Part of series HOW TO WIN THE WAR — GETTING INTO POSITION.
See also: INTRODUCTION:
PART ONE: THE THIRTY-YEARS’ WAR – DOOMED TO LOSE
PART TWO: COLLECTING THE FORCES FOR REVOLUTION
PART THREE: THE ABSOLUTE NEED FOR UNITY – BUT HOW AND WHAT KIND? WITH WHOM?
All revolutionary movements – and many that are progressive but not revolutionary – face repression at some point in their existence. Not to recognise that fact and to have some kind of preparation for it, even if very basic, is indicative of a non-revolutionary attitude to the State. Nor have we any reason in Ireland to be complacent on this question.
The Irish State turned to military suppression in the first year of its existence as did also the colonial statelet. Detentions, torture, murders and official executions were carried out by Free State forces over a number of years, followed by censorship and arrests, all facilitated by emergency repressive legislation. In the Six Counties, in addition to similar even more repressive legislation, there were two sectarian militarised police forces and sectarian civilian organisations.
After a change of government, the Irish State introduced internment without trial during the Emergency (1939-1946), the Offences Against the State Act in 1939, Special Criminal (sic) Courts in 1972 and the Amendment to the OAS in that same year.
Poster for 2014 Commemoration of Bloody Sunday massacre, Derry 1972. The poster calls for unity. (Image source: Internet)
The Six County statelet had the Special Powers Act (1922) and brought in internment without trial in 1971 (the Ballymurphy Massacre that year and the Derry Massacre the following year, both by the Parachute Regiment, were of people protesting the introduction of internment). The statelet also introduced the Emergency Provisions Act and the no-jury Diplock Courts in 1973 and, though technically abolished in 2007, non-jury trials can and do take place up to today.
The British state targeted the Irish diaspora in Britain in 1974 with the Prevention of Terrorism (sic) Act and that same year and the following, framed and convicted nearly a score of innocent people of bombings in five different cases – had the death penalty not been previously abolished for murder, most of them would have been executed. Brought in as a temporary measure, the PTA continued in force until 1989 but a general Terrorism Act was brought into British Law in 2000 and remains in force today.
Photos of the Birmingham Six, Irishmen resident in England, showing bruises from police beatings after their arrest in 1974; they were also beaten by jailers. Also arrested, brutalised, framed and convicted were the Guildford Four, Maguire Seven and Giuseppe Conlon and Judith Ward. (Photo source: Internet)
State repression rarely targets the whole population and, particularly in a capitalist “democracy” focuses on particular groups which it fears or feels it can safely persecute. However, we should also recall Pastor Niemoller’s words about the creeping repression which even the German Nazi state instituted, going after first one group, then another, and another …. Among the list of groups targeted eventually by the Nazis were Jews, Roma, Communists, Socialists, Anarchists, Social Democrats, Jehova’s Witnesses, Free Masons, Gays and Lesbians, Mentally ill or challenged, physically challenged ….
It is in the interests of the vast majority of the population to oppose repression of different groups, whether those groups be based on ethnicity, gender, sexuality, citizenship status or democratic politics. Not everyone recognises this of course but one might expect that political activists challenging the status quo would do so. Sadly, experience shows that they do not in practice (though they may acknowledge it intellectually).
With some periodic exceptions, socialist groups in Ireland do not support protests against repression of republicans. Furthermore, some republican groups will not support others when the latter are subjected to repression. Yet at any time, Republicans of any group can be and are regularly harassed in public or raided at home; their employers may be warned about them by the political police; they may be detained on special repressive legislation, denied bail, effectively interned; they can be easily convicted in the non-jury Special Criminal Courts or Diplock Courts; ex-prisoners released on licence in the Six Counties can be returned to jail without any charge or possibility of defence.
The Irish State’s non-jury Special Criminal Court is a tempting facility for putting away people which the State finds annoying and it is widely thought it was considered for the trials of the Jobstown protesters. The result of the trial, where the jury clearly took a different view to the presiding judge, may well have justified the opinion of those in the State who considered sending the defendants to the SCC.
Anti-Internment and political prisoner solidarity picket September 2016 at Kilmainham Jail, Dublin (a former place of detention and execution for political prisoners under both the British occupation and the Irish State, now a museum (Photo source: Rebel Breeze)
Unity against repression is a fundamental need of a healthy society and of movements that challenge the status quo. Practical unity in any kind of action also tends to break down barriers and assists general revolutionary broad unity. Unity against repression is so basic a need that agreement with this or that individual is unnecessary, nor with this or that organisation in order to defend them against repression. Basic democratic rights were fought for by generations and have to be defended; in addition they give activists some room to act without being jailed. On this basis, all must unite in practice and political sectarianism has no place in that.
Without some basic unity in practice across the sector challenging the status quo, there can be no revolution. But more than that: we stand together against repression ….. or we go to jail separately.
End.
Diarmuid Breatnach is a veteran independent revolutionary activist, currently particularly active in committees against repression, in some areas of internationalist solidarity and in defence of historical memory.
(Part of series “HOW TO WIN THE WAR — GETTING INTO POSITION”. See also INTRODUCTION; PART 1: THE THIRTY-YEARS’ WAR – DOOMED TO LOSE; PART 2: COLLECTING THE FORCES FOR REVOLUTION; PART 4: UNITY AGAINST REPRESSION)
It is, most people would think, a ‘no-brainer’ (i.e an obvious truth) that unity is necessary in the struggle to overthrow the current system. It might be thought surprising, therefore, that disunity is more the rule among those who aspire to revolution.
Generally, those who claim to be revolutionary socialists will not unite with Irish Republicans. In addition, those socialists of one party will often fail to unite with those of a different party. The same dynamic is to be seen among Irish Republicans also.
There have been many attempts to overcome this problem. In the 1930s the Republican Congress sought to unite Irish Republicans with revolutionary socialists. In the face of hostility within the mainstream Republican movement and also with divisions among the communist element in Ireland at the time, faced in addition with anti-communist hysteria whipped up by the Catholic Church, the experiment failed. The leadership of the Sinn Féin and the IRA of the later 1960s tried to combine socialism and republicanism within one party and military organisation, an attempt that crashed when it was discovered that the arms necessary to defend ‘nationalist’ community areas in the Six Counties, particularly in Belfast, were unavailable, leading to an acrimonious split in the movement. A subsequent attempt to combine the socialist and republican elements in another organisation survived a little longer but also failed for a number of reasons, some internal and also due to Irish State repression.
Socialist Republicans, members of Republican Congress from Shankhill Road, marching to annual Wolfe Tone commemoration, Bodenstown 1934. They were attacked by conservative Republicans. (Photo source: Internet)
There have been some attempts to unite the non-republican Left itself also, which usually failed due in part to ideological differences but also to political sectarianism and personality clashes. Currently both trotskyist parties have an uneasy working relationship, the small grouping of Independents for Change exists also, the Communist Party is very small too and the anarchists are scattered and unable for years now, for the most part, to mount united action.
Attempts to unite the various parts of the Irish Republican movement have, in general, focused on creating a new organisation or absorbing activists unhappy with one organisation into another.
A frequent approach has been for some people to sit down and produce what they consider solid policy and a constitution, then to propose this format to others around which to unite. Even when accepting amendments from the elements they seek to recruit, these attempts too have largely failed.
It seems a rational approach: if we want unity, surely first we have to agree on what for, how, etc, etc before we can go into action? I believe, contrary though it may seem, that actually we should unite in action first. Uniting in action tends to break down barriers of mistrust that are built on hearsay or suspicions fostered by sectarian elements. Action also tends to clarify certain questions that until then are theoretical only. Of course, at some point, action will need to be guided by worked out policy but initially the action itself can be sufficient guide, especially since approaching the question the other way around has been so generally unproductive.
The question then arises: with whom to unite? In general, I would say that the answer is: with all with whom we can, in actual practice, unite: different types of revolutionary socialists (including anarchists), Irish Republicans, Left social democrats, human and civil rights activists.
There are some exceptions I think necessary to mention: fascists, racists, religious sectarians and parties that participate in Government. Fascists seek to impose an undemocratic regime completely hostile to the interests of working people and, far from our uniting with them, need to be defeated; racists and religious sectarians seek to divide the movement along lines of ethnicity or religious affiliation. Revolutionaries need to draw a clear line of distinction between the movements of resistance and those who participate in a native capitalist or colonial government, i.e the management organisations of the enemy.
Many issues lend themselves to united action but perhaps none more so, and none are more essential, than against repression.
Diarmuid Breatnach is a veteran independent revolutionary activist, currently particularly active in committees against repression, in some areas of internationalist solidarity and in defence of historical memory.
(Part of series “HOW TO WIN THE WAR — GETTING INTO POSITION”. See also INTRODUCTION; PART 1: THE THIRTY-YEARS’ WAR – DOOMED TO LOSE; PART 3: THE ABSOLUTE NEED FOR UNITY – BUT HOW AND WHAT KIND? WITH WHOM? PART 4: UNITY AGAINST REPRESSION
A successful revolution in Ireland, as in most places, would require the involvement of a mass movement. That mass movement would be unlikely to be one that had national self-determination as its only aim – certainly not in the 26 Counties (the Irish state). Mass movements arise at times around different issues and exist as long as the issue does or instead until the movement gets worn down or broken up. Such movements arose around the Household Tax and, later, around the additional Water Charges.
Section of protest against water charges, O’Connell Street, Dublin, 29 Aug. 2015 (Image source: Internet)
Even though the objectives of such movements are often not revolutionary, the participation in them by revolutionaries is necessary if, in the future, there is to be a revolution. Revolutionary activists can make contacts and prove themselves by the way they participate and also regularly point out that a revolution is necessary in order to resolve all these issues completely and permanently. Such activists can also influence the movement (or sections of it) to act in more revolutionary ways, so that the movement can be guided by – and imbued with — revolutionary spirit.
Working people in struggles come up against concrete problems which need to be resolved in order to move forward. Prior to 1913 in Ireland, workers learned the need for unity in struggle which was emphasised by the employers’ attempts to break the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union in August 1913. The attacks on them by the Dublin Metropolitan Police illustrated the need for organised defence and Larkin and Connolly called for the formation of what became the Irish Citizen Army, which later also fought prominently in the 1916 Rising.
Members and supporters of the Irish Transport & General Workers’ Union cheering outside the union’s HQ, Liberty Hall, August 1913. Later the union formed the ICA to defend themselves from the DMP; the ICA took a prominent part in the 1916 Rising. (Image source: Internet)
Trade unions are the only mass organisations of the working class in Ireland and it is necessary for revolutionaries to be active within them. Currently, other than social democrats, it is mainly members of both trotskyist parties and independent activists who engage politically with the trade unions. Those members are mostly in clerical work and their political work tends to concentrate on employment demands around wages and working conditions. When they introduce politics it is generally to get some motion passed by their branch. Also at times, they will campaign to get a perceived left-wing candidate elected to some position within the trade union bureaucracy.
None of the above are without value but they remain disjointed in terms of program and often confined to just one trade union. Not only that, but often the Left party involved will engage in order to recruit some new members and in order also to retain their own members by providing them with activity. When broad front trade union groups are formed, they tend to become an arena where the dominant trotskyist parties compete for dominance.
If we are to have a successful revolution – and in particular a socialist one – participation in the struggles of workers in the trade union movement is absolutely necessary. But participation should be primarily among the rank and file of the trade union and also across trade unions, focused on providing solidarity to members of whichever unions are in struggle – in addition to encouraging unorganised workers to organise and become active. The objective is not to help make one trade union or one section more militant but rather to create a militant workers solidarity movement within the whole trade union movement. It is essential to have members in the ‘blue-collar’ work unions or departments as well as in the clerical unions or sections. And the cross-union organisation I advocated should be independent — the preserve of no political party.
Participation in such struggles provides an opportunity for revolutionaries to make contact with people who are activists but not yet revolutionaries and to give those people an opportunity to evaluate the revolutionaries in terms of their actual practice. Revolutionaries can support the people struggling for worthwhile reforms while at the same time pointing to their partial and temporary nature. Revolutionary activists can play an educational role in the mass movements while at the same time becoming educated themselves by the daily reality faced by the masses in this system.
PART THREE: THE ABSOLUTE NEED FOR UNITY – BUT HOW AND WHAT KIND? WITH WHOM?
PART FOUR: UNITY AGAINST REPRESSION
The national liberation war that began in 1969 in the Six Counties and ended in 1998 (though some armed incidents continue from time to time) began as a civil rights struggle and changed into a war of communal defence and of national liberation. The military part of the struggle for the most part took place in the occupied Six Counties. The political element of the struggle was waged all over Ireland (and abroad) but in the main consisted of support for the struggle in the Six occupied Counties.
Derry Monument and Mural of the Civil Rights struggle which preceded the armed struggle in the Six Counties. (Image sourced: Internet)
Fought in that way, the struggle was bound to lose. It could never win. How could anyone imagine that they could win a struggle fought against a world power in one-sixth of the country, where even the population there was divided against them? What could they have been thinking?
To my mind, there are only two possible sane replies to that question, which is that they believed: 1) that the British ruling class would get worn down by struggle and leave and/ or 2) that the Irish ruling class would intervene in some way to assist the struggle and make continued British occupation untenable.
1) ‘The British ruling class would get worn down and leave’: This theory must have depended on British repression being condemned abroad and being unpopular at home but had to rest fundamentally on the British having no great stake in continuing its possession of its colony there.
Anyone who thought that (and there were many who did and still many who do, not just Irish Republicans) made a fundamental error. Time and again the British ruling class has shown its determination to hang on to what might be considered its first colony, even as its ruling class’ composition changed from feudal-colonialist to capitalist-imperialist and as the world changed around it.
Mural in nationalist area in the Six Counties (Image sourced: Internet)
Even when the British ruling class, weakened by WW1 and facing an Irish guerrilla war with the support of the vast majority of Irish people, with national liberation uprisings breaking out across its Empire and with its repression in Ireland increasingly unpopular at home, entered into negotiations with the Irish resistance, it held on to a foothold, the Six Counties.
Subsequently, it had that colony managed in a permanent state of emergency laws, with institutionalised sectarian discrimination at all official levels and outbreaks of pogroms in the street and workplace.
That became even more exposed during the civil rights struggle and the national liberation war that followed when the British State compromised whatever good international reputation its Armed Forces had, its judiciary, its legal establishment, its media and its very legal framework.
Even now, when many believe that the Good Friday Agreement means that a 50% plus one vote in favour in the Six Counties will be sufficient to end Partition, they do not realise that such a decision will have to also obtain a majority in the British Parliament and be endorsed by the British Monarch. They are also forgetting the broken promises that surrounded Partition in the first place.
When analysing what holding on to the Six Counties has cost the British State in terms of reputation, military and financial contributions, one can only rationally assume that continuing to hold on to that foothold is of great importance to the British State. One may speculate as to the reasons underlying that but the central fact cannot be denied.
2) that the Irish ruling class would intervene in some way to assist the struggle and make continued British occupation untenable:
There was some basis for this belief in that a section of Fianna Fáil, a party that had emerged from a split in Sinn Féin in the 1930s and had become one of the mainstream parties in the Irish state, had retained some traditional commitment to seeking a united Ireland. However it was a thin enough basis on which to depend in a national liberation struggle since that section had no majority within the party itself, to say nothing of the foreign-dependent nature of the Irish native capitalist class, the Gombeens, as a whole.
British Army in Belfast 1969 (bayonets and guns pointed towards nationalist area). (Image sourced: Internet)
The question came to a trial of strength in the Arms Crisis of 1970, in which at least two Fianna Fáil Government Ministers were involved in secretly buying arms for the defence of nationalist areas in the Six Counties (since the IRA had insufficient weapons at the time) from rampaging Loyalist mobs and the Royal Ulster Constabulary (including the part-time B-Specials). The Ministers alleged that they had acted in the full knowledge of the rest of the Government. By the time the whole affair was over, two Ministers had been sacked and another two resigned in protest.
If it had not been clear before that the Gombeens, the native Irish capitalist class was no patriotic capitalist class but rather a neo-colonial one, it should have been clear after that. But the armed struggle in the Six Counties intensified, especially after the massacres of unarmed civilians carried out by British Paratroopers the following year, 1971 in Belfast and again in Derry in 1972. And the war lasted until 1998.
If, as had been demonstrated to be the case that the British ruling class were determined to hold on to the Six Counties and the Irish ruling class was not going to seriously challenge that possession, did the Republican movement have any other option than to fight on a war that they could not possibly win?
I am clear that they did.
Clearly, in order to have a chance of success, the war had to be extended to the other five-fifths of the country, which is to say into the territory under the control of the Irish native capitalist class. This class had seized power after the War of Independence 1919-1921 and had beaten and suppressed its opposition during the Civil War (1922-1923) and after and furthermore was supported by a powerful ally, the Irish Catholic Church. Since the founding of the first Irish Republican organisation, the United Irishmen of the late 1790s, the Catholic Church hierarchy had opposed Irish Republicanism; it had condemned four Irish priests who participated in the uprising of 1798, excommunicated the Fenians, had at first condemned the 1916 Rising and the War of Independence only to latch on to it at the end along with the Gombeen class.
The general Irish
population likely would not have supported or sustained an armed struggle in the 1970s against the Gombeen class but that class could have been fought politically, through agitation and mobilisation, on many social, political and economic fronts. Without going into the specific details of each, these were:
against the huge wastage of Irish youth through emigration
to remedy the shortage of affordable housing (which in part contributed to the above)
to end unemployment (also contributing hugely to emigration)
to raise the level of wages and lower wage earners’ taxation
for the right to divorce
for equality for women in law
for the right to contraception devices and medication for men and women
against decriminalisation and for equal rights for gay and lesbians
to halt the decline of the Irish language, in particular of the rural Irish-speaking areas
to improve services for the rural areas
to oppose the open-door policy for foreign multinationals to exploit Irish natural and human resources
to secularise the education service
and the health service.
to remove the privileged status of the Catholic Church within the state.
The Republican movement in general, with some exceptions, declined to take on any of those struggles. They did not organise in the trade union movement, left the social struggles to others and most of all, declined to take on the Catholic Church on any issue except its opposition to the national liberation struggle. Even there, it was happy to publicly avail of the services of members of the Church clergy who supported them. Republicanism was, from its very beginning, as well as anti-monarchist, about separation of Church and State but it was difficult to see that in the Irish Republican movement, particularly after the War of Independence.
Irish women photographed at Connolly Station 1971, about to board train to Belfast to purchase contraceptives to bring back to the Irish state, illegal at the time. There was no right to abortion either or divorce and a husband’s signed permission was necessary to take out a hire purchase agreement. (Image sourced: Internet)
A full half of those fourteen points above (nos. 5,6, 7, 8, 12, 13 and 14) would have meant taking on the Church head-on and no doubt the hierarchy would have hindered the struggle over most of the others too, due to its strong links with the State and its ruling class.
Because of its tactical and no doubt ideological refusal to take up those struggles, the Republican movement could do little more in the 26-County state than to agitate for solidarity with the beleaguered nationalist population inside the British colony.
Though this could be effective for a time it could become a mass movement, nor survive a long struggle, without any remedy being sought to the issues facing the population within the state.
The wonder is not that the majority leadership of the Republican Movement threw in the towel on the military struggle in 1998 but that they had waited so long to do it. Of course, they never admitted the true nature of what they were doing: abandoning the armed struggle and revolution in total and instead, using their negotiating position to advance themselves politically – not in the economic, social and political struggle envisioned above but rather in a political struggle to find themselves a place among the Gombeen political class in the Irish state and as accomplices in the governing of the colonial state.
Diarmuid Breatnach is a veteran independent revolutionary activist, currently particularly active in committees against repression, in some areas of internationalist solidarity and in defence of historical memory.
(Reading time: Introduction, one minute; Part One: 5 mins; Part Two 2 mins: Part Three: 3 mins; Part Four: 2 mins; Total: 13 mins.)
Diarmuid Breatnach
INTRODUCTION:
Although I often think about the big questions – and am generally guided by my philosophy on them, my mind and energy are usually too occupied with specific struggles to focus on them for long. Recently however I had the opportunity and the need to think about the war, the one we have yet to win.
The Storming of the Bastille (translation), French Revolution, 1789 by Jean-Pierre Houel. (Image sourced: Internet)
But to which war am I referring? The Irish war of national liberation that has been flaring up for centuries, being lost each time before flaring up again? Or the class war, which has had a few sharp Irish episodes but has been, for the most part in Ireland, in abeyance? The answer is BOTH, though it may seem that my emphasis in the discussion, certainly in the early part, is on the national liberation war.
Communards at barricade, Paris Commune 1871. (Image source: Internet)
In order to imagine how we might win, it is helpful to examine past struggles and analyse what went wrong with them. Pessimists love to focus on those things I know – but in order to push us towards reformism or just surrender; my approach instead is from a revolutionary perspective.
Generally, Socialists analysing the class struggle don’t even ask themselves why we have not had a revolution yet.
From week to week, month to month, they tend to focus on this or that particular trade union or social struggle but without going into the big picture. It seems as though they can’t even imagine a socialist uprising in Ireland, it’s just too far away to think about, apparently. But if one can’t even imagine such a revolution, how could one consider the necessary steps to get there?
“Defeat of the Rebels at Vinegar Hill” by George Cruikshanks, i.e United Irishmen last major position in Wexdord overrun, 1798.
Irish Republicans on the other hand are often thinking in terms of revolutionary struggle, usually including armed struggle. However it seems to me that Irish Republicans don’t like analysing past failures of the movement but when they do, their verdicts tend to be that the leaders betrayed the struggle or that taking part in public elections corrupted the movement; or that infiltration, spies and informers was the problem. And some other reasons. The thing is, although all those things played a particular part, they are not the fundamental reason.
Sections to follow:
PART ONE: THE THIRTY-YEARS’ WAR – DOOMED TO LOSE
PART TWO: COLLECTING THE FORCES FOR REVOLUTION
PART THREE: THE ABSOLUTE NEED FOR UNITY – BUT HOW AND WHAT KIND? WITH WHOM?
PART FOUR: UNITY AGAINST REPRESSION
Diarmuid Breatnach is a veteran independent revolutionary activist, currently particularly active in committees against repression, in some areas of internationalist solidarity and in defence of historical memory.
Note: Text content reproduced by permission from Save Moore Street From Demolition, from their report on their Awareness Wk 255 3rd August 2019. The area has been the scene of a struggle between mainly historical conservationists and property speculators since 2002, the latter aided, campaigners say, by the Irish Government and the City Managers.
Save Moore Street Awareness Wk 255 3rd August 2019
A more depleted street market than usual greeted the campaigners while setting up our weekly campaign stall. A number of stall-holders had taken the opportunity of the bank holiday weekend to take a break; with Sunday and bank holiday Monday trading forbidden by their licences, the prospect of a long weekend was clearly attractive. Of course, the 17 or so licenses still issued by Dublin City Council does not at all compare with the 75 of some decades past but then that was bound to be an effect of permitting the erection of two supermarkets bracketing the street. Even more, having a thriving street market is not in the interests of those who want to demolish the quarter and construct a “shopping mall” or chain-store shopping district.
A young family signing the petition at the Save Moore Street From Demolition stall on a wet DecemberSaturday. Part of the ‘1916 Terrace’ which over 300 men and women occupied in 1916 can be seen across the road. (Photo source: SMSFD)
Our core team was depleted too, with Mary recovering from an injured knee and Mel on duties elsewhere; Bróna, Bart and Diarmuid set up this week.
Some long-time supporters stopped by to chat, including excellent photographer Errol, a man with extensive knowledge of wildlife, especially plants, who regularly drops by to distribute fresh fruit among us. As usual, people from different parts of Ireland, also migrants living here and visitors, signed the petition and talked about the importance of historical memory.
(Photo source: SMSFD)
While putting two Irish-language posters together for a photograph for the Gaeilge Amháin Facebook page, on which understandably only Irish language is permitted, we hit upon the idea of placing the picture side of our leaflet upon it. It makes an attractive ensemble, don’t you think?
Meanwhile, news reaches us that the Minister’s Advisory Group on Moore Street has completed or is about to complete its report to the Minister, which basically backs the property speculator Hammerson’s ideas for the area. This is hardly surprising, sadly, considering how things go and have gone over the years but is a sad reflection on the management of this state. Apparently it was not all smooth sailing however, with disagreements about content and emphasis. One can see the sense, from the Minister’s point of view, of excluding our group from their list of approved stakeholders; less easy to understand, perhaps, is the acceptance by other members of her group of the exclusion of the most active Moore Street campaigning group in recent years.
A crowd signing the petition on 6th January 2016 (the following week the SMSFD called two demonstrations into the street and buildings were occupied to prevent their demolition). (Photo source: SMSFD)
PUB QUIZ
The prize (non-monetary) for naming four pubs in Moore Street’s past and their locations goes to Moore Street 1916 Battleground History Forum, a FB page supporting our campaign. Michael Shanley’s “pub with no name” was identified as “O’Neill’s” (probably not one of the current chain) by one of Troy’s Butcher’s team; it was diagonally across from them before being demolished to make way for the LIDL supermarket and underground shopping mall. Its corner was known for generations as “Dead Man’s Corner”, being near where the body of Volunteer commander O’Rahilly had lain with five bullets in his body, writing a goodbye note to his wife as he lay dying. The excellent monument now near the spot replaces the small plaque erected on the corner of the pub and reproduces not only The O’Rahilly’s words but also his very script, enlarged of course. But without any signage on Moore St. to indicate its presence, how many thousands must pass by unaware of its existence? Our campaigners have raised this with the Council but despite promises, no signage has yet been erected. After all, why call attention to the historical importance of an area when the City Managers support the property speculators wanting to demolish it?
O’Rahilly memorial plaque containing an enlarged facsimile reproduction of his dying letter to his wife. It is in a side street off Moore Street, unseen by thousands. (Photo source: D.Breatnach)
That pub was the same one to which Vol. Tom Cremin had tried to gain entry, without success in 1916. The 18-year old had volunteered to join the O’Rahilly’s fatal charge on the British barricade located at the Moore Street junction with Parnell Street, on the way shooting a British soldier at the Salmon Lane junction. Vol. Cremin made it as far as what is now O’Rahilly Parade but had been wounded in the foot and the butt of his rifle had also been shot off. Seeking shelter, he entered possibly No.24 or 23 where he fed the dog he found there with some food in the house, lay upon a bed and fell asleep. When he awoke the following day, Easter Saturday, the Surrender had taken place and British soldiers were searching the houses for hidden fighters (there were none) and weapons.
The British soldier Vol. Cremin had shot further back down Moore Street had been carried, under fire, into No.10 by one of the three Plunkett volunteers, George. A field hospital had been set up in that house (of insufficient importance to save, according to the lawyers of the Minister for Heritage) by Vol. Elizabeth O’Farrell and Vol. Julia Grenan, in which around another 18 wounded were being cared for. The British soldier survived the Rising. Which was more than did one of George’s brothers, Joseph Plunkett, who was shot by British firing squad some days after the surrender, along with another 15 Volunteers in Ireland (Casement was hanged in August in London). The Seven Signatories of the Proclamation of Independence were among the executed and four of those spent their last days of freedom in the Moore Street battleground, along with another executed, Willie Pearse.
But what matters all that when there is big money to be made! There is lot more than adding “a halfpence to the pence” in their “greasy tills” these days.
Beimíd thar n-ais ar an tSráid arís an Satharn seo chugainn.
End.
Some women and men supporters of the campaign in 1916 period costume on the street in February 1916, (Photo source: SMSFD)
Brigadista Bob Doyle — Image designed by Nekane Orkaizagirre
by Stewart Reddin
Robert (Bob) Andrew Doyle was born on 12th February 1916 at 15 Linenhall Street in Dublin’s northwest inner city. He was the second youngest of five siblings. Bob’s parents, Peter Doyle and Margaret Alldritt, were married in Dublin on 13th November 1904. Peter, aged 20 at the time, was employed as a seaman and lived on Upper Dorset Street with his three sisters. It appears that both his parents were deceased by 1901 as his eldest sister Anna, aged 20, is recorded in that year’s Census as head of the family.
Bob’s mother Margaret was 19 when she married and she lived in Kilmainham with her family. Alldritt is not a common surname in Ireland (in his biography, Brigadista, written in conjunction with Harry Owens, Bob’s mother’s family name is recorded as Aldridge, however the birth, marriage…
From the republican newspaper The Irish Felon, June 24, 1848. This appeared in the original as one paragraph, but I have broken it up into several paras to assist 21st century readers.
Although written 170 years ago as a condemnation of the main property-owning class in Ireland then (the landlords) it sounds very modern, like a condemnation of the main property-owning class in Ireland today (the capitalists). It is not hard to see why Connolly – and Pearse – admired Lalor so much. The article represents a step forward in republican political thinking from the time of Tone and Emmet, as over four decades of class development and conflict had taken place and Ireland was in the midst of the horrors of a massive famine created by the capitalist property system.
The bit about “strangers” is also apt as a description of the Dublin4 and WestBrit set of…
People attending Shelbourne Park Greyhound Stadium on Saturday last (20th July) were booed, a number of passing cars and vans blew their horns in support of protesters but one dog racing supporter assaulted a protester. The picketers quoted an RTÉ television documentary that the industry is killing large numbers of dogs annually; they want an end to Irish Government funding for the industry and dog racing banned.
Section of the protesters on one side of the street outside Shelbourne Racing Stadium on Saturday 20th July.
A quick trawl through Google reveals greyhound track or stadium protests at a number of venues in Ireland as well as Dublin, including Cork, Limerick and Newbridge and there are campaigns to ban greyhound racing in a number of other countries (although apparently dog racing only exists in another eight countries world-wide).
The protesters on Saturday chanted a number of slogans, including “You bet, they die!”, a reference to people betting on the outcome of the races and to the high death-toll of dogs bred for activity. Greyhound bitches are bred to what are considered successful dogs and breeders will choose pups to raise from the litters, killing the rest. Only some dogs are considered suitable for racing and after trial, some more will be killed (or perhaps sold abroad, which may even be worse). Finally, when their racing life is over, most will be killed also. The industry says it finds homes for old or worn-out greyhounds but there are not enough homes to take them all in.
The Irish Government funds the industry to the tune 16M euro and campaigners say this is not justifiable to fund an industry killing dogs for profit-making. In addition, according to the RTÉ documentary 7,000 dogs are exported to Britain, effectively sustaining their industry – on Irish tax-payers’ money. Some of these dogs are transported from Ireland in unhygienic conditions, even by people who are banned from the greyhound industry in Britain for doping or keeping dogs in bad conditions, since their bans are only effective in Britain itself.
Doping of dogs has increased enormously in Ireland and Britain, according to people inside the industry but very few have been charged or the kennel breeders sanctioned by the industry’s regulating body. The RTÉ team found that 80% of animal doping chemicals seized over the years have come from greyhound kennels, but more than 50% seized in a three-year period came from one dog trainer, Mr. Gerry Holian in Athenry.
The film also showed dogs being badly treated abroad and produced evidence to show that restrictions on their export from Ireland and Britain are routinely evaded.
Line of protesters facing the entrance to the dog racing stadium last Saturday (another longer line on the opposite side). Two Gardaí of the Public Order Unit are visible too. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
VIOLENCE TOWARDS PROTESTERS
Early during the protest last Saturday, a man physically attacked a woman protester outside the Shelbourne Stadium. Witnesses gave evidence to Gardaí who advised them to go to a Garda station and make a complaint, without explaining why they themselves would not act upon the reported crime. Some Public Order Unit Gardaí arrived soon afterwards and some of the protesters, including the assaulted woman, did go to the station and made a complaint.
Four days after the Dublin protest and the attack on a protester, the Irish Greyhound Board posted the following statement:
The IGB would request, and based on the strong advice from An Garda Siochana, that the greyhound community would not engage in any form of ‘counter protest’ at greyhound tracks and stadia as such activity is likely to enflame an already volatile situation and result in an unsafe environment for all. Such outcomes do not reflect well on anybody, including the greyhound community.
A Bus Átha Cliath public transport vehicle carries the message. (Photo source: Bart Hoppenbrouwers)
A SOCIAL AND CULTURAL ACTIVITY?
Of course for many people attending dog racing, who will be unaware of the high death-toll endemic to the industry, it seems a harmless night out. Even many who do not attend dog racing will be unaware of the cost to the dogs. The RTÉ Investigates TV documentary Racing for Their Lives quoted figures from a commissioned report that 6,000 greyhounds are killed every year. That report was kept secret by the Irish Greyhound Board until the RTÉ Investigates team revealed they had a copy of the Report and then the IGP released sections of it. As the protests continue, even those who have not seen the program will become increasingly aware.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)(Photo: D.Breatnach)
In many working-class communities greyhound racing has been a participative activity for individuals owning one or two dogs, as outlined in “The Town I Love So Well”:
In the early morning the shirt-factory horn Called women from Creggan, the Moor and the Bog
While the man on the dole played the mother’s role,
Fed the children and then trained the dogs.
This activity is not comparable in scale, turnover or treatment with the dog-racing industry of greyhound breeding and training establishments and racing stadia and, in any case, is much reduced as a passtime now.
There are 16 dog-racing stadia within the Irish state and two in the Six Counties. Currently protests are organised outside Shelbourne Stadium for two evenings a week, Tuesdays and Saturdays, while protesters at other stadia have their own arrangements.
End.
View facing north (the Stadium is to the left of photo, the entrance just by the visible column). (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Recently the left-wing Spanish on-line newspaper, Publico, got a scoop on other media when it broke the story of the Spanish secret service and the terrorist1 cell in Catalonia, the one that carried out the killing spree in La Rambla in Barcelona in October 2017. Publico revealed that the head of the cell had been recruited as an informant while in jail on drug smuggling charges and that the secret service had helped him become an imam, a Muslim priest, in the province of Girona. Not only that but that they had the photos and mobile phone numbers of a number of the Ramblas terrorists and had been following them up to days before the attack.
Aftermath of terrorist attack in the Rambla, Barcelona in 2017. (Photo image sourced: Internet)
So why had the whole lot not been apprehended? It’s a question many people are asking, along with the Catalonian and many foreign newspapers – but, strangely, only one of the main Madrid newspapers.
THE LEADER OF THE TERRORISTS WAS WORKING FOR THE SPANISH SECRET POLICE
Abdelbaki Es Satty came to the Spanish State in 2002 and was around 44 years of age when he died in an explosion in Catalonia. According to Wikipedia,
“Es Satty was implicated in the 2006 Operation Chacal, in which five Islamists were arrested for sending jihadis to fight in Iraq.From 2003 he had shared an apartment with Islamists connected to the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group(GICM) and the 2003 Casablanca bombings.
“In 2012, (he) completed a four-year prison sentence for drug trafficking in Castellón. While in prison, he is reported to have established a “special friendship” with Rachid Aglif, who was serving an 18-year sentence for his role in the 2004 Madrid train bombings.
“He was convicted of drug smuggling in 2014 and was to be deported from Spain, but …… A successfulasylum application in November 2014 facilitated him moving freely in the 26 EU countries of the Schengen area.”
Es Sattty, believed leader of the terror cell that carried out the attacks in Catalonia in 2017. He was an informant of the Spanish Secret Service (CNI). (Photo image sourced: Internet)
The suggestion in the Publico articles is that Es Satty was recruited by the Spanish secret service (CNI) while in jail and that they ensured that he was not deported, also that they assisted him in getting employed as an imam (a Muslim priest) at the mosque in Ripol in 2015, a post he suddenly resigned in June of 2017. Ripol is a town in the province of Girona, Catalonia.
Publico now reports that the CNI file on Es Satty has been “wiped”!
THE EVENTS
On the evening of 16 October 2017, El Satys and another man were killed, presumably by a premature explosion while handling the material. There were over 120 gas canisters which appeared stored for a number of terrorist bombs. The explosion occurred in the town of Alcanar, the southernmost of Catalonia and almost on the border with the province of Valencia.
When other in the cell heard that El Satys had been killed and another with him while handling the explosives, it seems they decided on a ‘revenge’ spree to honour their ‘martyr’ and carried out the attacks on innocent civilians in Catalonia.
La Rambla is in Barcelona city centre, a medium-length wide street heading towards the port, with a tree-shaded pedestrian reservation down the middle, where stalls sell all kinds of ware and coffees, snacks etc. It is a favourite destination of tourists (and pickpockets).
La Rambla, Barcelona, on a happier day.
On the late afternoon of 17 October, a member of the terrorist cell driving a van zigzagged down the Rambla, running down pedestrians and cyclists. During his escape from the scene, he hijacked a car and fatally stabbed the driver, bringing his total death-toll to 15 and injuring 131.
Later that evening, five men, apparently of the same cell, purchased knives and an axe and, at 1.00 am, drove into the Catalonian coastal town of Cambrils (not far from the popular tourist destination of Salou) and into a crowd of pedestrians, where they fatally stabbed a 63-year old woman and injured another six, before being shot by Catalan police. Four died at the scene and the fifth later of his injuries.
On 21st August, five days after the Alcanar explosion and four after the Barcelona massacre, the Rambla killer was fatally shot by the Mossos, the Catalan police, in Subirats, about 25 miles (40 Km) from Barcelona.
Initially, Catalan police believed the first violent event, the Alcanar explosion, had been caused by an accidental gas leakage but once they discovered the explosions and other events had occurred, connected them. Not only did the Spanish secret service, the CNI, fail to inform the Catalan police about the existence of this cell prior to the Alcanar explosion but it seems that at no time during the subsequent operations of the Catalan police did the CNI give them any information whatsoever.
The on-line newspaper that broke the story. (Photo image sourced: Internet)
THE DIRTY WORLD OF STATE SECRET SERVICES
Secret services penetrate cells and movements opposed to the status quo as a matter of course, whether they have an armed agenda or not. But when they do have such an agenda, typically they try to recruit some inside people for information, building up a wider and more detailed picture as time goes on. This takes time and meanwhile the informants’ ‘handlers’ will typically give their insider ‘asset’ money, protect him or her from prosecution, feed the informant’s fear or ego – or both.
As not-so-distant history shows with the British and US secret services (and probably all others around the world), these informants are permitted to break the law, even to kill, in order to keep up their cover. Yes and even to kill another, less-valued or more exposed informant, as the British had at least one informant do inside the Provisional IRA.
But it goes even further and informants or deep-cover agents also often act as agents provocateurs. They actually incite people around them to carry out armed actions. This can vary from encouraging them to attack where, unknown to the victims, the state forces are ready and waiting to kill them, as is believed happened at Loughgall, in occupied Co. Armagh in 1987. The informant can also be used to incite a group of political activists to carry out armed actions to facilitate the breaking up of the organisation2. Or to set off bombs that will, intentionally or not, kill uninvolved civilians, thereby losing insurgents popular support. Or that might set off inter-communal violence in an occupied country.
And religion-based organisations have long been recognised by secret services as useful opposition to leftist national liberation movements. Or against the USSR, for example, when the latter were invited into Afghanistan by the ruling circles. They may also be used to incite inter-communal violence in a country occupied by a foreign power or to help overthrow a ruling group which a foreign power wishes to replace with another more amenable to the power concerned — or in a country it wishes to invade.
The role of the Phalangist militias, Christian, in Lebanon is well-known, in their war against the growing power of the Muslim community. The CIA and Israel3 armed the Phalangists and encouraged them in their attacks Lebanese Muslims and on Palestinian refugee camps, not only against fighters but also massacres of the elderly, women and children. The CIA funded, supplied and even often trained Islamic fundamentalist jihadists4 and warlord bands in Afghanistan, Al Qhaeda among them, as they did also in Iraq. They did it in Syria too but ended up having to fight one such jihadist group, ISIS, which threatened to take the whole cake and the commanders of which were unpredictable in terms of future policy. But many of the war bands in the NATO-led Alliance fighting Assad and ISIS were themselves Jihadists too.
SUSPICIONS AND SILENCE
There are many people within the Spanish state territory that distrust the State and Catalans, due in particular to their recent experiences, would figure prominently among them. When Publico broke the story about the CNI and their close connection to the terrorist cell, it was inevitable that speculation would take off and that it would not stop at the secret service’s ineptitude.
Some thought that the original intention had been to discredit the Mossos, who were later accused by some Spanish politicians of not cooperating fully with the Spanish police operations against Catalan independence campaigners. Presumably the explosions planned by the terrorist cell would leave the Catalan police looking useless.
Another theory went that explosions would be blamed in some way on the Catalan independence movement, which has until the present been remarkably peaceful in the face of Spanish police violence. In fact Aznar, the Spanish Prime Minister at the time of the Madrid train bombing by another cell, immediately blamed the bombing on the Basque armed group ETA. When it was proven to be an Islamist fundamentalist cell, his false claim contributed to his party losing the elections soon afterwards.
No doubt there were other theories speculated also and the response from Madrid did not help to quell them.
Many commentators have wondered at the Spanish state’s silence on the matter but even more so at the silence of all but one of the Madrid main newspaper. Surely this is a really big story? If the Government says that “it’s not a big issue (for them) to investigate”, would one not expect the Spanish media to be hounding them? That media silence is, really, the most puzzling aspect. One can readily see that the Government might not want to expose the ineptitude and dirty work of their State’s secret service … but the media?
The only answer that makes any sense is its Catalonia connection, that all locations in which the events occurred are in Catalonia. And that the independence movement for Catalonia is locked in a struggle with the Spanish unionist State. Therefore reporting on Spanish secret service ineptitude in Catalonia could well go to justify separatist wishes in Catalonia.
Or have the editors been made aware that this terrorist cell had an important role to play in that independentist conflict and asked to keep quiet? What if a campaign of terrorist massacres in Catalonia gave a plausible excuse for the Spanish State to impose emergency legislation on Catalonia, an excuse that would be thought convincing not only within the Spanish state but abroad also?5 Of course, if that was the gameplan, it did not work out for the Spanish State since the cell messed up and it was finished off by the Catalan police, the Mossos d’Escuadra.6
So, to answer the question in the title of this piece: in my opinion it is incompetence – and something else. But probably not the various “something elses” that are being most widely speculated.
However, the Spanish media silence tells us something about the Spanish state too. In what other European state would its media remain silent about its secret service penetrating a terrorist cell but then failing to prevent attacks on its citizens by members of that cell?
End.
FOOTNOTES
1The word “terrorist” is frequently applied in the mass media to a wide range of organisations employing armed, from small cells to popular movements, of a wide variety of ideological motivation ranging from fascist to communist or just national liberationist. There can even be paid terrorists, such as the Contras run by the CIA against the Sandinista-run Nicaragua. Even some animal liberation organisations have come under this term and, indeed individuals without an organisation backing them (such as the Australian who carried out the massacre in New Zealand last year). In addition, some states have been labelled “terrorist” by others. Therefore the term cannot have a precise definition and I use it here only to describe small or larger organisations that target uninvolved civilians in order to cause terror among a population and instability among the rulers.
2British secret services did this in a case in England where they got a member of the local Sinn Féin branch (the party had branches in Britain at the time) to incite them to raise funds for the cause by carrying out a bank robbery, during which the robbers were arrested. Then he incited breaking them out of jail and that group got arrested too. After that he feared he was exposed and confessed to, strangely enough Jazz musician George Melly and then to the National Council for Civil Liberties (now Liberty). Very shortly after that he was killed, whether by the IRA or by his handlers is unclear. Though a famous case at the time several Google searches have failed to turn it up for me.
3The French may well have done so too as many of the Lebanon Christians had their origins in former French colonisation.
4From Jihad, a term meaning “struggle”, usually used in religious contexts. It can mean a moral struggle in society, within oneself or against “the enemies of Islam”, when it is sometimes characterised as a religious war, which may be defensive, or offensive (as with the Christian Crusades). In the political sense, especially when used in the West, it can be either defensive (e.g repelling or overthrowing a non-Islamic invader) or aggressive (e.g invading territories under non-Islamic rulers or under a different Islamic sect, or overthrowing such) but is always military and that is the sense in which I am employing it here.
5After the Twin Towers and other bombings by Al Qhaeda, US legislators were able to introduce the Patriot Act 2001 which gave the US State wide powers violating many civil rights.
6Whose Chief is currently on trial in Madrid, accused of undermining Spanish police operations against Catalan independentism through lack of cooperation.
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