northern gence in 1974—Paisley is the only Union- there was no politics for them to participate Ireland state'. ist politician who showed signs of having in but the politics of community. Since then communal voting has thought about the reality of the Unionist In the politics of community there was hardened and the segregation of the position and who acted on the basis of only one way that the minority could communities has increased. And Dr. Fitz what he saw. become the majority—the way that is Gerald's initiatives during his two periods Both Paisley and Faulkner briefly called demographic. in Office contributed substantially to that adopted an 'integrationist' stance in the development, particularly his 1985 one. early 1970s, and both of them discarded Everybody knows—or should know— The general outlook of the SDLP in this integrationism without explanation—as that there was funny business about the matter is much the same as Sinn Fein's, did a long series of British politicians of last British census in the North. There and twice it refused to make a political our acquaintance from the early seventies was a long delay in publishing the figures. deal with the Unionist Party independently to the early nineties. The reasonable suspicion was that the of Sinn Fein. And the Unionist Party "Integrationism" meant the governing figures were being rigged for the purpose would not strike a deal with Sinn Fein of Northern Ireland as part of the state to of minimising the increase in the Catholic with Paisley breathing down its neck. So which it belongs, recognising that it is not community as a percentage. It was, of Paisley had to do it himself. itself a state and is unlikely ever to become course, denied that this was the case. one. (Elements in the Unionist Party, led Garret FitzGerald was amongst the With the demographic watershed in by William Craig, flirted with demanding deniers. But now he writes about the sight, he is attempting to make provision statehood in the late sixties and early "outflows of Protestant third level for the situation in which keeping Northern seventies. Craig asserted that Northern students to British… universities. The Ireland in external association with Britain great majority of these do not return Ireland was a de facto Dominion and will depend on implicating the Catholic after graduation—nor, in many cases, community in 'the Northern Ireland state'. should be recognised as one de jure. But are they encouraged by their parents to it came to nothing.) He did not explain, thirty-five years come back to a divided society which is ago, why he abandoned integration. We The Six Counties might have been seen by them as being an increasingly democratically governed as part of the cold place for Protestants. By contrast assume it was because it was convincingly British state, within the politics of the Catholics now outnumber Protestants put to him, by an authoritative Whitehall British state. It could not be governed in both Northern Ireland universities, source, that Britain had a use for Northern democratically within the British state but and they are much less inclined to go to Ireland which did not include having it outside its political life. The 'Northern Britain for third-level education. settle down as part of the democracy of the Ireland state' could never fall into a political Moreover those who do go are more British state. He was made to understand likely to return to the North.. In the that there were sufficient reasons of state routine resembling that of a democratic short run, this process has been state. which required that the Six Counties accelerating the growth of the Catholic should not be governed as an integral part sphere of the Northern population—a of the state. The function of the 'Northern Ireland trend upon which Sinn Fein has seemed state' was to keep the Six Counties attached to place hopes of Irish reunification In the mid-1970s we were approached to Britain in a way that gave Britain within a foreseeable future. In fact this by somebody who had been much continuing leverage in the affairs of the is a quite illusory hope, for polls have influenced by Paisley, and had been close Irish state. Governing the Six Counties as consistently shown that at least a quarter to him, and had also been influenced by an integral part of the British state would of the Catholic population wish to Athol St. Such people were not rare. This have deprived the British state of its remain in the United Kingdom" (Irish particular person was both a trade union Times). leverage in the 26 Counties. shop-steward and a lay preacher—a The 'minority' in the North was never a combination that was not rare. He told us He then engages in some criticism of that in the early seventies he had belonged mere policy minority. Policy in the the IRA for having fought the war that ordinary sense did not enter Northern to a group which had taken seriously brought about the present willingness to Paisley's talk about resistance. They had Ireland politics. The only issue was make a rapprochement, and concludes: whether the region should remain attached taken it too seriously for Paisley's liking. "The trouble is that Sinn Fein's He had called the leaders of this group to to the British state or transfer to the Irish preoccupation with securing a Catholic state. The way Northern Ireland was a confidential meeting at which he told majority in the North will tend to make them that the unification of Ireland was governed made its political parties it resistant to any measures that the expressions of the two religious-national DUP might wish to take to slow the inevitable, and admonished them that they communities which were in active conflict Protestant brain drain. That could must not attempt to resist it by force. Our with one another when the pseudo-state provide a future source of tension." informant, who could not be disbelieved, was imposed on them. had been made bitterly anti-Paisleyite by Scotland and Wales were not required This presents the demographic issue as the experience. He saw it as mere duplicity to vote Unionist in order to remain part of a Sinn Fein issue. But Sinn Fein is very that Paisley should make stirring speeches the Union. They just participated in the much a component part of the Catholic which roused the spirit of resistance and party-political life of the state. But the community, and to our knowledge the should then go on to subvert that spirit. Ulster Protestant community could only aspiration for a Catholic majority is a But it was not mere duplicity. It was 5 expressive of the dilemma which the Ulster expression of the Catholic community, Protestant community allowed itself to be it may be prepared to set Hibernianism put into when, following its terrorist Editorial aside, but the SDLP is mounting a resistance to the Third Home Rule Bill, it rearguard action to maintain anti- accepted Home Rule for itself outside the Commentary Protestant attitudes as a tactic for politics of the state. electoral survival. "Sitting down with terrorists" is a mere SDLP Hibernianism Mark Durkan has UUP Reincarnation: Funnily enough, debating point when put by Unionists. been increasingly returning the SDLP to the SDLP's counterpart, the Ulster Without terrorism Northern Ireland would its Hibernian roots—as opposed to the Unionist Party, which now has only one not have existed. Civil Rights input of John Hume—in an MP at Westminster and did not have a Unionists in recent times asserted that effort to retain an electoral base. In single MLA elected on the first count in the existence within the state of an army January ex-Minister for Agriculture Brid the recent election, is moving in the which was not authorised by the state was Rodgers mischievously appealed to Sinn opposite direction. Sir Reg Empey is an act of terrorism regardless of whether it Fein "to reconsider their support for the embarking on a "crusade" to re- was actually shooting people. We did not entrenchment of MI5 in Ireland—a invigorate the party, and says: "We must dispute the point. But it does not only reincarnation of an unreformed Special reach out to that growing number of apply in one direction. If the IRA on Branch, a law unto themselves and people who do not classify themselves as Ceasefire was engaged in terrorist action answerable to no-one" (IN 17.1.07), either unionist or nationalist… by by virtue of existing, then so was the while in April, Upper Bann MLA persuading them of our vision for Ulster Volunteer Force that was raised in Dolores Kelly objected to a NIO Northern Ireland". And Lord Trimble 1912 to prevent the implementation of the incentive scheme to diminish Loyalist has gone a step further by jumping ship Home Rule Bill. And the 'Northern Ireland paramilitarism, and demanded an "end and joining the Conservative Party (IT state' concocted in 1921 was in substance to grants solely for loyalist areas" (IT 23.4.07, IN 17.4.07). However, as noted nothing but the terrorist UVF made legal 13.4.07). Worst of all has been Kelly's last month's Commentary, the by Westminster. further opportunist intervention over an Conservatives in NI will designate impending SF/DUP deal over marches. themselves as "Unionist" in the Unionism in official authority never The grapevine says that SF is negotiating Assembly, as Empey's UUP will succeeded in establishing political concessions on marching—including continue to do. Roy Garland has pointed legitimacy for itself vis a vis the minority allowing the Garvaghy Road Orange out the difficulties Empey faces if it is to of a third (which has now risen to well march in Portadown—in return for the be "more welcoming… to Catholics", over 40%). The purposefulness with which DUP permitting implementation of the saying "There are still too many tiny that minority supported the terrorist action Irish Language Act, which SF negotiated branch meetings insisting on singing waged on its behalf against the arrange- at St. Andrews. SF denies it is negotiating God Save the Queen out of tune and in ments won by the terrorism of the majority with the DUP, but indications that such some cases starting meetings with in an earlier generation is what brought a deal is in prospect are the resignation Christian prayers…" (IN 16.4.07). about the present rapprochement. from SF of Breandan Mac Cionnaith, Speaking at a lecture commemorating Democracy has nothing to do with it. The spokesman of the Garvaghy Road the late Professor Antony Alcock at the new arrangements are more blatantly Residents' Coalition in Portadown (IN University of Ulster, David Trimble undemocratic than the old. It is now 10.4.07) and Hain's appointment of revealed that, as a side-deal in 1998, officially laid down that the majority shall Paddy Ashdown (a former soldier in NI, Prime Minister Blair promised him that not govern. ex-MP and servant of NATO) to conduct the British Labour Party "would organise There is no normal, "bread and butter", a general review of parading. Dolores in Northern Ireland" (IT 26.4.07), adding politics in the situation, which might be Kelly's strident objection to such a trade- that the promise had been broken as the the source of a real party-political division off was reported on the front page of the Party still did not organise in NI. (The that might supersede the communal Irish News with the headline, SF Warned current position is that the LP now division. Both sides represent the workers Not To Barter Away Residents' Rights. accepts members in NI, but they are not more or less. Both sides are socialists The right concerned is that the Orange allowed to do anything.) more or less—as it goes these days. Both Order should be forced to negotiate with wants lots of money to spend—which is to residents: "Dialogue is a requirement of Sir Kenneth Bloomfield, head of the NI say, they want the state to give them lots principle and it cannot just be traded Civil Service under Brian Faulkner, has of money. The points of disagreement away in some sort of secret, backroom suggested in a new book, A Tragedy Of will be the old points of communal deal" (16.4.07). But local dialogue has Errors—The Government And disagreement in internal matters—with been superseded by dialogue in the Misgovernment Of NI (Liverpool the Protestants in control of planning trying Executive of the Assembly. Moreover, University Press), that the Protestant to constrict Catholic expansion. the most serious community commit- community might be better off in a united ment to Irish as a living language is in Ireland if the new governing Sinn Fein has a purpose beyond the NI, and particularly W. Belfast—and arrangements in NI prove too fractious. 'Northern Ireland state'. The DUP has the the Irish Language Act would ensure In any subsequent restoration of Direct purpose of curbing that purpose by significant State support to a unique Rule, the UK would be "increasingly implicating Sinn Fein as far as possible in Irish development, so confirming the cool", and reduce the NI subvention. 'the Northern Ireland state'. new status of the Catholic community in Moreover: the governance of NI. After calling its "Nor can one ignore the fact that, Ceasefire, SF pulled the Catholic amongst all the citizens of this Hibernian constituency in behind itself, supposedly United Kingdom, we alone have been afforded no opportunity to Plenty of further reading can be with a strategy of forcing negotiations found on the Athol Books website: vote for a party now deeply entrenched over marches through Catholic areas— in the government of our country. which was also a tactic in the power "There are moments, I confess, when struggle of the communities. Now, even I—the son of English parents, www.atholbooks.org having forced the Protestant community although born in Ulster, a graduate of to recognise it as a legitimate political Oxford University and a Knight 6 Commander of the Most Noble Order developer who has been given a generous dirty tricks campaign saw him charged of the Bath–wonder if we would not legal immunity and who is expected to for trying to quell some youth disorder enjoy a more dignified position as a allege that developer Owen O'Callaghan in his home village of Newcastle. community within a united Ireland" gave Mr. Ahern IR£100,000 when he McGrath had been threatening a High (IN, 6.4.07). starts giving evidence on 1st May. Court action if he was kept off the ballot. Electoral Weight: John Robb has Putting the two stories in the same report The Councillor was FF's only poll-topper suggested that NI would have better indicates that the paper hopes there will in the 2004 Local Elections, and joins representation in an Irish Parliament than be a week of sensationalist allegations FF's other two candidates—Martin it has in Westminster, with 33 seats out by Gilmartin to counteract the kudos for Mansergh and Siobhán Ambrose—in of 200, as opposed to 18 out of 646 Ahern and Ireland in this unique address the three-seat constituency. The sitting (letter, IN 9.4.07). Certainly that would to both Houses of the British Parliament, FF TD, Noel Davern, is retiring, and the give approximately 1 in 6 representation, which no other Taoiseach has ever won. other two seats are currently held by Tom Hayes of FG and Séamus Healy, a as opposed to 1 in 36. And, no doubt, Irish Buses For UVF? In a deal brokered Irish political parties would organise in socialist Independent (IT 24.4.07). by a shop steward at Wrightbus and NI and so offer the prospect of Cabinet Peter Bunting of the ICTU, Dublin Bus Daniel Cohn-Bendit, the former extreme representation. But Robb misses the has given a contract worth £7.8m for 48 communist, is now on globalist message. point: it is not union with Britain, or buses to the Ballymena company, which He defined the issues in the French good government, that political was facing closure. Now something like Presidential election as being: Protestantism wants, but simply to stay 80% of its output will be for the South. "How to accept the market economy, out of Ireland by whatever means come The company has been a Loyalist but to make it social and ecological, not to hand. stronghold down the years, yet now, leave it in the hands of ultra-liberals… PUP Reassured: After the DUP/SF deal, "We must accept the market after an anonymous tip-off, one of its economy rather than central planning, the PUP met Taoiseach Ahern: "We employees has been charged with the capacity of the market to create a sought assurances that there would be paramilitary-type offences, possession dynamic, but at the same time the market no joint authority and the Taoiseach of documents likely to be of use to must be controlled by laws so that the told us, as far as he was concerned, the terrorists and 9mm ammunition "at the strong do not gobble up the weak" constitutional question had been settled plant at Galgorm outside Ballymena, (Lara Marlowe, IT 26.4.07). and is off the table. There is no Plan B Co Antrim, between a date unknown and and they'll not be working towards any April 11." Darren Leslie Richardson Plan B. They're quite happy to work the pleaded "Definitely not guilty". Good Friday Agreement and the St Management has emphasised that it has Andrews Agreement and I am reassured "an active policy of promoting a neutral by that", said PUP leader, Dawn Purvis working environment for all its (IT 26.4.07). employees" (IN 14.4.07). The UVF is reported to be now ready MI5 No Role-Model For FBI: says to 'stand down' its members, but not to former Director of the FBI Louis Freeh decommission (IN 10.4.07). [sic], who worked closely with MI5 "…without the Provos, Paisley would during his tenure. In a Wall Street Journal have remained just a two-bit provincial editorial, Mr. Freeh has rejected Federal demagogue", says Ruth Dudley Edwards Circuit Court Judge Richard Posner's (S. Independent 25.2.07). She adds suggestion that MI5's methods should "Those who turned the North into a be adopted in the USA: "Establishing in hellhole are to be rewarded". This effect a secret police to monitor, collect historian seems to be unaware that and keep under observation those whom Paisley had stature well before the Provos a nontransparent agency believes to be a came into existence, helping to bring threat to the republic is a dangerous and about the downfall of Premier Terence dumb idea. Judge Posner's citation to O'Neill for the crime of meeting Taoi- England's MI5 is romantic enough but seach Sean Lemass and starting minimal needs to be qualified by the long and inter-governmental cooperation. painful history of its operations in Bertie Ahern will be the first Taoiseach Northern Ireland, which are still to address the two Houses of the British unfolding after decades of secrecy and Parliament on 15th May: this fact was nontransparency" (http://216.239.59.104/ search?q=cache:SbI_SOC_tPsJ:www.fbi.gov/ omitted by the Irish Times in its single- pressrel /pressrel07freeh033107.htm+%22Fr column front-page report of 28th April. eeh%22+%2B+FBI+Website+%2B+ What was not left out was a reference to MI5&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=uk&ie=UTF-8). the Quarryvale Two module of the Fianna Fáil, The Irish Mahon Tribunal, which it pointed out Finian McGrath v. Michael McDowell: was scheduled to start on 30th April, the Minister for Justice has rejected the Press And The Decline plea of the Independent TD for Dublin with the failure of Mrs. Hazel Lawlor to , win a delay. (However, the High Court North that Stephen Birney, a convicted Of The Free State IRA man, be paroled to sit for an entrance has allowed her to proceed with parts of by examination for a music degree. Birney her legal challenge to the way the Mahon Brendan Clifford. Tribunal operates, including the practice is serving four years for a 2002 offence of finding people guilty on the balance of membership of an illegal organisation. (IN 16.4.07). of probabilities, instead of on the basis Index. 172pp. ISBN 978 1 903497 of conclusive proof.) The Irish Times Mattie McGrath, Tipp North: FF HQ 33 3. Aubane Historical Society. interest in the Tribunal lies in the has finally ratified the candidature of the 2007. E12, £9. evidence of Tom Gilmartin, an eccentric popular Clonmel Co. Councillor, after a 7 but at least his description of capitalism had given an orientation to communist politics.

Report: Das Kapital Book launch Another speaker suggested that the most political part of Das Kapital was Volume Das Kapital: A Critical Appreciation 1 and that maybe Volumes 2 and 3 should be dispensed with. It was also suggested On Friday 20th there was a book launch Capitalism brought this tendency towards that Marx had a damaging effect on of Das Kapital Reviewed by John Martin. socialisation to a new level. Under this German Social Democracy and that The launch began with a 40 minute talk by system the mass of people did not have German socialism was developing at the the author. He argued that Das Kapital access to the means of production and beginning of the nineteenth century from remained relevant because capitalism still therefore had no option but to sell their feudal forms without going through the exists and that Marx's classic work was a labour power. This put them completely capitalist phase as described by Marx. description of the laws of motion of the at the mercy of society. This had disabled the orthodox German capitalist system rather than an analysis of Marxists from developing socialism in communism. Marx described how even the individual Germany. character of labour was lost under He proceeded to summarise the main capitalism. In the early stages of capitalism Another speaker remarked that ideas of Das Kapital, such as the labour the worker became alienated from the capitalism had been most successful in theory of value and surplus value. Marx's product of his labour by performing a Germany and Japan where the de-skilling theory on the primitive accumulation of specialised task within the production process of labour as described by Marx capital and how capitalism developed in process. This had the tendency of de- had not taken place. the USA by means of the state bankrupting skilling labour and making it easier for it small capitalists was most interesting. to be transferred across industries. In a There also followed a discussion of Martin's conclusion was that Marx later stage of capitalism Marx noticed that what a capitalist was. Martin suggested believed that politics determined labour had to adapt to the production that an entrepreneur was not a capitalist economics and that, while the economic process. Martin described his own per se. A capitalist was a capitalist by system might produce a political culture experience of business and suggested that virtue of his ownership of capital. This which reinforced the system, a new this tendency had continued. All the was what entitled him to profits. An economic system had to be preceded by elements of the system have become more entrepreneur might also be a capitalist but the appropriate politics. Marx was not an integrated. Customers audited their only because he owned capital and not by economic determinist in the crude sense suppliers' production processes. virtue of his entrepreneurial activities. described by some commentators. Information was shared across industries Capitalists appoint a managerial class to and between industries. The system has look after their interests. In many cases He also subjected Marx's classic work the appearance of a unified social they have no intellectual interest in the to criticism. He expressed the view that mechanism. industries in which their managers were Marx's understanding of money was wrong working. They were only interested in the in key parts. There are other errors such as Martin concluded by suggesting that, dividends or capital gains. If a manager his analysis of the turnover of capital in now that communism was no longer tied failed to produce the required return he Volume 2 and the rate of profit in Volume to the interests of powerful totalitarian was sacked. 3. In both cases Engels's analysis was states, it was time to look again at what superior. The author did not apologise for Marx wrote. He hoped that his book A speaker suggested that under such criticism and made the point that would contribute to a revival of interest in proposals for industrial democracy in Marx's deification by sections of the left Marx's economic theories. Britain in the early 1970s there was a had disabled people from engaging with possibility of that country moving away his ideas with the effect that his legacy had The meeting was then opened to the from a system of capitalist control. A been interred. floor. One speaker asked what Marx had report by Lord Bullock had advocated to do with communism or socialism. He worker participation on the Board of The weaknesses of Marx's analysis had very little to say about the state or Directors. This proposal collapsed because notwithstanding, Martin felt that there trade unions. It was also said that much of of opposition from the left. Martin were at least two themes in Das Kapital, Das Kapital, particularly Volume 2 and commented that in the 1970s the system which are more relevant in the twenty- Volume 3, reads like a manual for the was moving away from capitalist control first century than in the nineteenth century. development of capitalism. It was thought in any case and that managers were running The first is the idea that capitalism had the that this might have reflected the influence industry independently of the tendency to make itself into an of Engels who came from a capitalist shareholders. This was described as "The international system and destroy other background. Managerial Revolution" in a book by modes of production. This is known today James Burnham. In the 1980s Thatcher in as globalisation. Martin conceded that in some ways Britain and the neo-cons in the USA Marx was an enthusiastic exponent of reasserted the rights of shareholders and The second idea was that one of the capitalism in the sense that he despised were supported by people like James historic tasks of capitalism was to socialists who wished to halt its Goldsmith. "socialise production". Before capitalism development and described those people a high proportion of the production of the as petit bourgeois reactionaries. At an informal discussion after the individual producer was consumed by the Nevertheless Marx believed that there was public meeting the question arose as to producer himself and his family. a contradiction in the system in that how the working class interest could be Specialisation meant that less of his capitalism had socialised production but advanced under current circumstances. production was produced for himself and it had remained in private hands. Marx Martin suggested that, just as labour had a greater proportion was produced for was vague as to how the capitalist system been de-skilled under capitalism, the society through the market place. would be transformed into communism running of the capitalist system had been 8 also de-skilled. Managers, like workers this was happening. We should still wallow could move from different branches of in our shame. industry without difficulty. The weakness But The Irish Times and Fintan O'Toole of the Bullock proposals was that the Shorts have unwittingly highlighted a genuine increased power of the working class was problem. The 17th of March has no not underpinned by ownership of property. from meaning other than as an opportunity to the Long Fellow express national pride. There is absolutely The social ownership of the means of no connection between St. Patrick and production might pass through an modern Ireland. Modern Irish Catholicism intervening period of collective ownership THE IRISH TIMES'S has its origins in the nineteenth century. It of property by workers in individual IDEOLOGICAL STRUGGLE is time that we followed the example of enterprises, which would be partly Rebranding Ourselves was the title of other countries and celebrate the seminal financed by the state. Such a transfer an editorial in The Irish Times, on 17th event in the foundation of the state: in our might occur in a similar fashion to the way March, our national day. This was not in case, the 1916 Rising. And, in keeping land was transferred from British absentee the context of a campaign to sell our goods with our new "inclusive Ireland", it should landlords to Irish tenant farmers in the abroad but was something The Irish Times be detached from its movable Christian early part of the twentieth century. It was thinks we should do for ourselves. feast and celebrated on the date it noted that the Irish Land League leader There is no doubt that the State and our happened: April 24th. Michael Davitt wrote quite extensively on identity has been a problem for The Irish the subject of the British working class Times for most of the period since THE IRISH TIMES'S POLITICAL STRUGGLE and that his writings should be re-visited. independence (the exception was during So much for the ideological struggle! the two periods of Douglas Gageby's The Irish Times has not neglected the editorship). The arrival of immigrants to political struggle. In its editorial of 2nd our shores has given The Irish Times an April it gave vent to its customary anti- opportunity to escape from the shameful Fianna Fail bias. and "narrow" "old Irish" persona. This is "Fine Gael has offered the electorate what the editorial says: something new and resisted a further "The process in which we have been bout of auction politics by concentrating engaged in recent years, the gradual on “the vision thing” and on commit- internalisation in all of us of a new ments already made. As a tactic, it sense of inclusive Irishness, is not just contrasted favourably with Fianna Fail's about accepting that one can be black unambiguous vote-buying exercise of and Irish, or Polish and Irish; it is also last week, while offering a safe pair of about national reconciliation and a new hands in government." relationship with the “old enemy” so In the next paragraph it gave examples magnificently expressed at the Ireland- of "the vision thing" which, of course, England game in Croke Park." could not be examples of "auction politics" We have to be different to accommodate because they were Fine Gael policies. the "new Irish" and not just in an outward "The centrepiece of the ardfheis superficial way. The difference must be involved party leader Enda Kenny internalised. And a pleasant side effect offering a political contract to provide per The Irish Times will be a new relation- an additional 2,300 acute hospital beds, ship with England. The incorporation of 2,000 gardai, lower income taxes and the immigrants amounts to nothing less reductions in stamp duty." than a "redefinition of Irish society". But, at least, Fianna Fail has not yet caved On a similar theme—and all themes in in to the media campaign on Stamp Duty. The Irish Times tend to be similar—Fintan O'Toole has discovered a new reason for THE IRISH TIMES'S us to be ashamed of ourselves. We were STRUGGLE AGAINST REALITY Readers might be under the impression Das Kapital Reviewed, A slave owners. "Consider, for example, this year's that an opinion poll is a snapshot of voters Modern Business Approach To St Patrick's Day celebrations. There is preferences at a given point in time. But Marxism by John Martin. an obvious connection between St The Irish Times polls have gone beyond Patrick and the 200th anniversary of such pedestrian thinking. Index. 124pp. ISBN 9-781903-2973-02. the abolition of the slave trade in the In the Irish Times/TNS MRBI poll AB. 2007. E10, £7.50. British Empire, of which we were then published in 27th April the core vote per- (postfree in Europe) a part. Patrick came here first as a slave, centages are as follows: Fianna Fail 32, reminding us that the institution was an Fine Gael 23, Labour 7, Sinn Fein 8, Available from: Irish one as well. And he wrote the Greens 4, Progressive Democrats 2, Inde- oldest extant protest against enslave- pendents 5, Undecided 19. On this basis ment, the Letter to Corocticus. Dublin, most readers would assume that the Fine ATHOL BOOKS which hosts the main parade, was at one time the major centre of the Viking Gael/Labour coalition is behind Fianna PO Box 339 slave trade. It would seem obvious that Fail by 2 percentage points and 4 points Belfast slavery should have been the theme of behind the Fianna Fail/PD coalition. this year's parade. But it doesn't seem to But that's not what the headlines said. BT12 4GX have occurred to anyone" (The Irish The headlines focussed on the "adjusted" Times, 31.3.07). figures after the 19 percent undecided was or order through the Internet at A great opportunity for national self- taken out of the figures. The adjusted flagellation was missed! Of course, in The figures show that the Fine Gael/Labour Irish Times view of the world it is irrelevant coalition had passed out the Government www.atholbooks.org that the Irish State did not exist when all of parties. 9 How did the Irish Times poll manage the confidence reposed in him was called our people have just shown the importance this? The trick is in distributing the 19 Fallon, a relation of the Garda shot by of this ballot, clearly dominated by a percent undecided among the parties. The bank robbers in 1970. The Sunday Tribune central question: for or against Nicholas pollsters give Fianna Fail just an extra 2 attempted an additional smear on Ahern Sarkozy. Exacerbated by the “President- points out of the 19, but give Fine Gael 8 in its front-page lead on the incident, with ialism” and “mediatisation”, this issue points, Labour 3, Sinn Fein 2, Greens 2, an article entitled Bertie Briefcase Claims: dominated all others. For the left the terrible danger of a coalition of the right the PDs 1 and Independents 1. So the Row Dates Back To Arms Trial Gun- and extreme right gave an impetus to adjusted figures give Fianna Fail 34, Fine Running by Justin McCarthy and Kevin tactical voting which benefited Gael 31, Labour 10, Sinn Fein 10, Greens Rafter.) enormously Segolene Royal and even 6, PDs 3 and Independents 6. And Voila, partly Francois Bayrou. This was a Fine Gael/Labour coalition is considered THE FRENCH PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION particularly a factor for those on the left, the most likely result of the election. The first round of the French in particular communists determined to How does the TNS MRBI polling Presidential Election had a very large ensure a victory for the left. These results organisation justify this? In an interview turnout of 84%. There is no doubt that the do not reflect the true strength of the on Newstalk 106 a spokesman said that impetus for the high turnout was the Communist Party in our country. Nicholas the opinion poll assumes that Fianna Fail's personality of Nicholas Sarkozy, who Sarkozy is a dangerous man who has deliberately taken the unsupportable support will drop during the election engenders both adulation and hatred. The themes of the National Front so as to campaign. This is what happened in Long Fellow knows of French communists become the candidate of the right and the previous election campaigns. So the who voted for Bayrou on the basis that this extreme right. He must absolutely be opinion poll is not a snapshot of opinion, centrist candidate was more likely to defeat beaten. Conscious of the inadequacies it is adjusted for what The Irish Times/ Sarkozy than the Socialist candidate Sego- and ambiguities of the programme of the TNS MRBI think (hope?) will happen lene Royal in the second round. socialist candidate, I am calling without during the campaign. The campaign was a disaster for the hesitation on every man and woman of the Communist Party, which achieved less left to vote and encourage a vote for Segolene Royal on the 6th of May. THE INDEPENDENT GROUP'S CAMPAIGN than 2 % of the vote. With memories still The Sunday Independent has also fresh of the debacle of the 2002 election I am launching this appeal with all the more force because the situation is displayed an anti-Fianna Fail bias in recent when Jean Marie Le Pen beat the socialist difficult. With less than 40% of the vote months. But the Independent group— candidate Lionel Jospin for the second the left obtained one of its lowest results unlike The Irish Times—is not subject to round run off against Jacques Chirac, left under the Fifth Republic. I am calling on an oath-bound Directory, which controls wing voters were not likely to vote for the communists and all those who have the newspaper and maintains ideological smaller left wing parties. supported me in a magnificent campaign purity. The Independent group is therefore Nevertheless, the Communist Party of mobilisation and determination not to not impervious to changing political made itself completely irrelevant. It squan- relinquish your effort. Up until the 6th of circumstances. dered the enormous credit it obtained after May it is necessary to do everything to On the 15th April its campaign against its leadership role in the defeat of the defeat Nicholas Sarkozy. It is vital for our Stamp Duty was supplemented with a European Constitutional referendum. The people who will suffer if for the next five years the ultra liberal policy of the right front page story on Bertie Ahern. weakness of the anti-Sarkozy campaign is decides to finish once and for all our Apparently in the early 1990s Ahern's that it is just that: a negative campaign. social system. then partner Celia Larkin went to the bank The opposition to Sarkozy has nothing to What I wish to say is that despite this and returned with a briefcase. She asked offer as an alternative to the latter's Anglo- result, clearly far from our hopes, we led Ahern's Garda chauffeur to mind the case Saxon project. a fine campaign. We have never conceded overnight. The latter couldn't resist taking Towards the end of the Constitutional that it is not possible to bring fundamental a peek and saw that there was an Referendum campaign there were signs change in France. Throughout this unspecified amount of money in the case. of a rapprochement between the campaign I could gauge the expectations The following day Ahern went to Communist Party and Laurent Fabius. the which were powerfully shown in the Manchester with the briefcase. And that's Socialist Party Deputy Leader. A long struggles against the Raffarin reforms, in the campaign against the liberal European the story, which Ahern denies and which interview with Fabius appeared in the Constitution or resisting the withdrawal the Garda chauffeur does not want to communist newspaper, l'Humanite and of the CPE. These tendencies are always comment on and hasn't commented on he was invited to the Fete de l'Humanite, present and expect a response from the since 2000. The only interesting part was one of the largest festivals in Europe, left. that the person who brought it to the which is organised by the newspaper. During all these weeks communist attention of the Sunday Independent However, he was spat on by communist activists, the numerous elected officials journalist was Jim Higgins MEP, of Fine rank-and-filers who remembered his who supported me, the actors of the social Gael, who telephoned the Garda in arrogance as a young Prime Minister in movement, the men and women who were question and then put his phone on speaker the Mitterrand era. Fabius, for all his faults, at my side during this campaign showed mode, allowing the journalist to hear the was the only viable left wing alternative to great determination to win for France the ideas of social progress and humanity. conversation unknown to the Garda. Sarkozy, but the Communist Party did not These ideas, whatever is said to us in the The Sunday Independent was disgusted have the courage to persist with him as it next few weeks, are and will always be by Fine Gael's attempts to deny that it was did with Mitterrand. alive. And the Communist Party will behind the story even though it appeared The Long Fellow likes the Communist always be there to articulate them, to in the Irish Mail on Sunday the same day. Party leader Marie George Buffet, but reinforce them in the struggles, to bring Apparently, the Sunday Independent has regrettably she does not have the leadership them to the side of the men and women of no problem with dirty tricks, it just feels qualities to breath new life into what was France who today dream of a better life. I that the purveyors should show a bit more once the largest political party in France. wish to repeat here. There will never be in 'bottle' when the going gets tough. So A translation of her election manifesto France any submission to unemployment, from being anti-Fianna Fail on 15th April appears below. to poverty, to the life, which is imposed on us. So, from tomorrow let us continue it became anti-Fine Gael the following "All must be done to beat Nicholas the fight to defeat the right and to impose Sunday. Sarkozy on the legislative elections in a few weeks (Incidentally, there is another twist to By beating all records in voter the change, which our country is in need this story, in that the Garda who breached participation under the Fifth Republic, of." 10 TO BE OR IRB? Part 6: because he "added his voice to the chorus" of "doggerelists" on Harry's death in 1922 and did not rest "content with celebrating Harry's requiem Mass" (p12). When writing of the War of Independence, "murder" and "extermin- "Harry Boland was murdered by the IRB" ation" are terms freely used by Fitzpatrick himself to describe actions by "notorious" Republicans (pp170 and 176). As for Part 5 of this series (Irish Political they brought him to Portobello Barracks British actions, one can only find the word Review, January 2007) was entitled The where they kept him for at least two "murder" deeply embedded in a quotation Title Deeds Of Assassination. This referred more hours, although he was badly in from Harry himself (p181). "Self- to Michael Collins's IRB assassination of need of surgical treatment. He was not determination" is another term Fitzpatrick Sir Henry Wilson; the British Govern- transferred to St. Vincent's Hospital insists on placing in quotation marks ment's false accusation that it had been until 10.00am that morning." "This delay was indefensible. Harry (p104), while any such qualifying Collins's anti-Treaty IRA opponents in Boland had three life-threatening punctuation goes out the window when the Four Courts who were responsible; injuries. His diaphragm was pierced celebrating as Irish patriots those who, as Collins's compliance with the British and his spleen and liver were lacerated. opposed to Harry, adopted "the struggle Government's demand that his Free State There was extensive internal bleeding against German tyranny as Ireland's war" Army should therefore launch a Civil War which caused severe pain. Even with and "hoped for Anglo-Irish reconciliation by attacking the Four Courts; and Chur- today's improved methods of surgery through shared sacrifice in a common chill's resulting message to Collins: and anaesthesia, it would be touch and go whether he would survive. But to battle against despotism and oppression" "If I refrain from congratulation it is (pp134-135 and 106). Fitzpatrick proceeds only because I do not wish to embarrass hold him eight hours before bringing you. The Archives of the Four Courts him to a hospital where surgical to go completely over the top when he also may be scattered but the title-deeds of treatment was available, was bordering writes of "John Redmond's appeal to fight Ireland are safe". on criminal negligence by the Free State the Axis powers"! (p35). "Axis" was in authorities. This long delay merited a fact a fascist term first coined by the But there was to be another IRB thorough public investigation that was Italian dictator Mussolini in 1936 to assassination that was particularly vital to never carried out …" describe his alliance with Nazi Germany, the consolidation of the Free State, that of "Harry was conscious when (his although, like the Redmondites, Mussolini sister Kathleen) arrived… Kathleen Harry Boland. There are three vital elem- himself had previously fought in support ents that determine that this was indeed a asked him who shot him. 'The only thing I'll say is that it was a friend of my of Britain's war against the Kaiser's political assassination, rather than just own who was in Lewes Prison with me. Germany. some tragic—but nonetheless accidental I'll never tell his name and don't try to —outcome of a scuffle, as Boland attempt- find out. I forgive him and want no When the Axis powers did go on to ed to escape from a Free State army raid. reprisals. I want to be buried in the fight a very different war, the one Irish grave in Glasnevin with Cathal politician who indirectly became a victim (1) The failure to provide the badly- Brugha'… Mary McWhorter described of their fascist tyranny was Bob Briscoe, wounded Boland with any hospital Harry's last hour before he died: 'Harry whose family could individually name attention whatsoever for over eight went peacefully to his Maker just at ten 156 of his aunts, uncles and cousins hours, by which time his resulting minutes after nine in the evening of 1 consumed by the Holocaust. But Briscoe's death had been assured; August'…" (pp242-4). own 1958 autobiography stands out as a (2) The specialist IRB/Intelligence Such clarity of narrative in respect of direct refutation of Fitzpatrick's anti- status of the assassin himself; Harry Boland's death disappears in favour historical conflation of the First and Second of obfuscation in what has now been World Wars. The thoroughly anti-Nazi (3) The political purpose served by presented as the 'definitive' biography, Briscoe still recalled with affection the that assassination. Harry Boland's Irish Revolution by David "kindly, hospitable German folk" he had Fitzpatrick (2004). I reviewed this book in known in Berlin while happily working The most straightforward account in the Summer 2004 issue of History Ireland for two years in "the Kaiser's paternalist respect of the first point is to be found in and I restate some of its arguments state", up to "the minute that everything a work that exhibits the utmost integrity hereunder: changed on August 4, 1914, when England from page to page, Harry Boland—A The author seems to adopt the maxim declared war on Germany". Further Biography, by Jim Maher (1998). He of "hating the sin but loving the sinner". recalling how in December 1914 he had recounts: Fitzpatrick has long argued that such a couriered dispatches from Connolly to "Those who had carried out the raid revolution was aberrant, that it was "the Larkin in New York that were destined for were all from the Fingal Brigade of the violence caused by the rebels which led to the German ambassador, Briscoe remained Free State army and were stationed in proud of his part in "the attempt of Irish Balbriggan Coastguard Station—all the shelling of the GPO in the first place", and that "it is no wonder that 1916 led to patriots to enlist German aid and German except one who was sent to identify arms in Ireland's fight for liberation". Harry Boland when arrested. Harry was an escalation of British violence in wounded between 1am and 2am on 31 Ireland" (Irish Times, 9 November 1996). (Robert Briscoe, For The Life Of Me, July (1922). A priest and doctor were And so we have the gratuitous sneer at pp28-29 and 35-36). summoned. The doctor dressed the 1916 as "the orgasmic moment of Although Briscoe is indeed quoted as wound and requested an ambulance. insurrection" (p34); Harry described as evidence of Boland's peace-making efforts The raiding party phoned for an joining "Traynor's wreckers" (p43); at the outset of the Civil War, Fitzpatrick ambulance but Harry was not moved "alcoholic memories" stated to be "the dismisses the man himself as "the Jewish from the Grand Hotel (Skerries, Co. very essence of Gaelic culture" (p72); Dublin) until 6.30 am—over four hours gunrunner from Ranelagh" (p316). He later. Though carrying a seriously Boland's mother snidely referred to as a disdains to enlist Briscoe's support for injured man, the ambulance crew passed "self-styled 'bean an tighe' (woman of the another argument of his, that "in retrospect the Mater Hospital and did not stop to house)" (p30); and the acclaimed poet Harry's closest comrades rejected the have him urgently admitted. Instead Monsignor Pádraig de Brún derided propagandist accusation that Collins and 11 his colleagues had conspired to murder Joe McGrath as Director of Intelligence. Supreme Council in 1922. Harry" (p322). While Fitzpatrick has Which of the killer's multi-faceted IRB/ An excellent portrayal of the views of unearthed a 1962 note to this effect from Army superiors was roused from bed that Mulcahy—in support of both the Republic de Valera, that view had already been dawn to survey the results of his handi- of 1919 and the Free State of 1922—was publicly proclaimed by Briscoe four years work, express surprise that after so many published in 1999 by his son Dr. Risteárd previously. Fitzpatrick's own inverted hours Boland had not yet bled to death, Mulcahy and entitled Richard Mulcahy commas accordingly dispute Boland's and adjudicate that he might, after all, (1886-1971)—A Family Memoir. In 2005 inclusion among the "martyrs" of the spend the remaining day and a half of his Risteárd kindly provided me with a copy Republic, and he writes in disapproving life dying in a hospital bed? Far from of that memoir, which has the following to tones of how "authentic grief was a power- dispelling the "murder mystery" as a say in respect of the IRB: ful engine of propaganda" that the Boland figment of the imagination of Harry's "Several references are contained in family "did not hesitate to deploy" (p7). nephew and namesake Annraoi Ó Beol- the (Mulcahy) tape recordings to the láin, Fitzpatrick's own detective work in influence Michael Collins may have But what if he had been murdered? The profiling the killer has now given the had in provoking resistance to the unarmed Boland had been shot "while conspiracy theory far greater substance acceptance of the Treaty and thus to the attempting to escape" on 31st July 1922, than ever before. subsequent split in the army. These references are quoted from conversa- but it took another agonising 44 hours tions Dad had with Páidín O'Keefe… before he finally expired. Fitzpatrick does In the Autumn 2004 issue of History secretary of Sinn Féin from October not seem to agree that the eight hours that Ireland Fitzpatrick took issue with my 1917… until the ratification of the elapsed between Harry being shot and review, presented his use of the term "Axis" Treaty {which O'Keefe supported— finally brought to hospital would itself be as a mere slip of the pen, and hotly MO'R}… He was pursued relentlessly sufficient reason to consider a verdict of contested my conclusion that Boland had by my father in the early 1960s to culpable homicide. And yet Fitzpatrick's been the victim of purposeful assassinat- record his experiences during his tenure own further research suggests that, far ion. He also complained that I had not of office with Sinn Féin… O'Keefe had from being some peculiar neurosis of the given page references for my quotations a prodigious memory and he was an Boland family, the graver suspicion of from his biography. I accept that this last observant and uninhibited critic of those whom he served… He maintained that murder might now turn out to be even criticism has some merit, but my reason part of the vote against the Treaty was more firmly grounded. for their omission was that an earlier draft an anti-Collins vote, and that Collins As he lay dying, Harry told his family of my review had been judged far too long first caused a degree of antagonism that he had been shot by a former comrade and yet I still want to retain the maximum because he, with Harry Boland and with whom he had shared imprisonment amount of commentary in the more limited Diarmuid O'Hegarty, three Volunteers in Lewes Jail, but he refused to name him. space subsequently provided. In fairness and prominent IRB men, had the choice As there had been as many as 123 to Fitzpatrick's concerns I have, however, of candidates for the 1918 election… Republican prisoners in Lewes, this fact now inserted those page references in the O'Keefe implies that the IRB, the 'secret alone was not necessarily incompatible version reproduced above. My reply to organisation', operated effectively with the belief of both Briscoe and de Fitzpatrick's other criticisms was published throughout the country to select the candidates. Hence his statement in Valera that the killer might just have been in the Winter 2004 issue of History Ireland answer to Dad's query that there was an a nervous and relatively untrained soldier. and included the following argument: anti-Collins vote on the Treaty which Fitzpatrick, however, identifies a quite One problem with Fitzpatrick's had its origin in the choices of candidates unique Lewes prisoner as having been partisanship is that it can devalue the … O'Keefe's objective analysis of responsible, one who like Harry himself results of his own superb capacity for Collins might imply some criticism but had initially been sentenced to death in research, even to the point of setting it at Dad was certainly blind to any 1916. Apparently conforming to Boland's nought in at least one instance This is weaknesses in the Collins character or dying wish that he should not be named, where my call for a more serious actions… By 1921 there was a degree Fitzpatrick does not do so in either the consideration of the strong possibility, if of antipathy towards the IRB among narrative or chapter notes. Nonetheless, not probability, that Harry Boland had other politicians, as well as Dev, Brugha and Stack…" (pp112-4). Fitzpatrick then proceeds to name the indeed been murdered was dismissed by "Dad was conscious and appreciative killer in the index for the page on which he him as "O'Riordan's airy conjecture, not of the part the IRB members played in had been left anonymous! Far more shared by Eamon de Valera or myself". Collins's intelligence work before and significant, however, is his revelation that But it is Fitzpatrick's own research that during the War of Independence, and in this killer was not only a highly experien- has demonstrated how Dev's conclusions establishing communication channels ced and accomplished intelligence officer, were based on the ill-informed assumption with the country forces and with but a district centre of the IRB as well "that the raiders were men who had not contacts in Great Britain. As far as I can (p323-4). been accustomed to having guns in their ascertain from his papers and record- It was, therefore, remiss of Fitzpatrick hands and that they got excited and fired". ings, Dad had no formal contact to relegate to a mere footnote the dying And it is Fitzpatrick's own research that whatever with the IRB during the entire period from 1913 to 1924, although he Boland's temporary sojourn in Portobello also leads him to the contrary conclusion was always thought of as an IRB man, Barracks. This completely overlooks the that, far from being an inexperienced even as late as 1924. His remoteness fact that these last two hours of pre- raiding party, "their revolutionary and from the Brotherhood is apparent from hospitalisation were spent in what, since military credentials were impeccable" and the conversation he had with Seán 12th July, had actually become the living that "Harry had been struck down by his MacEoin about the IRB on the telephone quarters of Michael Collins himself, newly own kind". which is recorded on tape… However, appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Fitzpatrick was offered a further right it is clear from Dad's responses to Free State Army, who also remained of reply, but he declined that offer. Yet MacEoin's comments, that the IRB was President of the Supreme Council of the there was one error of fact in my original alive and well up to the time of the (Free IRB. review that he had failed to correct—my State Army) mutiny in 1924, and that Dad was unaware that both Seán Dick Mulcahy, Chief-of-Staff and IRB mistaken belief that Free State army Chief- McMahon (active in IRB and IRA Supreme Council member {not so; see of-Staff Dick Mulcahy, who indeed had during the War of Independence, Chief- correction below}, had already moved originally been an IRB member, had also of-Staff during the Civil War after into Portobello on 1st July, together with gone on to become a member of its Collins's death and sacked by cabinet at 12 time of army mutiny—RM) and Seán Strange as it may seem, the only element were all that too. It would have been Ó Muirthile, who were on the (Free in the above statement whose genuineness strange if love was a passion immune State) Army Council during the Civil I might question would be the concept of from metamorphosing into hatred in the War and until they were sacked at the "truth" that Stalin loved. I do not at all circumstances of what in Irish was named time of the mutiny, were also leaders of doubt that Bukharin had been the one Cogadh na gCarad—the War of Friends. the IRB… It's likely that, because of his former colleague whom Stalin had come And who on the anti-Treaty side of the unique position as political and military head of the army {Minister for Defence closest to loving, which, however, in no Civil War would have felt Boland's death and Commander-in-Chief—MO'R}, way constrained Stalin in his resolve to most deeply and would have held Collins those members of the IRB who were have Bukharin "judicially" executed in most responsible for it than those others closest to him were reluctant to inform March 1938. who had also been previously so close to him about their connection with the I am not at all suggesting that Stalin and him on the IRB Supreme Council? In the secret organisation, nor was such a Collins had similar personalities. But I do 2005 edition of her biography of Liam revival by the senior officers of the Free believe that Collins also possessed that Lynch, Meda Ryan brings two of them State army in any way a sinister revolutionary's single-minded sense of into the picture as follows: development in relation to the new state purpose to ruthlessly fulfil Oscar Wilde's "The Supreme Council requested or the role of the army in defending the maxim that "all men kill the thing they Lynch to act as divisional officer (of the state" (pp74-75). love", when circumstances had led him to south Munster division of the IRB) in finally conclude that he was left with no March 1921 to replace Tom Hales who This can only be interpreted as a view had been arrested. Lynch agreed, thus that the role of the IRB had been limited to alternative. I nonetheless also accept as perfectly genuine the heartfelt character he automatically gained a seat on the the objectives of defeating the IRA and Supreme Council—a body which consolidating the Free State. of what Collins wrote to his fiancée and regarded itself as the guardian of "Dad was probably a little naïve in Boland's own former girlfriend Kitty Republican policy" (The Real Chief— thinking the IRB was moribund at this Kiernan on the day after Boland had finally Liam Lynch, p101). juncture in the history of the State succumbed to his deadly wounds: As has been mentioned before in this (1924), although he was certainly "My mind went to him lying dead series, in the case of the Hales family the and I thought of the times together, and correct in thinking that IRB influence Civil War can be even more precisely in the army was of no significance and whatever good there is in any wish of that it had no further military aspirations. mine he certainly had it. Although the defined as the War of Brothers, with Tom Nevertheless, he seemed a little gap of 8 or 9 months was not forgotten— taking the anti-Treaty and Seán the pro- embarrassed when he heard from of course no one can forget it—I only Treaty side. Tom it was who had been MacEoin that Seán McMahon, the thought of him with the friendship of subjected to horrific torture during the Chief-of-Staff of the Free State Army, the days of 1918 and 1919" (Maher, War of Independence on the order of was the head of the IRB in 1923, and p244). Major Percival, best known during World that Seán Ó Muirthile, the Quarter- War Two for his humiliating surrender of master General, was its Treasurer" Yet neither is it be possible to be blind Singapore to the Japanese. In Peter Hart's (p202). to the deadly seriousness of the effective The IRA And Its Enemies (1998) one of Again, this certainly can only be inter- death threat that Collins had penned to his more impressive examples of research preted as a view that the IRB had no Boland only three days before he was to concerns his study of the Hales family, a further military aspirations beyond be finally and fatally hunted down: chapter entitled "The Rise and Fall of a winning the Civil War. But having "Harry—it has come to this! Of all Revolutionary Family". Hart's later book, launched that War, it required ruthless things it has come to this. It is in my The IRA At War 1916-1923 (2003), is resolve to ensure that the IRB's Supreme power to arrest and destroy you… If no quite a different matter. Although its text Council was not undermined from within. words of mine will change your attitude then you are beyond all hope—my contains not one single word concerning And the greatest threat to the IRB's Free hope" (Maher, p240). Hales, its in-your-face dust jacket consists State strategy was the anti-Treaty stand of a grotesque Imperial War Museum taken by Harry Boland, a predecessor of That very day the Free State army arrest photograph of Tom Hales and a demented Collins as IRB President {having succeed- of Seán T. O'Kelly, on the eve of his Pat Harte being further humiliated in the ed its first post-Rising President Thomas planned departure for the USA, proved to immediate wake of their torture. For Hart Ashe, upon the latter's death in prison Collins that Boland was indeed now well to have endeavoured to boost the from forcible feeding} and his closest beyond his hope. O'Kelly was being sent commercial sales of his book by exploiting friend and right-hand man on its Supreme over to a convention of the IRB's American the pornography of torture was as morally Council throughout the whole course of counterpart, Joe McGarrity's re-organised bankrupt as any photographs that came the War of Independence. For Fitzpatrick Clan-na-Gael, and his Free State captors out of Abu Ghraib. does indeed record, before pooh-poohing found in O'Kelly's possession the follow- It was in fact Tim Pat Coogan, in his such conclusions, that an emissary of the ing instructions from Boland: 1990 biography Michael Collins, who IRB's counterpart in the USA, Clan-na- "As the fight is likely to be long provided the most perceptive character Gael, reported that— drawn out, we shall require money and assessment of the IRB/IRA leader Tom "almost every wall in Cork was material. Joe promises the full support Hales: covered with such inscriptions as 'Harry of Clan. You could bring back with you "Torture was systematically Boland was murdered by the IRB'" (p2). all available money and arrange with employed to extract information from the Clan to supply Thompsons, prisoners… as Tom Hales and Pat Harte In his April 1929 speech on "The Right revolvers, .303, .405 etc. You could found out to their cost when they were Deviation in the Communist Party of the also organise a campaign in the USA" surprised by Major Percival of the Essex Soviet Union" Joseph Stalin had summed (Maher, p240). Regiment on 26 July 1920 near up his political victory over Nikolai The dynamics of IRB logic ensured Bandon… Officers were instructed to Bukharin with the following proclamation: that its murder of Boland now followed as beat him (Hales) with canes… on each "In olden times it was said of the assuredly as night follows day. It would side, until they 'drove blood out through him'. Then pliers were used on his philosopher Plato: We love Plato, but be extremely naïve to regard the death of we love truth more. The same might he lower body and to extract his finger said of Comrade Bukharin: We love Boland—and of Collins himself, killed in nails, so that Hales says, 'My fingers Bukharin, but we love truth, the Party, action only three weeks later—as little were so bruised that I got unconscious'. the Comintern still more". else but terrible tragedies, although they On regaining consciousness he was 13 questioned about prominent figures including Michael Collins. He gave no · Biteback · Biteback· Biteback· Biteback· Biteback· Biteback· Biteback· Biteback information and two officers… punched him until he fell on the floor with several teeth either knocked out or loosened. Finally he was pulled by the hair to the Faulty Official Irish top of the stairs and thrown to the The Irish Times did not see fit to publish the letter below, pointing out a poor translation bottom, where he was again beaten into Irish of an official poster which the paper was paid to issue with its editions of 17th before being dragged to a cell. Hales April. recovered. Harte, however, suffered brain damage and died in hospital I must express my gratitude to your paper for your supplement "How we are insane. There are two points worth Governed" (17 April) sponsored by the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission. It is true, noting about the Hales incident. One, as is typical with such semi-official productions, the commentary tended somewhat the supreme irony of the fact that having towards the more unadventurous side of bland. It was then all the more stimulating and endured such punishment to protect exciting when on turning to the Irish language version of the accompanying wall poster Collins he later played a prominent role the reader encountered some gritty realism and bold self revelation. in encompassing his death. Secondly, For the translation to Irish from English of the poster a note explained we owe thanks that he held out" (pp146-7). to An Chomhairle um Oideachas Gaeltachta agus Gaelscolaíochta; the state body "(Two months into the Civil War) Collins continued on that morning (of charged with the development of Irish language learning in our schools. The main 22 August 1922) through Béal na heading: "How we are Ruled" was translated into "An Chaoi ina bhFulimid á Rialú". That mBláth… Meanwhile back at Béal na is, the phrase was represented by a series of Irish words which taken together are mBláth an ambush party under Tom incoherent and ungrammatical. If you were bothered to represent "How we are Ruled" Hales lay in wait… In Bandon Collins in grammatical Irish you might say "An Chaoi ina Rialtar Sinn". said goodbye to Seán Hales, laughingly Yet, might not a piece of ungrammatical drivel go further in representing the true shrugging off his warnings to be careful, reality of "How we are Ruled"? Ted O'Sullivan (19.4.2007) and set off for Béal na mBláth where Seán's brother, his close friend Tom, was waiting to kill him… (His brother) vengeance exacted by the Free State for 'official history'?" (Liam Mellows Johnny Collins … was well aware of Government on the following day, 8th And The Irish Revolution, p385). the details of how Michael died from December, was both fast and furious. Four within a year of the death. The ambush prisoners from the Four Courts garrison What, then, of Liam Lynch? Meda Ryan had been the work of men who were were summarily executed, notwithstand- has written: neighbours and friends before the Civil ing the protests of the Hales family at the "Though the Free State government War and they continued to be friends "criminal folly" of such a "reprisal for the was bent on crushing the 'armed revolt' and neighbours after it. Tom Hales who death of our dearly beloved brother". To and forcing the opposition into an un- 'cried his eyes out over the killing', took the best of my knowledge, however, only conditional surrender, Liam Lynch had the initiative in making his peace with pledged that he would not surrender: Johnny… and then, through him, other one historian, C. Desmond Greaves, made 'We have declared for an Irish Republic members of the party did likewise" any political sense of the choice of victims, and will not live under any other law'" (pp406-409). when in 1971 he wrote: (p13). "The men chosen were (Rory) Lynch has abjured his oath of allegiance And that, of course, is yet another 'Connor, (Joe) McKelvey, (Dick) Barrett and (Liam) Mellows. On what to the 'virtual Republic' of the IRB Supreme illustration of the fact that the term Irish Council in order to defend the actual "Civil War" is a misnomer when compared basis was the choice made? One man was taken from each province, it had Republic of the 1918 Election. But a com- with the conflicts of that same designation bination of military and political defeat at in other countries. This, however, did not been said. But who represented Connacht? Mellows was so unmistak- the hands of the Free State meant that this make it any the less ruthless while it was ably a Leinster man that nobody would second Republic itself was now no longer actually being fought out. And the conflict seriously consider him in this connect- sustainable. Only a few weeks after IRA in Ireland escalated still further with the ion, unless he was paying a belated Chief-of-Staff Liam Lynch's death in State's murder of Erskine Childers and penalty for his part in 1916 (in Galway). action on 10th April 1923, "at a meeting of other Republican prisoners. IRA Chief- Again, if the choice was made on the Executive and Army Council held on of-Staff Liam Lynch had previously done grounds of prominence, Barrett was virtually unknown. The intellect of a 26 April and 27 April, over which de his level best to prevent any outbreak of Valera presided, it was decided that armed Civil War, even distancing himself from 'dangerous man' belonged only to Mellows and Barrett, the others were resistance to the Free State forces should Rory O'Connor's Four Courts garrison, be terminated" (Ryan p15). until he felt he no longer had any alternative able but not outstanding. But all were IRB men who had left the fold, and but to lead his army in the war that Collins above all, they knew too much. Mellows Thereafter, the Free State could now had taken the initiative in launching against knew the revolutionary movement from only be—and a decade later was in fact— them. Rejecting the Treaty endorsed by its inception and was in the midst of all defeated by the construction of a new, his fellow members of the IRB Supreme the unity negotiations. O'Connor knew third Republic. At the previous Executive Council, he himself now resorted to the the intrigues that surrounded the Meeting of the IRA, in March 1923, Tom IRB's own tradition of assassination, by Plunkett Convention and the unification Barry's earlier attempt to end the Civil sentencing to death all Treatyite TDs who of Sinn Féin, and more embarrassing War at that particular juncture had been had voted for the murderous legislation still, the campaign in England. Mc defeated by only one vote, five against six Kelvey knew of the relations with the that had liquidated Childers. And yet all (including Lynch). At this meeting de that too went wrong. The first target of North. And finally, Barrett had been close to Collins and was familiar with Valera had been allowed to speak in favour such an assassination attempt on 7th the affairs of (Collins's War of Inde- of Barry's motion, but not vote on it. Long December 1922, Pádraig Ó Máille TD, pendence assassination body) 'the caricatured as a politician out of touch escaped with non-fatal wounds, but his Squad'. Already Childers had carried to with reality, Meda Ryan here presents a companion, Seán Hales TD, was killed the grave his unrivalled knowledge of very different picture of Dev: instead, even though he himself had the 'Treaty' negotiations. Who can deny "After the meeting, Lynch walked actually been absent from the Dáil when that when those four tongues were down the road with de Valera. He reflected that legislation had been enacted. The silenced the world became much safer aloud: 'I wonder what Tom Clarke would 14 think of this decision?' De Valera stopped. own death, not only made his peace with Theodorakis, however, implied that it 'Tom Clarke is dead', he said. 'He has not the Collins family but joined with Tom had been in his fight against the English our responsibilities. Nobody will ever Barry, his fellow West Cork anti-Treaty that the song's hero had met his death— know what he would do, for this situation IRA leader, on a committee to erect the and on hunger strike: did not arise for him. But it has risen for us Michael Collins memorial at Sam's Cross Our enemies had killed our jovial smiling and we must face it with our intelligence in 1965, near the latter's birthplace, in boy. and conscious of our responsibility'" recognition of the outstanding leadership (p185). Thereafter the Theodorakis version given by that flawed genius during the But what of Harry Boland? Jim Maher War of Independence. By way of contrast, bears little or no resemblance to the recounts that as he lay dying— who could ever conceive of the Spanish remaining third and fourth verses of Behan's original. In the final verse Behan "Harry reminded (his sister) Kathleen Republican executioners of the Falangist that the Russian jewels (held as a security leader, José Antonio Primo de Rivera, did indeed allow Collins both his outstand- for a $20,000 loan from the Irish Republic ever gathering to honour him? Still less ing War of Independence record and the to Bolshevik Russia) were still hidden in genuineness of his Republican aspirations could one conceive of the impossibly the family home… and he told her to hold beyond it: them until de Valera got back into power. bizarre phenomenon of a Republican pris- oner of the Fascists ever being moved to Go raibh míle maith agat, for all you tried If ever the Republic were declared by de to do, Valera she was to hand the jewels to him. lovingly compose a song in memory of For all you did, and would have done, my The Boland family respected his wishes that handsome Fascist icon of the Spanish enemies to destroy. and when de Valera had succeeded in Civil War. That is how the Irish 'Civil getting his 1937 Constitution passed into War' stands apart from all others, since But in the third verse Behan could not law and had recovered the ports, they both sides had shared the same aspirations, avoid dealing with how the actual character considered that Harry's wishes were vision of society and ultimate goals. and circumstances of Collins's own death fulfilled. They handed the Russian jewels had differed so markedly from all the into the safe keeping of the Irish government who eventually handed them Brendan Behan first met his father might-have-beens: back to the Russian government and Stephen through Free State prison bars Oh, had he died by Pearse's side, or in the redeemed the loan" (p243). during that same Civil War, as Stephen GPO, had been a Republican prisoner at the time Killed by an English bullet from the rifle And what of the assassin who had shot of Brendan's birth. And Brendan, of course, of the foe, Boland? Fitzpatrick described him as would himself also become a Republican Or forcibly fed while Ashe lay dead in the dungeons of Mountjoy, follows: prisoner in both Britain and Ireland during I'd have cried with pride at the way he "An Intelligence Officer in the 5th the 1940s. Yet it was their shared died, my own dear Laughing Boy. Battalion, 2nd Eastern Division (with the experience of the War of Independence temporary rank of Captain) from Lusk, that had led the Behan-Kearney family to To cap it all, the very dialogue between aged 28… and a District Centre in the continue to remember Collins with such The Hostage characters, before the veteran IRB… The Intelligence Officer had shared affection and that, in turn, was to prompt Republican Pat sings "The Laughing Boy", his (Harry's) experience of being sentenced Brendan himself to write his song The to death in 1916 (after fighting in the also sums up the complexities of Behan's Mendacity Institute), before undergoing Laughing Boy, in memory of Collins, for own judgement on Collins: penal servitude in Portland and Lewes. his 1958 play The Hostage. But this, despite superficial appearances, was an PAT. It was Lloyd George and Birkenhead He had joined the IRB in 1915 and became made a fool of Michael Collins and he Adjutant of the 8th (Fingal) Brigade before extremely complex song; for Behan never signed an agreement to have no more switching to Intelligence. His experience allowed its heart-breaking sentiments to fighting with England. and local knowledge had enabled him to degenerate into a sentimentality that MEG. Then he should have been shot. turn in an entire 'Irregular' column at the refused to come to terms with how all the PAT. He was. outset of the Civil War, and he was amply might-have-beens differed so markedly MEG. Ah, the poor man. qualified to identify Harry in his bedroom from the stark reality of what had actually PAT. Still, he was a great fighter and he at the Grand Hotel. If such officers as happened. fought well for the ould cause. these were indeed members of the raiding party, their revolutionary credentials were That song's lyrics, therefore, became Collins's IRB had been essential for the impeccable. They were no 'murder gang' quite incomprehensible when translated creation of the actual Irish Republic that of inexperienced 'Truciliers' or against the background of any other was proclaimed in Easter 1916, endorsed unprincipled mercenaries. Harry had been country's history or political culture. The by the Irish electorate in December 1918 struck down by his own kind" (pp323-4). composer Mikis Theodorakis, best known and ratified by Dáil Éireann in January internationally for his musical score for 1919. But, having opted for the Treaty, the Jim Maher had also been aware of the the film Zorba the Greek, had been a IRB Supreme Council decreed, in the assassin's identity, but in deference to the 'rebel'—or Communist partisan—during Boland family's wishes, he had not named name of its own 'virtual Republic', that the Greek Civil War of the 1940s. When this actual, established Republic was now him in his biography. However, in the his mortal enemies came back with a no longer to be, and the Brotherhood index for pages 323-4 of his own subse- vengeance to impose a military dictator- quent biography, David Fitzpatrick does leadership then proceeded to systematic- ship on Greece in 1967-1974, Theodorakis ally destroy it. Subsequently, however, in fact identify him as Captain Thomas was inspired to write musically-powerful both the IRB and the Free State's Cumann Peppard. So let us therefore pay tribute to new versions of Behan's songs for a Greek- Peppard by name for his record in both the na nGaedheal Government would each language production of The Hostage. But slip off their own idealised versions of 1916 Rising and the War of Independence, it is only the first verse of Theodorakis's Michael Collins's Treaty 'Stepping Stone'. as Harry Boland himself would have "Jovial Boy" that can be said to be identical wished him to be so honoured. It would be left to the anti-Treatyite leader to Behan's own first verse. For in the Éamon de Valera to construct another And what of the IRB President Michael second verse Behan had gone on to say of Republic via the 1937 Constitution, which Collins himself, who ultimately bore full his hero/anti-hero: the Treatyites finally came to terms with responsibility for Boland's death? In the Ah, curse the time, and sad the loss my when they themselves formally declared post-Civil War period his former IRB/ heart to crucify, the Republic in 1948. IRA comrade-in-arms Tom Hales who That an Irish son, with a rebel gun, shot Manus O'Riordan had, in turn, been responsible for Collins's down my Laughing Boy. (series concluded). 15 they were—to pursue such a course of action? Kevin Myers— So any government elected around that a study of 'exceptionalism' in free-fall time would have represented perhaps only fifty percent of the adult population on this basis alone. Secondly not even universal Kevin Myers had hoped to spare us his So it is quite useless if not downright male suffrage existed: only men above a usual vitriol on 1916. Instead, unable to dishonest to invoke Christian morality certain age could vote. So we see that what contain himself, he managed to write about and the commandments to castigate one Kevin accepts as a perfectly functioning it—not once but twice in the space of two side for killing while making an exception democratic system was in fact based on weeks even when discussing an apparently for the other. For Kevin knows very well some twenty or thirty percent of the adult unrelated topic. He also manages to that, once war is engaged in and acts of population deciding policy for the other confirm yet again his anti-Irish racism. violence are being committed, the Fifth eighty percent. If twenty or thirty percent Never a one to make generalisations, he Commandment has already been to set to can wield such power, the rebels may speaks of "the greatest Irish vice of one side by mutual unspoken consent. indeed have a case to claim authority. all….exceptionalism", as though making Though the belligerents may (or may not) Although Kevin has repeatedly tried to exceptions were both a characteristic of agree certain rules about how they conduct paint a picture of a handful of lunatics in and perhaps unique to the Irish (implied their killing, the "Law of God" quite clearly Dublin as being the sum total of the 1916 by the use of Irish as an adjective). Of no longer applies to facts on the ground, rebellion, the truth is far different. Even if course, this isn't the only 'Irish' vice and all killers will have to answer to God the Irish population was mainly supportive according to Myers: we are also a nation for their actions whatever side they took of the British war effort at that time (mainly of tardy liars. But perhaps above all, in this life. thanks to the money all this killing of Myers—in himself—provides us with a Germans was bringing to the country), the fascinating case study of his own invented ON WHAT AUTHORITY DO YOU…? thousand rebels who took up positions vice of exceptionalism. We are therefore left only with other, around Dublin at Easter 1916 represented mundane (in its literal sense) consider- just a small number of a much greater "THOU SHALT NOT INVOKE CHRISTIAN ations when justifying or castigating body of rebels and supporters. We know MORALITY IN VAIN" killing. These may be political or perhaps that thanks to Eoin McNeill's counter- According to Kevin Myers the vice of social or economic and so on. Kevin manding order most rebel groups around making exceptions is the root of all Irish demands an answer to the question "who the country never joined the fight at all, evil but "most of all {it} is the author of the gave the insurgents the right to kill…?" but they and their organisation existed psychopathology of the IRA", as and claims it has never been answered. It nonetheless. Alongside the Irish Volun- exemplified by 1916 and all that followed is clear from his question that he believes teers and Cumann na mBan were many from it. Not once, but thrice he invokes some authority exists to confer this 'right'. ordinary people who, though not enrolled Christian morality to castigate the rebels. Since God's authority cannot be invoked, members, nonetheless gave their support "How else could the commandment Thou as we have seen, we are left with civil to the movement. Shalt Not Kill, come to have the caveat authority as the only possible source of Even if these added up came to only ten inserted 'unless thou dost so in the name of 'right' in this instance. So what civil or twenty percent of the Irish population the Irish Republic'"? Again, "the law of authority could he have in mind? We can of the time, they represent an authority neither God nor state applied to IRA eliminate the insurgents from Kevin's which the rebels could invoke according members: their deeds existed in the morally sources of authority, as his very question to Kevin's accepted model of democracy. autonomous world… of exceptionalism", makes it clear he believes they had no Nor would I be the first to point out how and when he fulminates against Dr. authority. If it were not so, the question the rebels' action was subsequently Michael Smith, Bishop of Meath, on his would be redundant and indeed it is one endorsed—both by the public outcry at Easter address: "just where does it say in he has never posed in relation to the the post-1916 executions and the over- Canon Law that human life is sacrosanct, British killing either Germans at the whelming support given to Sinn Fein in unless Irish republicans want to have a Somme or Irishmen in Dublin . the 1918 elections. Critics have tried to hearing…?" dismiss this sea change in support for the But where does that leave Kevin AUTHORITY OF THE PEOPLE rebels as mere revulsion at the executions himself? It is hardly a secret that he has In our current, democratic, model of or as a reaction to Britain's attempt to consistently trumpeted the 'cause' of the society, the first obvious point in which to introduce conscription here. But neither Irish men who fought for Britain during look for authority is in the populus— of these explanations is adequate. Few World War One and especially at the sovereignty of the people being the essence people shed tears over the execution of Somme, or of the British Army in general of democracy. So, did the rebels have the common criminals, which according to in its fight against Germany during the 'authority of the people'? Kevin points to Kevin is how the 1916 rebels were same war. Now Canon Law may not apply the fact they never stood in elections. But perceived at the time. After all, it was to the many British soldiers who were had they, by 1916, managed to get supposedly a rebellion the pro-British Irish Protestants, but surely it at least applies to themselves elected, whom would they hadn't wanted in the first place. It could the Catholic Irish who marched off into have represented? We have become so only have caused such a change in Irish the German machine guns? And the Fifth used to the idea of universal suffrage that sentiment if it touched on a hitherto Commandment applies equally to it is easy to overlook what democracy unexposed nerve in the Irish psyche. Protestant and Catholic alike. So perhaps meant back in 1916. First off, no women Kevin could point to the chapter in the could vote. British MPs and Irish Home The 1918 elections occurred after the Bible where it says "Thou Shalt Not Kill Rule MPs alike found this at least one conscription crisis had already passed. unless thou dost so in the name of the subject on which they could all agree. And weren't the Irish supposed to be loyal British Empire and its government"? And Women had resorted to desperate British subjects anyway? What Sinn Fein where in Canon Law does it wave aside measures such as civil disobedience, did stand on was a platform of total the fifth commandment so Irish men could vandalism, and committing suicide at separation from Britain. And it was on kill Germans in their thousands on behalf Derby Day, in order to 'invoke a hearing'. that platform that it had its landslide of Britain? Who gave them the right—unelected as victory. And it is interesting to note that 16 Sinn Fein actually had no part in the population—was nonetheless the lawful honoured its slogans regarding the freedom Rising but hugely benefited from the government. By 1915 the British Cabinet of small nations. popular concept that it somehow had. was already undergoing a change. Not all So, based on the tiny portion of the of its members had been elected by Contrast this with Kevin's celebration population that represented the so-called anybody. What right did this unelected of Ireland's involvement in World War democracy of the time, and on the Cabinet have to continue the war or pursue One—especially at the Somme. The latter subsequent support shown to the rebels by any policy? If a cabal of unelected British represented one of the worst days of murder the Irish population, Patrick Pearse and politicians can decide policy, then I think in recorded history. Sixty thousand men the others have a considerable claim to Kevin may have answered his own were casualties the first day alone. Once having authority from the people. question in relation to the Irish Rising. we get past all the wistful nostalgia evoked Despite these facts, Kevin will probably by Kevin in his recalling of this or that BUT WASN'T THE BRITISH CABINET continue to claim that 1916 was Irish regiment that gave of its heart's blood THE ONLY 'LAWFULLY' CONSTITUTED 'undemocratic' and the rebels had no 'right' at the Somme, we are left with a frightful AUTHORITY OF THE TIME? to act as they did (as if it were somehow vista of death on a massive scale, using of I have no doubt that Kevin's first line of aberrant rather than the contemporary some of the most barbarous weapons in defence would be to make the argument norm). However, even if he insists that the modern history—poison gas, chemical that the British Cabinet constituted the only valid authority of the time was the weapons, machine guns and so on. The lawful authority of the state. I have already unelected wartime British Cabinet, it still slaughter of even that one battle alone far outlined the first problem with such an leaves him with one small problem. The exceeds the whole casualty list for the assumption—the exclusivity of any British British were aware of all the plans for the Irish War of Independence from 1916 to Cabinet of that period. The British Rising in advance. This was because they 1921, so why would Kevin think Ireland's Government that decided to take the whole had captured no less than four German involvement in it a suitable cause for millions of the populations of these two code machines early in the war and were celebration unless he is a prime example islands into a war against a people with well able to intercept all German of 'exceptionalism'? We have already seen whom many—at least in Ireland—had no communiqués with the rebels (and anyone Christian morality is not really the issue quarrel, did so on the basis of the twenty else with whom the Germans were in for Kevin. Is it then because the First or thirty percent of the adult population contact—e.g the Zimmerman telegram). World War was a 'success' in contrast to that could vote for them. A particular They could have stepped in at any time the 'failure' of the 1916 Rising? stratum of society decided on the game and arrested the leaders and thus prevented rules to suit themselves, disenfranchising the rebellion, yet they chose to let it go SUCCESS AND FAILURE most of the population but making all the ahead in order to bring the main First we need to define what is meant decisions nonetheless. The signatories of protagonists out in the open and make an by success. An obvious definition would the 1916 Rising were at least as entitled to example of them . Thus Kevin might like be that something achieved its stated do what they did as such a Cabinet on that to consider how "the cold blooded objectives. Pearse had primarily hoped basis alone. slaughter of innocent people in the streets the 1916 Rising would 'awaken' the Irish It might be argued that popular support of Dublin" happened with the approval if people and indeed it did. The First World for Britain's war against Germany was not perhaps even the authority of the British War was a military success from the British evidenced by the rush to 'sign up' once war Cabinet. point of view in that Germany—their had been declared. This needs closer enemy—was defeated. But this only came about as the result of American entry into examination. Men signed up for many 1916 COMMEMORATIONS AS A the war at a point when Britain was nearly reasons—because they believed the "CELEBRATION OF MURDER AND FAILURE" exhausted . propaganda about 'the freedom of small But perhaps the strangest manifestation nations' or, at the other end, as Tom Barry of Kevin Myers' free fall into 'exception- What were the stated aims for going to said, because they wanted to get a gun, alism' is his condemnation of the 1916 war in 1914? We are all familiar with the travel the world, and feel a man. My commemoration as being a celebration of slogans—it was to be the war for freedom grandfather, aged only 16, signed up along murder and failure. Perhaps it's stating the of small nations, for democracy, for poor with his best friend after school one day obvious to say that, for most Irish people little Catholic Belgium (the emphasis on because they thought it would be a jolly who commemorate it, 1916 and what 'Catholic' probably to appeal to Irish adventure and they'd be home in time for followed is about freedom, independence, Catholic sentiment), and 'the war to end Christmas Dinner. How wrong they were. and the foundation of the modern Irish all wars'. And once in, there was no way out except state. The Rising may have been an as a corpse or an invalid until it was all From the outset, the First World War immediate military failure but it acted as was being touted as a war to defend the over. So, if any of these men changed their a spur that produced subsequent successes. minds after signing up, it was too late. We rights of small nations. Needless to say, It roused a sufficient proportion of the Ireland—which had clearly expressed a shall probably never know how many of Irish people to lend their collective support them, had they had the chance, might have desire to exercise its rights—was not to be to the struggle to get Britain to grant some included. Britain specifically blocked the had a change of heart and quit. We know measure of independence. It is fruitless to some of them did for at least twenty-six Irish delegation from getting even a argue that this was already on the cards by hearing at the 1919 Peace Treaty. Irish alone were shot for 'cowardice' or legal avenues as, by 1915, the British desertion—trying to quit the war once its Montenegro was wiped away in the post- Cabinet was a unionist-dominated one war redrawing of the map and most of the reality had become apparent to them. and intent on scuttling Home Rule by any We have already seen that in terms of former colonies of Germany and its allies, means possible. This is the background rather than expecting to look forward at popular support the 1916 Rising was also against which the 1916 Rising occurred. subsequently endorsed by the Irish last to liberation and independence, found population. Irish separatists were also actively themselves passed to new hands. Britain pursuing 'approved and civil' channels at and France carved up new territories for APPROVAL IF NOT AUTHORITY… the same time—the 1918 elections and themselves in the Middle East, Panama There is a second problem with the the 1919 Peace Conference—and wide- and Nicaragua fell under the domination assumption that the British Cabinet—even spread bloodshed could have been avoided of the USA. So on the first count World if elected by a tiny portion of the even at these late stages had Britain War One was a failure. 17 The war was also supposed to make the Kevin Myers' writing on 1916 elicited a further response, in the shape of two letters world safe for democracy. I would like to by David Alvey, which appeared in the Irish Independent, 3rd and 16th April 2007 quote Lord (Arthur) Ponsonby here: "the absurdity of this meaningless cry on the part of the Allies, amongst whom was Czarist Russia, is obvious. Insincerity is proved by the results". One need look no further than the Weimar Republic: a Arrogance, Hypocrisy And Blind Partiality ineffectual democracy set up by the victorious Allies in order to keep Germany If our understanding of Ireland's insurrection therefore had the effect of broken, strangled at birth by crippling national tradition were in a healthy state, saving lives, and by all contemporary compensatory payments insisted on by Kevin Myers's attacks on it could be easily accounts, it was conducted in line with the Britain and France, and abandoned to its dismissed as self-evidently ridiculous. high standards set for Irish nationalism by fate as fascism took over. Indeed if World Unfortunately historical understanding is Thomas Davis in the 1840s. War One was supposed to bring democracy thin on the ground these days, so ridiculous Unfortunately, Kevin Myers cannot it was a spectacular failure even in Europe arguments must be taken seriously. teach us very much about our vices. He as fascism took hold in Italy, Germany, In his column of Thursday March 29th, merely demonstrates some of those of our Spain alone, and the Soviet Union drifted Kevin purports to discover the "greatest nearest neighbour: arrogance, hypocrisy into dictatorship. Irish vice of all: exceptionalism". By this and blind partiality. Was it then, at least a war to end all he means our tendency to break the law in wars , as proclaimed? Again, quoting Lord exceptional circumstances convenient to Ponsonby: "this was hardly an original ourselves. All very entertaining but actu- *** cry. It has been uttered in previous wars, ally the underlying story of modern Irish Celebrating 1916 is celebrating murder although every schoolboy knows that war history tells of how a people prone to and failure according to Kevin Myers (12 breeds war". Again we find World War various vices and weaknesses overcame April). I beg to differ. One to be a spectacular failure on this them under the inspiration of a political The Rising should be celebrated count too. The unjust and punitive terms objective: achieving national independence. because it was the first action in a protracted of the Versailles Treaty helped lead directly and tortuous struggle that led eventually to an even worse war. And, even in the What is ridiculous about his analysis in the 1930s to the achievement of national immediate aftermath of the First World of Irish vice is that it is not independent; it independence. Independence in turn made War, as Lord Ponsonby again informs contains a pronounced English bias. it possible to pursue, for the first time in us— According to Kevin we are a vice ridden modern Irish history, economic prosperity "since 1918 fighting has never ceased people because we display un-English as an objective without reference to British in the world. There has been war on the behaviour patterns and we persist in interests. part of the Allies against Russia, war viewing the founding of our State in a The Rising was a military insurrection between Turkey and Greece, the Black positive light. Out of perversity we have against British rule that involved armed and Tan exploits in Ireland, the armed failed to accept the proper English account conflict taking place at different sites in occupation of the Ruhr, war of France of history. Dublin over seven days. It was not a and Spain against the Riffs, war of wanton or undisciplined affair. Nor was it France against the Syrians, military Thus he rails against the reference to action on the part of the USA in Germany as "our gallant allies" in the undertaken in contravention of the known Nicaragua, fighting in Mexico and 1916 Proclamation as a "ludicrous and will of the people as the 1918 general incessant war in China". abominable acclaim for the Kaiser". It is election result later confirmed. The fatalities that resulted from it cannot, And that was writing in 1928! as though the history of the First World War is for him a morality tale centred generally speaking, be described as So, on the whole, World War One was around a villainous Kaiser. The truth is murders. I also dispute the argument made by Mr a spectacular failure in its aims as stated that Britain caused a minor war between by Britain, and in the justifications given Austria-Hungary and Russia over Serbia Myers that the Celtic Tiger represents the to encourage many to sign up and fight on to be escalated into a cataclysmic world antithesis of what Pearse and Connolly wanted, that 1916 can consequently be her behalf. It also brought death to some war and for four long years blocked all ten million people. Not much to celebrate attempts at peace negotiations until its adjudged a failure. there, you might think. Yet although he main trading rival, Germany, was defeated. The overriding aim of the 1916 leaders was to win democratic self-government has acknowledged the carnage of the war Guided by Roger Casement's writings, he has constantly championed the cause the authors of the Proclamation would for the Irish people, an aim in which they of those who fought in it while wearing have been aware that British diplomacy in were obviously successful. In the course of time and as a self governing entity British uniform, urging us 'not to forget'— the years before 1914 was aimed at quite the opposite of his treatment of entrapping Germany into a war it could Ireland switched its economic policy from 1916—which he describes as "an not win. They would also have known protection to free trade. The free trade policy has been adroitly administered by unmitigated evil for Ireland". from James Connolly of the pioneering social legislation introduced under Kaiser the Irish State in a manner that has become a model for developing economies. In that AN 'EXCEPTIONAL' MYERS Wilhelm that transformed German respect and in any others that can be So in the final analysis Kevin demon- working class living standards. In short strates his own free-fall into 'exceptional- they were well disposed towards the applied, the Irish experiment in self- ism'. Christian morality is spuriously Kaiser's Germany for sound reasons. government instigated in 1916, has been a success. invoked to castigate Irish rebels but never One of the aims of the 1916 leaders, seriously applied when Britain is doing described by Myers as "authors of mayhem It is true that many aspects of today’s the killing. and butchery", was to stem the flow of consumerist society would be anathema to Davis, Pearse, Connolly, or de Valera. And murder and failure are nothing to Irish canon fodder to the mass butchery celebrate—unless they wear the uniform then proceeding in Europe. In this aim For me that is an incontestable reason for of the British armed forces. they were successful; Irish enlistment fell actively and thoughtfully celebrating their legacy. Nick Folley, April 2007 off dramatically after the Rising. The 18 Tom Garvin: Preventing The Future items, but its means of understanding has an external source. The blurb on this book only tells us that he is Politics Professor at UCD, but the blurb on another book published 10 years ago (1922) says that he is— "an alumnus of the Woodrow Wilson Ireland: Now And Then International Centre for Scholars, Smithsonian Institute, Washington D.C. He is also a Fulbright Scholar and has What is one to do with an academic— (The academic world was predominantly taught at the University of Georgia; and therefore scientific—description of a Marxist then, and in its Marxist form it Colgate University, New York; and situation which stands in utter contra- became Althusserian.) Mount Holyoke College, Massa- diction with one's actual experience of it? Experience was discounted as the chusetts". source of knowledge and a new kind of It would be interesting to know what he Professor Tom Garvin put a lot of work knowledge was put in place by the was before America. into describing the Ireland I grew up in, Althusserians. Truth was then described but what he succeeds in describing is a as a correspondence between a statement Preventing The Future is not a notion country I did not grow up in, and in which and its "protocols". A set of 'protocols' that would have sprung to the mind of I would not be what I am if I had grown up was asserted and a statement made in anybody, who had experienced the in it. He describes what appears to me as accordance with them was true. Know- development through which the future— a science fiction variant of the social reality ledge then became a closed system and meaning the present—came about, as the of Ireland around 1950. the realm of experience was by-passed. title of an account of how the present came The book is Preventing The Future: What was the use of knowledge about. It is an alienated notion: the idea Why Was Ireland Poor For So Long? disconnected from experience? As far as of somebody whose conception of (Gill & Macmillan 2004). It begins by I could see, it was that it enabled humanity normality comes from somewhere else. acknowledging a debt to "Two standard to be treated as a scientific subject—to be It is not made clear when prevention of pioneering works on the Irish New fixed and pinned down, if only in fantasy. the future became the main preoccupation Departure of the 1950". These are Sean And there was a lucrative academic career of Irish politics and culture—whether it Lemass by Lord Bew and his associated to be made of it. was in the 1920s, or the 1930s, or neutrality commoner Professor Patterson, and in Britain's 2nd World War. All that Between Two Worlds by Professor Girvin. Lord Bew ceased to be a Marxist around comes through is that for a number of I knew all three of them pretty well over 1990——and who didn't! I recently generations the chief preoccupation of the thirty years ago, and so I know that all looked through successive editions of his "elites" of Irish society—the politicians, three of them rejected experience as a book on "the Northern Ireland state"—a the trade unions and the Church—was to source of knowledge, being of the opinion thing which did not exist: but what did prevent the arrival of the future which we that it led to the morass of subjectivism. that matter to an Althusserian?—in order know as the present. They were caught by the 'ahuman' vision to see by what process of thought he made of the ruling French intellectual of the his way from stringent Marxism to "John Whyte introduced me many years 1970s, Louis Althusser, and his scheme something else, and to find out what that ago to the knotty problem of the for devising a purely objective and something else was. But I found in the relationship between Catholicism and scientific knowledge of human affairs from book no indication of a process of thought democratic politics" (p v). It so happens a viewpoint beyond humanity. And it leading from Marxism to non-Marxism. that Whyte was the only senior Irish seemed to me that they were unaware that The book became non-Marxist by having academic of the 1970s that I ever Althusser's vision was no less a vision the Marxist references physically extracted exchanged a word with. It happened after than the visions which he set about from it but otherwise remaining the same. a political meeting held at Queen's demolishing as mere "ideology". University Students' Union around the The change came about because of a time of the 1974 General Strike. Whyte Human existence is not something fixed crude external event—the collapse of the stayed behind after the meeting to take and definite in its social dimension, and it Soviet Union—rather than by a process of issue with some things I had said and we is therefore not a subject capable of being thought in the medium of experience. argued things out for a couple of hours. grasped scientifically. Human life is lived (And I am almost tempted, in the presence He was strongly in denial about basic through the imagination. Without of it, to go back to the Kantian flirtation social and political facts about Northern imagination it is not possible. It is entered with Marxism that I engaged in from the Ireland. I did not know who he was at the into by way of experience, which is an mid-sixties to the mid-seventies.) time. When I found out, I looked up what infinitely complex and subtle process. The he had written because his mode of denial best attempt to describe it is found in Professor Garvin's mind does not appear was not the orthodox nationalist one. That Kant's Critiques, which I read in the to have been shaped by the stereotyping was when I began to realise that history in backwardness of rural Ireland in the mid- process of academic Marxism. As Irish academia was something different 1950s. Subsequently I had occasion to compared with Althusserianism, it is all from what I understood history to be. Its write in Marxism, but when Lord Bew, as over the place—and is the more interesting purpose was indoctrination rather than an Althusserian apostle, revealed to me for it. But neither is it a development elucidation. Whyte, I discovered, was a that one had to discard Kant in order to be within the culture of the state and society kind of Ascendancy Catholic, and his a Marxist—not that he put it as intelligibly which it analyses. It is obviously familiar purpose in writing history was not to bring as that—I discarded Marxism instead. with that culture as a conglomeration of out what happened in some particular 19 period, without concern for present with Presbyterians and other Protestants presented by M.J.F. McCarthy of susceptibilities, but to bend the past with in the North I failed to discover any of the Midleton, the vigorous anti-Parnellite anti- a view to affecting the present in matters democratic political fruit of Protestantism. clerical. I could find no substance in which were still at issue in the present. McCarthy's argument that the building of Since his purpose was to liberalise Catholic A democracy is a state, not a religious Churches detracted from economic thinking by this means, I could agree that sect. The English state is not a product of development. Perhaps that was because I it was ideologically laudable, at least for English Protestantism. English Protestant- found no substance in the 'Guns or Butter' the moment, but I could not agree that it ism failed to establish a viable state. The argument. As far as I could see it was not was history. It was propaganda. history of its attempts to do so in the 17th the case that, if no guns were produced, century is a history of abortive revolutions there would be more butter. The social The "knotty problem of the relationship and civil war. The viable state was dimension of the economic process tends between Catholicism and democratic established by a ruling class of sceptical to bring it about that an economy that can politics" (meaning the problem of the gentry and Bishops which kept the produce guns can also produce butter. anti-democratic stance of the Church in Protestant populace in order by manipul- And the building of Churches was more the democratic era) is a new English idea, ating their anti-Catholic prejudices and likely to lead on to other things than to and perhaps an older American idea— excluding them from political power. occur at the expense of other things—at though I cannot see why it should be, least in the circumstances of late 19th seeing that the Presentation nuns were the The English Constitution is not easily century Ireland. first institution of European civilisation pinned down, but it exists. It is in that established in California, and the Church respect very like Rome, which has an I reasoned that, if capitalist economic flourished in American democracy. It is ineffable source of authority, and I have development was postulated as a kind of not a sustainable general idea. seen it argued that it is in substance a pre- norm flowing from human nature—which Reformation survival that was still in place it was—and if a retarding influence must I went into the history of the English after a century and a half of Protestant be found to explain its absence, the state for the purpose of understanding efforts to devise a replacement. It is at any retarding influence in Ireland was not the Irish—particularly Northern Irish–affairs, rate not the Constitution of Henry VIII, or Catholic Church, but the Gaelic society and I kept coming across the English idea or Edward, or Mary, or Elizabeth, or from which bourgeois nationalist Ireland that the Catholic Church was a dangerous Charles, or the Presbyterian Parliament of was emerging. And, in that case, the democratic, even revolutionary, institu- the 1640s, or Cromwell, or Charles 2. influence of the Church was positively tion. English democracy is of very recent And the Parliament of Walpole's time, economic, since it was contributing to the growth, but when the English state became when things were settled down, might be destruction of Gaelic social culture. democratic (less than a hundred years reasonably compared with the College of (It is a sign of the external source of the ago), it backdated its democracy to 1688. Cardinals. understanding that Garvin brings to bear on Irish affairs that he makes no mention England's third Great War with France Macaulay, the great Liberal ideologue of McCarthy.) (1793-1815) had the purpose of warding of the Victorian era, might be profitably off the influence of French democracy. remembered in Ireland, even though In the mid-1970s I had never seen When the Parliamentary franchise was England seems to have no more use for Bavaria. When I did see it, it bore out my extended to the middle class in 1832 its him. There was something of the authentic reasoning on the issue of Rome and purpose was to withdraw the middle class historian about him, and he had a sense economics. Bavaria, lodged in Catholic/ from the popular reform agitation and that the complexities of human affairs Pagan superstition in a way that I had break it into the political routine cannot be straitjacketed in liberal formulas. never seen in Ireland but had seen established by the gentry/aristocracy. And At the height of the liberal hubris he threw attributed to the Irish by the propaganda so it continued until the 1918 Reform, off the remark that Rome would probably of the Protestant Crusade of the early 19th enacted amidst a deluge of jingoistic survive Liberal England. He saw century) was at the same time the economic militarism. Catholicism as a religion with politics miracle of postwar Europe. built in—as Hobbes had done two centuries Around the same time that I saw Ireland was governed by the English earlier when he described it as the ghost of Bavaria, I came across a talk given by state until 1919. It was not governed the Roman Empire risen from its grave. Hugh Trevor Roper to priests and nuns at democratically. It was not the Catholic Galway University, in which he Church that prevented it from being It was certainly not through being anti- demolished the notion that the Protestant governed democratically. And, until the democratic in the sphere of politics that Reformation was the source of capitalism, English state adopted democracy as an the Catholic Church prevented the Irish and pointed to its origins in the Catholic ideology—not as a policy—its propaganda future—unless one gives some fancy Rhineland and Northern Italy. against Catholicism tended to be that meaning to democracy. But Garvin also Catholic doctrine regarding politics was suggests that the Church was anti- I left rural Ireland in the late 1950s dangerously democratic in tendency. economic. because of the Church. I did not go to It has often been said that, as the I went into that idea over thirty years urban Ireland because the source of what Presbyterian Church is governed by its ago, when we were launching the I could not tolerate was urban Ireland. members and the Catholic Church is not, Campaign To Separate Church And Garvin has the notion that rural Ireland the former is a source of political State—and having to work up discontent was the base area of the zealous Catholic democracy and the latter is an obstacle to with the predominance of the Church, backwardness that prevented the present it. By their fruits ye shall know them. because there was very little of it about in from happening a long time ago. My Over a quarter of a century of close dealings spontaneous form. I took it up in the form experience is the contrary. 20 I first encountered religion at the age of that the three months' holiday weren't of it. The village, small though it was 12 or 13, and I couldn't stand it. Up to the worth it. And I also encountered religion then, nevertheless had an urban character, age of 12 I was in the business of religion. for the first time as a lay person, and found and therefore religion was its concern. It I became an altar boy at the age of 7 or 8 it intolerable. So I decided to escape. Or was slightly alien to my eyes and I never and took part in hundreds, perhaps the feeling cam over me that I would got to know it well. It was not where the thousands, of events. I lived close to the escape, and that feeling determined what interesting life was. priest's house and did Masses in the private I did. chapel there (which was in the country) as I actually was a footballer, either All I learned during my few months in well as in the Church (then invariably goalkeeper or centre forward. Unfortun- College was the declension of the Greek called the Chapel). I was popular with ately I was in my prime as a goalkeeper article. I had to memorise it to prevent my priests on holiday because I enabled them around the age of 12, when the ball could ears from being squeezed between the to get through the business quick and get not be put past me in Gaelic goals. The teacher's fingernails, which was much away to golf. And I did the Stations one management decided that I could not play more painful than the slaps of the cane. year in the Parish of Kiskeam, in place of in the senior team because I was so young. What I got from College was a lasting the Parish Clerk who had fallen ill and By the time they wanted me to play I aversion to Greek and Latin as languages. needed a replacement. become interested in other things, and On the positive side there was only the The Stations no longer exist. Cardinal therefore had lost my edge. But I did play Biggles adventure stories which I found in Cullen tried to abolish them but failed, at for a couple of seasons to be sociable, and the library. least in Slieve Luacra. It seems to be I was never scored against. I escaped by running away. Vatican 2 that gave them the coup de grace. When I escaped from my dilemma by I understand that statements about me They were a survival from the Penal running away, it was with the intention of have been appearing on the internet. I am Laws. The priest went to a house in every becoming a professional soccer goalkeeper computer illiterate, but so I have been townland each Spring and Fall and set up with really big goals to defend. I hadn't informed. I am being exposed. I don't an altar there, and did Mass etc, and it was given any realistic thought to the details of know why this should be as I have no a townland holiday. And for one season I the matter—I was barely a teenager—and media presence. In forty years of political did it around the Parish of Kiskeam, I had not allowed for the communal writing I don't think I have had one review carrying around the paraphernalia, setting character of North Cork. I was caught in a national publication. That's fine by up the altar, seeing to the stage manage- when I had got forty miles towards my me. But if, despite my obscurity, ment, packing things away, and sitting at object, and was returned to my townland, biographies of me are to be put around the breakfast with the priest and the elders. where I spent the next eight years. I might world, they might as well have some traces There was no praying involved. of accuracy in them. have left a couple of years later if I had Everything I said was in Latin, and I didn't been yearning for wider horizons, greater know or care what it meant. And there About twenty years after I ran away I opportunities, or more interesting conver- were two perks. I missed a lot of school, watched a July 12th parade pass along the sation and believed they were available in which I regarded as prison. And I got tips. Lisburn Road in Belfast. With me was the cities. But I found life interesting Jim Lane of Cork city. Shortly after that where I was, and I was certain it was less Then, when I was 11 or 12, I was asked he seemed to suggest that I had misled him interesting in the cities. So I stayed where if I would like to go to College. What into thinking that, if nationalist Ireland I was for eight years, until the late fifties, College meant to me was three months' recognised that the Ulster Protestants had content with everything but the middle holiday in Summer instead of six weeks. the quality of a nationality, they would class religion of the cities which was So I said OK. quickly come to terms with nationalist relentlessly penetrating the countryside Long afterwards I wondered how I had Ireland. He had recognised them as a through the medium of the village. been paid for to go to College. My sister nationality, but the process of rapproche- had also been wondering. (My father ment had not begun, and so he went back I explain this for epistemelogical worked for wages.) We concluded it was to being a socialist Republican. reasons. My revulsion against religion because I had been born in a rented room when I experienced it from the other side of a house owned by a woman who drew He was a commercial traveller, and he of the altar, my brief acquaintance with a horse in the Sweepstake, held onto it, rooted around in the obscure part of rural College life which I experienced as prison, and got first prize with it. She was a Ireland where my world outlook was and the failure of my bid to become a religious woman, and I think a distant formed, asking about me. He found that I professional footballer, established the relative, and it seems that I was one of her was remembered as a footballer. The viewpoint from which I observed Irish life good works. good shopkeepers in the village didn't tell in the 1940s, particularly its religious him that I was a religious embarrassment dimension, not many years before it began So I went to College, happy to miss the to them for almost half of my time there, to be subverted by Rome. I was out of last two years of compulsory school and was given to consorting in the joint with the society in which I lived on attendance—only to find that I had gone blacksmith's shop with an old man who the single point of religion. On that point from the frying pan into the fire. At school had been excommunicated in the Civil I was not a participant but an inside I was free at three o'clock every day. (I did War and would not let the Church forget observer. And Professor Garvin's no homework. The schoolmaster gave me it. They would not reveal scandal to a academic description of what Ireland was three slaps with the cane for everything I stranger. then does not tally with what I saw. hadn't done, and I thought it was fair Brendan Clifford exchange.) But College was imprisonment I was not from the village, but I worked for the whole day, and I decided early on as a labourer in the Creamery at the edge To Be Continued 21 VOLUME 25 No. 5 CORK ISSN 0790-1712

Supreme Court Judgement In (The following article is taken from Socialist Voice, paper of the Breach Of ILO Conventions Communist Party of Ireland.)

As the British Marxist Gerald Cohen EXCEPTED BODIES: NO AUTONOMY, NO POWER As an instrument for maintaining and explains, modern state institutions are Under the Trade Union Act (1941) an improving the conditions of employees’ driven towards the defence of private excepted body is defined as “a body all working lives, its weaknesses are manifest. property; and it is this rationale that members of which are employed by the Workers’ representatives—regardless of provides the state elites with both their same employer and which carries on whether they are elected by their fellow- main policy direction and their determinant negotiations for the fixing of wages or workers or are appointed by the ideological disposition. other conditions of employment of its management—are employees of the Undoubtedly, the judiciary and the own members (but no other employees).” undertaking. They cannot act with the courts have long performed an explicit Under the Supreme Court judgement, an same level of independence or freedom as role in realising these efforts. Since the excepted body has been interpreted to union officials, because they are dependent inception of trade unionism the judiciary include the following criteria: on the company for their job and pay. has played a malign role in the active Such company unions are notoriously a repression and emasculation of such (1) it was established at the behest of poor substitute as an effective check on bodies. the employer; employers’ power. The recent Supreme Court judgement (2) it does not (unlike trade unions) Workers’ interests at work can be in Ryanair v. Labour Court has once again require a negotiation licence; effectively guaranteed only through the illustrated the inherent class prejudice of (3) it does not require the consent or right to exercise collective power through the Irish judiciary and its antipathy towards participation of the company’s independent organisation. Without the independent trade unionism. Attention in employees; ability to put concerted activity and muscle particular needs to be paid to its interpret- (4) the withdrawal of employees has behind its collective voice, excepted bodies ation of what is an “excepted body” under no impact on the continuing existence remain hollow shells. the Trade Union Act (1941), which has of the entity; significantly negative consequences for (5) it can carry on collective IN BREACH OF ILO AND the recognition of trade unions. bargaining negotiations with its FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION progenitor employer. THE RYANAIR DISPUTE Of particular interest is the fact that the In the Ryanair case the Labour Court An excepted body, therefore, is one International Labour Organisation, under decided that the company's employee rep- that is entirely a product of the employer, Convention 98, considers any workers’ resentation committee (ERC) for pilots usually used as a union substitution device. organisation established under the control was not an excepted body as defined in the and domination of the employer as an 1941 act. It found that, as the employees interference with the right of freedom of apparently didn’t want to be represented Subscribers to the magazine are regularly association. offered special rates on other publications by the ERC but by the trade union Impact, The ILO declares that the independence the ERC could not have the status of an Irish Political Review is published by of trade unions is a prerequisite of effective independent excepted body or collective the IPR Group: write to— collective bargaining. As a result, whatever bargaining unit. individual or collective negotiations go 14 New Comen Court, North Strand, The Supreme Court, however, found Dublin 3, or on within an excepted body, these cannot that not enough evidence was presented to PO Box 339, Belfast BT12 4GQ or constitute collective bargaining. support the union’s case. It argued that if PO Box 6589, London, N7 6SG, or The Supreme Court’s interpretation is these internal councils were formed under therefore very much at variance with ILO the same rules that guide the establishment Labour Comment, standards, standards that the Irish of works councils, under the EU inform- C/O Shandon St. P.O., Cork City. government formally accepted in 1955. ation and consultation directive, they Subscription by Post: There is therefore a strong case for the would pass the test of being "fair and 12 issues: £17.50, UK; Irish labour movement taking a complaint reasonable". Euro 25, Ireland; Euro 30, Europe. to the ILO Committee on Freedom of Where such a staff council does exist, Electronic Subscription: Association on the grounds that the Irish government and judiciary are acting in the Supreme Court is clear: it is not enough Euro 15 / £12 for 12 issues for the employees who may have already (or Euro 1.30 / £1.10 per issue) breach of Convention 98. [NC] operated the machinery of that council to You can also order both postal and simply walk away and say they don’t want electronic subscriptions from: No. 42 to operate it any more. www.atholbooks.org April 2007