December 2005 IRISH French Riots Dennis Kennedy & Ethnic Cleansing POLITICAL Hart/Coogan on Collins

Irish Ferries: Sinking? REVIEW (Back page: Labour Comment) Volume 20 No 12 ISSN 0790-7672 Incorporating Volume 19 Number The Northern Star Workers' Weekly ISSN 0954-5891 Contents: See Page Two What Is Henry Jackson Society Northern Ireland? = . A Henry Jackson Society has been “The IRA needs to take further risks to consolidate peace”: that is the theme of an established for the purpose of enacting a article by Sean Donlon, former Ambassador to USA and former Secretary to Foreign world revolution by force. Its principles Affairs Department (Irish Times 17 Oct). The risk it must take is to abolish itself. It is are: not enough for it to disarm and declare that its war is over. It must disband, and then “that liberal democracy should be there will be “lasting peace on the island”. Donlon claims that John Hume supported spread across the world; that as the this view in “a recent, under-reported speech”. And Hume has not repudiated him. world’s most powerful democracies, the United States and the European Union—under British leadership—must It follows from this that, if the Provisional IRA had not been formed 35 years ago shape the world more actively by there would never have been anything but peace in the North. And yet we recall that intervention and example; that such there were some slight disturbances before the Provos were ever thought of, and that leadership requires political will. a John Hume added to the disturbance by not staying quietly at home, and that he made a commitment to universal human rights resounding declaration that it was United Ireland or nothing, and that the good Taoiseach, and the maintenance of a strong military Jack Lynch, egged him on. with global expeditionary reach; and that too few of our leaders in Britain When your customary mode of discourse is about sugar and spice and everything and the rest of Europe today are ready nice, the description of other things become problematical. But Hume, despite the to play a role in the world that matches cultivated Humespeak, did play his part in other things, though his speech was necessarily our strength.” incoherent with regard to them. He gave an amazing performance of verbal juggling for That is from documents issued in a quarter of a century. But, when he had helped to bring about a situation that accorded connection with a launch in the House with his ideal, and “constitutional nationalism” was called upon to take the alternative of Commons on 22nd November. It is a way forward by means of constructive action in what it was agreed to pretend was a programme for a Third World War. continued on page 2 continued on page 3 The WTO:

World War Two Vet- Dead But eran Jack Harte and Won't Lie Down Spanish War Veteran On 11th November Peter Mandelson Jack Jones at the said of the forthcoming World Trade grave of Kevin Barry, Organisation Conference to be held at before participating Hong Kong: in a commemora­ion “The plain fact is that the situation of Irish Republican with the round is very difficult but not and International Bri- impossible... The realistic level of gade Leader, Frank ambition for Hong Kong at this stage will Ryan. be to consolidate the progress that has been made, build on the July Framework SEE and leave most of the main decisions on PAGE the figures to somewhat later, hopefully 20 in the first quarter of next year. I resisted this putting off, but have had to bow the inevitable.” continued on page 6 C O N T E N T S of external authority in Dublin and Page London, instead of dealing realistically What Is Northern Ireland. Editorial 1 with the internal realities of the North. Sinn Henry Jackson Society = World War Three. Editorial 1 Fein/IRA would likewise reduce itself to a Commemoration of Irish Spanish War Veterans. Illustration 1 spent force, leaving the field free for others The WTO—Dead But Won't Lie Down. Jack Lane 1 to take its place, if it heeded the exhortation The Fifth Column. Seán McGouran (Still Demonising Sinn Fein; of those authorities—who know very well N. Bank Robbery; Henry McDonald; Liam Lawlor: Sewer Journalism) 3 that this would be the case, and therefore Censorship On Sinking Of RMS Leinster. (Report: unpublished letter by do not want their pious exhortations to be Brian Murphy OSB) 7 heeded. But, like the scorpion in Aesop’s Shorts from the Long Fellow (PD Times; Health Service Shambles; The State & fable, they cannot help themselves. Nature Revolution; Women In The State; Moriarty Tribunal; Syria & Lebanon; will out. And they cannot even match The French Riot; Republican Values) 9 the self-restraint of the scorpion, who let Riots: A Thoroughly French Affair. Emmanuel Todd (trans. J. Martin) 9 the frog carry him across the river before Social Dialogue: French Style. John Martin 10 stinging him. Protestant Working Class: Time To Stop Digging, And Start Thinking. Was the Provisional IRA a legitimate Mark Langhammer 10 part of the Northern situation? Who A Bounder And A CADogan? Joe Keenan 12 determined legitimacy in that situation? Hart & Coogan On Collins. Brendan Clifford 14 Myers & The Spanish Civil War. Manus O'Riordan 20 Two states claimed sovereignty, but Jack Jones Censored By The Irish Times! Report 20 the North was not part of the democracy Frank Ryan Remembered. Manus O'Riordan Address 21 of either of them. America & The Peace Note Of 1917. Pat Walsh (Part 4, Benedict XV) 23 It’s a truism of modern times that Index To Irish Political Review 2005. 27 legitimate authority is connected with Barry's Column. The International Brigades 29 democracy. If that is accepted, there Labour Comment, edited by Pat Maloney: Irish Ferries: "That Sinking Feeling" was no legitimate overall authority in the North even before the breakdown democracy, he retired and handed over last thing those who demanded it actually of August 1969, not to mention after it. to Seamus Mallon, who was known to be wanted. But, because they never faced And the reality as we experienced it was opposed to what Donlon calls “the Hume- up to the reality of what Northern Ireland entirely in accordance with that theoretical Adams dialogue”. And then constitutional actually was, they did not have it in them deduction. The North was thrown into a nationalism, in its chosen forum, was to do anything but harass Sinn Fein over its state of nature in 1969, and the elements given the run-around by Trimble for four connection with the IRA. The only thing of a new system of order were generated years, with Durkan proving as ineffectual they were capable of being was two-faced out of the anarchy. as Mallon. hypocrites. They wanted Sinn Fein to be We did our best to bring the North intimately connected with the IRA for the within the democratic order of the British Why did Hume retire at the critical purpose of persuading it to disarm, and state—and were condemned for doing so moment? Because he did not know what at the same time to be free to denounce by John Hume and an array of Dublin to do next? Because he had a strong it for being so connected. This duplicity politicians, and the Unionist Party and the sense of reality within all the froth of used to be on display every evening on the British authorities would have nothing to Humespeak and he sensed that what had Vincent Browne show on Radio Eireann. do with it. And Dublin, after making some been enacted was a kind of confidence trick And, now that the IRA has disarmed and gestures in the direction of involving itself that would soon be found out, and that if called off the war, the demand is that it in developments within the North, backed anything worthwhile was to come of it, should disband. If it disbanded, the away and washed its hands of the matter the constitutional nationalists must make demand would be that Sinn Fein should go following an intervention by the British way for the ones who are only slightly away—because it is a certainty that lasting Ambassador in the Spring of 1970. constitutional? peace and harmony would not set in with the absence of the IRA. (And, if Sinn During the Winter of 1969-70 we Donlon represented a regime which, Fein went away, further progress would discussed with some people who were in while continuing to assert sovereignty over remain to be achieved in the form of the process of forming the Provos what should the North, would neither take responsib­ abolition of the other body thrown up by be done. It was a reasonable discussion, ility for its affairs nor let it go its own the 1969 disturbances, the SDLP. And such as it was impossible to have with away. That approach led to trickery. And then we could start all over again.) ideologues of the Dublin parties or with the trickery continues. For many years ‘constitutional nationalism’. They rejected Sinn Fein and the IRA were both damned. That is the policy of the Dublin our project on the ground that the nature Voters were told that, if they voted for Sinn regime as stated. It is the only policy it of Unionism made it unrealistic. So we Fein they would be voting for terrorism. is capable of stating. But what it really went our separate ways, without great When the voters ignored this exhortation wants is that Sinn Fein/IRA should contain moral denunciations either way. And we not to vote for Sinn Fein, the tune changed the Northern situation by remaining the proved them right over the next twenty and it was denied that the IRA had been dominant purposeful force in the Catholic years. The attempt at democratisation given a mandate. The next thing was that community while being self-righteously within the political order of the state was Sinn Fein should repudiate the IRA in denounced for doing so. made impossible by the nature of the order to become fully democratic. It was The SDLP became a spent force by Unionism which was always declaring it acknowledged sotto voce that this was the paying too much heed to the exhortations to be British. continued on page 4  Henry Jackson Society · The Fifth Column o0O0o The Fifth Column o0O0o The Fifth Column o0O0o = Still Demonising Sinn Féin World War Three Sinn Féin is the only major political group with an unapologetic attitude to Ireland’s own political (and thereby, cultural) traditions. The rank and file of Fianna Fáil shares this attitude. If Bertie Ahern keeps paying more attention to the rump-PDs, that rank and file may go over bodily to Sinn Féin. Such an eventuality would be much less strange The over-riding issue in he world than the setting-up of the Thatcherite ‘Progressive Democrats’ by FF dissenters. today is whether differing forms of human A show about ‘criminality’ was broadcast on (the UK) Channel Five: (Donal) existence are to be tolerated, or the human MacIntyre’s Toughest Towns (12.10.05) was about UK cities, ranging from football race is to be made uniform whether it likes hooliganism to drug racketeering, from relatively small Portsmouth to megalopolitan it or not and is to be made to like it. Manchester. Belfast was the first town to be dealt with, concentrating on ‘paramilitary’ crime. The Henry Jackson Society has power­ It was not about drug dealing and other anti-social activity (largely by Loyalists), but ful backers. It expresses the world-view on attempts at policing in Ardoyne. It was slanted to imply that the dire consequences of the White House and Whitehall, where of some ‘policing’ could be placed in the PIRA’s debit column, including the driving of many of its most ardent advocates are two sixteen year old men to suicide. (That was the work of the INLA, quite strong in refugees from the collapse of Communism Ardoyne, the area having been ‘Sticky’ in the ’70s). The mother of the victim claimed seeking another instrument for their world- that those who handed out his mediæval punishments were selling drugs in the same dominating aspirations. They are commit­ premises from which they acted as judge, jury and executioner. ted to establishing a total uniformity of the As the INLA (Irish National Liberation Army), has rotted to an even greater extent human race in a global market dominated than the ‘Official’ IRA, the accusation is probably well founded. A man in his thirties, by US/UK/EU. They are unlikely to claiming to have indulged in mere ‘mischief’, showed the results of knee-capping and succeed but they are capable of causing other forms of brutal policing. He did not say who had inflicted the injuries. In the catastrophe in the course of failing. early ’80s the Government stopped paying automatic compensation to such men. (It was almost entirely men, a shot of the ‘tarring and feathering’ of a young woman was The invasion of Iraq and the wholesale shown, but such things have not happened since 1973. The Internees, as much as other destruction of the existing mode of life elements in the society, thought it a barbarous practice.) The use of the shot was dubious there is the first step. The main article in in the context of what was claimed to be an investigation of current problems. the propaganda material for the London A wall mural featuring Johnny Adair was shown, but no comment was made on it, launch discusses how Iran can be got at or the UDA’s genuine and widespread criminality. The only political figure interviewed next, in the light of the difficulties being was David Ervine of the PUP (Progressive Unionist Party). His membership of the experienced in Iraq. But the destruction of PUP, and its connection to the UVF, was left unsaid. What he did say was sensible: it Iran would only bring liberal democracy had to do with the collapse of faith in the system on the part of the Unionist working to the threshold of Asia. (We are told class. Most viewers probably assumed he was a respectable person talking about the every day that what exists in Iraq now is PIRA as a criminal conspiracy. This was deception by the UK propaganda machine to very much better than what existed three which he was not party. years ago, or twenty. There is certainly Donal MacIntyre must have been party to the deception, though admittedly the show no authoritative state structure of civil had all the attributes of being edited to shreds. Do Belfast’s specialised problems belong order now. So why not call the chaos the in this sensationalist series? This section was a hatchet job on one of the few agencies formative stage of liberal democracy? trying to impose some sort of order in the increasing chaos of working class Belfast. That seems to be how the White House The IRA (and elements of the UVF) have phased out violent punishment and brought regards it.) in an element of ‘restorative justice’. But, beyond Iran, the expansion of liberal democracy will certainly come Romancing the Heist up against the deterrence of nuclear Kevin Toolis did an ‘investigation’ about the Northern Bank robbery in the Dispatches weapons. And then, unless the West series. (The Big Heist, Channel 4, Sunday, September 22, 2004. The use of this term becomes untrue to itself and frees itself is presumably meant to conjure-up images of Mafia movies — it certainly isn’t street from its absolute commitment to global language in Belfast or elsewhere in Ireland.) Toolis has produced books and television uniformity, the globe is likely to be very programmes on [Northern] Ireland, which placed him in a ‘Mise Éire’ mould, somebody greatly disturbed. who might lean towards Republican Sinn Féin. As Ruairí Ó Bradaigh, in The Village magazine essentially felon-set Gerry Adams (implying that he had been IRA Chief of The Irish contribution to the Henry Staff), possibly there was an element of connivance between an RSF sympathiser, the Jackson material comes from Anthony Stickies and the RUC / PSNI Special Branch in the making of this programme, It did not McIntyre, who resigned from the Provos suffer any scruples about evidence or reasonable doubt. It was simply taken for granted because they signed the Good Friday that the ‘heist’ had been done by the Provisional IRA but, as the show progressed, it Agreement, declared that they had sold became increasingly evident that there was little to back this up. We were treated to the out the cause, demanded that they should opinions of various members of the RUC / PSNI Special Branch. (The major part of concede defeat and surrender instead of their ‘evidence’ was – in essence – that nobody else in the alphabet soup of paramilitaries pretending that they had gained something, was competent enough to do the job.) denounced them as liars and cheats, and That may well be true, but if the Provis are (were) competent enough to actually do devoted himself to the cause of peace—in continued on page 28

 tested as nowhere else. We acknowledge that no legitimate state authority has ever existed in Northern The state of nature continued in society, O Comain writes: Martin is living the Ireland, though we accommodated underneath an official apparatus of state myth that Ireland (or a part of it) is free. ourselves to the de facto power of the which consisted mainly of police and dole De Valera did not accept that myth—he Unionist apparatus. And now, having offices. And we would say that, if the fought a civil war against it” (27 Oct). revoked the formal claim to sovereignty official law were somehow applied, and And what can Martin say in reply to that? which we inserted in our Constitution in 1937, and therefore having no grounds for all the facts were somehow known to it, Nothing. He can only ignore it. But the regarding as a usurpation of our authority there would be very few people left out of fact that he ignores it is not ignored. jail. In the state of nature the individual anything that is done in Northern Ireland, has to act as his own state. we recognise Provisional Sinn Fein/IRA Mansergh is committed to manipulat­ as a legitimate body thrown up by the ‘Constitutional nationalism’ was ing history in the service of current policy disorderly arrangements that Britain shown as early as the Summer of 1971 —something which used to be declared made for the North after Partitioning to have no will of its own, and this was the falsification of history when practised Ireland. borne out conclusively by its conduct in in Eastern Europe before the collapse of the crisis of May 1974. And when, after the Soviet regime. Therefore he cannot If Mansergh said something like that a long rest, it got a third chance in 1998, deal with matters thrown up in a polemical he would certainly get a hearing. Since it still did not know what to do. dispute which he himself instigated. he dare not say anything like that—and possibly does not see that the truth is So, what does it mean to say that the He maintains that a democratic state something like that, because it differs so Provisional IRA, as the most purposeful was established in the 26 Counties in much from his father’s pronouncements— force that merged from the chaos, was 1922. Why then did the founder of his he would have been better advised not to not legitimate? party support a war against it? And did indulge in polemics with people who have In the hinterland of the Fianna Fail Dev in the mid 1920s succumb to the to live in the North. party these things are understood, but the democracy of the Free State, or did he enter the undemocratic Free State for He refers to the “32 County Sovereignty leadership dares not express them. Committee’s eccentric and deeply flawed the purpose of gaining power within DIY understanding of international law” The current position of the leadership is it and democratising it? Dev certainly and “Ruairi O Bradaigh’s contrived to treat Sinn Fein/IRA as legitimate de facto thought he was doing the latter. But that “apostolic succession” from the Second while officially reprehending it as criminal would be a dangerous admission for the Dail”, describing them as “drivel which and indicting Adams and McGuinness for ideologue of the governing party in Dublin the Northern Bank robbery though not would not stand up to a moment’s serious to make today to “dissident” (Irregular?) debate or objective scrutiny”—without acting on the indictment, and remaining Republicans in the North. But, of course, silent about the orientation of those who mentioning where they might be subjected the ‘dissidents’ know it very well. They to objective scrutiny. “International law” have been arrested in connection with the do not need an admission by Mansergh in robbery. With this two-faced attitude, is all DIY, existing only in the forum order to know it. But his evasion of a fact of the United Nations where the major it stops short of repudiating Sinn Fein/ which is indisputably true has the effect of IRA while encouraging opposition to it powers in the world are both formally confirming that he is a tricky politician who and substantially exempt from it. The both amongst Unionists and amongst invents truth in the service of policy. Republicans who are uneasy about the distinction between Power and Law has little going for it today. Iraq was invaded transitional compromise of the Good The truth of how an Irish state came Friday Agreement. and its structure of state destroyed without into existence and was made independent UN authority (and Fianna Fail facilitated The Fianna Fail intellectual, Senator may be a thing of no importance to the the invasion), but the invaders did not Mansergh, who appears to act for the 26 County Republic—to judge by the break the law because they are officially Taoiseach though no longer his adviser, way it has handed control of history above the law. recently went on the ideological offensive over to the Universities of Oxford and against Republicans who do not support Cambridge—but that is not the case in And when did “the drivel of the the Good Friday Agreement, presumably the North, where ignorant routine within apostolic succession” become drivel to for the purpose of defending the Provos. an accepted status quo is neither a reality Fianna Fail? Not with the 1922 election, He has provoked an extensive exchange nor even a reasonable possibility. or the 1923 one. When it did what was of letters in the Belfast Irish News with necessary to enter the Free State Dail for If Mansergh said: the purpose of subverting its subordination Liam O Comain of Derry. What the Yes, we in the South had to struggle to the Crown, it did so with a mental exchange brings out is that the essentially against an arrangement purporting to be duplicitous position of the Fianna Fail a national democracy, and a point was reservation that devalued the Oath. And, leadership is unsuitable for development reached when it became possible and when it gained power with the assistance in polemical dispute. Academic paper will desirable to move from military methods of false Oaths, it did not only abolish the bear anything that is written on it. And to other methods in the establishment of Oath to the Crown, but abolished Oaths selected audiences of respectable people national democracy. We do not deny altogether as a condition of sitting in will listen politely to whatever is said to the military phase of the struggle nor the Dail. Was that not a kind of acknow­ them by somebody who is understood hold it to have been unnecessary. And, ledgement that what it was sworn to do when we succeeded in taking office and to represent a power in the state. But in under the mandate of 1918 remained to holding power in 1932, and in proceeding polemics conducted in a live situation be done? Is not the absence of a Dail to break the Treaty, we were enabled Oath something of a kind with Emmet’s where minds are not made passive by an to do so peacefully by the backing of epitaph? authoritative power of state, the truth and the IRA. soundness of intellectual constructions are Such things may be described as  superstitious drivel, but they have been comments: of national self-determination in an integral part of human conduct from “De Valera moved on from a sterile contemporary international law. It is time immemorial. position: Sinn Fein and the IRA have long past time for dissident paramilitary moved on as well. It is time for all organisations to set aside their arms O Comain replied: dissident ‘revolutionary’ republicans to and let democratic political parties try “We contend that both northern and do so too… What constitutes valid self- to create more favourable conditions Southern statelets are illegal as they determination in Irish circumstances has for unity.” were established by a British act of already been decided overwhelmingly by Mansergh appears to say that his view parliament against the will of the Irish the people north and south in 1998 and is people expressed democratically in the not in practice reversible” (29 Oct). of the matter is implicit in “the teachings 1918 election. There is no authentic of Wolfe Tone” which O Comain “still fails democracy in Ireland…” And what are the dissident republicans to grasp”. And he illustrates his principle to do if they move on? Engage in the with reference to Germany, Cyprus and It is indisputably the case that both set- routines of institutionalised sectarianism, Korea, saying “Ireland is no different from ups were authorised by British legislation which is what the GFA provides for? Germany, Cyprus or Korea”. and were therefore not authentic products of Irish democracy. A Dail majority, under Mansergh further elaborated his But it is, you know. It has to be, because duress, voted to accept a Treaty whose position (and presumably Fianna Fail’s) those three instances are not themselves terms were dictated by Whitehall, and on 4th November: similar. The Partition of Cyprus—which a war was fought at British instigation “Ireland is a sovereign and democratic (as far as we recall) is held to be illegal and with British arms to enforce it. It state in international law… National under “international law”—is a social was subsequently amended in various self-determination was exercised twice reality based on the profound antipathy ways by those who were defeated in the in Ireland—in 1918-21 and in 1998—and of the peoples which inhabit the island. Treaty war, and one might say that it is may well be exercised again in the Cypriot nationality is a fiction of power something that will do for the time being. future. In 1919-21 the principle, through politics. On the other hand, it is a poor thing in promulgated by President Wilson, was many ways, bearing traces of its origin not yet international law. The provisions The island was conceded to Britain in British legislation backed by war. And of the treaty in relation to the north were by the Turkish state without reference to its academic institutions, all of which are not in dispute between the pro and anti- the will of its populace. When a national treaty sides… fundamentally hostile to the Northern independence movement developed “The Boundary Commission fiasco amongst the Greeks in the 1950s, Britain Republicans, seem to be intent on de- pulled the rug from under the legitimacy dealt with it in the Black-and-Tan manner. legitimising the non-British element in of Northern Ireland as far as republicans its origins: the Easter Rising, the 1918 were concerned but the Free State When it decided to grant a semblance of Election, and War of 1919-21. They accord government incorporated in international independence it was on the pretext that legitimacy only to the Treaty, the Treaty law the 1925 Boundary Agreement there was a Cypriot nation, separate from War, and the regime based on victory in accepting partition and no subsequent the Greek nationality, and with the proviso the Treaty War. international legal challenge to it would that the Greek majority did not have the have succeeded. right to vote itself part of Greece. It did Mansergh: “After 80 years of partition, a single not have that right because the Imperial “Once a democratic path is opened all-Ireland vote would be undemocratic Power decreed it so. up, it is indefensible for a republican as it would mean the more populous part not to be a democrat. The theoretical of the country could override the less Cyprus became a notional nation- justifications for continued armed populous. National self-determination state, but the Turkish minority, which had struggle are divorced from any attainable in a partitioned country can only be supported Britain in the war against the military or political gain… Yes, partition exercised concurrently… Greeks, refused to act as part of a Cypriot was wrong; the exclusion of nationalists “In international law… unity in a nation. When Greece declared Cyprus from participation in an independent partitioned country requires the consent to be part of the Greek state, Turkey Ireland was wrong; and the Boundary in both parts, as in the Good Friday moved in to support the Turkish minority Commission was a scandal. Some Agreement. As Dr. Garret FitzGerald and the social division of the island was progress has been made in undoing reminds in his new book Ireland in the these and many other injustices. Further World: Further Reflections, de Valera consolidated as a military division. remedy is only to be found in democratic recognised all this back in 1947: ‘In The Partition of Cyprus is more in politics, not paramilitary elitism acting order to end [partition] you will have accordance with the will of the people than on a much diminished scale” (25 Oct. to get concurrence of wills between most Partitions are. The two nationalities Is there a suggestion in the last clause three parties—we here…; those who were separated from each other without the that the scale of the paramilitarism is the represent the majority in the separated important thing?). part…; and the will of those who are kinds of atrocities that marked the Jewish the majority for the time being in the partitioning of Palestine or the British To which O Comain replied that— British parliament’. partitioning of India, and the only actual “the Belfast Agreement… “The demand for a single all-Ireland form of national oppression that exists is has institutionalised the disease of vote has no democratic, legal or political that the Greek will to govern the entire sectarianism which has been used by validity, and is unattainable because island is thwarted. the British over the decades in their own it would be a breach of commitments interests” (Oct 27). entered into by both governments and A rational settlement in accordance endorsed by the electorates north and with social realities would be to take the If the communal division in the North south as well as contrary to international internal division as a frontier between is described as a sectarian division, that law. There is consequently no moral Greece and Turkey. But ‘international law’ statement is indisputable. Mansergh right to use armed struggle based will not allow that. And so the antagonism does not dispute it. He ignores it, and on a fundamental misunderstanding of Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot goes  on within the fiction of Cypriot nationality there are some obvious similarities with principles when Irish cannonfodder was maintained by the UN and the EU. Cyprus. But Mansergh in the Irish Times needed in 1914? Why were votes held in the two parts of Ireland separately in 1998 The Partition of Germany was a by- has denounced us over the ‘two nations an act of self-determination superseding product of the war that Britain declared theory’ and asserted that there is one the vote in 1918, if separate elections on Germany in 1939 but lacked the will to general nationality throughout Ireland, held during the intervening 70 years were fight. Britain relied on the French to fight which would make it similar to Germany. invalid in that respect? Does the 26 County the war for it. But France, remembering However the arguments he deploys in the Government still see itself as a legitimate how Britain had prevented it making a North are two-nationist in substance, and authority for determining legitimacy in the secure settlement in 1919, after it had he sees the project of unification in Cypriot North, or did it relinquish that authority borne the main human cost of the Entente rather than German terms. That is to say, when it revoked the sovereignty claim? war, restricted its commitment to the war he sees little prospect of achieving it. And, if not, who determines what is in line with what Britain was doing, and legitimate in this region where democratic made a settlement when Britain took its But the internal situation in the North authority does not operate? army home in June 1940. Britain, secure is utterly unlike what exists in either part behind its naval dominance of the world, of Cyprus, and nothing like it ever existed We will return to these interesting refused a settlement in the hope of finding in Germany. questions thrown up by Senator Man­ another powerful ally to defeat Germany sergh’s polemics outside the jurisdiction for it, but did little fighting itself. The ally What is the minority, approaching half, both de facto and de jure. appeared in 1941 in the form of Soviet to do until it becomes 51%? Why would an Russia. Soviet Communism was much all-Ireland majority be undemocratic today less acceptable to Britain than Nazism if it was democratic in 1918? Why did (with whom it had friendly and supportive Britain have to wait for President Wilson’s relations for many years) and so Britain, principles to be made international law in under the appearance of alliance with 1919, when it had itself proclaimed those Russia, dawdled for three years, hoping that Germany and Russia would tear the The WTO: Dead But Won't Lie Down guts out of each other. Eventually the USA continued forced Britain to launch the Second Front in order to occupy Western Europe. It was “Reducing expectations for Hong evident by 1944 that Russia had not only major “challenges”. He began his tenure Kong, if carefully handled, will allow by lecturing the Americans about their held the German advance, but was capable us to avoid an acrimonious breakdown of defeating Germany and occupying agricultural subsidies: they should be of the sort we witnessed in Seattle cut and then the EU would do the same. central Europe, and perhaps western, if and Cancun. This would weaken the He took to slamming down the phone on there was further delay. And that was the multilateral trading system as well as cause of the Partition of Germany. It was global economic confidence...But if we his American counterpoint to make his the dividing line between the invading scale back in Hong Kong, we should not point. He was a Big Boy and bestrode Powers. The western Powers constructed scale back for the Round as a whole. It the world like the proverbial colossus. their parts of Germany into a separate state, is too important.” The Americans had a think, bided their time, and then proposed huge and totally in breach of wartime agreements, and then This convoluted language was Russia did likewise. unexpected cuts in their agricultural signalling a retreat, and admitting that subsidies in October—on condition that the next Ministerial Meeting of the WTO The Partition of Germany did not arise the EU would follow suit. But Mandy later this month to progress the Doha could not deliver this side of the deal. His out of German social conditions. It was Round will be a failure following on the a line of division between NATO and the bluff and blather and bluster were called, failure of all previous Ministerial Meetings and he looked a big-mouthed fool—which Warsaw Pact. And we cannot recall that of the WTO. NATO ever undertook, in the event of the is exactly what he is. There was no use Cold War becoming hot, to maintain East In fact, this is the end of the WTO. blaming the French. He had acted without Germany as a separate state. Naturally, this will not be acknowledged them and he and the whole world knew and we may have ‘successes’ declared, their position. Although a “two German nations” such as an Agreement on what is theory was propagated at one time, and was grandiosely called ‘Trade Facilitation’, But more ridicule was to follow. He supported by some of those who denied but which actually means cutting back on was back and forth to China like a yo-yo, the “two Irish nations” view, there was unnecessary Customs red tape—big deal! telling them about the wondrous WTO that never any substantial doubt that all the An Agreement to get rid of waste paper! they had just joined. The Chinese said in inhabitants of the two Cold War German But no ‘progress’ on the real issues—lower effect—you want free trade mate, we’ll states remained Germans. Just as there is tariffs, more unfettered access for goods, give you free trade—and soon Mandy was no substantial doubt today that the Cypriots services, etc. to developing markets. And imploring them to stop sending any more are Greeks and Turks. the admittance of Saudi Arabia will be textiles to Europe. His Chinese counter­ The Partitions of Germany and Cyprus praised—that Arab tiger with its hitherto part, a patient man, agreed to save Mandy’s were so different from each other that undiscovered love affair with the free bacon and his blushes and openly laughed the Partition of Ireland must be different market. at his predicament. The great Free Trader pleading to stop trade! from one of them, if not both. We would It will be the seal of Mandelson’s have thought it obvious that the great total failure as a Commissioner. He difference is with Germany, and that Mandy thought that he could ‘spin’ made success at this meeting one of his world powers like he span Labour Party  branches and conferences and a supine Will the 20th century be looked back especially Peter Sutherland. The death of British media—but this is big boy territory on as the crazy century where the world an offspring is always sad—especially where they take themselves seriously and allowed itself to fall under the influences coming up to Xmas—and this is what the Mandy simply could not cut the mustard of the WASPs, and anarchy reigned? The WTO was to Peter. We will no doubt have in it. US Muslim leader, Farrakhan, in a desper­ some huffing and puffing from this mover ate effort to explain and to understand the and shaker. But this time hopefully without There are oceans of spin and jargon behaviour of the white race he encountered the smug self-satisfied smirk. Let’s hope and coded gobbledygook associated with in the world concluded that they were a that in his many global peregrinations the WTO, but the basics are simple—as laboratory experiment by God that went Peter has not forgotten that great local simple as the mind of any businessman, wrong and escaped from his control. Gaelic tradition, or art, of turning a wake out to make a buck by the quickest and Before you laugh your head off, consider into an occasion of great pleasure. That is easiest means possible. Get into new how as reasonable is this fable, compared one of Gaelic Ireland’s great, but unsung, markets, clean up, and come back if to dozens of stories in the Bible which contributions to civilisation and let’s hope they recover and do the same again. But have been (and are) regarded as the ‘gospel that it can be of some consolation to Peter nation-states develop memories, and now truth’ by billions for millennia here in the at what must be a sad time for him. the biggest and most powerful are those Enlightened West? Jack Lane with the longest memories, i.e. China and India. This is no coincidence. Knowledge But it’s near Xmas and we should spare is power but memory plus knowledge is a thought for the losers in this new world, even more powerful: it is unbeatable. That is the secret weapon of China and India. Does Mandelson remember what he did yesterday? Censorship on Sinking Of RMS Lein- The Chinese development will neces­ sitate the re-writing of all the text books. The most successful capitalist country ster (ever?) emerges via an unreformed Editorial Note: the following letter was submitted to the Irish Times on 31st Communist Party. We are constantly August, but was not published presented with the twee little theory that capitalism can only thrive with Kevin Myers (An Irishman’s Diary, 25 August) complains that the sinking of RMS the Protestant work ethic, appropriate Leinster on 10 October 1918 in the Irish Sea by the German U boat (UB 123) has been theology, etc., and what do we find? China, “banished from Irish historical memory”. He places the responsibility for this silence India, Brazil (not forgetting the Celtic Ant) about the Leinster upon Irish republican nationalists. Contemporary historical are booming as capitalist countries with no evidence tells a completely different story. A few points may be made: end in sight and no sign of a Reformation Firstly, Lord Decies, the British Press Censor, commenting upon the news coverage in any of them. Do these success stories about the sinking of the Leinster at the end of October 1918 remarked that “vigilant not know that what they are doing will censorship has been imposed in order to prevent the publication of the fact that a never work in theory? large number of soldiers were on board the Leinster, and so far no mention of it has The WTO is now a straightjacket on appeared in any Irish paper”. This information is to be found in the British National them and, if it survives, the world’s black Archives at Kew, file CO 904/167. economy, officially speaking,—that is Secondly, Kevin Myers, while accepting that the Leinster “carried soldiers”, fails to say, international trade outside WTO to give an accurate picture of the military and naval presence in relation to civilian parameters—will grow and grow and passengers. The figures are as follows: the military presence was 492, 67 officers and will be the source of the real economy 425 other ranks; the naval presence was 102; the civilians numbered 180. Of those especially in these growing markets. killed, 328 were soldiers; 60 were naval staff; and 115 were civilians. This information is to be found in the fine book by Roy Stokes,Death in the Irish Sea. The Sinking off The prospect for the new century the RMS Leinster (Cork, 1998). In reality the mail boat for civilian passengers was, suddenly looks good if these countries keep in effect, doubling as a troop ship and this, contrary to the assertion of Kevin Myers, growing and come to dominate the world. was known to German U boat commanders. We can be fairly certain that these emergent Thirdly, the British authorities at the time, prevented the circulation of a Sinn powers will not cause constant wars—and Fein leaflet, The Leinster outrage, which attempted to make known the number of certainly not two world wars. soldiers on board. Fourthly, Bill Sweeney, Assistant Purser on the Leinster, whose memory Kevin How odd—they seem to make progress Myers rightly asks us to respect, recorded that there was cowardly behaviour by both without massive wars, colonies, slavery crew and soldiers in their efforts to escape the sinking ship. Furthermore, British ships, or the other props which fuelled the rise in the vicinity of the stricken Leinster, were forbidden by Admiralty regulations from to Great Power status of Britain and then going immediately to the assistance of the passengers. America. They simply provide good In conclusion one cannot but agree with Kevin Myers that it is time for a torch to products: at the moment mainly goods shine in “history’s darkness” and to reveal all that British censorship has concealed from China and services from India. And about the RMS Leinster for far too long. they have a moral sense that they seem Dr Brian P.Murphy osb to believe in and take seriously but don’t [The British censorship about the Leinster continues still, with the suppression of lecture the world about it. Very odd people this pertinent letter! Editor] indeed.  Payroll software amounts to 150 million million, this leaves 2.3 million men: quite euros. Despite (or because of) the numer­ a significant difference. ous private consultants the software does Shorts not work. About a year ago Junior Health Moriarty Tribunal from Minister Tim O’ Malley (PD) welcomed The Moriarty Tribunal investigating the new software and declared it to be a the possibility of unfair influence in the the Long Fellow “fundamental tool” for the health services awarding to Esat Digifone of a mobile (The Irish Times, 5.10.05). It was only phone licence is descending into farce. PD Times when the Department of Finance computer The Civil Servants responsible for making There is no law against a newspaper experts took an interest in the subject that the decision have stated that no influence supporting a political party, but it would be the full extent of the shambles became was exerted on them. The Tribunal is now nice if The Irish Times stopped pretending known. reduced to investigating the possibility to be independent. Recently the newspaper No one has been held accountable for that the influence was exerted on the Civil heralded the Progressive Democrats’ the fiasco and Harney promises it won’t Servants without them knowing it! childcare policy. PDs Back Childminders’ happen again. Tax Break was the gushing headline (The Syria and Lebanon Irish Times, 1.10.05). The State and Revolution A United Nations investigation has Apparently, Michael Dowell told A recent article by prolific right-wing linked various Syrian officials with the a PD conference in hushed tones that Irish Times journalist Marc Coleman assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister the PD policy “was being favourably advocated more private sector involvement Rafic Hariri in March of this year. How considered in the corridors of Merrion in the Civil Service! Like the Bourbons he reliable such an investigation is, is a moot Street” (as distinct from meeting rooms, remembers everything and learns nothing. point. The US decided that Syria was guilty offices etc). The report went on to reveal The article would not be worth mentioning long before any official investigation. breathlessly that “a cabinet sub-committee if he didn’t try to claim that this was In deciding who perpetrated the crime, on childcare, of which both PD Ministers somehow “socialist”. Apparently, greater the question of who benefited must be are members, is considering a range private sector involvement would “serve asked. Syria certainly did not benefit; it of inputs and proposals…” The report the people”. He must think the “people” suffered a diminution of its influence in assures us that “Ms Harney said that the are all fat-cat consultants. the region and had to withdraw its troops ‘care issue’, including care for the elderly, The recent examples of waste show from the Lebanon despite the support of was very much part of the Government’s that there is too much private sector the Hezbollah. agenda for the autumn” etc. etc. involvement. Private sector incentives The US administration has been trying The nineteen paragraphs of PD and rewards have been imported into to destabilise Iran and its ally Syria which propaganda written by Martin Wall were the service where they are clearly is supported by the Hezbollah in the followed by a six paragraph report by inappropriate. As a result a relatively Lebanon. The US has been hinting darkly Mark Brennock describing the childcare simple task such as computerising the at sanctions against Syria and has made policies of the six main political parties payroll of the Health service has become military incursions into that country on (i.e. one paragraph each for Fianna Fail, rocket science. the pretext that Syria is used as a base for Fine Gael, Labour, Green Party, Sinn Fein The Marxist Leninist position in foreign fighters against the US occupation and … the PDs again!). relation to the State was that in the of Iraq. The facts of the matter are that most The PDs are in favour of a tax transformation from Capitalism to estimates put the percentage of foreign exemption on the first 8,000 euros of child Communism it should be cheap and resistance fighters in Iraq at about 5%. The minders’ income, which is remarkably efficient. Systems of accounting and amount of Syrian fighters is negligible. similar to the Labour party’s policy control should be simplified so that any It is clear that US policy in the Middle announced many months earlier. But literate and numerate person would have East as a whole—not just in Iraq—is a that fact isn’t mentioned in Wall’s report. no difficulty performing such tasks. destabilising factor. It also says that the PDs are in favour of Hierarchies would be abolished. All “relaxing standards—while seeking to State employees would be paid a working The French Riot maintain quality” (i.e. less government wage. And under no circumstances should It has not been a good year for regulation). positions in the State sector be used as a Nicholas Sarkozy, the neo-liberal potential But the best bit is the description of springboard for employment in the private Presidential candidate in 2007. Not long Fianna Fail’s policy. Brennock informs us sector. after his family appeared in Paris Match “position” “the same that Fianna Fail’s is Too radical, perhaps?! On the other (beautiful wife, adoring son etc.) his as that of the Government” ! hand, discussion on benchmarking would beautiful wife left him. A disturbing picture accompanies the be superfluous and a basic cheap payroll The appointment of Dominique de report showing Mary Harney playing software package could be used for the Villepin as Prime Minister has made with children in a playground. Neither whole of the State sector. the former Foreign Minister a credible the children nor Harney look very happy. alternative to Sarkozy if Chirac does not There is no sign of the parents. Women in the State run again. A table cited by The Irish Times Sarkozy has been on the Presidential Health Service Shambles (1.10.05) from the Central Statistics campaign trail for well over a year now. While Harney was playing in children’s Office reveals that there are nearly 1.7 He never tires of giving his vague free playgrounds, the Private sector has been million women in the State. It doesn’t market prescriptions for France and some plundering the resources of the Health give the number of men, but given that of the French media are more than willing Service. The estimated cost of its new the population of the state is about 4 to oblige. But recently Dominique Strauss  Kahn, a senior Socialist Party leader, National has an egalitarian component pointed out that Sarkozy as Minister for with the capacity to say shit to the elites the Interior is the third most powerful Riots: and a divisive component which looks political leader in France and that it was lower down the social scale to immigrant about time that he took responsibility for A Thoroughly scapegoats. Government policy. But the kids in the suburbs of African And then there was that incident in French Affair or North African origin are not at all in Extract from an interview with the Clichy-Sous-Bois. Three youngsters, French Historian Emmanuel Todd the same situation as the Pakistanis in fleeing from the police, hid in an electricity (Le Monde 13.11.05) England or the Turks in Germany. In our transformer station. They were electro­ Le Monde: Is there a conflict between the country the rate of mixed marriages since cuted and two of them died. Such is the young of immigrant background who have the beginning of the 1990s is around 25% terror that the French police inspire, that been burning cars and the other classes for the daughters of Algerians, while it was the youngsters were prepared to risk their in France? 1% for Turks (in Germany presumably— lives rather than be captured by the police. Todd: It is very worrying to see cars, JM) and the same for Pakistanis (in It turns out that they were innocent of all buses and nursery schools burning. England—JM). The ethnic mix of these wrong doing. A riot followed the incident And things can get worse. But despite young groups in France is impossible to and then Sarkozy poured oil on the fire by all, I tend towards a quite optimistic imagine in Anglo-Saxon countries… stating that the “riff raff had to be got rid interpretation of what is happening. I am of”. This provoked riots in other Parisian not speaking of the situation in the suburbs Le Monde: What do you think of the suburbs and in other cities. which in some places is disastrous with reaction of the Republic to the riots? Sarkozy, realising his mistake 35% unemployment among the heads Todd: I am not against the curfews for (although not admitting it), requested of families and ethnic discrimination in the violence which is very worrying. a meeting with the bereaved families. recruitment. But in general I think the reaction of the They refused on the grounds that he was But I see nothing in the events Police and the Government has been very “incompetent”. The families agreed to themselves which separates radically the moderate. In May 1968 we cried foolishly: meet Prime Minister Villepin. Sarkozy was children of the immigrants from the rest “CRS: SS” (the CRS is the State Police present at the meeting but had to remain of French society. I see in them exactly the in France—JM). But the forces of order uncharacteristically silent. opposite. I see in the events a rejection of showed exceptional control. At that time in marginalisation. All of this would not have left-wing circles it was said that the police Republican Values happened if the children of immigrants did not shoot because the bourgeoisie did Of course, the significance of the had not absorbed some of the fundamental not wish to shoot their own children. French riots goes far beyond the fate of values of French society such as Liberty But in the suburbs we saw that the one individual politician. The Aljazeera and Equality. On the other side, regarding Republic did not shoot the children of television station summed up the problem the police led by the government, the local immigrants either. Anyway, these were by saying that the riots represented a failure authorities, the non immigrant population not the only ones concerned. The events of France’s policy of integration. I saw exasperation, perhaps, but not a affected all young people even in the The French urban ghettoes are no rejection en bloc. most remote French province. The first worse than places in Britain, the United deaths surrounding the events caused an States, or even Ireland. Indeed, they may Le Monde: Do you mean that the young immediate decrease in the violence. The even be far better. But the French believe revolted because they have integrated the foreign press which sniggers at France that everyone must be a citizen of the republican model and feel that it doesn’t should consider this example. Republic. The successful policy of banning work? Nicholas Sarkozy showed his stupidity religious insignia in French public schools Todd: Exactly. I read in their revolt an by insisting on the foreign character of the represented a triumph of republican values. aspiration for equality. French society is youth involved in the violence. On the The ideology of “multi-culturalism” or under pressure from the rise of socially contrary, I am convinced this phenomenon “pluralism” is anathema to French values. divisive values, which have affected the is typical of French society. The young of The French believe in social unity. whole of the developed world. Quite mixed ethnic origin of Seine-Saint-Denis The neglect of the ghettos represents openly admitted in the US, where the sole [Parisian Suburb in which most of the a failure of the French State to live up to political effect is the success of the neo- violence has occurred—JM] are enrolling its republican ideals. In other countries conservatism, the socially divisive thrust in a tradition of social uprising which if a Government Minister referred to the in the world has not been received well marks the history of France. Their violence “riff raff” in a poor area the comment in France. It clashes with anthropological is also a reflection of the disintegration of would hardly be noticed. But in France egalitarian values which were at the heart the African family in the face of French the “orphans” of the republic have of the peasant family structure in the Paris egalitarian values, in particular the rebelled. basin. This substratum which rose in 17th equality of women. However, despite the The French Government has not century or earlier is not found among inevitable somersaults, the second and given up. As the competent Minister for the English peasantry among which the third generation of the sons of immigrants Employment and Social Cohesion, Jean transfer of land was unequal. have integrated well among the French Louis Borloo, has stated, the law of the When you are at the top level of society working classes and some of them have Republic must be applied with firmness, you can adapt to the rise in inequality, joined the middle and upper classes. but also a hand must be extended to these even if it is against your principles. It is However, I am not optimistic on the communities. not uncomfortable. On the other hand economic front: I think that globalisation is Vive la République! the working classes or the middle classes going to weigh more and more heavily on experience it badly. The vote of the Front employment and salaries. I am optimistic  regarding political values. In terms of the The police were fearsome-looking and seemed to be completely absorbed with result of two weeks of riots what do we much better-armed and protected. Most of what they were doing. No matter what see? These marginalised people appearing them had riot shields and truncheons. Some the circumstances, one must at all times on the periphery of society have succeeded, of them were armed with guns. So while I be beautiful! by a movement which has taken a National was with the youths, I had my escape plan I went back to Place Bellecour. The dimension, in intervening in the central worked out very meticulously. police were still there but the youths political debate. They have achieved seemed to have dispersed. I lingered for a changes in the policies of the right wing Nothing much was happening. while. It started to rain. The City authorities government (by re-establishing subsidies Occasionally some youths would disappear had ordered the cessation of buses and to the associations in the poor areas). And into the metro below Place Bellecour. I trains after 6.00pm since the previous all that in reaction to verbal provocation heard that the trains weren’t stopping at Wednesday because of the unrest. So I from the Minister for the Interior [Sarkozy that metro station. I decided to saunter decided to make my way home. said he would get rid of the “riff raff” down Rue Edouard Heriot off Place Later that evening I switched on the (racaille) in the suburbs—JM]. We are, Bellecour towards Place des Jacobins. radio. Apparently, about half an hour after without doubt, going to see that they This is a smaller square but there were I had left Bellecour, the youths returned will break Sarkozy’s career. We can be another dozen riot police there. I could armed with rubbish bins, bangers and more marginal! [i.e., Sarkozy should be see a number of youths walking quickly fireworks which they hurled at the police. marginalised—JM] up and down the street. They weren’t The police responded with teargas. John Martin (translator) shopping. Not exactly a revolution. Social There was an atmosphere of menace Dialogue: French style. about the place. But there were still people John Martin shopping. I noticed in one shop there were women trying on cosmetics. They Social Dia-

logue: French Protestant Working Class: Style (Or how I missed the Revolution) Most of the riots in France have been confined to the suburbs, but on Saturday, Time to stop digging, and start thinking November 12th the ‘suburbanites’ decided This article by Mark Langhammer was originally submitted for publication to to pay a visit to Place Bellecour in the the Shankill Mirror, but declined on grounds of “lack of space” It was published centre of Lyon. The Police laid on a very subsequently in the North Belfast News and in Daily Ireland and is available on the elaborate reception. There were hundreds Labour Party website at www.labour.ie/northernireland of them on the Rue de la République side of the main square with at least four My grandfather, a cawker in the Political Causes ‘armoured buses’ ready to welcome any shipyard, came from the Hammer district. The immediate political cause of the overexcited members of the suburban He played under Ernie Ruddock in the trouble is that the DUP has been by-passed travellers. Agnes Street Silver Band. My mother and made irrelevant. Many Protestants was brought up in Montreal Street in the voted DUP to “stick up” for them, to put At about 3.30 pm about a hundred Woodvale. And I worked for a short period the brakes on “the process”. The DUP duly youths congregated in the main square in the Hammer Community Complex in dug in, and rejected last December’s deal. hurling abuse at the police across the Agnes Street. I have spent over twenty For all the talk of wanting “photographs”, road. Occasionally, an empty can was years working in a voluntary capacity the text of the December deal was highly flung harmlessly in the direction of the in Rathcoole, variously as a Welfare ambiguous anyway and could’ve been forces of law and order. I mingled for Rights advisor, youth worker, political read to suit either side. a while with the youths. Many of them representative, and elected councillor, might have been of North African origin, and still retain a small role in education After “sackcloth and ashes”, but I find it difficult to say. (For example there. Seeing a community that I know Republicans had no option but to deal Zinedine Zidane is of North African origin to be imbued with a generous instinct directly with Blair. And Blair, with his but is quite fair-skinned. On the other for solidarity—exuding wit, humour and legacy in mind, saw the prize of de- hand many French with no connection earthiness, display itself as sullen, mean, militarising the IRA as simply too big to with Africa can be quite dark-skinned). defeatist and marginal is painful and miss. Blair has stretched the British state There were very few Black Africans. All unhealthy. to accommodate. Witness the raid on the youths that I could hear were speaking Jonathon Powell’s, with computer discs French. They seemed to be hatching plans A lot has been said in the past weeks and information removed. Few think that by mobile phones. Practically all of them about the malaise, hopelessness and anyone other than MI5 would have been were wearing tracksuits of various colours, despair within urban Protestant working involved in that. runners and baseball caps. While they class areas. In advance of the Love didn’t look like athletes they seemed tough Ulster rally in Belfast, I hope this article The price of decommissioning was and very healthy. France has one of the stimulates thinking and debate—because a deal—involving ‘On the Runs’, the most repressive anti-drug laws in Europe the response after the Whiterock parade end of the Royal Irish Regiment, the and I could see the results before me. served no one well. removal of military watchtowers and 10 de-militarisation, speaking rights in the And need is as great, maybe greater, in Fred Cobains, Bob Stokers and Chris Oireachtas (at committee level) with some working class Catholic districts—but McGimpseys, the middle class orientated sort of deal allowing former combatants to Republicans are winning the political UUP not only doesn’t connect, it doesn’t join the community police layer currently battles. And Unionism has nobody to exist in many urban Protestant heartlands. mooted. On top of that, Republicans blame but itself. The DUP, currently in vogue, also ‘jars’ stretched everyone’s patience by landing, with the working class. Imbued with as a “fait accompli”, the Three Amigos Unionists close the British road the spirit of 1859 revivalism, its “good back from Columbia. Twenty years ago, I was part of the living”, temperance ethos doesn’t connect Campaign for Equal Citizenship. I stood either with an earthy, quick-witted, urban The point is, the Protestants voted as a Labour Representation candidate in electorate, with a Labour-ist ethic. So DUP to ‘put on the brakes’, and all of this the 1989 European election making that politics aren’t working for Protestants. happened on the DUP’s watch as it stood case. That campaign sought to give people by, impotent. in Northern Ireland, all people, access to Into this political vacuum, and the governmental politics—to be able to join vacuum in community and church Urban Protestant working class areas and vote for Labour, or Conservative. leadership, steps the paramilitary have faced a long term malaise. In some That campaign was serious, but failed, groupings. They occupy the space, but senses, it’s a similar dilemma as faced by but valuable lessons were learned. One where do they stand? From what I can other inner city areas across the UK. As lesson burned deep into my political see, nowhere! Take the UDA. It rejected redevelopment occurs, as people become consciousness as a result. British politics, it rejects Irish politics, it more prosperous and move on and out, the rejected the Ulster Independence once inner cities communities, usually aged, Unionists (the entirety of the promulgated by Glenn Barr, it rejected poorer and stripped of their most articulate Unionist family from effete UUP- Sunningdale-style power sharing in 1974, elements, become ghettoized. ers to paramilitaries) rejected, quite and has rejected the power sharing of the consciously, the concept of Equal recent ‘confessional’ agreement signed May Blood was right when she talked Citizenship. Unionism rejected Labour on Good Friday 1998. It dumped its recently about the loss of manufacturing Vs Conservative politics—rejected the political arm and set up a research group and access to the apprenticeship system extension to Northern Ireland of the British that doesn’t appear to have researched having not been replaced by a thirst for constitution. The Unionist family chose the anything. What is it for? From what I can education, but it wasn’t the only side ‘comfort zone’ of “Prods versus Taigs” see, it ‘does’ two things—sectarianism and effect. over the outward-looking, evolutionary ‘running areas’—and, maybe thankfully, UK development. The Unionists, in a the running of criminally-orientated A generation ago every street in real sense, closed the British road. And fiefdoms seems the more important at Newtownards Road, Tigers Bay, Sandy I haven’t heard a genuine argument for present. And the UVF? Despite a brave, Row, the Shankill, or Rathcoole would the Union from a Protestant politician for post-ceasefire, effort by the Progressive have had a convenor, or shop steward, twenty years. Unionist Party to move its constituency to or Health and Safety representative as a more positive ground, the UVF in places result of mass participation in the great, The point is that, when Unionism like North Belfast and Ballyclare looks unionized, manufacturing enterprises of closed the British road, they closed the like an adjunct of Special Branch no less shipbuilding, aircraft, engineering and only outward looking, or aspirational than the drug dealers in the LVF that it textiles. That meant that every community avenue of development within the seeks to put out of business. It’s very had people with capacity for leadership, UK. Having rejected British political hard to argue now that paramilitarism is organisation and negotiation, learnt development, Unionists cannot, with any anything but a predominantly a criminal through the Trade Union movement. No shred of justification, argue against the enterprise with no politics, no ideology, longer! Today, with no manufacturing ongoing, incremental island-wide political and no world view. to speak of, that capacity for leadership, development that is currently fraying organisation and negotiation has been Protestant nerves. And the expression That leaves the Protestant urban stripped out. of Unionism can only be negative: about working class in a very big, deep, hole—up stopping things, about slowing things a creek without a paddle. And it strikes me Equally, most real, self sustaining, down, about blocking things. It’s this that following incoherent Orangemen, like voluntary work in Protestant areas (outside politics of hopelessness, the politics of lemmings, can only end up with another of that propped up by state or European the cul-de-sac that starts to explain the generation of young people filling the jails, funding) happens within the sphere of long term malaise within working class and a generation of mothers on the visiting influence of the Churches—such as Boys Protestant Belfast. Without aspiration, runs. It’s time for a long, hard, think. Brigades, Girl Guides, seniors tea dances, political avenues, hope, idealism, or thrift shops, meals on wheels, youth clubs, winning arguments, the future for a even Churches League amateur football. resentful Protestant working class is to be With the Churches in decline, there are hemmed in and policed in ever decreasing Mark Langhammer is on the National more holes in the social infrastructure. circles! Executive of the Labour Party and chairs its Northern Ireland branch, the Labour The most common complaint expressed, Working class Protestants Forum www.labour.ie/northernireland however, boils down to “The Republicans unrepresented are getting everything, they’re winning, There is a big disconnect between we’re bate etc etc” I don’t believe that political Protestantism and the urban resources are being distributed unequally. working class. With respect to the

11 “The attitude of these Belfast papers in terms of journalistic organisation A Bounder And A CADo- towards the rest of Ireland was somewhat strange. In the period up to the Second World War none of the three appointed gan? staff correspondents in Dublin. This was despite the fact that in the early 1920s, The Irish Times is really great at pithy summings up of the learned historians and and particularly from the advent of political commentators whose outpourings in Belfast, and to a lesser extent the array Eamon de Valera to power in 1932 up to decorate its columns (much as those of of weekly papers published throughout the war, Dublin generated a vast amount of news adjudged to be of interest to various pigeons once decorated Nelson’s). Northern Ireland, offered frequent editorial comments on the Southern state Northern readers. All three relied almost Its columnist Dennis Kennedy, it says, is entirely on stringers, working out of “a writer and member of the Cadogan and events within it. These newspapers were also the windows through which either the Irish Independent office, or that Group”. Himself a great admirer of the vast majority of Northern Unionists of the Irish Times…” (page 19). Nelson’s column, Mr. Kennedy in his viewed the nationalist struggle from own little edifice describes the Cadogan 1919 onwards. For most they were the A major element in Unionist reportage Group as a “non-party think-tank”. Rather only sources of information. Thus a of the Fenian slough was the plight of modest perhaps for the group at least some reading of these papers, particularly for Southern Loyalists. But… of whose members advised former Nobel the vital early years immediately after “Even this last was generally reported prize winning Unionist leader David the end of the First World War, gives a on the basis of statements and debates in Trimble. But then they did advise him into good picture of the events in Ireland as London, mainly in the House of Lords a spectacularly non-party position. Well Unionists perceived them… with Lord Carson foremost, rather than done the Cadogan Group! “As sources for a factual history of on any direct investigation in the Free the period these newspapers have clear State itself” (page 19). In 1988, before the coming together of limitations. But as aids to understanding Cadogan, while as yet a solitary saint atop Unionists’ perceptions of both what was So, the main thing one learns from happening to them and what was going his own lonely little pillar, Mr.Kennedy Mr.Kennedy about Northern attitudes to on in the island, they are invaluable” wrote an interesting work of political the independent Irish state is that these (page 6). history: The Widening Gulf: Northern were grounded in ill-informed propaganda. Attitudes To The Independent Irish State, Oh dear! If Mr. Kennedy had stuck to the 1919-49 (published by Blackstaff Press). procedures outlined in his Introduction This, rather than his recent call on Irish Mr.Kennedy almost redeems himself he would have produced a worthy nationalism to disband its pomp and for Unionism in succeeding chapters Unionist tract: edifying to the body of circumstance or his Nelson nostalgia, is which simply follow Northern newspaper the faithful, entirely useless to all others. our text of the moment. And a grand little accounts of the war of secession as part But Mr.Kennedy was led not those quiet text it is too. of a world-wide conspiracy mounted by waters by. He strayed and in consequence the Catholic Church against the British produced an oddly informative and The Widening Gulf is about attitudes Empire. (Not straying into the matter interesting book. and attitudes are moments of perception of the Church in Ireland’s hysterical which exist solely in the understanding of condemnations of the IRA is crucial to In Part One, Chapter One, Looking the body which has set itself to the task making a go of this one). He makes a good Over The Fence, Mr. Kennedy begins of perceiving. Thus Mr.Kennedy sees his job of simply reporting the propagandist badly for his cause by examining the business as being entirely bound up with coverage and ignoring the facts of anti- unreliability of the organs of Unionist the organs of Unionist perception, its Protestant outrages in Cork. But then, perception of its enemy: daily and weekly papers. This is how he once again, he allows reality a look in. “…there was no doubt co-operation explains his purpose and method in the Northern Protestants knew well enough between the News-Letter and the that their Southern brethren were being Introduction to his work: Government too. In January 1935 all the “More interesting is to seek the extent persecuted but the oppressed themselves Belfast Unionist papers carried reports were unaware of it… to which, and the ways in which, this of appeals for help from Loyalists in the “The churches were understandably Unionism remained basically a reaction Free State to the Northern authorities, and reluctant to cry religious war, for they to Irish nationalism, and to what extent for their transfer to the North. A cutting stood to lose in such a situation. The it continued to draw strength and of one such article from the News-Letter, outgoing Moderator of the General cohesion from widely held perceptions in Cabinet papers held in the Public Assembly, Dr. H.P. Glenn, told the of the nature and characteristics of that Record Office of Northern Ireland, has Presbyterian gathering in Belfast in nationalism as it became embodied in attached a note from Wilson Hungerford, June 1921 that wherever he had gone the new Irish state. Unionist statements secretary of the Ulster Unionist Council, in the south and west, he had heard his and speeches of 1919-49 indicate how to Craig, which makes it clear that Craig people say that as yet there was no trace the political leaders of the Protestant had seen a draft of the article before of a religious war manifesting itself. community in Northern Ireland remained publication, that Hungerford had helped Another minister, the Revd. B. Young obsessed by the threat of nationalism in its preparation, and that McKee, the from Galway, said his district covered and their distaste for it. Such speeches editor of the News-Letter ‘had promised half a county, but he had never seen an were, naturally, widely reported in the a two-column spread’” (page 18). newspapers of the time. As well as armed Sinn Féiner, nor a trenched road, nor met with the slightest discourtesy in being a prime source for the opinions There were three Unionist papers of influential and representative men, the course of his work. He believed that published in Belfast at that time. The and for accounts of the actions of any interference that took place was not other two were the Northern Whig and Government and political organisations, for religious reasons. There might be Belfast Telegraph the three daily Unionist papers published the . According to Mr. those who occupied farms coveted by 12 Kennedy: their neighbours, or those who, because every county around the Border, and government made no arrangements at all they were Loyalists, came under the ban some of them have come to Fermanagh for relieving the distress of those fleeing of the IRA. from Kerry” (quoted page 126). the Donegal Huns. Not a sausage. “Northern Presbyterians had no “A private committee was set such doubts. Hugh M. Pollock, just The Unionist press had a field day: up under the Chief Whip in Craig’s elected to the Belfast parliament, and “A News-Letter report of 29 May Government…There is no accurate to be a member of the new Northern conveys the intensity with which the record of the numbers who actually did Government, told the General Assembly news of these events was presented to flee North. In September 1922 Craig there was ‘…overwhelming evidence Northern readers. Under the headings wrote to Churchill mentioning ‘some that there had been many cases of ‘Donegal Huns’ and ‘Persecution three hundred and sixty [refugees] now persecution of Protestants in the South. Campaign Against Protestants And being maintained by private generosity It is well known that this is going on Loyalists’ it said: in Ulster’. The money spent by the Dixon and that one of the objects of the rebels “ ‘The plight of Protestants and Committee was limited; in October is to drive the Protestants from their Loyalists in Co. Donegal grows worse 1923 Dixon sent a certificate of money districts’” (page 55). and worse every day. The rebels on expended to date, for £495.0s.6d., to the the run from Northern Ireland are Home Office, seeking a reimbursement” Hugh Pollock is quoted there from the intensifying the campaign of persecution, (page 126). News-Letter of 11th June 1921. and life has become unendurable for the abandoned Loyalists. Thousands have Mr.Kennedy comments: Mr.Kennedy did manage to find one fled to Londonderry, Belfast and other “There is an apparent discrepancy prominent clergyman who spoke in places in Northern Ireland, leaving their between this small amount of money support of the Unionist perception of itself belongings behind. They state that a spent by the Dixon Committee, and as threatened and oppressed. This was reign of terror has been instituted. The the frequent eye-witness accounts of the Most Reverend Dr. Fogarty, Roman Republican and Free State forces are now hundreds. or even thousands, of Southern Catholic Bishop of Killaloe, who regretted joined in the work of murder, robbery Loyalists arriving as refugees in the having to say that “…Protestant fellow- and incendiarism.’ North” (page 126). countrymen had been persecuted and dealt “On 2 June the Whig reported ‘a with in a cruel and coarse manner” (from considerable number of refugees’, Indeed so. Mr.Kennedy concludes that the Irish Times, 8 May 1923, quoted on mainly from Castlefin in Co. Donegal, “What is clear is that there is no evidence arriving in Castlederg, Co. Tyrone” (pp. page 114). That is telling evidence, but of any large-scale transfer of population 120-121). hardly evidence of a concerted Catholic across the border at this period”. campaign to “drive the Protestants from Now then, such a flood of refugees must their districts”. The Unionist perception itself was surely have given rise to a considerable rather confused on this matter. At one relief effort. Government committees Now that Fine Gael has rediscovered moment Unionists saw Protestant refugees pouring money on the problem as such its republican roots in the last year of the flooding into the six counties. In just a committees are wont to do. Charitable life of Michael Collins it might care to sliver of the same moment they saw hordes foundations springing up all over the place. comment on the war which Collins and the of Catholics infiltrating themselves into Clothes being donated, soup kitchens and Provisional Government launched in that God’s Little Acre to create the ‘artficial’ shelters organised. All that kind of thing. year against the Unionists of the border nationalist majorities in Tyrone and Well, no, not exactly. areas. In the course of Collins’ border Fermanagh. One can forgive Mr.Kennedy campaign in the Spring and early Summer for running to the real world in despair In May 1922, after 50 Southern of 1922 the IRA and Free State troops at such attitudes. If only he could have Unionist refugees lobbied the House of crossed the line, blowing up and burning remained there. Commons at Westminster, an Irish Distress Big Houses, kidnapping prominent Committee was set up under Sir Samuel Unionists, and invading Belleek and The Widening Gulf was published 17 Hoare with £10,000 to spend on relieving Pettigo. Grand days Enda, just waiting to years ago and since then Mr.Kennedy has such victims of said Irish Distress who be memorialised by you! Go on Enda, away fallen among Cadogans and been introduced fled into Britain: to Beal na mBlath and speechify about all to historiography. His occasional instinct “In its first interim report in November that. Dare you. Double dare you! to search among perceived attitudes for 1922, the Hoare Committee said that in the facts of the matter has been drummed the period from 12 May to 14 October out of him. Now he is writing for the Irish Anyway, during Collins’ war along the it had dealt with 3,349 applicants, border, Unionist perception of the war of many of them married men with large Times and attitudes are all. secession as an anti-Protestant jacquerie families. Not all of these were in need was at its height. of immediate assistance, but of the The current set of attitudes (in the 1,873 cases approved for emergency Irish Times 31 October 2005) amount At the end of the year of Collins’ border relief, about 600 were Protestant, and quite simply to declarations that the war, in December 1922, James Cooper told just over 1,000 Catholic. (Fewer than Belfast Agreement failed “because it the Belfast Parliament: 100 of these cases were from Northern was undermined by the IRA’s tardiness “…in the County of Fermanagh you Ireland.)” (page 125). in disarming” and also because the IRA’s have at the present time a very large So, it would appear that a majority disarming was a trick to destroy evidence number of people indeed—hundreds of those fleeing to Britain from the anti- which could have been used to convict the upon hundreds of families who have Protestant pogroms which disfigured the murdering scum. Now the only thing for crossed the Border from the Free State birth of the Irish Free State were Catholics. it is a major nationalist rethink that will during the last twelve months. Every day Strange that, but there you go. unthink its aspiration to unity. Sad really I see four or five, sometimes six or seven, that the man who discovered most of the and sometimes more families coming So what about those refugees who fled victims of an anti-Protestant pogrom to from the County of Leitrim, the County to their co-religionists in the North? Well be Catholics should have fallen to that. of Longford, the County of Donegal and that’s a bit difficult. You see the Northern 13 Very sad. happened is in the Longford Leader”. Here’s an academic historian of repute Then there is his strange lament (in the who says the truth is to be found on Irish Times on 8 November) that Nelson newspapers!… The other thing that I is not on his column to provide a focal found extraordinary is to write about a point for Irish participation in English colonial war as if it was an argy bargy celebrations of his victory at Trafalgar (the outside a golf club…—no sense of the English are working their way slowly but pitiable terror that stalked the country, surely back to the Boyne). I hope someone with killing on all sides going on… It’s else can bring themselves to comment on like as if somebody had tried to construct the Iliad from a list of ship’s stores, rather that. I can’t. Its just too sad. than give us a sense of the warrior prince Joe Keenan bestriding the world…”

Who was the warrior prince bestriding HartPeter Hart, a Andproduct of Professor Coogan David Fitzpatrick’s On ‘History Collins Workshop’ in Trinity the world? Achilles? Agamemnon? College, wrote a book about the War of Independence and ‘Civil War’ in Cork, in which he Odysseus? And which is Collins? treated the 1918 Election as a thing of no democratic consequence, and presented the War of Independence as a murder campaign consisting largely of pre-national feuding between It can hardly be Achilles, the bovver- families. The greatest military event in as if he was “headed off at the pass” boy with his squad of Antmen who spent that conflict, the battle at Kilmichael, (as they used to say in Westerns) by the most of the Iliad sulking in his tent because was presented not only as a murderous Aubane Historical Society, Meda Ryan, he had lost his girl to Agamemnon. So it’s act, but as a particularly reprehensible and Brian Murphy, and has regrouped. But between Agamemnon and Odysseus. form of murder in which the British force this new book is receiving the treatment was allowed to surrender to Tom Barry’s which the first book should have been Agamemnon, the leader of the expedi­ column and was then shot out of hand. given but wasn’t. tionary force, was for giving up and going He dismissed Barry’s account (that the home when the Trojans breached the Greek British force had indicated an intention It was was dealt with on RTE 1 by Theo defences. to surrender but then started shooting Dorgan—the boy from Blackpool (Cork) ““…That our army bends, when the Irish were taken off guard) as who made good among the Dublin literati, That Troy triumphant our high fleet an invention. During Barry’s lifetime, where fashion reigns supreme, and who is ascends, his account was supported by other Irish therefore a straw that shows which way And that the rampart, late our surest trust survivors of the battle, and was accepted the wind is blowing: And best defence, lies smoking in the dust; by the commander of the Auxiliaries, “Do you want to know what I think of All this from Jove’s afflictive hand we General Crozier. But Hart revealed that this book? I’ll tell you what I think. I’m very disappointed—very disappointed… bear, Barry’s account was contradicted by a It’s very badly written. I think its Who, far from Argos, wills our ruin couple of members of his column who he prose style is awful. There’s a constant here… interviewed after Barry was dead—and belittling, sneering tone going through Cease we at length to waste our blood in after they themselves were dead too!! it which I think cuts against the thrust vain, And launch what ships lie nearest to the He has, understandably, not revealed of what he purports to be saying… Hart main; how he was able to interview the dead. cannot rise to the notion that somebody might give his life to his country…—and Leave these at anchor, till the coming It is not the kind of secret one would be if you don’t get that, I think you don’t get night: inclined to give away. Collins, you don’t get Markievicz, you Then, if impetuous Troy forbear the fight, That farrago of nonsense was published don’t get Connolly. You don’t get any Bring all to sea, and hoist each sail for in 1998 by the Oxford University Press, of them. Indeed you don’t get Sheehy flight. Better from evils, well foreseen, to run, which takes the name of Lord Clarendon Skeffington. The bizarre thing is that he Than perish in the danger we may shun.” in vain. It was hailed as a classic by talks about Collins’s “political career”. Collins was dead by 32. It was a “career” Roy Foster in the Irish Times, for whom only in the old fashioned sense, which Thus he. The sage Odysseus thus replied, conducting interviews with the dead I don’t think he means, that you career While anger flashed from his disdainful appears to be an acceptable academic downhill at top speed when you’re almost eye: method. And it received nothing but out of control. This was a man who “What shameful words (unkingly as thou praise from Irish academia and the Irish gave a life of passion and intelligence art) media—or, to be more accurate, from to a venture, think of it what you will. Fall from that trembling tongue and academia in Ireland. But he wasn’t making a “career”. He timourous heart? surrounded himself… with people he Oh were thy sway the curse of meaner Hart has now published another book, knew he could rely on. This becomes powers, And thou the shame of any host but a biography of Michael Collins. It is not “building a cabal”… It’s a fundamental ours!… published by the Clarendon Press, possibly misconception. It’s a looking backwards from a mentality that we have now. But Lives there a man so dead to fame, who because it is not based on interviews with the real problem is that… a living person dares the dead and does not describe the War does not in any meaningful sense come To think such meanness, or the thought of Independence and ‘Civil War’ as a out of here. It’s flawed by the sheer declares? murder campaign, motivated by the ethnic volume of undoubted hard work that he And comes it even from him whose sovereign cleansing of Protestants insofar as it had a put into it. He accumulated an enormous sway motive beyond family funding. amount of information and he’s far too The bonded legions of all Greece obey? credulous. He’ll quote Collins in his Is this a general’s voice that calls to flight, 14 Taking the thing at face value, it looks diary notes and say: “The truth of what While war hangs doubtful, while his soldiers people holding diametrically opposed at every turn, and he put Cosgrave in fight?…”” views. Was Hart schizophrenic or was charge of the Army though he was one (This is from Book 14 in Pope’s he an opportunist producing a modified of the weakest people in the Army. He translation.) product in response to a perceived change was skilled in the arts of deniability and in market demand? In either case one networking. He outmanoeuvred De Valera in 1922. Agamemnon pulls himself together might expect some retrogression towards He made an alliance but then turned under this tongue-lashing from Odysseus, his earlier position in the atmosphere of the least heroic of the heroes, the around and broke it, and launched the Queen’s University, which was in some civil war. He spun the 1922 election, compromiser who knows when not to degree his home ground. And Professor compromise, the prudent and resourceful telling the people to vote for peace, and English had nudged him in that direction. then when the election was won, telling contriver who will find a way around a But he ignored the hint and made what them they had voted for law and order. difficulty if there is one but will stand his seemed to me to be a well-informed and He dictated how he was seen then, and ground at whatever cost if there isn’t. honest attempt to assess Collins in his time is still doing so now. So take your pick. This is the Treaty and place, accepting the legitimacy of the That is the gist of Hart’s talk according Debate. context in which he acted. to my memory and the notes I made in (I should explain that Pope calls The basic assessment was that Collins the half dark. Odyssius “Ulysses”. The English had by nature the qualities of a good Staff Officer, without a natural aptitude It is not a coherent picture, but as far as preferred his Roman name. And Joyce I know there is no picture of Collins which followed the English fashion in naming for leadership. In games he was never the captain or the best player, but was is coherent as well as realistic and well- his banal anti-epic of suburban lower- always the most energetic hustler. And informed. And the particular form of Hart’s “a modern European middle class life in so it was in the war. He gained his incoherence is understandable—much metropolis” , as the American judge put it position by hard work. He attended more so than Tim Pat Coogan’s, which is when allowing it to be sold.) all the committee meetings, handled really the only comparison. the accounts, and made sure that he Tim Pat Coogan makes a different knew everybody. The idea of him as It consists of two incompatible parts: comparison, describing Collins and De the Lost Leader who would have made Collins the diligent staff officer, and Valera as “our Irish Danton and his everything different if he had survived Collins the master politician who outwitted Robespierre” (Michael Collins p40). I was a projection onto him of popular Dev during the critical six months after assume that by Robespierre he means fantasy rather than something grounded the Treaty. the one who started the killing within the in the reality of his life. Until the latter part of 1921 he acted within the political I went through those six months in detail revolution. That is not accurate even for context set by De Valera. He was not an from the newspapers 40 years ago, and my France. And in Ireland it was indisputably intelligent or original thinker. His Path first impression was much like Hart’s: Collins who started the killing. To Freedom was ghost written and its Collins as the skilled and purposeful purpose was to seal the Treaty and win politician of the Treaty, disabling the I attended a talk given by Hart about the 1922 Election. opposition by a series of arrangements Collins at the Queen’s University Festival He is often thought of as being until he felt strong enough to strike, and essentially a soldier with soldierly in Belfast on 24th October. The event then striking. Then I saw that there could Daily Ireland qualities. But he never fired a shot in was advertised in with be an altogether different explanation: that a whole-page interview with Hart and anger until a couple of minutes before his death. He was a staff officer, not a man Collins became rudderless when he signed was well-attended, but the audience was the Treaty, and that his direction thereafter not impressive when it came to asking of action. He claimed to have taken part in ambushes but there is no evidence of was determined by the forces acting on questions. The talk was worthwhile, as it. He never held a military command, him (Whitehall and the Irish Army) and these things go in Ireland today. I would though he is said to have been the that his attempt to steer his own course have commended the speaker on it, but the Napoleon of the revolution who invented came to nothing. Chairman somehow failed to notice that guerilla warfare. He didn’t invent it. And my hand was up—possibly because it was he didn’t form the Squad or lead it. That I was unable to go back over the period thought I had something else in mind. was McKee and Mulcahy. with that in mind because the North went Nobody led the IRA. It led itself by into flux just then. I never got back to it. Hart was introduced by Richard battalions. It was the British propaganda But my opinion is that at the end Collins English, a hack Professor of the West that named Collins as commander. was little more than flotsam. His position British project, who referred to Collins Bloody Sunday, often seen as a crumbled when he agreed to go to war as “the revolutionary giant” of the master-stroke, was planned to coincide with British artillery under pressure of with a series of attacks in England revolutionary period of 1916-21; asked a British ultimatum. At the end he was with the object of inducing Britain to “why was the revolutionary period so floundering. His purpose had been to negotiate. Its purpose was political but violent?”; and mentioned the Republican it backfired with the outcome that peace construct a sustainable middle through ethnic cleansing in West Cork related in talks were delayed for six months. the way he handled both ends, but that Hart’s first book. Collins was always an IRB man, which purpose lost its purchase on the substance I had read most of the Collins book was not very soldierly. He achieved the of things. and noticed that there was nothing in it fusion of the IRB with the Volunteers. * He was the most successful politician in about serial murder, ethnic cleansing, or What I would say about Hart’s book is Irish history, perhaps in all Irish history. murderous feuding under camouflage of that it is no worse than Coogan’s. Both of He was the Machiavelli of the revolution. them share the same basic fault of dealing Republican ideology which were Hart’s De Valera learned politics from him. He themes in his book about Cork. It was as if with a false subject, which leads them to would never willingly share power with describe the war to enforce the Treaty as a the two books had been written by different colleagues. He undermined Mellowes civil war. Coogan presents more interest15 ­ ing material along the way, but his prime verse but I could never see that verse as me’” (p421). purpose seems to be to depict De Valera authentic poetry. as an egomaniac—for which he cites T. And yet, though Dev had no following Ryle Dwyer as an authority. And Hart’s Autistic and authentic are two words of any consequence, Coogan says that he book has at least the merit that it does made from the same root, which means took “the first open step… in the direction not do this. It tries to locate the conflict “self”. Autism is used to describe a per­ of civil war” by issuing a statement, when between Collins and Dev in the political sonality which is absorbed in itself and he read in a newspaper that a Treaty had ground on which it occurred, and engages which acts out of a grossly unbalanced been signed, that he had called a Cabinet in no psychological theorising. or distorted picture of the world. Another meeting to discuss it! (Coogan p295). Professor held (in Books Ireland) that I As I write, the Irish Times carries an had engaged in personal abuse when I But Collins signed the Treaty, knowing article by its scientific correspondent described as autistic the concern expressed that Dev would oppose it: William Reville about a book by a Trinity for the handful of casualties of the Easter “As Dr. T. Ryle Dwyer has observed, professor of child and adolescent psych­ Rising by somebody who was at ease ‘He had realised that de Valera would iatry suggesting that Dev was autistic: with recruiting for the British Army, oppose the agreement, if only on selfish “Professor Fitzgerald describes Eamon which suffered 50,000 casualties in one grounds’. It was a compromise, but it was not de Valera’s compromise” de Valera as a gifted mathematician and day at the Battle of the Somme a couple (Coogan p295). a loner who had almost no personal of months later. relationships. He was very good in How could it be that this alienated, crowds, but couldn’t relate to Michael Authentic (a word which, as far as Collins, who was a much more ‘human autistic individual, who was out of touch I know, comes from the existentialist individual’. Prof. Fitzgerald goes on to with the people, and who lost the votes speculate on the relationship between development of Kant’s philosophy) in the Cabinet and the Dail, and lost the De Valera’s mentality and the Civil describes the self interacting with the world election six months later, and who was War and also Irish neutrality. However, in a way that grasps the realities of the obsessed with a groundless sense of his I think the underlying evidence here world, but does so out of its own insight, own importance, divided the country and is far too flimsy to underpin and and and not in accordance with conventional brought about a civil war? And how was firm up conclusions” (10 Nov. Reville routine. And this is the word that applies it that “the man who won the war” found is Professor of Biochemistry, and to De Valera. Public Awareness of Science Officer at himself six months later making war on the Army that had won it for him? University College, Cork). Politics is the most objective form of activity in human affairs. It is utterly Coogan records that Collins suspected But it isn’t really a question of unlike mathematics. Effective political evidence. The thing is that the evidence the British of trying to undermine him: activity in a disrupted situation requires “Collins was convinced that there was doesn’t relate to the subject, and therefore a unique combination of engagement and it isn’t evidence at all. collusion between elements on the British detachment. It is a rare combination. Dev side and his opponents” (p314), but he had it and Collins did not. Einstein, Newton and Yeats are listed does not dwell on this possibility. It does not seem to occur to him that the purpose as other autistic personalities whose lonely obsessions, and disconnection from their of British policy during the year after the Engagement, in this matter, does not signing of the Treaty was to bring about surroundings, enabled them to do what mean a hail-fellow-well-met attitude. they did. That may be. Mathematics and a war within the Republican forces in the Collins had that in plenty. He exuded course of establishing the Free State on poetry are fantasy worlds. It is somehow personality. He deluged people with it. the case that the elaborate tautological the authority of the Crown. Whitehall And, if his entourage is not accurately knew very well that Collins wanted to constructions of mathematics grasp the described as a Cabal, he had at any rate physical world although apparently spun take power under the Treaty with a view an extensive entourage and he used it to using that power to break the Treaty, out of the mind. And a fantasy life lived as a political instrument. Dev’s mode in poetry is sometimes adopted by those and it was intent on disabling him in the of action was entirely different. He did course of installing him. who live actual lives and is interwoven not cultivate a personal following. After with the reality of personal life, though for the Treaty split he had only, as Coogan the most part it isn’t so. But mathematics The thing seems obvious to me. But contemptuously puts it, “the women and then I spent a quarter of a century trying does not grasp the reality of human life, Childers party” (p300). whether at a personal or social level. And to get ‘Ulster’ made part of the politics of the British state, and therefore had the poetry of feeling, whether romanticised Collins, according to Hart, attracted or raw (and Yeats progressed from the both the motive and the opportunity for the superior talents: getting to know how that state functions. former to the latter), cannot grasp the “savvy journalists and propagandists, social level of human life, which in this And Coogan has always struck me as lawyers, war heroes and the majority a primeval Catholic-nationalist with a democratic era is the state. Democracy of the Cabinet… De Valera had no veneer of irrelevant sophistication, who is the most contrived, the most artificial, such coherent group, as many of those form of the state, and therefore the most opposed to the Treaty were guerillas is easily impressed by British power. difficult to bring out of chaos. Yeats as a who didn’t know him very well, didn’t He refers somewhere to “the ennobling politician was a Fascist. He was not the agree with his preferred solutions, and qualities of the British Empire”. He only artist of his time who, in applying art would not follow his lead in parliament appears to believe that Birkenhead struck to politics, became a Fascist. If Eliot was or in the making of public statements” up a genuine friendship with Collins, as not a Fascist, he was thereabouts. I do (p328). distinct from striking an attitude which “No one ever said, ‘If it’s good not know of any democratic poets. There was helpful in manipulating Collins. enough for Dev, it’s good enough for (Both Tories and Liberals saw him as a 16were democratic ideologists who wrote manipulable savage.) him. His Northern policy was Catholic were promulgated. …Fraught and breeding and an expectation that the swirling words were uttered in French, Coogan, like Hart in his first book, British State would come good in the Irish and English. The Declaration of suggests that the anti-Treaty position end, which I would sum up as Catholic Independence, for instance, contained was “sectarian”, though I don’t think he provincialism under half-acknowledged the following: ‘We the elected representatives of attributes this to Dev’s influence. (How British aegis, and with a veneer of British the ancient people in the National could he, if Dev had no influence?) He sophistication. (The latter is in evidence Parliament assembled do, in the says: after the anti-Treatyites occupied in his comment that Thomas Ashe’s jail name of the Irish nation, ratify the the Four Courts in April 1922: poem, Let me carry your Cross for Ireland, establishment of the Irish Republic “A number of other Dublin centres Lord, “struck a sharp and powerful chord and pledge ourselves and our were also seized: the Fowler Hall, the in the unsophisticated Catholic Ireland of people to make this Declaration Masonic Hall, Kilmainham Jail and the 1917” (p74). effective by every means at our ancien regime Kildare St. Club. These command. seizures conveyed sectarian overtones The common flaw shared by Coogan ‘We ordain that the elected combined with a flouting of Provisional and Hart is that, while both of them make representatives of the Irish people Government authority” (p315). great play with the word ‘democracy’, alone have the power to make neither takes the thing itself in earnest as laws binding on the people of I suppose these were all institutions Ireland… the context in which relations between of the Ascendancy, which was Protestant, ‘We solemnly declare foreign and therefore interference with them is Britain and Ireland in 1919-22 should government in Ireland to be an called sectarian. be considered. Both take it for granted invasion of our national right that Britain, despite the 1918 Election, which we will never tolerate, As far as I have been able to discover, remained the legitimate power in Ireland in and we demand the evacuation the Ascendancy remnants, insofar as they 1919-22; and that the falling out amongst of our country by the English Garrison.’ found expression in the Church Of Ireland Republicans over whether to bow to the British ultimatum of December 1921 was “The foregoing was, of course, no Gazette (which claimed to represent more and no less than a declaration of their views), found the Republic rather the furnace in which Irish democracy was forged. war, but lest there be any doubt remaining comic at first (in 1919) and assumed that abroad as to what the insurgents’ British power would deal with it in the intentions were a Message to the Free Neither takes the Republic established way it had dealt with other kinds of Irish Nations of the World was also read stating nonsense in the past. Then it went rather on the basis of the 1918 Election to have that Ireland was calling quiet. But in December 1921 it became been the legitimate political authority in ‘upon every free nation to uphold a player in the game. The democracy of Ireland in 1919-21. The way Coogan put it her national claim to complete “self recognised” the general election cut no ice with it, but is that it was only —the independence as an Irish Republic “solipsism” the Treaty dictated by the naked threat of word was not yet in fashion against the arrogant pretensions of England founded in fraud and British power established legitimate Irish in pretentious intellectual circles when sustained only by an overwhelm­ authority. The Gazette became part of the he wrote. (It was only self-recognised because Britain, which exercised greater ing military occupation and propaganda apparatus of the Treaty, and it demands to be confronted publicly applied to the Provisional Government (an power in the world then than the USA does now, would not allow the States assembled with England at the Congress of instrument of the British state) all the fine Nations in order that the civilised at Versailles to found the League of Nations words which it had withheld from the Dail world, having judged between and its Government. And it contributed to recognise it.) English wrong and Irish right, may what influence it had towards the drive guarantee to Ireland its permanent for “civil war”. The month from mid-December 1918 support for the maintenance of to mid-January 1919 was a turning-point her national independence’…” If the Gazette was representative of in Irish history. But Coogan does not (p104) the Ascendancy residue (and I have no present the Election and the Declaration Here we have a comprehensive reason to doubt its claims that it was), I of Independence as a watershed event. conflation of the ballot and the bullet, to can see no grounds for describing action He scarcely mentions them. His main the extent that the ballot is declared to against Ascendancy institutions by the comment on the Election is that candidates be a bullet. anti-Treatyites as sectarian. were selected in a situation of public excitement (connected with the “German “which Collins and Boland The Irish electorate, six weeks after the Coogan is at sea without compass or Plot”), manipulated to the full” — end of a World War which England had rudder in these matters. I recall his fierce, , ensuring that “only those who favoured a ‘forward said it was fighting in order to establish Catholic-nationalist, editorials in the Irish policy’ were selected. This short-term democracy and the rights of small nations Press in 1969-70, when I was the outcast success would plague Collins in the long- as basics of the international order, votes “two-nationist” in West Belfast. I did term because the voice of moderation for national independence, and Coogan not know then that he was a passionate was muted in the National Assembly describes that as an insurgency. The Treatyite, with a visceral hatred of De when he desperately needed its support Declaration of Independence, drawn up Valera, editing De Valera’s paper. I never for the Anglo-Irish Treaty” (p92). pursuant to the election, is described as met him, but we saw each other in passing Hart denies that the list of candidates a declaration of war. And, if the Irish, at a conference in Belfast twenty years was unrepresentative of the movement. as their first act in the democratic era, later, when events had gone more in had declared war on England, the British accordance with my understanding than And of the Declaration of Independ­ Parliament cannot be blamed all that with his, and I got a puzzled look from ence Coogan says: “Some high-minded declarations much for responding to a declaration of 17 war with war. Legitimate democracy begins when the in the paper published by his faction Dail voted by a bare majority in January which Erskine Childers edited, Poblacht Coogan does not say that the Irish 1922 to bow to the British ultimatum, to na hEireann. He assured Steele that: “We Declaration of Independence in accordance relinquish the sovereignty which it had all believe in democracy, but we must not forget its well known weaknesses. As with an electoral mandate was tantamount asserted three years earlier and transfer it a safeguard against their consequences to a declaration of war on the British to the Provisional Government authorised the most democratic countries have Empire because everybody with any sense by Whitehall, and when the electorate in devised checks and brakes against must have known that the propaganda June 1922 gave way to the threat of total sudden changes of opinion and hasty, about democracy and the rights of nations war, such as had broken the will of the ill-considered actions.” He pointed out with which Britain recruited canon-fodder Boers twenty years earlier, and elected a that in America a Treaty needed a two- in Ireland was not intended to be taken in majority of Treatyites. thirds majority to pass the Senate. As earnest with regard to the component parts Ireland had had not had an opportunity of the Empire, and least of all with regard Hart, in his talk, cited Collins’s election of devising constitutional checks and to Ireland. He does not say “tantamount”. strategy as an instance of his superiority brakes”, he said, “The army sees in itself He says it was the thing itself, “neither over De Valera as a politician: he urged the only brake at the present time and is using its strength as such.” Looking back more nor less”. the electorate to vote Treatyite for peace at this phase in his country’s history the and then told them they had voted for war, poet Yeats would one day write On this view the sending of an Irish in the name of law and order. Had de Valera eaten Parnell’s heart delegation to the Peace Conference at No loose-lipped demagogue had won Versailles was a bit of nonsense—and In fact, Collins tried to avoid putting the day\No civil rancour torn the land it has been frankly described as such by the matter to the electorate. He made a apart” (p321). Conor Cruise O’Brien. But the chief kind of power-sharing pact with the anti- Home Rule writer of the time, Redmond’s Treatyites which would have resulted I haven’t a notion what that verse nephew, took the ideology of his support in sitting members being returned in all means. It was written by the man for the Great War in earnest, and late in cases. Churchill tried to warn him off who became an admirer of the Fascist 1918 (before the Election) he published with a letter: demagogue, O’Duffy, the founder of Fine a book saying that the way Ireland was “It would not be an election in any Gael. And Parnell tore his party apart (and handled would be decisive for the future sense of the word, but simply a farce, the land with it) in what I can only see as a of both the British Empire and the League whereby a handful of men who possess fit of outrageous and despotic egoism. of Nations which it was about to set up. lethal weapons deliberately disposed of He said in effect that an attempt to hold the political rights of the electors across Democracy as a spontaneous flow of a table… It would be an outrage on Ireland by force, after all that had been popular feeling it not functional, which democratic principle… The enemies said, would be fatal to both the Empire of Ireland have been accustomed to say is why political philosophies throughout and the League. that the Irish people did not care about the ages saw it as an impossible form of representative Government, that it was state. It became possible only through But, whether revisionist or not—and alien to their instincts, and that if they the artifice of representative government I don’t think Coogan regards himself as had an opportunity they would return to in the system of party politics which such—we are all too sophisticated now a despotism or oligarchy in one form or originated within the oligarchy of the for that approach. another…”—and Collins would prove it 1688 Revolution and retains many of the if he went ahead with the arrangement characteristics of oligarchy. The Foreign Minister (Fianna Failer (Coogan, p323; “return” from where Dermot Ahern) wants us to celebrate I wonder?). Britain treated the democratic the Battle of the Somme because large development in Ireland as an insurgency, Coogan quotes Churchill’s letter numbers of Irishmen, taking the British and the Unionist papers of the time extensively and with some approval and propaganda at face value, thought that described it much as Coogan now complains that Collins ignored it and went by participating in the British assault they describes it. And, because of this, it ahead with the Pact. But, a few weeks were somehow fighting for Irish national could only survive as an insurgency. It later, Collins was ‘invited’ to Whitehall, freedom. But we are not to take that was entirely Britain’s doing that the Irish where he was told what was what. And propaganda at face value (even though democracy launched by the 1918 Election he came back and repudiated the Pact two millions had died because of it) when became dependent on the army that was days before the ‘election’. And the Free it comes to writing the history of 1919- constructed in support of it. 22. But neither are we to describe it as State Constitution (drafted by Collins and heavily revised by Whitehall) was not deception. That would never do. We are In December 1921, under threat from published until the day of the election. to discard rationality and enter a twilight South African methods (concentration zone in which nothing is real and, on the camps and a system of blockhouses) a This was the birth of Irish democracy. other hand, nothing is false. bare majority of the Dail agreed to set up Professor Garvin of University College, a subordinate government on the authority Coogan suggests that this was how Dublin, who is doubtful about the of the Crown, and the electorate were Collins saw things, and that he was never legitimacy of the 1918 Election, has panicked into voting for it, by a small really a Republican. And Hart goes along written a a book in praise of it. And de majority, in an ‘election’ which did not with that. Valera is berated by Coogan as an autocrat even elect a government. And that was because he would not go along with it: democracy. If the Hapsburg Empire The Irish democracy could not establish “…de Valera strengthened his hard had got itself into such a relationship the legitimacy of its own institutions. line approach in an interview with John with one of its component peoples and “Self-recognition” is solipsistic fantasy. Steele of the Chicago Tribune which he thought so highly of that it was reprinted called it democratic, imagine the ridicule 18 that would have been poured out from between them do not make them a single volunteer against the Treaty settlement, as Whitehall. historical subject. And the attempt to he had previously at the age of 17 insisted treat them as one, which in the past led that his Kerry family home should serve Ten or twelve years ago I was to a denial of the historical realities of as a safe house for the IRA during the War buttonholed for a conversation by Protestant Ulster, now leads to a denial of Independence. Professor Bew (who had begun to do that of the historical realities of nationalist after cutting me for ten or twelve years). Ireland, often in the groundless hope Nor did the Irish Times choose to He expressed astonishment that I should be that the Ulster Protestants will be cajoled report a single word of the remarks to that the last man standing who had something thereby. 200-strong gathering by SIPTU General good to say for 1916 or 1919. I replied President Jack O’Connor, in which he with something from Plato, which made I have no idea why Hart produced pointed out how there could not be a no sense to him. a half-reasonable book about Collins. more appropriate location for such an It was possibly the accidental result of International Brigade memorial: The assumption was that, because I displacement activity brought on by Meda “It was in response to the threat had made a case for the Ulster Protestants Ryan and Brian Murphy, assisted by the to our Union’s very existence that in in 1969-70, and had spent about 20 years fact that Coogan had set the standard November 1913 the first workers’ army in the world, the Irish Citizen Army, trying to make Ulster British, I was thereby so low that it would be difficult to get was founded as a defence force, with committed to falsifying the history of beneath it. Liberty Hall also serving as that army’s nationalist Ireland—even though I had Brendan Clifford headquarters. Under the leadership of always said that the historical truth of Irish our Union’s Acting General Secretary, affairs could only be grasped by at least James Connolly, the Irish Citizen Army two quite distinct histories, with a kind of in turn became the driving force of the half-history for the Anglo-Irish. National Revolution. In the period prior to the Easter Rising of 1916 Liberty Those two histories may merge Hall became the HQ of the Military somewhere short of Kant’s point of infinity, Committee planning the Rising, while but in the meantime the marginal overlaps the Proclamation of an Irish Republic was printed in its basement. It was from this very spot on Easter Monday, April 24, 1916, that James Connolly assembled and marched his troops to capture the Myers & The Spanish Civil War GPO as the spark that would ignite that Time was when Kevin Myers of the Irish Times might have posed as an anti- Rebellion. James Connolly of Liberty fascist, if only for the purposes of deliberately confusing the Second with the First Hall and his Irish Citizen Army were to World War, so as to then work backwards the next day at the grave of Frank Ryan provide an inspiration to those Irish anti- to a ‘justification’ of the slaughter that in Glasnevin. And what did this fine fascists who, twenty years later, rallied Britain unleashed in Europe in 1914. Now fellow do a couple of years after the to the defence of the Spanish Republic, that neo-Redmondism is so widespread Spanish Civil War but eagerly clamber when every fundamental political and in celebrating Irish involvement in that aboard a U-boat along with Sean Russell trade union liberty in that country was on a Nazi mission to Ireland. Very anti- “Great War”, Myers no longer needs to faced with extinction under the combined fascist indeed”. adopt any such pose and feels perfectly onslaught of Franco, Mussolini and Hitler”. free, with his editor’s indulgence, to Two days previously, on 17th October, be as abusive as he likes of those who the Irish Times had carried a news item The anti-fascism of British Inter­ actually fought against fascism from the that made little attempt to conceal a national Brigaders had been no less word go. blatant exercise in editorial butchery anti-imperialist than that of their Irish of the conscientious attempts by one of comrades. They had fully participated In his Irishman’s Diary for 19th October its journalists to accurately record the in Connolly and Wolfe Tone commemor­ Myers began with yet another denunciation International Brigade commemorations ations held in the Spanish Republic in of Ireland’s War of Independence and held in Dublin over the weekend of 1937 and 1938. Indeed, the President of the role played in it by Michael Collins, October 15-16. Eliminated from the report the International Brigade Memorial Trust, whom he hysterically accused of “having was any mention of even the name of the Jack Jones, had also been renowned for left a trail of bodies behind him—mostly principal International Brigader who had his singing of Kevin Barry. So it was that of unarmed men whose blood was on his been commemorated during the Saturday the last two surviving Liverpool veterans, hands”. But Myers then proceeded very wreath-laying ceremony at the Liberty Hall Jack Jones and Jack Edwards, joined rapidly to what was his principal target memorial plaque, for fear that it would with their Irish comrades, Bob Doyle for the day: shatter the slanderous myth nurtured in and Michael O’Riordan, in honouring “Meanwhile the veterans of the that paper, by the likes of Myers and Peter the memory of Tom Barry’s leadership International Brigade in Spain were Hart, that Irish Republicanism and the in the War of Independence by their honoured by both the President and War of Independence had been by their various lefty-dignitaries. The President attendance at the 14th October launch of very nature anti-Protestant. The fact is of ICTU, David Begg [he is actually Meda Ryan’s biography of Barry. And two that the Church of Ireland Minister from Congress General Secretary—MO’R], days later, on 16th October, Jack Jones led Killarney whom the Irish Times found declared that what ‘was referred to as a 100-strong gathering at the Republican unmentionable, the Revered Robert M. the Spanish Civil War was actually a plot in Glasnevin Cemetery in order to Hilliard, had not only laid down his life fight against fascism’. If you want to commemorate the Irish International know how confusing that fight could be, for the Spanish Republic in the 1937 battle Brigade leader Frank Ryan. many of the self-same people gathered of Jarama, he had also fought as an IRA 19 Yes, the mask has slipped. For the International Brigade Memorial Trust, No mention was made in the Irish implicit in Myers’s lesser evil principle Jack Jones, also insisted on submitting a Times news item of the fact that this is the suggestion that it would have been letter for publication, with the following commemoration was also attended by preferable for Nazi Germany to have covering note to Ms Kennedy “defending ex-Senator Jack Harte, a British Army defeated the Soviet Union. This would International Brigade veterans from veteran of World War Two who had been certainly have ensured that the Holocaust the highly personalised attack” by her a POW in Germany. This would have did indeed became a Final Solution, given columnist. He continued: given the lie to Myers’s claim to speak on Myers’s preference for the Nazis to have “I must say that my initial reaction behalf of such veterans. But Jack Harte’s triumphed at Stalingrad and gone further was to refer the matter to a Press Council, own Irish Republicanism is so offended east, rather than for the Red Army to have only to be informed that Ireland does by Myers that, on a previous occasion, he come west and liberate Auschwitz. But in not in fact have such a body. Given the respective ages of the veterans under had actively encouraged me to take on that any case, Myers has blamed the Holocaust attack, ranging from 88 in the case of columnist in setting the record straight in on those whom he chooses to designate the principal target of your columnist, respect of IRA leader Sean Russell. It was as “Jewish Bolshevists” (An Irishman’s Michael O’Riordan, to 92 in my own here that Irish Times editorial butchery was Diary, September 28), and the Irish Times case, any more lengthy procedure would at its very worst, as it ‘reported’: has refused to publish my letter pointing be unlikely to guarantee satisfaction “At Frank Ryan’s graveside in out the character of the chords that he is within the lifetimes of all four of us. Glasnevin Cemetery yesterday, Manus attempting to strike on that score. Having deliberated carefully on the O’Riordan, of the International Brigade matter, I have come to the conclusion that Memorial Trust and son of Michael Glasgow journalist Geraldine the speediest and most appropriate form O’Riordan, rejected recent ‘sneering Abrahams was so incensed by the cynical of redress would be to see the attached references’ to Ryan as a ‘republican use made of her own Catholic faith and letter in print on the same page as that saint/Nazi collaborator... He warned occupied by your columnist”. that of her Belfast International Brigade against the development in Ireland father that she wrote the following letter of any sympathy for Hitlerism, and A version of the Jack Jones letter was of protest to that paper: specifically denounced any anti-Semitic indeed published on 9th November. But, “How I envy Kevin Myers. What hostility towards Dublin’s Jewish since he had copied his original letter community’.” journalist wouldn’t? He’s cut himself a to me, I could now see what further fine niche there at the ‘Irish Times’... It’s editorial butchery was being perpetrated. This is precisely the syntax that was a wonder Ireland has a single hero left to Any reference to Frank Ryan that used, obscuring the fact that it was Ryan’s worship. No matter. Collins and Griffith have more than enough defenders. I do would have challenged the Irish Times own denunciations of Hitlerism and anti- take personal exception however when character assassination of him as a “Nazi Semitism that I had been quoting, and he launches his regular attack on the collaborator” was censored. The most that it was the sneers published by the motivation of the International Brigaders blatant censorship of all was of the tributes Irish Times itself that I had been targeting. in the fight against fascism. My father, that Jack Jones had paid to previous Irish What I actually did say in Glasnevin is Gerry Doran, who went to Spain with Times correspondents and to that paper’s reproduced elsewhere in this journal. the immensely honourable Frank Ryan Editor at the time of the Spanish War, on 14 December 1936, wrote a letter to R.M. Smylie. So it was that Madam was There was no question, however, of his mother in April the following year spared any blow to her ego by unfavourable any editorial interference with Myers’s in which he talked about that exact comparisons being drawn concerning diatribe, as he went on to play, as he has motivation. Like Ryan, my father was her own record. In order to thwart such previously done in respect of Belgium in an Irish Catholic socialist who fought alongside communists and anarchists, censorship the full version of the letter the “Great War”, a specifically Catholic and people of every religion...” from Jack Jones is also published in this card: “Kevin suggests that the ‘opponents journal. “One could equally say that the of communism who volunteered’ should Manus O’Riordan Spanish Civil War was a fight against be commemorated. Knowing the history Stalinist Communism... Who bothers of Church and press manipulation at to commemorate the opponents of that time... does not stop me having

communism who volunteered to fight compassion for those who genuinely in the Spanish Civil War for their faith, if blindly thought they were going their hearth and their freedom?... They to Spain to fight a Crusade. Kevin, were, like most of the volunteers of however, is not so compassionate in the International Brigade, honourable his attack on Michael O’Riordan. I dupes of tyrants. In all decency, we know Michael. Until recently, he single- Jack Jones Censored ! should honour the memory of both sets handily safeguarded the history of the of volunteers”. Irish who fought for the Republic in Editorial Note: The following letter was “I make an exception to this the Spanish Civil War. He has spent submitted by Jack Jones to the Irish generalisation. Mick O’Riordan has been hundreds of hours with historians and Times on 7th November. The version that a life-long defender of the Soviet Union... researchers relating details of the war in its Editor actually chose to publish on 9th and on Saturday he was a special guest Spain without once, in my experience, November omitted all the paragraphs in of the President. How lovely. Maybe we trying to force a communist viewpoint... square brackets below. can now dig up some antique defender I don’t suppose he’ll lose too much sleep of Adolf for a trip to the Aras, where he because the diarist is not a fan...”. I am sure that this year’s Remembrance can reminisce about the happy days when he fought communism in the service of Sunday services will not provide the This letter was refused publication. merely the second-worst tyrant in the occasion for any personal attacks by an world”. The editor was, however, faced with a “Irish Times” columnist on surviving further problem when the President of veterans of the Allied forces in the Second 20 World War, and that the “Irish Times” 100 percent support for de Valera’s and united Europe is no small tribute to response would be one of indignation strategy during the Second World War of them”. were any other Irish newspaper to act in safeguarding Ireland itself from the horrors As Spain’s democratically elected such a vein. of both war and fascism. Furthermore, parliament had been defended by Consider, then, my surprise at the shortly before de Valera’s own death in International Brigaders in 1936, so also did vindictive and highly personalised 1975, the former President had declared, its democratic parliament of 1996 award attack by your columnist Kevin Myers in an interview with the late Michael the right to claim Spanish citizenship (“Irishman’s Diary”, October 19) on McInerney, veteran political correspond­ to Irish veterans Eugene Downing, Bob the fact that the President of Ireland so ent of the “Irish Times”: “I am very pleased Doyle, Maurice Levitas, Peter O’Connor graciously received a courtesy call from that you are writing the biography of this and Michael O’Riordan, together with four International Brigade veterans of great Irishman. Frank Ryan always put other International Brigaders from all the Spanish Anti-Fascist War on October Ireland first in everything he did or said, over the world. 15—the veterans in question being the at home or abroad. He has earned his place [This was not due to any transient last two surviving Irish volunteers, Bob in history”.] left-wing majority in that parliament. Doyle and Michael O’Riordan, and Jack When I was born in Liverpool in the Quite the contrary. It was in fact under a Edwards and myself from Britain. momentous year of the Dublin Lockout government of the conservative Partido The International Brigade Memorial of 1913, and my father named me James Popular that the Spanish parliament had Trust is a body established by veterans and Larkin Jones in honour of his friend and voted unanimously to bestow such an their families and friends in order to pay former fellow worker on the Liverpool honour on all surviving International tribute to our fallen comrades from both docks, I was also imbued with the Larkinite Brigaders.] Britain and Ireland. This year’s wreath- principle of “an injury to one is the concern When all is said and done, the verdict of laying ceremony at the Irish memorial of all”. The planes that were to bomb the history that matters most to us International plaque outside Liberty Hall was performed city of Coventry to smithereens in the Brigaders is that of the Spanish people by Deirdre Davey, daughter of the eleven-hour-long blitz of November 1940 themselves. Reverend Robert M. Hilliard of Killarney, were the same Nazi German bombers Yours sincerely, Jack Jones, who gave his life in defence of the Spanish that a British policy of appeasement had President, International Brigade Republic at the battle of Jarama in 1937. permitted to destroy the Basque city of Memorial Trust, c/o TGWU Retired Our annual general meeting is held each Guernica in April 1937. Members Association, Transport year in a different city in these islands, [In defiance of my government’s House, London but never before has it been subjected policy, I decided to fight in defence of to such a newspaper attack, not even by the citizens of that Spanish Republic. those newspapers that historically had Having survived the Spanish war and the supported the British government’s policy Republic’s defeat, I also went on to survive of appeasing fascism and denying to the the Coventry blitz, sheltering with my democratically elected government of the wife and infant son in a cellar as, over our Spanish Republic the means by which to heads, our home was destroyed and our Frank Ryan resist the military onslaught of Franco, neighbours massacred, I had ample time to Mussolini and Hitler. reflect on the fact that, for me personally, Remem- [That “Irishman’s Diary” attack on our visitors were no strangers. These International Brigade veterans stands again were the self-same Nazi planes that out in sharp contrast with the honourable had bombed and strafed us International bered and courageous role played by the “Irish Brigaders on the Ebro front’s Hill 481 Editorial Note: The following is an edited Times” at the time of the Spanish war between July and August 1938, as so many version of the graveside oration given itself. Notwithstanding the substantial of my friends fell in battle and both Michael by Manus O’Riordan at the Frank Ryan financial losses that were incurred asa O’Riordan and myself were wounded. In commemoration on 16th October. result of a vindictive advertising boycott, a citation for the particularly outstanding your predecessor as editor, R.M. Smyllie, bravery under fire that he had shown on Friends: It was on the Gandesa front defiantly insisted on continuing to carry that hill, our commanding officers said of that Frank Ryan was captured by Italian the eye witness reports from the “Irish Michael O’Riordan: “He carried his light Fascists in March 1938, along with Bob Times” correspondent in Spain, Lionel machine-gun into every action, and when Doyle. Bob is present with us here today, Fleming, demonstrating that it was indeed he was ordered to withdraw, he waited in the company of his fellow International a defensive anti-fascist war that its elected until the whole company had done so. He Brigade veterans Jack James Larkin government was being compelled to said that his weapon was worth a dozen Jones and Michael O’Riordan, in order wage.] men. When he was wounded, he refused to pay tribute to a man who gave such to leave his position until others had to inspirational leadership to all International [Other “Irish Times” correspondents Brigaders during the Spanish Anti-Fascist similarly distinguished themselves leave it. Even then he did not leave until he was ordered”.] War. in conscienciously recording the true We also have a Second World War history of those Irish volunteers who had In a message to our agm on October 15 veteran present, former Irish Labour Party come to the defence of the beleaguered Ireland’s Taoiseach, Mr. Bertie Ahern, paid Senator Jack Harte who, serving in the Spanish Republic. The 1980 biography the following tribute: “The willingness of British Army, fought against the Nazis of Irish International Brigade leader those who joined the International Brigade in Greece. He subsequently became their Frank Ryan by your former Washington to sacrifice all so that others could enjoy prisoner-of-war, being transported from correspondent Sean Cronin was to provide a democratic way of life is an inspiration Greece to Italy, and then to Germany clear documentary evidence of Ryan’s to us all, and the fact that Spain is today itself. As a Federated Workers’ Union a leading democratic nation in a strong 21 of Ireland official, Jack Harte served for Tolerance of Crows, was published a year Protestant sectarianism. Frank further many years as Chairman of the James later by Frank Ryan in The Book of the warned against the development in Ireland Larkin Commemoration Committee, and Fifteenth Brigade. The second, which was of any sympathy for what he called the he is here today in order to pay his respects simply entitled Poem, had been inspired “disease” and “plague” of Hitlerism, to the memory of Frank Ryan, whom Big by the integrity of their mutual friend, and he specifically denounced any anti- Jim Larkin himself had held in such high Republican Congress leader, George Semitic hostility towards Dublin’s Jewish esteem. Gilmore. This Charlie Donnelly poem community. Frank Ryan’s internationalist has much to say to us as to the challenge solidarity with the Spanish Republic Following his capture on the Gandesa of setting the record straight, not least in was also of a kind that brought together front, Frank Ryan was initially sentenced respect of the life of Frank Ryan himself, volunteers from all over Ireland, both to death by the Fascists. This was later especially the following verse: North and South, and from the best commuted to a life sentence, in response Your flag is public over granite. Gulls fly of the Catholic, Protestant and Jewish to a wave of international pressure led above it. working class traditions in this island. He by the Irish Taoiseach, Éamon de Valera Whatever the issue of the battle is, your proclaimed that he was fighting against himself. But the severity of the penal memory Fascism in Spain in order to prevent its servitude that Frank Ryan was to endure Is public, for them to pull awry with triumph in Ireland. And there was none crooked hands, at the hands of the Spanish Fascists for the braver in that good fight. Moist eyes. And village reputations will two years and four months that followed, be built on Following his brutal incarceration was itself a threat to his very life. The last Inaccurate accounts of your campaign. by Spanish Fascism for over two years, four years of that life would be spent in You’re name for orators, Frank’s life was to be saved in July 1940 by Germany, well cared for by friends, but Figure stone-struck beneath damp Dublin the combined efforts of the Irish Minister to with his health irreparably damaged as a sky. Spain, Leopold Kerney, and two members result of what he had previously suffered. of Abwehr intelligence in Germany, Jupp He eventually died in Dresden on 10th June Frank Ryan had been well served Hoven and Helmut Clissmann, who, as 1944. A cross was placed on Frank Ryan’s by his first biographer, Seán Cronin. former members of a left-wing National grave by his fellow Irish national, Mrs. That unsurpassed 1980 biography has, Bolshevist organisation—the Young Budge Mulcahy Clissmann, who attended unfortunately, been long out of print. Prussian League—had formed a friendship to that final act upon Frank’s death with It has been followed by two more. The with Ryan on visiting Ireland a decade the same loving care that she had shown more recent [by Adrian Hoar] is indeed previously. And this action to save Frank’s him in life, and who is present today in both fair-minded and well-researched, but life was sanctioned by none other than memory of that friendship. lacking Cronin’s sharpness of exposition, the Taoiseach, Éamon de Valera himself. Thirty five years later, from that it has not received the media approval Ryan was to go to Germany neither Dresden grave still marked by the self- given to another poorly researched one as a prisoner nor as a Nazi collaborator. same cross, Frank Ryan’s remains were [by Fearghal McGarry], in an era when Britain and France had already sacrificed accompanied back to Ireland by three of the soundbite appeal of the superficial, Spain to Fascism, and in the subsequent his International Brigade comrades-in- sensation-seeking chapter-heading of World War that had been inevitably arms: Frank Edwards and Peter O’Connor, Collaborator calls to mind Yeats’s lines facilitated by such appeasement, Ryan since deceased, and my father Michael about “the clever man who cries the catch came to wholeheartedly support de O’Riordan, present here today. So it was cries of the clown”. Valera’s strategy of saving Ireland from that on 22nd June 1979, Frank Ryan was Having his memory pulled awry, as the horrors of both war and Fascism finally laid to rest in his native land in anticipated in Charlie Donnelly’s poem, through a policy of neutrality. In pursuit this Glasnevin Republican grave. And as is indeed a long-standing experience in of this strategy Ryan became de Valera’s today we once again approached Frank’s the case of Frank Ryan. In June 1958 the de facto political representative in Berlin, graveside for this commemoration, it was Irish Times published a sensationalist reporting back through Minister Leopold particularly fitting that the tune played denunciation of Ryan by the former Kerney [whose son Eamon Kerney was by piper Noel Pocock was that North second-in-command of the Third Reich’s also present at the commemoration]. Dublin anthem of homecoming, “Return Abwehr Intelligence agency, Erwin And it was in such a capacity that Ryan to Fingal”. Lahousen, in which he pilloried Ryan as “the Irish Communist”, “a wild Irishman was accorded diplomatic status by the Germans, to whom he fearlessly pointed Frank Ryan had not yet reached his ... of a distinctly Red complexion”, “a out that they had lost the War by their 42nd birthday by the time of his death. ruffian”, and “nothing but a gangster”. invasion of the Soviet Union. Throughout Born in Elton, near Knocklong, County And last week [on October 8] it was again his stay in Germany, as in Ireland and Spain Limerick, on 11th September 1902, it is the Irish Times that published the sneering previously, Ryan remained a Connolly also particularly appropriate that today’s reference by Newfoundland academic Socialist. Indeed, the Spanish Anti-Fascist commemoration will end with Noel Peter Hart to “Frank Ryan, the Republican War never left his thoughts, for in the playing the tune that had previously been saint/Nazi collaborator”. delirium of his last day on earth he was played on the occasion of Frank’s reburial Frank Ryan was none of these things. heard to issue orders in Spanish, as if here in 1979, “Marbhna Luimnighe”, or A life-long Catholic, he was in fact a once more back on the Jarama battlefield. “Limerick’s Lamentation”. James Connolly Republican Socialist. His As regards Ryan’s services to his native Friends: When the Irish International Republicanism was that of Wolfe Tone, country, shortly before his own death in Brigade poet, Charlie Donnelly, was killed with the objective of uniting Catholic, 1975, Éamon de Valera praised him as “this in the battle of Jarama in February 1937, Protestant and Dissenter under the great Irishman”, and stated that “Frank two unpublished poems were found among common name of Irishman. He denounced Ryan always put Ireland first in everything his personal effects. The first, entitled The Catholic sectarianism no less than he did he did or said, at home or abroad. He has 22 earned his place in history”. man and wished him luck. we now conclude this ceremony with In his own November 1941 pledge Noel Pocock on the pipes playing to Irish Minister Kerney—wherein he And a brave man he most certainly “Marbhna Luimnighe”—”Limerick’s proclaimed 100 percent patriotic loyalty was. Bob Doyle recalls the argument Lamentation”—it is particularly and support for de Valera’s wartime about the anti-fascist prisoners’ right to appropriate that the person chosen on strategy—Ryan himself had written: refuse to give the Fascist salute, but, as behalf of all of us to lay a wreath on Frank “There might be also a situation (I was Bob also says, “the threat that we would Ryan’s grave should be his fellow inmate always a pessimist) in which I might be be shot for refusal to comply with the order of the Spanish Fascist concentration camp asked to do something I don’t like. Such quickly changed our minds. We gave the of San Pedro de Cardeña, and now its last situation is—soberly speaking—highly salute. Only Frank Ryan refused, stating surviving Irish ex-prisoner, the self-same improbable. But if the unlikely should ‘only when a pistol is placed against my Bob Doyle. ever happen, sit yez down aisy! For—I forehead’ would he obey”. Thank you all for your participation in won’t do the dirty. And when you plant Bob Doyle is one of the most this commemoration. my tombstone let it be of granite—like compelling eye witnesses to Frank my stubborn cranium”. Ryan’s outstanding integrity. Before And so, fittingly, this tombstone of Frank Ryan’s is indeed made of granite. The Irish Catholic and Benedict XV. Part Four:

This is not an occasion for further polemic in vindication of Frank Ryan. America And The Peace Note Of 1917 I will in fact address the issue in greater detail next Saturday afternoon at the Stephen McKenna, a disaffected English Liberal writing in 1921, honestly described Annual Roger Casement Symposium the implications of the British decision to prolong the war in 1916: [on October 22], when speaking on the theme of “Casement and Frank Ryan— “When the belligerents took stock at the destruction of Carthage; the Parallels?” before settling down to the trench- added bitterness of those two years, on warfare winter campaign of 1916-17, all the other hand, has made more difficult Today, in the spirit of Charlie Donnelly’s must have felt that the war had reached any goodwill and any common effort poem, it is more appropriate to let Ryan its climax. The general exhaustion was so to substitute a sane and better system speak for himself, beside a grave that great that, even if hostilities had ceased, of International relationship. contains not only Irish, but also Spanish every country would have been crippled; “Worst of all are the worldwide soil. Frank Ryan’s great rally at the battle if hostilities continued, they would economic depression and political of Jarama was powerfully inspirational continue on a scale of unlimited effort unrest for which the protraction of the as a deed in itself. But it was no less in which no reserve of strength would war was responsible. Had negotiations inspirational in the way that he himself any longer be husbanded. Set free on her been opened in 1916, the Russian went on to recount it in The Book of the eastern frontier, Germany must mass all revolution and its consequences might Fifteenth Brigade. All the more reason, her resources in one last effort to break well have been averted; Germany, therefore, that when we visited Jarama in through the western line; the Allies must Austria and Turkey might have been left hold out till the attempt had spent itself with stable governments and yet with 1994 for the unveiling of a tombstone over and then strike one last blow at a worn enough experience of modern warfare the mass grave of 5,000 of its martyred enemy; Germany must in turn prevent to discourage any taste for further dead, I should bring home some soil the allies from holding out by cutting adventures; and Italy, France and Great and an olive branch from that self-same their sea communications. If unrestricted Britain—in that order—might have Jarama battlefield, and bury both here in submarine warfare ranged America on been saved from insolvency. The war, Frank’s grave. the side of the allies, it must have been felt if ended at that time, would have ended that either the war would be over before without American help; and peace would A year after that great rally, Frank Ryan any effective help could be given or else have been concluded without American told his fellow prisoner Bob Doyle, as they that, in the final, hopeless, death-grapple, intervention. This last result might by were being marched away by their Fascist a few million soldiers more or less would now be a matter for regret if thereby the captors near Gandesa: “They published my not substantially change the degree or world had been cheated of the equitable book today”. Some book launch! It was character of Germany’s defeat. and permanent peace, such as President in fact his fellow Irish volunteers Bob “Many of those who meditated on the Wilson sought to impose on the militarist Doyle and Jackie Lemon who had saved war from its climax in 1916 to its end in party of the Versailles Conference; but it Frank’s life on that particular occasion, by the Versailles conference may wonder would perhaps have been better for the restraining him as he was about to launch whether they did wisely in execrating terms to be drawn by M. Clemenceau and back at an Italian Fascist officer who had and howling down anyone who shewed Mr. Lloyd George on Carthaginian lines the courage to advocate peace before than for the world to be tantalized by a hit him a punch on the jaw with all of his the sphere of war underwent its last glimpse of statesmanship that revealed might. The New York Jewish International desperate expansion. The government the universal spirit and then to be fobbed Brigader Max Parker, who was captured stood by its policy of a ‘knock-out off with a compromise which embraced that same day, was to testify on several blow’; the knock-out blow has been even the good faith of England” (While occasions of how great an inspiration Frank dealt. Is anyone the better for it? The I Remember, pp171-3). Ryan had been to all his fellow prisoners. fire-eaters who proclaimed that anything This was written in 1921 before the A German Gestapo officer asked Ryan why less than the unconditional surrender of effects of the Great War had become he was fighting in Spain and not in Ireland, Germany would entail another German clear. Who can honestly disagree with to which Frank replied that it was the same war within their generation now proclaim this analysis—that if peace had been fight. Frank asked him in turn what he as with no more doubt or qualification that concluded in 1915, 1916 or 1917 the world Germany is preparing her revenge... The a Gestapo officer was doing in Spain. The would have been a much better place than added two years of war, then, have not same officer told Ryan that he was a brave brought such security as Rome enjoyed it subsequently turned out to be? 23 banking empire—by giving it the information flow to the US to a trickle.) Europe was prevented from heading necessary credit to keep waging war. Loans Wilson’s support produced the towards a desirable negotiated peace were in violation of American neutrality “knockout victory” statement of Lloyd by Britain’s persistence in its crusade to but Morgan got around this by issuing George in which he declared that the war destroy Germany, sustained primarily $2 Billion in credit to the Entente. (The must go on until Germany was crushed. through the belief the Royal Navy could J.P. Morgan firm was originally begun in The Vatican knew the US was not truly starve Germany into submission, given London during the 1830s and young J.P., neutral in the first two years of the war time and resilience amongst Britain’s who had inherited his father’s company and it deplored Washington’s arms trade allies. just before the War, had been trained at the that facilitated the waging of the war for firm’s English branch. Morgan’s bank had longer and on a bigger scale than would Once the Allies stopped the Germans close connections with the Milner/Round have been otherwise possible. Benedict at the battle of the Marne, four years Table group in England. The Milner group also regarded the Anglo-American tactic of of trench warfare ensued. Although the had influence over it through financial carrying munitions on passenger vessels, Germans launched the most effective holdings in it controlled by the Rhodes like the Lusitania—using civilians as offensives of the war, they were always Trust—the vast financial fortune made in human shields—as reprehensible. strategically on the defensive and the South Africa by the Imperialist adventurer, possibility of a negotiated settlement lay Cecil Rhodes. The British experts at With America’s resources fully entirely with the Allies. But the British Versailles in 1919 were nearly all members available to it and Wilson removed as a Cabinet never for a moment contemplated of the Round Table group, organised in the moral opponent—in that he couldn’t talk a negotiated settlement, despite all the Royal Institute of International Affairs. about ‘an honourable peace’ anymore—it losses in men and materials they suffered The American experts were all connected is not so difficult to understand why the and the fact that they did not seem to be to Morgan and Company. It was through Pope’s Peace Note of 1917 came an making any territorial progress. They this tight relationship of elites that Carroll unwelcome time for Britain. coldly calculated that the Allies could Quigley maintains Britain passed on the The Irish Catholic of April 2005 tells suffer heavier losses than the Germans torch to the US as it gradually ceded world us that: “On August 1, 1917, Benedict and still win so long as they had a better power to it.) issued a peace proposal in which he urged rate of attrition proportionate to population the warring parties to unilaterally reduce than the Germans. England believed that, American industry, in propping up their armaments.” in the long run, the Royal Navy would do London, became an adjunct of the British The Pope’s peace note, in fact, went its work on Germany if the line could be war effort. Of the five million pounds the a lot further than that, as the Catholic held for long enough on land. British spent on weaponry and supplies Bulletin outlined. Why does the Irish each day two million pounds was being Catholic seek to minimise information Britain’s wavering French and Russian spent in the United States. By 1916, 40% of on this important proposal? Is it sheer allies were convinced to continue the war to Britain’s war material was being supplied ignorance, shoddy journalism, or the result the bitter end as the result of an intimation by the US. of a paralysed mind unable to deal with that the United States would be likely to Whilst this factor helped America in the great political questions, symptomatic join the Allies if Wilson was re-elected the medium term to undermine the British of wider Irish society today? and gained the necessary influence in Empire’s power and replace it on the world Congress. stage, it also tended to place the US in the The Pope’s Peace Plan had its origins position of having to make a necessary within the German side—since it was the Although President Wilson was re- defence of its investments if there was Germans, rather than the Entente who elected to a second term in late 1916 danger of its client going under with its desired a peaceful resolution to the conflict. under the slogan, ‘He kept us out of war’ debts unpaid. The Times actually called it the “German he was already intending to enter the War By 1916 France and Russia were broke Peace Move” in its editorial. There was on the Allied side. This was because Lloyd and London was paying for its war on nothing odd about Germany wanting peace George had let it be known to Wilson that American credit. In March 1917 there was at this of all moments—at the time of its the peace settlement was only open to the only 114 million pounds of gold left in the greatest success in the war. belligerents—and many of the belligerents Bank of England’s vaults to cover further Germany had secured its defence by wanted a ‘vengeful peace’. If Wilson loans. If this had been exhausted, British a military ability that the Entente had not wanted to be humanity’s servant he had finance would have collapsed and brought bargained for. But it knew that from then to join the victors to affect the peace and down a large section of American industry on only a long and wasteful war of attrition help Lloyd George prevent a ‘vengeful with it—with a catastrophic effect on the could defeat it. It wanted to secure a peace peace’. US economy. Wilson was influenced by a at this point to prevent further loss of life message from the American Ambassador and the inevitable political and economic America’s initial view of the war had to England, Thomas Nelson Page, a destruction that a fight to the finish would coincided with that of the Pope—there strong Anglophile, that Britain would be end up in across Europe. So a number was nothing morally at issue between the bankrupt within two weeks, if the US did of elements in Germany supported the belligerents, it could only be bad to get not enter the war and provide her with Vatican’s efforts in going for a negotiated involved in it, and a settlement should be funds. Also in the picture were cables from settlement. made without the destruction of any of the the US Embassy in Paris, warning that Benedict believed Germany was the nations fighting it. French morale was cracking. These were key because its strong military position communicated to Congress. (The British could make the concessions necessary to But, at the same time, the US set about won the information war in America early satisfy Allied demands. making Britain financially dependent in the War by cutting Germany’s undersea In Germany, a group of Reichstag upon itself—largely through J.P.Morgan’s cables that were used to communicate with members, led by the Catholic politician, 24 the Western Hemisphere, reducing their Matthias Erzberger, passed a peace resolution in the Reichstag in July 1917. were to blame for the Peace Proposals The attitude taken by the Entente to This offer did not make any demand for being refused. It was President Wilson Benedict’s peace note determined that this retaining the occupied areas of Belgium or who replied to the Pope, on behalf of latter view won out in late 1917-1918. France. The German peace offer seemed to the Allied Powers, that peace could not offer possibilities, and the Vatican envoy be made with such a Government as The new Provisional Russian Govern­ Germany then possessed. The Allies to Germany, Eugenio Pacelli, (later Pope ment welcomed the Papal mediation. But would not deal with a Germany ruled Pius XII), who conducted most of the by the Kaiser; and by refusing to do so the leaders of France and Italy, with largely Vatican’s peace efforts during the War, they committed themselves to days to Catholic, extremely war-weary popula­ was sent to explore with the Kaiser and come to deal with a Germany ruled by tions, were concerned. They wanted a his Chancellor, Bethman-Hollweg, what a Hitler. Little they guessed what they fight to the finish to achieve their territorial terms might be feasible. Apparently the had done when they flung the Pope’s aims set out in the secret Treaties. But Germans agreed in principle to a limitation appeal to the ground and went on with they hesitated to take direct issue with of armaments, withdrawal from Belgium the war for a year that was filled with the Pope in view of his moral influence and other occupied areas, disputed hitherto unparalleled suffering. Little on their peoples. So France ignored the territories being decided by international they knew, when at last they had beaten initiative, Clemenceau describing it as agreement and the creation of international their enemies to their knees at the end “peace against France”. of 1918, and when they were able to arbitration courts. The British merely acknowledged it dictate a peace to their own liking, how Having achieved an understanding with much better they would have done to and then decided to let Wilson answer the Germans Benedict drew up his Peace accept the just and unrevengeful peace for all of them. Note to all the belligerent powers, setting which Pope Benedict had recommended out systematic proposals for bringing the eighteen months before. Wilson had a unique role—that of war to an end and securing a just and “So the peace that was no peace came. giving the proceedings of the Allies the enduring peace. He had what Germany Benedict lived to see the Peace Treaty character and tone of disinterested ideals of was willing to concede communicated to signed and the effort to crush Germany justice and liberty. By 1917 a lot of the gloss the Entente. undertaken.” had gone off the Entente propaganda that This is what Fear Faire said in the had generated and sustained the crusade Catholic Bulletin, March 1939, about The Germans and the Austro- against “Prussianism” in its early days. Benedict’s peace proposals of 1917: Hungarians were favourable to the But Wilson, with his liberal, neutralist, “By the middle of the year 1917 the Pope’s proposal, although Berlin avoided and disinterested credentials, was a useful possibility of a sweeping victory for specific commitments until the Allies had moral cipher to dress up allied war aims. the Central Powers was gone. On the responded. But, despite this, blame is He gave the war a new aura of idealism other hand, the Allies were facing such spread evenly for the rejection of the Peace just as the early idealism was fading. He a strongly entrenched enemy and were Note on America, Britain and Germany. It projected the war as a struggle to make the themselves were so war-worn, that they, is realised that no one else had the means world safe for democracy. Lloyd George too, had little hope of triumph, unless at to continue fighting on a substantial scale referred to one of Wilson’s speeches as the cost of long-prolonged struggle and without the participation of these three. incalculable losses. The time had come “one of the greatest sermons in the history It is said that Chancellor Bethman- when both sides were weary of suffering of the world”. and neither had high hopes. On August Hollweg was overthrown at this time by Wilson saw the timing of the Pope’s 1st, Pope Benedict issued his appeal the German Army leaders—who were still message as mischievous. Socialists had to the warring nations to end what he fixated on a German military victory—and just convened a peace conference in described as a fratricidal conflict and this scuppered the Papal initiative. Stockholm to appeal over the heads of negotiate a just and durable peace. He German war aims had been relatively rulers to the workers of the world. In laid down the conditions on which alone modest until this point—basically Petrograd, the Bolshevik wing of the a peace could be established. The moral recognition of Germany as a legitimate Russian revolution had already called for force of right must rile in international power in Europe which could go about peace on the basis of no annexations and affairs in place of the material force of her business without being threatened self-determination for all peoples, and arms. Conquered territories must be with destruction. pressurised the Provisional Government restored. Claims to indemnity must be There were two views in Germany put aside; the freedom of the seas must into going along with them. be guaranteed; armaments must be as to what should be done in mid-1917. The Pope was saying many of the decreased, and international affairs must One view was to go all out for peace be adjusted in the future by arbitration. on the basis of Benedict’s plan because same things Wilson had said before he Where there were conflicting claims to things could only get worse for Germany opted for war (he had called for “peace given territories, as in Alsace Lorraine, in and its position. The other, held by some without victory” in a statesmanlike Poland, and in the Trentino, the decision Prussian military leaders, like Ludendorff pronouncement early in 1916). But these must rest with the population of the area and Hindenburg, argued there was no former pronouncements were things of no concerned, and the will of the people way out of the situation but through use to the war-like attitude that was now must be found by means of a plebiscite. a spectacular military victory—as the necessary to cultivate in Americans for These peace proposals are manifestly Entente would never make peace until the fight of Good over Evil. those which would have saved the world they were decisively beaten. There was It was a suitably Puritan manifesto not merely from a prolongation of the calling for the good to triumph over evil, war, but from the disasters which have much to encourage this latter viewpoint pioneered by the Anglo-Saxon cousins followed it. Almost everybody now, even in 1917 as the Russian enemy on the in the most stubborn quarters, realises Eastern front was on the verge of collapse in 1914: “The object of this war… is to deliver the that the Allies made a disastrous decision and if a blow could be struck in the West free peoples of the world from the menace when they rejected the Pope’s proposals. with transferred troops before American of a vast military establishment controlled It was the Allies more than Germany who numbers arrived peace might be achievable by an irresponsible government, which, on German terms. 25 having secretly planned to dominate the rise of Bolshevism, Fascism, and that the new nationalistic states created the world, proceeded to carry the plan National Socialism—all products of the by the Entente would be very bad places out without regard either to the sacred disintegration effected by the war and for minorities to live in—including the obligation of treaty or the long established blockade—and the coming of a second Jews. He also saw the Hapsburg state as practices and long cherished principles world war. a moderate counter-balance to Prussian of international action and honor, which Germany in Eastern Europe as well as chose its own time for the war, delivered a barrier to Russian expansionism. He its blow fiercely and suddenly, stopped at But Britain did not want a “moral force no barrier either of law or mercy, swept a of right” in international affairs. It wanted feared the effects of the war guilt clause, whole continent within the tide of blood, to establish itself as the “moral force of the debilitating reparations on Germany, not the blood of soldiers only, but the right” by winning the war and determining and the Hang the Kaiser mentality. blood of innocent women and children the post-war outcome. It wanted to use He predicted the seeds of European and also of the helpless poor, and now the “material force of arms” unilaterally destruction lay in these measures. stands balked but not defeated, the enemy in future, just as it was used to, when He had no faith in the League of of four fifths of the world…This power is and where it sought fit, and not let any Nations, seeing it as an egotistical tool not the German people. It is the ruthless international body tell it otherwise—as it that the great powers would use in their master of the German people. It is no demonstrated in relation to the League of own interests. Instead a 1920 Encyclical business of ours how that great people Nations in the 1930s. called for European integration and came under its control or submitted with reconciliation. temporary zest to the domination of its It did not wish to restore the conquered purpose; but it is our business to see to territory it had grabbed from Germany He also opposed the Balfour Declaration, it that the history of the rest of the world in Africa, or that it had taken from the fearing the establishment of a Zionist state is no longer left to its handling.” Ottomans in the Middle East. It wanted to that would treat Arabs badly. Instead of impose indemnity on Germany to pay for a British mandate he wanted Palestine Wilson’s reply that there could be no the war (and escape from its own American placed under international control. discussion with the German Government, loans as far as it could—Bull the Bilker, only with the German people, and then the as the Catholic Bulletin called Britain in Benedict calculated that Europe would war would end in a couple of hours after the 1930s). not be a place where the Church could regime change, suggested the Great War prosper in the future. He thought other It did not want “freedom of the seas” was all about establishing democracy in parts of the world, like South America, restricting it severely during the war Germany and nothing else. South Asia, and Africa were where its and rejected Wilson’s call for it in his future lay. So he set about his foreign Fourteen Points. When Britain talked America’s entry into the war and mission drive after the war making of the “freedom of the seas” it meant Wilson’s moral rejuvenation of the Allied provision for the Church’s future in the its freedom to police the seas in its own cause put paid to Benedict XV’s Peace developing world instead. interests determining how much freedom Note—the last chance Europe had of should be allowed to other nations and The Vatican emerged from the averting catastrophe. what size of navies they could have. catastrophe of 1914-19 well. As the It was very unlikely that Germany It did not want arms limitation, except Catholic Bulletin put it in March 1939: would have won the war, even if the United if exceptions could be made for it to police “Benedict XV had what we would States had not come in on the side of the its Empire, by bombing Arab and African consider to be the most difficult task Allies. Germany was eager to negotiate a villages off the map if they did not pay ever set to a Sovereign Pontiff by the fair peace arrangement at the time when troubles of the world… When he himself their taxes. Lloyd George’s “knock-out victory” died, worn out by the tremendous toil And it did not want plebiscites and declaration put an end to all prospect of of his short Pontificate, the prestige of democracy determining the fate of successful negotiations. the Holy See stood high throughout an territories—as witnessed by its behaviour anxious world.” in Ireland in 1918 when the local Had sincere peace negotiations, along population decided they did not want the lines proposed by Benedict XV, taken Benedict left the Vatican with its Britain any more. Elsewhere in its vast place the result would have been the “peace moral authority enhanced both in Italy and expanded Empire obstacles were put without victory”, which Wilson described and abroad. It faced a difficult future in a up against other reluctant subject peoples in his statesmanlike pronouncement early Europe that was reduced to its elements exercising this right. in 1916 when the US was officially neutral. by the effects of the war fought to a finish. Another reason it did not want There would have been a negotiated peace The bitter class warfare seen in Russia, plebiscites and democracy determining the treaty made by relative equals—militarily Hungary, and Germany, boded ill for the fate of territories, except where it suited for demonstrated by the stalemate in the Church, as did also the agitation of Benito disrupting another power—was because it war. This would certainly have been far Mussolini and the Fascists in Italy. The had already made secret arrangement for preferable to the Treaty of Versailles and Vatican deplored the rise of Fascism, even the sharing out of spoils which it did not its effects. A negotiated peace would have when the alternative of a Socialist victory want democracy interfering with. saved the world from the last catastrophic looked worse for its interests. But when years of war. It would have rendered the anti-clericalist Mussolini eventually After the War unnecessary and impossible the brutal seized power, he wisely recognized the Benedict welcomed the Armistice blockade of Germany for months after need for a more harmonious relationship but he was sharply critical of Versailles. the 1918 Armistice—a blockade that with the Pope. Benedict laid the basis of He was, of course, excluded from the starved to death hundreds of thousands the Roman Settlement, concluded by Pius peace deliberations there. Benedict was of German women and children. And XI, that has persisted to this day. particularly opposed to the destruction it would also have made impossible of the multi-national Austro-Hungarian We cannot predict how history would 26 Empire on a number of accounts. He feared have turned out if Benedict’s Peace O’Sullivan Bolkestein In France; Prince Rainier Dies; How Did The Giles Report Investigate Casement’s Greatest Frenchman initiatives had been acted upon by the Writing? James J. Horan Art & Poetry: Two Reviews. great powers. But we know what did Seán Russell, Frank Ryan, Bose, And Berlin. Seán Reports of Luke Dodd’s Conquering England review McGouran and Bernard O’Donoghue on Yeats, The Love happen when they were rejected. So we can Letters In The Press: Published, Unpublished And Poet by Michael Stack conclude one thing. The future of Europe, Un-Abridged. Kennedy At Chappaquiddick. Reader’s Letter (Report of letters by Dr. Brian Murphy; Manus Ulster’s Hope, or The New Gerrymander. Seán including the expansion of Bolshevism, O’Riordan; Nick Folley) McGouran the growth of Fascism and Nazism, the Letter Writing To The Irish Times. John Martin Review of Das Kapital, Part Twelve: Conclusion. The Molly Keane Centenary Conference. Julianne John Martin Second World War, the concentration Herlihy “Frank Ryan, a great Irishman who always put Ireland camps, the Soviet occupation of Europe, Reviews. Brendan Clifford first”(letter by Manus O’Riordan, report) Short Cuts (Aer Lingus; Haughey Legacy; Battle Labour Comment: Work a couple of thoughts. the Israeli state built on the plantation Groups; Irish Times: Kennedy v. Patterson) Cultural Vandalism In Cork: Terence McSwiney’s of Palestine, were the responsibility of Labour Comment : I’m All Right, Jack! (review: Preface. They will even pay for Unification! Frank Dunlop, Irish Politics). Peace Protest. Poetry those who rejected Benedict’s efforts. John Ryan And chief amongst those were the leaders June 2005 March 2005 A Constitutional Spare Wheel? Editorial of the British Empire, the men who bore The SDLP Election Campaign. Editorial Vive La France! Editorial on French Referendum responsibility for the Great War itself. Baulking At The Bolkestein Directive. Editorial Shorts. (Europe’s Swansong? More on the EU “Bastards” And The Irish Times. (Unpublished letter Referendum; A Disappointed Constitution? A Pat Walsh from Dr. Brian Murphy) Disappointed Leader: A Glorious Past; A Glorious The Peace Process. (Letter of Michael O’Connor, Future? An Inglorious Past; An Eye On Beirut) Irish Times) Marie George Buffet Statement. Report on French Reviews (Part Two).Brendan Clifford Referendum Conservative Communism. John Martin A European Balance Of Power ? Editorial Letters To Editor: Desmond Fennell: Ameranglia v. Mission To Moscow. Jack Lane Amerope?; Wilson John Haire: Holocausts (with One And A Bit Nations: A Response. Desmond comment from J. Lane). Fennell (letter) Short Cuts. (The Economist; Public Private Finance; Playing Handball Against A Haystack? Niall Sunday Times Almost Remembers Bloody Meehan Sunday; Abbey Theatre; Ray Burke) Das Kapital Series Reader’s Letters Ireland’s Intelligentsia BITE The Air. Seán Ireland’s Intelligentsia BITE (even more) Air. Seán McGouran McGouran (Part 3 of Barbican review) Ladislav Novomesky: Poetry And The 20th Century. Shorts: (The Orange Order & The Reform John Minahane Movement; Syria & Lebanon; France’s Patron Subhas Chandra Bose. (Report) Saint (1905-1980); The Spirit Of The Good Friday A Free Mind In A Free State. (Review of a pamphlet Agreement; Irish Times & Debate; &Mandela; on the Catholic Bulletin). Seán McGouran Bolkestein In France; Prince Rainier Dies; The Gentle Black And Tan. Poem Greatest Frenchman) Labour Comment : Power For Its Own Sake? Reviews (Part Three). Brendan Clifford (address by Jack O’Connor, President of SIPTU. The IRA And Bank Robberies. Jack Lane America’s Neo-Mod-Con Class (Book Review). (unpublished letter) John Ryan Laurent Fabius Interview. Report In Brief. (Bowen; Indian Dáil; Prisoners; Northern April 2005 Representation; Culture) Republicans One And All! Editorial Labour Comment: May Day Holiday by Noel Ireland And The Pope. Editorial Murphy. Irish Labour Party Conference: Northern Is Bolkenstein Dead? John Martin Forum Motion On Migrant Labour by Mark In The Mire. Nick Folley Langhammer Statement & Profile Radio Five Interview With McCartney Sisters. David Morrison July 2005 The Future Of Europe. Editorial Limboland Democracy. Editorial Irish Political Review: Shorts: Englishman’s Diary; Paul Nizan; Hands The European Union. Editorial Off Ukraine; Syria & Lebanon; Bolkestein & How To Share Our Military History? Nick Folley Index 2005 McCreevy; Easons And The Irish Times (Irish Examiner) Iraq: Divide And Rule! Editorial A Final Letter To Valery. Jack Lane January 2005 Professor Hart Prattles On. Jack Lane The Power And The Story. John Martin The Great Game. Editorial Down In Paddy’s Political Slum. Joe Keenan Peter Hart , The Issue Of Sources. Brian Murphy A Cautious Budget. John Martin By-Election Results. (Report) OSB The RIC. (Letter to Irish Examiner from Nick Ulster Unionism’s Masterpiece Northern Ireland. Uncommon Purposes. Pat Muldowney (from Sunday Folley) Pat Walsh Independent, 14.06.05) What Was (Is) It About Cork? Jack Lane Propaganda During The War Of Independence. Brian De Valera’s Heir: Michael McDowell. Joe Keenan A Czechered History. Tim O’Sullivan (Review) Murphy (Report) Tackling Bonded Labour. Mark Langhammer An Cor Tuathail: O Poets And Academicians Of Sliabh Loyalties (review of Danny Morrison’s play, The (Report) Luachra. (Compiled by Pat Muldowney) Wrong Man). Seán McGouran Shorts. (Kilmichael Deep Throats; Another Scandal: Revisionist Chit-Chat. (Report: P. Maume with reply A Nation And A Bit. Desmond Fennell (Letter) Irish ‘Neutrality; FF: The Redmondite Party? from Desmond Fennell) One And A Bit Nations: A Comment. Brendan Social Regression;; Workers Must Wait; Back Ameranglia v. Amerope. Jack Lane (Letter) Clifford To Reality) Remembrance Day. Robert Burrage (Letter) The French EU Referendum. John Martin A Nation And A Half Once Again. Brendan Major McDowell’s Offer Of Assistance To Britain. The Clonbanin Column (Confiscation; Rising & Clifford Previously Unpublished Letter Larkin; Browne: End of Paisley). Does It Stack Up? Michael Stack The Irish Times Group. John Martin Labour Comment: The Royal Irish Garda Population Trends In Ireland, 1821-2036. Jack Lane Has The DUP Accepted The Belfast Agreement? (from Village, 24.06.05) David Morrison May 2005 Still Fighting The French Revolution. Seán Reply To A Reader. Editor Ballot Wars (The Northern Ireland Election). McGouran 2NT And The Neo-Con/Revisionist Agenda. Patrick Editorial Reply To Ivor Kenna And Robert Burrage. John O’Beirne (Letter) The Gaa And Rule 42. Editorial Martin Labour Comment : Cowen’s First Budget; The Life Democratic Mandates & The 1916 Rising. Pat Free Trade And Famine. Pat Muldowney (Book And Times Of Charlie McCreevy Muldowney (Report) Review) Election Results. Report of Northern Ireland results, Labour Comment: Labour Conference February 2005 Westminster Election, 5.5.05 I Believe. Editorial False History? Editorial August 2005 Ten Years Of WTO: Peter And His Problems. Jack The Two Nations Theory. Ivor Kenna (Reader’s A Time For Peace. Editorial Lane Letter) The Right Wing Health Agenda. John Martin Holocausts: Two Letters. Pat Muldowney French Referendum.John Martin Paddy And Mr. Redmond Liam Mhic I Shearcaigh (Report) What To Hope From The Pope? Jack Lane (Poem) The Clonbanin Column (Liberty Hall; Work, Work, Politics In Northern Ireland, A Review Of The Year. &And A Time For War. Editorial Work; National Flour) Mark Langhammer (speech) Mansergh versus Casement. Seán McGouran An Cor Tuathail: Lament Of The Mangaire Sugach. Ireland’s Intelligentsia BITE (more) Air. Seán Peter Hart Digs A Deeper. Jack Lane (Compiled by Pat Muldowney) McGouran (Part 2 of Barbican review) The Sindo, The Shinner, And Filthy Lucre. Seán Threat Of Water Privatisation In Northern Ireland. Shorts: The Orange Order & The Reform Movement; McGouran Cllr. Mark Langhammer Syria & Lebanon; France’s Patron Saint Shorts From The Long Fellow. (Blood Price; Ireland The Black Diaries And The Giles Report (2002): (1905-1980); The Spirit Of The Good Friday Celebrates Defeat Of Allies!; Was 1916 A Dissenting From The Media Consensus. Tim Agreement; Irish Times & Debate; &Mandela; 27 Crime?!!!; Sartre Was Right!; Right On Bono!; U2 Corporate Rights; More Corporate Values) · The Fifth Column continued · The Fifth Column continued· The Fifth Column The Irish Catholic And Benedict XV (Part One). Pat Walsh Does It Stack Up? Pomp And Circumstance. the ‘heist’, they were by the same token, competent enough to realise that Northern Bank Michael Stack Food And The Market. John Martin notes are essentially non-negotiable. Most people from ‘outside the jurisdiction’ (to use Does It Stack Up? Michael Stack the Magistrate’s Court cliché), regard the notes as funny-money. This problem was not CAP And Our Future. Dominique Bussereau (Report) mentioned, but the fact that people with (vague) connections with Sinn Féin, in County Still Fighting The French Revolution.Seán Cork, were arrested on (vaguely) related matters, was. It was also mentioned that they McGouran had been released, but the notion that they were about to be re-arrested upon the nonce Markievicz Revised? Seán McGouran The British State-Nation. Desmond Fennell was left hanging in the air. (Letter) Voting For Rebellion! Nick Folley (Letter) Labour Comment: Work Skills Mark Taoiseach McDowell? Langhammer The ‘Acting Taoiseach’ Michael McDowell was given a very long time (in television

September 2005 terms) to make his usual claim that Sinn Féin done-it. The Party is subsidised by Past And Present. Editorial criminality to the tune of millions: it was thereby subverting the democratic process, The Celtic Ant. Jack Lane and was inherently anti-democratic. This raises a number of questions. Why was the Na Creatuiri Bochta Gallda. Liam Mhic I Shearcaigh (Poem) Workers’ Party never put on the spot by the political establishment in Northern Ireland China’s Currency Still Red? Seán McGouran or the Republic? It was, especially in the North, a tiny party, but had the most lavish, Louisiana Floods. Randy Newman (Report) Shorts From The Long Fellow. (Crime Ireland; multi-colour, posters and handouts – it didn’t do too badly in the Republic either. The “Doc”; The Looney Right; More Looney Why was a member of a party (the Progressive Democrats—PDs) which has much the Tunes) Greaves And Connolly. Brendan Clifford same representation as Sinn Féin in the Dáil allowed to whinge about Sinn Féin, which has Connolly Column. Manus O’Riordan (Report) a three-times bigger vote? Why was the (comparatively) lowly Justice Minister saying Italy And The Great War The Irish Catholic And Benedict XV (Part Two). Pat Walsh such things rather than the Taoiseach? And speaking of Ministers for Justice, why was Justice For Captain Kelly Open Letter To Michael he making a comment on a case that has not merely not come to court, but has not been McDowell From Fionnbarra O’Dochartaigh. properly investigated? Report Allied Bombing Of France Towards The End Of World War II. F. O’Raghallaigh (unpublished Henry McDonald letter) A Know-nothing review (O Caothaoir & The Catholic Henry McDonald was involved in this programme, as in MacIntyre’s. He had no Bulletin). Brendan Clifford compunction about basically setting-up Sinn Féin as a branch of the PIRA, and as being Green (not Red) Sticky Bile About Haughey. Seán McGouran involved in violent ‘policing’. The incident shown, in Toughest Towns, was in fact done Labour Comment: The End Of The Co-Op? by the UDA. (The ‘crucifixion’ of a – Taig, as it happens – drug dealer, in Seymour Hill estate, to the south of Belfast.) Admittedly the term ‘UDA’ was mentioned once, October 2005 A Visionary Republican? Editorial but nothing was said about its origins, methods, or ‘mission’. British and Republic A Revelation In The Dail. Jack Lane viewers would have assumed that it was a sub-contractor for the IRA. It was not even Atom Bombs On Japan. Ted O’Sullivan (unpublished letter) described as ‘Loyalist’. McDonald could claim that he had no part in the editing of the Shorts From The Long Fellow (Sindo Supports programme, but he has plenty of outlets through which he could have noted that the show Vantalism Again; Land Of The Brave? Who Guards The Guards? More EU Arrogance; Media was heavily loaded. Comment Inflated Egos.) It is necessary to oppose to the flood of nonsense about Sinn Féin because it is the Keeping It Real John Martin A Question For Mr Mansergh. Jack Lane (Report) disorienting element in politics in the Republic. If the Establishment gets away with Casement Melodramatics? Seán McGouran reversing Sinn Féin’s move towards the centre of politics by way of this sleight of hand, Irish Press Royal Honour: Food For Thought. the state will become just another ‘Anglo-Saxon’ outpost. It might as well become (Report) Haughey’s Legacy. John Martin officially part of the UK once again. If Sinn Féin becomes stronger it will push Fianna The Politics Of Criminality. Seán McGouran Fáil in a national direction – this is already happening. The use of the Defence Forces in UCD Symposium On De Valera. ‘UP DEV’ Das Kapital A Belated Comment. Jim Dixon 2006 Easter Rising commemorations is a result of the pressure put on the establishment (Letter) by Sinn Féin. Na Creatuiri Bochta Gallda. Liam Mhic I Shearcaigh (Poem In Translation) Sprechen Sie Dáil? Joe Keenan Arrests Storm In A Rubber Stamp. Joe Keenan A number of men have been arrested over the past week or so, since about November See no, Hear no, Speak no evil. Joe Keenan Redmond And The Pope’s Peace Efforts Of 1915. 1, on suspicion of having been involved in the Northern Bank ‘heist’. This series of arrests Pat Walsh (Part 3 of series) have been reported at the bottom of the inside pages of the papers. We would hazard a Spies And Lies. Conor Lynch, Joe Keenan Gender And Identity. Seán McGouran guess that they are not senior – or even junior – members of the PIRA. Labour Comment: Choppy Waters Ahead! (Irish Ferries and Redundancies). The End Of The Co-Op? Sewer Journalism McDonald’s recent notable contribution to the noble profession of journalism was November 2005 Politics Of Exclusion. Editorial to make totally unfounded, lurid and sensationalist claims about a person unable to sue Shadow Of One Gunman Or Another. Joe Keenan him for libel, Liam Lawlor, the former TD. (These were to the effect that he was with Arrest Of Members Of First Dail On Armistice Day. Brian Murphy (report) a teenage prostitute when killed in a Moscow car crash; the lady was in fact a mother Shorts From The Long Fellow (Free Enterprise In in her 30s and a translator.) He is the Irish Editor of the Observer, a paper which up to Iraq; Health Debate; Labour Will Wait; More On Due Process; O B E; The White Nigger . . . now has enjoyed a reputation for serious journalism (though being partly owned by Sir Again; A Real Editor.) Anthony O’Reilly’s Irish Independent group)—but no more. It has joined the rest of Bertie’s Easter Parade. David Alvey Who Was De Valera Neutral Against? Edward the press in the gutter. Spalton Liam Lawlor is a proxy for Fianna Fail and he was therefore not given a fair hearing The Propaganda That Never Sleeps. Brendan Clifford in life or in death. The Irish Times, while slating the Sunday Independent for running the The IRA Connections. Conor Lynch ‘prostitute’ story, itself headlined a story, A Corrupt Politician Whose Word Could Not Be Sean Garland And Questions For Mickey McDowell. j Seán Swan Trusted. But corruption was never proven against Liam Lawlor: his time in ail was for Ahern’s Modest Proposal. Joe Keenan failing to incriminate himself to a Tribunal which was acting anything but impartially. Barry’s Column. (Tom Barry; Father Reid) Japan And Pearl Harbour. Robert Burrage(Letter) 28Labour Comment: No Irish Need Apply? Trade Unions Against Partnership. Dublin Trade Union Demonstration Unions to discuss this would be held in the next couple of weeks, he said. Ferries continued The ATGWU has traditionally opposed partnership deals, but Mr O’Reilly said it Tierney confirmed that this would be his was too simplistic to describe the union as BARRY’S union’s strategy. The aim, he said, would being against national agreements. be to select employers who were “in a He had no problem with public position to do business”. service unions dealing in tandem with the COLUMN Mr Tierney said a large section of Government, as an employer, but the “one the union’s 30,000-odd members in the size fits all” approach was not appropriate THE INTERNATIONAL BRIGADES Republic, particularly those in financial for the private sector, he claimed. On Saturday October 15th the AGM of services and manufacturing, were due pay the International Brigades Memorial Trust increases on January 1st, 2006. This argument has also been made took place at Liberty Hall, Dublin. Before Many of the companies involved by the Irish Bank Officials’ Association, that a commemorative event was held at were going through change programmes, which last week signalled its intention to a memorial to the Brigades outside the which put the union in a strong bargaining seek a 10 per cent pay rise for its members building. One of the veterans, Jack Jones, position, he said. “They are looking for over two years. gave a short speech. Although in his 90s, something from us, and we will be looking he gave every impression that he could for something from them”. One of the State’s biggest private sector still lead the Transport Union. (He could unions, Mandate, also plans to pursue its certainly do a whole lot better than any of He planned to hold a meeting of his successors in the British T & G!) officials before the end of next week to own pay strategy next year, even if there The General President of SIPTU, Jack begin finalising the Union’s approach. is a new national agreement. O’Connor, gave a speech of welcome which Union leaders have had informal included one of the most succinct summaries contacts with the Government since of early 20th century Irish history one Mr Tierney, however, alluded to a could wish for. Listening to him and to the difficulty facing the Unions if social deciding last month to delay a decision smorgasbord of characters at events over partnership is to collapse after 18 years. on entering partnership talks. Substantive that weekend, one is left with the impression Only two of Amicus’s 15 full-time progress is unlikely, however, while that a knowledge of the historical story of the Irish Ferries controversy remains Ireland is widespread—if open to a variety officials, he said, had previous experience of interpretations. The revisionists haven’t of free collective bargaining. unresolved. The crisis deepened this week moved all that far yet from academia and when the company rejected a Labour Court the media. And even there they are being ATGWU Common Strategy recommendation that it drop its plan to challenged. outsource crew. What is also striking is that so many ATGWU regional secretary Mick people are aware that their history is under O’Reilly said his Union would be lodging On 17th November 2005, an offer attack and are gravitating towards each other. claims for “substantial” increases in pay to set up a special four-person “talks Unfortunately, this movement still lacks a and other improvements in conditions. group” under the auspices of the National real centre, especially in Dublin where it is “come up with most needed. The General Secretary of the He believed private sector unions Implementation Body to Irish Congress of Trade Unions, David Begg, needed to co-ordinate their approach and a new formula designed to help solve the also made a short welcome speech. adopt a common strategy. Irish Ferries stand-off” appears also to Later the surviving veterans were received have been rejected by the company. Indeed, by the Irish President. This was followed in A special meeting of the private sector the evening by a social in Liberty Hall, where committee of the Irish Congress of Trade the entire approach seems a right ‘cock- a packed function room was entertained by a up’ and appears to have enabled Eamonn variety of musicians, including the excellent Rothwell and his Irish Ferries crew to Al O’Donnell (father of the main speaker at wriggle out of any negotiations. the Tom Barry meeting). Representatives of the Government of Cuba attended and sense of duty by going to Spain to fight and, presented a medal from President Castro to if needs be, to die. (Irish Republicans are Mick O’Riordan. portrayed by revisionists and their British NI Labour Meeting On the Sunday a commemoration took masters as an insular and even sectarian lot. place at Glasnevin cemetery at the grave of The very opposite has always been the case. the leader of the Irish volunteers in Spain, People like Tone, the Young Irelanders , the Thursday 15 December: Poverty, Frank Ryan. This was a simple but very Fenians, Connolly, Ryan and modern-day Disadvantage and Public Services emotional occasion, where his comrades Sinn Fein have all had a very international paid their respects to their commander for outlook. Irish Republicans could be found what is probably the last time. fighting resisting imperialism and repression Recently, the idea of social and Manus O’Riordan sang in Spanish, read in Europe, North and South America, South economic disadvantage has been out a roll of honour of the fallen, and delivered Africa and elsewhere.) seized upon by the main political the oration. One got a clear impression of Many of those present at Glasnevin Irish Republicans following their instinctive were from England and asked about other parties, but usually to argue the case graves near Ryan’s. There was Cahal that 'their side' is not getting its Brugha and Brian O’Higgins and Harry full share. Meanwhile the Northern Boland and O’Donovan Rossa. In this Ireland Office is pursuing the radi- Apology company one couldn’t help being reminded : Due to extreme pressure of space a of Pearse’s words “...while Ireland holds cal privatisation of public services number of articles have had to be held these graves...” how do we create policies equal to the over. These include Joe Keenan's De challenge? Valera And Partition, in which he takes Look up Athol Books on the web at up some points from the October editorial Common Ground café in University and Seán McGouran's critique of T. Ryle www.atholbooks.org Avenue, beginning at 7.30pm Dwyer.

29 Ferries continued ground.” (ibid). without SIPTU, Mr. O’Connor said the “The long-term SIPTU relationship cause of workers’ right would be far more with partnership would have been driven influence as a movement comes from the difficult to achieve outside partnership: by people who are no longer there,” says collective power of our members and it “It is our analysis that partnership is one observer. “Jack O’Connor wouldn’t is about how we as a movement harness the best way to do it… We’re not going to be seen exactly in the mould of Des our collective power. say that it’s impossible to do it otherwise Geraghty. You could speculate that if “There are more powerful ways of but it’s very very difficult indeed.” Geraghty and those around him were harnessing it than at a steak dinner in “The most daunting aspect of all there it would never have been let get Dublin Castle every four years,” says that is taking place is the position being to the stage it is now at.” (Business & Ogle. adopted by IBEC. Its director general, Finance, 3.11.2005). “We have a legion of trade union Turlough O’Sullivan, has refused to officials who have never negotiated a pay rule out similar approaches by other claim. What have they been doing? They Jim Larkin employers, citing competition as the are not trade union officials—they are What did Big Jim Larkin always warn reasons,” Jack O’Connor stated. (Irish industrial policemen. For the last 15-odd us against: Times, 30.9.2005) years, they have been running around “Don’t submit your minds to any “It is incumbent upon all of us to the country enforcing the agreements one man. Think these problems out make people aware of the threat that is with their members. Horror of horrors if for yourselves. A leader who can lead looming for them and their families—if partnership came to an end—they might you out of the wilderness can lead we do not achieve a fundamental change actually have to go out and negotiate one you back again. If there is a thinking in our present social partnership model themselves.” (Brendan Ogle, Business & intelligent movement, no leader can so that social objectives are given at Finance magazine, 3.11.2005). mislead you.” least equal importance with economic growth.” (Jack O’Connor, Liberty, “And it is for this very reason that Throughout the Irish Ferries dispute, November, 2005). Jack O’Connor has demonstrated clear and relatively few trade unionists, even ******************************* those who are likely to publicly speak calm leadership, he has taken his National ******************************* out against partnership, have any Executive Council, a National Delegate **** real appetite for doing away with the Conference and a Special Delegate “I have no doubt that we will take structures that have delivered relatively Conference with him. There has been no punishment. But I am absolutely good results over the past decade. rhetoric or bluster. confident that we’ll inflict it as well if the “There is a huge element of prag­ “The country is at a crossroads, and need arises,” said O’Connor. (The Sunday matism in this,” says a representative must now take decisions over the kind Business Post, 30.10.2005). of a smaller craft union that traditionally of workforce it is creating, moving ******************************* votes against partnership but happily forward. ******************************* goes along with it. “This, in our analysis, is a watershed, **** “If you are a trade union representative a pivotal issue which will determine the representing different categories of shape of things for a very long time to Throughout the broad Trade Union workers in different employments all come,’ Jack O’Connor told The Sunday movement, there is a realisation that this over the country, to up stakes now Business Post.” (30.10.2005). battle is different, it is taking place in a new and service all of those industries and Ireland, in a Europe which is a battleground membership would be a huge task. You SIPTU president, Jack O’Connor said between those like McCreevy who want will have to go foot slogging all over the the dispute was “the greatest test that the an unimpeded Free Market, without a place to service each one independently. social partnership process has faced” whit of concern for social obligations and It’s a monstrous task—it would demand since it was introduced 18 years ago. a struggling workers’ movement bereft constant attention, day-in-day-out, “Some people ask if we would be of very little political party leadership. whereas the national approach is a much better off outside an agreement, but if Indeed, some of McCreevy’s greatest easier way to do it. No matter what he employer organisations are going to backers are the “New Labour” and former might say publicly, Jack O’Connor behave like this increasing numbers of erstwhile Left student leaders of the 60s [SIPTU general president] will have my members are asking if we are better been thinking about just how he could and 70s. off inside, and I am becoming inclined LABOUR COMMENT backed the possibly run SIPTU properly without to agree with them.” partnership.” (ibid). Partnership concept from the outset, our problem with it in recent years was, Jack O’Connor also warned delegates In the above article, the journalist, that it just didn’t move on : it ended up that deferring entering talks should not be a Pay Agreement. At worst, when wage Fearghal O’Connor goes on to state that taken lightly. in reality lower-paid workers would control was accepted, we should have “Think long and hard before you vote demanded a simultaneous control on basic probably be even worse-off with collective for this motion because it could mean that commodities. Once profits surpassed the bargaining, we could be out of social partnership. pay percentages, then we should have “because their bargaining positions “There would be plenty of forces that demanded that some form of Local are weak”. would like to see us out of the talks and “By contrast, nurses, bank officials, it could be a long time before we get our Bargaining kicked in. surveyors, engineers and many skilled feet under the table again.” he said. public sector workers are somewhat AMICUS Difficulty— hamstrung by national agreements— While the Taoiseach, Mr. Ahern respon­ Free Collective Bargaining skills shortages mean that free-for-all ded by saying partnership was impossible Amicus National Secretary John bargaining would suit them down to the continued on page 29 30 Ferries continued “Together, wages and salaries will to hit employers with a wave of pay account for 19 billion Euro of the claims in anticipation of there being no Government’s entire 48 billion spend.” new national agreement. Continental Group, fell by 18 cent, or (Irish Examiner, 18.11.2005). “Siptu, the State’s biggest union, is 1.7 per cent, to close at €10.47, after the ******************************** to write to its 120 branches next week Labour Court recommendations were ******************************** instructing them to begin drawing up delivered. ************** claims for more than 50,000 members An application by the company to re- “Irish Ferries Shareholders’ sinking whose current deals expire at the end of register its Irish Sea vessels to Cyprus, feeling” December, 2005 meanwhile, has been turned down by the The contrasting views were reflected “Other unions including the ATGWU, Department of the Marine. in the contrasting notes published by Amicus and the Irish Bank Officials’ the two major brokers. Davy’s work Association are also preparing claims ‘Naked’ Bertie entitled Battle of Wills blasted the Labour on behalf of workers due to receive pay “The ferry company’s proposal Court for locking the company into an increases in the new year. “The prospect of a spate of pay to shed its Irish-based seafarers and “uncompetitive cost base’’ and predicted claims will cause deep concern to the replace them with low-cost agency that management will regardless tackle the Government and employers, who argue workers from Eastern Europe has been cost base and win approval for its voluntary that wage restraint is vital if the economy roundly condemned by the Taoiseach, redundancy programme. Bertie Ahern, and by the Minister for is to remain competitive. “Clearly the current uncertainty will Enterprise, Trade and Employment, “A round of such claims is inevitable, drive the share price lower but if you Micheal Martin. however, given that the terms of believe that this is too big an issue for “While the Minister of State for Labour Sustaining Progress expire on December Affairs, Tony Killeen, recently told the management to give in to, then it has to be 31, 2005, for workers in many sectors Dail that over forty recommendations an opportunity to buy into this weakness”, of the economy. arising from an internal review of the according to the Davy analysis. However, “Formal talks on a successor deal had Labour Inspectorate were due to be Goodbody was having none of it. Its report, been due to begin this week, but have brought to Cabinet shortly, he did not A Sinking Feeling, found “few simple been postponed as a result of Irish Ferries’ offer the concrete guarantees sought by solutions to the current impasse’’ and plan to replace up to 543 unionised unions to combat jobs displacement, predicted that the “company’s rejection seafarers with cheaper migrant labour. unfair labour practices and gross of the Labour Court ruling will probably “Unions say they will not enter talks exploitation.” (‘Liberty’, November, advance a strike’’ and make worse ICG’s in the absence of Government guarantees 2005, SIPTU monthly journal). short-term financial problems (Sunday on measures to prevent displacement of Business Post, 20.11.2005). jobs and exploitation of workers. Too right, Deputy Killeen didn’t even ******************************* “With no sign of a resolution to say ‘boo’—a similar exercise is being ******************************* the Irish Ferries row in sight, it is carried out in his own constituency at **** increasingly unlikely that partnership Shannon Airport by the Dublin Airport talks will begin before the end of the Authority involving 500 Trade Unionists “Political detractors claim that Mr. year.” (Irish Times, 19.11.2005). in a ‘take-it-or-leave it’ offer, despite local Ahern’s Dail outburst was more a move Business & Finance: Trade Union agreements. This dispute to keep SIPTU and their Labour Party A Management view has now been referred to the National allies on side—as potential coalition on Partnership Implementation Body. partners—rather than a threat to frustrate Irish Ferries “restructuring”. Partnership: “But it may also have been intended “There is little real appetite within the Estimates 2006 unions to bring it to its knees and any “Despite the lack of provision for any to keep the wider trade union movement debate on this is kept to the margins.” new partnership deal, Mr. Cowen said he peaceful for a few stressful weeks until (B&F, November 3, 2005). fully supported social partnership. the ICTU secures a mandate on October “How has social partnership “I believe it’s been one of the major 25, 2005 to enter negotiations for a contributed to a more equal distribution stabilising influences that has brought us seventh, successive social partnership of wealth in society in the last 17 years?” the sort of economic and social progress agreement.” (Gerald Flynn, Sunday asks Brendan Ogle who represents that we have,’ he said.” (18.11.2005) Independent, 2.10.2005). ATGWU members in ESB and who does

not hide his disdain for the partnership “Consequently, estimates for salaries, A New Year: process. “If it hasn’t, then it has failed. wages and pensions are all notional, since An Old Down The division between rich and poor in there is as yet no pay deal for the public Hark Free Collective Bargaining! this country is growing in an era of social sector for 2006. Well, Gerald O’Flynn’s October 25th partnership. That’s a black mark . “But there is provision for the prediction is beginning to appear more “Our trade union membership and employment of an additional 3,000 public and more remote. And, despite a certain density levels are falling below which sector staff despite a benchmarking snide criticism from several quarters, Jack is sustainable in the long term. That promise to cut the number of public O’Connor’s premonitions are a lot closer is suicide by a thousands cuts. We are servants by 5,000. than we might think. And as the day of failing to make any inroads in recruitment “With 290,000 already on staff, industrial reckoning approaches, an air in a growing private sector. That is a wages take up 34.5% of next year’s of caution appears to have descended on black mark. total estimates while another 4.2% of many of the long-time advocates of Free “Against all of that we have the the estimates total will pay for public Collective Bargaining! highest levels of poverty in the EU. Our sector pensions. “Private-sector unions are preparing continued on page 30 31 VOLUME 23 No. 12 CORK ISSN 0790-1712

Irish Ferries: "A Sinking Feeling"

Irish Ferries has rejected outright to lay off up to 543 seafarers and replace potential for Government action to stop a proposal to resolve the continuing the company. dispute between the company and the them with cheaper labour from abroad. “The Taoiseach has ruled out emer­ Trade Union movement put forward by It told the company to honour a three- the Labour Court on 14th November year agreement on seafarers’ pay and gency legislation to prevent Irish Ferries 2005. Irish Ferries intend replacing conditions, reached with unions in June from laying off 543 staff and replacing over 500 Irish seafarers with foreign last year. them with cheaper foreign workers.” seamen, paying wages of one-third the The recommendation was rejected (Irish Examiner, 16.11.2005). current Trade Union Rate within hours by the company, which described it as being “incapable of In its recommendation on the dispute Three days following the Labour Court acceptance and implementation”. between the company and Siptu, the recommendations, It repeated its assertion that it had no Labour Court said the conduct of “orderly “Management representatives choice but to implement the redundancy industrial relations” required that parties yesterday held direct talks on the and outsourcing programme in order to honour agreements. outsourcing plan with seafarers on board ensure it remained competitive. The company, it said, had not made out Irish Sea vessels the Ulysses and the Isle a “sufficiently compelling case” to justify of Inishmore. Unless the Government moves to unilateral termination of the agreement “The 543 workers on the Irish Sea routes have been offered the choice of prevent the company from proceeding reached with unions in June last year on redundancy or continued employment with its plan, which involves hiring agency seafarers’ pay and conditions. on reduced pay and conditions. The seafarers on hourly pay of €3.60, it is Accordingly, it was recommending that company says 90 per cent of the unlikely that unions will enter Partnership the company honour the agreement of 2004 employees involved have applied for talks. and that the parties resume negotiations redundancy. It is understood the purpose The outsourcing plan has been on such modifications as were considered of the ongoing meetings with crew on condemned by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, necessary. the ships is to ascertain the current views who has said it remains to be seen whether of staff and to explain the company’s the company “gets away with” it. In a second recommendation, the court intentions.” (Irish Times, 18.11.2005). However, both Mr Ahern and Minister found in favour of a Seamen’s Union of The company’s stand increases the of State for Labour Tony Killeen have Ireland claim that members who wished difficulties faced by the Government in expressed doubts in the Dáil about the to remain at the company ought to retain Partnership its attempts to secure a new their existing terms and conditions of deal. Subscribers to the magazine are regularly of- fered special rates on other publications employment. Unions have decided not to enter talks The company also rejected this Sustaining Progress on a successor to in Irish Political Review is published by recommendation. It has offered its 543 the absence of specific commitments from the IPR Group: write to— seafarers on Irish Sea routes the option of the Government on measures to prevent 14 New Comen Court, North Strand, Dub- redundancy or continued employment, but exploitation of workers. lin 3, or on reduced pay and conditions. PO Box 339, Belfast BT12 4GQ or The talks had been due to begin on Union officials said this would mean 16th November 2005, but hav e now been PO Box 6589, London, N7 6SG, or national agreements were not “worth the postponed indefinitely. Labour Comment, paper they were written on”. The unions’ stance arose directly as a C/O Shandon St. P.O., Cork City. result of the Irish Ferries controversy. Subscription by Post: The Taoiseach stated that the Labour On 17th November 2005, SIPTU began Euro 25 / £17.50 for 12 issues Court was “the proper arbiter” of good balloting workers from Irish Ferries for industrial relations practice. “I would strike action. Electronic Subscription: Euro 15 / £12 for 12 issues hope that both parties would respect the (or Euro 1.30 / £1.10 per issue) decision of the court.” Labour Court Recommendation You can also order both postal and In a recommendation, the Court said the electronic subscriptions from: Shares in its parent company, Irish company should not proceed with its plan www.atholbooks.org continued on page 31