Tag: Irish Left

Important Call for a United Resistance Front

On By rebelbreezeIn Basque Country, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, History, History commemoration, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Republicanism, NATO, Peace Process, Political Analysis, Political PrisonersLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time article: 3 mins.)

Earlier this month there was an oration delivered at the grave of Wolfe Tone1 which contained some important elements which deserve inspection and discussion.

– The path to rebuild our struggle is the development of an Anti Imperialist Broad Front – said the speaker. – A United Front of Revolutionary republicans, working in cooperation to advance our common republican objectives and to achieve a common republican programme.

Looking around us at the parties and groups in the socialist and republican spectrum, the ostensibly revolutionary varieties, we see that for many of them, building up their own organisation takes precedence over anything else, including revolution – for them the revolution IS their party.

Speaker giving oration at Wolfe Tone’s grave in front of the monument, faced by colour party. (Photo: RSM)

The call given in this oration runs counter to that kind of thinking. “But we’ve heard all that about ‘unity’ before,” a reader might say. Yes we have and often “unity” meant only “unity” around that particular party or, even more often, around this or that leadership.

There is nothing of that to be found in this address “recognising and respectful of the autonomy and independence of the groups and independents involved”. “Hmmm,” the reader might say “but is it a genuine intention?” Given our experience, it’s a valid and important question.

The most dependable test is in the practice. The speaker of the oration at its annual Wolfe Town Commemoration2 was representing the Socialist Republican Movement organisation (more often manifested publicy in recent years in the form of the Anti-Imperialist Action broad group3)

As an independent revolutionary activist for many years I have often participated in AIA’s actions and at times they have supported actions of which I had been part of organising. I have found that their practice matches their words and there is no truer test.

The speaker followed with practical suggestions for the implementation of the broad front: Trust and co-operation must be developed … through activism and the development of National Republican Campaigns that can be taken up by all Republican groups and independents …

There are many campaigns that could be developed from support for POWs to opposing internment and extradition, environmental campaigns such as (overcoming) the unacceptable situation at Lough Neagh, to campaigns that oppose the British and NATO presence in Ireland.

One of the banners in the crowd at the event in Bodenstown. (Photo: RSM)

Such a Republican Broad Front would be a fitting tribute to our Patriot Dead, the speaker added, to martyrs like Cathal Brugha,4 who gave his all in fighting for the sovereign, Independent Irish Republic and gave his life on this day in 1922 as a hero in the war in defence of the Republic.

In many of the pleas for unity of the fragmented resistance in Ireland, individuals have called for a conference to form a united front, others called for a unity document of principles around which to unite while in at least one case, two distinct organisations merged.

I have for years spoken out against such endeavours and advocated as a first step unity in practice. If organisations and individuals are not capable of that step, what kind of unity can they achieve around discussion of documents? Unity in practice also helps to break down distrust.

The speaker at the Wolfe Tone commemoration takes the same line, presumably speaking for the SRM when he does so and one supposes that this will continue to be the approach of the AIA in campaigns such as against internment, in solidarity with political prisoners5 or with Palestine.6

The above piece discussed two elements of the oration given by the SRM earlier this month which I believe to be of great revolutionary importance and in need of application in Ireland, one in advocating a principle and the other in suggesting avenues for practical application.

Later I will be taking a look at some other elements in that talk (the text of which, as published by the SRM, I attach as an appendix).

Beirimís bua.

(Image sourced: Internet)

End.

FOOTNOTES

1Wolfe Tone, born into settler stock and of the Establishment Anglican congregation, was a leading figure in the formation of the revolutionary republican organisation The Society of United Irishmen, seeking “to unite Catholic, Protestant (i.e Anglican) and Dissenter” (i.e the other sects, Presbyterian, Methodist, Unitarian, Quaker etc.) to “break the connection with England. In 1798, the year of the Unitedmen uprising, the first of many Irish Republican uprisings and campaigns, Tone was captured by the British Navy on a French warship and, despite his French officer rank, tried and sentenced to death.

Tone died in jail some months before his brother Matthew was taken prisoner during the surrender at Ballinamuck (Baile na Muc) in Co. Longford of another French expedition to Ireland, late and too small, at the tail end of the Rising that year. Also ignoring his officer POW status, he was hanged in Dublin and his body reputedly thrown into the mass grave at Croppies’ Acre in Dublin city.

2Since even earlier than Thomas Davis’ (1814-1845) song In Bodenstown Churchyard, Irish Republican organisations and individuals have been making the pilgrimage to that grave in County Meath, at times with thousands in attendance.

3Also for an intense time as the Revolutionary Housing League in its attempt to spark a movement of occupation of empty properties to overcome the widely-acknowledged housing crisis in Ireland.

4Cathal Brugha (nee Burgess), son of a mixed Catholic-Protestant marriage, was a leading figure in Irish nationalist movement and in Republican rebellion in the last decades of the 19th and early decades of the 20th Centuries, learned Irish as a member of the Gaelic League, member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (which he later left, considering it undemocratic), officer in the Irish Volunteer, 2nd in command in the South Dublin Union in 1916 served as Minister for Defence in the revolutionary government from 1919 to 1922, Ceann Comhairle of Dáil Éireann in January 1919 and its first president from January 1to April 1919, Chief of Staff of the IRAfrom 1917 to 1918. He served as a TD (electe parliamentary representative) from 1918 to 1922. He was mortally wounded by Irish Government troops in the early days of the Irish Civil War.

5Both on their own and for example in support of the Ireland Anti-Internment Campaign.

6Both on their own and for example as part of the Saoirse Don Phalaistín broad front.

APPENDIX

The following is the text of the main oration of which some sections are discussed in the preceding article and more to be discussed anon. It was delivered at the annual Wolfe Tone Commemoration at Bodenstown, organised by the Revolutionary Irish Socialist Republican Movement on Sunday July 7, 2024 and published on its Telegram page.

A Chairde is a chomrádaithe,

Táimid anseo i relig bodenstown ag uaimh ár n-athair, Wolfe Tone agus táimid ag rá go bhfuil an gluaisteacht a bhunaigh sé fós beo, agus tá sé ag fás arís.

Wolfe Tone is the father of Irish Republicanism. We come here each year not just for commemoration, but like Pearse, Connolly, Mellows and Costello before us, we come because we believe that the ideas and the vision that Tone put forward of a free independent Ireland is as relevant today as they were in the 1790s and because we believe that by remaining true to the teachings of Wolfe Tone we can build a revolutionary movement that will successfully free our country. Maybe not today, but our freedom is inevitable.

Tone’s most important belief was that we must ‘break the connection with England’ by any means necessary. It is for this reason that he established revolutionary military-political organisation the United Irishmen in 1791 and led a mass armed uprising in 1798 against British Rule in Ireland.

Tone was also clear that the revolutionary struggle could only be successful if it was based on the masses of the Irish People, stating that, ‘Our Strength shall come from that great and respectable class, the men of no property’.

And in these two simple quotes from Wolfe Tone, we have two of the most important teachings for the Revolutionary Republican Movement today. Firstly, that Republicans must work as a priority for National Liberation by any means we decide necessary.

That we must break the connection with England and defeat all forms of Imperialism in Ireland to establish a sovereign, Independent, Irish Republic.

And secondly, we learn from Tone that the fight for our Republic is a class struggle and that the driving force of that struggle will be the working class fighting for their own liberation.

These are two key teachings that when deviated from lead to compromise and the selling out of our revolution.

It is the duty of all of us here today and of all Republicans across Ireland, to ensure that the struggle for national liberation is kept at the fore of our revolutionary republican objectives and that we work tirelessly to achieve it and to ensure that our movement remains centred on and driven by the working class.

Some other key points laid down by Tone include that Republicanism is Anti Imperialist and it is Internationalist. Our struggle in Ireland is part of a wider international struggle of oppressed people against occupation, colonialism and imperialism.

Tone understood this when he looked to Revolutionary France to support the 1798 uprising. Today, Republicans must fight our struggle while also supporting Liberation struggles around the world in the belief that every blow struck against imperialism brings our victory closer.

So from Palestine to the Philippines and from India to the Basque Country, and everywhere people take a stand against NATO, the Revolutionary Republican movement must raise our cries in solidarity. The tide of revolution is rising in the world and there is much to be optimistic about.

But as revolutionaries we also have to be realistic. Since the time of Wolfe Tone the tide of revolutionary Republicanism has ebbed and flowed.

After the days of Tone and Emmet and the final defeat of the United Irishmen in 1805, Republicanism was reduced to an ember, spoken about in quiet corners until the birth of Young Ireland and the uprisings of 1848 and 1849 when revolutionaries such as Thomas Davis, Fintan Lalor, James Stephens and John O’Mahony would carry forward the vision of Tone, take up the hard work of rebuilding the Republican Movement and become the spark that would renew the Revolutionary fire, giving birth to Fenianism and the struggle that has carried us until today.

And today, we are 26 years on from the surrender of 1998, a surrender that had a devastating effect on the movement. Later this month it will be 19 years since the Provisionals ended their armed campaign.

These two great betrayals have led to the situation where the movement is fractured and split.

The revolutionary forces, though active, are scattered and there is mistrust between Republicans, whether in different groups or independents across Ireland, and this mistrust and division is exploited by our enemies.

It is a situation that all Republicans want to reverse and one of the revolutionary priorities in this phase of our struggle to overcome.

Comrades, like the revolutionary republicans after the defeat of the United Irishmen and Young Ireland, we find ourselves with the hard and gruelling task of rebuilding and reasserting the revolutionary republican struggle.

And the path to rebuild our struggle is the development of an Anti Imperialist Broad Front. A United Front of Revolutionary republicans, recognising and respectful of the autonomy and independence of the groups and independents involved, working in cooperation to advance our common republican objectives and to achieve a common republican programme. This is what our enemies most fear.

But again, this will not just happen overnight.

Trust and co-operation must be developed and we assert that this will be best achieved through activism and the development of National Republican Campaigns that can be taken up by all Republican groups and independents in a unity of purpose, that shows the real and forgotten strength of the Republican Movement.

There are many campaigns that could be developed from support for POWs to opposing internment and extradition, environmental campaigns such as the unacceptable situation at Lough Neagh, to campaigns that oppose the British and NATO presence in Ireland.

Such a Republican Broad Front would be a fitting tribute to our Patriot Dead, to martyrs like Cathal Brugha, who gave his all in fighting for the sovereign, Independent Irish Republic and gave his life on this day in 1922 as a hero in the war in defence of the Republic.

Over the last seven years we have put down a solid foundation as a movement. We have reasserted Irish Socialist Republicanism as the driving force of Revolution in Ireland.

We have recruited a new generation of republicans not damaged by the 1998 surrender who are now working with more experienced republicans to drive the struggle on.

While we can be happy with these achievements, the Republic needs more from each and every one of us and we all need to ask what we as individuals can do to carry the struggle forward.

Now is the time to move to the next phase of development in our revolutionary struggle, unsurprisingly by taking it back to Tone. Now is the time to strengthen and embed ourselves in the people of no property and to engage in systematic Republican Community work across the country.

In doing so, we would do well to return to Seamus Costello and the oration that he delivered from this spot in 1966, signalling the rise of Socialist Republicanism within the Movement. Costello outlined how it was the duty of all republicans to be active in our community.

How we should be involved in community groups, trade unions, tenants and residents associations, sporting, cultural and educational organisations and how we must take and assert our revolutionary republican position within them.

This is a task for all revolutionary republicans. Look at the groups in your area and see which ones your involvement in would advance the strengthening of Socialist Republicanism in your community.

Where no such groups exist, establish them. Where help is needed reach out to us as we have experienced comrades who excel in this area that would be happy to help in this work.

To conclude the comrades, this is a brief outline of our tasks in the time ahead.

While these plans will be deepened with discussion and debate within the movement, no one should leave this graveyard thinking there is no work for them to do, and the responsibility is on you to come forward and volunteer instead of waiting for others to come and ask you.

Our work is to free Ireland and our people by any means necessary to establish the 32 county All Ireland Socialist Republic, sovereign, independent, Gaelic and free, and we will not be stopped.

Redouble your efforts comrades, onwards to the Republic of 1916.

Beir Bua,

Tiocfaidh Ár Lá

A New Wave of Censorship and Repression

On By rebelbreezeIn Anti-Fascism, Capitalism, Civil Rights, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Human Rights, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Irish Left, Israeli Zionism, Palestine, Political Analysis1 Comment

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh 18 April 2024

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

There is no doubt that the ghost of Joseph McCarthy wanders the earth through many a hallowed university hall, newspaper editorial room, police headquarters around the world and of course the cabinets of many western governments.

Censorship when it raises its ugly head, does so in a similar fashion to its past incarnations, though with new twists and turns that perhaps take us by surprise.

However, it should come as no surprise to see that voices on Palestine are being shut down, though the recent German police assault on an international conference in Berlin was a major escalation in government attempts to criminalise those critical of the genocidal regime that holds sway in Tel Aviv and the white supremacist philosophy that is Zionism.(1)

Various issues are thrown into the mix.

Palestine and Palestinian demands are presented as hate speech by governments and right-wing media, but so too is any defence of women’s spaces, though in this latter case the right-wing governments find some support from sectors of the Left.

These think that when they argue for censorship and the suppression of freedom of speech that somehow it will never be applied to them.

The German police stormed the three-day event as the first speaker was addressing it.

They claimed they did so to prevent antisemitic statements being made i.e. not only are we in McCarthyite land of criminalising certain ideas by labelling them as antisemitic but we are in the land of Minority Report(2) where thought crimes can be punished in advance, before they have been committed.

This is not that far removed at all from the Irish Hate Speech Bill that some on the Left have given support to, as the Police may inspect computers and phones and you may be charged with possession of material that may be used to commit hate speech.

It was laughable and ironic that one of the photos of the police intervention of the Berlin event was the arrest of a young Jewish man, wearing a kippa, who was there in solidarity with Palestinians. Following the event a number of Jews were charged with antisemitism.

Not only that but some of the speakers were banned from entering the country, amongst them Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah who was an eyewitness to what was happening in Gaza and is also the Rector of the University of Glasgow.

The former Greek politician Yanis Varoufakis was also banned from entering Germany and both were warned that they could not participate even by Zoom from another jurisdiction, an unlawful extension of German jurisdiction and a suspension of the free movement of European citizens within the EU.

This is part of a wider criminalisation of protest and the criminalisation of thought.

Though some on the Left in Ireland such as People Before Profit T.Ds like Paul Murphy who support hate speech legislation believed in the benevolence of capitalist leaders when restricting commentary on women’s rights would never be extended to them, it has and for obvious reasons.

Most right-wing governments, particularly those that claim some liberal kudos on certain social issues have taken advantage of the defeat of workers, critical thinking and any opposition at all to capitalism to advance right-wing hate speech legislation and restrictions on academic freedom.

This includes the dismissal of staff, limitations on the right to voice opinions that go against government policy and in the process have garnered the support of many liberal currents and of course major NGOs who depend on government largesse to finance themselves.

The German event is not an isolated incident. Over the years various lecturers in the US have been suspended or not had their contracts renewed for speaking out about Palestine.

Zionists were the original cancel culture specialists who managed to turn spoilt students whining into action, getting staff sacked and silencing other students.

Recently, a professor of 30 years standing at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in the US was suspended over a contribution made to a blog.

In their suspension of the employee the president stated that “I find her comments repugnant, condemn them unequivocally, and want to make clear that these are her personal views and not those of our institution.”(3)

It was liberals, the wokerati and even some Marxists who pushed for employers to take action against employees for their personal views and activities outside of the workplace and now it has come back to bite some of them, though not all, as many liberals and wokerati in the US are Zionists.

Some of those who had been targeted were vile racists who shouted “Jews will not replace us” as they marched with torches. But you fight Fascism, you don’t give employers control over employees’ lives, ever.

As Trotsky once quipped, if you can’t convince a Fascist, acquaint their head with the pavement. He didn’t say give your boss and the state more control over you and beseech them to act in your interests.

A few days prior to that, Columbia University had suspended six students for allegedly participating in a panel discussion on Palestine.(4)

And in a further sign that jackboots are once again goose-stepping through Germany, the University of Cologne rescinded a job offer to Nancy Fraser, a Jewish American professor of philosophy, over her condemnation of killings in Gaza.(5)

They will not stop at that and it is not limited to issues such as genocide, but even local domestic politics.

In April 2023, a French journalist Ernest Moret was arrested by British anti-terrorist police due to his involvement in protests in France against the Macron government’s pension proposals.

He refused to give the police access to pass codes for his electronic devices and was charged with obstruction.(6)

There are other precedents for this, one of them being the arrest of David Miranda, Glen Greenwald’s now deceased partner, in Britain when returning from a meeting with another journalist who had also worked on the files released by Edward Snowden.(7)

The courts later upheld his detention to be lawful. Police held him and demanded access to his electronic devices.

Then there is the jailing and punishing of Julian Assange. The charges against Assange were dressed up in various disguises.

The first of them was the now discredited rape charges in Sweden which were dropped and also espionage charges when the real reason for jailing Assange is that he, as a journalist, exposed US war crimes in Iraq.

The message is clear, censorship is the order of the day as is the hounding of journalists who hold unpopular views and expose the crimes of the state. Assange did not receive the support he should have, due to the trumped-up rape charges, with many on the Left, like cowards running for cover.

Even today, when the rape charges have been exposed for the lies they were and have been dropped there are those who refuse to speak out on his behalf for this very reason.

There is no world in which right wing governments suppress freedom of speech, academic freedom, freedom of assembly and criminalise broad opinions that they label as hate speech and don’t target the Left. It has never happened and never will.

When they stood aside on Assange, they prepared the way for the assault on the Berlin Conference. When they harassed and tried to silence women defending women’s spaces they prepared the ground for the assault.

When they advocated and supported right-wing governments’ attempts at introducing hate speech legislation they paved the way for the criminalisation of solidarity with Palestine.

When the Hate Speech Bill comes back before the Irish parliament, they should take note and do the correct thing and oppose it, unequivocally.

Leftists who advocated employers taking control of employees lives and opinions, those that demanded that JK Rowling and others like her be hounded from the public sphere and that what they termed hate speech, in reality thought crimes, should be punished in law have aided and abetted right-wing governments in getting us to where we are now, which is that it is now very easy to criminalise pro-Palestinian voices.

All you have to say is “Hate Speech!” Meanwhile Rushi Sunak in Britain is pushing ahead with a very broad and loose definition of extremism which will see almost everyone who does not support Sunak or Starmer in the dock.

Notes

(1)  See interview with Yanis Varoufakis  https://www.democracynow.org/2024/4/16/germany_palestine

(2)  Minority Report is a Tom Cruise film in which three mutants can see the future and predict who will commit crimes and they are arrested, charged and sentenced in advance before the crime is committed.  In the film the system unravels.

(3)  WXXI News (16/04/2024) Hobart and William Smith Colleges professor suspended for comments on Israel-Hamas war. Noelle E.C. Evans.  https://www.wrvo.org/2024-04-16/hobart-and-william-smith-colleges-professor-suspended-for-comments-on-israel-hamas-war

(4)  WSWS (09/04/2024) Columbia University suspends and evicts pro-Palestinian students.  Tim Avery. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/04/09/yimz-a09.html

(5)  The Guardian (10/04/2024) German university rescinds Jewish American’s job offer over pro-Palestinian letter.  Kate Connolly. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2024/apr/10/nancy-fraser-cologne-university-germany-job-offer-palestine

(6)  The Guardian (18/04/2023) French publisher arrested in London on terrorism charge.  Matthew Weaver.  https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/apr/18/french-publisher-arrested-london-counter-terrorism-police-ernest-moret

(7)  The Guardian (19/08/2013) Glenn Greenwald’s partner detained at Heathrow airport for nine hours. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/18/glenn-greenwald-guardian-partner-detained-heathrow

The Influence of the Working Class on the 1916 Rising

On By rebelbreezeIn History, Ireland, irish history, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, National Liberation, Police Violence, Political Analysis, Socialist Revolution, Workers' Struggles, World War OneLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 9 mins.)

The 1916 Rising is usually seen as a nationalist Rising of Irish Republicans with perhaps some socialist involvement. Even Connolly is often portrayed as a patriot only (see the song James Connolly the Irish Rebel) with socialist views.

Of the six organisations that participated actively in the 1916 Rising1 only one of them was specifically of the Irish working class. Perhaps that’s why the great influence of the working class on the Rising tends to be generally overlooked.

As is well-known, James Connolly is one of the Seven Signatories2 of that wonderful and progressive document, the 1916 Proclamation of Independence. However, Connolly only became part of the planning committee for the Rising a very short time before the scheduled date.3

That is true but we should ask ourselves why they included him at all. The Irish Volunteers had a nationwide organisation with the also nationwide Cumann na mBan as auxiliaries, whereas Connolly could perhaps mobilise a couple of hundred fighters.

(Photo sourced: Internet)

It is said he was brought on board because the IRB believed that his constant demand for a Rising during WWI and the military exercises of the Irish Citizen Army indicated that Connolly was likely to lead the ICA to rise on their own and would spoil their schedule.

How likely was he to do that? It’s true that as a socialist Connolly was horrified by the slaughter of war, where workers of one state are sent to kill and be killed by workers4 of another and perusal of his writings do show that he thought an uprising to sabotage war was desperately needed.

Would he have gone ahead alone with the roughly 250 men and women of the Irish Citizen Army, hoping perhaps to inspire a popular upsurge and to encourage the Irish Volunteers to join it, in spite of even their leaders?5 It’s hard to believe so but of course it’s possible.

However, from the moment the Republican planners of the Rising took Connolly on board, we can see a significant organisational shift towards the working class in Dublin and nowhere more so than around Liberty Hall, where the first flag for an uprising was hoisted and the Proclamation printed.

Liberty Hall was of course the headquarters of the Irish Transport & General Workers’ union,of which James Connolly was the leader at that time and also editor of its newspaper,The Irish Worker.

And for a person brought in to the planning so recently, how extraordinary that Connolly was given the rank of Commandant General! A responsibility he took seriously, sending couriers around the country and attempting to direct defence preparations around the various Dublin garrisons.

The first battle flag of the Rising

A week before the Rising Connolly and the Irish Citizen Army had an Irish Republican flag raised above Liberty Hall as a flag of war and the one chosen to do the raising was a girl of 16 years, Molly O’Reilly.6

The associated circumstances are worth retelling, if only to illustrate the difference between the Liberty Hall of then and today. Adults took classes in Irish language and cultural activities there while their children and those of union activists waited for their parents, took dancing classes or played.

In playing, Molly O’Reilly accidentally broke a window and in terror and shame, ran home.

When Connolly sent a message to her home that he wanted to see her, she went to Liberty Hall expecting a severe telling off. Instead he told her not to worry and what he was asking of her. She was proud to do it but so small she had to stand on a chair to pull the cord raising the flag.

Remnant of the flag raised on Liberty Hall (Image sourced: National Museum)
Commemoration ceremony “Women of 1916” with relatives of Molly O’Reilly in place of honour (note the uniforms are of Irish Volunteers rather than Irish Citizen Army).(Photo: D.Breatnach)

Of course we know that flag was not of the revolutionary workers but instead the harp on green which was that of the early Fenians and was very similar to that of the United Irishmen, the first revolutionary Irish Republican organisation.7

Those early Fenians were mostly composed of working class members and their 1867 proclamation to the world was largely proletarian in outlook. In Britain, the Fenians formed part of the First International Workingmen’s Association which was led by Marx and Engels.

Their flag was flown over at least one of the 1916 Rising garrisons, I believe at theJameson Distillery in Marrowbone Lane.

Similar flag to that hoisted over Liberty Hall (Photo sourced: Internet)

The other flags of the Rising included the Tricolour, presented to the Irish Republicans of the ‘Young Irelanders’ by women in revolutionary Paris in 1848, which was one of two flown on the roof of the GPO, the headquarters of the Rising.

Sharing the GPO roof with the Tricolour was the flag made only days before from domestic material and painted with the words “Irish Republic” in the house of Constance Markievicz, an officer in the Irish Citizen Army, shortly before the Rising.

The Irish Citizen Army’s own flag, the Starry Plough, flew over the Clery’s building facing the GPO. Sadly today most Irish people do not know that flag, though awareness of it and its background is growing among the indigenous Irish and the migrant community.

The design of the Starry Plough, flag of the ICA as it was in 1916 (Image sourced: Internet)

The first workers’ army in the world8

The Irish Citizen Army was formed as a workers’ militia during the great Lockout and strike of 1913-1914, to defend against the attacks of the police, the physical repressive front line of the capitalist class; the ICA’s flag was placed above Murphy’s Imperial Hotel in Clery’s.9

The Irish Citizen Army on exercises at their grounds near what is Fairview today (Photo sourced: Internet)

Though its constitution was more nationalist than socialist, the ICA was in its membership and purpose the first workers’ army in the world and when reorganised a few years later, represented also working class feminism, recruiting women, some of whom were officers commanding men.

Once the preparations for the Rising were in tatters with MacNeil’s countermanding order, where did organisers gather to discuss what to do? In Liberty Hall, the building of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union and it was there that the decision to rise on Monday instead was taken.

It is hard to overstate the importance of the fact that the decision to go ahead with insurrection was taken in the building which had become de facto the HQ of the revolutionary working class in Dublin, with an illegal flag of rebellion flying and where the Proclamation was to be printed.

The writing and text of the Proclamation

The wording of the Proclamation is thought largely composed by Pearse but influenced by Connolly, including its address to “Irish men and Irish women” and perhaps “We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland, and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies”.

Another section which could bear Connolly’s fingerprint reads: The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens, and declares its resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and of all its parts, cherishing all the children of the nation equally.

(Image sourced: Internet)

But, whoever composed or influenced the Proclamation text, it was printed in Liberty Hall. An Irish Citizen Army member went to Stafford Street (Wolfe Tone St. today) to borrow the print type from a printer there to bring back to Liberty Hall, which was under daily 24-hour armed guard.

Having printed the Proclamation in Liberty Hall under armed guard and having decided there to rise on Easter Monday, where did the assault groups for Stephens Green, Castle and the GPO, including the Headquarters Battalion, meet on the morning of the Rising? …. Again, at Liberty Hall.

An early non-combatant casualty of the Rising was Ernest Kavanagh,10 who drew cartoons for the newspaper of the ITGWU, The Irish Worker. For some reason he went to Liberty Hall on Tuesday and was shot dead on the steps of the union building, presumably by a British Army sniper.

The working class in armed resistance

Once the Rising was in motion, the Irish Citizen Army had primary responsibility for two areas, the Stephens Green/ College of Surgeons garrison and the Dublin Castle/ City Hall garrison but also fought in other areas, for example on Annesley Bridge and in the GPO/ Moore Street area.

All who fought alongside them commented on their courage and discipline. After the surrender, many, along with Irish Volunteers were sentenced to death, most being commuted to life imprisonment. But two leaders of the Irish Citizen Army were shot by firing squad.

One of the areas from which the British forces were sniped at for days after the Rising was the docks area, then predominantly surrounded by working class residential areas.

A question we should ask ourselves is why the forces coming from Britain to suppress the Rising landed at Dún Laoghaire, from where they had to march nearly 12 km (approaching eight miles) to Dublin city centre, instead of at the excellent Dublin docks on the Liffey.

Hugo McGuinness, who specialises in history of the North Wall area, believes that the British expected Dublin to be in the hands of the working class resistance and that it was simply too dangerous to land British troops there, though gunboats could fire from the Liffey.

Certainly, the British believed Liberty Hall and buildings along Eden Quay were occupied as fighting posts by the Irish Citizen Army and they fired artillery at the union building from Tara Street, as photos of shell holes in that building and right through to the next testify.

Photo shell-damage Liberty Hall (first building with corner towards the camera, viewed northwards from Butt Bridge) as one of a set of commemorative postcards. (Photo sourced: Internet)
Another postcard with closeup of shelling damage to Liberty Hall and to the building next to it. Interestingly, in this one Liberty Hall is labeled “the Rebel Headquarters”. (Photo sourced: Internet)

Much is made in some historical accounts of the opposition to the Rising from sections of the Dublin population, during and immediately after the Rising. The city was the capital of a British colony, only just over a century earlier spoken of as “the second city of the British Empire”.

A substantial proportion of the wealthy and middle classes were Loyalist, including some Catholics; even ‘nationalist’ sections were committed to supporting the UK in WWI and John Redmond, leader of the ‘nationalist’ political party had openly recruited for the British Army.

Also, among the working class and the lumpen elements, many were depending on “Separation Allowances” with regard to males serving in the British Army. It is true that the insurgents in some places had to threaten, club or even shoot some civilians who tried to obstruct the Rising.11

These incidents during the Rising were not many but afterwards there were insults and other things thrown at prisoners being marched to imprisonment (or firing squad). The city was under martial law but even so a Canadian journalist reported the insurgents being cheered in working class areas.

There were also other individual witness accounts, such as a man on a tram saluting prisoners in Parnell Street until threatened by soldier escorts and a firefighter in the GPO doing likewise. A year later most of even the earlier hostility had changed to admiration and pride in the fighters.

Leadership of the working class

James Connolly wrote and said many things of importance but surely, with regard to the struggle for Irish national independence, the greatest of these was: “Only the Irish working class remains as the incorruptible inheritors of the fight for freedom in Ireland.”

By that he meant — and I agree — that all other social classes can gain something from selling out the interests and resources of Irish nationhood but that the working class can gain nothing from that.

The Irish working class staked their claim on the struggle for Irish independence in 1916 but have not succeeded in leading it and because of that, that struggle remains to be won.

Today and in other days, remembering that long struggle and the class whose leadership revolutionary socialists seek to represent and to uphold, we declare the need for that leadership over a broad front of all others who wish to struggle to advance.

In doing so, we declare that far from the working class having to wait for socialism, in the course of national struggle it must also shape its own demands around the economy, natural resources, infrastructure, social services, social questions, culture and, above all, to the fruits of its labour.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1Irish Republican Brotherhood, Irish Volunteers, Irish Citizen Army, Cumann na mBan, Na Fianna Éireann, Hibernian Rifles.

2All of which were executed by British firing squad, along with another seven in Dublin and yet another in Cork. The 16th execution was by hanging in London.

3(See Sources: Cooption of James Connolly etc) Connolly was a lifelong socialist and a revolutionary throughout his adult life, author, historian, journalist, song-writer, trade union organiser; active politically in Scotland, Ireland, New York and back in Ireland.

4The international socialist movement viewed the imperialists’ movement towards war with horror and in international conferences vowed to oppose it with all their might, including turning war resistance into revolution (“War against war”). However, once imperialist war was declared that resolve collapsed in most states, Russia, Germany and Ireland being notable exceptions and each saw a rising against war, in Ireland’s being the first.

5Joseph E.A. O’Connell (Jnr.) suggests a possible intention of goading of the State into attacking him and the ICA which might spark the general rising.

6(See Sources)

7The harp on the United Men’s flag was more ornate and was inscribed with the words “It is newly-strung and shall be heard”.

8https://www.connollybooks.org/product/irishcitizenarmy

9It was a good central location but more than that – the Hotel was one of the businesses of William Martin Murphy, chief organiser of the employers’ bloc to break the Irish Transport & General Workers’ Union.

10Kavanagh was a supporter of the workers, of votes for women and against participation in the imperialist war, contributing cartoons also to the Irish Citizen, Fianna and Irish Freedom publications, also to accompany poems of his sister, Maeve Cavanagh McDowell.

11I do not include in this the three members of the Dublin Metropolitan Police who were a force for the British occupation and also for the Dublin capitalists. The Irish Citizen Army in particular had good reason to settle accounts with them for attacks on them including inflicting mortal baton injuries on two workers during a charge on a union meeting on 30th September 1913 on Eden Quay and beating people and smashing up furniture in Corporation Street a little later.

SOURCES

Co-option of James Connolly to the Military Council planning the Rising: https://www.historyireland.com/connollys-kidnapping/

Raising the flag on Liberty Hall: https://microsites.museum.ie/1916objectstories/ObjectDetail/remains-of-irish-flag
Molly O’Reilly breaking a window incident: https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/ladies-day-for-1916-heroines/26528456.html

Printing of the Proclamation of Independence: https://libguides.ucc.ie/1916Proclamation
https://www.dublincity.ie/library/blog/printing-1916-proclamation-transcript

Decision taken to go ahead with the Rising on Easter Monday: https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/easter-rising-uneasy-calm-before-the-storm-1.2575638
https://www.nli.ie/1916/exhibition/en/content/risingsites/libertyhall/

“Only the Irish working class remains the incorruptible heirs …” (end second sentence from last): https://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1910/lih/foreword.htm

Stand Together but How? And Militant Response to Fascist Provocation

On By rebelbreezeIn Anti-Fascism, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Ireland, irish history, Irish Left, Political AnalysisLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 5 mins.)

A large number of people gathered in Dublin on 2nd March in what was advertised as a “Stand Together” march for “Homes, Health & Rights for All”; “Against Racism, Hate & War”; to “Share Wealth and End Inequality”.

A large part of the context in which the event was organised is a high number of arson attacks on properties intended (or thought to be) for housing refugees and asylum seekers, along with an increase in mobilisations of people by the far-Right and outright fascists.

(Photo: D.Breatnach)

In that context, the advertising poster for the march was insipid in colouring, using pastel shades reminiscent of a certain type of sweets. On some versions the clenched fist appeared but it was missing from many others shared on social media.

Le Chéile, the main organising or coordinating body, was formed some years ago at a time when the Far-Right was becoming increasingly visible in street events they organised and on occasion countering progressive events and a number of clashes had taken place.

The main organisers not only had been absent from most of those confrontations but deliberately chose to exclude from the founding of Le Chéile the majority of those among Irish Republicans, Socialists, Anarchists etc who had already been counter-protesting the far-Right.

Banners of CATU and Drogheda For All on the march soon after starting in Parnell Square (Photo: D.Breatnach)
On the march soon after starting in Parnell Square (Photo: D.Breatnach)

This may account for the absence of most Irish Republican organisations from the march (if so I understand but disagree with the decision). Dublin Communities Against Racism however contain some veteran antifascists and were present as were a group of Italian antifascists.

There was a big turnout of Traveller groups which would be welcome any time, in particular as the longest-racialised minority in Ireland, but more welcome in recent years when the far-Right have been making efforts to recruit some from that community against migrants.

Banners of Irish Traveller organisations on the march soon after starting in Parnell Square (Photo: D.Breatnach)
(Photo: D.Breatnach)

Given the ongoing genocide of Palestinians by the Israeli Zionist state, many Palestine flags were naturally enough seen on the march — and not only within the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s contingent.

Groups of marchers from a number of trade unions were good to see too, though the numbers were not great and the spread of unions small. One might expect trade unions to be to the fore in combating the harmful divisiveness of racism but their record is poor even on straight pay issues.

Flags of Palestinian solidarity, Unite the union (Photo: D.Breatnach)

A number of political parties were present too: People Before Profit, Sinn Féin, Social Democrats, as were a couple of faith-based groups.

Banners of religious groups and coming up behind, some trade union banners Banners of CATU and Drogheda For All on the march soon after starting in Parnell Square (Photo: D.Breatnach)

Anti-fascist fans of Dublin soccer team Shamrock Rovers marched behind their banner with their green-and-white flags and at one point a green smoke flare was set off in their midst. The colours of some of the 134 Gaelic Athletic Clubs based in Dublin would have been good to see there also.

The earlier announced route of the march, to end at Custom House Quay, was changed for some reason and without announcement, at least from O’Connell Street and eventually ended up in north Merrion Square, with a stage set up across the street at the eastern end.

Banner of fans of Shamrock Rovers FC on the march (Photo: D.Breatnach)
On stage at the rally (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Poet performer at the rally (Photo: D.Breatnach)

The MC of the event on the stage, a man of colour, greeted participants in English and Irish but shocked antifascists present by advising any who felt unsafe to approach a steward or a Garda (!). There are few more likely to make people feel unsafe than that members of that very force.

Speakers from both indigenous and migrant backgrounds addressed the crowd and the cultural performances were by people from both backgrounds.

The MC at one point drew in the war in Ukraine in parallel with the Israeli genocide, which was inappropriate even if one were a supporter of US/NATO’s proxy war against Russia using the puppet Ukrainian state (which I am not).

One of the participants reads the List Of Some Migrants and Sons of Migrants who contributed to Ireland. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

Also the PBP know that their view on this is hotly refuted through much of the Left and a great many of those on the march.

In the time I was there, though speakers attacked the divisiveness of racists and fascists and on occasion pointed to the real culprits in manufacturing a housing crisis, none pointed to the capitalist class need for dividing the working class and particularly so when their system is in difficulty.

(Photo: D.Breatnach)
A noble call but the organisation whose placard this is did not do so and furthermore when a certain organisation, Revolutionary Housing League were actually doing so, neither this nor other organisations mobilised in support. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

Not to speak of how we might organise to “Share the Wealth”, which means socialist revolution, surely, unless it refers to some liberal pipe-dream? The far-Right have risen to prominence in Ireland is because most of those who claim socialist policies have failed to fight for them.

Fighting for socialist policies means actually fighting which means going into all the battlegrounds and organising the people, providing revolutionary education and example and inevitably will mean suffering because the ruling class will not just sit back and watch.

(Photo: D.Breatnach)

While some benefit can be obtained from representation in the parliaments and local authority councils, they can never be the main battleground. Street demonstrations are an improvement but nor can they be the main area for revolutionary effort.

In the clear context of general elections widely speculated to take place later this year, a speaker asked the crowd not to vote for anti-immigration candidates. Since the likelihood of anyone there doing so was nil, the inference was clearly to encourage voting for the current parliamentary parties.

In conclusion it is hard to imagine this organisation or any similar kind of coordination providing strong organisation or leadership to counter fascism and racism effectively.

This is not the kind of organisation that would have fought the Blueshirts in the 1930s or even prevented the Islamophobic Pegida founding a branch in Dublin, which a militant antifascist mobilisation succeeded in doing in February 2016.

Section of the march viewed from the Parnell Monument southward (Photo: D.Breatnach)

Anti-NATO Picket Rescues Palestine Flag from Fascist Provocateur

A more militant antifascist attitude was seen in Dublin a few hours later when a fascist grabbed a Palestine flag from a participant in an anti-NATO picket outside the GPO, the iconic building housing the headquarters staff of the 1916 Rising.

The picketers were standing peacefully with banners and flags, including Palestinian and Irish Starry Plough, distributing leaflets and engaging passers-by in conversation. The incident occurred some time into the event, the man shouting in an Irish accent, grabbing the flag and running.

Anti-NATO picket organised by the Anti-Imperialist Action organisation outside the GPO in Dublin’s main street. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

The surge forward in response might have caught him by surprise but, though the flag was rapidly retrieved, he continued to be aggressive in words and, as is described in slang, “throwing shapes”, behaviour that ended with his sitting in the road.

Though the population of Ireland is overwhelmingly in sympathy with the plight of the Palestinians and many in solidarity with their struggle, many in the far-Right here object to displays of that solidarity and call the solidarity activists “traitors” and demand they act for Ireland only.

Ironically, many of those same people acting in Palestine solidarity have also over the years agitated for affordable housing, against social provision cuts and British colonial occupation, in support of Irish political prisoners – while the far-Right’s only ‘contribution’ is to agitate against migrants.

Fascists in Ireland also collude with Loyalists and with British fascists; it is they who are the traitors, to the nation and to the working class, hiding behind flags the meaning of which their leaders secretly despise and which some of their lumpen followers do not understand.

End.

(Photo: D.Breatnach)
List of some migrants and sons of migrants who have contribute to Ireland (including fighting and in some cases dying for her freedom) (Photo: O.Dunne)

Sources

Le Chéile: https://www.facebook.com/LeCheileDND

Anti-Imperialist Action: https://t.me/aiaireland

Dunnes Stores, South Africa, Gaza: A Tale of Two Boycotts

On By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, History, Human Rights, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Left, Israeli Zionism, Palestine, Political Analysis, Sud Africa, Trade unionsLeave a comment

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh

29 February 2024

Anti-apartheid activist Nimrod Sejake with some of the Dunnes Stores striker.

Reference has been made on a number of occasions to the heroic actions of the Dunnes Stores Anti-Apartheid strikers in 1984 who spent nigh on three years on strike because they refused to handle South African merchandise.

It has been pointed to as a success story for boycotts and one to emulate. The real story of the strike points to the difficulties we now face in implementing a real boycott of Israel.

I used to go down to the picket line at the Dunnes branch in Henry Street every Wednesday, as we had a half day at school and on Saturdays when there was no school and then more regularly once I had sat my Leaving Cert exam and was, like many young people in 1980s Ireland, unemployed.

So, I recently bought a copy of Mary Manning’s autobiographical account of the strike, Striking Back: The Untold Story of an Anti-Apartheid Striker (Collins Press).

The book brought to mind many of the instances and difficulties that they faced and it raises many questions for those who wish to point to them as an example to follow.

The strikers were implementing a trade union resolution, and at first knew little of the reality of South Africa, something they corrected relatively quickly, thanks in no small part to a South African exile, Nimrod Sejake, who turned up to join them on the picket line.

Sejake was an activist who had been arrested as part of the infamous Treason Trial. Mary Manning is full of praise for Nimrod and rightly so.

Others do not come out so well and it is worth remembering the reality of that strike as it tells us some of the things that need to happen if we want to see similar action in relation to Israel.

The first thing that jumps out of the pages, early on, is that the trade bureaucracy did not give them any support and even their own trade union, IDATU (now called Mandate) was very reluctant to support them.

What support they got was down to their official Brendan Archbold who was a stalwart in supporting them and the then head of the union John Mitchell. At every twist and turn they had to fight the executive of IDATU, whilst the rest of the trade union movement ran for cover.

There will be no similar type of action around the Zionists unless it is put to the bureaucracy and they are challenged over their inaction in the midst of a genocide.

Karen Gearon, the shop steward at Dunnes Store made a call at the National March in Dublin on February 17th for the trade union movement to stop talking and take action. It is not something that has been seriously echoed by others.

Neither People Before Profit TDs or the IPSC have ever made a clear call for action from the trade union movement. It should be a central part of any boycott movement now.

It is all well and good picketing Starbucks, but stopping the importation of Israeli goods would be more important and will only happen if the bureaucracy is pushed to it. The history of PbP is one of cowering in the shadow of the bureaucrats and never putting it up to them on any issue.

They frequently share polite platforms with the bureaucrats and never challenge them. Their calls, when made are generic and are in passing. Their website and the IPSC site is limited to a consumer boycott with calls for the government, not workers, to take action.

I was also reminded by the book how the great and good in Irish society stood by whilst these workers were on strike. The Minister for Labour at the time was Ruairí Quinn, a member of the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement (IAAM) and yet he did nothing.

He was not the only mealy-mouthed figure in Irish society, nor indeed in the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement.

The head of the Catholic Bishops Aid Agency, Trócaire, Bishop Eamon Casey privately wrote to IDATU early on describing the strike as ‘economically harmful to the already impoverished Black South Africans.’

The strikers’ request for support from the Catholic Church was described as impertinent and just in case anyone doubted how he saw himself, he was of the view that both he and Trócaire should have been consulted before the strike took place.

Their currency now is much devalued in Ireland but there are others like them who also think they have a veto on decisions.

He was later forced to publicly back the strike having been embarrassed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s decision to present two strikers to the world at his London press conference en route to pick up his Nobel Peace Prize.

Though that took a while and meantime nuns proudly scabbed and crossed the picket line. Casey’s attempts at sabotage and his later hypocrisy in belatedly supporting the strike, should not be forgotten.

At the time he was seen as a moral guardian, his plundering of church funds to keep his lover and his child comfortable was not known.

There are lots of other figures like him around now, who we might expect to support workers implementing a boycott, but might not when faced with the reality of it.

Another figure who comes out badly in it is Kader Asmal, the head of the IAAM. After three months of strike action, he met with John Mitchell and Brendan Archbold and told them to call off the strike, that it had served its purpose and that he was pulling his support.

When Desmond Tutu invited the strikers to South Africa he privately told them he would not support them going as it was a breach of the cultural boycott of South Africa.

Their trip to the country and the refusal of the Apartheid regime to let them in along with their detention at the airport was a pivotal moment in the strike.

Upon their return to Ireland, Asmal was one of the people to rush to the airport and give interviews and bask in the glory, as his position opposing the trip was never made public. He comes across very badly in the book.

I recall him asking me for information on South African goods coming through the port where I had begun working and Brendan Archbold telling me not to trust him, that he was a sleiveen and would hang me out to dry. He was, and like him there are others just like that on the issue of Gaza.

The contrast with Nimrod Sejake could not have been greater.

Sejake was a working class militant who suffered greatly and enjoyed none of the middle class trappings of Kader Asmal’s life in Ireland and unlike Asmal he had never crossed a picket line, something Asmal did in Trinity College where he worked, scabbing during a strike there.

There are Palestinian equivalents to Asmal and also to Sejake. The IPSC pretends otherwise.

So, what are the lessons of the Dunnes Stores strike?

One is that it wasn’t just a consumer boycott, it was a workers’ boycott and they were left high and dry by many of those who would have been expected to support them.

If we are going to call for workers action, various people and bodies need to be challenged and would have to commit themselves publicly to it. So far this is absent. PbP and the IPSC are not putting it up to any of the institutions.

View of the protest outside Axa Insurance 14 December 2023 while others inside carried out a protest sit-in. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

In fact, the UNITE union complained about a sit-in at Axa Insurance company saying it was harmful to the workers. The sit-in was not organised by the IPSC but by CATU and Dublin for Gaza.

It turns out that UNITE is a bit like IDATU.

The union has also passed resolutions supporting the campaign of BDS and yet “according to union insiders, Axa is Unite’s insurer in Ireland – and Unite’s designated provider of hotel accommodation is the Leonardo hotel group, which is part-owned by the Israeli Fattal group.”(1)

UNITE members taking action would most likely be shunned by their own union. Just like the head of the IAAM, Kader Asmal had tried to undermine the Dunnes Stores strike, there are those in the IPSC who would run for the hills were workers to take action against Israel.

So, we do need to emulate the Dunnes Stores strikers, but we need to be clear about the challenges and the opposition we would face from the trade union movement itself, the Catholic Church (they never went away either) and sectors of the IPSC.

It is time for action, but it is also high time that both PbP and the IPSC made clear calls for action and workers are not left hung out to dry, should they take action.

Notes

(1)Skwakbox (15/12/2023) Outrage builds over Unite’s use of Israel-linked firms as protestors occupy Axa Dublin office
https://skwawkbox.org/2023/12/15/outrage-builds-over-unites-use-of-israel-linked-firms-as-protesters-occupy-axa-dublin-office/

“THEY WANT US TO MOVE OUT – BUT WE’RE STAYING”

On By rebelbreezeIn Capitalism, City Planning, Current Affairs Comment, Dublin Lockout 1913, Education, History, Housing, Human Rights, Ireland, irish history, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, Political Analysis, Song, Workers' StrugglesLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

In Dublin’s south docklands the property developers and the corporations dominate city planning and therefore the landscape. And the working class community there feel that they’re being squeezed out.

I’ve met with some concerned people from parts of this community in the past to report on their situation and concerns for Rebel Breeze and did so again recently.

A view eastward of a section of the south Liffey riverfront, showing a very small amount of more traditional buildings squashed between or loomed over by the “glass cages that spring up along the quay”. (Photo 1 March 2024: D.Breatnach)

YOUNG PEOPLE – education, training, socialising

“There’s nothing here for our young people” said one, expressing concern over the attraction for teenagers of physical confrontations with other teens from across the river which have taken place on the Samuel Beckett Bridge over the Liffey.

A young man training as an apprentice in engineering attends a mixed martial arts club but has to go miles away to another area to attend there. Between his industrial training, travel and athletic training he has little time to spare for socialising.

I comment that those sporting activities tend to concentrate on male youth and only some of those also but he tells me that nearly half the regular membership of his club is female. A community centre could provide space and time for such training but they say they have no such centre.

St. Andrew’s Hall is a community centre in the area and there are mixed opinions in the group about it but I know from my own enquiries that the available rooms are committed to weekly booked activities (and our meeting had to take place in a quiet corner of an hotel bar).

As a former youth worker and in voluntary centre management, I know that a community centre can serve all ages across the community, from parents and toddlers through youth clubs to sessions for adults and elders.

Discussing youth brings the talk into education and training. As discussed in a previous report of mine, the youth are not being trained in information technology, which is the employment offered in most of the corporations in “the glass cages that spring up along the quay.”1

Section of the south Liffey docks showing some of the few remaining older buildings as they are swamped by the “glass cages”. The building on the far right of photo, very near to Tara Street DART station, once an arts centre, is already targeted for demolition and replacement with commercial building. (Photo sourced: Internet)

“If they’re lucky, they’ll get work in the buildings as cleaners or serving lattes and snack in the new cafes”. Some opined that the corporations in the area should be providing their youth with the training while others thought Trinity College should be doing so.

HOUSING – price and air quality

Universal municipal housing in the area has declined due to privatisation of housing stock and refusal to build more. A former municipal block in Fenian Street, empty for years is now to be replaced but the “affordable” allocation has been progressively reduced, ending now at zero.

Pearse House in south Liffey docklands, believed earmarked for demolition and site sold to property speculators. (Photo 1 March 2024: D.Breatnach)

Property speculators (sorry, “developers”) with banker support are building office blocks and apartment blocks in the areas, the latter units priced beyond the range of most local people. The average rent for a two-bed apartment in the area is €2,385;2 to buy a 3-bedroom house €615,000.3

The Joyce House site and attached ground area could provide housing and a community centre but appears planned to go to speculators.

Continuation of ‘Pearse House site’ in south Liffey docklands, believed earmarked for demolition and site sold to property speculators. (Photo 1 March 2024: D.Breatnach)

The Markievicz swimming pool near Tara Street has been closed and the local people are told they can go to Ringsend for swimming, an area which already has better community facilities than are available to the communities further west along docklands

A huge amount of traffic goes through the area and one person stated that Macken Street tested as having the worst air quality in Ireland. “I have to close my windows to keep out the noise and pollution,” said another; “the curtains would be black.”

Townsend Street side of ‘Pearse House site’ in south Liffey docklands, believed earmarked for demolition and site sold to property speculators (prospective property speculators must be salivating). The gambling advertisement coincidentally erected there seems to show the likely social types to benefit from these kinds of deals. (Photo 1 March 2024: D.Breatnach)

‘They want us out’

If some town planner were intending to establish a community somewhere, s/he would plan for housing, obviously, so the people would have somewhere to live. But a proper plan would provide also for education and training, along with social facilities — and employment.

But if someone were intending instead to get rid of a community, s/he would target exactly the same elements, whittling them down or removing them altogether. This what some local people feel is intended for their community.

“We feel we’re not wanted here,” said one and others agreed, “They want us to move out.” “But we’re not going! We’re staying,” said another, to grim nodding of heads around.

HISTORY of struggle … and of neglect

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Dublin had the worst housing in the United Kingdom and many of its elected municipal representatives – including a number of Nationalists of Redmond’s party – were themselves slum landlords.

When the Irish Transport and General Workers Union was formed by Jim Larkin with assistance from James Connolly and the Irish Women Workers’ Union founded by Delia Larkin, many of the dockers, carters and Bolands Mill workers who joined them came from the south docklands.

And when the employers’ consortium led by William Martin Murphy set out to break the ITGWU in 1913, many of those workers

… Stood by Larkin and told the bossman
We’d fight or die but we would not shirk.
For eight months we fought
And eight months we starved,
We stood by Larkin through thick and thin …4

And the women of Bolands’ Mill were the last to return to work, which they did singing, in February 1914.

They also formed part of the Irish Citizen Army, the first workers’ army in the world,5 to defend the striking and locked-out workers from the attacks of the Dublin Metropolitan Police and which later fought prominently in the 1916 Easter Rising.6

Many also joined the larger Irish Volunteers which later became the IRA, along with Cumann na mBan,7 fighting in the Rising, the War of Independence and the Civil War, supporting resistance of class and nation for decades after.

The Irish Republican Brotherhood (the Fenians) was founded in the area; Peadar Macken8 was from here and has a street named after him; Elizabeth O’Farrell9 is from the area too with a small park named after her and Constance Markievicz10 also lived locally.

The Pearse family lived in the area too and Willie Pearse and his father both worked on monumental sculpture at the same address; Connolly and his family for a while lived in South Lotts.

Home of the Pearse family and monumental sculpting business (Photo: Dublin Civic Trust)

The working class communities in urban Ireland suffered deprivation throughout the over a century of the existence of the Irish state and the colonial statelet. The communities in dockland suffered no less, traditional work gone, public and private housing in neglect in a post-industrial wasteland.

The population of Ireland remained static from the mid-1800s until the 1990s, despite traditionally large families — emigration in search of employment kept the numbers level. Married couples lived with parents and in-laws while waiting for a house or flat – or emigrated.

In the 1980s, like many parts of the world, Ireland fell prey to what has been described as the “heroin epidemic” and the neglected urban working class worst of all, with the State assigning resources to fight not so much the drug distributors as the anti-drug campaigners.

One of those in the meeting became outwardly emotional when he talked of “the squandered potential” of many people in the local community.

A workers’ day out trip on the Liffey ferry (Photo sourced: Dockers’ Preservation Trust)

The heirs of these then are the marginalised and abandoned that are targeted with disinformation and manipulated by the far-Right and fascists, to twist their anger and despair not against the causes of their situation but against harmless and vulnerable people.

But the Left has to take a share of the blame, for leaving them there in that situation, for not mobilising them in resistance. After all, issues like housing, education and employment are supposed to be standard concerns for socialists, of both the revolutionary and the reformist varieties.

Republicans cannot avoid the pointing finger either. These communities provided fighters and leaders not only in the early decades of the 20th Century but again from the late 1960s and throughout the 30 years war.

The Republicans led them in fighting for the occupied Six Counties but largely ignored their own economic, social and educational needs at home. Perhaps this is why the people are now organising themselves.

Protest placard by housing block in Macken Street protesting noise and dirt from nearby construction (Photo: Macken Street resident)

“THEY DON’T VOTE”

A number of the local people to whom I spoke quote a local TD (Teachta Dála, elected representative to the Irish parliament) who commented that most of the local residents don’t vote in elections.

Whether he meant, as some have interpreted, that therefore they don’t matter or, that without voting, they cannot effect change, is uncertain. However, community activism is not necessarily tied to voting in elections.

Protest placard by housing block in Macken Street protesting noise and dirt from nearby construction. (Photo: Macken Street resident)

As we know from our history and that of others around the world, voting is not the only way to bring about change and, arguably, not even the most effective one.

Whatever about that question, people are getting organised in these communities and those who hold the power may find that they are in for a fight.

End.

The landscape (and airscape) viewed from a housing block in Macken Street (Photo: Macken Street resident).

FOOTNOTES

1From song by Pet St. John, Dublin in the Rare Aul’ Times.

2https://www.statista.com/

3https://www.dublinlive.ie/

4From The Larkin Ballad, about the Lockout and the Rising, by Donagh McDonagh, whose father was one of the fourteen shot by British firing squad after the 1916 Rising.

5Formed in Dublin in 1913 to defend strikers and locked-out workers from the Dublin Metropolitan Police; members were required to be trade union members. The ICA was unique for another reason in its time: it recruited women and some of them were officers, commanding men and women.

6Historian Hugo McGuinness based on the other side of the Liffey believes that the reason the British troops sent to suppress the Rising disembarked at Dún Laoghaire rather than in the Dublin docks was because they feared the landing being opposed by the Irish Citizen Army and its local supporting communities.

7Republican Female military organisation, formed 1914.

8Fenian, socialist, trade unionist, house painter who learned and taught Irish language, joined the Irish Volunteers, fought in the Rising and was tragically shot by one of the Bolands Mill Garrison who went homicidally insane (and was himself shot dead).

9Member of the GPO Garrison in the 1916 Rising, subsequently negotiator of the Surrender in Moore Street/ Parnell Street and courier for the 1916 leadership to other fighting posts.

10Member of multiple nationalist organisations, also ICA and in the command echelon of the Stephens Green/ College of Surgeons Garrison. Also first woman elected to the British Parliament and first female Labour Minister in the world.

SOURCES & FURTHER READING

Biography Peadar Macken: https://www.dib.ie/biography/macken-peter-paul-peadar-a5227

SOUTH DUBLIN DOCKLAND COMMUNITIES ORGANISE FOR THEIR NEEDS
CLASS-CLEANSING IN DOCKLANDS

DUBLIN POLITICAL PRISONERS’ PICKET REFUTES MINISTER’S LIE

On By rebelbreezeIn British imperialism, Civil Rights, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, History, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, National Liberation, Political Analysis, Political PrisonersLeave a comment

Clive Sulish

(Reading time: 2 mins.)

On Tuesday evening in one of Dublin city centre’s high-end shopping street picketers refuted colonial Minister for ‘Justice’ Naomi Long’s lie that “There are no political prisoners in Northern Ireland” (sic – she means the Six-County colony).

The Ireland Anti-Internment Campaign came on to the street to highlight that yes indeed, there ARE political prisoners in Ireland – over two score between both sides of the Border. And that furthermore, they are convicted in special political no-jury judicial processes.

View of the picket and the IAIC banner in Henry Street on Tuesday (Photo: Rebel Breeze)

The IAIC states that these judicial processes are called the “Diplock Court” in the occupied Six Counties and the “Special Criminal Courts” in the Irish state and were “specifically created in both cases for the easy conviction and jailing of Irish Republicans.”

The SCC has been labelled “a sentencing tribunal” rather than a court of law by human rights campaigners. IAIC states that the Diplock Court is “now being administered by former Republicans while the SCCs have now, after years of opposition, been approved by those same people.”

View of placards on the IAIC banner in Henry Street on Tuesday (Photo: Rebel Breeze)

However, as accused before these courts are also regularly refused bail, IAIC points out they are also effectively administrators of internment without trial, jailing activists for around two years before judicial process. If bail is granted, it is always under severe conditions preventing political activity.

The IAIC, an independent group campaigning for ten years, was supported in their picket yesterday by Irish Republicans and Socialists including from the Anti-Imperialist Action and Saoirse Don Phalaistín groups, in addition to some independent activists.

Although Henry Street is a high-end shopping street of Dublin city centre, lots of working class people use it also.

A member distributes leaflets to passers-by near the picket in Henry Street on Tuesday (Photo: Rebel Breeze)

Over 100 leaflets were distributed and a number of people stopped to discuss the issues. Some queried the mix of flags flown (Irish Starry Plough, Palestinian and Basque) and participants explained that these represented some of the struggles where repression has taken prisoners.

“We thought it particularly important to refute the colonial Minister’s lie today,” commented a spokesperson for the IAIC “and we’re glad for the support we received on the picket line and from interested people on the street. We hope to do it more often this year.”

“Internment continues in Ireland, just on a different scale and more selectively than for example in the Six Counties in the 1980s”, continued the spokesperson.

View of the picket and the IAIC banner in Henry Street on Tuesday (Photo: Rebel Breeze)

The IAIC states that it is “an independent campaigning group run on a participative democratic basis” and that it “welcomes democratic people” on their pickets. The Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063166633467 is their usual public outlet for notification of events and highlighting of related issues.

End.

DUBLIN STREETS RESOUND WITH “FREE PALESTINE!” AND AWASH IN PALESTINIAN NATIONAL COLOURS

On By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Gaeilge, Human Rights, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Language, Irish Left, Israeli Zionism, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, ZionismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 5 mins.)

On a day when the Israeli military killed another 83 Palestinians, to bring the state’s death-tally since October 8th to almost 29,0001 known dead and thousands injured and missing,2over 50,000 people marched in solidarity through Dublin city centre.

The Israeli military is killing, on average, a Palestinian child every ten minutes.

Section of Mothers Against Genocide Ireland marching with bundles simulating children killed by Israel (Photo: D.Breatnach)

The national demonstration was convened by the Ireland Palestine Solidarity campaign and, though people came from all over the country and from many organisations, the numbers did not seem to quite match their last national demonstration, believed attended by 100,000.

As they marched from the Garden of Remembrance, the usual slogans were prompted and taken up in chanting responses: 1, 2, 3, 4 – Occupation no more! 5, 6, 7, 8 – Israel is a terrorist state!3 Gaza, Gaza, don’t you cry – Palestine will never die! Free, free – Palestine!

(Photo: D.Breatnach)

Taking over 20 minutes to pass through the north city centre’s O’Connell Street, they marched over O’Connell Bridge into D’Olier Street, through College Green and right into Dame Street, constantly chanting out the slogans4 of solidarity to which, by now, thousands have become accustomed.

From the River to the Sea – Palestine will be free! In our thousands and our millions – we are all Palestinians! Netanyahu (also Joe Biden, Western Powers etc) what do you say? – How many kids did you kill today? Zionist Ambassador – Out, out, out!

In some sections could also be heard: There is only one solution – Intifada revolution! Irish Government (also Western powers, USA), you can’t hide – You’re supporting genocide!

Section of the march about half-way through O’Connell Street, looking northwards. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Section of the march about half-way through O’Connell Street, viewing southward. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

The Irish Government, the EU and the Genocidal Israeli State

Among EU states, the leaders of the Irish Government have been the most pressing on the EU to call for a ceasefire and have now teamed up with the Spanish state’s current government leadership to press the EU to revise its preferential trade agreement with the Israeli State.

They are not likely to succeed since Germany and France have led the strident pro-Israel position of the EU, rejecting even a call for a humanitarian pause to deliver food, fuel and shelter to starving Palestinian refugees or any attempt to restrain the Zionists’ leaders from their genocidal bombing.

But in addition the main concern of the Irish Government ministers (probably Spain’s also) is that the whole situation is going to escalate further in Palestine and further, across the Middle East; in other words they are offering ‘good advice’ and concerned that it’s being ignored by Israel.

Children on the march – a reminder that the Israeli state kills a Palestinian child on average every ten minutes. Also Irish language flag and placard in this photo employing the “Saoirse don Phalaistín” slogan. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

In any case, although the USA is the main supplier of finance and arms to Israeli Zionism, the EU is by far the Zionist state’s largest export market and could stop the genocide tomorrow with an ultimatum to stop bombing or face an embargo on Israeli products.

The International Court of Justice determined that the Israeli State is plausibly guilty of genocide but declined to order a ceasefire and again during the week rejected a South African application to order a cessation of genocidal actions though it did warn the zionists not to commit genocidal acts.5

Meanwhile the UN court is to begin hearings on Monday to determine whether the Israeli occupation is guilty of practising apartheid but the verdict is months away and the Israeli State continues its genocide unabatedly.

Palestinian solidarity in the Irish language

Small banner, group unknown with what has become a common slogan in Irish. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

At the junction with South Great George’s Street the marchers turned left and continued up into Aungier Street and then left again into Cuffe Street with people gathered on the pavements and at junctions, sometimes applauding but never expressing hostility.

A number of slogans and messages of solidarity in the Irish language could be seen on placards, flags and banners; two of the latter calling for Saoirse don Phalaistín. One of the banners had a large group behind it which included marchers calling out slogans in Irish.

Ón dtalamh go dtí an spéir – Beidh an Phalaistín saor! Stad an slad!

The Mothers Against Genocide group used Irish too, singing the chorus from Róisín Elsafty’s song and video with Irish and Arabic: A Phalaistín, a Phalaistín, hosni alaikum ya falastin. (Good luck to you, Palestine) and mixed the singing with chants of solidarity.

(Photo: D.Breatnach)

Once reaching the south side of Stephens’ Green,6 where the IPSC stage was set up near the Department of Foreign Affairs’ building,7 many marchers just stopped, began socialising, folding up banners or just going off for coffee etc (some also had long journeys ahead to return home).

Of course some stayed to hear speakers and performances but I didn’t.

Once again the thought struck me that this period could be used to advantage in small public meetings on the street but removed from the central stage; different currents in the solidarity movement could be discussed, along with basic principles and demands in our solidarity.

(Photo: D.Breatnach)

Collusion and Repression

As a Sinn Féin contingent self-identified by banners and placards marched in, some greeted them with Oh hey, oho! — No shamrocks for Genocide Joe! in a clear rebuke to the party’s leader’s intention to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with the US President at the White House.8

Passing through the southside’s city centre afterwards, people were frequently seen wearing Palestinian keffiyehs in various colours (black and white, red and white, green and white and the Irish green, white and orange version) as were people walking with furled Palestinian flags.

Indeed, action the health worker unions could have taken but failed to do so (Photo: D.Breatnach)

At least two people were arrested by Public Order Gardaí for demonstrating in the city centre outside Israeli-colluding businesses, to be bailed until their case in March, amid reports9 that activists have been threatened with charges and court for December’s Israeli Embassy occupation.

Although people came from many parts of Ireland, there were smaller solidarity demonstrations in many of those too.

End.

(Photo: D.Breatnach)
(Photo: D.Breatnach)

FOOTNOTES

1https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/2/17/israels-war-on-gaza-live-icj-warns-of-perilous-situation-in-rafah

2Another 7,000 are believed buried under rubble of buildings bombed by the Israeli military. Palestinians had very little undamaged digging and earth-moving equipment and the pieces of masonry are often massive but they do try and dig through it, often with their bare hands.

3I think “israel is a fascist state!” would be entirely appropriate.

4“slogan” in English is of Irish-language origin, perhaps via Scottish Gaedhlig, from ‘slua/ slóga’ = “a host/ large gathering, troop” and ‘gairm’ to “call, address”. The original root is of Indo-European origin.

5Which the Israeli State has continued to do every single day since the ICJ initial judgement, killing thousands of civilians since then and bombing and invading hospitals.

6As in most parts of Dublin city the Green has been the scene of important historical events but this one perhaps more than most: it was a 1916 battleground, the location of a force of mostly Irish Citizen Army during the 1916 Rising before they were forced to relocate to the Royal College of Surgeons, where the garrison remained until the surrender. The Commandant Michael Malin and another senior officer, Constance Markievicz, were both sentenced to death by British Army military court. Michael Malin was shot dead by firing squad but Markivicz’s sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.

7A Palestine solidarity activist accused of ‘decorating’ the building with red paint in protest at the Government’s collusion with Israeli zionism was in court last week, having been raided at 7am, arrested and charged. The case has been deferred until next month.

8In a Belfast meeting organised by the party in Palestine solidarity recently a small group of Palestinians were ejected for pointing out that one of the speakers, the Palestine Ambassador is “a mouthpiece of the Palestine Authority” which is an undemocratic organisation working in collusion with the zionist occupation and has not held an election since 2006 (though supposed to do so every five years).

9Report from Anti-Imperialist Action.

AN PHOBLACHT ABÚ CALLS FOR BROAD UNITY IN STRUGGLE

On By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, Journalism, National Liberation, Political Analysis, Socialist RevolutionLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

The first edition of the socialist republican weekly newspaper An Phoblacht Abú for 2024 has been available in hard copy from sellers now for several weeks; I am reviewing it here as I have done on occasion with another few issues during 2023.

APA is a hard-copy newspaper of usually 12 x A4 sides, produced monthly from I believe the last months of 2022, including articles on anti-imperialism, anti-fascism, recent Irish history, internationalist solidarity and sometimes on older history, culture and reports on events, selling at €2/£1 per issue.

Hard-copy revolutionary papers are important as a means of distribution to those who don’t wish – or are unlikely — to seek it online but more than that, they also provide the opportunity to make contact on a personal and organisational level with people with whom to discuss events.

Masthead image taken from the An Phoblacht Abú Facebook page.

However, back issues are also available electronically, I’m told, from the producers.

This particular issue reports on the Palestinian struggle and the solidarity movement in Ireland, featuring a report of an occupation of the Israeli Embassy on 19th December with a following picket and blockade of the gates to the building which hosts it for many hours.

Another page carries a report on Palestine solidarity actions across the country and a “Hands Off Iran & Iraq” item, also an obituary on the death of a recent comrade of the organisers. Separately there is a report and comment on the death of an Irishman in the conflict in Ukraine.

Political prisoners in Ireland and the Basque Country are also covered, the latter focussing on the ‘non-compliant’ Basque prisoners and their support network, in contrast to the colluding “official leadership” and the great majority of prisoners who have come under their influence.

An article comments on the upcoming Referendum on Article 41 of the Constitution of the Irish State, condemns the treatment of women historically by the Irish ruling class and, without recommending how to vote, calls for the destruction of the State.

Commemorations of historical events, including martyrs, are an important part of the culture of all peoples in struggle and APA reports on some. A statement on the escape from justice by natural death of war criminal Brigadier Kitson was widely shared in appreciation on social media.

NEW YEAR CALL FOR BROAD FRONT UNITY

Organisations traditionally issue New Year statements, perhaps reflecting on the past year but always looking to the coming year. The ISR NY Statement covered three pages and called attention to all the struggles discussed in the reports, along with some others.

The one theme in the Statement dominating all others was the call for united action in developing a broad anti-imperialism united front to work for unity “around common Republican principles” while at the same time maintaining “the autonomy and independence of different groups.”

In furtherance, ISR proposes that a “Broad Front Congress” be organised before the end of this year and called on those interested to contact them “to turn the demand of the Republican base into action.”

COMMENT

The importance of revolutionary newspapers is underlined historically by the preparations of the British Government prior to the General Strike of 1926, when they purchased all stocks of newsprint paper to deny them to revolutionaries and other strikers.

Governments today can close down social media transmission and reception over an area and even nation-wide.

The APA editorial is undoubtedly correct in its call for a broad front while stipulating independence of organisations within that front. A congress may further this aim but I wonder if it will, without some advance agreement on working principles (about which I have written previously).

I find it striking that in the New Year’s message which mentions working class communities, there is nothing about workplace organisation, or trade unionism, to give it another name. Working class people do not live in communities alone – they also work many hours outside them.

And in the most commonly-imagined scenario for revolution in western countries, revolution is preceded by a general strike. To organise and carry out such a strike and maintain it against external repression and internal undermining, requires leadership deep and wide within the movement.

How this is to be achieved is an issue, the resolution of which can only follow of course from recognition of its necessity. Across the Left and Socialist Republican movement I see no sign of this recognition.

The founding of this newspaper for socialist republicanism and its monthly production and distribution is a great achievement and to their credit for a young and still relatively small organisation.

Some typographical errors persist in APA which could be removed by greater editorial checking. The reproduction of images might be improved substantially too, space made for enlargement possibly by reduction in the area covered by print, increasing the visual attractiveness of the page.

However, APA is right to concentrate on the written word and the spread of themes, the reporting of actions and the reasoning behind them. A regular revolutionary newspaper has long been needed but missing and monthly production at least is needed for its effectiveness.

Fáilte uaimse roimh an nuachtán míosúil réabhlóideach seo, An Phoblacht Abú!

end.

Note: Back copies of An Phoblacht Abú are available electronically from isrmedia@protonmail.com

PALESTINIANS EVICTED FROM PALESTINIAN SOLIDARITY MEETING

On By rebelbreezeIn Cartoon comment, Current Affairs Comment, Human Rights, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Diaspora, irish history, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, Massacres, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, peace processes, Political Analysis, US Imperialism, ZionismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time main text: 7 mins.)

Videos doing the rounds of social media sites show a brief intervention by Palestinians at a Sinn Féin-organised meeting in Belfast about Palestine followed by the party’s heavies evicting them to applause from many in the audience.

The event at the Europa Hotel on Thursday evening was intended, according to the party’s National Chairperson, “… as an opportunity to demonstrate that Ireland stands with the people of Gaza and the West Bank and to reiterate calls for an immediate ceasefire, and an end to the occupation.”1

Actually Ireland is already – except for the Unionists — well behind the Palestinians as shown by attendance at marches and opinion surveys. What is needed is a) clarity on what we are calling for and b) direct action to put the States and companies under greater pressure.

The video of the intervention I’ve seen began with an apology for interrupting the Palestinian Ambassador, Dr. Jilan Wahba Abdalmajid, as “a mouthpieceof the Palestinian Authority” which, the challenger said, is an undemocratic organisation which has not had an election since 2006.

Boos and cries of objection followed from the audience as the Palestinian asked to be listened to, pointed out that those doing the intervention were all Palestinians but the party’s security men were soon hustling them out and periodically trying to block the phone camera.

When people don’t want to examine the issues or are feeling guilty about them, it’s always tempting to blame the critics, suggest they’re dissidents, trouble-makers, etc. That way the pointing finger is turned around and the actual issues don’t need to be thought about.

Of course this time some SF supporters commented along those lines, accusing their critics of being Loyalists, or as they have in the past outsiders, ultra-leftists, intelligence service agents, dissidents, malcontents, trouble-makers … or just plain Utopians.

“MOUTHPIECE OF … AN UNDEMOCRATIC ORGANISATION”

The intervention from the floor was challenging but what of the content? Palestinian Ambassadors are appointed and employed by the Palestinian Authority which, though never intended as a government is acting like one. So “mouthpiece for the PA”? Blunt — but entirely accurate.

Palestinian Ambassador to Ireland of the undemocratic and corrupt Palestinian Authority at a Sinn Féin meeting (note SF President Mary Lou McDonald applauding in the background). (Sourced: Internet)

The PA “has not had an election in 18 years”? Accurate also – though they’re supposed to have one every five years. The last time there were elections in Palestine was 2006 and Hamas won overall throughout Palestine. However Fatah, the losers, refused to give up their seats.

In 2007 in Gaza, Hamas moved against Fatah and after a short struggle, took the seats to which the electorate had voted them. However, they chose not to do that in the West Bank, where the PA’s HQ is and where EU and USA money comes flowing in to Abbas and his unelected cronies.

The reason for not holding elections is that Hamas would almost certainly win again. Meanwhile, “democratic Israel” refused to recognise the Gaza administration or the elected representatives of the Palestinians while the US, EU and UK followed suit and ‘Israel’ blockaded Gaza.

The Palestinian Authority, as well as being undemocratic, deeply corrupt, unrepresentative and repressive2 is also actively colluding with the Zionist state and feeding its masters intelligence on the Palestinian opposition and resistance while it represses their supporters.

That’s what most Palestinians think about the PA and, as is widely known and even tacitly admitted by the USA3, whether in the West Bank or in Gaza, Palestinians have no confidence in the institution.4

Some of the comments on the circulating videos criticised SF’s bad management of the event, opining that the Palestinians should have been allowed to speak and then the meeting could have proceeded as the organisers planned and the challenge would have got little publicity.

True … but SF is used to throttling dissent inside its party or in the communities it controls and managing dissent – rather than crushing it — is just not its style.

In any case, is ‘bad management’ the main issue with regard to SF and Palestine? More important than supporting partition of Palestine, the institutionalisation of a Bantustan “Palestinian State” under the guns of the Zionists – and the PA’s collusion with those same Zionists?

The Provisionals weren’t always pro-Palestinian; though it might shock some people, they originally mirrored Irish society’s position of support for Israel, the perceived ‘underdog’ up to the mid-1960s, Hollocaust survivors (Zionists) who had fought the British police and army.5

THE PROVO LEADERSHIP AND PALESTINE

For a while pieces by a Fred Burns O’Brien apparently based in the USA were featured in the Provos’ newspaper but some time after he revealed himself as a Zionist he was ‘let go’, probably through internal pressure from those who thought the Palestinians were the natural ally.6

One of the problems with taking a political position, physically or ideologically, is that you might get called on it someday. This is why bourgeois politicians try to give themselves wriggle and even retreat room in their statements – lots of good-sounding bites with little content.

The Provisionals owe a debt to some Palestinians but it’s a very bad one. I don’t mean when they got some arms for the struggle7 but rather their following Fatah/PLO down the pacification process, for which Fatah and the ANC sent fraternal delegates to SF’s Ard-Fheiseanna (annual congresses).

Subsequently, Ireland and South Africa were used as promotional examples of the pacification process and their delegates travelled as kinds of sales representatives8 — but Palestine got dropped from 2000 onwards because of the Second Intifada, when Palestinians rejected Fatah’s deal.

You can’t sell a process as ‘working’ when the youth have overwhelmingly rejected it and are fighting the Occupation in the street.

“ORGANISE YOUR OWN EVENT”

One prominent member of SF in the British colony told the Palestinian protesters they should have organised “their own event.” Er – was this event not advertised as being for solidarity with Palestine? But ‘Palestinians not welcome’? Or only zionist-collaborating Palestinians?

Imagine if back in the day some political party had been having a meeting about Ireland and were inviting an Irish State or British colonial minister as a speaker, would anyone have been shocked to see and hear SF activists challenging or even heckling the speakers during the meeting?

Would we not be reading statements from SF talking about ‘no right of colonialists to represent the Irish people’ and about ‘censorship of Irish voices’?

Cartoon by DB.

Gerry Adams, former President of the party was quoted as saying the calls are “inconsistent” because they are not making the same call with regard to the UK though “the Brits are up to their neck in this” and what is important for SF in the USA is Irish-America.

But SF long ago accommodated itself to the colonialist “Brits”, including its royalty. Irish politicians don’t flock to London for St. Patrick’s Day. Anyway the primary financial and military supplier – and political backer of the Zionist state in the UN Security Council — is the USA.

Why is the diaspora in the USA so important to Sinn Féin but not the diaspora in Britain or in Australia? It must be because the USA is the “boss of the world” and pathetic Irish gombeen politicians think their diaspora gives them them some kind of weight with the imperialists.

What would really help with the Irish diaspora would be if SF were to address the Irish-Americans and ask them to push their political representatives to call for the USA to stop supporting genocide in Palestine.

But of course there is no chance of them doing that because 1) some Irish Americans oppose imperialism from Britain but support it from the USA; also 2) because Irish gombeens, the political class to which SF aspire, are pro-western imperialism.

INTERNATIONALIST SOLIDARITY AND THE HOME STRUGGLE

I have commented in the past that the level of commitment to internationalist solidarity is one of the indicators as to whether an organisation is going to carry through its own revolution or instead is going to finish up in liberalism and abandon its struggle, ending in actual collusion.

It seems some others have the same idea.

As she was being evicted, the Palestinian woman called out for SF not to attend Washington on St. Patrick’s Day and also shouted, though she may have meant it the other way around: “There will not be a free Palestine without a united Ireland!”

Electronic Intifada co-founder Ali Abunimah put it quite succintly: “If you can’t say NO to the White House in the middle of a genocide, then you’d never be able to stand up, not even for Ireland.”

end.

FOOTNOTES

1https://vote.sinnfein.ie/solidarity-rally-for-palestine-to-take-place-in-belfast/

2“The PA has actively helped Israel to keep tight control over the Palestinian population. Many perceive the body as a tool of the Israeli security apparatus, its US-trained forces not only targeting those suspected of planning attacks on Israelis, but also arresting union figures, journalists and critics on social media.” (Al Jazeera – see Sources)

3Hence the USA’s post-war plan for Gaza, as expressed by Blinken, is to have it run by a “revamped PA”, i.e one that might have some credibility among Palestinians.

4“Today, a staggering 87 percent of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza believe that the PA is corrupt, 78 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel_bombingpercent want Abbas to resign, and 62 percent believe that the PA is a liability.” (Washington Institute — see Sources).

5On 22 July 1946, Zionist militias bombed the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, in which the British Mandate administration had offices including its police intelligence department, killing 91: “49 were second-rank clerks, typists and messengers, junior members of the Secretariat, employees of the hotel and canteen workers; 13 were soldiers; 3 policemen; and 5 were bystanders. By nationality, there were 41 Arabs, 28 British citizens ….” Forty-six were injured. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel_bombing

6The same kind of pressure from the support base that caused the SF leadership recently to reestablish their ‘expel the Israeli Ambassador’ position that Mary Lou had announced they were abandoning.

7In 1977 a consignment of arms allegedly from the PLO bound for Ireland was seized by the authorities at Antwerp.

8To the Basque Country, Kurdish Turkey, Colombia, Sri Lanka, Philippines etc.

SOURCES

https://m.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/palestinian-activists-thrown-out-of-sinn-fein-solidarity-rally-in-belfast-hotel/a1343153914.html

Criticism of the PA’s corruption and unpopularity
a) from a pro-imperialist source: https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/how-palestinian-authority-failed-its-people and
b) from Al Jazeera (pro-Palestinian but not pro-Hamas): https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/11/what-is-the-palestinian-authority-and-how-is-it-viewed-by-palestinians