Frank Kitson, a leading terrorist and General in the British Army, died today at the age of 97.
As the national liberation struggle of the Occupied 6 Counties began, Kitson was appointed as commander of British forces in Belfast in 1970. He organised “countergang” death squads such as the Military Reaction Force and the Force Research Unit.
These units bombed and randomly targeted innocent nationalists, attempting to place the blame on the IRA. He promoted infiltration of and psyops against the Republican movement. He emboldened and directed Loyalist death squads and deployed the Paras to massacre nationalists.
Kitson was a leading figure in the British counterinsurgency campaigns in Malysia and Kenya. It was here he developed his theories on how to crush national liberation and communist struggles.
He advocated for massive population control and terror to deprive struggles of support. He advocated for forming paramilitary groups that were free to terrorise and assassinate at will, as well as spread doubt among natives. He drew from these campaigns and deployed them in occupied Ireland.
As an advocate of psyops, Kitson used the mainstream media to spread malicious lies about the Republican movement, including absurd propaganda such as claiming that the IRA were found to be worshipping Satan.
Under his command and through his recommendations prisoners were tortured, civilians brutalised and countless were interned.
While Kitson was removed from his position in 1972, his theories and the framework he established in Belfast came to be adopted by the British imperialists in Ireland for decades.
Many of the terror strategies he developed are used in Ireland and in imperialist occupations around the world today as part of “low intensity operations”.
Frank Kitson was a crusader for Empire and he was well rewarded for his campaign of murder and terrorism. He also lauded by the British press and given countless awards.
It is shameful that he never faced the People’s Justice for his crimes. That this man was allowed to retire and live out his life in peace is a symptom of the deep sickness in British society. That this man dies with full honours shows that collusion, terror and murder were official British state policy in Ireland.
As the imperialists have developed their tactics and strategies, so have the people. No matter what new innovations in subversion, terror and brutality the enemy comes up with they will be overcome. The struggle of the Palestinian Resistance today has taught the imperialists that lesson once again.
The struggle for the All Ireland Republic continues despite the best efforts of British imperialism. One day soon the British Empire will be buried along with Frank Kitson.
We often hear people talk of the need for unity in progressive and revolutionary movements, which is understandable since the movements are often weakened by divisions – in other words, by disunity.
We may often hear the plaintive cry from someone that “we all want the same thing so why don’t we all just unite”? Clearly the issue is more complicated than it seems at first glance; there are factors working in favour of disunity also.
It is clear that calls for unity alone have not achieved it and much less often do we hear any serious attempt to define the conditions for unity, its principles and the obstacles to overcome, nor at times, the pitfalls in unity for the revolutionary movement, for there are those too. 1
And it does not necessarily mean that if our organisations call for the same thing that what all actually want is the same. We know from experience the widely different meanings that are routinely understood by “democracy”, for example – or even “republic”.
(Image sourced: Internet)
Starting with practice
It has long seemed to me that not only the real test of unity but also its best starting point is in action. That can be in a joint decision to take some specific action (such as a picket or an occupation) or a range of actions but also in joining in an action or actions organised by others.
Not only is action the real test of the expressed desire for action but in the course of action unexpected problems and opportunities arise, posing further questions at the time and for discussion and reflection afterwards.
Practice shines a light on both the conscious intentions and the unconscious reactions to events of activists and organisations.
It is sometimes suggested that what we need is a conference of all those who are in struggle for an objective (or range of objectives), where we can hammer out an agreed statement of aims. I believe that stage should arise after those interested have taken joint action, not before.
For one thing, those who are not really interested in action can attend such a conference and play a disruptive or distracting role in the proceedings. Secondly, those who make great statements of desire for commitment to unity can only be tested in practice, so why not begin with that?
(Image sourced: Internet)
Practical rules
There are certain rules in united action that hardly need discussion but should be understood.
Each component organisation should promote the action either publicly or within close circles as agreed and maintain the agreed confidentiality both before and after the agreed action.
Arrival and departure should be at place and time as agreed.
No distracting event should be planned by any of the component organisations to take place in the vicinity or near the date of the agreed joint action.
The choice of speakers should be agreed beforehand and adhered to.
It is good practice for the action to be reviewed afterwards not only internally but jointly by the participants also, as far as is practicable, to agree on the lessons to be drawn and to be applied.
Publicity before and reports afterwards should list the participating organisations and also mention the presence of independent activists.
Criticism of participating organisations or of individual comrades of such should be taken up with the responsible organisations concerned through private channels before any response is publicised and careful thought given to alternatives and possible consequences of criticism in public.
Revolutionaries should remember and constantly remind themselves that no matter how militant and ideologically correct an organisation may be thought to be, it is not infallible. Furthermore, it does not come at a value above that of the revolutionary and progressive movement.
Consequently, it is not necessarily or always true that what benefits the party or organisation benefits the movement, nor will the reverse always be the case.
Explanation of or expansion on the above:
Late arrival may disrupt the action planned or leave those who arrive on time unnecessarily exposed. On the other hand arrival too early so as to appear in photos or video to be the only ones participating is disrespectful and harmful to unity.
It is not unknown for an organisation to plan its own publicised activity to take place a day or two before that agreed jointly with another organisation, thereby weakening the joint action, a shortsighted promotion of an organisation above the cause of revolutionary unity.
This is often a difficult area in planning joint events as each organisation often wants its own representative speaking or an organisation may want an independent speaker or indeed may have reasons against a nominated speaker. 2
If we do not review the action afterwards we are removing the possibility of learning positive and negative lessons from it.3 On the other hand, if we do not review jointly, we may draw different and even contradictory lessons from the experience.
Listing the participating organisations and the presence of independent activists shares credit, which is good for unity.
Premature publication of criticism will be poison to a united front.
When an organisation takes an incorrect position as is practically unavoidable at some point, or fails to take a correct position that the situation calls for, the existence of those who can criticise it internally and externally is essential for the progress of the revolutionary movement.
However, taking the party or organisation’s health as a measure of that of the movement overall is more likely to benefit the organisation’s leaders than that of the movement, something demonstrated time and again in history.
Possible negative aspects of united fronts
We can take it as read that the courses considered have not only possible positive outcomes (which is why we take them) but also possible negative ones, of which we should be aware and take into consideration, for example with a “Plan B” or with flexibility to adapt to the emerging situation.
A partner organisation may fail to uphold its agreed contribution
Having to consult others outside after internal discussion may delay intended actions
Our plans may be intentionally or unintentionally (through bad security measures) betrayed
An action or statement of a partner organisation may cause us embarrassment
We may be exposed to greater attack by actions not agreed upon taken by a partner organisation or by lack of those upon which we agreed
A part of the united front may attack us publicly or even physically, as has occurred a number of times in history.4
The start of the Irish Civil War/ Counterrevolution: Free State soldiers bombarding Republican stronghold in the Four Courts with British cannon under the orders of Michael Collins, 1922. The Republicans refused unity with the Free State government of a divided country under British dominion. (Image source: Internet)
In Conclusion
The enemies of the people, capitalism, colonialism and imperialism being everywhere strong,5 we need united fronts in order to succeed in overthrowing them. It is important for us to be aware that broad fronts are temporary and that unity is relative, so that we are prepared for eventualities.
For the creation of a broad front there needs to be agreement not only on objectives but also on the practical components, the principles and rules of operation. There may be an overall revolutionary united front but also smaller united fronts on disparate issues.6
Participation in a broad front does not necessarily entail agreement with all the people who are part of that front. We may join in a broad front (for example anti-imperialism) with one organisation that we may not find in another broad front (for example in demand of public housing).
Each component organisation or independent activist of the broad front needs to be able and permitted to retain a certain independence as a matter of democracy but also of diversity of experience in struggle from which we can all learn.
End.
FOOTNOTE
1All trends of the radical and revolutionary Left and a number of Irish Republican sources have written on the question of the formation of the broad front but I have refrained from quoting or listing them since, apart from difficulties of selection, I do not think it appropriate to do so in an article aimed at all elements that may combine in broad fronts. I would advise the reader to do their own research and not to rely on one source or even one tendency.
2The latter was the case for example with Hunger Strike commemorations in London when some political trends wanted a speaker from the Provisionals, which refused to speak at the event if the IRSP also had a speaker scheduled. More than one big planned event collapsed or was not repeated on that issue. Also an independent speaker may outline a position publicly to which a participating organisation may take severe exception.
3This is one of the purposes of exercises, not just the familiarisation of personnel with the practice. In a team in which I worked, the introduction of unannounced fire drills, particularly with an observer following the staff and noting factors, revealed unforeseen serious problems which we were then able to plan to overcome.
4The Communist Party of China had an alliance with the Chinese national movement which broke down twice, the first time resulting in the Shanghai Massacre of between 5,000-10,000 communists and leftists on 12th April 1927. In 1921, after two years of the War of Independence, the alliance of various forces in the Irish national liberation movement fractured and the national bourgeoisie and Catholic Church hierarchy opted for neo-colonial government and partition of Ireland, which in turn in 1922 led to civil war between the new State, supported by the UK, and the Republican forces, which ended in defeat for the latter in 1923.
5Relatively speaking, of course and only so long as they do not face the mobilised masses, resolutely led.
6In Ireland for example these might be for public housing, national independence, against military blocs, for revolutionary history commemoration, promotion of the language, against LGBT discrimination, for trade union democracy and against State restrictions, for urban or rural community planning needs, internationalist solidarity (at the moment particularly with the Palestinians), etc.
Among Christmas shopping crowds in Dublin’s city centre, the calls for freedom of political prisoners rang out, while the Irish, Palestinian and Basque flags fluttered in the wind among festive lights and projected light-show.
The Ireland Anti-Internment Campaign was holding its annual political prisoner solidarity picket in the busy O’Connell street, supported by socialist Republican groups and independent activists.
View of picket line looking southward. (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
December is a traditional month in Ireland for focus on Republican prisoners. However, the IAIC campaign has always made a point of remembering political prisoners elsewhere too, with Palestinian and Basque flags erected on its regular pickets.
This year the Campaign had especially requested Palestinian flags and these were present, both the national flag and that of the Peoples Front for the Liberation Palestine, fluttering alongside Basque flags and the green-and-gold Starry Plough.1
In addition, one of the IAIC’s banner displayed a large copy of an image depicting a Palestinian’s arm extended through prison bars to grasp the hand of an Irish Republican prisoner’s hand also from nearby bars, from the original by political cartoonist Carlos Latuf,.
A black banner had been rigged with lights to spell “Saoirse”, the Irish word for “freedom” and the picketers set up in a line with other banners and flags facing the GPO building.2
Political prisoners sometimes have their family visits cancelled as a punishment and during the Covid pandemic prevention period it was used as an excuse to prevent Republican prisoners’ family visits. (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
SHOUTS
A speaker using a megaphone informed passers-by that internment without trial had not ceased in Ireland and that Republicans were being charged and then refused bail by non-jury courts on both sides of the British Border, spending two years in jail regardless of their trials’ outcomes.
All the Republican prisoners, the IAIC speaker said, had been convicted in non-jury special courts. Palestinians were also being convicted in special courts, he said, military courts and many were in jail – in “administrative detention”, i.e interned without ever having been convicted or tried.
Over 3,000 had been arrested in Israeli Army raids since October 7th,3 the speaker said through the megaphone, bringing the overall number of Palestinians in jail to over 7,000.4
(Photo: Rebel Breeze)
The recent exchange of prisoners between the Zionist state and the Palestinian resistance had resulted in liberty for 240 Palestinians, of which 1075 were children and 68 women.
There was regular chanting from the picket line including: “From Ireland to Palestine – Free all political prisoners!” “When there is occupation – Resistance is an obligation!” and “Free political prisoners – Free them now!”
At one point some kind of religious procession was briefly enacted in front of the GPO building and an elderly woman in apparent religious garb approached the picketers shouting something at them which they largely ignored, maintaining their solidarity slogans.
(Photo: Rebel Breeze)
In addition to interested people taking photos or filming video of the protest on their devices, some approached the participants to ask questions and to receive a leaflet, after which a number actually joined the protest line for a while (some until the end).
Occasional passing traffic also sounded their horns in solidarity.
The pavement in front of the GPO showing shoppers and people queuing for food distribution. (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
STATEMENT
As the end of the event’s allocated period approached, a representative of the IAIC asked the participants to gather around and spoke about how resistance brings repression and oppression brings resistance, resistance being the “crime” for which political activists are jailed.
The participants were thanked for their support, whether independents or activists of Ireland Anti-Imperialist Action and Saoirse Don Phalaistín organisations.
The event ended with the acapella singing of “The H-Block Song” by Diarmuid Breatnach, in an adaptation of the original air to the lyrics of what is “still a good song” he said, composed by a man who, along with his party, “no longer supported Republican prisoners”.6
(Photo: Rebel Breeze)
The lyrics recall the struggle of Republican prisoners in the late 1970s against the removal of their ‘Special Category’ political status, which began with refusal to wear prisoner uniform. The struggle escalated to the “no-wash protests” and to hunger strikes in 1980 with ten martyrs in 1981.
As the protesters collected their flags and wrapped up their banners, the nature of current Irish society was underlined by the queues forming up across the road for free food being distributed by charitable organisations.
Early view of picketers, looking northward. (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
INDEPENDENT AND OPEN DEMOCRATIC ORGANISATION
The IAIC is “an independent organisation and open democratic organisation” of ten years’ existence and although it has held events for specific cases such as the framed Craigavon Two,7 its main activity has been regular public pickets in Dublin to highlight ongoing internment in Ireland.
The Campaign group encourages participation by democratic people in its regular pickets, regardless of political organisation affiliation or none and, according to one of the organisers, expects to hold its next one in Dublin in January or February.
The IAIC expects also to take part again in the annual Bloody Sunday Commemoration march in Derry on Sunday 29th January 2024.
end.
Unintentionally impressionistic image, photo taken from the east side of O’Connell Street (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
APPENDIX: ANNIVERSARY OF HANGING OF IRISH REPUBLICAN
Though not mentioned in the discourse, the above event took place within days of the anniversary of the British colonial execution of an Irishman in revenge for his killing of an ex-Republican who had turned informer.
James Carey, in the midst of a ‘witness protection program’ provided as a reward for his betrayal of his comrades in giving evidence in court to ensure the jailing of some and hanging of five others, was killed in a gunfight with Pat O’Donnell.
Carey had been a leading member of the National Invincibles’ (a split from the Fenians) cell in Dublin, and had given the signal for the fatal stabbing of British Under-Secretary Burke and Chief Secretary Lord Frederick Cavendish in Phoenix Park on 6th May 1882.
However, Carey turned “Queen’s Evidence” to testify ensuring the conviction of his former colleagues and even gloated in court at their fate. His reward, but for O’Donnell, would have been a new life with pension under an assumed name with wife and children in the South African colony.
O’Donnell was an independent Republican from the Irish-speaking Gweedore area in Donegal but had been to the USA, where he had cousins who were prominent in the “Molly Maguires”, an Irish-led resistance organisation among miners in the USA.
O’Donnell was hanged on 17th December 1883 but is commemorated in the satirical song “Monto” and also in the serious “Ballad of Pat O’Donnell”. His home town of Gweedore also holds a monument in his honour.
end.
FOOTNOTES
1Flag of the Irish Citizen Army, the first workers’ army in the world, founded to protect workers from the police during the Dublin Lockout/ Strike of 1913.
2The General Post Office, iconic building on Dublin’s O’Connell Street, which was the HQ of the leadership of the 1916 Rising, left a shell by fire from British artillery bombardment but rebuilt later.
6Francis Brolly (1938-1920) of Provisional Sinn Féin, composed the song which was released in 1976. PSF abandoned the struggle in the imperialist-promoted pacification process towards the end of the last century and most of their prisoners were released under licence. However those who made public their disagreement with the colonial occupation and the pacification process were on occasion returned to jail while new “dissidents” were charged and refused bail in special no-jury courts, with tacit support of the PSF.
The following is a compilation by Rebel Breeze of recent short communiqués from Anti-Imperialist Action on the confrontation with a British warship in Dublin and the raids on activists’ homes and arrests under the Gombeen State’s “terrorist” legislation (Offences Against the State Act).
Armed British Terrorists Confronted in Dublin.
On Sunday afternoon, members of Anti-Imperialist Action Ireland along with members of Saoirse Don Phalaistín, carried out a direct action against a British warship in Dublin port.
The protest was called to highlight the ongoing British Occupation of Ireland and to make clear the complicity of British Imperialism in the ongoing Zionist Occupation and Genocide in Palestine. The protest made clear the links between the National Liberation Struggles in Ireland and Palestine.
British Military confronting protesters in Dublin (Image sourced: AIA)
In a militant protest, the activists, chanted ‘From Ireland to Palestine, occupation is crime’ and Britain Out of Ireland and Palestine.’
During the course of the protest, the Republican Activists present confronted Armed British soldiers who appeared on the deck of the ship and a stand off ensued on the gangway.
End the occupation! End the genocide!
Free Palestine!
Free Ireland!
Solidarity picket outside the Dublin courts (Image sourced: AIA)
In a series of coordinated raids in Dublin this morning, a number of Republican Activists have been arrested and detained under section 30 of the Free States “Offenses against the state act”.
These arrests come as the state is increasingly fearful of the growth in Revolutionary Irish Socialist Republicanism and of Anti Imperialist Action Ireland in particular.
The arrests are timed to coincide with the leading role AIA has been playing in support of the Palestinian People and Resistance across the 32 counties and at a time when our members continue to confront and resist Imperialism across Ireland.
(Image sourced: AIA)
AIA condemn the raids and arrests by the Drew Harassers on Republican Community Activists and we call for these activists to be released back to their families and communities immediately.
Harassment, Raids, or Arrests will not stop AIA and Republican Activists from our work to rebuild the struggle for National Liberation and Socialist Revolution, resisting Imperialism or from taking a stand for Palestine.
The Republican Community Activists raided and arrested in Dublin yesterday have been released without charge.
The operation by the Drew Harassers, no doubt at significant cost, was designed to intimidate the growing membership and support base of AIA across Ireland, but it has failed, as all such operations will fail.
AIA welcome home these activists to their families and communities, where they belong. Republicans are not criminals. We will continue to promote the legitimate demand of rebuilding the Republic of 1916 at every opportunity. We will not be deterred and ultimately we will win.
Yesterday’s arrests are only further proof that the Free State fears the message of Revolutionary Socialist Republicanism, fears the growth and levels of support for AIA, fears our support for the Palestinian Resistance and fears our continued legitimate direct actions to confront and resist British, North American, European and Zionist Imperialism in Ireland.
We won’t be going away!
Free Ireland!
Free Palestine!
Also on Saturday, after the giant Palestine solidarity march in Dublin, according to another communiqué, members of AIA, Saoirse Don Phalaistín and Palestinian Solidarity Activists picketed the Leonardo Hotel on Parnell St.
The Leonardo Hotels are owned by Fatell Hotels the largest hotel group in ‘Israel’ and strong supporters of Zionist terrorism and genocide.
In response to the picket, the hotel has decided to enter lockdown, refusing to open the doors for guests.
November 17th is the anniversary of the date when a demonstration, mainly of Irish in solidarity with Fenian prisoners in British jails, saved the public Speakers’s Corner in Hyde Park from State control for everyone.
‘Frederick’ (Friedrich) Engels was there and reported on it (see below) with great admiration for the Irish diaspora. In his seminal The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845) he had not had that feeling for the Irish but had matured as a person and a revolutionary since.1
The Clerkenwell jail wall blown by Fenians (Photo sourced: Internet)
Frederick Engels and Karl Marx, both exiles from Germany, one by choice and the other as a refugee, came to form a strong corresponding, writing and organising partnership. Together they formed the International Working Men’s Association.
The First International, as it came to be called, took a position on many international questions but did not shirk the Irish one and indeed exposed and agitated about the terrible conditions under which Fenians were being held in British jails.
Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa (1831-1915), a Fenian prisoner, wrote that he was for a period chained to the wall and had to eat his food from a bowl on the floor like a dog. It is also recorded that a third of the prisoners died in jail or went insane.
Frederick Engels as a young man (Photo sourced: Internet)
The Irish Republican Brotherhood had been founded in Dublin and in New York on St. Patrick’s Day, 1858 and in the USA quickly became better known as “the Fenian Brotherhood”. In Ireland they were frequently referred to as “the Fenians” or, by those on ‘the inside’ as ‘the IRB’.
Clearly from Engels’ description, “Fenians” was also the common description in Britain too. The Fenians took the war to Britain; the Crown responded by organising a specific police department, the Special Irish Branch of Scotland Yard, to spy on the Irish diaspora and to arrest suspects.
The “Special Branch” became known henceforth as the political department of the British police force but also of British colonial police forces in Ireland, Commonwealth countries such as Australia, and colonies such as Kenya, Uganda, Hong Kong …
We know that that the Fenian prisoners were not forgotten in Ireland, with campaigns for their freedom including articles, public events and even songs composed for them. But evidently they were not forgotten by the Irish diaspora in Britain nor by their socialist and democratic allies.
On November 17th 1872 the First International organised a march to Speakers’ Corner in London to protest the conditions under which those Fenian convicts were having to exist. Engels reported on the march and that he public speaking area was under threat of State control.
The Irish diaspora in Britain, the Irish-born migrants and descendants, contributed hugely to society and especially so to the working class in Britain, including presenting its anthem,2 its classic novel3 and two leaders4 of the Chartists, the working class’ first first genuinely mass movement.
In addition, members of the Irish diaspora helped build up the trade unions and were present in every movement against state repression, police violence, fascism, racism, colonialism and imperialism, fighting in organisations for housing, wages, free speech, political and civil rights.
Depiction of Speakers’ Corner meeting about the Fenian prisoners (Photo sourced: Internet)
Frederick Engels:
III Meeting in Hyde Park
London, November 14, 1872
The Liberal5English Government has at the moment no less than 42 Irish political prisoners in its prisons and treats them with quite exceptional cruelty, far worse than thieves and murderers.
In the good old days of King Bomba, the head of the present Liberal cabinet, Mr. Gladstone, travelled to Italy and visited political prisoners in Naples; on his return to England he published a pamphlet which disgraced the Neapolitan Government before Europe for its unworthy treatment of political prisoners.
This does not prevent this selfsame Mr. Gladstone from treating in the very same way the Irish political prisoners, whom he continues to keep under lock and key.
The Irish members of the International in London decided to organise a giant demonstration in Hyde Park (the largest public park in London, where all the big popular meetings take place during political campaigns) to demand a general amnesty.
They contacted all London’s democratic organisations and formed a committee which included MacDonnell (an Irishman), Murray (an Englishman) and Lessner (a German) — all members of the last General Council of the International.
A difficulty arose: at the last session of Parliament the government passed a law which gave it the right to regulate public meetings in London’s parks.
It made use of this and had the regulation posted up to warn those who wanted to hold such a public meeting that they must give a written notification to the police two days prior to calling it, indicating the names of the speakers.
This regulation carefully kept hidden from the London press destroyed with one stroke of the pen one of the most precious rights of London’s working people — the right to hold meetings in parks when and how they please.
To submit to this regulation would be to sacrifice one of the people’s rights.
The Irish, who represent the most revolutionary element of the population, were not men to display such weakness.
The committee unanimously decided to act as if it did not know of the existence of this regulation and to hold their meeting in defiance of the government’s decree.
Last Sunday at about three o’clock in the afternoon two enormous processions with bands and banners marched towards Hyde Park.
The bands played Irish songs and the Marseillaise6; almost all the banners were Irish (green with a gold harp in the middle) or red.
There were only a few police agents at the entrances to the park and the columns of demonstrators marched in without meeting with any resistance. They assembled at the appointed place and the speeches began.
The spectators numbered at least thirty thousand and at least half had a green ribbon or a green leaf in their buttonhole to show they were Irish; the rest were English, German and French.
The crowd was too large for all to be able to hear the speeches, and so a second meeting was organised nearby with other orators speaking on the same theme.
Forceful resolutions were adopted demanding a general amnesty and the repeal of the coercion laws which keep Ireland under a permanent state of siege.
At about five o’clock the demonstrators formed up into files again and left the park, thus having flouted the regulation of Gladstone’s Government.
This is the first time an Irish demonstration has been held in Hyde Park; it was very successful and even the London bourgeois press cannot deny this.
It is also the first time the English and Irish sections of our population have united in friendship.
These two elements of the working class, whose enmity towards each other was so much in the interests of the government and wealthy classes, are now offering one another the hand of friendship; this gratifying fact is due principally to the influence of the last General Council of the International,[307] which has always directed all its efforts to unite the workers of both peoples on a basis of complete equality.
This meeting, of the 3rd November, will usher in a new era in the history of London’s working-class movement.
You might ask: “What is the Government doing? Can it be that it is willing to reconcile itself to this slight? Will it allow its regulation to be flouted with impunity?”
Well, this is what it has done: it placed two police inspectors and two agents by the platforms in Hyde Park and they took down the names of the speakers.
On the following day, these two inspectors brought a suit against the speakers before the ustice of the Peace. The justice sent them a summons and they have to appear before him next Saturday.
This course of action makes it quite clear that they don’t intend to undertake extensive proceedings against them.
The government seems to have admitted that the Irish or, as they say here, the Fenians have beaten it and will be satisfied with a small fine. The debate in court will certainly be interesting and I shall inform you of it in my next letter.[308]
Of one thing there can be no doubt: the Irish, thanks to their energetic efforts, have saved the right of the people of London to hold meetings in parks when and how they please.
Notes
307 By the “last” General Council Engels means the London Council that existed before the Hague Congress of the International at which a decision was adopted to transfer the scat of the General Council to New York.
308 In the fourth article of the Letters from London series: “Meeting in Hyde Park. — The Position in Spain,” written on December 11, 1872, Engels reported that the Justice of the Peace could do no more than impose the smallest possible fine, and since his decision anyway ran contrary to the rules governing behaviour in Hyde Park the accused demanded that the case be brought before a court of appeal.
Engels’s Letters from Londonappeared in La Plebe, the newspaper of the International’s sections in Italy, early in April 1872, and continued throughout the year.
Early in 1873, Engels’s co-operation with La Plebewas temporarily interrupted due to government reprisals against the paper’s editors.
La Plebe was published under the editorship of E. Bignami in Lodi between 1868 and 1875, and in Milan between 1875 and 1883. Up to the early seventies the newspaper followed a bourgeois-democratic line, later it became socialist.
In 1872-73 La Plebeplayed an important role in the struggle against the anarchist influence in the Italian working-class movement. Engels’s contributions greatly promoted the paper’s success.
In 1882, the first independent party of the Italian proletariat the Workers’ Party — formed around La Plebe.
Source: Marx and Engels on Ireland, Progress Publishers, Moscow 1971; First Published: in Italian in La Plebe, November 17, 1872; Transcribed: by Andy Blunden.
1Aided by the Burns sisters Lizzie and Mary when he lived in Manchester, one of whom was his partner until she died and the other, subsequently his wife.
5The two main bourgeois political parties in Britain at the time were the Conservatives and Liberals; over time the latter declined and was replaced in its counterpoint to the Conservatives by the British Labour Party.
6French national anthem now but originally song of the French Republican uprising of 1789. In addition the air has been used for the lyrics other revolutionary songs.
Richard O’ Rawe’s Stakeknife’s Dirty War is a timely book, coming as it does after the death, or supposed death of Stakeknife in England and what looks like a thwarting of the intent and findings of Boutcher’s Kenova Inquiry into the affair.
It is now accepted by all that IRA Volunteer Scappaticci was also the British agent known as Stakeknife.
O’Rawe had access to IRA volunteers and former intelligence operatives and weaves together aspects of Scappaticci’s life and role into a narrative that is convincing and despite the nature of the subject matter, torture, murder and betrayal it is an easy read.
O’Rawe also introduces us to Scappaticci the person. The person however, isn’t any more likeable than the British agent, torturer and murderer. In fact, it would seem they are flip sides of the same coin. Scappaticci was an industrious character, always on the make, running private tax scams.
He was used to money long before he became a paid British agent. His fortune earned from murders on behalf of the British and the IRA, though the IRA weren’t giving him anything like the sum the British did, is estimated to be in the region of a million pounds in pay-outs.
He also had various properties. Scappaticci was also a lowlife thug long before the British and the IRA gave him carte blanche to murder and torture his way through republican ranks. Some of things he did, had he not been in the IRA would have led to him being kneecapped by the IRA.
A man called Collins made the mistake of publicly calling the area in Twinbrook in which Scappaticci lived ‘Provie Corner’. Scappaticci did not like that and decided that Collins had to pay for his transgression.
He knocked on Collins’ door and, when it was answered, the informer battered the older man multiple times over the head with a sock containing a brick. Only when Collins collapsed did Scappaticci walk away.
This is the type of low life thuggish behaviour that the IRA was willing to tolerate and perhaps even encourage from people like Scappaticci. In a genuinely political movement, a thug like Scappaticci would have been out on his ear. But not in the IRA nor in Sinn Féin.
He was, to paraphrase the Yanks when talking about the Nicaraguan dictator Somoza, “he may be a son of a bitch, but he is our son of a bitch”, though in this case it would seem that not only was he theirs he had just the qualities that both the IRA and the British valued, ruthless thuggish qualities.
Scappaticci the person and agent are intimately related it would seem though O’Rawe doesn’t explicitly say so. He does however, give us ample material with which to draw that conclusion.
One of the issues never dealt with it in the press and not really fully covered here is what type of organisation recruits, tolerates and promotes such people. He was a reprobate who should never have graced the ranks of the IRA. That he did so, is down to Adams and co.
That is also clear from the book. It is not an aspersion on Adams or on McGuinness either to question their role.
Republican funeral, Scappaticci on left photo, Adams on right (Photo cred: Pacemakers)
The latter of the two comes in for some questioning in the book regarding his role and O’Rawe goes into some detail and also explains in the epilogue that before beginning his research he was unaware of the level of unease amongst republicans about McGuinness’ trustworthiness.
Though he does point out earlier that if McGuinness was a tout, why was it necessary for the British to have a spy such as Willie Carlin get close to him. The same could also be said of Adams.
The British had an agent, Denis Donaldson, whispering sweet nothings in Adam’s ear over many years, shaping Adam’s view of the world and reporting back to the British how successful he had been in his endeavours.
The Peace Process, in that regard, was partially the result of what ideas the British planted in Adam’s and McGuinness’ minds through their various agents. However, it does seem unlikely either of them were touts in the classical sense of the word.
They didn’t need to be, they were at a different level. They were both on the same side as Scappaticci in winding down the war, they just had different methods of going about it.
It is possible that at some stage they had dealings with the British security services in pursuit of common aims. O’ Rawe is not the first to question McGuinness either.
Ed Moloney has put forward the idea that the reprehensible proxy bombs that provoked so much revulsion were signed off on, precisely because they would strengthen the hands of those who sought to wind up the war.
O’Rawe gives many examples of what Scappaticci and the other British agents in the Internal Security Unit did. It wasn’t limited to executing alleged informers or those the British thought should be removed for various reasons under the guise of them being informers.
They were also in a position to give information on operations which led to the British either arresting or killing the Volunteers involved. The book opens with an account of one such operation, where fortunately they were able to pull back from it without the planned British ambush going ahead.
There were of course other incidents, one of them being Loughall where the British ambushed an entire unit of the IRA. Scappaticci and his ilk did great harm to the IRA, but they were not the reason the IRA lost the war, and O’Rawe doesn’t argue it was either.
However, others have made this point. But the IRA was never going to win the war, they weren’t going to outgun the Brits ever.
Another part of the problem of course, is related to Scappaticci. A movement so highly infiltrated would always have problems, but it is telling of the political weakness of the IRA and Sinn Féin that a thug like Scappaticci could rise through the ranks and remain at the top for so long.
That says more about their weaknesses, than anything else.
That Denis Donaldson, a British agent was the chief advisor to the IRA and Sinn Féin on strategy, for so long, shaping policy, whilst Scappaticci weeded out of the ranks anyone who would oppose it, says more about the weakness of republican politics than whether operations went ahead or not.
O’Rawe, however, is more interested in what happened and who bears responsibility for it.
He is quite clear that the IRA are to blame and is equally clear that those in the intelligence services who allowed Scappaticci and other British agents in the ISU to murder their way through republican ranks are also to blame.
He is not wrong in that, Danny Morrison described Scappaticci as Number 10’s murderer(1) and that he was, he was also the IRA and Sinn Féin’s murderer.
Adam’s infamously justified in a blasé fashion the IRA murder of alleged informer Charles McIlmurray in 1987 when he said that “like anyone else living in West Belfast [he] knows the consequence for informing is death.”(2)
Neither the British, the IRA, Sinn Féin and Gerry Adams in particular, get to wash their hands of the affair.
This book is an important contribution to uncovering the truth of Troubles, one which will neither please Sinn Féin nor the British and Irish governments written from the perspective of a former IRA volunteer.
It deserves to be read and kept on the book shelf as the issue is not going away any time soon.
Currently the Garda Representative Association is in a public struggle with the body’s most senior officer and nearly 99% in a high-participation poll of GRA members voted as having no confidence in Drew Harris, the Commissioner.1
The real issue for the GRA (Garda Representative Association) is that they enjoyed the rosters adopted by the Garda Síochána during the Covid pandemic and don’t want to abandon them. Of course not. Four days off after four days on shift must be nice and would we all had that.
But for that, the Gardaí would be required to work 12-hour shifts on their four days on and they are not complaining about that all – they are clamouring to do it. The workers’ movement fought hard for the 8-hours day and in in 1886 Anarchists in Chicago were martyred in that struggle.2
Not so long ago in the West, 12-hours was a usual shift for a worker thoughfor six days (“seventy hours was his weekly chore”).3 There is a well-known close association of fatigue with harmful incidents (as remarked upon by James Connolly)4 — and also with shoddy work.
Most Gardaí working 12-hour shifts will adapt themselves to the long hours by taking care to stretch themselves as little as possible but always being available for short energetic work, i.e evictions, intimidating industrial pickets, batoning protest marches and conducting raids.5
Justice Minister Helen McEntee says that she will not interfere in the dispute though at the same time expressed support for Harris and mildly criticised the threatened strike action by the GRA. Naturally the ruling class does not want to alienate their first line of physical defence.
But Sinn Fein TD Pearse Doherty last Thursday attacked the Government and Fine Gael in particular over what he called a “hands off” approach to the dispute by the Justice Minister. According to SF the Gardaí are a service valued and needed by communities.
This benevolent SF attitude to the Gardaí even extends to “specialist groups”.
Doherty and his party leaders now choose to forget that Irish Republicans, including thousands of their own supporters when it was a Republican party, have been spied upon, harassed, threatened, raided, beaten up, framed and perjured against in order to see them jailed.
Sinn Féin’s attitude to the Gardaí is a clear illustration of its change from revolutionary opposition to accommodation with the Gombeen capitalist system — and when in government they will use the Gardaí against any resistance to the system as currently they are using the PSNI.
GARDAI – A LONG REACTIONARY HISTORY
The Gardaí, as the first line of physical defence of the Irish Gombeen class has a long anti-working class, anti-Republican and anti-Left history. The intelligence branch CID worked with the National (sic) Army in identifying Republicans to kidnap, torture and murder.6
ANTI-REPUBLICAN
After the defeat of the Irish Republican Movement by the State forces armed and equipped by British imperialism, the Irish neo-colonial state used the Gardaí to harass Republicans.
Eoin O’Duffy, the second Garda Commissioner (1922-1933) of the Irish State, hounded Irish Republicans and socialists during the Civil War and after, one of the causes of political emigration from Ireland and in 1932 (still in his post) founded the Irish fascist Blueshirt organisation.7
Eoin O’Duffy reviewing his fascist “Blueshirts” in the 1930s – he founded them while still the second Garda Commissioner of the Irish State (1922-1933). (Photo sourced: Internet)
O’Duffy and his Blueshirts attempted to prepare a coup against the De Valera government of Fianna Fáil and after partial suppression by the government, went on to combine with another two reactionary political organisations to form the Fine Gael Party in 1933.8
Ned Broy, appointed third Garda Commissioner (1933-1938) created the Special Branch9 (nicknamed “Broy’s Harriers”10 after a Bray dog hunting pack) to repress the fascist movement. However, he filled the unit with ex-military who had been anti-Republican during the Civil War.
Subsequently, “Broy’s Harriers” also carried out repression against the Republican movement opposed to De Valera and Fianna Fáil.
In the long line of Garda Commissioners that followed, all have presided over repression of the Irish Republican and Left movements, as well as against Travellers and LGBT11 people and even in persecution of people providing contraception prevention.
Some Commissioners have resigned or retired in controversy: Patrick McLaughlin (1978-1983), retired in the wire-tapping scandal and Patrick Callinan (2010-2014`), over the phone-tapping GSOC and penalty points corruption scandal.
Noirin O’Sullivan (2014-’17) during the breath-testing corruption and persecution of Garda whistleblower controversy, resigned the post and disturbingly, walked into a job as Director of Strategic Partnerships for Europe at the International Association of Chiefs of Police.
Then Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan speaks privately to then Deputy Commissioner Noirin O’Sullivan; she succeed him when he resigned in controversy, herself resigning in a separate controversy not long afterwards (Photo cred: Eamonn Farrell in The Journal)
Republican prisoner solidarity pickets are frequently harassed and subject to attempted intimidation and individual activists are followed, stopped and questioned etc.
The no-jury political Special Criminal Court regularly jails Republicans on charges of “membership of an illegal organisation”, sending people to jail largely on the word of a Garda officer at the rank of Superintendent and above, who never reveal their alleged sources.
In 1976, the Irish State tried to smash the Irish Republican Socialist Party by pinning the Sallins Mail Train Robbery on them, though they knew the robbery wasn’t theirs. Forty homes were raided and false confessions beaten out of victims by the special Garda “Heavy Gang” unit.12
Three innocent activists were sentenced to 12 years in jail as a result and some of the special unit went on to frame others with false confessions also, including Joanna Hayes and family in the “Kerry Babies” case, as outlined in the Crimes and Confessions RTÉ series.
The last time the Gardai took unofficial industrial action by phoning in ‘sick’ was during the “blue flu” of 1998, when however their Special Branch remained very active indeed.
Foiling an attempted robbery by a Real IRA unit, the Special Branch Gardaí shot and killed Volunteer Ronan McLoughlin in the back while he was driving away from them. Despite the victim posing no threat to anyone when he was killed, the Gardaí were judged ‘innocent’.13
ANTI-PROGRESSIVE, ANTI-WORKING CLASS
The long-overdue second inquest into the fatalities of the 1981 Stardust Fire is underway as this piece is being written and in 1983, Garda Special Branch raided the launch of Christy Moore’s vinyl LP An Ordinary Man to seize the record after Stardust owners objected to a song in it.14
Over the years of the State the Gardaí have attacked protests and demonstrations, including with particular infamy those of the 1981 Hunger Strikes solidarity march15 and Regain the Streets in 200216 in Dublin and the Corrib Pipeline protests17 against British Petroleum in Mayo.
Gardaí also harassed and assaulted some of the since-famous Dunne’s Stores anti-apartheid strikers and again the more recent Debenhams sacked workers’ pickets.18
Video online of Gardaí using Covid restrictions to harass picketing sacked Debenhams workers. Later they used violence to remove picketers so Debenhams, defaulting on redundancy payments owed to workers, could remove stock from their closed stores.
The Gardaí have on numerous occasions displayed their tolerance of fascists, even to the extent of tolerating abuse from them and flagrant violation of Covid19 regulations.19 Conversely Gardaí have threatened and attacked antifascist counter demonstrators on many occasions.
In February 2016 a mass mobilisation of anti-fascists and anti-racists prevented the fascist islamophobic organisation Pegida from launching itself in Dublin. Gardaí attacked the antifascists and batoned an RTÉ cameraman in the face.
Gardaí threatening antifascists after the latter had been attacked by armed fascists on Custom House Quay and Gardaí had then attacked the antifascists, pushing and shoving them on to Butt Bridge. (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
On a number of occasions outside the GPO, Gardaí witnessed fascist assaults on opponents without even taking names of perpetrators but on 22nd August 2020 they went much further in showing their true colours as armed fascist thugs attacked a counter protest on Custom House Quay.
The Gardaí briefly separated the combatants and then the Public Order Unit attacked the unarmed antifascists, threatening them with raised batons and pushing and shoving them away on to Butt Bridge. Later they lied to the media, pretending that no serious violence had occurred.20
Three weeks later, on 12th September, an LGBT activist and a couple of friends were observing a rally of the fascist National Party when they were mobbed, threatened and shoved and one was struck on the head with a wooden club which had a Tricolour wrapped around it.
The Gardaí again lied to the media and said there had been no violent incidents. However video of the attack and of a Garda confronting the victim with blood streaming from her head and waving her away, circulated widely and the Gardaí had to change their story.
Ms Izzy Kamikaze being pushed by Gardaí down Kildare Street after being struck on the head with a club by a fascist (Photo sourced: Internet )
It took the victim to swear out a formal complaint and a month’s delay before the specific wooden club assailant was charged. Last year he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three years prison.21
In the face of criticisms about their failure to prevent random violent assaults in Dublin’s city centre this year, the Gardaí claimed that they did not have enough personnel to prevent them. However it seems they can always find huge numbers to repress people’s resistance.
Early in June 2022, 100 Gardaí, including an armed unit and a helicopter, took part in the eviction of two activists of the Revolutionary Housing League, who had taken over for the homeless a large empty property on Eden Quay, Dublin. (That building remains empty at the time of writing).22
Garda vehicles in their eviction operation against a building occupied by the Revolutionary Housing League in Berkely Road 11 July this year (Source: RHL)
In early July this year, a similarly large number of Gardaí with a helicopter in attendance blocked two ends of Berkely Road in Dublin in order to evict four RHA activists holding a three-storey empty building in which they had recently housed some homeless people.23
Gardaí have acted against a number of housing campaign actions, in one documented case sending an armed response unit. While acting against housing activists, they have at the same time permitted illegal evictions without intervening (except against protesting housing activists).24
On yet others, masked Gardaí have colluded with masked thugs to evict housing activists.25
Masked Gardaí working with masked private thugs in carrying out an eviction in Dublin 2018. (Photo sourced: Internet)
Although Gardaí were nearly invisible on the huge anti-extra-water-tax demonstrations, they were present and active on many of the smaller and more local anti-water-privatisation protests opposing the water meter installations for Denis O’Brien’s Uisce Éireann, assaulting and arresting people.
During the long decades of church sexual predation and other abuse by members of (mostly) Catholic Church institutions, complaints to the Gardaí were routinely ignored. Indeed, the Gardaí often seized escaped victims in order to return them to the institutions.26
It is old news that the Gardaí have abused their power against members of the public but less known is that members have done so for sexual advantage or in the course of their personal domestic relationships. Of course this is not surprising since abuse of power reaches everywhere.27
Terence Wheelock’s28 relatives and their supporters are not the only ones accusing the Gardaí of having killed someone in their custody and Vicky Conway (recently deceased) quoted the figure of an annual average of 15 deaths around Garda custody from 2017 to 2021.29
Corruption in the Gardaí has come to light a number of times, including most recently the false reporting of drink-driving checks and the failure to charge a number of people who were actually found to be driving “under the influence”.
In the course of the above a number of whistleblowers within the Gardaí were intimidated, harassed and in one case an attempt was made to frame a prominent one for abuse of a child.30
CURRENT STRUGGLE BETWEEN THE GRA AND THE COMMISSIONER
Irish Republicans have long held a particular enmity towards Drew Harris, given his previous employment as Assistant Commissioner of the colonial gendarmerie in the Six Counties.31 They regularly refer to him as of MI5, the British Intelligence department operating in the UK.
This is understandable and, in fact, it is less natural that other sections of the Irish polity seem to have had no issue with Harris’ provenance. But in fact, the State’s own senior Gardaí have long been in service, and not always indirectly, to British imperialism, witness Edmund Garvey.32
Former Garda Commisioner Edmund Garvey outside the Four Courts 11/10/1978. (Part of the Independent Newspapers Ireland/NLI Collection). (Photo by Independent News and Media/Getty Images)
The revolutionary Left, socialist republican or just socialist, have no reason to side with the Garda Representative Association in their campaign for a different roster or against Drew Harris. Nor of course do we owe Harris any support either.
Unlike Sinn Féin, our position should be opposition to all of the State’s repressive institutions.
Chief among those institutions and regularly confronting us in repression or exercising its power against working class communities is the Gardaí Síochána, with its long anti-working class, anti-democratic, anti-Republican and anti-Socialist reactionary history.
4Competent investigators, for instance, have found that the greatest number of accidents occur at two specific periods of the working day – viz., in the early morning and just before stopping work at evening. In the early morning when the worker is still drowsy from being aroused too early from his slumbers, and has not had time to settle down properly to his routine of watchfulness and alertness, or, as the homely saying has it, “whilst the sleep is still in his bones”, the toll of accidents is always a heavy one.
After 9 a.m. they become less frequent and continue so until an hour after dinner. Then they commence again and go on increasing in frequency as the workers get tired and exhausted, until they rise to the highest number in the hour or half-hour immediately before ceasing work. How often do we hear the exclamation apropos of some accident involving the death of a worker: “He had only just started”, or “he had only ten minutes to go before stopping for the day”? And yet the significance of the fact is lost on most.
9Now known as the Special Detective Unit; however the “Special Branch” name had a history in Britain, where Scotland Yard formed its Special Irish Branch in 1833 to spy on the Fenian movement among the huge Irish diaspora in the cities of Victorian Britain – and several of its members were Irish. Police services in a number of British present and ex-colonies have also carried on the “Special Branch” name, as far apart as the Six Counties colony and the British Bahamas.
13And McLoughlin’s inquest was delayed for decades.
14 The LP included Moore’s They Never Came Home which alleged that fire exits were chained shut, a matter with which the current inquest is dealing and about which I do not wish to say more at this point. The following account discussing the banning does not mention the Branch raid but I know of it from people who were present: https://theblackpoolsentinel.com/2021/01/11/christy-moore-and-the-stardust-tragedy/
15The marchers were frustrated that they were being prevented from even reaching the British Embassy in Merrion Road, attempted to push through and a battle ensued. Many were injured on both sides but the police baton-charged the whole crowd and even threatened journalists, though most subsequent media reports were either supportive of the Gardaí or blaming both sides; this brief report and photo being the exception: https://www.reportdigital.co.uk/reportage-photo-garda-baton-charging-national-h-blocks-committee-protest—18-jul-image00138214.html
18Indeed in one afternoon, uniformed Gardaí hassled the Dunne Stores picketers in Henry Street under Covid19 pandemic regulations, although all were masked and maintaining social distancing, while around the corner the far-Right were demonstrating mask-less and packed together, without the least interference from the Gardaí. A 100 yards or so down the road, the plain-clothes Special Branch (SDU), the political police, were harassing an anti-internment and political prisoner solidarity picket.
19Occasionally Garda patience snapped and one can see the incredulity in the reaction of the Far-Rightists on those occasions, as they had become so used to doing nearly anything they wanted.
31Previously the Royal Ulster Constabulary (and RIC before that), the PSNI is the armed colonial (and sectarian) police force of the UK State.
32Ned Garvey was ‘outed’ as a British Intelligence ‘asset’ (code name ‘Badger’) by disaffected MI6 handler Fred Holroyd. Garvey denied he was an agent for the British but the Barron Report found that that Holroyd had visited Garvey in his office in 1975 and that he had not made his superiors aware of this. The incoming FF government in 1978 sacked Garvey as having no confidence in him but as a result of not following disciplinary procedures Garvey was able to sue the State and retain his pension. While Garvey was Assistant to Patrick Malone, Garda Commissioner during the British Intelligence/ Loyalist Dublin and Monaghan Bombing in 1974 bomb remains were sent to the Six Counties for forensic analysis. No-one was ever even arrested for the bombing, never mind convicted and the widely-suspected British proxy Glennane Gang went on to murder many more, mostly civilians (see Cadwaller, Lethal Allies).
“Six innocent men” … “Garda oppression and perjury’ … “Longest case in the history of the State”
Four leading human rights organisations this week delivered a petition to the Irish Government asking the Minister for Justice to establish an inquiry into the abuse suffered by six innocent men in the Sallins case almost half a century ago.
Not to do hold such an inquiry, maintained Liam Herrick of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties at a press conference on Tuesday, is to continue the abuse of the victims’ human rights and to fail to prevent such an abuse in the future.
Osgur Breatnach, Liam Herrick and Nicky Kelly at the petition launch press conference (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
Apart from the ICCL, the other three organisations pushing the petition are the Committee for the Administration of Justice (CAJ), the Pat Finucane Centre (PFC) and Fair Trials; the first three are Ireland-based organisations and Fair Trials is a global criminal justice watchdog.
The six innocent men were named as Osgur Breatnach, Michael Barrett, John Fitzpatrick, Nicky Kelly, Brian McNally and Michael Plunkett (deceased1).
At the time in 1976 all were members of a legal political party (the Irish Republican Socialist Party) but were tortured and some jailed in the Irish state.
In the longest series of trials in the history of the State, three of the men were sentenced at the end of 1978 to prison terms of between nine and twelve years each on the basis of no ‘evidence’ but their confessions obtained by torture and which in court they completely retracted.
Michael Plunkett, who had signed no confession walked free while Nicky Kelly absconded the day before the sentence, eventually reaching the USA where he remained until a strong campaign saw Breatnach and McNally freed, whereupon Kelly returned to Ireland and was immediately jailed.
Although the nature of the ‘evidence’ against Kelly was of the same kind as that which had been declared ‘unsafe’ for Breatnach and McNally, Kelly remained in jail forfour-and-a-half years, despite another strong campaign2 and was only freed eventually on ‘humanitarian grounds’3.
PRESS CONFERENCE
ICCL’s Liam Herrick chaired the conference in Buswell’s Hotel4 flanked by survivors Osgur Breatnach and Nicky Kelly, while Chris Stanley of KRW Law sat nearby, all facing the audience which included Sinn Féin’s Pa Daly TD5 and Fionna Crowley of Amnesty International.
Opening the proceedings, Herrick listed the four organisations backing the call for an inquiry and pointed out the present-day relevance of that call, both in terms of the survivors and their families and in terms of wider society.
Not to have that inquiry would be an ongoing violation of human rights, Herrick maintained and pointed out that the ICCL was founded arising out of concerns regarding the post-Sallins robbery arrests and the activities of the Garda CID unit colloquially known as the “Heavy Gang”.
The ICCL Director stated that they could not rest until the demand for an inquiry was met and referenced also “crucial legislation before the Oireachtas”6 and recognition of past injustices in a series of TV documentaries linking the cases, in particular through actual Garda individuals.
Introducing Osgur Breatnach, Herrick acknowledged the leading role he had played in keeping the demand for the inquiry going over the years.
Breatnach read from a prepared statement that there had been cases of torture, perjury and framing innocent people in England, Northern Ireland and the Republic.
It was wrong and hypocritical of the State raising concerns about cases elsewhere not to hold an inquiry into the Sallins case, of which there had been five trials, one the longest in the history of the State.
Breatnach said he went through the process expecting to be jailed but to expose the political nature of their persecution; his and McNally’s convictions were overturned, the ‘confessions’ having been obtained by oppression but despite that none were indicted for that oppression.
Breatnach concluded saying that the State’s refusal to hold an inquiry amounted to cruel and inhuman treatment of the victims and their families and that without the investigation of an inquiry a similar scenario could be repeated at some point ahead.
Nicky Kelly, introduced by Herrick thanked the ICCL for organising the events that day. Speaking apparently ex-tempore with perhaps reference to some bullet-points, he expressed the opinion that the State wanted the victims to die so that they had no need to hold an inquiry.
“Ireland has an impeccable reputation with regard to foreign relations,” Kelly said, but not so within the state. He believed that the Sallins case is “too big in its implications for politicians, judiciary and police force” and all attempts to investigate were obstructed by successive governments.
Liberal politicians in government have been “no different from the rest”, the Wicklow man said and referred to his own personal battle even to get out of jail after the ‘evidence’ to convict him had been discredited and how he had been obliged to undertake a hunger strike to be freed.
Now, rather than hold the inquiry into what went on, they were waiting for him “to be over and done with” Kelly said in conclusion.
Herrick introduced Chris Stanleyof KRW Law who said that cases such as the Birmingham pub bombings and the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, like the Sallins one, all related to the recent conflict and required investigation for the sake of the victims.
Chris Stanley of KRW Law speaking at the petition launch press conference (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
Stanley commented that perhaps the State had been too reliant on the Good Friday Agreement for resolution of these matters.
Commenting on the UK’s new legislation blocking much resolution of historic cases, all but become law, the solicitor regretted the UK had chosen to disengage from Europe but remarked that that they remained signed up to the European Commission of Human Rights.
From among the seated audience, Fionna Crowley of Amnesty International spoke to underline the importance of having an inquiry into the case and that her organisation had been in support of the victims’ campaigns and was fully in support of the current petition for an inquiry.
Breatnach acknowledged that within one week of the arrests, Amnesty had raised public concerns about them.
DELIVERY OF PETITION TO DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
After the conclusion of the press conference with Herrick’s summing-up and thanks to those in attendance, Herrick and ICCL staff along with Chris Stanley, Breatnach, Kelly and a couple of others walked to the Dept. of Justice’s offices on the south side of Stephens Green.
Delivering the petition to the Department of Justice: (from bottom up) Nicky Kelly, Osgur Breatnach, Chris Stanley, Liam Herrick. (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
Pausing for some photos to be taken, a delegation entered the building and presented the petition. Then some more photos were taken outside and Breatnach was interviewed by a TG4 reporter in Irish and Nicky Kelly in English while a light rain began to fall.
TG4 (Caoimhe Ní Laighin) interviews Osgur Breatnach outside the Department of Justice in Stephen’s Green (Diarmuid, brother of Osgur is centre photo and Nicky Kelly to the right). (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
The group split up into smaller groups then, the ICCL staff returning to their office to issue a press statement and others to hope, perhaps with further pushing, for positive developments further – but not too far – down the road. For all and for some much more than others, it’s been a long haul.
End.
Outside the Department of Justice with copies of the four-agency petition (right to left): Liam Herrick of ICCL, Chris Stanley of KRW Law, victims/ campaigners Osgur Breatnach and Nicky Kelly (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
APPENDIX (A): BACKGROUND
The IRSP was the result of a split from what had remained in Sinn Féin after an earlier split in 1969, the group leaving the party then calling themselves ‘Provisional Sinn Féin’.
Not all who had become unhappy with the direction of Sinn Féin departed into Provisional Sinn Féin because they perceived the new group as being much more nationalist than socialist and being also socially conservative.
After some internal struggle that section remaining within what became known as “Official Sinn Féin” left in 1974 under the leadership of Séamus Costello to form the IRSP.
The armed wing of the Republican movement had split along the same lines into Provisional IRA, Official IRA and the Irish National Liberation Army, the latter loyal to the perspective of the IRSP.7
Bernadette Devlin (now McAlliskey) and Tony Gregory (now deceased) were on the IRSP’s Executive but however departed soon afterwards from the party on what they perceived as the dominant relationship of the armed group INLA to the political party.
It appears that the Irish State at that time viewed the IRSP as more dangerous than the two Sinn Féin parties and determined to ensure its demise, framing them for the Sallins Mail Train Robbery in March 1976.8 And framing, rather than mistaking, it was.
The 40 arrested included IRSP members who, tortured by the SDU Garda unit known colloquially as the “Heavy Gang”, confessed to participating in the robbery but who could not possibly have been there. The State decided to put on trial those whose only alibis were with family.
The court chosen was the Special Criminal Court, set up under the Offences Against the State Act in the panic of the 1974 Loyalist and British Intelligence Bombing of Dublin and Monaghan which somehow got blamed on Irish Republicans. The SCC has three judges and no jury.
Until the SCC moved to the court building near the main gate to Phoenix Park, it was located in Green Street, in the very same building where Robert Emmet was tried in 1803 and sentenced to death, his sentence carried out in public in Thomas Street, in the Dublin Liberties area.
The Four IRSP eventually selected for the second of what became four trials included senior member of the party’s Executive and the Editor of its newspaper, The Starry Plough, Osgur Breatnach.9
In the second trial, one of the three judges hearing the case was regularly seen to be sleeping. Only after the judge died suddenly was there another retrial ordered.
In the fourth trial, Kelly being tried in his absence, the judges accepted as fact10 the Prosecution case that the injuries of the accused were due to beating one another up (in Breatnach’s case, that he’d beaten himself up) and that their withdrawn confessions were true.
Mick Plunkett, in the absence of a ‘confession’, was found not guilty but the other three were sentenced to 12 years in jail. In May 1980 Breatnach and McNally were freed by the Appeal Court on grounds that they had suffered ‘oppression’ and that their confessions could not be relied upon.
No investigation took place into who had carried out the ‘oppression’ or how the judiciary had jailed the victims purely on withdrawn confessions and Garda perjury or which political decisions by whom were behind it.
Nicky Kelly returned to Ireland in 1980 — but to jail.
He was only freed by a Minister of Justice on ‘humanitarian’ grounds after four-and-a-half years in jail, a strong campaign seeking his release and finally a hunger strike of 38 days which pushed the European Court of Human Rights to agree to hear his case.
He received a presidential pardon in 1992 from Mary Robinson and in 1993 Breatnach, McNally and Kelly were awarded compensation, allegedly a six-figure amount. But to get that, they had to forgo any litigation on torture or police brutality.
No official inquiry has ever been carried out in the whole set of State actions and in fact some of the Heavy Gang went on to force false confessions from others, most notably the Joanna Hayes and relatives case.11
APPENDIX (B): SUPPORTING STATEMENTS FROM OTHER ORGANISATIONS
Also speaking elsewhere on the day, Director Daniel Holder of the Campaign for the Administration of Justicesaid they support this call and that
“an inquiry into the case of the Sallins Men is long overdue.”
He went on to say that “Over the last few years inquests and other legacy mechanisms in the north have been finally delivering like never before for families who have had to wait decades.
“They are providing important historical clarification for victims and accountability for past human rights violations but now face being shut down by the notorious UK Legacy Bill.”
Pat Finucane Centre (PFC) Director Paul O’Connor said that
“PFC welcomes this demand to the Irish Government for a human rights compliant investigation into the miscarriage of justice that followed the Sallins Trains Robbery 1976.
For too long human rights violations that occurred in the Republic of Ireland during the Conflict have been at best marginalised or at worst ignored.
Successive Irish governments have either relied upon the British to address the investigatory deficit of the Conflict or deflected it as an inconvenient non-issue.
“Now the human rights deficit created by those successive Irish governments is clear – and will be clearer when the legislative effect of the British Legacy Act starts to bite.
The Irish Government was right to challenge the British about the use of torture suffered by the Hooded Men; now it must look to its own police and criminal justice system and acknowledge the torture suffered by the Sallins Men.”
Verónica Hinestroza, Senior Legal Advisor at Fair Trials said:
“According to international standards, States must investigate complaints and reports of torture or ill-treatment.
We call on the Minister for Justice to ensure that a prompt, impartial and independent investigation is conducted into the allegations made by Mr Osgur Breatnach, Mr Michael Barrett, Mr John Fitzpatrick, Mr Nicky Kelly, Mr Brian McNally and Mr Michael Plunkett (deceased), considering that torture and ill-treatment violations are not to be subject to any statutes of limitation.”
2 The campaign PRO was CaoilteBreatnach, a brother of Osgur’s and was supported by many people in the fields of politics and culture, including the band Moving Hearts who performed Christy Moore’s song about the Nicky Kelly case, The Wicklow Boy.
3 By Minister of Justice Michael Noonan after Kelly’s hunger strike of 36 days. According to law, Kelly had exceeded the time period after conviction permitted for registering an appeal and it was claimed that only a ‘pardon’ could set him free.
4 Buswell’s is across the road from Leinster House, the Irish Parliament building and is frequently host to political meetings and press conferences.
5 Recently appointed to Sinn Féin’s front bench as spokesperson on Justice, he is by profession a solicitor.
7 The history of the IRSP is a separate and contentious story but suffice it to say that of the ten hunger strike martyrs in 1981, three were INLA; at one point a number of INLA factions were feuding within it leading to a number of fraternal murders. After the Provisional prisoners embraced the Good Friday Agreement and left the jails renouncing armed resistance, the much smaller contingent of INLA prisoners did the same. The IRSP remains a legal though much reduced political party.
8 The robbery was carried out by a unit of the Provisional IRA which however did not acknowledge operations carried out within the Irish State, to which ion 27th April 1980 they made an exception in a public statement taking responsibility for the robbery. The Irish State chose to ignore their statement as had the British State when the Balcolme Street group ibn 1977 admitted in court their responsibility forthe Guildford Pub Bombingsfor which the UK had jailed the innocent Guildford Four and Maguire Seven.
9 Apart from anything else, the notion that prominent Executive members under constant police surveillance, including one regularly working on the newspaper in the Dublin office (in the days before this could be done from anywhere else), could carry out such an operation, was clearly ridiculous.
10 According to the Court of Criminal Appeal in the “Madden” Case in November 1976, Appeal Courts should usually accept as a finding of fact anything decided by the Special Criminal Court (SCC) to be a fact. Therefore although a court verdict of guilt or innocence can be overturned on appeal, a decision as to fact made in the non-jury Special Court cannot be overturned in any appeal court.
11 Three separate cases of false confessions obtained by Gardaí, including the Sallins and Joanna Hayes cases, were covered in the three-part documentary series Crimes and Confessions by the Irish TV channel RTÉ July 2022- January 2023: https://www.rte.ie/player/series/crimes-and-confessions/SI0000012595?
According to media reports, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said he expects to see a united Ireland in his lifetime. I think he’s wrong but he’s entitled to his opinion. However, some of his following remarks are objectionable and need to be challenged.
Varadkar claimed that in a united Ireland “there will be roughly a million people who are British.” That is false. There may – or may not – be a million IRISH PEOPLE who consider themselves British in a united Ireland, we’ll see. But they will be IRISH CITIZENS.
And they should have equal rights with all other citizens. They should have an equal right to vote, to housing, to their language, without any special restrictions, not to mention pogroms – in other words, nothing like the way their statelet treated its large Catholic minority.
A British soldier stands in front of a section of the burned out houses of Catholics in Bombay Street, Belfast in 1969 (which the Army did not try to prevent Loyalists burning). The arson was the Loyalist response to demands of Catholics for civil rights (while the colonial police response was batons, bullets and gas). (Photo source: Clonard Residents’ Association)
I agree with Varadkar that the quality of a country should be judged “by the way it treats its minorities.” So Varadkar, how did and does your Gombeen State treat its probably oldest ethnic minority? You know, the Irish Travellers?
It is true that “a Republican ballad, a nice song to sing, easy words to learn for some people can be deeply offensive to some people.” Presumably he means to Unionists and Loyalists. Yes, and antifascist and anti-racist songs can be deeply offensive to fascists and racists.
It is also true that some people in the Southern States sing songs about the Confederacy and Robert E. Lee and call it their culture. And the comparison fits – but not with Republicans but with Loyalists!
One of the charming annual expressions of Loyalist culture: a huge bonfire to burn Irish Tricoloursand representations of Catholicism. Palestinian flags and representations of Celtic FC are frequently burned too. Slogans such as KAT (‘Kill All Teagues [i.e Catholics]) are often displayed also. (Photo source: Wikipedia)
It’s not Irish Republicans who spread racism and sectarianism: the Republican creed came into existence precisely against sectarianism. And we know Varadkar actually knows that because not long ago he made some remarks about the wide embrace of the Irish Tricolour.
The Irish Tricolour: a flag presented to revolutionary Irish Republicans by revolutionary French Republican women in Paris in 1848. Not a flag of monarchism, sectarianism or collusion with imperialism or colonialism.
While we uphold Republican principles we don’t have to apologise to anyone, least of all in our own country, Varadkar. It’s you and your party (and the rest of them serving the Gombeen class who threw away independence and slaughtered Irish Republicans) who need to be ashamed.
Leo Varadkar, Taoiseach (Prime Minister) of the current Coalition Government, who made the remarks this week. (Photo sourced: Internet)
People living in Ireland can think and feel what they like, good or bad. But in public, we will celebrate the valuable things in our history and culture. And we’ll do so proudly without apology to anyone.
On the other hand, public displays of Orange sectarianism, racism, homophobia, fascism and anti-LGBT targeting won’t be tolerated in an independent, reunited Ireland. Not for one minute.
Socialist republicans and communists gathered on a traffic island in Dublin’s city centre to mark the International Day of the Prisoner. They flew flags to represent prisoners in Ireland (‘Starry Plough’), the Basque Country and Palestine.
They also displayed a number of placards.
(Photo: IAIC).
The choice of location, apart from being passed by road traffic in three directions, was because of the presence there of the Universal Links on Human Rights memorial sculpture with an eternal flame, commissioned by the Amnesty International organisation.
A plaque near the sculpture bears the following words: “The candle burns not for us but for all those whom we failed to rescue from prison. Who were tortured. Who were kidnapped. Who disappeared. That is what the candle is for.”
Plaque in the ground on the approach to the sculpture. (Photo: IAIC).
Somewhat ironically, one of the placards carried the words: “Amnesty International, do Irish Republican prisoners not have human rights too?” Irish Republicans have long complained that the organisation in question does not raise any issues with regard to Irish political prisoners.
Some have indicated as a possible reason or part-reason the location of the head office of Amnesty International being based in London, capital city of the occupying power. Its interventions on Ireland even during three decades of war in the colony have been very few indeed.
Other placards displayed referred to political prisoners from the liberation wars in India and in the Philippines, the innocent Craigavon Two still in jail and ongoing internment through refusal of bail to Republicansappearing before the no-jury special courts in both administrations.
Some leaflets were distributed about ongoing internment in Ireland through long remands in custody of Republican activists. Between convicted and awaiting trial there are close to 50 political prisoners in jails in Ireland between both administrations.
The Universal Links sculpture by Tony O’Malley (welding by Jim O’Connor) commissioned by Amnesty International. (Photo: IAIC)
The Zionist Israeli state holds 5,000 political prisoners (almost all Palestinian), of which over 1,132 are not even charged (‘administrative detention’). There are 33 female Palestinian political prisoners and 160 child prisoners. Philippines has 803 political prisoners.
The Spanish and French states hold between them around 170 Basque political prisoners.
The event to mark International Day of the Prisoner was organised by the Ireland Anti-Internment Campaign and a spokesperson gave a short explanation on video of the reason for the event with the human rights sculpture in the background.
End.
Some of the flags displayed (Photo: IAIC).Passer-by in conversation with a leafleter. (Photo: IAIC). (Photo: IAIC).
rebelbreeze 