Can you tell which of the clovers growing wild in Ireland is the genuine Shamrock (Seamair óg)?
Now, while it is still in bloom, is a good time to spot the plant, the smaller leaves and the yellow (buí) flower on it is what really distinguishes it from its clover cousins, with their bigger leaves and flowers in white (S. Bhán, T. repens) or pink-red-purple (S. Dhearg, T. Pratense).
How do we know that the Seamair Bhuí (Lesser clover, Trifolium dubium) is the genuine “shamrock”? Well, perhaps we can’t be certain but in the 1890s out of a survey of opinions of people in a still quite traditional Irish society, T. Dubium emerged as the first choice.
The shamrock, Seamair Bhuí/ Trifolium dubium/ Lesser trefoil, about real size, photographed in Dublin city with grass growing through it. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Amateur botanist and zoologist Nathaniel Colgan (1851-1919) asked people from around Ireland send him specimens of what they believed to be an Irish shamrock, of which the two most common were the yellow clover followed by the white.1
A hundred years later, Dr Charles Nelson repeated the experiment in 1988 and found that yellow clover was still the most commonly chosen.2 According to Wikipeida, the yellow clover is the species nominated by the Department of Agriculture as the “official” shamrock of Ireland.
If you want to pick your own for St. Patrick’s Day, you’ll need to learn to identify it by its leaves because in Ireland it won’t be flowering in March. However, you can spot it now by its flowers and get a mental picture of the size of its leaves to retain in your memory.
THE IRISH AND THE SHAMROCK
What is it with the shamrock and the Irish anyway? The children’s fable of the Christian missionary Patrick using the leaf to explain the Christian Holy Trinity is just that, a fable, although repeated in one of the Wikipedia entries for “shamrock”.
Neither the Celts in general nor the Gaels in particular needed anyone to explain a three-in-one deity, since they had their own pagan trinities (Éiriu, Fódlha, Banba; the Mór-Righean/ Morrigu). Researchers have found no reference to any importance of the shamrock prior to 1681.3
Patrick himself, in what is considered his genuine autobiographical Confessio, never mentioned the shamrock once. My suspicion is that the shamrock-Christian-Trinity fable was fancifully created either by British settlers such as botanist Caleb Threkeld or by native Irish Christians around 1726.4
Although a few sources on line have claimed medicinal properties or druidic use for the shamrock, they never quote the actual original sources which may indicate that the references are undependable or obscure, if they exist at all.
Interestingly, writing a little before the 1798 Rising, Drogheda Presbyterian and United Irishman John Sheil used the shamrock as a reference for a different trinity, i.e that of Catholic, Protestant (Anglican) and Dissenter (all the non-Anglican Protestant denominations).
“ ….. the three-leaved plant …. It is three in one To prove its unity In that community That holds with impunity To the Rights of Man.”5
However, green was the colour of the United Irishmen and at times of repression by the occupation forces and the Loyal Orange Order, a sprig of shamrock on St. Patrick’d Day could be a useful way of indicating resistance while also claiming it was a harmless obeisance to a Christian saint.
Nevertheless, even wearing it on St. Patrick’s Day might have been dangerous in some quarters as when TheWearing of the Green reported, in reference to the shamrock, that
“… It’s the most distressful country that you have ever seen For they’re hanging men and women for the wearing of the Green.”
5The Rights of Man, by John Sheils. The air to which it is most commonly sung is that of the Irish Language song Eanach Cuain/ Anach Cuan but I have composed an original air for it and sing it a little faster than the song about that boat sinking tragedy.
The media announces that “the population of Ireland has reached 5 million … for the first time in 170 years”. Interesting – and a barefaced lie! The population of Ireland passed 5 million some time ago and is actually around 6.5 million now.1
Ireland remained with negative population growth until near the end of the last century – mismanaged for most of the population first by the British occupiers of the whole of the island, then by a combination of the native neo-colonial bourgeoisie and of the settler colonial ruling class.
Filling in a census form from which population statistics can be extracted (Photo sourced: Internet)
For more than a century the population of Ireland stood at around 5 million, static despite a high birth rate. This was mathematically possible only through continual massive emigration – mostly to English-speaking regimes: Britain, USA, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.
But it is true that 170 years ago it was more than 5 million – in fact it was around 8.5 million. And it is worth reflecting on how they were able to produce enough food domestically to feed that entire population while now, with a smaller population, we import as much as 80% from abroad.2
It was the Great Hunger that wiped out much of the earlier population, statistics somewhat hiding the pain and sorrow of millions of Irish in death, disease and emigration — and the great transfer of land for cultivation (and rent) to pasturage, with its dangerous environmental impact.
It provided an opportunity for growth of the Catholic Irish capitalist class, the Gombeens, huckstering money-lenders buying up the lands of afflicted neighbours.
The kind of class that the British could depend on in 1921 to manage the neo-colony and to murder and jail those of national liberation3.
Emigration kept population stats steady and, combined with unemployment, ensured a low internal home market for development. An educated workforce and natural resources could be developed but the Gombeen class opened it all to foreign multinationals rather than develop it themselves.
Even with foreign exploitation of the workforce at home, the education system turned out mostly emigration fodder: the Irish tax-payers funded an education system to provide a literate and numerate English-speaking workforces for capitalist exploitation abroad.
No wonder the Irish political class declined to give the Irish abroad a vote in the Irish state – unlike for decades any other state in the European Market. Yet during the 1930s through to the 1960s, money sent home by Irish migrants accounted for an estimated 30% of the Irish State’s economy.4
The Irish state remains a neo-colony with low taxation and other incentives for foreign companies to take over our few industries5 and local and foreign property speculators to rake in profits out of the despair of homelessness or of struggling to meet rent or mortgage payments.
A neo-colonial market for produce of foreign companies and to plunder not only our labour force, not only our natural resources on land, sea and wind and but even our infrastructures in transport and communication, energy, health service, water supply and even our city sanitation.
TRUNCATED
The announced statistics were truncated, appropriate perhaps for a truncated country, with the history behind those statistics not so much truncated as obliterated.
That is our present and our past but not how the future has to be – we can write our own future but we won’t do it by putting a mark on a ballot paper.
3The Irish Civil War or Counterrevolution, 1922-1923.
4I have read this in the past but am unable now to find the reference; however I have posted some references on the figures of remittances from Irish emigrants.
5 For a few examples of foreign takeover: Irish stout, beer and lagers (Guinness, Smithwicks, Harp); Irish whiskey (Paddy, Jameson, Bushmills); cigarettes (Afton); preserved vegetables (Erin); aviation (Aer Lingus); public transport (Transport for Ireland; LUAS); sugar (Irish sugar beet replaced by subsidised cane sugar from the USA); woodlands (Coillte).
On the 49th anniversary of the Dublin and Monaghan Bombings a number of speakers criticised the Garda closure of its investigation a mere four months after the bombing with the highest number killed in any one day of the 30 years war.
The criticisms were made on 17th May at the annual commemoration of the atrocity in Talbot Street, Dublin, organised by the Justice For the Forgotten campaign, held at the location of the memorial on the site of one of the bombings of that day.
The annual commemoration has been organised for many years by the Justice For the Forgotten campaigning group at the Talbot Street monument to the bombing1. It usually comprises reminiscences, poetry and music and a call for the British State to release its secret papers.
As of rote, an Irish Government Minister is invited to speak who routinely says how hard the Irish Government has been trying to get the British State to release the secret papers revealing the latter’s connection to those who carried out the bombing.
Years after the bombings, a British TV company (!) pointed the finger at the Ulster Volunteer Force, a British Loyalist paramilitary group but believed acting under British Intelligence agency direction, named some of those involved and a week later the UVF claimed responsibility.
In addition to British Intelligence, the British colonial police2 and British Army3 had been widely known to be working in collusion with Loyalists.
But few would have suspected Irish State collusion.
THE BOMBINGS AND AFTERMATH
On 17th May 1974 three car bombs exploded without warning in crowded Dublin city centre streets and another in Monaghan town centre. Thirty-three people were killed along with a full-term baby and a miscarriage with around 300injured. No-one was ever even charged in relation to the atrocity.
Scene post-bombing in Talbot Street, the site where the Monument was erected later is out of shot to the right. (Photo sourced: Internet)
The intention, unlike that of many other city car-bombings in the Six Counties and in England, was clearly to cause maximum death and injury to civilians. The areas chosen in Dublin were full of shops with bus stops and 5.30pm was going home time from shopping and work.
And no warning was given.
In the course of the short Garda4 investigation, in macabre irony the remains of the exploded cars were sent for forensic examination to their very source: the Six Counties, i.e to the colonial police force (at the time, the RUC5). Unsurprisingly, nothing useful came back.
In a war that was already five years old (six years, if the civil rights marches are included) the collusion between the British colonial police and Loyalist paramilitary murder gangs was well known and collusion with the British Army widely suspected.
Floral tributes on the north face of the monument in Talbot Street. (Photo: D.Breatnach)Floral tributes on the south face of the monument in Talbot Street. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
CAMPAIGN OF BOMBING DUBLIN
The Loyalist bombing of two cities in the Irish state in 1974, although by far the worst of the whole period, were not the first in Ireland, not even the first fatal ones.
In 1973 a Loyalist bomb in Dublin city killed Tommy Douglas and the year before that another killed George Bradshaw and Tommy Duffy – all were employees of Irish public transport state company CIE.
Even after the horror of 1974, on 29th November 1975, another a bomb at Dublin Airport killed John Hayes, a worker there.
And there were other earlier ones where no-one was injured, such as the blowing up of the Wolfe Tone monument just outside Stephens Green on 8th February 19716 and the Daniel O’Connell Monument in Glasnevin Cemetery (the round tower) in December 1971.
Pieces of the statue of Theobald Wolfe Tone on St Stephen’s Green. The statue was blown up by a loyalist bomb. A report at the time noted that ‘Huge slabs of the bronze sculpture were hurled 20 feet in the air’. 08/02/1971 (Photo sourced: Internet)The O’Connell Monument in Glasnevin (round tower) seen here at sunset from the Botanic Gardens was a target of Loyalist bombing in 1971. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
If the Irish State had pursued investigations and cross-Border links after the earliest of those bombings, they might have headed off the carnage that followed later.
Not only did they not do so but in fact used the 1972 bombing to blame Irish Republicans so as to get an unpopular piece of repressive legislation through parliament, the Amendment to the Offences Against the State Act, along with the establishment of the no-jury Special Criminal Court7.
The Garda Commissioner at the time of the 1974 bombings was Patrick Malone and Ed Garvey, his Assistant Commissioner, was later exposed as a British Secret Service asset run by Fred Holroyd, a disenchanted British agent who revealed he had visited the policeman in his Dublin HQ.
Garvey, by then Commissioner, denied being a British agent and claimed no memory of the visit.
The Barron Report (2003) concluded that visit had undoubtedly occurred and that he had not informed his superiors, contrary to all rules regarding contact with agents working for a foreign government.8 When Fianna Fáil came into Government again, they sacked Garvey.
Since FF had not subjected him to a regular disciplinary process, probably in order to avoid the sordid story going public, Garvey was able to sue the Irish Government, win damages and ensure he received his former pension entitlements.
THE COMMEMORATION EVENT
Aidan Shields, who lost his sister Maureen in the bombing, chaired the event for Justice for the Forgotten and introduced its Secretary Margaret Unwin who, as all speaking or performing at the event seemed conscious that next year would be the 50th anniversary of the atrocity.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
The regular Government slot was occupied by the current Tánaiste (Dep. Prime Minister) Mícheál Martin who, as has every Government representative since the JFTF commemorations began, claimed energetic diplomatic discussions for release of the papers with their British counterparts.
Martin also criticised the British Government’s widely-criticised intended legislation to prevent official investigations and trials regarding past crimes committed by British forces, while he simultaneously praised the British pacification process.
A young Italian woman played the theme from the Schindler’s List film and another air on violin. A visiting Italian couple had been killed in the bombing also but that was not mentioned when she was introduced.
Rachel Hegarty read from her poetry compilation about the victims, based on testimonies by surviving relatives and friends. Cormac Breatnach on high D whistle and Eoin Dillon on uileann pipes played the Irish air Tabhair Dom Do Lámh (“Give Me Your Hand”).
Poet Rachel Hegarty reciting from her work on the bombing. (Photo: D.Breatnach)Closeup of Cormac Breatnach on high whistle playing at event. (Photo: D.Breatnach)Eoin Dillon playing uileann pipes at event. (Photo: D.Breatnach)Fuller shot of Cormac Breatnach playing at event with Eoin Dillon out of shot to the left. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
The Shillelagh North Ukulele Group played and sang The Sound of Silence and Things (we used to do), both appropriate in metaphorical context, the first for the official silence about the perpetrators and their British intelligence organisation, the second about the loss of the victims and to their loved ones.
Dublin City Lord Mayor Caroline Conroy, of the Green Party, spoke about the atrocity and criticised the closing of the Garda investigation a mere four months after the bombing.9
Vincent Browne giving his oration. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Well-known journalist and former TV presenter Vincent Browne gave the oration at the event and went into horrific detail on some of the injuries he had witnessed as a journalist at the scene with his doctor brother as they struggled to help the victims still alive.
Browne departed from the subject of the bombing, as a few had done to speak of the long war and the Good Friday Agreement but in his case also to accuse the Provisional IRA of having killed most of the people during the 30 Years War which seemed not appropriate on this occasion.
Seán Conlon, Cathaoirleach (Chair) of Monaghan Council10 spoke of the bombing and focused on the effect on his town. He also condemned the early closing of the Garda investigation and the failure to pressurise the British State into releasing security papers relevant to the bombing.11
Seán Conlon, Cathaoirleach of Monaghan Council, speaking with part of monument visible to his left. Aidan Shields is standing right next to the Monument. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
A number of speakers referred optimistically to the investigation into the Glenanne Gang by former English police chief Jon Boucher, who was present in the crowd at the commemoration. Boucher is heading a number of other historical investigations, including that of Stakeknife.12
The older age profile of the attendance was noticeable with only two teenagers visible and this in itself must be of concern.
FATAL CONSEQUENCES OF STATE COLLUSION AND COVER-UP
The failure to investigate the earlier Loyalist bombings and apprehend the perpetrators made the planning and execution of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings much easier. The early closing of the Garda investigation of the 1974 bombings ensured the perpetrators would run free.
As well as failing relatives and friends of those murdered and injured in Dublin on the 17th May 1974, the lack of pursuit had repercussions for many other victims of Loyalist murder squads, in particular the over 120 victims of the Glenanne Gang, including the Miami Band Massacre in 1975.
An aspect not normally commented upon was the choice of predominantly working class areas for Dublin massacre victims. It was not the high-end Henry or Grafton Streets that were chosen but the more working-class shopping areas of Talbot Street and Parnell Street.
The fatal Dublin bombings of 1972 and 1973 had also been directed at workers by location: three public transport workers and an airport worker.
Section of the Shillelagh North Ukulele Group playing and singing at the event (Photo: D.Breatnach)
THE GOMBEENS: A CRAVEN CLIENT RULING CLASS
The whole chain of events from the first Loyalist bombing of Dublin points quite clearly to the client nature of the Irish national bourgeoisie, the ruling class of the Irish State. Even if it wanted to, it is too weak to make strong demands of the British State.
What self-respecting national ruling class would allow a foreign power to send terrorists to bomb its capital city? And then collude with that power in drawing silence and secrecy over the atrocity?
None, of course. But the Irish bourgeoisie came into being in a truncated client state and, armed and equipped by its master, went to war for two years (1922-1923) against the very national liberation forces that had brought the British State with offered concessions to the negotiation table.13
To talk of uniting Ireland under such a class, apart from being impractical nonsense, is a travesty. To expect any real change by electing a party or combination of parties to government in such a situation is a pipe-dream.
The 1974 bombing, the subsequent investigation and the record of Irish governments since in relation to the bombing are together a stark illustration of the spineless nature of the Irish bourgeoisie when dealing with their masters.
A client ruling class yes but more accurately, a servant.14
End.
Section of the crowd in attendance viewed from the north-east of the location. (Photo: D.Breatnach)Section of the crowd with the tower of Connolly (formerly Amiens Street) Station in the background. During the British suppression of the 1916 Rising, British Army machine-gun fire was directed from there along Talbot Street towards the General Post Office garrison and North Earl and Henry Streets. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
FOOTNOTES
1There was originally a plaque at the Garden of Remembrance and the Talbot Street monument was erected in 1977 after campaigning by relatives and victims. There is also a monument in Monaghan Town. In Dublin there is also a plaque at the site of another explosion that killed people that day in Parnell Street.
2Now the Police Service of Northern Ireland, formerly the Royal Ulster Constabulary (and before that, up until 1921, the Royal Irish Constabulary, when the whole of Ireland was under direct British rule).
3In particular the Ulster Defence Regiment, which had recruited from the part-time RUC B-Specials when the latter were disbanded but also special units such as the MRF in special operations and more generally across the whole of the occupation forces.
5When the Irish State and colony statelet were created in 1921, the colonial gendarmerie of the Royal Irish Constabulary in the colony became the Royal Ulster Constabulary. In more recent years the force has change its name to the Police Force of Northern Ireland.
6The body of the monument to the Anglican leader of the United Irishmen was destroyed but the head was salvageable and rests on the re-cast body of the monument today.
7The Irish Council for Civil Liberties has dubbed that Court “a sentencing tribunal” but every party in government since has upheld those repressive provisions and Sinn Féin has abandoned its decades of opposition to them as it prepares to enter government in coalition with one party or another.
8Having a Garda Commissioner who was or became a British Intelligence agent might be shocking until we remind ourselves that the current Garda Commissioner, Drew Harris, coming from being Assistant Commissioner of the PSNI, was at least formerly part of MI5 operations in the colony and that must have been known to those who appointed him!
9Mayors of Dublin City are selected for one year from among the elected councillors. It is more of a ceremonial role than an executive one and the choice is usually negotiated in turn from among the represented political parties.
11A number commented that his contribution was so much better in every way than that of last year’s Monaghan Cathaoirleach. Conlon is a member of the Sinn Féin party and some may say his posture would therefore be expected. However, given changes in the party’s public position on many questions in recent years, a hard stand against the British administration no longer seems natural for this party’s public representatives.
13Irish Civil War (or as some see it, the Irish Counterrevolution) 1922-1923.
14It should be noted that the Gombeen class has also been a client in turn of US Imperialism and of EU Imperialism, with all of which it aligns itself on most questions of international policy and to which it opens up its markets, natural resources and infrastructure networks.
The May issue of this newspaper has been out for some weeks and the organisers did well to manage that in the midst of disruptive arrests of their housing activists and raids and arrests following their Easter Rising Commemoration1.
As before, this issue consists of sixteen A4 sides, therefore easy enough to handle and contains what seems the right mixture between short event reports and news items, along with a couple of analytical pieces, one on ‘workerism’ and a thought-provoking other on peat-cutting and energy.
A two-page spread on James Connolly and the Irish Republic quotes extensively from Connolly but without giving any references. This can be an issue since a number of statements commonly attributed to both Connolly and Lenin are lacking in substantial (or even any) verification2.
This edition discusses issues and events in Ireland but also internationally. Reports from the agrarian revolutionary movements in parts of India and in the Phillipines are featured – a list of attacks and casualties inflicted upon the oppressors’ forces.
Another piece marks the death of Palestinian activist Adnan Khader on the 76th day of his hunger strike protest against Israeli ‘administrative detention’ – internment in fact. The mass struggles in France against the raising of the retirement age are also featured.
For Ireland there are reports on the housing struggle, against police repression in the Six Counties, historical commemorations, poster and graffiti campaigns, a sectarian attack in Lurgan and another article deals with mental health issues and the shortage of services in Tipperary.
As commented in an earlier review of this newspaper, the Irish revolutionary movement has long needed a hard-copy revolutionary newspaper. As Lenin commented3, the revolutionary newspaper is an organiser as it requires production and distribution.
Of course, distribution networks for a newspaper can become action-organising networks also but in any case meeting a person to give them a newspaper is a personal contact, when questions and criticisms can be discussed and other information from the community collected to act upon.
This form of contact for the individual is superior to those available on the Internet and also less easy for the State to monitor. A newspaper can also go from hand to hand in a way that only short pieces or videos can compare with in electronic distribution.
Though of course, the latter also has its strengths.
Future editions of APA are to be welcomed and in the fullness of time perhaps we can even graduate to a weekly revolutionary Irish socialist newspaper, not seen here for decades.
End.
An Phoblacht Abú is available from personal contact with AIA or by post from Isrmedia@protonmail.com
FOOTNOTES:
1. See https://rebelbreeze.com/2023/05/07/gardai-arrest-republican-denouncing-the-monarchy-british-occupation/ Although the raid may well have been intended to disrupt plans for protests against US Imperialism’s chief, Joe Biden’s visit to Ireland, a socialist Republican still faces concocted charges relating to membership of an imaginary “illegal organisation”. Under special repressive legislation such a charge without credible evidence has been sufficient, in the no-jury Special Criminal Courts, to jail Republicans for two years.
2 For example, I have searched diligently for the description of the Irish Citizen Army attributed to Lenin, viz. “the first Red Army in Europe” but have thus far failed to find verification.
Refugees living in tents on streets in Dublin were targeted last week by fascists and antifascists have confronted the latter in defence. Shelters of refugees have been torched.
There’s been some anti-immigrant discourse in Ireland, especially promoted by fascists and racists for a few years but it really took off during the Government’s handling of the Ukrainian refugee influx.
The Irish Government for pro-NATO reasons prioritised these over other refugees, also placing the Ukrainians in empty buildings in working class areas already low on social infrastructure and without consultation with the local community, some of whom reacted angrily.
The Irish Government handed the fascists and other racists a great opportunity and they grasped it.
After that issue had died down a bit, the fascists were looking for something to take its place and found it again in other refugees, this time those who were NOT being housed by the Government and were instead living in tents on streets around the IPO office in Mount Street.
Refugee tents near the International Protection Office (left of photo) in Dublin recently (credit Sasko LazarovRollingNews.ie)
The International Protection Office was supposed to organise to provide for the basic needs of refugees – in fact are legally obliged to – while their cases were being processed and had been failing to do so, hence the people it had failed living in tents around the area.
FASCISTS GO TO ATTACK THE REFUGEES
The refugees got some sympathetic coverage in articles in the Cork Examiner and Irish Times1. Perhaps it was this that stirred up well-known fascist Phillip Dwyer (known hater of women, migrants, LGBT and Muslims) to go and attack those people living on the street.
On Thursday 11th Dwyer turned up with his “security” people, i.e fascist goons, thinking to run the refugees out of there and perhaps do worse. But he was met with resistance including some people helping the refugees, two of the goons got hurt and they backed off.
According to a statement on Revolutionary Housing Action’s Twitter account, one of the defenders was ambushed when he went to collect his bike and while fighting them off, they threw a bike at him. Dwyer and his fascist hounds promised to be back.
Streetlink homeless service stated that on Friday, they were threatened and their outreach van pummelled while they packed refugee belongings and then boxed in so they had to suspend their outreach service for that evening, handing on outreach contacts to other services.
On Friday 12th Dwyer was back with a larger mob but met by a broad group of antifascists, including RHL, AIA, PBP, CATU, CYM, DCAR and independent antifascist activists2 (AIA statement onTwitter, Saturday 13 May). Dublin Republicans Against Fascism were there too.
Section of antifascists in the foreground on Friday, police in the middle distance and fascists and the curious beyond. (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
The violence against persons was now turned on the pitiful shelters and belongings which, on Friday night were set on fire.
On Saturday 13th, the fascist Irish Freedom Party held their rally on Custom House Quay against hate speech legislation being considered by the Government. From there they marched, not against the Government but against the homeless refugees.
According to local sources, the fascists distributed leaflets asking people to be electoral candidates and promising to help the inexperienced.
What was the connection between a protest allegedly about ‘free speech’ and a march on homeless refugees? Absolutely none, except the standard fascist agenda of targeting minorities to divide the working people and scream about free speech while using violence against their targets.
But in a cunning move, the NP who have never helped any area, were there afterwards cleaning up the area and placing flowerpots there.
Meanwhile, on Thursday night, the Revolutionary Housing League stated that they had opened one of the many empty buildings in Dublin to house the targeted refugees. The RHL have been opening up empty buildings for over a year now and encouraging others to do so.
Subsequently, Leo Varadkar, of the very Government that set up the conditions for this to happen, declared how unacceptable the attack on the refugees was. And following strong criticism from the Refugee Council, the State suddenly found it could house most of the refugees.
If true, hopefully good for those refugees but the fascists will now bleat about how “foreigners are getting treated better than the Irish” to the gullible and, also among themselves, be commenting that violence brings results.
The fascists have been stirring up local community fears with allegations that some of the refugees are paedophiles on the run from justice in their own countries, for which there is not a shred of evidence.
Ironically, while they attacked LGBT people as “paedophiles” some of the far-right have for decades been defending the Catholic Church hierarchy in Ireland from criticism and accusations of abuse of children and women in their institutions.
Lies spill from fascist lips as a matter of course: “immigrants are rapists and paedophiles, LGBT people are paedophiles, migrants are rapists, migrants are being treated better than the natives, the whites are being replaced by people of colour, muslims are taking over”, etc, etc.
THE GARDAÍ AND THE FASCISTS
The Gardaí, including the Public Order Unit, stood between the antifascists and the fascist-led mob on Friday, then kettled the antifascists for awhile, then followed the antifascist contingent up Pearse Street with fascists tailing along. When the antifascists dispersed, some of them were attacked.
The Irish Times on Monday 15th reported on a complaint from the Garda Representative Association that they are unable to police these events, don’t know about refugees, need training, etc.3
What is there to know? Refugees are as entitled as anyone else to be kept free from violence and the Gardaí could have arrested a number of fascists, had they wanted to, under the Public Order Act, which they regularly use against left-wing protests.
In September 2020, when unarmed antifascists went to counter-protest a Yellow Vest4 rally against masking5 and were attacked by masked (!) thugs recruited by the National Party with wooden and metal clubs, the POU understood enough to draw batons and attack – the antifascists!
Scene on Butt Bridge in September 2020 after armed fascists had attacked the unarmed counter-protesters at Custom House Quay and then the Public Order Unit had attacked them also, pushing them back off the Quay with raised batons, threatening to strike. (Photo: Dublin Republicans Against Fascism)
The following week, the Gardaí allowed NP fascists in Kildare Street to jostle and threaten a handful of LGBT campaigners and to club one of them to the ground. The Gardaí then ordered the woman, blood streaming from her head, to leave.
On both occasions the Garda press office issued statements saying that there had been no serious incidents. But the videos of the woman being assaulted and then ordered away went wide on social media and within a few hours, the Gardaí had changed their story.
In September 2020, longtime fascist and member of the National Party Michael Quinn (left, carrying wooden club disguised as Irish Tricolour flag) attacked veteran LGBT campaigner Izzy Kamikaze while she observed fascists in Kildare Street. The Gardaí forced Izzy to leave and later told the media nothing of any note had occurred, later having to change their press statement after the circulation of video footage. Quinn was later convicted of the attack and jailed for two years. (Images sourced: Internet).
However, it was ‘up to the victim’ whether she made a complaint (for an armed attack in a public place seen on video?)! She did, and eventually the particular assailant, Michael Quinn of the NP, was jailed for two years.6 But for Gardaí collusion with fascists and lying to the press? Nothing.
WHAT NOW?
Given the wars instigated by US/NATO and EU around the world and deprivation by foreign exploitation of people’s natural resources, refugees and other migrants will continue coming to Europe, including Ireland.
The fascists will continue to target minorities and wave their fake patriotism and social concern while they recruit for their parties, diverting attention from the housing profiteers and the facilitating ruling class while they strive to drive wedges into the working people.
The local working class residents, for example in the block of flats overseeing the site of the conflict, will gain nothing except an undeserved bad reputation for what happened in their area and in which perhaps a few teenagers were opportunistically involved.
Already the recently-completed block of apartments just down the road from them is advertising one-bed apartments for 2,000 euro a month and two-beds for 3,000. None of the local working people of course will be renting those.
The cause of the housing crisis in Dublin will continue: property speculators, vulture funds and multi-unit landlords will continue to rake in profits because the Government won’t build housing for affordable rent in case it should compete with them.
Unless, that is, a real hard struggle including militant occupations and defiance of court orders is taken to them forcing a change, be it reform or revolution. This is a task for the Left which of course can never be carried out by fascists.
But hopefully many anti-fascists have learned or had reaffirmed the need for unity in a broad front against fascism and that confrontation and preparedness for physical defence against fascists is needed, while also discussing the most appropriate tactics for different situations.
On Thursday evening fascist Phillip Dwyer and a number of other known fascists led a mob in threatening migrants encamped in the Mount Street/ Fenian Street/ Sandwith Street area on the north reaches of Dublin City Centre.
Dwyer, formerly of the fascist National Party and some of his cohorts had been there the previous night too but in smaller numbers, when he was met with opposition.
Migrants have for some time been camped out in that area near the International Protection Office of the Irish State which has a brief to help refugees. Those living in the tents say that little is being done in reality to help refugees and their encampment is an illustration of this.
On Thursday night Phillip Dwyer had brought a mob to at least intimidate the refugees but was faced off by antifascists. He had declared his intention to return.
On Friday in Sandwith Street, a number of people in ordinary clothes could be seen in confrontation with another group, with yellow-jacketed Gardaí and dark blue Public Order Unit between them. An Irish Tricolour and green Starry Plough waved on one side and a lone tricolour on the other.
The view some time after the arrival of fascists and supporting mob. The antifascists are where the green Starry Plough flag may be seen, in a short laneway and in a group in front of the lane’s mouth. (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
Local people and some passers-by watched.
People who received a callout for antifascist support but arrived late experienced difficulty in getting into the antifascist sector, which was where the Tricolour and Starry Plough could be seen, due to the police line between there and the confronting mob.
It seemed that neither antifascists nor fascists would be permitted to get in this way. (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
For many antifascists it was a novel experience to be facing the backs of the Public Order Unit, normally drawn out against them, often with batons drawn (none of that seen on this occasion).
The dominant chanting was from the antifascist side, mostly of “Say it Loud and Say it Clear: Refugees are welcome here”, interspersed at times with “Homes for Need, not for Greed!” and another.
Section of antifascists before moving, Gardaí further away and hostile mob further still. (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
Though these slogans outline socialist positions they don’t directly address what the fascists were doing and some slogans need to be developed for that, for example pointing out that the fascists are dividing working people and assisting capitalism.
It was difficult to make out what the mob were shouting but individuals at times threw accusations of paedophilia at the migrants and antifascists. This is a common lie by fascists in Ireland and there has not been a single case among this refugee group to justify the accusation.
Section of antifascists before moving, Gardaí further away and hostile mob further still. (Photo: Rebel Breeze)Section of antifascists before moving, viewed from short laneway mouth, Gardaí further away and hostile mob further still. The new block of expensive apartments is in the left background. (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
The refugees camped around there are actually causing nobody any harm, except perhaps embarrassment for the IPO and the Irish State. Journalists for the Cork Examiner and the Irish Times have both written sympathetic pieces about them recently (probably to the ire of Dwyer).
The area includes working-class flats complexes and higher-market-end housing, including a newly-completed block nearby where the rents are reportedly 2,000 euro a month for one-bedroom-units and 3,000 per month for two bedrooms.
And it is said that some low-rent units were promised but never delivered.
Of course, the Fascists and their followers don’t mobilise against that problem, caused by failure of the State to supply quality affordable housing units lest they compete with the property speculators, big landlords and financiers, although that would make general housing sense.
Fascists are an arm of the capitalist class, not its enemy and for their followers, it’s infinitely easier to pick on vulnerable refugees and other migrants than the rich and their State.
Antifascists kettled by Gardaí after agreement to move. (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
Some investigation carried out locally ascertained that although some local people were being fooled by the far-Right discourse, others blamed the Government. Some also said that a lot of the anti-refugee crowd were just in it for the fight and were not even locals.
However one should not underestimate the potential for fascists to mobilise disadvantaged people to split the working people as fascism and racism has done in the past.
Rear section of antifascists after kettling by Gardaí. (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
A light moment occurred when one of the mob threw a plastic water bottle at the antifascists. As the missile arced towards them, a hand rose out of the crowd and caught the bottle in the air, followed by applause, congratulatory for the catcher and derisory at the thrower.
Since the refugees had been moved earlier there seemed little reason for the anti-fascists to remain except to shout slogans at the opposition and perhaps to deny them a feeling of victory. However, they would have to leave at some point.
A couple of individuals who seemed to be in some kind of leadership role began to discuss with the police their desire for everyone to leave together. At last, to the relief of many, the crowd began to move in the direction of Pearse Street. But not for long, as they were stopped by some POU.
The antifascists were now strung out along the pavement and much more vulnerable than they had been in their previous position in the small lane entrance. Police vans moved up, ostensibly for protection but the actual result was the kettling of the antifascists for a while.
Dissatisfaction was expressed among the crowd – a lot!
The Gardaí might present it as a protective measure but in effect it was part of the kettling of the antifascists for a period after agreement to leave. (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
Eventually they began to move again, and a local elderly man wished the antifascists well and “safe home”. One of the antifascists was heard to reply: “Thank you; go raibh maith agat!”
The route was through a narrow passage under a railway bridge and on to Pearse Street, heading for Tara Street but strung out and not at all in good defensive form, with members of the mob regularly screaming hatred at them from a metre or two away.
The temptation to knock out one individual nearby who was spitting at antifascists was strong but apart from the danger of arrest, that might have sparked a general assault with the whole group exposed and badly strung out along the pavement.
It is clear that the fascist and far-right threat which was so much in evidence during the Covid Lockdown and which received a couple of important setbacks since has not disappeared and the National Party has planned a rally for Custom House Quay today.
Responses to fascist threats will need to be more widespread and probably better organised in future.
Subsequently the revolutionary Housing League issued a brief statement that they had opened up an empty building in Dublin to accommodate the displaced (again!) refugees. It was learned today that some antifascists were assaulted as their group dispersed.
Misguided people from disadvantaged working class communities the followers of the mob may be but there is no excuse for harassing and threatening vulnerable people who are living rough on the street.
Revolutionary greetings on the First of May! It is International Workers’ Day, for recalling of the struggles of working people down the centuries past and of resolution to carry the struggle forward until we succeed in building and defending a socialist society.
On that Mayday too we are aware that in some parts of the world, those wishing to mark the date in public will be subject to intimidation or worse: arrest, baton charge or being fired upon. Possibly even trial and death sentence.
HISTORY OF MAYDAY
The day dates from an incident in Chicago 1886, USA, when trade unions and socialist groups of various kinds organised a campaign in many cities of the USA to exchange the common 10-hour1 working day for the 8-hour day. May 1st was set for the start of the campaign
On May 3rd in Chicago, a city central to the campaign for an eight-hour working day, a demonstration as part of the campaign took place outside the McCormick Harvesting Machine company. The police opened fire on striking workers, killing one of them and injuring many.
The anarchists and anarcho-syndicalists organised a demonstration for May 4th to protest the killing of workers. When the police advanced on the peaceful crowd ordering dispersal, a bomb was thrown at them and police opened fire on the crowd, some of whom returned fire.
Some of the police are believed to have shot some of their colleagues by mistake.
Sixty police were injured and one killed; the police chief gave his opinion that more than that number of demonstrators were injured. The media was mostly hostile and many demonstrators wounded would have feared to attend hospital for fear of arrest or worse by police.
Contemporary engraving of the seven originally sentenced to death (Image: Wikipedia)
Subsequently, amidst a wave of police repression, including raids on union halls and people’s homes, eight Anarchists were framed, charged with conspiracy to murder and convicted. One of them was sentenced to 15 years in jail.
The sentences of Schwab and Fielden were commuted to life imprisonment. Linng took his own life in jail but August Spies, Albert R. Parsons, Adolph Fischer and George Engel were hanged by the Chicago State authorities.
Artist’s impression of the hanging of the four (Image: Wikipedia)
In 1889 the (Second) International Workingmen’s Association, a federation of trade unions and socialist organisations, agreed that in memory of that struggle and its martyrs, the First of May should be marked by all socialists around the world as International Workers’ Day.2
The site of the incident was designated a Chicago landmark in 1992 and a sculpture made in 1893 was dedicated there in 2004. In addition, the Haymarket Martyrs’ Monument was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1997 at the defendants’ burial site in Forest Park.
THE FIRST OF MAY BEFORE THAT
In European agricultural society the First of May was celebrated firstly as a pagan festival and later as an allegedly secular one or named for a Christian saint. It celebrated the coming of summer, of growing of crops and of livestock.
Industrial workers originated in agricultural societies or, in the case of early miners, were located near to such. It was natural that they should participate in such festivals and also even generations later create their own around a similar calendar.
European settlers in the USA, many of them from agricultural societies3, brought those traditions with them. That was probably one of the reasons for the date of the Chicago demonstration, although certainly there had been others on other dates.
MAYDAY IN IRELAND
My father took me as a child on my first Mayday march in Dublin. He was an active member of the NUJ and some members of his union and of others participated in a small march through the city centre led by a brass band.
Returning to Ireland in 2003 after decades working in England and marching there on May 1st, I was disappointed by the very small size of Mayday demonstrations in Dublin, though I participated in some and on at least one occasion as part of a Basque contingent.
The oppositional movement to the status quo in Ireland, because of our history of anti-colonial struggle, is dominated by Irish Republicanism. And though all of that movement’s parts would claim to be socialist too, the First of May is not of great importance in their annual calendar.
This is unfortunate because the mass of Irish workers who are not members of the Republican movement need leadership for their class and also, as it happens, most Irish Republicans are workers. And practically all immigrants are workers too.
While fighting for an independent Ireland, do we as workers want to exchange one group of exploiters for another? And is a struggle for an independent Ireland even remotely winnable without enlisting the working class fighting as a class in its own class interests?
James Connolly thought not and our history since his day has certainly attested to the correctness of his view.
NATIONAL HOLIDAY?
On 1st of May for years I took the day off work – unpaid, of course and went into the centre of London, the city in which I was living and working. My destination was usually Hyde Park Corner and if I was then in an organisation I met up others and if not, just joined in as an individual.
Thousands of people met there to rally and perhaps to march and I was aware that around the world not just thousands, or hundreds of thousands but millions were marking that day also. As a day to recall struggles in their own particular countries and in solidarity with others around the world.
Generally the various organisations and tendencies marched with those of their own affiliation but in the same demonstration, with the exception of the Workers’ Revolutionary Party, which on at least one occasion marched in as everyone was leaving.
The WRP was an extremely internally dictatorial and externally politically sectarian trotskyist organisation that at one time up to the mid 1980s was probably the largest socialist organisation,4 certainly outside the ranks of the Communist Party of Great Britain.
The latter organisation, with the support of some other socialists, many of them left social-democrats, began to push for Mayday to become a national holiday, an objective they achieved in 19785 (followed by the Irish State 15 years later)6.
So now I could go to the demonstrations and not lose pay. Great, right?
No, not really. For a start, the holiday was no longer on May 1st but instead on the nearest Monday to the date. More importantly, people tended to treat it as a holiday rather than a day of international workers’ solidarity. Of course people are entitled to holidays but the essence of the day was gone.
And rather than being larger, the demonstrations grew smaller.
Sculpture made in 1893 known as The Haymarket Martyrs’ Monument (Photo: Wikipedia)
A DAY TO RECALL AND AVOW WORKERS’ STRUGGLE
This is not a day for class collaborationists, politicians or union leaders who try to undermine the struggles, water down demands and act as the ruling class’ police on union activists. It is a date for those at minimum in support of militant resistance.
The essence of the day is what we need to keep. A day upholding our struggle, that of the working class against its exploiters, native and foreign. A day remembering our long history of struggle, of victories and defeats, of sacrifices and why the colour of the workers’ flag is red.
It is a day to remember our internationalist duty of solidarity, not as charity or altruism but as partners in struggle across the world, as on a picket line or demonstration we would shield the person beside us and strike out at the company goon, fascist or policeman attacking us.
And rightfully expect the same from those next to us as we ourselves are the subject of assault.
End.
Current mural in Portugal
Footnotes
1That was for a six-day week and 14-hour days were not unknown and in rural areas, even a seven-day week.
2Five years later, U.S. Pres. Grover Cleveland, uneasy with the socialist origins of Workers’ Day, signed legislation to make Labor Day—already held in some states on the first Monday of September—the official U.S. holiday in honour of workers. Canada followed suit not long afterward.
3That would certainly have included most Irish, Italians, Sicilians and East Europeans in the 19th and early 20th Centuries.
4The WRP was the result of a split in socialist organisations and by the mid-1980s was disintegrating in many smaller organisations. It exists still in name but as shade or sliver of its earlier form.
5May Day became an official public holiday all across the UK in 1978 with provisions for it being made in the Banking and Financial Dealings Act. Prior to that time it had been a holiday only in Scotland. The May Day Bank Holiday was instituted by Michael Foot, then the Labour Employment Secretary to coincide with International Labour Day.
6In the Irish State, the first Monday of May became a public holiday following the Public Holiday Regulations 1993 Act. The holiday was first observed in 1994.
Kontxi Arana, code name “Rita”, was a fighter of the Basque armed organisation ETA and also of the Sandinista movement. A ceremony of homage to her memory on 22nd April was also the occasion of an antifascist conference with representatives from a number of European countries.
The event took place in Gernika, the SW Basque town infamously bombed by German and Italian Nazi and Fascist squadrons during the Spanish Civil/ Ant-Fascist War, the act which inspired the Catalan painter Picasso´s famous piece on the event (which he called by its Spanish name, “Guernica” (sic)). The venue was the disused Astra factory, formerly manufacturer of handguns.
The Origins and Nature of Fascism
The day-long anti-fascist conference began with a talk on the origins and basic nature of fascism by Iñaki Gil de San Vincente, Marxist theoretician and veteran of the Basque Left Patriotic Movement from which leadership of however he has broken for a number of years.
Speaking in Castillian, he declared the essential nature of fascism to be authoritarianism, deriving from the development of the bourgeois family. The central authority figure in that family, later reproduced in other social classes including the working class is the Father, represented in capitalist society by the employer and the Church.
It is an authority to which all are required to submit: patriarchical, homophobic and intolerant of criticism or deviation.
De San Vincente spoke at length about this development and about early descriptions of fascism, for example by Clara Zetkin and Lukacs and described it as a production of capitalism and imperialism and therefore represented today most clearly in the actions of US Imperialism and the NATO over which it exercises hegemony.
The speaker also highlighted the development of NATO and its recruitment of Nazis as well as the development of its Vatican route for Nazis to leave Europe and enter Latin American countries where they would form fascist centres.
This talk was followed by a representative of Ezkerraldea Antifaxistako (Antifascist Left) who, speaking mostly in Castilian, outlined the history of the development of fascism in the Spanish state following the military-fascist uprising and the four decades of dictatorship, and how the organisation he represented responded to that.
The final speaker of the morning session was from Mugimendu Socialistako (the Socialist Movement – organisation with a large membership, according to a participant) who spoke entirely in Euskera (Basque language). Although simultaneous translation was provided into Castilian (Spanish), the volume of such was too low to be understood by many.
Morning session of the anti-fascist conference in Gernika (Photo: DRAF)
According to a participant, the content of that speaker´s contribution was similar to that of the previous speaker, although he mentioned the existence of Frente Obrero (Workers´Front), a Basque organisation which, despite its name, is a fascist organisation. The existence of that latter group appeared to be news to many present.
These talks were followed by a break and, upon resumption, there were some contributions from the floor and some responses from the panel, after which all repaired to the green outside the Astra building to where the ceremony of respect to the memory of Kontxi “Rita” Arana was to take place.
Kontxi Arana: A leading Basque liberation fighter who also joined the Sandinistas in the liberation struggle of Nicaragua
A Basque woman of the independent Patriotic Left movement blew the traditional cow or bull horn to summon attention, while the speaker in the Basque language introduced the program and speakers along with a short history of this internationalist anti-imperialist and anti-fascist fighter.
Kontxi Arana was an active member of the Basque armed liberation organisation ETA who avoided capture while on operations in the Spanish State but was arrested in the French state and exiled to an island, from which she and others escaped. Sometime later she surfaced in Nicaragua, where she had joined the Sandinista armed liberation movement.
Around the end of the 1990s, the leadership of the Basque Patriotic Left asked some exiles to return to the Basque Country to help push the pacification process and release of prisoners but the Spanish State refused to play, though they did not arrest Kontxi (however according to reports arrangements were not well organised to support her).
Most of the crowd present at the Gernika commemoration and homage to Kontxi “Rita” Arana, with the Astra building in the background and the railway line fence just visible in the left background.
The homage to her memory
A man formerly of the official patriotic Left movement spoke in Spanish about the need for internationalist solidarity, through which however mistakes can be made (e.g. in supporting corrupt leadership) which however does not alter the importance of such solidarity, without which the revolution cannot advance.
This was followed by a man from Dublin Republicans Against Fascism who briefy explained in Castilian (Spanish) the history behind Christy Moore´s “Viva La Quince Brigada“, which the Dubliner then sang in its original English.
Dublin Republicans Against Fascism representative singing Christy Moore’s Viva La Quinze Brigada.
The homage event concluded with red carnations being laid by members of the audience in front of a portrait of Kontxi “Rita” Arana. Two ex-political prisoners played the ´txistu´ (Basque three-hole flute), one of them also beating a rhythm on a small drum (´tamborina´). A young woman stepped forward and danced the ´aurresku´, a traditional honour dance.
Crowd queuing to lay red carnations in front of a portrait of Kontxi Arana
This dance was traditionally danced by a male, then by male dancers, then by male and female dancers until today, when it may be performed by any of those combinations or by a lone female, as in this case, and often enough in ordinary clothing as was the case on this occasion, though she did wear dancing shoes laced to the ankles.
The young woman performing the honour Aurresku dance in one of the high kicks of the dance with, to the far right, the ex-political prisoner txistulari (players of the Basque flute). In the immediate background, participants and organisers. (Photo: DRAF)
The musicians then played the air of The Internationale, which most could be heard singing in Euskera, followed by Eusko Gudariak (“Basque Soldiers”), the Basque national resistance song, similar to the Soldiers’ Song/ Amhrán na bhFiann of Ireland in content. Many had raised clenched fists as the songs were sung.
Suddenly, a wild high-pitched yodelling cry rang out from a female throat, the Irrintzi, traditional Basque battle-cry which probably echoed around the mountains in olden days.
All the audience then repaired to the Astra building where a hot meal was served to all on long tables with a bottle of wine to share among each group of several people (those present had purchased tickets to the event either in advance or upon attendance).
Afternoon session: Presentations from Turkish, Irish and Catalan antifascists.
The afternoon session started a little late as people straggled in. The chairperson, speaking in Euskera, introduced the theme of the session which was for antifascists from Turkey, Ireland and Catalonia to describe the situation with regard to fascism in their countries and how it was being confronted.
Turkey
Two people from the Turkish-based revolutionary organisation Anti-Imperialist Front presented their contribution while using a video of images, some subtitled in Castilian but where not, spoken by the woman in English while her comrade translated simultaneously into Castilian.
Overall, the presentation was about the development of state fascism in Turkey and the failed military coup of 2016. The DHKP/C organisation had resisted this on the streets but a major struggle with the Erdogan government took place in trials and in the jails.
Through hunger strikes and physical resistance in the jails, hundreds of martyrs had lost their lives, said the speaker but had remained undefeated. Also martyred had been members of the Group Yorum music group which has played revolutionary songs heard by millions.
Another struggle was carried out through public hunger strikes by elderly relatives seeking the uncovering of mass graves in the bodies of fighters, their sons, had been thrown by the Turkish military.
As a result two mass graves had been eventually disinterred, permitting the remains of fighters of the DHKP/C and of the PKK (Kurdish patriotic socialist organisation) to be returned to their families for respectful re-burial.
The Turkish speakers concluded by stating the necessity for anti-fascism to be anti-imperialist and calling for internationalist solidarity and victory to peoples’ struggles.
Section of audience at afternoon session of the anti-fascist conference in Gernika, Basque Country.
Ireland
The next speaker was from Dublin Republicans Against Fascism, explaining that eight centuries of occupation of his country by England has ensured that the dominant struggle had been one of national liberation and that all armed struggles since 1798 had been led by Republicans of various kinds: 1801, 1848, 1867, 1882 and 1916.
The Irish State that came into being after the War of Independence in 1921 had been a client of the UK, conceding over one-fifth of its national territory as a direct colony. The armed forces of the State had formally executed over 80 of the IRA and instituted a wave of repression including kidnappings, torture, murders including of prisoners.
In keeping with the rise of fascism across 1930s Europe, Ireland saw the Blueshirt movement, led by former police chief Eoin O’Duffy. The Republican movement and socialists fought these on the streets, the speaker said.
The Dubliner recounted briefly the history of Irish Republicans and socialists going to fight Franco in the Spanish state and the Irish diaspora fighting the British fascists, the Blackshirts, in British cities and in defence of Eastern European Jews in famous Battle of Capel Street in the East End of London against over 7,000 police.
He went on to recount some more recent successful physical attacks by joint Republican groups against fascist organisations, the Pegida group in 2016 and even more recently the National Party. Recently too, Republican ex-prisoners had released a video stating the opposition of Republicanism to fascism with a growing list of signatures.
In conclusion, the speaker said that Ireland’s history made it difficult for fascism to advance in Ireland (except in the Loyalist areas) but as long as capitalism exists so too does the danger of fascism, particularly if the progressive forces do not fight effectively against the attacks of Capital on working people.
Catalonia
The representative of the Anti-Repression Platform of Catalonia, speaking in Castilian (Spanish), explained their organisation had come into existence after the repression of the Independence Referendum in 2017 and the subsequent frame-ups and allegations of terrorism against the Committees for the Defence of the Republic.
The speaker alluded to the jailing of the revolutionary socialist rapper Pablo Hasel and comrades who were charged with terrorism merely for expressing and organising solidarity for those being repressed.
“Don’t try to frighten us with threats of a fascist party getting into government”, he said in a reference to the growth of the Spanish fascist party Vox, because we have had a fascist government in the Spanish state since 1939!” (The year that the military-fascist forces defeated the Second Republic and founded four decades of dictatorship).
The Catalan went on to denounce the social-democratic party PSOE (currently in coalition government with Podemos Unitas), pointing out that it has had more political prisoners in jail and fatal victims than any other party in Spanish government (he was probably including the sponsoring the GAL terrorists of the 1980s).
“There has not been a year in which there were no political prisoners in the Spanish state”, he went on to say but also denounced the current Catalan Government, led by the allegedly pro-independence and leftist ERC party and its repression of socialists and independence activists.
He pointed out that fascists would make no distinction between communists and anarchists and asked “so then why should we?” He declared that all who resist repression now, regardless of before, are welcome to take part in their organisation.
The panel at the afternoon session: from left to right: speakers from Catalonia and Ireland, Basque chairperson, Turkish speakers and translator.
Prisoners on hunger-strike
The chairperson of the panel thanked the speakers and drew together elements from each of their presentations.
He went on to announce the declared intention of a small group of Basque political prisoners to embark on a hunger strike and to outline solidarity events being organised. The prisoners concerned are in the non-compliance minority of Basque political prisoners with a regime that forbids them referring to themselves as political prisoners.
The prison authorities intended to make the prisoners share a cell with other political prisoners who are however in compliance, intending to undermine the resistance of the small group and also posing the danger of conflicts within the cell. (A few days later news came that the hunger-striking prisoners had won their demands).
Amnistia organisation solidarity poster announcing forthcoming hunger-strike of political prisoners, now over because they won their demand.
Summary
The conference in its organisation and content of contributions drew anti-fascism together with imperialism and internationalist solidarity, all from an anti-capitalist perspective. It also drew connections between solidarity with political prisoners and resistance to repression.
All of the Basque organisations represented are in opposition to the trajectory of the leadership of what had been the Basque Left Patriotic movement, now represented by the EH Bildu party led by Otegi (with daily newspaper GARA, its trade union organisation LAB) and many of the older people were ex-supporters of that leadership.
That included some prominent ones such as Inaki Gil de San Vincente and the speakers and organisers of the conference and of the homage to the memory of Kontxi “Rita” Arana. The younger participants might have included ex-members or had come into political consciousness in opposition to that leadership.
Taken together, they are what many call ‘dissidents’ though some reject that term, saying that they are in fact sticking to the original line of independence and socialism and that it is the official leadership and their followers who have deviated. Their numbers are comparatively small at the moment but they are growing.
Hundreds of primary and secondary school students demonstrated on 29th April outside the Irish Parliament, to protest the decisions on the Irish language curriculum and lack of State support for education through the Irish language.
Teenagers and younger, many in their school uniforms, led by a few organisers, shouted slogans and some carried placards and banners. There was a sprinkling of a few older adults in their midst also, some long-time campaigners for the Irish language in society.
Primary and secondary school pupils attended from at least six colleges, all Gaelscoileanna, i.e those where instruction in all subjects (except English) is through Irish. Led in by an adult and spontaneously, they chanted slogans such as: Tír gan teanga, tír gan anam!
Confirmed in attendance were pupils from schools in three counties: Coláiste Íosagáin and Coláiste Eoin, from South Co. Dublin; Coláiste na Mara (Co. Wicklow); Coláiste Rachrann (North Dublin), Coláiste Chill Dara (Co. Kildare).
Julian de Spáinn, General Secretary of Conradh na Gaeilge (Gaelic League), a state-funded organisation for the promotion of the Irish language, speaking in Irish, said that the education system is “broken in relation to the Irish language.”
“A comprehensive policy needs to be developed for Irish within the education system from pre-school to third level”, De Spáinn stated. Irish within the education system has been surrounded by controversy in recent years from teachers, parents, students and language organisations.
Concretely, De Spáinn called for the immediate establishment of a working committee “composed of people who understand Irish within the education system and that have experience of it.” He said that the specifications and syllabus for the Junior and Senior Cycles are “nonsensical”.
He went on to claim that more than 90% of those teaching the Senior Cycle are unhappy with it and went on to criticise Minister Foley’s decision to move Paper 1 of the Irish exam for the Leaving Certificate to the fifth year (although its implementation has now been delayed).
In addition to criticising the lack of Gaelscoileanna throughout the state, De Spáinn stated that the exemptions from Irish language study are “out of control” and that pupils with special needs were not receiving the necessary service that they may be facilitated in studying Irish at school.
Shane Ó Coinn, Chairperson of An Gréasán do Mhúinteoirí Gaeilge, the website for teachers of Irish, stated that Irish in the education system was suffering, for which the main cause is that the Education Department had ignored the opinions of teachers and of pupils.
“It is clear from the results of SEALBHÚ”, he continued, “that an oral examination in the third year is urgently needed, the marks for which should account for 40% of the total.”
Gráinne Ní Ailín, officer of the Irish Union of Post-Primary Students, said that an integrated approach of the education authorities was missing and that a proposal from one agency was conflicting with another.
“On the one hand, the Education Minister is intent on moving Paper 1 of Irish to the fifth year, while the state agency, the National Council for Curriculum and Measurement is working on changing the entire curriculum specifications for the Leaving Certificate.”
“It is not possible to carry out both actions simultaneously,” Ní Ailín said and recommended taking a step back and putting together a comprehensive plan.
Pictiúr: Leon Farrell / Photocall Ireland
Status of the Language in the Irish State
Many may be surprised to know that Irish is not only an official language in the Irish state but, according to the Constitution, the language of first status. Nevertheless, Irish-speakers have become a minority in the state and the Irish-speaking areas are all shrinking.
Despite the official position of the State and which Governments and civil servants are obliged to support nominally, many people report a lack of services through Irish at all levels of State and in public services, with even official public notices in Irish often garbled or even incorrect1.
In the 1960s and ‘70s it was only through campaigns including civil disobedience and supporters being fined or even jailed that the State provided an Irish-language radio station and a TV channel and legislation obliged State departments to provide services through Irish on request.
When the Irish state joined the EU (formerly EEC) it did not request that Irish be an official language of the organisation but it became so on 31st December 2021 — and may well reveal a large gap in availability of translators.
The Gaelscoil (school teaching through Irish) movement may be said to be the only visible success for the language within the territory of the Irish state but, as the protests and many other factors reveal, it has struggled against the State system of which it is a part.
In 2020-’21 academic year, there were 152 Gaelscoileanna outside the Gaeltachtaí (Irish-speaking areas), with at least one or two in each county and catering for 7% of all children at that level outside the Gaeltachtaí in the Irish state.2
Out of 700 post-primary education facilities in the Irish state outside the Gaeltachtaí only 29 are Gaelcholáistí, or 2.8% of the total. Ten of those are in Co. Dublin, four in Co. Cork and some other counties have one or at most two.
But twelve counties out of the 26 in the Irish state do not have even one Gaelcholáiste (post-primary level), i.e. approaching half of the counties in the state.3 In a tragic irony, this includes Co. Clare, from which the Irish-speaking Aran Islands are believed to have been colonised4.
In addition there are some units and streams teaching through Irish in other schools and colleges but of course outside of the classroom, even within the school, the dominant environment is an English-language one.
Twenty-eight Gaelcholáistí, representing 18% of total Gaelscoileanna are DEIS, i.e addressing educational disadvantage integratedly. Although 31% of Gaelcholáistí are of Catholic ethos, 69% are multi-nominational or non-denominational.
However, outside the Gaeltachtaí, even with fully-immersive Gaelscoileanna, how is daily use of the language in society to be promoted when the pupils find themselves surrounded by exclusively English language in their lives outside the school gates?
The Irish Language in the Colony
The British colony in Ireland (incorrectly named “Northern Ireland”) from its creation in May 1921 was hostile to the Irish language, as indeed it was to all expressions of ethnic Irish culture. Unionist MPs openly mocked the Irish language even inside their parliament.
Nevertheless following substantial pressure, its parliament passed the Identity and Language (Northern Ireland) Act 2022, giving the language a legal status within the colonial statelet5.
However, as we have seen even in the Irish state, legal status is not necessarily followed by appropriate implementation and unionists have thrown up obstacles against even the erection of bilingual street names within the colony.
(Photo: Leon Farrell/ Photocall Ireland)
Comment
The Irish language has been a part of all movements for national independence of Ireland. The occupier sought to ban its use among its colonisers and degraded its importance and use in all legal, educational and religious spheres.
Though the Irish state formally defended and promoted Irish, it presided over huge emigration for most of its existence. This combined with lack of development of the rural Irish-speaking areas encouraged a drift away from Irish for those whose language it had been at home.
Despite the activity of earnest individuals no major political party in practice moves itself energetically to promote the language. It is not required of their members or even representatives and none run any major language acquisition program – even for their own members6.
The same is true of all Irish Left and Republican political parties and organisations at this time.
Most advances have been won by political activism and the work of volunteers, across a number of parties and none. The movement continues to call on the State to put its money where its mouth is, as the saying goes, or the equivalent in Irish, to commit “beart de réir a bhriathair.”7
Footnotes
1The State used incompetent translation for its Irish language version of its video on the 100th anniversary of the 1916 Rising. The whole video was withdrawn after wide-scale criticism of even the general content in English. Notices urging people to remain safe from Covid, when translated to Irish urged them instead to besaved!
4There are a number of indicators for this instead of from Conamara but one is the pronunciation of the lenited M followed by a broad vowel, which would sound like a W in Conamara but a V in the Aran Islands. This Clare dialect can be seen in place-names extending into Co. Galway, for example Cinn Mhara pronounced Kinvara (it would be pronounced Kinwara in Conamara).
5Even then, to placate Unionist opposition, it had to share equal space with the promotion of Ulster Scots dialect, widely known to be spoken in actuality by less than tens of people.
6This is true even of Sinn Féin, the political party most in support of the Irish language. Their activity in its support within the Irish state comes nowhere near matching the same within the Six County colony, suggesting that for them the Irish language is principally a useful stick with which to beat their Unionist opposition.
On Sunday participants in a 1916 Rising Commemoration organised by the Irish organisation Anti-Imperialist Action were harassed by police as they gathered to march to the Irish Citizen Army Republican plot in Glasnevin Cemetery.
Six political police in plain clothes walked among those gathered beside Phibsborough shops demanding names and addresses of the participants, most of whom were fairly young. Four uniformed Gardaí also stood nearby and a Public Order Unit van parked at the cemetery entrance.
The participants declined to be intimidated and set off on their march, led by a lone piper playing Irish marching airs, followed by a colour party with different banners interspersed among the marchers, among which fluttered many flags.
Organisers had learned that the coach carrying members of the Republican Flute Band from Scotland that was to lead the parade had been prevented by police there from taking the ferry to Ireland.
Centre photo: Four of the six plainclothes political police violating the civil rights of the peaceful people commemorating the Easter Rising. (Photo: D.Breatnach)Centre photo, another two plainclothes political police. The bald man joked while he harassed people. (Photo: D.Breatnach) (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Historical background
In 1916 a broad alliance the Irish Volunteers, Irish Citizen Army, Cumann na mBan, na Fianna Éireann and Hibernian Rifles1 took part in a Rising organised by the Irish Republican Brotherhood against British rule in Ireland and against world war.
Due to a number of unfortunate circumstances, the leader of the Volunteers cancelled the Rising which however went ahead a day later than planned and was for the most part confined to Dublin, where a third of the numbers in the original plan took part and fought for a week.
The occupying British Army shelled the city centre from a gunship in the river Liffey and also from artillery on land. Explosions and resulting fires destroyed much of the city centre including the General Post Office in the main street, which had been the headquarters of the insurrection.2
After a week with the city centre including the GPO in flames, the rebel garrison evacuated to Moore Street where the following day, surrounded and vastly outnumbered, the decision was taken to surrender.3 A British military court passed death sentences on nearly a hundred prisoners.
All but fifteen of those sentences were commuted to long jail periods but the seven Signatories of the 1916 Proclamation4 and another seven were shot by British firing squad in Dublin, a fifteenth in Cork and after trial months later a sixteenth was hanged in Pentonville Jail, London.
At Easter 1917 Irish Republican and Socialist women commemorated the 1916 Rising; ever since then Irish Republicans and sometimes Socialists in Ireland and in many parts of the diaspora have commemorated the Rising, whether legally5 or otherwise, in jail or at liberty.
The War of Independence began in 1919 with many of the Rising’s survivors participating6.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
The Parade on Sunday – local and national historical memory marked
At Cross Guns Bridge over the Royal Canal the parade halted and flares were lit in memory of events there in 1916.
Marching along the Cabra Road, the wall and a watchtower of the north side of Glasnevin Cemetery on the left of photo. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
On Easter Monday 1916 a small group of Irish Volunteers had marched from Maynooth along the canal bank to join the Rising in Dublin and found guarding the bridge two Irish Volunteers who advised them to wait until the following day to go into the city centre.
The Maynooth group spent the night in Glasnevin and the following day marched into the GPO, passing an empty Cross Guns Bridge on the way. Back towards Phibsborough, British artillery had blown a barricade and killed Seán Healy, a Fianna member at the Nth. Circular Road crossroads.
Later, the Dublin Fusiliers unit of the British Army blockaded the bridge, preventing people from crossing it in either direction. They shot dead a deaf local man who failed to heed their challenge because he did not hear it.
We Serve Neither King nor Kaiser but Ireland declared one banner carried last Sunday, Britain/NATO Out of Ireland another, This Is Our Mandate7, Our Republic and Collusion Is No Illusion, It Is State-Sponsored Murder were another two.
A large banner also declared alongside the image of James Connolly that Only Socialism Can Be the Solution for Ireland. Some organisations also carried their own banners, such as those of Dublin Independent Republicans, Ireland Anti-Internment Campaign and Irish Socialist Republicans.
Flags fluttering included those bearing the logo of the organising group Anti-Imperialist Action and others bearing the slogan “Always Anti-Fascist”, green-and-gold Starry Ploughs, a couple of Ikurrinak (Basque flags) and another two of Red with Hammer & Sickle in yellow.
Basque and antifascist flags (Photo: D.Breatnach)
At the Monument: speeches and songs
At the monument (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Glasnevin Cemetery (ReiligGhlas Naíonn) covers over 120 acres in North Dublin city and is in two parts, each with Republican Plots separated by the Cabra Road and contains the graves of both famous and ordinary people.
On the north side there is also access to the Botanic Gardens, both on the south banks of the Tolka river. The imposing Monument to numerous Republican uprisings and the Irish Citizen Army Republican plot is on the south side, across the pedestrian bridge over the railway line.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
A man chaired the event for Anti-Imperialist Action and spoke briefly, introducing people for readings (all of which were from James Connolly) and for orations. The presentations of these were evenly divided between men and women, three of those being of young people.
Three songs were sung: a woman sang The Foggy Dew (by Charles O’Neill) and Erin Go Bragh (by Peadar Kearney), while a man sang Patrick Galvin’s Where Is Our James Connolly? Two women read out pieces by James Connolly and another read out the 1916 Proclamation.
Person chairing the event (Photo: D.Breatnach)
The words of the chairperson and of those giving orations were different but there were common themes: upholding the historic Irish spirit of resistance, the importance of the working class in history and the objective of a socialist Republic encompassing the whole of the Irish nation.
These words were balanced by denunciation of US and British imperialism and the colonial/ NATO occupation of the Six Counties by the latter; the Irish client regime; the special no-jury courts8 of both administrations in Ireland and repression by police forces and occupation army.
One of the singers (Photo: D.Breatnach)
One of the readers (Photo: D.Breatnach)
One of the readers (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Also denounced were those political parties that had abandoned the struggle for the Republic and instead had become part of the colonial and neo-colonial administrations or, in the latter case, were on their way to becoming so.9
Floral tributes were laid by representatives of a number of announced organisations and then others came forward to lay floral tributes also. The colour party lowered flags for a minute’s silence in homage and salute before slowly raising them again and the piper played Amhrán na bhFiann.
The other singer Lowering of the colour party flags in homage to the fallen in the struggle (Photo: D.Breatnach)Colour party raises flags again in symbolism of the struggle continuing (Photo: D.Breatnach)
The chairperson thanked all for attendance, listing organisations by name and cautioning all to stay close together as they left, due to the threatening presence of Gardaí and in particular the Public Order Unit. In the event, the celebrants exited the cemetery and dispersed without incident.
1A small unit, an armed wing of a split from the more socially conservative USA version of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, their participation in the Rising was notable.
2Photos of much of the destruction are available on the Internet and accessible by search browser.
3The terrace they occupied still stands and is the object of a historical memory and conservation struggle against property speculator plans approved by the municipal city managers and Government political parties (see smsfd.ie).
4A remarkable document, the text of which is available from many postings on the Internet.
5Irish women commemorated it in public in contravention of British WWI martial legislation in 1917 and 1918 and for decades the public commemoration of the 1916 Rising (and even the flying of the Irish Tricolour) was forbidden in the British colony of the Six Counties with attendant colonial police attacks on any attempt to do so.
6Sometimes inaccurately called “the Tan War” (reference to a special colonial police auxiliary force that became known as the “Black n’ Tans”), the war saw the birth of the IRA and lasted from 1919-1921. A British “peace” proposal opened deep divisions in the nationalist coalition and was followed by a Civil War 1922-1923, in which the pro-Treaty government and armed forces were armed and supplied by the British to defeat the Republicans in a campaign of repression and jailing, military actions, kidnapping and torture, murder of prisoners, assassinations and over 80 formal executions.
7Also displaying text referring to the First Dáil’s Democratic Program of 1919.
8The Diplock court in the colony and the Special Criminal Courts in the Irish State, political special courts in all but name, with low proof bar and abnormally high conviction rate and refusal of bail while awaiting trial.
9References to 1) the 1930s split from the Sinn Féin party, the Fianna Fáil political party that became a preferred Government party of the foreign-dependent Irish ruling bourgeoisie and 2) to the Provisional Sinn Féin party who endorsed the British pacification plan in 1998 and embarked on the road to becoming a party of reformist nationalism in the colony and is heading for neo-colonial (and neo liberal capitalist) coalition government at the moment.
