Start of the march in Dame Street after rally in Central Plaza
On Saturday 21 February, at two days’ notice, somewhere between eight and ten thousand people gathered in Dublin in solidarity with those water tax protesters jailed by the State and those recently arrested. They marched to Mountjoy Prison and packed the road outside it and in front of the local Garda (police station).
The march gets going in Dame Street. Photo shows only the front of the march.
Parnell Square West from Granby Place. The front of the march has turned into Dorset Street and is marching there but the end has yet to come around the corner into the square from Parnell Street
The crowd were addressed by relatives and friends of the jailed, anti-Water Tax campaigners as well as by Paul Murphy, Joan Collins and Clare Daly (both TDs of the United Left) and Dessie Ellis (TD of Sinn Fein).
All of the speakers denounced the politicians and the State for the jailing of the protesters while the bankers and politicians who created the crisis and colluded in the bank bailout went free. Most speakers called on the crowd not to pay the water tax and to build resistance on the streets. Dessie Ellis, in keeping with his party’s position, did not call for non-payment, though he did call for “unity of the Left”. The march was notable for the absence of SF banners and placards — apparerently they were having their own protest at Leinster House.
One of the protesters made an emotional appeal on behalf of two of the five who received jail sentences, who have gone on hunger strike, and on behalf of another, Derek Byrne, also on hunger strike, but who has declared his intention of refusing to take fluids from Monday if he is not released. (NB: Since posting that paragraph it has emerged that the demand of all three hunger-strikers is a return to Mountjoy [they had been separated and sent off to a prison facility near Clondalkin] and an end to 23-hour lockup in their cells. These are basic human rights.)
Large sections of the crowd seemed taken aback by this information and unsure how to react.
Paul Murphy pointed out that this use of the police to attack people protesting injustice has been a feature of the State since its creation and mentioned the threats of jail to striking workers, the jailing of the Rossport Five and of Margaretta D’Arcy. Clare Daly asked the Gardaí which side they were on, that of the polticians and bankers or of the people, saying that if they chose the former it is they who would become isolated, not the protesters. Joan Collins, Murphy and Daly all pointed to the need to create a socialist society. They also, along with most other speakers, called for a build up and huge turn out of support for the demonstration scheduled for March. Many speakers declared that the increased repression is a sign of the Government’s or the system’s weakness, not of their strength and called on the movement not to falter now.
Robert Ballagh, who also spoke, called for the release of the five and pointed out that the class of people who rule and profit out of this society are not those who find themselves in jails.
Section of the march in Dorset Street, looking west (another section is behind the camera — see next photo — but a large section of the march has yet to come around the corner from Parnell Square.)
The same road, photo taken a few seconds later but looking east.
The mood of the crowd in general was of good-humoured determination. The composition seemed to cross social groupings, ages and genders and a number had brought their children along. Some had come from other parts of the country.
Crowd outside Mountjoy. some have left and many are still further down the north Circular Road (the Mater Hospital is to the right of photo).
CATHERINE BYRNE, DUBLIN TD, SAID “WE SHOULD TAKE BACK OUR FLAG”. MAYBE SHE’S RIGHT ….
Dublin South-Central TD Catherine Byrne was warmly applauded when she said that they should ”take back our flag” from people who have been using it in protests against water charges and other issues. She made the statement at the Fine Gael political party’s two-day conference in Castlebar, Co. Mayo, held under strict security.
Arts Minister Heather Humphreys supported that view and told delegates in a secret session on the 1916 commemorations (a session which exposed divisions in the party): ”Some have used our flag to portray a different message – it’s time to reclaim our flag.”
“What should I do?” The anguish reached out to me; I felt it empathically. The cry of a person who is prepared to act and wants to change things for the better, to resist what is wrong around us on so many fronts – and that’s the problem.
There so many issues: the Water Tax, the persecution of Republican activists including framing and jailing them, the harassment and torture of Republican prisoners, the threat of fracking, privatisation of resources and services, cuts in services, cuts in salaries, high cost of private accommodation and low social housing provision causing homelessness, the decline of the Irish language and of the Gaeltacht …. and others. And that’s without mentioning international solidarity – and not because I don’t consider that essential, either.
Of course, we can put all these problems down to capitalism and, in the case of repression of Republicans (and with regard to international solidarity), to imperialism …. so let’s just overthrow those systems and then we can sort out those problems! But that leads to the question of “How” which in turn brings one back again to that anguished question, or to its variant “Which problem should I prioritise?”
Indeed, it is a question that cuts to the heart of the matter. For the issues call to us to act and since we can’t be everywhere at once we have to make choices. It is a question as old as class society and speeches are always being made recommending this choice or that while books have been written attempting to answer it. Lenin wrote a series of articles in the revolutionary newspaper Iskra (“Spark”) and published later as a booklet under a title that echoes that very cry above: What Is to Be Done? It had a subtitle too: “Burning questions of our movement” (by which he meant the socialist movement in Russia at the time).
Whether we choose to believe that work was absolutely correct, partly correct or completely wrong is in some ways irrelevant, for it was written for the movement in Russia in 1902 and published in 1905. I happen to think that it contains many useful ideas, although I am aware that there is a view that it has been mistranslated but, even so, in many ways, all that is beside the point. The fact is that today we have no blueprint and nothing more than perhaps the equivalent of a trouble-shooting manual: “for this problem, try this; if that doesn’t work, try that; while doing so beware of that other.” And that manual is cobbled together from older and more recent history of struggles, of analyses of the capitalist system and of how it behaves.
Scary, surely, to go up against a system that has ruled for around four centuries, that has spread across the world, that controls education, mass media, the State with its police, judges, prison and armed forces – and all without us having a blueprint. Well, if it’s any consolation, the capitalists don’t have a blueprint either … or if they do, they keep having to ignore it and react to events which they have not been able to predict, as well as to the extent of resistance for which they were unprepared. And they clearly make mistakes. Still, 400 years is a long time … a long time for them to learn tactics and strategy and to get comfortable in control and a long time to make us think that we can’t defeat them.
We can defeat them, of course and the indications from history and the internal workings of capitalism — and of its offshoot imperialism — are that we will. But what to do to make that happen? Yes, back to that question. And to the one that logically follows it: which issue to prioritise? For none of us is capable of being everywhere at once and even stretching over a few issues at a time begins to tear at our fabric.
The Marxist-Leninist approach argues for the creation of a revolutionary party that will make decisions on prioritisation and allocate resources to those struggles it chooses as it does so. Of course, the party will make mistakes from time to time and it will learn from those, getting better as it goes along. That’s the theory anyway. In application, or in alleged application, the results have not vindicated the theory – not in the long run, or even in the medium-term. Sure, we have been at it for less than 200 years: the first time workers captured a city was in 1871 and the first successful overthrow of the State was in Russia in 1917, very nearly a century ago. Much less time to learn, to make mistakes and to correct them but still ….
Of course, the alternative method of organising has even less to recommend it on results: amorphous, disparate collectives have not ever successfully overthrown a State and even their success in capturing a city (Barcelona, 1936) is debatable.
So, what is to be done? How to decide which struggle to prioritise? This is not a question I think can be answered by pointing and saying “That one and no other” or even, except at rare junctures, “That one and no other for the moment”. Individuals, collectives and parties will need to choose from the selection as a painter chooses from a palette: “this colour now, then that, no, scrub that one, now mix this with that, no, a bit more light …” and so on, always working towards the desired result which, although in the head, is also taking place on the canvas and making its own demands as it does so.
The truth is that all of those issues I mentioned in passing at the start of this piece, all of those, need addressing. All of them need people to fight in them. That is because they are all part of the same problem and also because we can’t just allow a cancer to grow unchecked in one part of the body while we address the tumours in another. Some individuals and perhaps even collectives are better suited to fight on some issues than on others: for example, a factory shop committee is probably not best placed to lead the struggle against fracking in a rural area, while a rural environmental collective is probably not in the best position to lead the struggle against the Water Tax. Individuals will need to pick and choose according to their own situation, their locality, their own knowledge.
And that would be fine, if the resistance movement as a whole were integrated enough to make creative use of that disparity – for particular struggles to be able to call for temporary additional resources and to be heard by the whole resistance movement, so that it could try to allocate those resources to one or other sector as seemed appropriate. But the resistance movement is far from integrated – it is fragmented and, even worse, it suffers from something akin to schizophrenia.
There a number of ways to imagine schizophrenia and the most popular is to see it as the development of two or more personalities in the one individual. But another is to see it as a disintegration of the personality – where the various aspects in our minds break free and appear as distinct personalities in themselves. The voices that speak in our heads to say things like “You shouldn’t have done that” or “Please make that happen” break free and seem to become different personalities. At times they conflict with one another while the central core personality tries to make sense of what is going on. Something like that, anyway. It is in that sense that I think the resistance movement in Ireland suffers from schizophrenia.
The splitting off of aspects of the revolutionary movement in Ireland has been towards two major poles of attraction: the Socialist one and the Republican. Of course there are some elements who incorporate both to one degree or another but I think examining them as distant poles of attraction is useful and much closer to their concrete manifestation within the revolutionary movement. In order to examine them as opposite poles I think it is also useful to imagine a stereotype individual inhabiting each pole. Let us then imagine a stereotypical Irish Republican and a stereotypical Irish Socialist.
The Irish Republican is probably working class or maybe lower middle class; he may or may not have done well at secondary education but in any case he is unlikely to have gone to university. He sees himself in a tradition of resistance to British Colonialism and Imperialism stretching back at least to the United Irishmen and perhaps even back to the Norman conquest which began in 1169. His priority is the removal of the British from Ireland. He experiences “political policing” (of which some socialists are now complaining) practically from the moment he becomes publicly active – he has had his name and address taken by Special Branch and/or RUC/PSNI and they have opened a file on him. The Republican’s recent predecessors have been jailed (as are some of his contemporaries now), beaten or even shot dead; they were engaged in armed struggle against the colonial and imperial armed forces in the Six Counties for 30 years and perhaps he looks forward to take the gun up again some day, to strike back at the colonial overlord. He will turn out on demonstrations and pickets against repression of Republican activists, in support of Republican prisoners, including framed ones. He will almost certainly attend mass demonstrations against the Water Tax and may participate in local direct action against it. The Republican’s idealogues are Wolf Tone, Patrick Pearse and Bobby Sands.
The Irish socialist is probably medium or lower middle class and has finished secondary education; she has almost certainly gone on to university. She sees herself as belonging to a tradition of only a couple of centuries, with an Irish tradition going back to the early part of the 20th Century, in particular to the 1913 Lockout and the Limerick Soviet of 1919. She may or may not give a high place in her history to the Irish Citizen Army in the 1916 Rising. Her priority is the defeat of the capitalist class, probably in Ireland first but will turn out in demonstrations against racism, gender discrimination and homophobia in Ireland. The Irish Socialist aspires to a general strike giving rise to a revolutionary take over of the State; in the interim she may or may not think electing left-wing TDs or trade union officials an important activity. She probably can’t conceive of taking up a gun. The Irish Socialist has never had her name taken by the Special Branch or been framed by the RUC/PSNI and may never even have been detained by the police, though she has probably been pushed around by them. She will almost certainly attend mass demonstrations against the Water Tax and may participate in local direct action against this Tax. Her idealogues are Karl Marx, Lenin, possibly Trotsky and James Connolly.
Granted these are stereotypes but they are not so far from reality as to be unhelpful in describing in turn many and perhaps most Irish Republicans and Socialists and therefore in identifying one of the principal fracture lines in the Irish movement of resistance.
If the Republican and the Socialist parts of the Irish resistance movement were to be combined, or at the very least to work on a more collaborative basis, the “What should I do?” question would be easier to answer. It would be simpler to be on a picket for prisoners one week and resisting water meters the next, even if one’s main sphere of activity were among Republicans. The socialist could attend a picket against cuts one week and one for the human rights of Republican prisoners on another, even if her main sphere of activity was among Socialists. But that is not the situation that exists at the moment and, though a number of attempts have been made to combine the two trends in one organisation, they have not met with any great success to date.
So, I have not yet answered the question, have I? Am I saying that what we should be doing is creating some kind of synthesis or at least a collaborative alliance between the the socialist and republican parts of the resistance movement? Well, yes, certainly. But also, and as a contribution to that, as individuals we should try and spread our activity between the areas of greatest concern of each of those sections of the resistance movement. We should, I think, take some time to support resistance to the water tax, demonstrations against cuts etc. in their own right but also find some time to support resistance to British colonialism and its repression of Republican political activists. “If we are not part of the solution, then we are part of the problem” may be a glib truism but it is particularly applicable in this case.
So, how will we find the time to spread ourselves around? How do we ever? We balance and juggle priorities between our politically active and our social lives, with employment thrown in when we have a job. Or upskilling or studying. And possibly cultural or sporting or other activities. But how to choose, how to prioritise? Each of us has to make those decisions herself and himself. Not a very helpful answer? Well, I did state earlier on that there wasn’t a blueprint, so I couldn’t have one myself, could I? This however I feel fairly confident in predicting: if we don’t find a way to support both those parts of the resistance movement to some degree, it will always be fractured. And while it is so, it cannot be successful in either ridding Ireland of our capitalist classes or in finally throwing off the colonial yoke.
(This is reprinted with minimal editing from a section of a much longer piece of mine published in English and in Spanish a year ago https://rebelbreeze.wordpress.com/2014/01/30/how-can-a-people-defeat-a-stronger-invader-or-occupying-power-2/)
Diarmuid Breatnach
The War of Independence 1919-1921 and retreat from stated objectives
Three years later (after the 1916 Rising), the nationalist revolutionaries returned to the armed struggle, this time without a workers’ militia or an effective socialist leadership as allies, and began a political struggle which was combined a little later with a rural guerilla war which soon spread into some urban areas (particularly the cities of Dublin and Cork). The political struggle mobilised thousands and also resulted in the majority of those elected in Ireland during the General Election (in the United Kingdom, of which Ireland was part) being of their party.
The struggle in Ireland and the British response to it was generating much interest and critical comment around the world and even in political and intellectual and artistic circles within Britain itself. In addition, many nationalist and socialist revolutionaries around the world were drawing inspiration from that fierce anti-colonial struggle so near to England, within the United Kingdom itself.
The dismantling by the nationalist forces, by threats and by armed action, of much of the control network of the colonial police force, which consequently dismantled much of their counter-insurgency intelligence service, led the British to set up two new special armed police forces to counter the Irish insurgency. Both these forces gained a very bad reputation not only among the nationalists but also among many British loyalists. The special paramilitary police forces resorted more and more to torture, murder and arson but nevertheless, in some areas of Ireland such as Dublin, Kerry and Cork, they had to be reinforced by British soldiers as they were largely not able to deal effectively with the insurgents, who were growing more resolute, experienced and confident with each passing week.
However, two-and-a-half years after the beginning of the guerrilla war, a majority of the Irish political leadership of the nationalist revolutionary movement settled for the partition of their country with Irish independence for one part of it within the British Commonwealth.
Much discussion has taken part around the events that led to this development. We are told that British Prime Minister Lloyd George blackmailed the negotiating delegation with threats of “immediate and terrible war” if they did not agree to the terms. The delegation were forced to answer without being allowed to consult their comrades at home. Some say that the President of the nationalist political party, De Valera, sent an allegedly inexperienced politically Michael Collins to the negotiations, knowing that he would end up accepting a bad deal from which De Valera could then distance himself. Michael Collins, in charge of supplying the guerrillas with arms, stated afterwards that he had only a few rounds of ammunition left to supply each fighter and that the IRA, the guerrilla army, could not fight the war Lloyd George threatened. He also said that the deal would be a stepping stone towards the full independence of a united Ireland in the near future. None of those reasons appear convincing to me.
How could the leadership of a movement at the height of their successes cave in like that? Of course, the British were threatening a worse war, but they had made threats before and the Irish had met them without fear. If the IRA were truly in a difficult situation with regard to ammunition (and I’m not sure that there is any evidence for that apart from Collins’ own statement), that would be a valid reason for a reduction in their military operations, not for accepting a deal far short of what they had fought for. The IRA was, after all, a volunteer guerrilla army, much of it of a part-time nature. It could be withdrawn from offensive operations and most of the fighters could melt back into the population or, if necessary, go “on the run”.
If the military supply situation of the Irish nationalists was indeed dire in the face of the superior arms and military experience of Britain, was that the only factor to be taken into account? An army needs more than arms and experience in order to wage war – there are other factors which affect its ability and effectiveness.
The precariousness of the British situation
In 1919, at the end of the War, the British, although on the victorious side, were in a precarious position. During the war itself there had been a serious mutiny in the army (during which NCOs and officers had been killed by privates) and as the soldiers were demobbed into civilian life and into their old social conditions there was widespread dissatisfaction. Industrial strikes had been forbidden during the War (although some had taken place nonetheless) and a virtual strike movement was now under way.
In 1918 and again in 1919, police went on strike in Britain. Also during 1919, the railway workers went on strike and so did others in a wave that had been building up since the previous year. In 1918 strikes had already cost 6 million working days. This increased to nearly 35 million in 1919, with a daily average of 100,000 workers on strike. Glasgow in 1921 saw a strike with a picket of 60,000 and pitched battles with the police. The local unit of the British Army was detained in barracks by its officers and units from further away were sent in with machine guns, a howitzer and tanks.
Workers pass an overturned tram in London during the 1926 British General Strike. In much of the country no transport operated unless authorised by the local trade union council or under police and army escort.
4.2 The Army Mutinies of January/February 1919
4.3 The Val de Lievre Mutiny
4.4 Three Royal Air Force Mutinies January 1919
4.5 Mutiny in the Royal Marines – Russia,
February to June 1919
4.6 Naval Mutinies of 1919
4.7 Demobilization Riots 1918/1919
4.8 The Kinmel Park Camp Riots 1919
4.9 No “Land Fit For Heroes” – the Ex-servicemen’s Riot in Luton
4 4.10 Ongoing Unrest – Mid-1919 to Year’s End
The British Government feared their police force would be insufficient against the British workers and was concerned about the reliability of their army if used in this way. There had already been demonstrations, riots and mutinies in the armed forces about delays in demobilisation (and also in being used against the Russian Bolshevik Revolution).
Elsewhere in the British Empire things were unstable too. The Arabs were outraged at Britain’s reneging on their promise to give them their freedom in exchange for fighting the Turks and rebellions were breaking out which would continue over the next few years. The British were also facing unrest in Palestine as they began to settle Jewish immigrants who were buying up Arab land there. An uprising took place in Mesopotamia (Iraq) against the British in 1918 and again in 1919. The Third Afghan War took place in 1919; Ghandi and his followers began their campaign of civil disobedience in 1920 while in 1921 the Malabar region of India rose up in armed revolt against British rule. Secret communiques (but now accessible) between such as Winston Churchill, Lloyd George and the Chief of Staff of the British armed forces reveal concerns about the reliability of their soldiers in the future against insurrections and industrial action in Britain and even whether, as servicemen demanded demobilisation, they would have enough soldiers left for the tasks facing them throughout the Empire.
The Irish nationalist revolutionaries in 1921were in a very strong position to continue their struggle until they had won independence and quite possibly even to be the catalyst for socialist revolution in Britain and the death of the British Empire. But they backed down and gave the Empire the breathing space it needed to deal with the various hotspots of rebellion elsewhere and to prepare for the showdown with British militant trade unionists that came with the General Strike of 1926. Instead, the Treatyites turned their guns on their erstwhile comrades in the vicious Civil War that broke out in 1922. The new state executed IRA prisoners (often without recourse to a trial) and repression continued even after it had defeated the IRA in the Civil War.
If the revolutionary Irish nationalist leaders were not aware of all the problems confronting the British Empire, they were certainly aware of many of them. The 1920 hunger strike and death of McSwiney, Lord Mayor of Cork, had caught international attention and Indian nationalists had made contact with the McSwiney family. The presence of large Irish working class communities in Britain, from London to GlaSgow, provided ample opportunity for keeping abreast of industrial disputes, even if the Irish nationalists did not care to open links with British militant trade unionists. Sylvia Pankhurst, member of the famous English suffragette family and a revolutionary communist, had letters published in The Irish Worker, newspaper of the IT&GWU. The presence of large numbers of Irish still in the British Army was another source of ready information.
Anti-Treaty cartoon, 1921, depicts Ireland being coerced by Michael Collins, representing the Free State Army, along with the Catholic Church, in the service of British Imperialism
The revolutionary Irish nationalist leaders were mostly of petite bourgeois background and had no programme of the expropriation of the large landowners and industrialists. They did not seek to represent the interests of the Irish workers—indeed at times sections of them demonstrated a hostility to workers, preventing landless Irish rural poor seizing large estates and to divide them among themselves. Historically the petite bourgeoisie has shown itself incapable of sustaining a revolution in its own class interests and in Ireland it was inevitable that the Irish nationalists would come to follow the interests of the Irish national bourgeoisie. The Irish socialists were too few and weak to offer another pole of attraction to the petite bourgeoisie. The Irish national bourgeoisie had not been a revolutionary class since their defeat in 1798 and were not to be so now. Originally, along with the Catholic Church with which they shared many interests in common, they had declined to support the revolutionary nationalists but decided to join with them when they saw an opportunity to improve their position and also what appeared to be an imminent defeat of the British.
In the face of the evident possibilities it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the section of revolutionary Irish nationalists who opted for the deal offered by Lloyd George did so because they preferred it to the alternatives. They preferred to settle for a slice rather than fight for the whole cake. And the Irish bourgeoisie would do well out of the deal, even if the majority of the population did not. The words of James Connolly that the working class were “the incorruptible heirs” of Ireland’s fight had a corollary – that the Irish bourgeoisie would always compromise the struggle. It is also possible that the alternative the nationalists feared was not so much “immediate and terrible war” but rather a possible Irish social revolution in which they would lose their privileges.
Start of the Irish Civil War 1922: Irish Free State bombardment, with cannon on loan from the British Army, of the Republican HQ at the Four Courts, Dublin.
Another serious challenge to the Empire from Irish nationalist revolutionaries would not take place until nearly fifty years later, and it would be largely confined to the colony of the Six Counties.
In the third week of the month of December two daring ambushes took place, one in Ireland and one in Spain. Both were carried out by national liberation organisations and both were very daring, aimed at extremely high-level military and state targets who were well-protected in cities controlled by the occupying state. The ambushes were one day on the calendar apart but 64 years separated them; the date of the Dublin one was December 19th 1919 and the the other took place on December 20th 1973 in Madrid.
BACKGROUND TO THE IRISH ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT
The target of the Irish ambush was Field Marshal John French. No-one resident in Ireland could rank higher in the British Empire; the British Queen and state’s representative in Ireland, French had been appointed Lord Lieutenant and Supreme Commander of the British Army in Ireland in 1918. Of course, it was not the first time that the Irish resistance had set its sights so high – in 1882 in Phoenix Park in Dublin, the Republican group The Invincibles had assassinated the Chief Secretary for Ireland, at that time the Queen’s representative, along with Thomas Burke, the Permanent Undersecretary and the Queen’s most senior civil servant in Ireland.
Field Marshal John French had previously held the positions of Commander-in-Chief of the British Home Forces and, at the start of the First World War, Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force in France. Under General Maxwell, he oversaw the suppression of the 1916 Rising and subsequent executions. Had the British government imposed conscription in Ireland in 1918, as threatened, he would have been in charge of seeing it through and had in fact pressed for the measure to be introduced. In the event, the opposition to conscription in Ireland was so widescale, including from the Irish Catholic Church, usually so loyal to the British, that an insurrection was feared if they went ahead with it.
John French was from a Norman-English family settled in Wexford in the fourteenth century with large property in Roscommon and, though his family had gone to live in England in the eighteenth century and he himself was born in Kent, French always regarded himself as “Irish”. John’s father had been a Royal Navy Commander and John himself pursued a military career, first in the Royal Navy and later in the Army. His record in the Navy was below expectations, as was his initial Army career. However, he made his name on a number of military engagements in the Second Boer War and Second Morocco Crisis and with the help of some allies who had political and military clout, was appointed Chief of the Imperial Military Staff in 1912. He resigned his position over the Curragh ‘Mutiny’ incident in 1914 but was given command of the British Expeditionary Force in France and in Belgium during the First World War. He was later forced to resign over his handling of this command, particularly in regard to his difficult relations with high-level French officers, but was given command of the defence of Britain.
In May 1918, French was appointed Lord Lieutenant and Supreme Commander of the British Army in Ireland. The political situation in Ireland was unstable as the republican (or “advanced nationalist”) opposition was gaining ground against the old nationalist opposition. The latter had been embarrassed by the British failure to implement Home Rule, which was on the statute books but not enacted, while the former varied from those demanding Home Rule immediately to those who wanted complete national independence. The formerly Irish monarchist party Sinn Féin had been coopted by the Irish Republican Brotherhood after the 1916 Rising and it became a republican/nationalist hegemonising political force while at the same time being a coalition of different political viewpoints. Outside of this, Labour also had some sway, particularly in some areas and was also opposed to the Nationalist party; Sinn Féin and Labour Councillors cooperated with one another on many occasions. In the British General Elections of December 1918, in Ireland, the newly-changed Sinn Féin nearly wiped the Nationalist party off the electoral map and decided to set up their own parliament, or Dáil, in Ireland and not to attend the British Parliament in Westminster.
The Royal Irish Constabulary, the armed colonial police force in Ireland since 1822, was the subject of a boycott campaign and physical attacks on its members.
The Irish Republican Army, reorganised after the Rising, was in training in many areas. Some of its foremost soldiers and leaders, men like Dan Breen, Sean Treacey, Sean Hogan and Séamus Robinson were of the opinion that only through a liberation war could Ireland be freed from British rule; they were therefore eager for that war to start.
There was no indication that this was the dominant opinion among the elected representatives of Sinn Féin, the TDs (Teachtaí Dála) and, indeed, many were of the opinion that the British could be pressured into a negotiated settlement, without the need for any armed struggle. One of the latter was Arthur Griffiths himself, founder of the party.
On the same day as the setting up of the Dáil and its declaration of independence from Britain, 21st January 1919, Breen, Treacey, Hogan, Robinson and five other less famous IRA volunteers ambushed a Royal Irish Constabulary escort for a consignment of gelignite in Tipperary, during which they shot dead both of the police escort and took their weapons as well as the explosives. The shooting dead of the RIC in the Soloheadbeg Ambush was a calculated act and Dan Breen later wrote:
“ …we took the action deliberately, having thought over the matter and talked it over between us. Treacy had stated to me that the only way of starting a war was to kill someone, and we wanted to start a war, so we intended to kill some of the police whom we looked upon as the foremost and most important branch of the enemy forces … The only regret that we had following the ambush was that there were only two policemen in it, instead of the six we had expected.”
Nevertheless, they had begun the War of Independence, which was to last three years.
A number of times during 1919, the armed struggle advocates in the IRA carried out military operations through which they sought to provoke a response from the British that would launch the national liberation war and sweep the Dáil into going on a war footing too. Tens of RIC were killed along with a few British soldiers. The British responded by imposing martial law on particular areas and carrying out raids and arrests. The IRA however were moving towards a full war footing with the British and, in many areas, were already there.
As 1919 moved on the British outlawed Irish political and cultural organisations: the Dáil, Sinn Féin, Conradh na Gaeilge and other nationalist organisations and publications had been banned, along with the Freeman’s Journal and some other weeklies. In addition, cattle fairs and other gatherings had been forbidden and all car licences apart from those for lorries had to be applied for to the police, a requirement which had occasioned a chauffeurs’ strike. However, neither Sinn Féin nor the Dáil considered itself at war yet.
The planned ambush on Ashtown Road on 19th December 1921 was intended to change that irrevocably for the target was none other than Field Marshal John French, Lord Lieutenant and Supreme Commander of the British Army in Ireland.
THE ASHTOWN ROAD AMBUSH
According to some sources, the IRA had set out to kill French on 12 separate occasions but each time something had intervened. One of those occasions was on November 11th 1919. Expecting him to pass in minutes on Grattan Bridge on his way to a banquet at Trinity College, Seán Hogan had pulled and thrown away the pins on two grenades and was holding down the timers with his fingers. French did not show and Hogan had to walk all the way to a safe house with his fingers holding down the timers on the grenades in his pockets. Luckily they had spare pins in the house.
Lord John French and General Macready, probably 1920
In December, French had gone down to his family country estate at Frenchpark, Co. Roscommon, to host a reception there and was expected back in a couple of days. His movements were being monitored and the day he would set off by train for Dublin was reported to the ambush squad. He was expected to get out at Ashtown train station, the last one before the Broadstone terminus, and go from there with military escort to the Lord Lieutenant’s Residence (nowadays the US Ambassador’s) in Phoenix Park. An IRA party of 11, including Breen, Treacey, Robinson and Hogan set out to ambush the convoy and assassinate Lord Lieutenant French. The ambush party was already in place at Kelly’s pub (now called the Halfway House) on the Ashdown road as ‘chance customers’ when word reached them that French had alighted from the train. A Royal Irish Constabulary officer who had accosted them earlier had been knocked unconscious and dumped to one side. The information received was that French would be in the second car in the convoy.
A hay cart had been placed half-way across the road. As the first car and outrider passed it, the IRA Volunteers pushed the cart the rest of the way and engaged the second car with grenades, Mills bombs, rifles and pistols. However, French was in the first car and got away unhurt and the soldiers in the third car in the convoy arrived and began firing with machine guns and rifles at the Volunteers, along with the soldiers in the second car returning fire.
Martin Savage, a Volunteer who had met Breen and Hogan by chance the previous day and begged to be allowed to participate, was fatally wounded and his body had to be left near the scene. Several RIC and British soldiers were wounded with perhaps a fatality and the convoy withdrew towards Phoenix Park. The Volunteers knew that reinforcements would be sent soon so they dispersed to safe houses. Breen had been shot in the leg but managed to get away by bicycle.
Volunteer Martin Savage
The next morning, the Irish Independent published an article which described the attackers as “assassins” and included other such terms as “criminal folly”, “outrage” and “murder.” Taking these terms as an insult to their dead comrade, on Sunday, at 9pm, between twenty and thirty Volunteers under Peadar Clancy entered the offices of the Independent and began to dismantle and smash the machinery.
REACTION OF THE DÁIL AND SOME OTHER REPUBLICANS
Many of the Dáil TDs were shocked by the assassination attempt and among Irish Republicans who severely criticised the IRA within the movement was Charlotte Despard.
Charlotte Despard and Maud Gonne at prisoners’ solidarity protest outside Mountjoy Jail
This might have been expected since she was sister to Field Marshal French, except that Charlotte had developed Republican sympathies and had settled in Dublin after the War. She had a background in social welfare and socialist political activity in Britain, including active membership in the Social Democratic Federation, the Independent Labour Party and the sufragette Women’s Social and Political Union and was a fierce critic of her brother. During the Irish War of Independence, Charlotte Despard, together with Maud Gonne, formed the Women’s Prisoners’ Defence League which organised support for republican prisoners. Later, as a member of Cumann na mBan, she was to oppose the Anglo-Irish Treaty and to be imprisoned by the Free State Government during the Civil War.
REACTION OF THE BRITISH
The British military and police, under orders from French, of course replied to the assassination attempt with intensified repression and harassment of the civilian population in an attempt to drive a wedge between them and the IRA. The ambush and attempt on the life of the Lord Lieutenant and Supreme Commander of the British Army in Ireland no doubt helped Churchill, Secretary of War and Minister of the Air, push his idea of special counter-insurgency forces to act as auxillary police in Ireland, i.e. forces of state terrorism, who were to become known as the “Black and Tans” (abbreviated to “Tans”). Recruitment began that very month in London and the first recruits were in the field in January 1920. In July, the Auxillary Division of the RIC was set up, a much more efficient terror force composed almost entirely of British ex-soldiers of former NCO and officer rank.
With the “Tans” and the “Auxies” in the field, along with the crumbling RIC and the British Army, a full guerrilla war raged in many counties and cities of Ireland from 1920 to 1921, with torture and shooting or imprisonment of prisoners by the British, along with the burning of non-combatants’ homes and cooperatives. The IRA were carrying out ambushes and assassinations of RIC and their special auxiliary forces, British soldiers and Irish spies. Ironically 1921 was the year the Dáil finally declared war on the British and also the year of the Truce, negotiations and the controversial signing of the Treaty by the Dáil’s delegation in London, in which they accepted Dominion status for a partitioned Ireland.
Dominic Behan wrote a song about the ambush. It has been sung in different versions and with some verses added and omitted. Dominic Behan’s version is on here on 30.23 mins: Wolfhound did their own version here which, on the whole, I prefer, though a little too drawn out and finishing on a climax (which traditional songs never do, anywhere in the world, apparently) .
BACKGROUND TO THE MADRID AMBUSH
Like John French, Don Luis Carrero Blanco, 1st Duke of Carrero Blanco, Spanish Grandee, was a military career man. He entered the Spanish naval academy in 1918, at the age of 14 and participated in the colonial Rif War of 1924-1926. When General Franco and the other Generals led the military uprising against the Popular Front Government in 1936, Carrero Blanco was behind the Republican line and took refuge in the Mexican and later French embassies before working his way across the front to reach the fascist side in June 1937 and serving in their navy.
Admiral Luis Blanco Carerro, Gen. Franco’s chosen successor
After the victory of the fascist forces in April 1939 and the instalation of General Franco as Dictator, Carerro Blanco became one of his closest collaborators; he was made vice-admiral (1963) and admiral (1966); he held the post of Vice-President of the state council from 1967 to 1973 and commanded the Navy. On 8th June 1973 Franco named Carerro Blanco Prime Minister of Spain.
Carrero Blanco was very much a supporter of the Spanish military-fascist dictatorship of Franco, a monarchist (Franco had himself installed Juan Carlos de Borbón, the present monarch, as King of Spain) and close to the secretive Opus Dei organisation of Catholic technocrats. Opus Dei, although in favour of authoritarian control of society, was opposed to the fascist Falange and favoured liberalisation of some laws and the penetration of foreign capital, particularly from the US and Europe, to which the Falange were opposed.
It is said that Carrero also opposed the state entering into World War II on the Axis side, for which the Falange were pushing. In the event, neither the Spanish state nor Portugal, both under fascist dictatorships, entered the War and as a result were the only two European fascist regimes which were not overthrown by invasion of one or various of the Allied forces or by popular resistance around the end of the War.
In the 1970s the Spanish ruling class was under pressure to relax its fascist grip and bring in the trappings of capitalist democracy: legalised opposition parties, legalised trade unions, a “free” press, etc. But Spain was ruled by a coalition of various interests, including the fascist Falange, the military caste, Spanish aristocracy, arriviste capitalists, Catholic Church hierarchy …. And they faced not only demands for democracy but also for socialism, including from the rank-and-file of the Communist Party of Spain and of the social-democratic party, the PSOE. Other groups specific to regions or nations within the Spanish state also had demands for democracy and socialism. The Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) and ETA had been raising demands for regional autonomy or independence and a similar desire was evident in Catalonia.
But most of the Spanish ruling class feared the breakup of the Spanish state and also feared socialism. Many opposed even social-democracy, from those who feared being held to account for their crimes against humanity during the Civil War to those afraid of a moral ‘loosening’ and loss of social control by the Church. But they were also increasingly aware that the military-fascist lid could not be kept on the pot forever – the pressure was building up and something would have to give. However, as Franco went into his old age and illness the Spanish ruling class also feared what would happen after his death. He had been such a central figure of authority, his face even on coinage and stamps, and a unifying force either through fear or loyalty. Although Carrero Blanco was not favourable towards the Falange they trusted him to keep the state going essentially the way it was and so Franco nominating the Admiral as his successor calmed a lot of fears.
ENTER ETA
Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, ETA, had been formed in the Basque Country in 1959 from socialist and Basque patriotic youth. A youth section of the Basque Nationalist Party, tired of the timidity and lack of action of the parent organisation, had been part of its forming and had accepted the socialist orientation of others graduating from the group EKIN. The young ETA organisation was subjected to the repression usual in the Spanish state after the Civil War and particularly harsh wherever the breakup of the State was threatened – and this was particularly so in the Basque Country. ETA’s supporters were watched and arrests and torture were a constant danger.
The ETA symbol: the axe for armed resistance and the snake for wisdom (“bietan jarrai” = both always/ continuously)
In the late 1960s some ETA members began to carry arms. On 7th June 1968, ETA member Txabi Etxebarrieta faced a routine road check by the Guardia Civil. Txabi was armed and determined not to be arrested and tortured — he shot a Guardia Civil member dead and fled on foot; he was chased and himself shot dead. The next ETA armed action that year was however a planned operation. Chief of secret police Melitón Manzanas had a long record of torture inflicted on detainees and of hunting Jews escaping Occupied Europe over the French border and returning them to the Nazis. ETA killed him and from then on ETA was on a guerilla war footing.
In the summer of 1973, a group of Basques pretending to be sculptors rented a flat in Madrid to carry out Operación Ogro (Operation Ogre). Over five months they dug a tunnel under the street outside and filled it with 80 kgs of explosives which had been stolen from a government depot.
On December 20th, 1973, Carrero Blanco was being driven from attending mass to his home in Madrid and accompanied by his bodyguard. As it travelled down the road, a bomb exploded in a tunnel under it with such force that the vehicle was blown right over the roofs of nearby buildings and landed on a balcony on the other side. Both driver and bodyguard were killed immediately and Carrero Blanco died shortly after. One epitaph of macabre humour was that Carerro Blanco had lived a very complete life: he had been born on earth, had lived at sea and died in the air.
In an interview explaining their rationale for Operación Ogro, the ETA operation group said:
“The execution in itself had an order and some clear objectives. From the beginning of 1951 Carrero Blanco practically occupied the government headquarters in the regime. Carrero Blanco symbolized better than anyone else the figure of “pure Francoism” and without totally linking himself to any of the Francoist tendencies, he covertly attempted to push Opus Dei into power. A man without scruples conscientiously mounted his own State within the State: he created a network of informers within the Ministries, in the Army, in the Falange, and also in Opus Dei. His police managed to put themselves into all the Francoist apparatus. Thus he made himself the key element of the system and a fundamental piece of the oligarchy’s political game. On the other hand, he came to be irreplaceable for his experience and capacity to manoeuvre and because nobody managed as he did to maintain the internal equilibrium of Francoism.”
—Julen Agirre, Operation Ogro: The Execution of Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco (1975)
There was little criticism of the assassination from the Spanish opposition in exile or underground in the Spanish state. The Spanish ruling class of course condemned the action but it was thrown into disarray. In the confusion, the “modernising” and “liberalising” elements were able to take the initiative.
Left to right: General Franco and his protege, King Juan Carlos de Borbón (who in June 2014 abdicated in favour of his son, Felipe)
Less than three months after Carrero Blanco’s assassination his successor, the new prime minister Carlos Arias Navarro, in his first speech to the Cortes (Parliament) on 12 February 1974, promised liberalizing reforms including the right to form political associations. He faced opposition from hardliners within the regime but the transition had begun (how much of a “transition” is another issue).
The assassination of Carrero Blanco was an action taken by ETA perhaps primarily for the Basque struggle for independence and socialism but it had a deep effect across the whole Spanish state. It hastened the “Transition” and turned out to be a Christmas present to the Spanish social democratic and reformist opposition. Later years were to witness how badly they were to repay the Basque resistance.
Sixteen years after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, cases of Irish Republican political activists appearing before colonial judges are none too rare in what some call “Northern Ireland”. Of course, the Republicans are not from Provisional Sinn Féin, who have made their peace with Queen and Empire – but they are Irish Republicans none the less.
Despite their fairly common occurrence, one recent case seemed to symptomise the state of civil liberties in the colonial statelet so as to deserve some detailed analysis. On January 6th Gary Donnelly (43) and two other Derry Republicans, Terry Porter (56) and William Brogan (51), won their appeals against a sentence of six months imprisonment for painting slogans on the famous Derry Walls but money was paid on their behalves into the court.
The judge, Philip Babbington, ordered the £2,600 (€3,300) compensation to be equally divided between the Northern Ireland Environment Agency, which has responsibility for the upkeep of the Derry Walls, and the charity Foyle Search and Rescue. No explanation seems to have been given as to why the total sum, which was supposed to have been necessary to remove the anti-internment slogans, was not to be paid in its entirety to the Environment Agency; nor am I aware of any detailed examination of the alleged cost of £2,600 (€3,300) to remove a few painted slogans.
“Speaking outside the court Colr. Donnelly said he was ‘relieved’ that the case was finally settled. He said: “I am glad that I am now able to represent the voters of the Moor ward who elected me. There had been a lot of donations made towards this case by people in the city and I am glad that it is going to Foyle Search and Rescue.” He denied that there had been any brinkmanship in the case and said when first arrested they had been held for two days and police had tried to prevent them getting bail.
“Cnclr. Donnelly went on: “Graffiti has long been a tool of the working class for years and there was even graffiti on the walls calling for Home Rule1. More damage was caused to the Walls by the installation of lights and the building of the Millennium Form than by anything we did. “I have no regrets for anything I have done.”2
A previous use of Derry’s Walls to highlight a case of internment
The appeal hearing was attended by four TDs3: Éamonn O’Cuív (Fianna Fáil), Clare Daly (United Left Alliance), Thomas Pringle and Maureen O’Sullivan (both Independents). Also in attendance were numerous councillors from local authorities on both sides of the Border. This attendance, at the court case of one with whose politics most of them would not be in agreement, indicated perhaps some sense of solidarity among public elected representatives but probably more a rising concern among some (albeit not nearly enough) at the state of civil liberties in the Six Counties.
When Donnelly and the other two republicans had last appeared before another judge to answer a charge of “malicious damage” to the Walls (by painting the slogans), no money had been made available to the court and they had been sentenced to six month’s imprisonment. The judge hearing the appeal, Babbington, replaced that sentence with a conditional discharge for 12 months. This means that they will serve no prison term on this charge but if, within 12 months they are again arrested and convicted, this conviction will be taken into account and could result in prison terms.
The original sentence of six months’ jail for painting slogans, even at such an alleged cost of their removal, was excessive. But the impact of this sentence in the case of Gary Donnelly went far beyond that on him, his family and friends. Gary Donnelly is a Councillor, elected to the Derry & Strabane Super-Council and, according to the rules of that body, a sentence in excess of three months would cause him to lose his seat. That in turn would have disenfranchised those who voted for him.
Donnelly was one of four new Independent councillors elected last year, the other three being Darren O’ Reilly, Dee Quigley and Paul Gallagher (Strabane). Gary Donnelly, standing as an Independent, topped the poll in the Moor ward (home of the Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness), out-polling former Sinn Féin Mayor Kevin Campbell by 50 votes. The three Derry-based Independent councillors have taken two SDLP and one Sinn Féin seat.
These new Independent councillors have a background of years dealing with issues affecting their local communities, often on a daily basis, such as poverty, anti-social behaviour and the growing addiction crisis. Judge McElholm had been made aware that Donnelly would lose his seat if the judge went ahead with his sentence but he was not to be swayed from his course.
Naturally, it is not being suggested that elected Councillors (or any others, including appointed judges) should be permitted to act as they please without consequences, merely because of their office. However, a judge behaving in accord with the principles of a democratic system would take care that the sentence leanedaway from disenfranchisement of voters if possible. And of course, it was possible, since a non-custodial sentence or one of anything up to three months’ jail would not have had Donnelly lose his seat or disenfranchised his voters.
For those who are aware of the history and current reality of the Six Counties, that colonial statelet often called “Northern Ireland”, associating it “with the principles of a democratic system” is bound to raise at least one eyebrow. The formation of the statelet was in itself a denial of democracy and self-determination to the Irish people in 1921 and its laws and practice were so undemocratic, so discriminatory against the large Catholic minority, as to give rise to the popular movement for civil rights that began in 1968. The infamous repression exercised by the statelet’s police and courts and its sectarian civilian allies on that movement led in turn to a war of 30 years. Not a single democratic reform was granted by the statelet until that war was well underway. Nevertheless, since its administrators claim it is democratic, it may be useful to subject it to the test of compliance with recognised democratic principles.
THE JUDGES AND THE SYSTEM
During all that history of lack of democracy, institutional discrimination and repression in the Six Counties, judges played their part, faithful to the system. Today, despite some hard-won reforms especially in housing allocation and in voting qualification, the statelet continues to be a colonial one, undemocratic still in many ways, with a sectarian and repressive police force. And the judges continue to play their part.
The original judge dealing with Donnelly’s case, McElholm, revealed his own political bias on a number of occasions during the conduct of the case, even without taking into account the six-month jail sentence. According to media reports, when the three appeared before him again for non-payment of the fines, he said that the painting of the walls was a “wholly uncalled-for exercise”. He stated that “internment ended ‘a long time ago’, and that it was insulting to the entire legal system to say it continues.”4
Well, was the judge sentencing the three Republicans for “criminal damage”, the words appearing on their charge-sheet, or for carrying out what he considered politically or morally to be a “totally uncalled-for exercise” and for “insulting … the entire legal system”? I would have thought that his words are evidence of a clear political bias.
Nor was it the only occasion when the same judge expressed political bias in respect of Gary Donnelly. When the Irish Republican made his application for the abolition of his curfew (which he had accepted as a condition of being granted bail when first charged), he did so on the basis that having to be indoors by 8pm was a serious restriction on his campaigning work for election, an infringement on his democratic rights and on those who might vote for him. Again, Judge McElholm saw fit to express his political bias in heavy sarcasm. According to media reports, although he granted an exemption of two hours (i.e. until 10pm) on the curfew, Judge McElholm then asked: “Is he going to put up posters or paint his name on walls saying vote Donzo?” He went on to say: “It is clear the democratic process is very dear to Mr Donnelly’s heart”5 and “The great working class people I’m sure will now come flooding to his door.”6
BAIL CONDITIONS AND CURFEW AS A POLITICAL WEAPON
The issue of Donnelly’s bail conditions and curfew have been alluded to earlier. People in the West outside of the Six Counties (with the exception of people in other European areas of repressive colonial occupation, such as the southern Basque Country) may be surprised to learn that the imposition of a curfew has become customary as a condition of granting bail to Republicans in the colony. This might have made some sense in the case of slogan-painting, with which Donnelly was accused, and which one would imagine would take place at night. But even so, did a curfew have to be imposed? Would it not be enough that if he were caught doing it again before trial, that his bail would be revoked?
In a democratic system, since the accused are to be “presumed innocent until proven guilty”, they should be at liberty until such time as are tried and receive a verdict. That is the purpose of releasing those charged “on bail” while awaiting trial. They may be found “not guilty” at the end of their trial and even if found “guilty”, the sentence may be a non-custodial one. So, if the accused is thought not to require a custodial sentence, why should he already have spent time in jail? However it is a fact that many Irish Republicans have spent time in jail while awaiting trial. In Donnelly’s case, after two days in custody and against police advice, he was given bail but on a number of conditions.
The purpose of conditions being set for bail is supposed to be related to the specific case and to be reasonable. A financial surety is set in order to deter the accused from absconding before trial. Other than that, what conditions are reasonable? Well, a man accused of assault on another may have a bail condition not to approach his alleged victim and to stay away from that person’s home or place of work. Or to stay away from people who are to be called as witnesses. But how is it to be considered reasonable to set a curfew as a bail condition? And of wearing an electronic tag to ensure compliance? Or of not going to political meetings or meeting with political activists? Or to not reside in a particular town?
These conditions and variations of them have been imposed on a number of Irish Republican activists in the Six Counties. In fact, that same Judge McElhome also imposed a nightly curfew on Gary Donnelly on a previous charge, in August 2010, when he released him on bail to face charges under “anti-terror” legislation, relating to pipe bombs incidents in September 2009. In December 2010, the charges were dropped.
Martin Corey, a Republican prisoner released under licence under the Good Friday Agreement, had his licence revoked and after four years in prison (without even a police interview or charge, never mind a court appearance) was released on a kind of bail or licence under conditions which he is not permitted to divulge but are rumoured to include wearing a tag and not associating with “known dissidents”.
Perhaps one of the most illustrative examples was that of Stephen Murney, an activist with the Éirigí group, who was arrested on spurious charges in November 2012 and refused bail. When his appeal against that refusal was heard after six months in jail, the judge granted bail but on conditions: Murney was to wear a tag, observe curfew, stay away from certain political activists and stay away from Newry — the town in which he lived and where his partner and child also lived. To his credit and taking an important stand for civil rights, Murney refused to accept the conditions and spent 14 months in custody awaiting trial. Eventually, some of the charges were dropped and he was found not guilty of all remaining charges.
CRIMINAL OR POLITICAL CONVICTIONS?
A member of the 32-County Sovereignty Movement, Gary Donnelly has been politically active for many years. Something has been made in reporting of the case that Gary Donnelly has previous criminal convictions – he has a police record and he has also had a number of charges eventually dropped. In March 2010, he was sentenced to seven months jail on a charge of assaulting a police officer. At one of his recent court appearances, a police officer said he he had criminal convictions also for public order offences and one for arson.
Garry Donnelly, Irish Republican and elected Councillor
In many societies outside the Six Counties this might seem extraordinary for an elected representative but I would submit that it is the system in the Six Counties that is extraordinary, at least with regard to what might be expected of a European democracy.
Donnelly’s “criminal convictions” would have been no secret and his voters put him in office despite those convictions and quite possibly even in part because of them. I do not have the details of the incidents that gave rise to them but any half-awake observer of life in the Six Counties knows that with a sectarian and repressive police force hostile to Republicans, acquiring convictions for “assault on police officers” may be the result of police concoction, self-defence by the charged or even actual assault but in all those cases, the likelihood is that the incidents are overtly political in nature.
Convictions for “public order offences” are probably the most easily-acquired by political activists and often mean merely that the person convicted refused to cease his or her protest when ordered to do so by a police officer. It is rarely possible, with any hope of success, to challenge the justification of the police officer in ordering the protest to finish.
“Arson” can also be a political offence and I once heard a Garda senior officer declare that burning a purchased US flag in a public protest was “arson”! And, as has been clearly demonstrated, the “criminal damage” which has now been added to Donnelly’s police record, both in its content and in its treatment, was political.
INTERNMENT – WHEN IS IT NOT?
Although no-one denies that the British implemented internment between August 1971 and December 1975, when 342 people were subjected to it7, there is far from universal agreement that the British are practicing internment in their colony today. One supposes that the socialists and social-democrats there at present don’t agree that it is being practiced — or surely they would be protesting against it! And, as we saw earlier, Judge McElhone declared that internment had ended back in the 1970s and that to state that it was still being practiced was “insulting …. to the entire legal system”. Sinn Féin don’t call it internment on the rare occasions upon which they refer to the victims but that may be more an issue of convenience than of terminology. Even a member of a Republican organisation which is opposed to the Good Friday Agreement recently argued with me that what is happening is repression but is not internment.
British soldiers detaining a man in the Six Counties during the internment operation in August 1971.
Well, I’m quite interested in correct use of terminology myself, so I thought I’d better look up the definition in a number of on-line dictionaries. It turns out that dictionary definitions of “internment” vary somewhat. Wikipediahas it as “the imprisonment or confinement of people, commonly in large groups, without trial, while for Dictionary.comit is “the act of interning or state of being interned, esp of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects”.Dictionary.com goes on to elaborate that “Internment means putting a person in prison or other kind of detention, generally in wartime. ………….. Internment usually doesn’t involve a trial, so you’re being held because someone thinks you might be dangerous, but there’s no proof.”
Grammaristhas it as “the act of detaining a person or a group of people, especially a group perceived to be a threat during wartime,” while forCambridge Dictionaries on lineit is“the act of putting someone in prison for political or military reasons, especially during a war.”Macmillan Dictionarydefines it as “the act of putting someone in a prison without officially accusing them of a crime, especially when this is done for political reasons”.
Sifting through these definitions then, the most common aspect is that internment involves imprisonment without trial. It may be applied to many or a few (and let us remember that Oswald Mosley, of the British Union of Fascists, was interned by the British on his own during WW2 albeit in a house with grounds). Two definitions mention wartime, while some allude to “terrorism” and a few mention “political reasons”. On the basis of those definitions, internment is undoubtedly being practiced in the Six Counties.
Refusing Republicans bail (e.g. Stephen Murney, Colin Duffy and man others) and revoking licences (e.g. Marian Price, Martin Corey) have all resulted in imprisonment without trial – for periods varying from a year to four years. The individuals may be – and often are – eventually found “not guilty”, or their convictions overturned (as with Colin Duffy, Brian Shivers and, one hopes, the “Craigavon Two”) or released on “humanitarian grounds” but they will already have spent time in jail. This was the reasoning which no doubt lies behind a number of political activities against the current internment and certainly was expressed at the founding meeting of the Anti-Internment Group of Ireland (of which I am proud to be a member) which has organized public meetings, demonstrations and information pickets in various communities in Dublin and in other parts of Ireland. The non-party Group was set up by some of the campaigners in the also non-party Dublin Free Marian Price Campaign after the partially-successful conclusion of that struggle (Marian Price was released on “humanitarian grounds” but already in broken health). The AIGI can be found on https://www.facebook.com/pages/End-Internment/581232915354743?fref=ts
Information picket (with table across the road) organized by Anti-Internment Group of Ireland in September 2014 at Thomas St./ Meath St. junction, Dublin. They returned there in December and in January supported a picket in Cork, handing out leaflets on the Craigavon Two injustice.
Imprisonment puts a strain on the individual prisoner and also on friends and relations – and, indeed, on relationships. It disrupts the political work of the person jailed and of their organizations. And it serves as a threat to others considering becoming active in opposition to the State. Its purpose in these cases is primarily political. The deprivation of liberty without due cause is a violation of human rights and to do so for political reasons, which is clearly the case here, is a violation too of civil rights.
That the legal system in the Six Counties is being used in this way should come as no surprise to those familiar with the operation of colonial law or indeed to any readers of Brigadier Frank Kitson’s Low Intensity Operations (1971)8. Kitsoncompletedthe book while on military service in the Six Counties but mainly drawing on his experiences in repression of resistance in Kenya and in Malaya in the 1950s. In the Six Counties Kitson was commander of 39 Airportable Brigade from September 1970 to April 1972, with responsibility for one of the British Army’s three main regional sub-commands in the Six Counties, the greater Belfast and Eastern area.
One of the units under Kitson’s command, 1st Para, was the main actor in killing and wounding a large number of civilians in Ballymurphy in July 1971 and in Derry’s Bloody Sunday in January 1972.
The Military Reaction Force, a special covert operations unit, was based at Kitson’s headquarters in Palace Barracks outside Belfast. Last November (2013), a BBC ‘Panorama’ investigative program on British counterinsurgency in the Six Counties in the early 1970s featured members of the MRF admitting to the murder of suspects and unarmed Catholic civilians.
Back in April 1972, within a few weeks of Bloody Sunday and his receipt of a CBE for his service in the Six Counties, Brigadier Kitson was flown to England to head the Infantry School at Warminster and Low Intensity Operations would become a British Army manual on counterinsurgency and counter-subversion.
In that book, Kitson approvingly quoted another repression “expert”9:
“…the Law should be used as just another weapon in the government’s arsenal, and in this case it becomes little more than a propaganda cover for the disposal of unwanted members of the public. For this to happen efficiently, the activities of the legal services have to be tied into the war effort in as discreet a way as possible..”
And so it has been in the Six Counties (and long before Kitson described its operation): the legal system being “just another weapon in the government’s arsenal.” At the moment, the “unwanted members of the public” being “disposed” of are Irish Republicans who do not agree with the Good Friday agreement and who organise to oppose British colonialism, some with arms but most through political agitationn — “unwanted” by British imperialism and Six County capitalism, that is. Their treatment should be enough to bring democratic people out in oppositon to these state practices but should it not do so, those people may wish to consider that tomorrow those designated as “unwanted members of the public” may be people protesting cuts in services, fracking operations, privatisation, or militant trade unionists ….
end
Footnotes:
1 A movement for Irish autonomy within the UK (or, later, Commonwealth) between 1870 and 1914. Teachtaí Dála: Members of the Irish Parliament
7 Even now a case is being taken by the Irish state against the British state to the European Court of Human Rights, over the torture of 14 victims of that internment. The Irish Government took the case of the 14 “hooded men” to the ECHR in the 1970s and won a judgement that the men had been tortured; however the British state appealed the verdict and it was changed to “cruel and inhuman treatment” (!). The Irish Government left the case there but recently RTÉ, the Irish TV broadcasting service, screened their programme The Torture Files based on documentation uncovered by the Pat Finucane Centre, showing the British Government had lied to the ECHR. Amnesty International publicly called on the Irish Government to reopen the case with the ECHR.
Diarmuid Breatnach (Traducido al castellano al fondo)
(Reading time: 5 minutes)
” We made it! We made it! Safe for another year!”
“Shut up, you idiot! The day’s not over yet!”
Meanwhile, not far away ….
THE WREN-BOY TRADITION IN IRELAND
In England it is called “Boxing Day” but in Ireland the 26th of December is “St. Stephen’s Day”. Despite the Christian designation it has long been the occasion in Ireland for customs much closer to paganism.
It was common for a group of boys (usually) to gather and hunt down a wren. The wren can fly but tends to do so in short bursts from bush to bush and so can be hunted down by determined boys. The bird might be killed or kept alive, tied to a staff or in a miniature bower constructed for the occasion.
The Wren Boys would then parade it from house to house while they themselves appeared dressed in costume and/or with painted faces. In some areas they might only carry staff or wands decorated with colourful ribbons and metallic paper while they might in other areas dress in elaborate costumes, some of them made of straw (Straw Boys) and these were sometimes also known as Mummers although a distinction should be drawn between these two groups. The Mummers in particular would have involved acting repertoires with traditional character roles and costumes, music and dance routines while the simpler Wren Boys might each just contribute a short dance, piece of music or song. In all cases traditional phrases were used upon arrival, the Mummers having the largest repertoire for in fact they were producing a kind of mini-play.
The origins of the customs are the subject of debate but a number of Irish folk tales surround the wren. The bird is said in one story to have betrayed the Gaels to the Vikings, leading to the defeat of the former. There is a Traveller tradition that accuses the wren of betraying Jesus Christ to soldiers while another tradition has the bird supplying the nails (its claws) for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Yet another tradition has the wren as King of the Birds, having used its cunning in a competition to determine who would be the avian King, hiding itself under the Eagle’s wind and flying out above the exhausted bird when it seemed to have won, having left all others behind and could fly no higher.
By the 1960s the Wren Boy custom was beginning to die out even in areas where it had held fast but it slowly began to be revived by some enthusiasts. Nowadays fake wrens are used. Christmas Day in Ireland was traditionally a day to go to religious service and to spend at home with family or to go visiting neighbours. It was not a day of presents or of lights or Christmas Trees, customs brought in by the English colonizers in particular from Prince Albert, the British Queen Victoria’s royal consort, who was German. St. Stephen’s Day may have celebrated the Winter Solstice (the wren being a bird that on occasion sings even in winter) but moved to a Christian feast day; in any case it produced colour and excitement at a time which did not have the religious and commercial Christmas season to which, in decades, we have become accustomed.
The lovely song The Boys of Barr na Sráide from a poem by Sigerson Clifford takes as its binding thread the boys in his childhood with whom Sigurson went “hunting the wren”. It is sung here by Muhammed Al-Hussaini (currently resident in London and part of the singing circle of Comhaltas Ceoltóirí na hÉireann, meeting in the Camden Irish Centre). There are recordings of others performing this song well but the unusual origin of this one as well as its quality persuaded me to choose this one. In addition, I had the pleasure of participating in a singing circle with this lovely and modest singer in London in October this year (see The London Visit on the blog), who greeted me in Irish. Muhammed also plays the violin on this, accompanied by Mark Patterson on mandolin and Paul Sims on guitar.
ends.
LA TRADICIÓN DE “CHICOS DEL REYEZUELO” EN IRLANDA
Diarmuid Breatnach
En Inglaterra se llama “Boxing Day”, pero en Irlanda el 26 de diciembre es “la fiesta de San Esteban“. A pesar de la designación cristiana, ha sido durante mucho tiempo la ocasión en Irlanda de costumbres mucho más cercanas al paganismo.
Para eso era común que un grupo de niños(generalmente) o chavales se reuniera y cazara a un reyezuelo. Esepájaroes capaz de volar pero tiende a hacerlo en ráfagas cortas de arbusto a arbusto y, por lo tanto, puede ser cazado por niños determinados. El pájaro podía ser asesinado o mantenido vivo, atado a un bastón o en una glorieta en miniatura construida para la ocasión.
Los “Wren Boys” (Chicos del Reyezuelo) lo desfilarían de casa en casa mientras ellos mismos aparecían vestidos con disfraces y / o con caras pintadas. En algunas áreas, solo pueden llevar bastos o varitas decoradas con cintas de colores y papel metálico, mientras que en otras áreas pueden vestirse con trajes elaborados, algunos de ellos hechos de paja (Straw Boys/ Buachaillí TuI = Chicos de la Paja) y a veces también se los conoce como Mummers, aunque se debe hacer una distinción entre estos dos grupos. Los Mummers en particular tenían repertorios involucrados de actuación con roles y disfraces de personajes tradicionales, música y rutinas de baile, mientras que los Wren Boys más simples podrían contribuir con un baile corto, una pieza musical o una canción. En todos los casos se usaron frases tradicionales a la llegada, los Mummers tenían el mayor repertorio porque de hecho estaban produciendo una especie de pequeño teatro. Se les daba dinero , pastel o caramelos.
Los orígenes de las costumbres son objeto de debate, pero una serie de cuentos populares irlandeses rodean al reyezuelo. En una historia se dice que el pájaro traicionó a los Gaels a los Vikingos, lo que llevó a la derrota de los primeros. Hay una tradición de los Travellers (gente étnica nómada de Irlanda) que acusa al reyezuelo de traicionar a Jesucristo a los soldados, mientras que otra tradición dice que el pájaro suministra los tornillos (sus garras) para la crucifixión de Jesucristo. Sin embargo, otra tradición le tiene al reyezuelo como el Rey de los Pájaros, después de haber usado su astucia en una competencia para determinar quién sería el Rey de las aves, escondiéndose bajo el viento del Águila y volando por encima del pájaro agotado cuando parecía haber ganado, todos los demás detrás y no poder volar más alto.
En la década de 1960, la costumbre de Wren Boy comenzaba a desaparecer incluso en áreas donde se había mantenido firme, pero algunos entusiastas comenzaron a revivirla lentamente. Hoy en día se usan reyezuelos falsos. El día de Navidad en Irlanda era tradicionalmente un día para ir al servicio religioso y para pasarlo en casa con la familia o para visitar a los vecinos. No fue un día de regalos ni de luces ni de árboles de Navidad, costumbres traídas por los colonizadores ingleses en particular del alemán Príncipe Alberto, el consorte real de la Reina Victoria británica. El día de San Esteban puede haber celebrado el solsticio de invierno (el reyezuelo es un pájaro que en ocasiones canta incluso en invierno) pero se mudó a una fiesta cristiana; en cualquier caso, produjo color y emoción en un momento que no tenía la temporada de Navidad religiosa ni entonces la comercial a la que, en décadas, nos hemos acostumbrado.
La encantadora canción The Boys of Barr na Sráide (mezcla del inglés con el gaélico: “Los Chicos de la Altura de la Calle” [toponómico de puebo en el Condado de Kerry]) de un poema por Sigerson Clifford toma como hilo conductor a los chicos de su infancia con quienes Sigurson fue “cazando al reyezuelo”. Aquí lo canta Muhammed Al-Hussaini (actualmente residente en Londres y parte del círculo de canto de Comhaltas Ceoltóirí na hÉireann, reunido en el Centro Irlandés de Camden). Hay grabaciones de otros interpretando bien esta canción, pero el origen inusual de esta, así como su calidad, me convenció para elegir esta. Además, tuve el placer de participar en un círculo de canto con este encantador y modesto cantante en Londres en octubre de este año (ver The London Visit en el blog), que me recibió en irlandés. Muhammed también toca el violín en esto, acompañado por Mark Patterson con mandolina y Paul Sims con guitarra.
The final resting place of Patsy o’Connor at Plot UE 18 St.. Paul’s Glasnevin.
The following story and research is by local Dublin historian Jason Walsh-McLean. Thanks to Jason for sending in this excellent account of the life and death of Patsy O’Connor and his own journey in uncovering the remarkable tale of this brave Fianna scout. We have featured Patsy before on this page a number of times. Here is his story:
It was during the Lockout centenary year of 2013 that I finally got around to reading Pádraig Yeates’ seminal work on the subject Lockout – Dublin 1913. It had been purchased as a birthday present for me some years previously by my Mother. Being a bit of a “trivia buff” when it comes to these things, I noticed upon completing the book that there was no mention of Patsy O’Connor of Na Fianna Éireann, whose name…
Today is the anniversary of the death of Pat O’Donnel, an Irish patriot or a murderer, depending on one’s point of view. There are memorials to him both in his native village and in Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin, the latter paid for by US-Irish contributions.
Pat O’Donnel was a travelled man with an interesting life story (the little of it that is known). He was born in Gaoth Dobhair (which remains an Irish-speaking area today in Co. Donegal)in 1835 and emigrated to the USA where, among other things, he worked as a miner. He stayed with his cousins for a while, who were with the ‘Molly Maguires’ (a workers’ underground resistance organization), in the coal-mining area of the state of Pennsylvania.
His greatest claim to fame however is that he killed James Carey, a man who informed on his “National Invincibles” comrades who in 1882 had assassinated Lord Cavendish, newly-appointed Chief Secretary of Ireland and Thomas Henry Burke, Permanent Under-Secretary – i.e. both chief representatives of British colonialism in Ireland — as they walked through Phoenix Park.
Sketch-portraits of the Invincibles
The British made arrangements for Carey which bear most of the features of the “witness protection program” of the FBI as presented in a number of fictional Hollywood films. Carey was given money in payment for his treachery, a new identity and passage for him and his family to begin a new life in South Africa.
There is no dispute that O’Donnell shot Carey a number of times and killed him in the latter’s cabin on board ship. The rest has been the subject of discussion and even argument but it does seem likely that although O’Donnell did intend to kill Carey, he provoked him and gave him a chance to go for his gun. Carey’s son probably concealed the weapon when O’Donnell was arrested in Carey’s quarters. Had Carey’s gun been produced in the cabin, instead of being found later on the son, it would have given O’Donnell some chance of being convicted of manslaughter instead of murder.
The biggest debate is about whether O’Donnell was sent to kill Carey or whether, after befriending him and his family, he learned of his identity and decided then to kill him. Evidence points in both directions although O’Donnell’s behaviour in the Carey family’s company tends towards the second interpretation, which is what most historians hold to. Most non-historians seem to prefer the story that O’Donnell was sent as an instrument of justice against informers and there is a Dublin folklore tradition to that effect. Curiously, the jury too preferred that theory — or that O’Donnell had shot an unarmed man — and found him guilty of “willful murder”.
Even most of those in Ireland who were horrified at the assassinations of the British colonial representatives despised Carey, who had been the one to actually give the signal for the fatal assaults and later seemed to delight in condemning six of his former colleagues to death — and others to prison sentences — by his evidence at their trials.
James Carey, National Invincible leading member who turned informer against his comrades. (Portrait by unknown engraver)
My great-grandfather J. J. Walsh was one of the legal team defending the Invincibles but my feelings about Carey would have been the same even had I not known that. It is recorded that eight great bonfires were lit in Ireland in celebration at the news of Carey’s death and that musicians led thousands in joyful processions.
The Judge refused to allow O’Donnell to speak after passing sentence upon him but the convicted man shouted “Three cheers for Ireland! Goodbye, United States! To hell with the British and the British Crown!“
The President of the USA intervened to try to save his life, since he had become a US citizen, but Pat O’Donnell was hung this day in Newgate prison, one hundred and thirty-one years ago and is numbered among the hundreds of thousands of men and women who fell in the fight for Irish Freedom.
(* “Skin the Goat” was the nickname of the assassination group’s getaway cart driver, whose real name was John Fitzharris; he served a long sentence for refusing to give information on anyone).
Further information and songs:
Pat O’Donnell, the Invincibles and Carey also get a mention in one verse of “Take Me up to Monto” by Irish Times journalist George Hodnett (a colleague of my father’s):
“When Carey told on ‘Skin the Goat’*,
O’Donnell caught him on the boat —
He wished he’d never been afloat,
The dirty skite!
It wasn’t very sensible
To tell on the Invincibles —
They stood up for their principles
Day and night.
And they all went up to Monto, Monto, Monto …” etc
There’s a good article here by historian Shane McKenna in which he calls the event in Phoenix Park “killings”, unlike their usual description as “murders” even in articles from Irish writers — evidence that the hand of colonialism still rests on our brains. Elsewhere one reads in history about the “assassination” of Arch-Duke Ferdinand, of Lincoln etc. They are not usually described as “murders”.
A version of the Pat O’Donnell Ballad sung by Diarmuid Breatnach (at19.40 minutes on the video), 23rd February 2013 as part of the Songs from the Docks event, preceded by Paul O’Brien, Seán O’Casey Centre, East Wall; video Rashers O’Reilly)
Lyrics: Traditional
Air: Traditional.
Another version of the Pat O’Donnell ballad, sung by Martin Collins, a Traveller who got it from his father Johnny Collins, sung here at the Celebration of Irish Traveller Music event at the Cobblestone pub, Smithfield, Dublin on 11th December 2014:
What tactics should we use in political resistance struggle? Physical action or not? If we think physical action is valid, what type do we support and when should we employ it? On the other hand, the same questions arise with regard to non-physical action ….
For most people in this country, the closest they come to physical action in politics is to present themselves at the polling booth. One of the primary declared objectives of most political groups, in fact, is to deepen the involvement in political action of the majority of the population of the country (although what each means by this and to what degree they are serious about it differs greatly).
Something of an ideological struggle has been taking part in the movement against austerity measures as to how best to increase public involvement in effective resistance. Some advocate participation in demonstrations and pickets as their main activity, with perhaps a sprinkling of public meetings. Others advocate civil disobedience and/or disruption as the most effective tactics. Curiously, most agree with participation in on-line petitions and “liking” particular ideological Facebook pages. Many agree with voting for candidates perceived to be in opposition to austerity measures, while some do not. For some, membership of a political party is an important step while for others it is of no value at all. Faced with this lack of general agreement across the spectrum opposed to the status quo, how are we to make decisions, to make reasonable choices?
I’d like to attempt to answer this question but first I’d like to give an example from which to learn, a parable, if you will.
ONCE UPON A TIME ….
Let us imagine a country called Awtaegin. Across the world in the 1960s and 1970s, youth and students were in a ferment, disenchanted with the dominant system as they perceived it and in this Awtaegin was far from being an exception. This disenchantment with the dominant system also extended to many of the oppositional political parties, such as the main social democratic opposition party (which we can call the “Labour Party”) and the USSR-aligned Communist Party (which we can call the UCP).
A number of organisations arose which were opposed not only to the existing order but also to those aforementioned political parties which they considered to be no more than a slightly alternative way to manage the same system and order to which they were opposed, in the case of the Labour Party and a hindrance to mobilising for real change, in the case of the UCP.
One of the opposition organisations to arise was a communist group advocating revolution but which did not support the system in the USSR, which it considered oppressive and imperialist. This group in fact supported the system in China and the politics of its leader at the time, Mao Tse Tung. At that time this leader and his country were very popular among revolutionary communist and national liberation organisations around the world. Let us call this group the MCP.
In its early days, the MCP was something of an object of derision for most of the Left organisations including those advocating revolution in Awtaegin. It was very small and put a lot of store in the Red Book of Mao’s sayings. The MCP popularised Chinese posters. The leaflets and newspapers produced by the MCP tended to contain many quotations from “Chairman Mao” (but also from Lenin and Marx, which the other revolutionary organisations liked to quote too) and the party insisted on using revolutionary political terminology which had gone somewhat out of fashion in Awtaegin.
No-one could deny that the members and supporters of the MCP were hard-working. They went on to the streets and door to door in working class areas with their newspapers and leaflets, attended demonstrations and strike pickets, held internal discussion meetings, organised public meetings, put up posters. Nor could anyone deny that they had guts – their activists often vigorously resisted arrest, they carried their political struggle into the courts instead of, as had become the norm, just trying to be found “not guilty” or to receive the least possible punishment. It was not long before some of them found themselves being sent to jail by the State and there too they often continued their struggle.
If the members and supporters of the other revolutionary organisations had a sneaking respect for those of the MCP, they did not show it. The commitment to work and resistance exhibited by the MCP was explained as fanaticism.
The MCP had built links with a loose network of ethnic minorities in Awtaegin, most but not all students. Mao and China were very popular among many of these ethnic minorities, particularly among the students from Africa, Asia and Latin America, whether on grounds of the national liberation of their home countries from imperialism and colonialism or on the grounds of overthrowing capitalism and of building socialism. Many of these students were organised into a broad organisation which we can call the Progressive Afro-Asian Association (PAAA).
The MCP developed fraternal links with the PAA, which had quite a large network. Through reading, through internal discussions and discussions with the PAA, the MCP developed a theory on racism and its relation to fascism in application to conditions in Awtaegin. In that country at that time racist ideology was dominant and also a number of organisations with an openly racist agenda were on the rise.
The MCP theorised racism as a product of and justification for colonialism and imperialism and also as a method of dividing the working class to facilitate capitalist exploitation. They characterised the organisations with a racist agenda as fascist, as both a concentrated reflection of the dominant racist ideology in Awtaegin and as organisations encouraged to attack revolutionary and progressive people and to intimidate ethnic minority people, in particular settled and migrant ethnic minority workers. MCP articles also analysed and criticised racist writings and statements by politicians and authors.
Although some of these attitudes were to be found in the rest of the revolutionary organisations to some extent, there was a general agreement among them that the racist organisations could not be termed “fascist” and the MCP was criticised for adopting the position that they were. The opposition to the MCP however arose to fever pitch when the party put forward the political position that “Fascists have no right to speak” and advocated this with regard to authors and politicians. The rest of the Left at this time was largely split into two camps: those who thought the racists should be ignored and those who thought they should be defeated in public argument.
But the MCP and PAA applied this policy in action, refusing public debate with racists and those they considered fascists and disrupting lectures, book launches and public meetings that featured speakers they considered racist or otherwise fascist. These disruptions tended to take place mostly in institutions of higher education, where space was being provided for racist and fascist idealogues but also where the PAAA had many members and supporters. The disruptive actions of the PAAA and MCP were criticised by both pro-establishment figures and by most of the Left in Awtaegin. But many people began to consider seriously the arguments put forward by the MCP and the PAA. In time, the position of “Fascists have no right to speak” became popularised as “No platform for fascists” and gained widespread acceptance across the Left spectrum in Awtaegin – it was even adopted as official policy for a year or two by the Students’ Union in that country.
The MCP had been studying, as related earlier, and attempting to popularise the teachings of Mao Tse Tung but they had also studied and discussed other writings and had examined specific contemporary conditions in Awtaegin about which Mao had written nothing. The MCP also investigated the history of earlier struggles against fascism and racism. They uncovered and popularised the history of the resistance to fascism and racism (mostly anti-Jewish racism in those years) in Awtaegin, which had been led for a period by the UCP, the same party that in the more modern struggle was leading people away from confrontation with racist organisations. In the 1930s, the anti-fascists had fought fierce battles with the fascists and with their police protectors.
A barricade against a fascist march in Awtaegin in 1936. The alliance of ethnic minorities, communists and anarchists fought off thousands of police spearheading the intended fascist march. One main barricade was breached but no others were and the fascist march had to retreat (being harassed along the way).
The policy of “fascists have no right to speak” was applied by the MCP to the racist organisations organising outside the institutions of higher education. The public meetings of racist organisations were beginning to be picketed and their rallies met with counter-demonstrations. Such opposition now had to be taken into account by racist organisations planning public meetings and rallies, as well as by local authorities and other bodies considering hiring out venues to such organisations. By now the disruptive response was becoming popular among the revolutionary Left, with the exception of the UCP which generally tried to outnumber the racist organisations in counter-demonstrations but then lead a march away from them so as to avoid clashes. Another exception included some libertarians, who thought it wrong to deny even racists the right to free speech.
The policy of confrontation with racist organisations, now becoming widespread in the Awtaegin revolutionary movement and even among radical and democratic anti-racist sections of society, was largely confined in practice to peaceful demonstrations and pickets, with the exception of some ethnic minority youth taking actions into their own hands and opportunist physical attack by some members of the Awtaegin Left.
But the MCP took their policy to its logical conclusion and openly advocated physical attack on fascists in the street. When they could, the MCP also physically attacked members and supporters of the racist organisations, particularly during counter-demonstrations to fascist ones. Once again, the MCP appeared to be isolating itself from the rest of the revolutionary movement in Awtaegin. However, their position found favour with many in the PAAA and with ethnic minorities who were under attack by racist organisations, the racist state police force and by racist immigration legislation. In time, the MCP’s position was adopted by the fringes of some of the revolutionary organisations too (some of which were expelled or split from their parties as a result) and the broad anti-fascist and anti-racist ‘physical force’ organisations that arose at that time spent the next decade or so successfully beating the fascist organisations off the streets. The threat of fascist organisations gaining dominance in Awtaegin did not resurface for another two decades.
So what are we to make of this history of the MCP and of the revolutionary movement and the racist organisations at that time? First of all, is it true? Yes, it is, though a little simplified and with names of country and organisations changed.
WHY WERE THEY SUCCESSFUL?
Why and how did the MCP succeed in having their political line with regard to fascism and racism, at first so widely disparaged, adopted so widely later? It certainly was not due to the influence of numbers as the MCP was a very small party. Even with the support of the PAAA, their numbers were smaller than some other revolutionary Left organisations and the PAAA split and diminished after a few years anyway, leaving the MCP to depend totally upon itself.
The MCP had very few individuals within it who had fame as intellectuals or a personal following of any kind – any influence the MCP had came about as a result of their work. Revolutionary organisations opposed to the MCP’s line included in their membership well-known journalists, actors and public speakers.
I can see no reasonable alternative to the judgement that the MCP’s line of physical opposition to racist organisations and idealogues gained popularity because it was the correct one, at least for its time and that implementing it also proved effective, giving victories in the short term to the anti-fascist anti-racist movement.
OK, so if we can agree on that, how was it that the MCP came up with this correct line when so much of the rest of the revolutionary and radical Left in Awtaegin were in disagreement with it? Was it because the MCP’s political ideological position was so generally advanced that they could not help but be correct on the question of fascism and racism? Hardly – they were followers of Mao’s and his ideology has been rejected by most of the revolutionary Left today; China has become a state facilitating internal capitalist expansion and foreign imperialist penetration within a few years of the death of Mao. In Europe, the MCP supported Albania under Enver Hoxha’s leadership, a state the collapse of which took mere days with the bankruptcy of its political line exposed to the world. In fact, the MCP itself is no longer in existence and in real terms lasted little more than a decade after the death of Mao.
It seems to me that the MCP was correct on the question of fascism and racism in the 1970s in Awtaegin because they started from a position of ‘commitment to revolution, whatever it takes’. In that regard, their “fanaticism” worked in their favour. In addition, they studied not only the writings of Mao but also those of other writers on the topic and discussed their opinions internally and with other progressive people. Then they also studied the history of the world’s people in struggles against fascism and racism and that of Awtaegin in particular. Finally, they had the courage (or arrogance) to advocate their line publicly and to put it into practice when the opportunity presented. They used research, investigation and analysis to develop their theoretical position and they progressed it to practical application.
The MCP could have decided that the task of convincing the rest of the movement was too great and either abandoned it or thrown themselves into it in isolation. What they did was take on the task of convincing the rest of the movement with polemics and historical example and also putting it into practice themselves, seeking allies who agreed with that approach without necessarily agreeing with the rest of their ideology.
TODAY, IN IRELAND
So, in deciding what are correct tactics in struggles in Ireland today, I suggest that we should use the same overall approach as did the MCP in the example given. Study writings on revolutionary tactics, research and study our own class and national history, study current circumstances, discuss ….. then advocate publicly and, when appropriate, apply in practice.
If we look around us in Ireland at the moment, we see that the majority of the population, as observed earlier, is not engaged in political struggle. The sector in opposition to the status quo that has the most people in it, with however a wide spread in ideology, is the Republican movement. This sector has revolutionary and non-revolutionary parts; the major part of it has become non-revolutionary and the rest of it is struggling with fragmentation and ideological confusion. Traditionally, with some exceptions, the Republican movement has concentrated on the struggle against British colonialism and left the rest of the political, social and economic issues more or less alone. As a movement, the revolutionary rump of the Republican movement has given virtually no leadership to — and organised little participation in — the current and recent mass struggles against the Household and Property Taxes and the Water Charge (though its members are clearly in sympathy with the resistance).
In the historically small Socialist sector in Ireland, revolutionaries and radicals sometimes occupy the fringes of the social democratic Labour Party while the rest operate as independents or belong to a number of small revolutionary Left organisations. Chief in size of the latter, although comparatively still very small indeed, are the Socialist Party and Socialist Workers’ Party, with their respective front organisations, the Anti-Austerity Alliance and People Before Profit. While these organisations exhibit little interest in the Irish anti-colonial struggle (other than to condemn periodically those engaged in it) or in the struggle against the repression of the anti-colonial movement, they have concerned themselves very much with social and economic issues.
Both the SWP and the SP have concentrated their activities in opposition to the recent and current taxes and water charge in trying to build large protest mobilising organisations and in electoral campaigns. The mobilising organisations for mass demonstrations and pickets have also been seen as areas of contention between the SP and the SWP. The electoral campaigning is also intended to promote one party or the other, as well as promoting the resistance to the economic and financial attacks upon the working people.
The mass mobilisation has yielded numbers which at first surprised even the activists, growing in thousands succesively from the first demonstration in October to the next in November and many predict even larger numbers this week, on the 10th December. These numbers have forced some recognition of the level of public dissatisfaction by the mass media along with significant initial water charge reductions from the Government. The latter concessions are clearly intended to mollify public discontent and reduce the oppostion to the water charge while the State and the media concentrate on driving a wedge between the general opposition to the charge and some of its more active elements.
Meanwhile, some activists, mostly independent of any political party, have been organising physical opposition to the instalation of water meters. Let us remember that mass non-registration coupled with the threat of non-payment defeated the Household Tax but that the Property Tax replaced it, with the change in the law permitting the Revenue Department of the State to collect the tax through people’s salaries and pensions. In order to levy a charge on water consumption, however, in the absence of a blanket same-for-everyone charge, the State has to install water meters. Currently this work is being undertaken by a private company on behalf of the State with widespread speculation that capitalists involved in that company (such as Denis O’Brien) will eventually buy the water “industry” cheaply from the State.
The resistance to the instalation of the water meters has been taking the form of groups of people turning out in some communities where the meter instalation teams are in operation and physically impeding them in carrying out that work. The tactics have involved parading slowly in front of the company’s vehicles, slowing down their progress enormously and also by physically blocking with their own bodies access to the spots outside houses or estates where the meters are planned.
The Irish state has responded to these physical but peaceful tactics in some cases by postponement of instalation but mainly by a physical repression of the resistance with methods varying from deployment of sufficiently large numbers of police to force the resisters aside, to assaults on those resisting. In one area in Clonmel, even armed police were deployed for a while. In addition, the State issued court injunctions against a number of activists but for the moment has suspended them, for fear of giving the movement some martyrs in jail and augmenting the resistance. This fear is a realistic one, given that public condemnations of the water meter resisters by two Government Ministers, backed up by a compliant media, have resulted mainly in antagonizing public opinion against the Government and the police. Detecting political opportunity in the changing breeze, a number of political parliamentary representatives, notably Sinn Féin TDs, who previously announced they were going to pay the Water Charge but under protest, have now indicated they will not be paying (though however being careful not to advocate a general campaign of non-payment and thereby ruining their party’s chances of integration into the system).
To sum up: the SP and SWP, to varying degrees, are concentrating on two main approaches, building mass demonstrations and electoral campaigning. A group of non-aligned individuals are concentrating on physical opposition to the instalation of meters. Which should we support?
The mass demonstration mobilisation approach is already idealogically split between insistence on non-payment one the one hand and on the other, a broader church tolerating payment under protest by its numbers. Increasing numbers at the cost of an important tactic such as non-payment, particularly at a time when the opposition to the meters is growing, seems a particularly retrograde step. On the other hand it seems tactically unsound, in the absence of a convincingly large presence in the resistance movement, to split on this issue rather than to remain inside it fighting for the line of non-payment.
It is hard to avoid the suspicion that the SWP, through its front PBP, has agreed to tolerate in the ranks of the mobilising organisation those who refuse to advocate non-payment, like for example Sinn Féin and the Unite trade union, even to dropping or muting the SWP’s own line of non-payment, in order to be the left-wing of a larger campaign – i.e. political opportunism. Since the SP and the AAA do not have anything like the numbers or connections necessary to have a significant impact on the resistance movement from a lone position, it is also hard to avoid the suspicion that they have left the broader campaign in order to posture at being more revolutionary than the SWP and, perhaps, if the broad resistance movement continues to grow, to gain in recruitment from its more militant Left members.
However, the general strategy of both the SP and the SWP is in any case wrong. Large demonstrations have a morale-building effect, of course; they give the resistance a physical presence representing many who could not be present and they strengthen the hopes of the resistance – up to a point. But building successively larger demonstrations will not in itself change the ruling class’ determination to make the people pay for the financial crisis. And at some point, demonstrations may peak and then begin to reduce in numbers as people perceive that nothing will be changed through this tactic. This in fact occurred a couple of years ago when the SWP tried to organise a programme of escalating demonstrations against austerity measures. The demonstrations then have a demoralising effect as those who continue to attend see them getting smaller.
The “Pink Ladies” in Coolock protest Garda violence against water meter resisters November 2014. A similar demonstration took place in Tallaght. (Photo John Ayres, published in The Broadsheet – see link for the issue and more photos).
Those who advocate physical resistance with regard to the meter installation seem to me to be on the right track but they are too few in numbers to have a decisive impact. They need the support of the rest of the resistance movement. It is the meter resisters who have widely exposed the connection between the State and private company installing the meters and the degree to which the State is willing to go in order to push its program through. They have done this through their actions and through filming police violence and disseminating the videos through the Internet. It is they who have rattled the Ministers into making ill-considered statements which in turn have deepened the mood of resistance. The rest of the resistance movement needs to find ways to support the physical resistance, physically if possible and ‘morally’ when not, e.g. by statements of support, pickets of news media demonising physical resisters as for example recently against Independent Newspapers and protest pickets of the police, as the “pink ladies” did for example in Coolock and in Tallaght (photos: http://www.broadsheet.ie/2014/11/20/the-pink-ladies/)
In the long run, of course, the Irish capitalist class can content itself with installing meters where it can do so without difficulty, then later isolating each area of resistance in turn, swamping it with police and installing the meters. But if the meter installation resistance were to be combined with large demonstration mobilisations and identified with by the broader movement, then the State would risk the development of a situation that could threaten its very existence unless it abandoned its Water Charge plan and thinks again about how to finance its debt. That is far from being all that revolutionaries would want but that kind of victory, transitory though it may be in the longer term, would provide a welcome respite for the people. It would also give rise to a huge boost in confidence for the ordinary people and lessons in effective tactics of resistance, as well as a sorting through of who are worthy to lead future struggles and who are not.
rebelbreeze 