Category: History

CIMARRON: GOING FERAL AND ETHNIC PREJUDICE

On By rebelbreezeIn British imperialism, Cultural Comment, Guerrilla Action, History, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Language Treasure Chest, Natural History, Plants, Religious Sectarianism, Spanish State, Traditions & Folk Custom6 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 15 minutes)

LANGUAGE IS A TREASURE CHEST – 2

I observed in Language Is a Treasure Chest 1 that it is full of wonders but that it has some horrors in it too. And I found it to be so again.

I was reading a novel in which the word “Cimarron” appeared and, doing some quick research on the word, I came across a 2004 query in an email website or page called Word Wizard:

What is the etymology of the word cimarron? I’ve always been told that it means “runaway slave” in Mexican Spanish. Can anyone verify this?

The reply is dated the same day:

From Greek. It refers to people who live in perpetual
mist and darkness, akin to the ‘land of the dead’.
Latin ‘Cimmerius’, Greek ‘Kimmerios’, Assyrian
‘Gimirri’ even the bible ‘Gomer’ Gen.10:2 and
Esk. 38:6.
In Western United States it refers to a stretch of 
land that gets rainfall when other near by areas are 
desert year round.

Apart from the topographical reference, I thought the expert’s explanation highly dubious. And in fact I happen to know something about the Spanish-language origins of the word.

The searcher replied:

Thanks, Jim. I just wonder what connection this word has to Hispanics of Mexican origin because it shows up in their surnames (although not as common as Lopez or Vargas or Garcia). Is it just Mexican in origin or did that also come from Spain? So the “runaway slave” theory has no foundation then?

The expert’s reply did come back with a Spanish-language connection and he may be on to something with the topography, though I think he has it the wrong way around (as we shall see).

The “runaway slave” theory is not so obsolete.
Mexico did not have slaves (Outlawed in 1810)but
American slaves who fled to Mexico had to pass
through lands with water, or else parish (sic).
When relating their tales of woe to the locals
the word ‘cimmaron’ arose to describe their flight
through the South West desert.

Very curiously, there was no further contribution to the discussion. I tried to leave my own but had to register, which I have done (though wondering if worth the trouble) and am now awaiting confirmation1.

A view of the Cimarron National Grassland, the largest piece of public land in Kansas, a 108,175-acre property in the southwestern part of the state. It was recovered from the Dustbowl ecological devastation by soil recovery and management practices. (Photo source: The Armchair Explorer – Kansas)

THE FOLK MEMORY WAS TRUE

          Continuing with a little light online research I find that the Castillian-language (Spanish) origin is the explanation most often given, with rarely a reference to Greek or other classical or archaic languages. For example, in yourdictionary.com:

American Spanish cimarrón, wild, unruly ( from Old Spanish cimarra, thicket): probably origin, originally referring to the wild sheep (bighorn) found along its banks

While in Wiktionary:

cimarrón (feminine singular cimarrona, masculine plural cimarrones, feminine plural cimarronas).

  1. (Latin America, of animals) feral (having returned to the wild)

  2. Synonyms: alzado, bagual, feral

  3. (Latin America, of people) rural; campestral

  4. (Latin America, of plants) of a wild cultivar.

But …. what about the “runaway slaves”? Under the title Cimarron People, Wikipedia has this to say: The Cimarrons in Panama were enslaved Africans who had escaped from their Spanish masters and lived together as outlaws. In the 1570s, they allied with Francis Drake of England to defeat the Spanish conquest. In Sir Francis Drake Revived (1572), Drake describes the Cimarrons as “a black people which about eighty years past fled from the Spaniards their masters, by reason of their cruelty, and are since grown to a nation, under two kings of their own. The one inhabiteth to the west, the other to the east of the way from Nombre de Dios”. (location in Panama — DB)

While we may indulge ourselves in a sardonic smile at commissioned pirate Francis Drake talking about the cruelty of others, or about slave-owning by a country other than England in 1570, we remember also that at the time Spain was the main competitor with England in the rush to plunder the Americas – and had got there well before them.2 Both colonial powers were already plundering Africa for raw materials and slaves.

The meanings of animals having gone “feral” or “returned to the wild” would easily have been applied by the society of the time to escaped African slaves, a society which, despite evidence to the contrary including agriculture in Africa, would have considered indigenous inhabitants of Africa as people living in the “wild”. Once escaped and no longer under European control, they would be seen as “returning to the wild”.

So what happened to the Cimarron People? Their settlements were subject to punitive raids by the Spanish, killing people and burning crops, so that in the end they came to a treaty with their old enemy. The Wikipedia entry says no more except that the “Cimarrons” and the English quarreled (not surprising, given that they were of no further use to the latter). I believe some of their settlements in Florida were raided and burned by US “pioneers” and soldiers and that the remainder became part of the Seminoles, a native American tribe that resisted the USA in the longest and most costly of the USA’s wars against the indigenous people, the Native (North) Americans. The Seminole had many tribe members of part-African origin in their midst.

And here – a surprise: The word “Seminole” is derived from the Muscogee word simanó-li, which may itself be derived from the Spanish word cimarrón, meaning “runaway” or “wild one”!

So, in line with what that on-line searcher back in 2004 had heard, no doubt a folk belief, the word cimarron is, in Mexico (and in the USA), of Castillian (Spanish) language origin and is connected to escaped slaves of African origin.

Some of the sources for “cimarron” also give us “marron” or “marrón” which is also related to escaped slaves and, in English, became “Maroons”. The Maroons, escaped slaves who inhabited mountainous regions of Jamaica and elsewhere became a great problem to the English settlers (after they took the island from the Spanish) which they failed totally to quell, the Maroons emerging victorious in many military engagements. In the Cockpits area of Jamaica, I have read, there is a place called Nanny Town, which is believed to be one of the settlements of the Maroons; their chief was said to be a woman called “Granny Nanny”3, whether because of her former slave occupation or for other reason4. In the end, like the Spanish with the Cimarron People, the English had to treat with them. Sadly the treaty required the Maroons to return newly-escaped slaves, which they did and for which they received payment.

Marroons in treaty with the British, shown here in a reversal of the actual power relations in the “Pacification with Maroons on the Island of Jamaica, by Agostino Runias (1728-96).
(Source image: Internet)

However if instead of being a voluntary escapee to go to a wild place you were forced by people or circumstance, well then, like Alexander Selkirk’s “Crusoe”, you’d be “marooned”!

Well then, what about the “cimarron strips” in the southwest of the USA? Could the word refer to strips of land “gone wild”? Or could the expert replying to the question in 2004 have been on to something?

If the slaves escaping through the desert from the USA to Mexico did indeed make their way through strips of watered land (not just for the water, as the expert speculates but for vegetation to conceal them), then there is a connection between escaped slaves and these strips of land. But not as the expert sees it, rather the other way around: since the escaped slaves, the “cimarrones” were travelling the strips, they would be called by those who knew about it (escapee hunters, escapee helpers and just observers), “cimarron strips”, i.e “those strips through which the runaway slaves travel.”

CHRISTIAN ETHNIC PREJUDICE

          However, if the word comes from Castillian (Spanish) what were the origins of the word in that language?

Perhaps a year ago, I was reading a book that described the Spanish State as having been characterised, contrary to many other European states, by mass expulsions and exiles on a number of occasions throughout its history5. Naturally enough, first on the list of expulsions was the well-known example of the Moors and the Jews. Those who were not slaughtered by the forces of the “Christian Monarchs” of Ferdinand and Isabella in the “reconquest” were obliged to convert to Christianity or to leave “with only the clothes on their backs”. This also occurred in Portugal.

Those Jews who left were the Sephardim or Sephardic Jews, who spoke Ladino, an archaic kind of Iberian Romance6 language with Aramaic and Hebrew words, along with the Moors, who spoke an Iberian-Arabic mixture or Arabic. The key of their houses or gates have been handed down to this day in families of both groups.7

Many converted, often referred to by Christians as “conversos” (Jews) or “moriscos” (Arabs) but were constantly under suspicion of reverting to their old religion even with the threat and constant trials and torture of the Spanish Inquisition. According to what I have read they too were sometimes called “marronos”, i.e in the eyes of the Spanish Christian ruling class, those who had been “domesticated” (Christianised) but had “returned to the their wild way”, (Moslem) i.e “gone feral”.

Forced conversions that had to appear genuine: “The Moorish Proselytes of Archbishop Ximenes”, Granada, 1500 by Edwin Long (1829–1891). (Image source: Internet)

Wikipedia on Marrones in Iberia confirms: The (Spanish) Inquisition was aimed mostly at Jews and Muslims who had overtly converted to Christianity but were thought to be practicing their faiths secretly. They were respectively called marranos and moriscos. However, in 1567 King Phillip II directed Moriscos to give up their Arabic names and traditional dress, and prohibited the use of Arabic. In reaction, there was a Morisco uprising in the Alpujarras from 1568 to 1571. In the years from 1609 to 1614, the government expelled Moriscos.

THE BUSH FROM THE NUT?

          And is “ci” or “cy” in “cimarron” then merely a prefix? The word “marrón” exists as a colour in Castilian and a number of Romance languages and came into English as the colour “maroon”. Its development is taken as originating from the colour of the large ripe chestnut, rather than given to it later. Of course there are a number of words for colours or tints which have a botanical origin, “orange” being an obvious one.

Castanea Silva, the edible or Sweet Chestnut.
(Image source: Internet)

Alright, then the nut and tree might have been associated with uncultivated or “wild” areas, similar to those to which the “cimarrons” would escape. But where did the “ci” suffix come from? Somewhere in the midst of what I have been researching I came across an explanation, derived from Latin, meaning “towering”, “high” etc. But can I find it now?

The online sources are telling me that the relevant pages are up for deletion and I can join the discussion. No thanks, I do not have anything like sufficient knowledge to enter a debate on that, nor the patience of an academic to research it thoroughly.

But “high” and “wild” could easily correspond, given that valleys and plains lend themselves more easily to cultivation, as a rule, than mountainy areas, which might remain wooded or with with thick undergrowth. And that might also give us the “bush” or “thicket” referred to in a number of references for “cimarron”, which in turn might describe the “cimarron strips”. In parts of Latin America (and for all I know, in all of them) such as Chile, a “cimarra” is also a thicket or densely-grown area. The article in the Language Journal (see reference) comments that the “arra” cannot be a Romance language word-ending but even if true it seems to me that the author (or authors quoted) might be unaware that among those from Iberia who colonised or settled in the Americas, Romance language speakers were not alone. There were also Basques who spoke Euskera/ Euskara and for evidence, they applied a number of toponomics and left family names from the Basque Country (Basque descendants make up to 10% of the population of some Latin American countries). And “-arra” would be a common enough suffix or word-ending in Euskera.8

Opening title for the weekly TV Western series Cimarron Strip, starring Stuart Whitman, Judy Gleeson, Percy Herbert and Randy Boone. Though popular, only a years’ worth of episodes were screened.
(Image source: Internet)

OKLAHOMA PANHANDLE AND THE CIMARRON STRIP

          In the 19th Century wars between the Mexican Republic, the USA and the Native Americans in the area, it was carved up with less and less left to the Native Americans.   Prior to the American Civil War, white Texas wanted to join the Union as a slave state  and due to a US federal law prohibiting slavery north of 36°30′ parallel north, white Texas surrendered a strip of land north of that latitude. The settlement (temporary of course), left a strip as “Neutral Territory” (one can only imagine the temptation for African slaves in Texas to make for there).  After the Civil War big cattle ranchers moved in, disregarding treaties and named the area the Cimarron Strip.

Map of Oklahoma territory and “Neutral Strip” before the American Civil War.
Image source: Wikipedia, Texas Panhandle.

But that was because the word Cimarron was already in the area, from the “Cimarron Cutoff” leading to a crossing of the  Cimarron river.  And yes, there was a popular 1967-1968 TV series called “Cimarron Strip”, starring Stuart Whitman.  But, though I used to watch it, that is only faintly related to the story of the word that set me out on this journey.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1Which days later had still not arrived – perhaps the site is no longer in operation, which would explain the silence after those two posters.

2Columbus voyage to America 1641 and Spain’s first colonial settlement 1565 (now Florida); Mayflower expedition to America with English settlers 1587 (now Virginia). However, Europeans had founded settlements much earlier, as with the Norse in the 10th Century and very likely Irish monks in the 6th Century. But it was the English and Spanish who conquered most, the Dutch, French and Portuguese less. The descendants of the English settlers after gaining independence from England completed the seizure and colonisation of most of the North American continent, while English colonists remaining loyal to the English Crown seized land to form what is now Canada.

4All the folk tradition, albeit conflicting on some points, declares that she had not been a slave which leaves one to wonder how she might have reached Jamaica from Africa without having been enslaved.

5 I borrowed the book from the public library and cannot remember its title at the moment.

6“Romance languages” is the name give to the group on Indo-European languages such as Castillian (Spanish), Catalan, Galician, Portuguese, Romanian, Italian and French. They are sometimes called “Latin-based” or “Latin Languages” but there is some dispute about the origins and developments of these languages.

7 Ironically, the door or gate “key” is also a symbol of return for Palestinian refugees driven from their homes by Zionist massacres, threats and fear during the founding of the State of Israel.

8 Among toponomics of North America’s southwest Durango (Colorado and Mexico), Navarro and Zavala Counties (Texas) are perhaps the best known; while Aguirre, Arana, Bolívar (Bolibar), Cortazar (Kortazar), Duhalde, Echevarria (Etxebarria), García, Guevara (Gebarra), Ibarra, Larrazábal, Mendiata, Muzika, Ortiz, Salazar, Ugarte, Urribe and Zabala are but some among a host of family names of Basque origin from the American south-west to Latin America. And of course the country of Bolivia, from Simon Bolívar, a Basque surname from a Basque toponomic.

SOURCES, REFERENCES:

http://www.wordwizard.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?t=1342

https://www.yourdictionary.com/cimarron

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cimarr%C3%B3n

Excerpt on-line from Language journal, Linguistic Society of America, Leo Spitzer, Vol. 14, No. 2 (Apr. – Jun., 1938), pp. 145-147: https://www.jstor.org/stable/408879?seq=1

Cimarron People: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cimarron_people_(Panama )

Seminole People: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seminole

Marrons, Marrónes, Maroons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamaican_Maroons

“Marronos” in Iberia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moors#Etymology

Marooned: https://www.etymonline.com/word/maroon

Marrón/ maroon as a colour, derived from the nut: https://www.etymonline.com/word/maroon

Basque diaspora to Latin America: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basque_diaspora

Family names of Basque origin in Latin America: https://www.academia.edu/7889462/Basque_legacy_in_the_New_World_on_the_surnames_of_Latin_American_presidents

Basque words ending in -arra: https://www.ezglot.com/words-ending-with.php?l=eus&w=arra

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_Panhandle#Cimarron_Territory

 

DESPITE HOSTILE PROPAGANDA, SINN FÉIN IS JUST ANOTHER IRISH POLITICAL PARTY

On By rebelbreezeIn Capitalism, Current Affairs Comment, History, Imperialism, Ireland, irish history, Irish Republicanism, Mass Media Criticism, Peace Process, Political Analysis2 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 5 minutes)

“Sinn Féin is not like other Irish political parties” goes the propaganda campaign against the party  by media commentators and rival mainstream politicians during the elections. What nonsense! It is exactly like the other main Irish political parties – and that’s the problem.

          Their opponents’ main objection seems to be that Provisional Sinn Féin was widely seen as the political wing of the armed resistance group Provisional IRA and, although the IRA have dissolved and decommissioned their weapons, the party still carries that mark in the eyes of its detractors (and, it must be said, fondly in the eyes of some of its supporters).

This propaganda campaign is acutely unhistorical. A few short lessons in Irish history might be of use here.

The Irish Labour Party was founded by, among others, the revolutionary socialist James Connolly and anarcho-sindicalist Jim Larkin. In 1913 both advocated arming union workers to resist armed police attacks. In 1916, the Irish Citizen Army they founded was part of the armed Rising and two of their leaders were among the 16 executed by British firing squads.

The party stayed neutral during the Civil War and was an opposition party to the Cumann na nGaedheal government. Since then, the Labour Party has been in Government only as a coalition partner – most times with the right-wing Fine Gael party. Except for it links with trade unions, the party has little claim to having “Labour” in its name and has turned away from everything if which its founders believed.

Fine Gael was formed in 1933 when two smaller groups joined Cumann na nGaedheal, which had been the governing party of the partitioned Free State from 1923 up until the merger. Michael Collins and his followers were the kind of people The founders of Cumann na nGaedheal were among the pro-Treaty and Free State supporters, i.e people who until then had been active in leading or supporting a campaign of armed resistance to the occupying British forces, including assassinations, ambushes and robberies. The Free State began the Civil War in 1922 by an artillery bombardment of Republican positions in Dublin and over the next few years carried out repression on the civilian population, torture, summary executions of prisoners of war as well as State executions – and assassinations.  The victors handed the reins over to Cumann na nGaedheal in 1923.

The parties that joined Cumann na nGaedheal in 1933 were 1) the National Centre Party, essentially a big farmers’ quasi-fascist party and 2) the Army Comrades Association (the fascist “Blueshirts”). Of the mainstream Irish political parties, Fine Gael has stayed truest to its founders and base.

Fianna Fáil emerged from a split from Sinn Féin in 1926; interestingly, much of what is being said against Sinn Féin by establishment political commentators now – and worse — was said then about Fianna Fáil: “murderers”, “revolutionaries” (and even “Communists”!). The party first entered power in 1932, its leader De Valera having been — little more than a decade previously — a leader of the Republicans during the Civil War, opponents of the Treaty and of the Irish Government of the time.  It freed the Republican prisoners locked up by the Cumann na nGaedheal government, also having a special police force (“Broy’s Harriers”) to persecute the Blueshirts, who aspired to taking power as had Fascists in Europe.

Cumann na nGaedheal (forerunner of Fine Gael) poster against Fianna Fáil during 1930s.
(Image sourced: Internet)

By 1939, the Fianna Fáil government had introduced the savage repressive legislation of the Emergency Powers Act to intern republicans without trial and after a successful habeas corpus challenge by Seán McBride (one of the founders of Amnesty International), the Government brought in the Offences Against the State Act, was re-arresting Republicans and interning them without trial again (around 2,000). Two Republicans died on a hunger strike protest in Mountjoy Jail. Under Fianna Fáil the State executed six Republicans and some more are alleged to have died as a result of their treatment in the concentration camp.

In 1957, a Fianna Fáil government once again brought internment without trial into force, the colonial administration of the Six Counties having done the same the year previously. The last prisoner was released by FF in 1959.

Left: Cumann na nGaedheal poster urging votes against FF because of the party’s history. Right: Fianna Fáil poster appealing to the working class and small farmers.
(Image sourced: Internet)

From having been seen as the main political party of Irish Republicanism, Fianna Fáil became in a short time the preferred party of the Irish capitalists (the “Gombeen” class) and has been in government more than any other party, more often indeed than the party that won the Civil War and set up the State.

JUST LIKE ANY OTHER IRISH PARTY

          There is no historical basis for saying that Sinn Féin is very different from the other Irish mainstream political parties. It has traversed a similar path to all those others, perhaps most similarly to Fianna Fáil – it’s just a more recent arrival on the mainstream scene. It is already very like other main Irish political parties and is getting to be exactly like them.

Leader of the Sinn Féin party, Mary Lou McDonald, at the launch of the party’s manifesto. With no intention of overthrowing capitalism it promised reforms for working people.
(Photo source: Internet)

That is not a compliment.

This is a party that, in recent decades, had a revolutionary Irish republican – or at least nationalist – position. It strongly opposed the partition of the country and the colonial occupation of one-sixth of the nation’s territory. With the latter came — naturally enough — opposition to the colonial police force, the Royal Ulster Constabulary but this was much more than an ideological opposition: the RUC was an armed force created specifically for the repression of Irish Republicans and acted consistently against the Catholic minority in the Six Counties, which SF sought to represent and among which it organised.

The colonial Statelet itself, with its gerrymandering of electoral boundaries, sectarian allocation of housing and employment and its Special Powers Act, was the sworn enemy of the Sinn Féin party. And when British troops were sent in 1969 to repress the civil rights uprising, of course Provisional Sinn Féin and Provisional IRA fought them too.

The Provisional IRA gave up armed struggle against the British in 1998 and, although it maintained its armed force for control of its community for some time afterwards, eventually dissolved its organisation. By then it had already decommissioned its weapons.

Martin McGuinness (right) of SF, formerly of the IRA, as Deputy Prime Minister of the British colony of the Six Counties. He partnered the Prime Minister Ian Paisley (left), a rabid religious sectarian, Christian fundamentalist and homophobe. They were dubbed “the Chuckle Brothers”.
(Photo sourced: Internet)

In 2007 the SF party became part of the British colony’s administration in Stormont, with Martin McGuinness, former chief of the IRA in Derry, partnering Ian Paisley, notorious Loyalist religious sectarian and social bigot.

That same year the party agreed to support the armed and sectarian police force and in the reorganisation of the RUC had the name changed to “the Police Service of Northern Ireland”. The essence of the force, naturally, remains the same.

All the austerity measures inflicted on the working class by the administration since the party entered joint government of the colony have been approved by Sinn Féin MLAs.

Martin McGuinness publicly shaking hand of British colonial Queen when SF officially opposed the visit. However SF did not demonstrate against her visit and Gerry Adams later approved of it.
(Photo sourced: Internet)

In 2011, despite an official SF policy of opposition to the visit of the Queen of England, Commander-in-Chief of the British Armed Forces, to the 26 Counties (the Irish state), leaders greeted her (one in person) and urged no protests be made against her visit.

In 2019, SF welcomed Prince Charles on a two-day visit to the colony and to the State; this man is not only son of the English Monarch but ceremonial commander-in-chief of the Parachute Regiment, authors of the massacres of Derry’s Bloody Sunday (14 dead) and Ballymurphy (11 dead) for which not a single soldier or commander has ever been tried. The SF Mayor of Derry, however, refused to meet him.

Gerry Adams shakes hands with Prince Phillip, titular head of the Parachute Regiment (the SF Mayor of Derry refused to meet him).
(Photo sourced: Internet)

This year, 2020, the Six-County part of the leadership of Sinn Féin joined others in publicly seeking recruits for the PSNI, while the 26-County leadership withdrew from its previous position of seeking abolition of the repressive emergency powers of the Offences Against the State Act.

In the 26 Counties, SF long ago indicated its willingness to join in a governing coalition with some one of the other mainstream political parties: i.e capitalist, neo-colonial political parties.

On so many occasions, it has shown itself to be like the other parties and prepared to ditch formerly-declared principles for what it considered a political advantage, proving itself a “safe pair of hands” to the rulers of the system.

Yes, Sinn Féin is indeed a party like any other Irish mainstream political party: capitalist, neo-colonial, undemocratic and supporting State repression. As to the latter, why not? It won’t be SF that the State will be repressing — it’ll be Irish Republicans. And if SF ever get where they want to, into majority control of government – they’ll have plenty of opponents themselves to drag before those non-jury courts.

End.

L-R: PSNI Chief Constable Simon Byrne, Anne Connolly, Chairperson of the NI Policing Board, Gerry Kelly MLA, Deputy First Minister Michelle O’Neill and Deputy Chief Constable elect, Mark Hamilton at recruitment launch for the colonial police force.

MORE INFORMATION LINKS

“Sinn Féin is not a conventional democratic party”: https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/sinn-f%C3%A9in-is-not-a-conventional-democratic-party-this-is-undeniable-1.4161818?

The most vicious of unhistorical attacks on SF, although from an alleged historian: https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/columnists/ruth-dudley-edwards/sinn-feins-rise-akin-to-that-of-nazis-in-1930s-and-is-a-threat-to-democracy-on-this-island-38940177.html

Internment without trial under Fianna Fáil 1957: https://www.anphoblacht.com/contents/19806

Sinn Féin shares in administration of the British colony for the first time: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/sinn-f%C3%A9in-endorses-psni-by-overwhelming-majority-1.1292110?

Sinn Féin accepts the colonial police force: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/sinn-f%C3%A9in-endorses-psni-by-overwhelming-majority-1.1292110?

Relatives of people murdered by Crown forces and allies object to SF support for the PSNI: https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/209838/posts/2580601201

Sinn Féin leader McGuinness welcoming Queen of England to the colony despite SF official policy against her visit: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/queen-publicly-shakes-hands-with-sinn-feins-martin-mcguinness-after-historic-meeting-7892750.html

SF leader Gerry Adams commenting favourably on Queen’s visit to the Irish State despite official SF policy: https://edition.cnn.com/2012/06/27/world/europe/uk-queen-northern-ireland/index.html

Sinn Féin welcoming Prince Phillip: https://www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2019/05/22/news/duchess-1625989/

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44474996

Gerry Adams meeting Prince Phillip: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-32786393

Sinn Féin recruiting for the colonial police force: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/sinn-f%C3%A9in-presence-at-psni-recruitment-event-seismic-and-historic-1.4161267?

Sinn Féin and the Special Criminal Court: https://www.thejournal.ie/special-criminal-court-explainer-4993281-Feb2020/

https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/sinn-fein-call-for-review-not-abolition-of-special-criminal-court-976322.html

February 2020 Election results: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/10/irish-general-election-everything-you-need-to-know

FLAGS OF THE RISING OVER THE CITY CENTRE AND IN MOORE STREET

On By rebelbreezeIn 1916 Rising, Cultural Comment, History, Ireland, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, Latin America, National Liberation, World War OneLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 7 minutes)

The Save Moore Street From Demolition group runs a campaign stall every Saturday on Moore Street; it was founded in September 2014 and is independent of any political party or organisation. In addition to the banner announcing its nature and purpose, the group displays four flags every week. Three of those are copies of flags that were flown during the 1916 Rising and all them in locations close by Moore Street, each also with a very strong migrant connection – all three also survived the conflagration resulting from British artillery bombardment.

The Irish Republic flag, made by Constance Markievicz (born in England), flew at the Princes Street front corner of the GPO, 1916. (Photo source: Internet)

1) The “Irish Republic” flag was made from drape material by Constance Markievicz (born in England) and was flown on top of the GPO at the Princes Street corner. She was a member of the Irish Citizen Army (see (3)) and third-in-command at the Stephens Green/ College of Surgeons garrison during the Rising.

Volunteer Markievicz was sentenced to death after the Surrender but her sentence was commuted to imprisonment. In the UK General Election of 1918, Markievicz was elected as a part of the Sinn Féin coalition on an abstentionist policy and became the first woman elected to Westminster, though she did not take her seat. In the later banned First Dáil of 1919, Markievicz was elected the first Minister of Labour in world history and one of very few female cabinet ministers of her time.

2) The Tricolour was also hoisted on the GPO but at the Henry Street corner by Eamon Bulfin, born and raised in Argentina. In addition, the Tricolour, based on the pattern of the French Republican Tricolour but signifying unity for Irish freedom between descendants of the native Irish on the one hand with descendants of English and Scottish colonists on the other, had been presented to the Young Irelanders by French revolutionary women in Paris, in 1848.

The Irish tricolour flag, granted to Irish revolutionaries by women in revolutionary Paris, 1848. The Irish Republic flag at the Princes Street front corner of the GPO, 1916. It was raised by Eamon Bulfin from Argentina and flew on the front Henry Street corner of the GPO. (Photo source: Internet)

Volunteer Bulfin was part of the Moore Street/ GPO Garrison surrender, was taken prisoner and later deported by the British back to Argentina. While there, Bulfin became the Latin American publicity correspondent for the Irish Republican movement, later returning to Ireland to participate in the War of Independence (1919-1921).

3) James Connolly, born and raised in Edinburgh but Commandant of the 1916 Rising, sent ICA men to hoist the Starry Plough, flag of the Irish Citizen Army, on top of Clery’s building, across from the GPO. The design is based on the star constellation of Ursa Mayor, the Great Bear, which in Ireland is known as “The Plough” and therefore an instrument or tool of labour. The original design in gold on a green background, with the seven stars in silver, includes the cutting tool, the share, in the shape of a sword; this is apparently an anti-war message, evoking the King James Bible passage in Isaiah II: “They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” The 1916 Rising was the first rising against the imperialist First World War, preceding the next (in Russia) by nearly a year.

Design of the Starry Plough flag of the Irish Citizen Army, erected on top of Clery’s during the 1916 Rising on the orders of James Connolly, born and raised in Edinburgh and Commander-in-Chief of the Rising.
The Irish Republic flag at the Princes Street front corner of the GPO, 1916.
(Photo source: Internet)

The Irish Citizen Army included women in its membership and they fought alongside male members during the Rising, some of them as officers; Volunteer Winifred Carney entered the GPO with a Webley pistol in one hand and an Olivetti typewriter in the other and was in Moore Street at the surrender. A number of male ICA members fought in Moore Street and at least one was killed there.

During the Surrender, James Connolly, with a shattered ankle and gangrene, was carried from Moore Street to Dublin Castle where he received medical treatment, was tried by court martial and sentenced to death. Connolly was one of the last of the 14 executed in Dublin, shot in Kilmainham Jail while strapped to a chair on 12th May 1916.

4) The Cumann na mBan flag with its lovely colours and design was not seen during the Rising, although many of that organisation participated in the Rising, two of them in Moore Street to the end: Volunteers Elizabeth O’Farrell and Julia Grennan. Cumann na mBan was the first revolutionary female organisation in world history to have its own uniform, under its own officers, while participating in an uprising.

As always you can support the campaign by sharing their Facebook posts from time to time.

The Cumann na mBan flag was not flown during the 1916 Rising, though many of the organisation participated in it.
(Photo source: Internet)
People signing petition and talking to some of the activists at the SMSFD stall in January this year.  The Cumann na mBan flag is draped over the table.
(Photo source: Bart Hoppenbrouwers, SMSFD)

USEFUL LINKS:

https://www.facebook.com/save.moore.st.from.demolition/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/757869557584223/

https://www.facebook.com/SaveMooreStreet2016/

IRISH REPUBLICAN, SOCIALIST, ANTI-RACIST, TRADE UNION FOUNDER: MICHAEL J. QUILL

On By rebelbreezeIn Anti-Fascism, Anti-War, British imperialism, Capitalism, Guerrilla Action, History, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Civil War, Irish Diaspora, irish history, Irish Republicanism, Irish War of Independence 1919-'21, National Liberation, Trade unions, USA, Workers' StrugglesLeave a comment

“A man the ages will remember.” -Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

By Kevin Rooney (reprinted by kind permission of author).

Michael J. Quill and Martin Luther King at a trade union conference, USA, 1961, to which Quill had invited ML King.
(Photo source: Internet)

Michael Joseph Quill was born in Gortloughera, near Kilgarvan Co. Kerry on 18 September, 1905. His parents were John Daniel Quill and Margaret (née Lynch). Fighting injustice seemed to be in his blood. He remembered: “My father knew where every fight against an eviction had taken place in all the parishes around”. His Irish-speaking family’s home served as headquarters for the No. 2 Kerry Brigade Of The Irish Republican Army during the War Of Independence Of 1919-1921. His uncle’s house was so well known for rebel activity, it is said that the Black and Tans in the area referred to the house as “Liberty Hall”; a reference to James Connolly’s ITGWU Union Headquarters in Dublin which was to prove prophetic.

IRISH REPUBLICAN ACTIVITY

          While still a boy of 14, Michael was a dispatch rider for the IRA during the War of Independence. He served in 3rd Battalion of the No. 2 Kerry Brigade. Once on a scouting mission, he stumbled on a patrol of Black and tans asleep in a ditch. He stole all their ammunition without rousing them. He eventually graduated to carrying a rifle and organized a group of about thirty boys in the village into an IRA scout group, and drilled several times a week.

When the Civil War began in 1921, Quill joined the Republican side which opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty that ended the War Of Independence. He took part in the re-capture of the town of Kenmare from The Free State Army in August of 1922, one of few Republican victories. He was said to have been involved in robbing a bank for the IRA during the war. He was much affected by the brutality and violence dished out by the Government Forces (Free Staters) to his Republican comrades in Kerry who were captured.

Michael J. Quill Centre, Kilgarvan, Co. Kerry, Ireland
(Photo source: Internet)

The worst atrocity was the Ballyseedy massacre where eight Republican prisoners were killed by being tied to a landmine, which was then detonated. In March of 1923, at total of 23 Republican prisoners in Kerry were killed in similar manner, or summarily executed by shooting on different occasions. Another five were officially executed by firing squad. The most of any county.

His mother died in September 1923. The local priest refused to request a temporary amnesty so that Michael and his brother John could attend her funeral without risking arrest by National troops. It left a lasting bitterness in him toward the Catholic Church.

During the Wars, he met many prominent Republican leaders of the time who passed through his area; including Eamon de Valera, Liam Lynch, Tom Barry, Liam Deasy, Dan Breen, Erskine Childers among them. While still young, he conversed with these great minds.

EMIGRATION TO THE USA

          After the war, Quill found opportunities limited for him as he had supported the losing side. He was also blacklisted after a sit-in strike with his brother John at a saw mill in Kenmare. He emigrated to the US, arriving on 16 March, 1926 in New York, where he stayed with an aunt on 104th Street in East Harlem (New York).

He hustled to make a living working a series of menial jobs which included what was called “bootlegging”: smuggling alcohol during Prohibition, during which time the sale of alcohol was illegal in the US. He worked passing coal and peddling roach powder and religious articles in Pennsylvania coal country. While there he wrote his father his observation that “the cows and pigs in Kerry were better housed and fed than were the miners’ children in America.”

Quill returned to New York and met a young Kerry woman named Maria Theresa O’Neill, known as Mollie who came from Cahersiveen. With the onset of the Great Depression she became unemployed and decided to return to Ireland. She and Quill maintained a patient long-distance courtship, keeping in touch with weekly letters.

Quill found employment with the IRT (Interborough Rapid Transit) railroad in 1929. He worked several jobs before becoming a ticket agent. The IRT, the largest transit company in New York attracted employment from many Irishmen; particularly Republican veterans of the Irish Civil War like Quill. There was a joke that IRT stood for “Irish Republican Transit”. Their advantage over other immigrant groups was that they already spoke English. Coming from mostly farm land, they were also able for the twelve to fourteen-hour days demanded of them seven days a week. About half of the employees were Irish.

Moving from station to station, he got to know many of the employees. Along with deplorable working conditions, Quill also observed discrimination based on racism and bigotry, which he hated. He said: “During those twelve hour nights we’d chat about the motormen, conductors, guards etc. whose conditions were even worse. They had to work a ‘spread’ of 16 hours each day in order to get 10 hours pay. Negro workers could get jobs only as porters. They were subjected to treatment that makes Little Rock (Arkansas) and Birmingham (Alabama) seem liberal and respectable by comparison. I also saw Catholic ticket agents fired by Catholic bosses for going to Mass early in the morning while the porter ‘covered’ the booth for half an hour. Protestant bosses fired Protestant workers for similar crimes, going to Church. The Jewish workers had no trouble with the subway bosses. Jews were denied employment in the transit lines”.

INFLUENCED BY CONNOLLY’S WRITINGS

          While working a 12-hour overnight shift, Quill passed the time with reading to supplement his education, which had ended with National school. The main influence on his political thinking was James Connolly. Connolly had also organised unions in New York, where he lived for a few years before returning to Dublin where he was executed in 1916 for his part in the Easter Rising.

Michael J. Quill speaking at a conference with the image of James Connolly, whose writings he admired, on the wall behind him, uncomfortably perhaps next to the flag of the USA.
(Photo source: Internet)

Quill’s second wife Shirley later wrote: “Connolly’s two basic theories were to guide Mike Quill’s thinking for the next three decades: that economic power precedes and conditions political power, and that the only satisfactory expression of the workers’ demands is to be found politically in a separate and independent labour party, and economically in the industrial union.” He then set about organizing a union. He stood on his soap box during lunch hour in power-houses and shops all over the city.

Quill recalled: “We were no experts in the field of labor organization, but we had something in common with our fellow workers; we were all poor, we were all overworked, we were all victims of the 84 hour week. In fact, we were all so low down on the economic and social ladder that we had nowhere to go but up.”

Quill and some of his fellow Irish immigrants became involved in Irish Worker’s Clubs that were established by James Gralton, and were affiliated with the American Communist Party. Gralton’s political views got him deported from Ireland in 1933 as an “undesirable alien”; even though he was born in Co. Leitrim because of pressure from the Catholic Church. This made him the only Irishman ever to be deported by the Irish government.

Quill didn’t find much difference in the attitude of Irish-American Organisations that were Catholic church-based. Quill recalled: “We went to the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, but they would have nothing to do with the idea of organizing Irishmen into a legitimate union. We went to the Ancient Order of Hibernians, and they threw us out of their meeting hall. They wanted no part of Irish rebels or Irish rabble. That was the reception we got from those conservative descendants of Ireland’s revolutionists of a hundred years ago.”

Making no bones or apologies, he said “I worked with the Communists. In 1933 I would have made a pact with the Devil himself if he could have given us the money, the mimeograph machines and the manpower to launch the Transport Workers Union. The Communist Party needed me, and I needed them. I knew what the transit workers needed. The men craved dignity, longed to be treated like human beings. The time had come to get off our knees and fight back.”

FOUNDING A TRADE UNION

          On 12 April 1934, Quill, along with six other Irishmen including Thomas H. O’Shea and Austin Hogan from Co. Cork, and Gerald O’Reilly from Co. Meath formed the Transport Workers Union of America (TWU). All seven including Quill were members of Clan na Gael, an Irish Republican organisation that succeeded the Fenian Brotherhood as the American branch of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB). They were said to have initially applied the rules and practices of secrecy from that tradition. Quill was to remain a silent financial supporter of the Republican cause in Ireland his whole life.

Like Quill, they were all influenced by Connolly’s ideas and writings; in particular, Connolly’s 1910 pamphlet “The Axe To The Root” where he wrote specifically about a recent 1910 transit workers strike in New York that had failed, known as the New York Express Strike.

Connolly wrote: “It was not the scabs (strikebreakers, replacements) however, who turned the scale against the strikers in favour of the masters. That service to capital was performed by good union men with union cards in their pockets. These men were the engineers in their power-houses which supplied the electric power to run their cars, and without whom all the scabs combined could not have run a single trip.”

The very name of the union was a tip of the hat to James Larkin and James Connolly’s Irish Transport & General Workers Union (ITGWU). In fact the word “Transit” is more normally used than “Transport” regarding that industry in the US. Thomas H. O’Shea was the Union’s first president, followed by Quill, who would remain president for the remainder of his life.

The Union began with a membership of 400, then eventually represented all 14,000 IRT workers. An African-American porter named Clarence King was elected to the first TWU executive board. In 1937 there was a sit-down strike on the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit (BMT); the second-largest Transit company in New York. Two BMT employees at the Kent Avenue Brooklyn station were fired for union activity. The 500 members of TWU in the company secured their re-instatement. It eventually represented all BMT employees as well.

Quill began to involve himself in city politics and was elected to the New York City Council in 1937 representing the American Labor Party. His whole career people loved or hated him, with no middle ground. He returned to Ireland to marry Mollie on 26 December 1937. They would return to New York to live, where she bore a son; John Daniel Quill, named after Michael’s father. Theirs proved to be an unhappy marriage of convenience. Quill filled this void first with drink, later with extramarital romance.

While in Ireland, he met with Michael O’Riordan from Co. Cork, who was headed to Spain to fight for the Spanish Republic in that country’s Civil War; which side Quill supported. Michael Lehane, the child of a neighbor from Kilgarvan, also went to Spain to fight fascism.

AGAINST ANTI-SEMITISM

          In 1939, he organized a rally against anti-semitism in a heavily Irish neighborhood in The South Bronx attended by four thousand. This was in response to Father Charles Coughlin’s anti-semitic campaign preaching to New York’s Irish. Fr. Coughlin was born in Canada of Irish parents, but moved to the US. He began radio broadcasting in 1926 in response to a Ku Klux Klan anti-catholic attack on his church in Michigan, but moved into political commentary and also moved far to the political right. Fr. Coughlin’s sympathies to the fascism of Hitler and Mussolini got him removed from the air later in 1939.

Having little use for the church, this is how Quill summed up his personal philosophy: “I believe in the Corporal Works Of Mercy, the Ten Commandments, the American Declaration Of Independence and James Connolly’s outline of a socialist society. Most of my life I’ve been called a lunatic because I believe that I am my brother’s keeper. I organise poor and exploited workers, I fight for the civil rights of minorities, and I believe in peace. It appears to have become old-fashioned to make social commitments; to want a world free of war, poverty and disease. This is my religion.”

TESTIFYING AT MC CARTHY HEARINGS

          In April of 1940, former TWU President and founder Thomas O’Shea; who had been earlier been ousted from the union testified against his former fellow union leaders including Quill. He alleged that the union was in complete control of the communist party and their goal was to promote revolution through strikes. Quill testified in the US House Of Representatives before the House Committee on Un-American Activities and denied these allegations, calling O’Shea a “stool pigeon.” He told Chairman Martin Dies: “You are afraid to hear the truth about our union. You can’t take it, but the American labour movement will live.”

Also in 1940, the city purchased the BMT and IRT. This put Quill in the path of every New York mayor from then on, beginning with Italian-American Republican Fiorello LaGuardia. Years ahead of his time, in 1944, Quill introduced a bill in the City Council to establish free childcare centers for working mothers. Also in 1944, he ended a TWU wildcat (unauthorised) strike in Philadelphia initiated by a racist reaction to a contract that secured promotions to conductor for eight black porters.

After World War II and the Holocaust, Quill said “We licked the race haters in Europe, but the millions of Jewish dead cannot be restored to life”. He was re-elected to the City Council also in 1945. His election campaign manager was Shirley Ukin, a fiery former communist born in Brooklyn Of Russian-Jewish parents with whom he began a longtime affair. She had worked with him in TWU from the beginning. In the late 40’s the union expanded to include airline workers, utility workers and railroad workers.

Also after the war, under pressure from the government on communists in the labor movement but mostly his own dissatisfaction and mistrust caused him to purge the communists out of the Union. In 1948 he secured a large increase for subway workers from Democratic Mayor William O’Dwyer, a native of Bohola, Co. Mayo.

In the 50’s he supported the candidacy of Democrat Robert F. Wagner for mayor. Wagner’s German-born father, a US Senator for New York (Democrat 1927-1949) had authored the Wagner Act Of 1935 that created the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which protected workers’ rights to organise and strike.

Quill’s past relationship with the communist party continued to be criticised. He was nicknamed “Red Mike”. Wagner was elected to three terms and his administration was able to come to collective bargaining agreements with the TWU.

IN THE US TRADE UNION MOVEMENT AGAINST RACISM

          Mollie died August 16, 1959. In 1961 he married Shirley; his longtime girlfriend who had previously been married and divorced twice. She would later carry on his union work and write his biography. Also in 1961, Quill received a letter from twenty-five TWU members in Tennessee protesting the Union’s support for Civil Rights and de-segregation. He responded by inviting a prominent black Civil Rights leader to address the Union Convention, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whom he admired.

He introduced Dr. King as “The man who is entrusted with the banner of American liberty that was taken from Lincoln when he was shot 95 years ago.” This was indeed high praise as the only two pictures in Quill’s office were of President Abraham Lincoln and James Connolly. The two became friends. As far back as 1938, Quill made a statement much like Dr. King’s famous speeches: “If we, black and white, Catholic and non-Catholic, Jew and gentile, are good enough to slave and sweat together, then we are good enough to unite and fight together”.

In November 1965, John Lindsay was elected Mayor. The aristocratic Protestant Republican whose name he intentionally mispronounced as “Linsley” immediately rubbed Quill the wrong way. Quill quipped: “we explored his mind (Lindsay) yesterday and found nothing there.” This was amid the union negotiating a raise for its members due to inflation caused by the War in Vietnam, of which Quill was typically an early critic.

STRIKE!

          The TWU had always threatened a strike that could cripple the city of New York, the largest in the US; a city of 8 million where many people’s commutes involve travel across rivers. Manhattan, the center of commerce is an island. Quill knew and stated that this was from where came the union’s power. Quill had seen many Mayors come and go and such a situation had always been averted.

Before he took office, Lindsay felt empowered and entitled to “call their bluff”. He felt such a strike was illegal as it would endanger public safety as transportation is a public utility. He also seemed to feel the union was incapable of pulling it off as history had shown. Irish-American newspaper journalist Jimmy Breslin observed: “[Lindsay] was talking down to old Mike Quill, and when Mike Quill looked up at John Lindsay he saw the Church of England. Within an hour, we had one hell of a transit strike.”

Lindsay was sworn in on 1 January 1966. The same day, 33,000 members of the TWU announced a strike and 2,000 members of the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) also joined them. This demonstrated James Connolly’s lesson from “Axe To The Root” put into action.

(Photo source: Internet)

A legal injunction was issued to stop the strike along with an order for the arrest of Quill and eight others: Matthew Guinan, Frank Sheehan, Daniel Gilmartin, Ellis Van Riper, and Mark Kavanagh of the TWU and John Rowland, William Mangus, and Frank Kleess of the ATU) effective at 1am January 4th.

Quill tore up the injunction and famously said in his thick Kerry accent: “The judge can drop dead in his black robes. I don’t care if I rot in jail. I will not call off the strike.” Only two hours after being imprisoned; Quill who was sixty years old and had health issues with his heart, suffered a heart attack and was sent to Bellevue Hospital. He had ignored all medical advice from his doctors and the strain of the battle was taking its toll. Ironically, he had to wait two hours for an ambulance because the strike had indeed brought the city to a grinding halt.

Right-wing newspaper Daily News headline and photo showing Mike Quill tearing up a court order.
(Photo source: Internet)

 

15,000 workers picketed City Hall on 10 January. The strike ended on 13 January with a huge victory. The TWU had secured the workers a package worth $60 million. Hourly wages rose from $3.18 to $4.14 per hour. Quill seemed to be on the mend and was released from the hospital on 25 January. Quill died in his sleep of congestive heart failure on 28 January. Like ancient Irish High King Brian Boru, he had won his greatest victory at the cost of his own life. His coffin was draped in the Irish

Pickets during the January 1961 strike of the TWU.
(Photo source: Internet)

tricolour.

Scene from TWU strike Jan 1966.
Pickets during the January 1961 strike of the TWU.
(Photo source: Internet)
Pickets during the January 1966 strike of the TWU.
(Photo source: Internet)

Upon his death, the TWU Express newspaper reported: “Mike Quill did not hesitate or equivocate. He died as he lived fighting the good fight for the TWU and its members.” His friend Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King said of him: “Mike Quill was a fighter for decent things all his life: Irish independence, labor organization, and racial equality. He spent his life ripping the chains of bondage off his fellow man. When the totality of a man’s life is consumed with enriching the lives of others, this is a man the ages will remember. This is a man who has passed on but who has not died.”

Aerial view of Michael J Quill cultural & sports centre in East Durham, NY, USA.
(Photo source: Internet)

In 1987, The Michael J. Quill Cultural & Sports Centre was opened in the predominantly Irish-American hamlet of East Durham, NY featuring an authentic Irish cottage and the largest scale map of Ireland in the world. There is also a Michael J. Quill centre in Kilgarvan, Co. Kerry. In 1999, the MTA named the West Side bus garage the Michael J. Quill Depot. The TWU today has a diverse membership of over 100,000.

Kevin Rooney©️

*Originally posted by K. Rooney September 23, 2018

POSTSCRIPT

by Diarmuid Breatnach

In 1964 the TWU offered the Irish Government to carefully remove Nelson’s Column in O’Connell Street.  Quill wrote that the scale of the statue and its location would give the impression to visitors that the Irish looked up to Nelson and that it meant to them what the Statue of Liberty meant to US citizens.  The TWU volunteered to pay for its removal and its replacement with a more appropriate one among which they included Pearse, Connolly or Larkin.

A British soldier stands guard over the shell of the GPO after the 1916 Rising behind him. Nelson’s Pillar is to the right of the photo. In 1966 a Republican explosion left only the stump, later removed by the State.
(Photo source: Dublin Libraries)

The Irish Government passed the letter to Dublin Corporation (now DCC) who claimed that since the column was managed by a Trust, the Corporation had no power to remove it.

Two years later, the 50th anniversary year of the Easter Rising, a ‘dissident’ group of the IRA, Saor Éire, took matters into their own hands and demolished the structure, commonly known as Nelson’t Pillar.

End.

Plaque on the Manhattan depot named in honour of Michael J. Quill.
Pickets during the January 1961 strike of the TWU.
(Photo source: Internet)

 

 

FURTHER READING

 

 

 

 

Red Mike Quill and Nelson’s Pillar.

DEAR MR. FLANAGAN

On By rebelbreezeIn British imperialism, Current Affairs Comment, Fan Letters, History, Ireland, irish history, Irish Republicanism, Irish War of Independence 1919-'21, National Liberation, Police Violence, Satire, Song, Song in Struggle3 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

Mr. Charlie Flanagan (Photo sourced: Internet)

Dear Mr. Flanagan,

I write to say how much I admired your attempt to have the Royal Irish Constabulary and the Dublin Metropolitan Police honoured in Ireland. It was never going to be easy to propose such a ceremony in a country that was occupied by les Anglais for nearly eight centuries and a part of which it is still occupying. But you did not flinch! It took real courage and I empathise with you on its failure (temporary, I hope).

Royal Irish Constabulary assisting landlord in relocation of a tenant in Co. Clare.
(Photo sourcede: Internet)

          Perhaps it was a little too soon. But as you know, I’m sure, once the unthinkable has been proposed, it is no longer unthinkable; then some day ….

It must be particularly galling for you to see the response of the “swinish multitude”, as your own orator Edmund Burke would have had it, result in the pushing into No.1 slot in the ITunes charts of that odious song of Dominic Behan’s, performed by that rabble-rousing folk group, the Wolfe Tones. To see that disgusting song enter the current Irish charts at No.33 –- and from there reach the No.1 played in the British and Irish charts! But go straight to No.1 in Scotland!  Not to mention doing well in the USA and in Canada …..

How hurtful also to see the proliferation of mocking cartoons, videos and memes (all over social media, it seems). And coming up to the anniversary of the introduction of that great band of public servants, too: the RIC Special Reserve and the Auxiliaries.

But as I said earlier, it took courage to attempt what you did – something lacking in your silent partners in government, Fianna Fáil, who remained silent until they could see how the public wind would blow. Someone could get hurt in the rush to disassociate! It is the fate of courageous individuals such as yourself, if I may borrow a phrase from a popular science fiction series, “to boldly go where no-one has gone before.” Even if it looks like no-one follows.

Crowd gathering around gallant RIC Inspector felled by a hurley stick in Dublin 1917.
(Photo sourcede: Internet)

Would that we had men of your calibre here in France! The legitimacy of the Vichy Government (1940-1945) was denied by ‘Free France‘ during WWII and by all subsequent French governments after that. They maintained that the Vichy government was an illegal one run by traitors – hard to believe, I know but look it up on Wikipedia! A group of us have been trying to get German soldiers and the Vichy police honoured for some time now but can we find even one politician of any stature who would risk his reputation in the attempt? No, we seem to have no Monsieur Flanagans here in France, c’est dommage!

We have a network of people with similar interests in a number of other countries, including Russia, Poland, Vietnam and Algeria – you may smile when you see the network’s acronym: RIC! Of course the letters stand for other words in our case: Rehabilitation of Invader Collaborators. Whether it was the Russians or Poles who aided the German invaders, or the Algerians who aided our French occupation or the Vietnamese who aided the US invaders, they all have something in common: they did a difficult job, hated by most of their compatriots.

Bandying around words like “concentration camps”, “torture”, “massacres”, “rape” and “executions” does not conceal the truth that ultimately these men (and women, it must be said) were obeying orders. Some of those words I hear have been bandied around about the RIC and DMP too, including those of “spies”, “informers”, “shoneens” and “Castle Catholics”. One must admit that the Irish have a capacity for les bon mots, however one might disdain what they mean – while not mincing words they certainly know how to weave them, if you’ll pardon the mixed metaphors.

Perhaps some day when you can be spared from your Ministerial duties (or when you have retired, far away be the day!), you could come and address the annual general meeting of our RIC – it would be a great honour for us.

DMP teaching people respect for the law, Dublin 31 August 1913. Note some agitators are continuing to cause trouble even lying down.
(Photo sourced: Internet)

When, some day in the future, the Irish public recognises how deserving the RIC and DMP are of State honouring, the logical consequence will be of course to honour the Black and Tans and the Auxilliaries, who were sent specifically by Churchill to work in support of – and closely with – those two bodies of fine men. And once that has been accepted it should not be difficult to have the successors of the RIC in Northern Ireland honoured too: the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the B-Specials. Of course, there will be some die-hards who will mutter “sectarianism”, “brutality” and “Loyalist murder gang collusion” but one can never quite get rid of those bitter people, can one? God knows, the English tried!

Speaking of bitter words, I hear some Irish people are saying that as Minister for Justice, rather than honouring “traitors” and “murderers” (sic) you should be pursuing the English to disclose their secret papers regarding the murder of 33 people in the Dublin and Monaghan Bombing by alleged British agents in 1974. How unkind! Some people just can’t forget and move on, can they? Do they not realise that those bombers, whoever they were, were just obeying orders too?

And even bitterer! Some have been heard to say that if Michael Collins were alive he’d have had you shot, given that he had enough RIC, ‘Tans and Auxiliaries shot himself. One can understand some bitterness but that is really nasty, given that Collins can be said to be one of the founders of your own party. And who can truthfully say what Collins would or would not have done? He certainly surprised a lot of Republicans in 1922 when he borrowed British cannon to open fire on Republican positions in Dublin!

When the day comes in the future for Irish rehabilitation for those noble collaborators of foreign occupation, the Royal Ulster Constabulary and Dublin Metropolitan Police, then hopefully the Blueshirts, that fine body of men, co-founders of your own party Fine Gael, can be rehabilitated too. And who knows, some day even reconstituted and formally brought into government? It is not beyond the bounds of possibility, even though the sympathisers of those kinds of politics are very few at the moment ….

And then there’s the man they called “Lord Haw Haw”, William Joyce, of similar ideology — was he not an Irishman also? Did he not carry out his orders too? Of course, that might not go down too well with les Anglais due to his broadcasts in English from Nazi Germany — even though he was an informer against the IRA for the British during the War of Independence. Or perhaps precisely because of it: the English can never quite forgive one they consider theirs, once he turns against them, can they? One must be careful sometimes – after all, les Anglais still have quite some influence in the world, especially in your own country, n’est ce pas?

En tous cas, courage, mon brave!

In admiration, your servant

Pierre Laval De Quisline.

CORK REBELS FOR PEACE COUNTER FAR-RIGHT RALLY

On By rebelbreezeIn Anti-Fascism, Civil Rights, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Fascism, History, Human Rights, Ireland, irish history, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, RacismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 3 minutes)

“THERE ARE MORE OF US THAN THERE ARE OF THE BULLIES”

Learning of the intention of a far-Right coalition to hold a rally at Cork Town Hall on 4th December, a coalition of anti-racists and anti-fascists containing a range of Left and Irish Republican organisations, community and anti-deportation groups organised a counter-rally which dwarfed the numbers of the racists and fascists, who object to migrants, asylum seekers and LBGT people. Two TDs and a number of councillors also attended.

One of the organisers, Tracy Ryan, said that she had her two sons with her at the rally. “I’ve brought up my children to believe that everyone is equal and everyone deserves the same opportunities and chances in life,” she said.

View of counter rally half hour before due to start
(Photo: Students Against Racism)
Placard displayed at counter-rally
(Photo: Shamim Melekian)
Anti-racist football club supporters at the counter-rally.
(Photo: Shamim Melekian)

FREE SPEECH?

The specific rallying issue for the far-Right on this occasion, as it was in Dublin on 14th December last year (see https://rebelbreeze.wordpress.com/2019/12/15/dublin-counter-rally-outnumbers-racists-and-fascists/), was the legislation proposed by the Fine Gael Government against “hate speech”. The mixture of social conservatives, racists and fascists that make up the far-Right in Ireland have been complaining for some time that they are being denied freedom of speech, in particular since the most prominent member of their ranks, ex-journalist Gemma O’Doherty, had her two Youtube channels shut down by Google in 2019 after, according to Google, she broadcast racist statements and continued to do so after one of the channels was suspended for a week.

There is a wide variety of views on the proposed legislation outside of the far-Right, some socialists and Republicans remarking that “hate speech” is too wide a label and that they have seen such legislation used against themselves when they denounce prominent politicians or businessmen, the police or Loyalists. What unites all these groups demonstrating against the far-Right is not a defence of the Government’s proposed legislation but a determined opposition to allowing the far-Right to gain a foothold in Ireland, from which it may expand to introduce a fascist regime, reversing gains in social legislation, banning oppositional groups, terrorising minorities and restricting further the rights of unionised workers.

One of the groups on the counter-rally
(Photo: Shamim Melekian)
One of the many pointed placards on the counter-rally held by a supporter.
(Photo: Shamim Melekian)

Opponents of the far-Right point out that they begin by seeking freedom of speech to attack minority groups and their political opponents but once they have established a base, move to physically removing their opposition and banning freedom of speech of anyone who disagrees with them.

“There are more of us than there are of the bullies”, said one of the organising group, speaking to news media the day before the counter-rally. Poet and community worker Kathy D’Arcy added: “We are one people, one human race, one unified city whose people are known throughout the world for kindness, friendliness, good humour and inclusiveness.”

Declan Power of Waterford, organiser of a much smaller rally of the far-Right over the same weekend, rejected the accusation that they were racists or had any other agenda than freedom of speech. However at the event Diarmuid Ó Cadhla, of a group called The People’s Convention, revealed that he wanted to limit migration and was against the Government’s policies which, he alleged, are for “globalisation and open borders”. Presumably this was a reference to one of the conspiracy theories of the far-Right, viz. that the EU allegedly has a policy of opening all borders to mass immigration and replacing the Irish with foreigners. Laughable as this may seem to some and flying against all the evidence as it does, it is believed by some on the far-Right and used to whip up fears and hatred of migrants.

View of far-Right rally over section of counter-rally.
(Photo: Shamim Melekian
Closeup of some of the far-Right group in Cork (Photo: Shamim Melekian)

Woman on counter-rally holds up a placard addressing the far-Right
(Photo: Shamim Melekian)

HISTORY OF ANTI-RACIST MARCHES IN CORK

          The rally on 4th January this year was far from being the first anti-racist demonstration in Cork: an anti-racist march took place in March last year and or five years before that, there had been an anti-racist march in Cork every year.

Speaking in advance of the anti-racist march last year, Joe Moore of Cork Says No to Racism pointed out that while racism still exists in Cork, it is “a small number of people who have racist views towards minority religions, asylum seekers Travellers and the Roma community.”

Mr. Moore also pointed out some gaps in State provision, stating that the school books for children contain no mention of the Traveller community in Ireland, which itself has housing and education issues.

There is also a history of fascism in 1930s Cork when the Blueshirt fascist movement was opposed by anti-fascists and socialists inside and outside the IRA. Ironically, while opposition to the Fine Gael Government’s proposed legislation is the purported rallying point for the far-Right, the Blueshirts were one of the three groups that joined to form the Fine Gael party (which is why many opponents of the party call them “Blueshirts” to this day).

Fascist salutes at a Blueshirt rally in 1934 in Charleville, Cork.
(Photo source: History Ireland).

End.

SOURCES & REFERENCES:

Quotation from Kathy D’Arcy: https://www.echolive.ie/corknews/Rally-for-peace-to-take-place-outside-City-Hall-tomorrow-775f0af9-1083-47b3-9920-48a20ec234ac-ds

Irish Times report: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/cork-rejects-politics-of-hate-from-far-right-groups-rally-hears-1.4131626?

Cork Echo report: https://www.echolive.ie/corklives/New-anti-racism-group-takes-to-streets-of-Cork-2cf76e9c-e240-4653-b2a5-084c8d31d57d-ds?fbclid=IwAR1yfgu5qcL-71qJQMk1jzt-NhtbBmJ4VW9hYm1DMQwGKdD9nunl3Ju-O40

Previous anti-racist marches in Cork: https://www.corkindependent.com/news/topics/articles/2019/03/20/4171273-antiracism-rally-planned/

Blueshirt fascist movement with reference to Cork:

https://www.historyireland.com/20th-century-contemporary-history/eoin-oduffys-blueshirts-and-the-abyssinian-crisis/

https://www.theirishstory.com/2012/05/18/the-blueshirts-fascism-in-ireland/#.XhTtZSOLRsM

Counter-rally supporter mocks conspiracy theory that Soros Foundation is funding all the anti-racist and anti-fascist activists.
(Photo: Shamim Melekian)
(Photo: Shamim Melekian)
Another pointed placard message on the counter-rally.
(Photo: Shamim Melekian)
Woman on counter-rally displaying presumably dire conditions on halting sites for Travellers.
(Photo: Shamim Melekian)

 

Women of varied ages and backgrounds applauding speaker at counter rally.
(Photo: Shamim Melekian)
Counter rally supporter sends pointed message on placard
(Photo: Shamim Melekian)
Young supporter of counter rally sports a T-Shirt display which might become very popular.
(Photo: Shamim Melekian)
Section of counter rally on the march through Cork city centre.
(Photo: Shamim Melekian)

APPEAL TO ACT IN SELF-RESPECT – an open letter

On By rebelbreezeIn British imperialism, Capitalism, Current Affairs Comment, Dublin Lockout 1913, Gender Equality, Guerrilla Action, History, Imperialism, Ireland, irish history, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, Irish War of Independence 1919-'21, National Liberation, Police Violence, Trade unions, Workers' Struggles1 Comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

Friends and Comrades, self-respecting people of all organisations and none, Irish or migrants, who understand what it is to resist colonialism and imperialism and exploitation of labour: this is an appeal to act in defence of our self-respect.

As you must all be aware by now, the current Government of the Irish State plans to hold an event honouring the Royal Irish Constabulary and the Dublin Metropolitan Police in Dublin on the 17th of this month. Some at least are probably already considering how to react to this shameful event; I hope you are and if so, that you will give my suggestions some consideration. If you have not yet decided to respond to this event then I hope all the more that you will consider what I have to say.

The need to protest this event in a large and unified way is great. It is a matter of our self-respect as a nation, as a colonised people (and colonised peoples) that never ceased resisting, as workers, as trade unionists, as Irish Republicans and all varieties of the Left in Ireland.

The RIC and the DMP were not only the eyes and ears of the English colonist regime but also its first rank arm of repression after the British Army; they were the enforcement bodies of the landlords and bosses.

RIC still on site after assisting an eviction — see the battering ram that was used by the bailiffs to demolish much of the wall. (Photo source: Internet)

ROYAL IRISH CONSTABULARY

          Formed in 1822, the armed nationwide Irish Constabulary got the “Royal” appellation from Victoria, the Famine Queen herself, in recognition of that organisation’s role in the suppression of the Fenian uprising of 1867. During the evictions of poor peasants and agricultural labourers from their lowly cottages and huts, the RIC attended every one, having become the FIRST RANK force of repression in Ireland, the Army being relegated to their backup should it be required. The RIC was the ever-present force of repression during the Tithes War, the Great Hunger and the Land War and was the main force responsible for the suppression of the Young Irelanders in 1848. On 5th May 1882 in Ballina, Co. Mayo, there were children among the slain when the RIC opened fire on a demonstration celebrating the release of the Land League leader prisoners.

RIC constables assisting eviction of Thomas Considine and family, Moyasta, Co. Clare 1767.
(Source photo: Internet)

During the 1916 Rising, the RIC again played its part in repression of the resistance movement, particularly outside Dublin and it was they who attacked the Kent house in Cork, killing one son and arresting two others, including Thomas Kent which the British colonial regime executed, being one of the Sixteen the British killed in reprisal for the Rising. The RIC was the principal organisation supplying the names of non-participants in the Rising to be arrested and interned in jails and concentration camps in Britain.

After the Rising, the RIC continued one of its main roles as the eyes and ears of the British occupation in Ireland, collecting information on anyone who sang patriotic songs, spoke for independence or against the landlords, joined an Irish cultural organisation, agitated for women’s suffrage, organised a trade union branch ….

It was largely due to this role that the armed Republican forces made the RIC its first target in the War of Independence and in fact, the very first shots of that war were fired at the RIC in Soloheadbeg, killing two of them – this very month, 21st January 1919, 101 years ago and only four days after the date upon which this quisling State plans to honour that force.

RIC assisting bailiffs carrying out an eviction. The defenders have blocked the door with thorn brush and are throwing hot water out on their attackers.
(Source photo: Internet)

When the “Black and Tans” and “Auxiliaries”, the RIC Special Reserve and the RIC Auxiliary Division to give them their official titles, were dispatched in March 1920 at Churchill’s initiative to terrorise and murder Irish people, outside Dublin they became part of the of the RIC and from then on, the existing RIC became responsible not only for its prior crimes but for those of the ‘Tans and Auxies too, such as the many murders, including those of the Mayors of Cork and Limerick; the torture of suspects and violation of women; the burning of farmhouses and cooperatives and even of villages and towns: Tuam, Trim, Balbriggan, Knockcroghery, Thurles and Cork – among others.

In 1922, while the RIC ceased to exist in the ‘Free State’, they became the Royal Ulster Constabulary in the Six Counties, with their even-more murderous reserve, the B-Specials. The B-Specials were incorporated into the Ulster Defence Regiment in 1970 and the RUC was renamed the PSNI (Police Force of Northern Ireland) in 2001. Both organisations have been active in carrying out or in collusion with sectarian murders, acting as members or in collusion with Loyalist paramilitaries and under British intelligence operatives.

Bailiffs using battering ram to gain entry to evict a family in Ireland. The RIC are present to protect the bailiffs. (Photo source: Internet)
RIC King Street barracks after attack during War of Independence.
(Photo source: Internet)

DUBLIN METROPOLITAN POLICE

          The DMP was the colonial police force specifically responsible for controlling Dublin, the capital city of the colony. During the 1913 Lockout it showed itself capable of serving Irish capitalists, whether native or of colonist background, without discrimination. Indeed the leader of the Dublin 400 capitalists out to break the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union, was an Irish nationalist, Catholic and owner of The Irish Independent: William Martin Murphy.

Apart from any others this force of tall thugs may have killed or fatally injured with beatings in their cells, the DMP killed a number of workers during the eight months of the struggle, raided houses and sent many to jail. Two workers, James Nolan and John Burke, died of their injuries within days of the DMP’s baton charge on a street meeting in Eden Quay just by Liberty Hall on 30th August 1913. The following day, in what became known as Bloody Sunday Dublin 1913, the DMP was in action again on O’Connell Street and in Princes Street, mercilessly beating people there (including those already knocked down), during which they knocked unconscious Patsy O’Connor, a young Fianna boy of 16 giving first aid to one of the wounded. Patsy died two years later from his injuries at the age of 18.

The DMP in action on O’Connell St on Bloody Sunday 1913, the second day of police riots in Dublin, early during the Lockout.
(Photo source: Internet)

In a rage at the defence by the residents of Corporation Flats of people fleeing the police charge on Eden Quay, the DMP returned there on the 31st, leaving hardly a door or stick of furniture unbroken or person unbeaten, including women and children.

The special political secret police in Dublin were the G Division of the DMP, spying and compiling files on active nationalists, republicans, socialists, suffragettes, Irish speakers, pacifists. After the Surrender of the 1916 Rising, it was they who came among the prisoners to identify them for the British Army, leading to many receiving death and jail sentences. During the 1916 Rising it appears that three DMP officers were killed by the Irish Citizen Army – while many hid in their cells.

Arrest of Jim Larkin by DMP, shortly before the rest of the DMP present attacked supporters and onlookers.
(Photo source: Internet)

During the War of Independence, the DMP G Division spied on and targeted Irish Republicans and other dissident groups. The Irish Republican Army of course targeted this force and killed a number of them. On the day when the IRA mobilised in Dublin to eliminate the special British Army counterinsurgency intelligence network, the DMP and the Auxiliaries seconded to them had already murdered Conor Clune and Volunteers Peadar Clancy and Dick McKee in Dublin Castle.

Later that day, the DMP and RIC went down to attack the GAA and murdered 14 unarmed people, including two players on the field, also injuring 60-70 people.

Aftermath of DMP baton attack on Sinn Féin public meeting in front of ruins of Liberty Hall to arrest Cathal Brugha and George Snr. Plunkett. Inspector John Mills was struck on the head by a hurley and died later in Jervis St. Hospital. His assailant was a member of Na Fianna and he was never apprehended. Mills was the first DMP officer killed after 1916 and the blow was probably not intended to be fatal. A number were shot with intention to kill during the War of Independence.
(Photo source: Internet)

AN ADEQUATE PUBLIC RESPONSE IS NECESSARY

          It is not only appropriate but absolutely necessary, as a matter of self-respect, that we mobilise a public opposition to this disgusting honouring of the spies on our people and the murderers of our martyrs.

There are many ways that this can be done but I would humbly suggest that two in particular are necessary:

  1. A mass public demonstration near the day of the ceremony (or at least near it) and near Dublin Castle (where the event is to be held);

  2. An electronic petition something along the lines of “Self-Respect: Against honouring colonial spies and murderers of our martyrs”.

          Although our people have achieved a number of successes in struggle over the years, we have often failed too. In particular we failed to give an adequate response to the visit of the British Queen (and Commander-in-Chief of the Paratroopers) to Dublin, or to Wall of Shame in Glasnevin Cemetery. There were some other visits of notable imperialists which also did not receive an adequate response.

Failure is not fatal and we can recover from it – but we cannot build on failure. We can only build on success. This public response needs to be a success and in order to achieve that it cannot be the response of one organisation or of two but needs to be a broad one in which anyone can take part who are not racists or fascists. In order to achieve that, the organising committee should be broad enough to include activists from across the oppositional spectrum who are not part of a party of government (or part of previous government) in either jurisdiction in Ireland. Such an organising committee should be able to include representatives of socialist and republican parties and collectives and also trade unionists.

A broad demonstration of that kind should be free of paramilitary displays which would represent only a section and quite probably alienate another. But all Irish and migrant community and trade union flags and banners should be permitted (with the exception of racist or fascist ones) and the broad banner on the front should spell the general theme of the demonstration.

I am conscious that I am nobody in particular to make this call but given that I think such a response is necessary and that I really want to see this, I make the call anyway and pledge myself to help.

End.

FURTHER INFORMATION LINKS

Report on planned commemoration by the Government: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/ric-and-dmp-policemen-to-be-commemorated-for-first-time-by-state-1.4128214

Collection of letters protesting whitewashing of the RIC and DMP to the Irish Times in 2013 found on Internet: http://www.inc-cne.com/RIC-DMP.pdf

MIGRANTS IN IRISH HISTORY

On By rebelbreezeIn Análises Político, Anti-Fascism, Current Affairs Comment, Historia, History, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, irish history, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, Irlanda, Liberación Nacional, Lucha obrera, National Liberation, Political Analysis, Trade unions1 Comment

(Traducción al castellano de bajo del inglés)

(Reading time: 5 minutes)

Diarmuid Breatnach

Racists and Fascists, posing as Irish “patriots”, malign migrants to Ireland and target them in racist propaganda. This is a fundamentally unpatriotic activity, flying against not only our own huge history of migration to other lands but also against the great history of migrants’ contribution to the struggle for Irish independence and socialism.

          Of the Seven Signatories of the 1916 Proclamation of Independence, two were migrants and two more were sons of migrants.

Of the sixteen of the Rising executed by the English, two were migrants (Connolly and Clarke), another three were sons of migrants (Pearse brothers, Mac Donagh) and at least six bore family names of foreign ancestry (Casement, Ceannt, Clarke, Colbert, Kent, Plunkett).

Numerous migrants took part in the 1916 Rising, mostly from England and Scotland but also some from the USA, one from Argentina, another from Finland and yet another from Sweden).

James Connolly, revolutionary socialist and anti-imperialist, author, songwriter, journalist and trade union organiser was a migrant who did not see Ireland until he was a young man.
(Design: Maria Castella; photo: B.Hoppenbrouwers)

Constance Markievicz (nee Gore-Booth), feminist, Irish Republican, Socialist, officer in the Irish Citizen Army, first woman elected to the British Parliament, first female Minister of the Dáil and first Labour Minister in the world, was born in England; she was sentenced to death in 1916 by the English but had her sentence commuted. Volunteer Eamon De Valera, a 1916 Rising garrison Commander, was born in the USA to an Irish mother and a Cuban father. The captain of the Asgard yacht that delivered the Mauser rifles for the 1916 Rising was an Englishman, Erskine Childers and among the crew were his wife Molly from the USA and Mary Spring Rice (born London). Childers fought in the War of Independence and the Civil War and was executed by the Irish Free State in 1922.

Jim Larkin, trade union organiser and Lockout resistance leader, who was in the USA during the Rising, was co-founder of the Irish Transport & General Workers’ Union and of the Irish Citizen Army, also of the Irish Labour Party. Larkin was born and raised in Liverpool and did not see Ireland until sent to Belfast by his England-based trade union.

Constance Markievicz, Irish Republican, revolutionary socialist, officer in the Irish Citizen Army, sentenced to death in 1916 but commuted. She was a migrant, born in England.
(Image source: Internet)

A LONG HISTORY OF MIGRANT CONTRIBUTION TO IRISH STRUGGLES

          The aforesaid should not surprise us as migrants have often participated in struggles for freedom and social progress in their adopted countries and they and their descendants have a long history of taking up those struggles in Ireland – often sacrificing their liberty and even their lives in doing so.

Patrick Sarsfield, a hero of the resistance to William of Orange in the army of James II was of Anglo-Norman descent (he was a prominent member of the Wild Geese and was killed in military service abroad in 1683).

Nearly all the leaders of the Society of United Irishmen, the first Republican revolutionary organisation of Ireland, were Protestants of various sects and descendants of migrants. Henry and Mary Joy McCracken were active in saving Irish traditional melodies; their ancestors were Huguenots (French Protestant refugees).

Henry Joy was executed publicly in Belfast by the English in 1798, his sister walking hand-in-hand with him to the gallows. General Henry Munro, another Antrim Unitedmen leader, also executed in 1798, was of Scottish descent.

Theobald Wolfe Tone, Anglican co-founder of the Unitedmen and often described as the “father of Irish Republicanism”, was also of Huguenot ancestry; he died in jail in Dublin, while his brother Matthew was hanged. Edward Fitzgerald, another leader of the Unitedmen who died of his injuries in a Dublin jail, was a Protestant and descendant of Norman invaders.

Robert Emmet, another famous United Irishman but martyred in 1803, bore a surname of English origin as did one of his prominent comrades, Thomas Russell (“The Man from God Knows Where”), also executed by the English that year.

The Young Irelanders were the next Irish Republican organisation in history, their leaders a mixture of Protestant and Catholic background. One of the most famous was Thomas Davis, the son of a Welshman in the British Army and an Irish woman descended from Irish chieftain Ó Súilleabháin Béara.

Davis founded The Nation newspaper and composed a number of poems and songs, some of the latter being still sung today (e.g A Nation Once Again and The West’s Awake).

James Stephens and a handful of others founded the Irish Republican Brotherhood on 17th March 1858 in Dublin, the third Irish Republican organisation in Irish history and the life of which extended into the 1920s. Stephens is a family name of Anglo-Norman origin.

John Devoy of the Irish Republican Brotherhood in the USA, who was very active in supporting the 1916 Rising and the War of Independence, carried a family name of Welsh origin. Wales was also the likely origin of Michael Davitt’s family name, he who was chief organiser of the Land League’s base membership.

Volunteers Terence McSwiney and Kevin Barry, who both died in the same week in 1920, the first on hunger strike and the second hanged by the English, had family names of foreign origin.

WHO IS NOT A DESCENDANT OF MIGRANTS?

          Of course, we are ALL descendants of migrants. The earliest date for human occupation of parts of Ireland has been calculated as being 7,000 BCE.

Since the earliest date given for the existence of homo sapiens is 300,000 years ago in the Horn of Africa (although throwing spears in Germany have been assessed as being between 380,000 and 400,000 years old), it follows that human settlement in Ireland was comparatively late and that all Irish are descended from migrants.

Stone age people arrived first, then the metal workers of bronze, followed by people of Celtic culture working iron.

Subsequently Ireland saw influxes of other groups, from Norse and Danes when they began to settle in parts of Ireland, followed by their cousins based in Normandy (and mercenaries they brought with them), then English and so on.

Religious groups seeking security such as Jews or fleeing persecution, for example the Huguenots, also entered at various times. Just a study of family names common in the Ireland of today reveals some of those ancestries.

The Norse, Danes, Normans and early English came as invaders, some more came subsequently as planters and many others came just to make a living in Ireland, like most migrants of today.

But descendants of all those groups, including of invaders and planters, contributed to and even led the struggle for Irish independence and social progress. Not only that but a significant number of those who arrived as migrants themselves took a stand for Irish independence, some of them paying the ultimate price.

Patrick Pearse, author in Irish and English, poet, journalist, Irish Republican and in overall command of the insurrectionary forces in 1916, was the son of an Englishman, as was his brother William. Both were executed after the surrender.
(Design: Maria Castella; photo: B.Hoppenbrouwers)

CONCLUSION

          Far from being “patriotic”, maligning migrants simply for being migrants is counter to the history of the general struggle for Irish independence and of Irish Republicanism in particular. It actually undermines the unfinished struggle for Irish independence and unification as well, of course, as the struggle of the working people for socialism.

End.

TRADUCCIÓN AL CASTELLANO:

LOS INMIGRANTES EN LA HISTORIA IRLANDESA

          Los racistas y fascistas, haciéndose pasar por “patriotas” irlandeses, atacan a los inmigrantes en Irlanda en su propaganda racista. Esta actividad es fundamentalmente antipatriótica, que vuela no solo contra nuestra enorme historia de migración a otras tierras sino también contra la gran historia de la contribución de los inmigrantes a la lucha por la independencia y el socialismo irlandés.

          De los Siete Signatarios de la Proclamación de Independencia de 1916, dos eran inmigrantes y un tercero era hijo de un inmigrante. De los dieciséis del Azamiento ejecutados por los ingleses, dos eran inmigrantes (Connolly y Clarke), otros dos eran hijos de inmigrantes (hermanos Pearse) y al menos seis tenían apellidos de ascendencia extranjera (Casement, Ceannt, Clarke, Colbert, Kent, Plunkett). Numerosos inmigrantes participaron en el Alzantamiento de 1916, principalmente de Inglaterra y Escocia, pero también algunos de los EEUU, uno de Argentina, otro de Finlandia y otro de Suecia).

Constance Markievicz (soltera Gore-Booth), feminista, republicana irlandesa, socialista, oficial del ejército ciudadano irlandés y primera mujer elegida para el Parlamento británico, la primera mujer ministra del Parlamento irlandés y primera ministra femenina de trabajo del mundo, nació en Inglaterra; fue condenada a muerte en 1916 por los ingleses, pero la conmutaron la pena. El voluntario Eamon De Valera, un comandante de la guarnición del Azamiento de 1916, nació en los Estados Unidos de una madre irlandesa y un padre cubano. El capitán del yate Asgard que entregó los fusiles Mauser para el Alzamiento de 1916 era un inglés, Erskine Childers y entre la tripulación estaban su esposa Molly (de los Estados Unidos) y Mary Spring Rice (nacida en Londres). Childers luchó en la Guerra de la Independencia y la Guerra Civil y fue ejecutado por el Estado Libre de Irlanda en 1922.

Jim Larkin, organizador sindical y líder de la resistencia al Cierre Patronal, que estuvo en los EEUU durante el Alzamiento, fue cofundador del Sindicato de Trabajadores Generales y de Transporte de Irlanda y del Ejército de Ciudadanos de Irlanda, también del Partido Laborista. Larkin nació y creció en Liverpool y no vio Irlanda hasta estar enviado a Belfast por su sindicato con sede en Inglaterra.

UNA LARGA HISTORIA DE CONTRIBUCIÓN MIGRANTE A LAS LUCHA IRLANDESA

          Lo anterior no debería sorprendernos, ya que los migrantes a menudo han participado en luchas por la libertad y el progreso social en sus países adoptados y ellos y sus descendientes tienen una larga historia de asumir esas luchas en Irlanda, a menudo sacrificando su libertad e incluso sus vidas al hacerlo. .

Patrick Sarsfield, un héroe de la resistencia a Guillermo Naranja en el ejército de Jaime II de Gran Bretaña, era de ascendencia anglo-normanda (era un miembro destacado de los “Gansos Silvestes” y fue asesinado en el servicio militar en el extranjero en 1683).

Casi todos los líderes de la Sociedad de Irlandeses Unidos, la primera organización revolucionaria republicana de Irlanda, eran protestantes de varias sectas y descendientes de inmigrantes. Henry y Mary Joy McCracken fueron activos en salvar las melodías tradicionales irlandesas; sus antepasados ​​eran hugonotes (refugiados protestantes franceses). Henry Joy fue ejecutado públicamente en Belfast por los ingleses en 1798, su hermana caminó de la mano con él hacia la horca. El general Henry Munro, otro líder de Los Irelandeses Unidos de Antrim, también ejecutado en 1798, era de ascendencia escocesa. Theobald Wolfe Tone, cofundador anglicano de los Irelandeses Unidos y a menudo descrito como el “padre del republicanismo irlandés”, también era de ascendencia hugonote; murió en la cárcel de Dublín, mientras que su hermano Matthew fue ahorcado. Edward Fitzgerald, otro líder de los Irelandeses Unidos que murió por sus heridas en una cárcel de Dublín, era protestante y descendiente de invasores normandos.

Robert Emmet, otro famoso de los Irelandeses Unidos pero martirizado en 1803, tenía un apellido de origen inglés, al igual que uno de sus camaradas prominentes, Thomas Russell (“The Man from God Knows Where”), también ejecutado por los ingleses ese año.

Los Jóvenes Irlandeses fueron la próxima organización republicana irlandesa, sus líderes una mezcla de antecedentes protestantes y católicos. Uno de los más famosos fue Thomas Davis, hijo de un galés en el ejército británico y una mujer irlandesa descendiente del jefe irlandés Ó Súilleabháin Béara. Davis fundó el periódico The Nation y compuso una serie de poemas y canciones, algunas de las cuales todavía se cantan hoy (por ejemplo, A Nation Once Again y The West’s Awake).

James Stephens y un puñado de otros fundaron la Hermandad Republicana Irlandesa el 17 de marzo de 1858 en Dublín, la tercera organización republicana irlandesa en la historia de Irlanda y cuya vida se extendió hasta la década de 1920. Stephens es un apellido de origen anglo-normando.

John Devoy, de la Hermandad Republicana Irlandesa en los EEUU, que fue muy activo en el apoyo al Alzamiento de 1916 y la Guerra de la Independencia, llevaba un apellido de origen galés, lo qual también fue el origen probable del apellido de Michael Davitt, el principal organizador de la membresía base de la Liga de la Tierra.

Los Voluntarios del IRA Terence McSwiney y Kevin Barry, quienes murieron en la misma semana en 1920, el primero en huelga de hambre y el segundo ahorcado por los ingleses, tenían apellidos de origen invasor.

¿QUIÉN NO ES UN DESCENDENTE DE MIGRANTES?

          Por supuesto, TODOS somos descendientes de migrantes. La fecha más temprana para la ocupación humana de partes de Irlanda se calculó ser en 7,000 aC. Dado que la fecha más temprana dada para la existencia del homo sapiens es hace 300,000 años en lo que hoy es Marruecos, se deduce que el asentamiento humano en Irlanda fue relativamente tarde y que todos los irlandeses son descendientes de migrantes.

Primero llegaron personas de la edad de piedra, luego los trabajadores metalúrgicos de bronce, seguidos por gente de la cultura celta que trabajaban el hierro. Posteriormente, Irlanda vio la afluencia de otros grupos, de nórdicos y daneses cuando comenzaron a establecerse en partes de Irlanda, seguidos por sus primos con sede en Normandía (y mercenarios que trajeron con ellos), luego ingleses, etc. Los grupos religiosos que buscaban seguridad como los judíos o huían de la persecución, por ejemplo los hugonotes, también ingresaron en varios momentos. Un estudio de apellidos comunes en la Irlanda de hoy basta para revelar algunos de esos antepasados.

Los nórdicos, daneses, normandos y los primeros ingleses llegaron como invasores, algunos más llegaron posteriormente como plantadores y muchos otros vinieron para ganarse la vida en Irlanda, como la mayoría de los inmigrantes de hoy. Pero los descendientes de todos esos grupos, incluidos los invasores y plantadores, contribuyeron e incluso lideraron la lucha por la independencia de Irlanda y el progreso social. No solo eso, sino que un número significativo de los que llegaron como migrantes tomaron posición por la independencia de Irlanda, algunos de ellos pagando el precio final.

CONCLUSIÓN

          Lejos de ser “patriótico”, difamar a los migrantes simplemente por ser migrantes es contrario a la historia de la lucha general por la independencia de Irlanda y del republicanismo irlandés en particular. De hecho, mina la lucha todavía inconclusa por la independencia y la unificación irlandesa, así como, por supuesto, la lucha de los trabajadores por el socialismo.

Fin.

A COWARD’S CURSE

On By rebelbreezeIn 1916 Rising, Anti-War, British imperialism, Capitalism, History, Ireland, National Liberation, Poetry, Rhyming Rapping & Ranting3 Comments

A poem by Scarecrow.

“No need for a blood sacrifice”, I hear you say…

“Unnecessary violence. Dead innocent children of

a badly thought-out revolution.

Home rule was on the way.” Really?

Defeated three times by those who made the promises …

What trust you must have in our oppressor!

An Englishman’s empty hollow word, and his deeds … full,

Dublin’s main street, then Sackville, now O’Connell, showing British artillery and fire damage 1916.
(Image sourced: Internet)

Ripe with Irish blood and you trust them.

As still, to-day, our North, a thousand years, lies wrapped in chains.

 

You, in your suit — and your middle class condescending education.

may sound profound in your leafy suburban period home:

Well fed, well watered, well waxed and shod.

 

You dare to preach: “No mandate”. For a revolution?

Plauseless re-writing of history

To suit an establishment bent on bending

To the power that was, and still does.

When did power ever concede willingly?

When did power ever concede to power?

When did power ever concede without blood?

Never, is the answer.

 

Yet pundits heap plaudits upon our enemy.

Praise at every turn. Entertain us with lies. Re-write history.

Ensure the next generations forget, and fall into

a slumber of cheap aristocratic swaddling.

Devoid of meaning, soothing unsettled questioning minds.

Endless obfuscation with mirrors and smoke to thwart newcomers

to this one truly remarkable moment of Irish life.

It was “doomed to fail”…. Did I hear you right?

So, don’t even try? Sit and wait, for the greediest hand

To throw crumbs at you? Give up, let the rot eat

Deeper into the psyche, burn into the soul.

 

Easy …. condemning, from your comfort, fools for company ….

Sweeping, arrogant, baseless statements …

by fat, lazy, unburdened donkeys …

Always the carrot, never the stick … and preach.

Fat, and warm, surrounded with servant-jesters,

Condemn those who have provided the foundation to build this new Nation.

From which you stand today and look, mealy-mouthed … across the water.

at the old empire for guidance on how to think.

 

Inhabitants of Dublin tenement house
(Image sourced: Internet)

Not a word from you about starvation. The death toll.

The mortality rate. The worst poverty on all this planet,

in this falling squalid Empire you speak of so lovingly.

Never the smell of fetid flesh, falling, rotting and falling

from living children even before they die … for want of a piece

of bread, from your mouth.

The squalid rancid overcrowding in crumbling Dublin.

As the poorest and lowest, coughing themselves to death.

100 souls in a single house, a toilet, a tap, no furniture, sleep on the floor.

Enough straw for only a cat …. in England’s ‘Second City’…

is four-star accommodation, by your records.

 

Festering dysentery, cholera, typhus and tuberculosis, every dying breath laboured.

The endless hungry crying of little children…the eternal ‘slumber song’ of the slum.

… And worse again, how horrible that sound, in the silence …. when even they give up…

 

”It’s safer in Flanders Fields, than in Dublin’s slums”

was your recruitment cry …

Where the strongest Irishmen bartered themselves to

serve their enemy, for a meal, and committed murder for the Crown.

Won your war for you….Won all your bloody wars for you…

Cost them their souls,

their dignity, sanity, their families, their heritage… Hunger, hunger, hunger…

Died in thousands .. Two of every Three Irishmen, in the English Army …

No condemnation from you for the sea of Irish blood spilt by the Crown?

For the Crown?

Soldiers of British Army, WW1, blinded by gas.
(Colour-enhanced image sourced: Internet)

 

“No need for blood sacrifice”?

What fool today preaches such compliance,

Washing centuries of Irish blood from England’s hands?

Blood: Imperial currency.

What ignorance today speaks such nonsense?

Those who condemn the oppressed. And exaltation for the oppressor?

The agitator, dictator, the sadist, savage, the sick cruel impostor.

Clothed in Ermine and Fur … Dripping in stolen gold and poached Diamonds.

Ignore the strains of ‘Our nearest neighbour’ to

strip all wealth, dignity, labour, song, dreams and aspiration,

from every beating Irish heart, no matter the cost, no matter the pain,

no matter the suffering. Empty the fields. Steal the food from the mouth

Of a hungry nation. Watch as millions starve, while you

… dine on our bounty.

 

It’s easy, stand back and act like you slew a giant —

when that giant is already dead

which took an empire to bring down.

 

What callous fool will today condemn those who sought to better their lot:

to stand tall, bear arms against their barbaric persecutors.?

To bring an end to their own subjugation and slavery.

End their tormentor’s grip. Their torturer’s whip.

End the deliberate impoverishment of their own lives ..

What fool would dare condemn any man or woman this right?

What person would judge guilty, this father, mother son or daughter …

who sought a better life for all, at the risk of losing his own?

 

I’ll tell you:

A coward.

The kind of man who licks the boot that kicks him.

Kisses the foot on his neck.

A man with no blood in his veins, or heart beating in his chest.

A man who thinks that power comes from the Throne and not his own people.

A man who would sacrifice all for a clap on the back from a gloved hand.

Or kiss, on bended knee, a stolen ring.

A compromised man, a weak crawling man.

A man without empathy for his own people.

A man who would see his own suffer, if he would gain

just a little affection from his oppressor ….

A traitor.

 

Scarecrow May/2016.

DUBLIN COUNTER-RALLY OUTNUMBERS RACISTS AND FASCISTS

On By rebelbreezeIn Anti-Fascism, Capitalism, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Fascism, History, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, Political Analysis, Racism, Song in Struggle1 Comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

On what was an extremely cold day, faith groups joined with migrants and community groups, Irish Republicans, socialists, communists and anarchists to oppose a mobilisation by racists and fascists outside Leinster House, which houses the Oireachtas, the Irish Parliament. There were a couple of moments of surges towards the right-wingers but these were contained without arrests.

          The anti-racist demonstrators responded to a call for the counter-rally and occupied the space from 12.00 noon on 14th December 2019, which left the racists and fascists having to face them from the other side of Kildare Street, at the junction with Molesworth Street but, in any case, they were outnumbered at about ten to one by the anti-racists and anti-fascists. The call came from SARF (Solidarity Alliance against Racism and Fascism), Islamic Foundation of Ireland, United Against Racism and Irish Network Against Racism (INAR).

The two opposing groups facing one another seen from the northern end of Kildare Street. The anti-fascists are to the left of photo.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)

“FREE SPEECH”

          The right-wing group had called for a rally to protest about the legislation proposed by the party in Government, Fine Gael, against “hate speech”. Ironically, Fine Gael are themselves a right-wing party which was formed in part out of the 1930s Irish fascist organisation, known colloquially as “the Blueshirts” (a name by which Fine Gael are known to this day by many). Earlier this year, Gemma O’ Doherty’s Youtube account was suspended and then terminated by Google because of its anti-migrant content, which gave the racists another issue: censorship of “free speech”.

Historically fascists, when their movement is weak, have often mobilised under the banner of “freedom of speech”. This has meant not only freedom to speak out against the government in power (which many anti-fascists would also wish for) but also the freedom to demonise targeted social, ethnic and religious groups and to call for their restriction, expulsion, jailing — or even death. Immediately upon gaining power, fascists restrict the freedom of speech of all others: not only of the social, ethnic and religious groups they targeted but also of their critics, the political opposition and trade unions. In this of course they are not so different from some socialist, communist or Irish Republican groups that rail against suppression and censorship only subsequently to silence criticism within their own ranks by threats, expulsions and censorship in the media they control. The point however is not to be fooled by the “free speech” demands of fascists and racists.

Section of the anti-racist mobilisation seen from a facing northward position. Beyond the irish Tricolour in the foreground, the Catalan estelada may be seen in the background, also Anarchist and Communist flags.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)

All the same, this does not mean that we should support the proposed Fine Gael legislation either. “Anti-Hate Speech” legislation elsewhere was passed in capitalist states under the guise of protection of vulnerable minorities but then at times used for the protection of capitalists, royalty, government ministers and the police. If racist or homophobic incitement is the supposed target, why not specify that? Is hate itself necessarily a bad thing, if the hated object is racism, state suppression, exploitation?

Section of antifascist rally (left of photo) and most of racist rally (right) seen from facing southward position. Those wearing pink hi-viz vests are stewards.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)

A BROAD RIGHT-WING, RACIST COALITION SHELTERING FASCISTS

          The origin of this right-wing coalition seems to have coalesced around former anti-corruption journalist Gemma Doherty who, some time subsequent to being fired by her newspaper after she exposed some aspects of the financial dealings of the paper’s owner, apparently underwent a transformation into a rabid anti-immigration racist. People opposed to legislation legalising gay marriage and permitting greater access to abortion gathered around her, as did others against the State’s problematic child and family agency TUSLA and some others. Accordingly it is a broad but small, generally right-wing movement of many who feel a sense of their values being ignored or undermined. How disparate at times can be judged by their demonstration at the Department of Justice building a little over a month ago, when among their signage was a banner attacking TUSLA and abuses by the Catholic Church, while a woman among their number shook a set of rosary beads at the counter-demonstration!

Viewed from near the southern end of the crowds, the right-wingers across the street to the left of photo, anti-racists closer in foreground.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)

The confusion was illustrated yesterday too when a woman among the right-wingers could be seen flying an estelada, a flag of Catalan independentists. From a number of people from among the counter-demonstrators who spoke to her, including Catalans and other people from the Spanish state, it appears that she equated the demonstration with demanding free speech, which she rightly stated was being denied by the Spanish state to many, including Catalan independentists.

Such groups are often believers in bizarre conspiracies (nor are they alone in that) and current among some of them is a belief that the EU plans to replace Irish people with migrants. For that reason the EU, which many Irish Republicans and socialists also oppose for very different reasons, is one of the targets of this right-wing coalition.

Organised fascists, who are currently a tiny group in the territory of the Irish state (but much larger, in the shape of Loyalists, in the British colony in Ireland, the Six Counties) find themselves generally isolated in society within the Irish state and no doubt threatened too. Therefore they try to infiltrate broader anti-government groups, as they did with a brief emergence of an Irish “Yellow Vest” movement, mostly in Dublin (see https://rebelbreeze.wordpress.com/2019/02/16/irish-yellow-vests-and-questions/) – in which they do not reveal their fascist project but present themselves as being against the Government, against corruption, for remedy of homelessness and as Irish patriots. And of course for free speech.

Nor are organised fascists the only opportunists, as a small number of politicians seeking election (or reelection) have been known to whip up fear of migrants and racist sentiment against Irish Travellers (originally a nomadic group). These offenders very recently have included an Independent TD (parliamentary delegate) from Galway and a Fine Gael candidate seeking election.

At some point of course, if they intend to come to power in society, fascists need to reveal some of their agenda but before they can do that they need to train some of their stormtroopers, public speakers and organisers and they need to command the street, at least in some areas. That was the reason for the 1930s rallies and attempted march on Dublin of the Blueshirts in Ireland, Mussolini’s Blackshirts March on Rome, the rallies and street-fighting of the Brownshirts in Germany and Moseley’s Blackshirts’ failed attempt to penetrate London’s East End. In the Spanish and Portuguese states, the fascists needed a military coup to aid them and, in the former case, the logistical and personnel assistance of the already-fascist states of Germany and Italy (a military coup was feared by the young Fianna Fáil government in 1930s Ireland too). In 2016, the need for a street presence was the reason for the attempted Dublin city centre launch of the European islamophobic organisation Pegida, which was defeated by mass mobilisation and physical opposition (for which some Irish Republicans are still being processed through the Irish courts).

Although Gemma O’Doherty and her supporters had been confronted before in Ireland, yesterday’s was the first large mobilisation against their racist anti-immigration message and it vastly outnumbered that of the racists.

Another view of both sides, mostly the anti-racists, from facing southward position.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)

POLICE AND STEWARDS SAVE RACISTS AND FASCISTS FROM A TROUNCING

          Generally the two opposing forces seemed content with shouting and chanting across the street at one another, apart from the occasional anti-fascist wandering over to verbally confront the opposition. The anti-racists who in the opinion of the police got too close to the racists were sent back by the police but one of the antifascists had to approach the Gardaí (Irish state police) to remove one of the racists who had embedded himself among the anti-fascists. This seemed dangerously like asking the police to deal with the fascists whereas police bias at least is generally against the antifascists. Surely the crowd could have easily expelled him (at least) unaided?

As has been the custom with them and their intention to appear patriotic, the racists and fascists were displaying a host of Irish tricolours but this time there were a number of these also among the antifascists, along with a number of green-and-gold Starry Plough flags, as well as some communist and anarchist flags.

However, when a small group among the right-wingers pulled out the blue-and-white version of the Starry Plough, flag of the Republican Congress of the 1930s, along with the Sunburst flag of the Fianna Éireann (Republican youth group of past generations) and began waving them, a section of Irish Republicans surged forward in outrage and for a few moments the stewards and the Gardaí struggled to contain them.

Those who had brandished those particular flags were clearly delighted with the reaction they had provoked. Since at previous demonstrations of the racists and fascists they had never displayed those particular flags and, since they only made an appearance later in their rally yesterday, it seems clear that they had displayed them solely for the purpose of provocation.

A little later there was another surge from a different point which was again contained.

It was understandable, given the broad composition of the anti-racist rally, that the organisers would wish to prevent physical fighting breaking out from among their ranks on this occasion. However, there is a danger of this kind of stewarding becoming collusion with the State – or at the very least being seen to be so by sections of anti-fascists.

MIGRANTS AND IRELAND

          The bubble expansion of the Irish economy for an unexpectedly long period from the late 1980s to the beginning of this century, provided employment opportunities which could not be filled by the low level of the Irish population (a result of two centuries of heavy migration from Ireland to other countries). These employment opportunities, mostly in construction and services, tended to be availed of by migrants, mostly from European states with declining or stagnant economies but also by some from states in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and China.

Although Ireland had seen foreign colonisation from Britain for centuries, it had only experienced small emigration from elsewhere, which also tended to restricted to certain periods, for example Huguenots at the end of the 17th Century and Italians in two waves, following each World War. The change in population composition in some areas at the end of the 20th Century was startling and difficult for some to which to accustom themselves (though welcomed by others). When combined with the subsequent bursting of the Irish economic bubble and cuts in public services, severe housing crisis and a health service failing spectacularly, migrants became a handy scapegoat for some people and a useful target for fascists.

Some of the migrant communities in Ireland were represented among the anti-fascists but apart from a sprinkling of black faces, were not so easy to identify. A Catalan estelada (yes, another one) revealed a small group of Catalans representing CDR Dublin and a representative of Asamblea Nacional de Catalunya Ireland also spoke from the PA system earlier in the day. Some Spanish were in evidence and a Basque Antifascist flag could also be seen but undoubtedly the largest migrant antifascist contingent was Italian. Many of these were supporters of the Sardine movement against Italian right-wing populist politician Salvini and which welcomes migrants. Perhaps a hundred strong, they sang antifascist songs, including of course the Bella Ciao and made speeches in Italian and in English.

Section of the Italian ‘Sardine’ movement supporters.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)

THE FUTURE?

          As increasingly around the world governments become more right-wing and fascist organisations mobilise, anti-fascists need to organise too. The thesis that fascism is capitalism in crisis seems well-proven which means that antifascists should not nor cannot rely on the forces of the capitalist State to prevent the growth of fascism or to protect the social and ethnic groups targeted by fascists and racists.

Although the Catholic Church in Ireland no longer has the power it had in the Irish state since its creation in the 1920s and the fascists cannot rely on its heavy backing as in the 1930s, there is no room for complacency in Ireland or anywhere else.

Mobilisation against the fascists and racists to deny them public spaces from which to recruit and to organise is essential. And a broad anti-fascist and ant-racist unity in action needs to be built, similar to what was seen yesterday although within that broad movement there also needs to be struggle against liberal ideology. But one cannot combat sickness purely by countering infection – care needs to be given to cultivation of a healthy body too. The Ireland body is sick: sick from cultural and physical colonialism, sick from territorial partition, from racist Loyalism and native gombeenism, from underdeveloped economy and plundered resources, from housing and health crises. While these remain unresolved we can expect at least sporadic outbreaks of fascist and racist infection and quite possibly an epidemic. It is not only in the struggle against fascism that unity is needed.

end

POSTSCRIPT

          From information either not available to me or unconfirmed at the time, the blue-and-white Starry Plough which had been used to provoke anti-fascists was actually seized by the latter in the scrimmage.  There was apparently another, which was allegedly seized by Republicans after the right-wingers had left for which two men were arrested and handcuffed.

According to reports, one of the right-wing women attempted to kick one of the arrested men while he was handcuffed and she was also arrested.