Irosh Oemociuc October/November 2000 Connolly Association: campaigning for a united and independent Ireland ISSN 0021-1125 6 0 p

Further radical changes needed to Police Bill Page 5

Republicanism in the new century Page 7 / ; r . _ >N\

Cork's forgotten history Page 12

END THE C C O L L U S I O N A L L E G A T I O N S

Democrat reporter

IN RECENT weeks the government has been forced to take draconian measures in an attempt to stem a steady flow of damaging revelations concerning allegations of collusion between the secret British security forces and loyalist terror gangs.

The revelations focus on the activities of the shadowy army intelligence outfit, the Force Research Unit (FRU), whose activities are at the heart of the third Stevens inquiry into allegations of collusion.

On 22 September The Sunday People failed in the High Court to overturn a government gagging order preventing the paper from publishing further details concerning allegations that high-ranking intelligence officers were among those under investigation for "orchestrating dozens of loyalist killings".

The paper had previously revealed collusion between the FRU and loyalists in the murder of Francisco Notorantonio, a pensioner and father of 11, who was shot dead by the Ulster Freedom fighters in 1987. The FRU stands accused of passing on disinformation, though loyalist informers suggesting that Mr Notorantonio was a senior IRA figure.

According to the paper, Mr Notorantonio was set up in an attempt to deflect attention from a high-placed IRA informer whose life was in danger after being identified as a target by loyalists.

The action against The Sunday People is one of a long-running series of legal attempts by the government to prevent details emerging of collaboration between British intelligence services and loyalist terror gangs.

Both Ed Moloney of the Irish Sunday Tribune and Liam Clarke of The Sunday Times have had similar run-ins with the government over the case of the FRU agent and Ulster Defence Association intelligence officer Brian Nelson who was convicted on five counts of conspiracy to murder in 1992.

Clarke, who has had extensive access to a former member of the FRU, is currently facing the threat of charges under the Official Secrets Act, as is his informant whose pseudonym is Martin Ingram.

In a bizarre twist, Ingram is understood to be co-operating with the ongoing Steven's inquiry, which is now in possession of thousands of relevant secret intelligence documents handed over by the army's commanding officer in the north, Sir Hew Pike. The inquiry team is

P a t Flnucane's w i d o w Geraldine, t h e couple's daughter Katherlne and the solicitor's brother M a r t i n met British prime minister Tony Blair In September and reiterated their call for an Independent public inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the solicitor's murder

about to question around 30 former FRU operatives about the unit's activities.

The latest revelations and government gagging efforts have also added fuel to long-standing calls for an independent judicial inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the 1989 murder by loyalists of the Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane.

The case for an inquiry was made directly to the British prime minister in September when members of the Finucane family met Tony Blair in Downing Street.

"We were very strong in putting forward the allegations of security force collusion," said Geraldine Finucane, the murdered solicitor's widow, after their meeting.

"This case goes beyond who pulled the trigger and our primary aim has not been to find the killer but the people behind this who sanctioned my husband's death and allowed it to happen."

One critical question which remains unanswered is how far up information about collusion between the security forces and loyalist killers went.

Commenting after the meeting, Martin Finucane, the murdered solicitor's brother, said that the British

prime minister had "a moral responsibility" to the family. 'Tony Blair has under his control all the answers to the questions we have raised," he said

During the meeting, Mr Blair gave an assurance that he would examine all the evidence and allow an inquiry if he found that there were grounds for one. He also promised to ensure that any members of the security forces found to be involved with the Finucane murder would be dealt with severely. The security forces are expected to fight hard to prevent an inquiry taking place.

So far, only one person, William Stobie, a former RUC Special Branch agent and UDA quartermaster, has been charged in connection with the Finucane murder. Stobie has admitted to procuring the weapon used to kill Finucane.

However, key prosecution witness Neil Mulholland recently signed himself into a psychiatric hospital, leading to speculation that the case against Stobie is about to collapse.

In 1990, afraid that he was being set up by his RUC handlers, Stobie contacted The Sunday Life newspaper and asked to speak to a journalist. Passed on to Mulholland, who was then working on the paper, he gave the

journalist detailed information about his role as a state agent and his part in the Finucane killing.

Last year Mulholland, who is now a Northern Ireland Office press officer, agreed to speak to the Stevens inquiry team. The information provided resulted in Stobie's arrest.

Shortly before Mulholland had himself admitted to a psychiatric hospital

the Director of Public Prosecutions reduced the charge against Stobie from murder to aiding and procuring.

This has also led to concerns that a deal similar to the one which saw another double agent, Brian Nelson, convicted on lesser charges to prevent damaging information about collusion coming to light, was being brokered behind the scenes.

public meeting the peace process and policing

Thursday October 12,7:30pm I r i s h C e n t r e

Blacks Road, Hammersmith Broadway, London W6 Speakers:

Jeremy Corbyn MP (Labour), Pat Doherty (Sinn F6in vice president and Nl Assembly member),

J lprenda Callaghan (Belfast and District TUC), Daltun O'Ceallalgh (author and trade unionist)

Chair: Owen Cook, Hammersmith and Fulham TUC B o o k s t a l l • l i e o m o d

Page 3 Irish Democrat October/November 2000

Iwsh OemocMt Founded 1939 Volume 55, Number 5

The whole Patten T H E G O V E R N M E N T ' S pos i t ion on the Pol ice Bill is so at

va r i ance with the c a r e f u l d e l i b e r a t i o n s of the Pat ten c o m m i s s i o n

r e c o m m e n d a t i o n s on po l i c e r e f o r m as to begga r be l ie f , a po in t ably

i l lus t ra ted by p r o f e s s o r Paddy Hi l lya rd e l s e w h e r e in this ed i t ion .

W h e n c o n s i d e r i n g the list o f t h o s e b a c k i n g P a t t e n ' s

r e c o m m e n d a t i o n s , r a n g i n g f r o m top a c a d e m i c s to the P res iden t of

the U S A — not to m e n t i o n both U S pres iden t ia l c a n d i d a t e s , the US

H o u s e o f R e p r e s e n t a t i v e s the C a t h o l i c C h u r c h , t h e Ir ish

g o v e r n m e n t and h u m a n r ights g r o u p s — it is ea sy to f o rg e t the

des i r e s and l eg i t imate a sp i r a t ions of the 4 3 per cen t of the

p o p u l a t i o n of the nor th w h o ' v e b o r n the b run t of d i s c r i m i n a t i o n

Yet h e r e is a L a b o u r leader w h o has jus t m a d e it c l ea r that his

g o v e r n m e n t has no in ten t ion of r e s to r ing the link b e t w e e n p e n s i o n s

and e a r n i n g s , no m a t t e r how big a m a j o r i t y wi th in his par ty votes

for it. T h i s is a lso I r e l and , w h e r e the pol i t ica l sens ib i l i t i es of mos t

Bri t ish pol i t ic ians de se r t them as soon as they e n c o u n t e r the

pol i t ica l mine f i e ld of the i r o w n and the i r p r e d e c e s s o r s m a k i n g .

It t h e r e is one t h i n g that can save the p r inc ip le s of the G o o d

Fr iday a g r e e m e n t — e v e n if not T r i m b l e ' s l e ade r sh ip of the U U P

— it is the full and u n e q u i v o c a l i m p l e m e n t a t i o n of Pa t ten : the

Pa t ten , the whole Pa t t en and n o t h i n g but the Pat ten .

To d o any th ing o t h e r is to accep t that un ion i s t s c o n t i n u e to hold

a ve to o v e r the w h o l e p e a c e p r o c e s s and p rove to a n e w gene ra t i on

of na t iona l i s t s and r e p u b l i c a n s that the i r lot is to r e m a i n as the

s e c o n d - c l a s s sub jec t s of an al ien Q u e e n .

Mowlam moves on T H E A N N O U N C E M E N T by M o M o w l a m at the b e g i n n i n g of

S e p t e m b e r that she is to s tand d o w n as an M P at the nex t genera l

e l ec t ion e n d s specu l a t i on abou t the pol i t ica l f u t u r e of t he f o r m e r

N o r t h e r n Ireland s ec re t a ry of state.

He r dec i s ion to p u r s u e a ca r ee r o u t s i d e of W e s t m i n s t e r wi l l n o

doub t h a v e c o m e as a g rea t rel ief to t hose in and c lo se to the L a b o u r

l e a d e r s h i p w h o have ac t ive ly w o r k e d f o r he r m a r g i n a l i s a t i o n in

recent y e a r s . M o w l a m has o p e n l y c o m p l a i n e d of a ' w h i s p e r i n g '

c a m p a i g n against h e r a n d had m a d e it c l ea r that she had w a n t e d to

f inish t h e j o b h a n d e d o v e r to Pe te r M a n d e l s o n .

She u n d o u b t e d l y p l a y e d a key ro le in b r e a t h i n g f r e s h l i f e in to an

a i l ing p e a c e p roces s f o l l o w i n g L a b o u r ' s 1997 v ic to ry a n d was

pa r t i cu la r ly in s t rumen ta l in c o n v i n c i n g na t iona l i s t s a n d r e p u b l i c a n s

of the Br i t i sh g o v e r n m e n t ' s c o m m i t m e n t to f i n d i n g an equ i t ab l e

and l as t ing solut ion.

H e r b lun t and n o - n o n s e n s e s tyle , w h i c h upset so m a n y un ion i s t s ,

c a m e as a breath of f r e s h air f o l l o w i n g a succes s ion o f o p e n l y

un ion i s t Tory sec re t a r i e s of state. H e r a p p r o a c h pa id d i v i d e n d s

d u r i n g h e r early t enu re . Howeve r , o n c e un ion i s t s f o u n d a w a y to

b y p a s s her , e s t ab l i sh ing d i rec t l inks w i t h Bla i r t h r o u g h h i s ch i e f of

s taff , J o n a t h a n Powe l l , h e r i n f l u e n c e w a n e d .

Yet, de sp i t e her popu la r i ty , it m u s t be r e m e m b e r e d tha t s h e has

been a long- t ime s u p p o r t e r of B l a i r ' s r i gh t -w ing ' m o d e r n i s i n g '

p ro jec t a n d all that tha t impl ies . S h e a l so p l aced the I r ish peace

p r o c e s s in grave j e o p a r d y by a u t h o r i s i n g the b u g g i n g o f the car

used by senior S inn Fein f i gu re s at a de l i ca t e s t a g e of the

nego t i a t i ons , recent ly c l a i m i n g , w i t h o u t any j u s t i f i c a t i o n , tha t it had

been n e c e s s a r y b e c a u s e " l ives w e r e at r i sk" .

T h i s c o n f i r m e d f o r r e p u b l i c a n s w h a t they had a l w a y s su spec t ed ,

that M o w l a m was in e s sen t i a l s , if no t o u t w a r d s tyle , r e m a r k a b l y

s imi la r to her Brit ish p r o - c o n s u l p r e d e c e s s o r s . A ha r sh j u d g e m e n t

p e r h a p s , but one wi th m o r e than a g r a in of t ru th . A n d s o it is ever

l ikely to be until t he Bri t ish g o v e r n m e n t b a s e s its p o l i c y on

I r e l and ' s r ight to be u n i t e d and i n d e p e n d e n t and t akes pos i t i ve and

u n e q u i v o c a l steps to e n d Br i t a in ' s c o l o n i a l t enu re there .

Iwsh Oemoout Bi-monthly newspaper of the Connolly Association

Editorial Board G e r a r d Oi r ran ; F.nda l-inlay; David Granvil le (editor); Peter Mull igan; Mnya Si Leger

Product ion : Derek Kotz

P u b l i s h e d by Connol ly Publ icat ions Ltd. 244 G r a y ' s Inn Road. London W C I X 8JR,

lei 020 7 8 3 3 3022

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News

Family calls for Immediate action M c B R I D E C A M P A I G N

Democrat reporter

PROTESTS TOOK place in several cities around the world in early September as part of an international week of action coinciding with the anniversary of the death of 18-year-old Belfast-man Peter McBnde, who was murdered by two British soldiers in 1992.

In addition to Derry and Belfast, protests took place in London, New York, Sydney and in the European parliament.

Although convicted of the murder Scots Guardsmen Mark Wright and James Fisher were freed in 1998 after serving less than six years for the 1992 murder.

An army review board subsequently ruled that the two convicted murderers should be allowed to resume their army

V A T I C A N A F F A I R S

Jim Savage

THE BEATIFICATION in the Vatican of Pope Pius IX, right, has caused dismay among progressive Catholics, republicans and anti-racist campaigners throughout Ireland.

Pope Pius IX, whose 'sainthood' was conferred at a ceremony on 3 September, is held in particular contempt by republicans as the pontiff responsible for ordering the excommunication of the entire membership of the Fenian Brotherhood on 12 January 1870.

The Fenians were responsible for keeping the separatist tradition in Ireland alive during much of the 19th century

T R A D E U N I O N S

Democrat reporter

A CROSS-COMMUNITY support network bringing together T&G women from all traditions in the six counties recently held its inaugural meeting.

Funded by the Northern Ireland Voluntary Trust's Special Support Programme for Peace and Reconciliation, the project aims to help build trust and the capacity for all women to become active in the union and their communities and to play an active role in social and economic development.

careers. The review board decision followed a high-profile campaign led by senior military and establishment figures and the Daily Mail.

In September 1999, the Northern Ireland High Court ruled that the army's decision to reinstate Fisher and Wright had been an "error of judgement" .

The court ordered the review board to meet again to review its decision. Over one year later, this has still not happened.

As part of the week of protest, McBride's mother Jean, pictured right, and representatives of the Pat Finucane Centre travelled to London to hand in a letter to the prime minister at 10 Downing Street.

"By going to London I want to take a simple message to Tony Blair," said Jean McBride. "This has gone on long enough. If the British government has any self-respect they will not allow convicted murderers to stay in their army."

and early 20th century. Pope Pius IX willingly allowed

himself to be a tool of British interest and cared nothing for the nationalist cause.

Initially women's groups will be established in Derry, Belfast, Fermanagh and Craigavon.

The launch attracted T&G women from throughout the six counties. The longer-term aim is to see the network developed throughout Ireland.

"The women themselves decided how they would like the network to develop," explained T&G regional women's organiser Fiona Marshall.

Meetings in each of the four centres are to be followed up by a training day in each aimed ai developing women's confidence and assertiveness, and at helping them to become more involved in the union.

Although the Pope condemned the Fenians to "an eternity of the hottest hell", those like O'Donovan Rossa made it clear that weren't impressed by 'papal bull'.

Deeply reactionary and anti-Semitic, Pius IX, who was Pope between 1846 and 1878, also opposed the unification of Italy and was responsible for sealing the doctrines of papal infallibility and the immaculate conception into Catholic dogma.

For today's Irish Catholics it must seem a bit rich that the current Pope expects them to pray to the likes of the reactionary and anti-Irish Pius IX in the same way that they revere blessed Martin or St Therese.

There is surely a case to be made among believers that 'sainthood' should be based on virtuous intent alone and therefore not be conferred on an unrepentant bigot and enemy of Ireland.

E V E N T S

2 8 October Terence MacSwiney memorial lecture, 1pm Camden Town Hall ,Judd Street London NW1. Main speaker Cathal Crumley, Mayor of Derry. Includes screening of The Dawn, film about the war of independence. 2 8 October Anti-euro demonstration, leaves Hyde Park at 2pm for march to Trafalgar Square. Rally 3:30pm. Speakers include Austin Mitchell MP (Labour) and John Boyd (Campaign Against Euro-Federalism). Organised by the Democracy Movement. 14 January 2 0 0 1 London Socialist Film Co-operative screening of Gone For A Soldier, Philip Donnellan, (1980) which looks at army recruits sent to serve in Northern Ireland. Followed by discussion led by Phillippa Donnellan and Connolly Association general secretary Jim Redmond. 1.30pm, Palms Room (4th floor), University of London Union, Malet Street, London WC1

Donations to the Connolly Association and Irish Democrat 18 July to 1 9 September 2000

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Imsh Oemoctuc For a united and independent Ireland Published continuously since 1939, the Irish Democrat is the bi-monthly journal of the Connolly Association, which campaigns for a united and independent Ireland and the rights of the Irish in Britain

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Beastly beatification

Union women link up

Irish Democrat October/November 2000 Page 5

News

A progressive schooling In Dublin G R E A V E S S C H O O L

Nick Wright SPEAKING AT the twelfth Desmond Greaves Summer School in Dublin John Maguire, UCC sociology professor and author of Defending Neutrality, contrasted the values and gains of the peace process in Ireland with the paradox of the Irish government's support for the unsanctioned aggression against Yugoslavia.

The United Nations needs defending against the encroachments of NATO he argued. Pointing out the irony that the peace dividend arising from the Irish reconciliation included the location of the arms manufacturer Raytheon in Derry he said: "The solution to violence is to find means of preventing it, not to export it elsewhere. The only way to do this is to respect and fulfil our own responsibility as peace-keepers, under the aegis of a reformed and effective United Nations".

Referring to the Irish government's "creeping abandonment of neutrality",

he argued that if there were to be a tribunal focusing on Irish foreign policy it would result in disclosures "even more appalling, and serious, than those currently rocking Dublin Castle".

Irish Times columnist Bieda O'Brien focused on the paradox of feminism's "unholy alliance with the market place".

"Once, the feminist agenda was to secure the right for women to work

outside the home and for men to be able to take a more active role in parenting and homemaking. The second part of the agenda seems to have been completely forgotten."

Family friendly policies are often a synonym for schemes which compel men and women to spend more time in the paid labour force with children rendered more vulnerable to consumerist pressure.

Green MEP Patricia McKenna sharply criticised President Mary McAlleese for her transformation from leading opponent to the 1987 Single European Act to advocate for the single currency.

Trade union official Ann Speed, a leading Sinn Fein personality, reasserted the importance of the feminist agenda in relation to women's entry into the workforce. Focusing on traditional areas of concern such as equality, childcare and pay she paid strong tribute to the innovative role of women in Irish politics.

Paul Callan SC counsel in the Crotty, McKenna and Coughlan Supreme Court

constitutional cases surprised some listeners with a commentary on Ireland's relation to the EU which was somewhat less critical of its direction than his advocacy had earlier suggested.

Sinn Fdin Cavan/Monaghan TD Caoimghfn O Caolain expressed sharp criticism of Bertie Ahern's government. He condemned the decision to enter NATO's Partnership for Peace without a referendum as promised by Ahem.

Reflecting on the next election, which some commentators suggest would make Sinn Fein a possible coalition partner he said the growing housing crisis, staff shortages in the public services arising from the rigidities of the pay accord and education inequalities were all issues which underpinned Sinn Fdin's emergence as a party strong enough to compel others to negotiate with.

Arguing that the record of the Fianna Fail government was an obstacle to Sinn Fein becoming a coalition partner he said such discussion was a distraction from the greater task to ending the domination of "the most natural coalition partners" Fianna Fail and Fine Gael. • The future of republicanism, page 7

Warring factions split loyalist community

Chilling message: Shankhlll mural

L O Y A L I S T F E U D

Democrat reporter

THE DEADLY feud between loyalist paramilitaries in the six counties continues to bring fear, disruption and dislocation to working-class loyalist communities in Belfast.

By the end of September the conflict between the Ulster Defence Association/Ulster Freedom Fighters and the rival Ulster Volunteer Force had resulted in at least three deaths. Over two hundred families have been forced to flee their homes.

Many of those displaced by the feud are from Belfast's Shankill Road area, which has born the brunt of the increasingly bitter dispute. A significant number of the attacks have involved either firearms or pipe bombs.

Behind the scenes efforts have so far failed to resolve the dispute with both sides continuing to blame each other for the ongoing violence. Ulster Democratic Party/UFF representative John White has accused local Progressive Unionist Party figures of being "unwilling to reach an accommodation with the UFF" in the area.

At one point the Progressive Unionist Party, the political wing of the UVF,

appealed for the lower Shankill to be granted emergency status because of the large numbers forced out of the area by IJDA/UFF gangs.

"They have done more damage in the last four weeks than the IRA could do 30 years. The community is totally in fear," said the PUP's William Smith.

Rivalry between the Ulster Defence Association/Ulster Freedom Fighters and the Ulster Volunteer Force and its associates in the PUP has intensified in recent months as the two camps battle for the hearts and minds of working-class loyalism.

Despite the media's focus on racketeering and the activities of illegal drug barons, many of whom have links with the UDA/UFF, such activities are only one aspect of a more complex inter-loyalist conflict.

Hands across the water 1 8 2 0 C O M M E M O R A T I O N

Democrat reporter

THE CLOSE links between the Irish republican movement of the 1790s and the early 1800s and the Scottish republicans of the same period was highlighted by historian, novelist and Irish Democrat columnist Peter Berresford Ellis, speaking at the annual 1820 commemoration at Sighthill cemetery, Glasgow, on 10 September.

The 1820 uprising was the last major attempt to establish an independent Scottish republic by force of arms. The rebellion resulted in 88 treason trials, executions, transportations and imprisonments.

Other speakers at the event included Gerry Cairns of the Scottish Socialist Part and Baile Martin Lee of Glasgow City Council.

Sighthill cemetery is the site of the 1820 monument, erected by Chartists, where the remains of two of the executed leaders, John Baird and Andrew Hardie, were reinterred in 1847.

In his address, Peter Berresford Ellis referred to the close relationship between the United Irishmen and the Scottish Friends of the People and the United Scotsmen and commented on the supportive role played by Irish immigrant weavers to the Scottish insurrectionists, especially in the south-west of Scotland.

He also unveiled a bilingual (Gaelic/English) memorial to his late co-author, Seumus Mac a Ghobhainn, whose ashes were scattered at the monument in 1987.

Mac 4 Ghobhainn, a socialist and a republican, was the founder of the radical Gaelic language movement Comunn na Canain Albannaich in 1969.

N E W S I N B R I E F

Police complaints POLICE OMBUDSMAN designate Nuala O'Loan has confirmed that a new independent police complaints system for the six counties will be in place by November.

Under the new system, complaints against the police will be handled by the Office of the Ombudsman. "My office will do all it can to ensure public and police confidence in the new system of police complaints," said Nuala O'Loan.

Her 100-strong team, which will include senior police and investigators from around the world, will be the first independent police complaints investigation team to operate anywhere within Westminster's jurisdiction.

Investigators will have the power to obtain search warrants, secure evidence and to arrest and detain suspects.

Flying the flag THE RECENT announcement by secretary of state Peter Mandelson that the Union Jack flag should be flown from government buildings in the north for 17 designated days per year has been criticised by nationalists and republicans for contravening the spirit of the Good Friday deal.

Under the terms of the agreement, symbols should either be displayed on the basis of parity or neutrality argue Sinn F6in. The party insists that there should be either parity for the Irish flag or no flags at all.

Sinn F6in ministers Martin McGuinness and Bairbre de Brim have

refused to fly the Union Jack over their ministries.

Mandelson's proposal is now out for consultation until 20 October and will eventually be debated by Assembly before going to Westminster for ratification.

Army expansion CONCERN HAS surfaced over British government promises to scale down its military presence in Ireland after plans for a major expansion of the army base at Thiepval recently came to light.

The plans, which have been approved by UUP minister Sam Foster, will now be submitted for formal approval.

Local residents are planning a series of legal challenges. The planned expansion is "totally contrary to the spirit and the letter" of the Good Friday agreement insists Sinn Fdin councillor for Lisburn, Paul Butler.

B N F L memo leak CONFIRMATION OF the success of Irish campaigns against the British Nuclear Fuels' Sellafield reprocessing plant have surfaced recently.

Confidential memos leaked to The Guardian newspaper reveal that the company accepts that it has lost the safety argument in Ireland and is reduced to conducting a 'damage-limitation' exercise.

The memos, which originate from BNFL's public relations department, the company's dissatisfaction with British diplomatic efforts to back the company's widely-discredited safety claims.

W O R L D C O M M E N T

by Poiiticus

'Globalisation' of the globe GLOBALISATION IS the ideology of today's giant transnational firms.

Like all ideologies it purports to describe things as they are. At the same time it suggests that that is how they should be. It aims to act as a mental bludgeon, inducing passivity in face of anti-human and anti-democratic economic and political trends.

The implicit message is that one must not resist the world's affairs being run in the interests of transational capital — globalisation is inevitable, therefore resistance to it is futile.

New York commentator Thomas Friedman mentioned one of the realities behind globalisation at the time of last year's 'friendly bombing' of Yugoslavia.

"For globalisation to work, America can't be afraid to act like the almighty superpower that it is. The hidden hand of the market will never work without the hidden fist. McDonalds cannot flourish without McDonnel-Douglas, the maker of the F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for the Silicon Valley technologies is called the US army, navy, air force and marine corps."

Globalisation became a key theme of advanced capitalist ideology after the end of the cold war. When the socialist 'second worla' of eastern Europe collapsed, US and German capital moved in to gobble up its economic assets. At the same time national controls on the movement of capital were abolished everywhere.

The right of the giant corporations to go anywhere in the world with a view to maximising profits, to break down all socially constructed barriers against exploitation •— sovereignty, community solidarity, labour standards, environmental controls — became the basis of the new world order.

The World Trade Organisation, formerly GAIT, was set up to police advanced capitalism's supposed right to move where it wills, irrespective of the damage done, sometimes the destruction of whole societies. This is political globalisation at work.

The Maastricht Treaty, from which comes the single european currency, is a key document of globalisation on the European continent. Article 73b says: "All restrictions on the movement of capital between member states and between member states and third countries shall be prohibited."

No democrat can support this. Democrats recognise the need to tame the furies of private interest by imposing social controls on capital.

For that the only instrument history has developed is the state. Maastricht is a constitutional charter for letting capital rip, disempowering the democratic state and subordinating European society to the rule of a few dozen giant firms.

Remember that mankind has seen globalisation before. It was called the 19th century Then there was universal free trade, limitless freedom of foreign investment and proportionately far more movement of people than today

They even had a single world currency, the gold standard. That globalised world collapsed into the first world war.

Globalisation is not just a word to describe the global village', where news crosses the world in seconds and where the internet links continents. The thrust of globalisation as ideology however is to subvert the democracy of the national state, so that big capital is free to rule the world unchallenged.

Page 4 Irish Democrat October/November 2000

News/analysis

Wealthy aristocrat told to give back land POBLACBT m H EffiEWN

THE IRISH REPDBll c NOTICE OF SEIZURE OF LAM ID ON

CHATSWORTH ESTATE, BAESWELL, DEBBTSDBE, ENGLAND

ON BEHALF OF TEE PEOPLE OP IBI 'LAND Due notice: extract from the CA's seizure notice handed out at Chatsworth

E U R O W A T C H John Murphy

Ireland's looming policy conflict THF FU-/.eal of Ireland's politicians now threatens to cut across the imperative ot bringing six counties and twenty-six counties closer together.

Ireland's best known europhile, former Taoiseach Garret Fit/Gerald, who established the Irish Council of the European Movement in the 1960s and who is the archetypal career euro-lederalist. drew attention recently to the tension between the Republic's policies on the F.IJ policy and Northern Ireland, in the light of the Belfast agreement on devolution and closer north-south cooperation on the island.

Referring to recent German-French proposals on El I 'flexibility', FitzGerald

wrote in the Irish Times: "Ireland cannot on its own block the

development of a core European federation and to attempt to do so would make us a pariah among our partners. And if Britain were to seek to do so, for us to join with our neighbour in what would almost certainly be a futile attempt would not be in our long-term interest.

"We would have the invidious choice of remaining behind with what would probably be an isolated United Kingdom, or else joining the federal core, thus widening, possibly irretrievably, the gap between ourselves and the United Kingdom, including Northern Ireland.

"The former line of action would effectively involve abandoning any chance of participating in decisions that would affect our long-term future — for all key decisions would thereafter be taken by the core federation, from which we would be absent. The latter could put great difficulties in the way of building on the Belfast agreement. For Irish policy-makers this is a kind of nightmare scenario: potentially a stark choice between our European and Northern Ireland policies."

So Dr Fit/Gerald's 40-year-long support for "pooling sovereignty" in the EC/FU could soon be facing Irish policy-makers with the above "nightmare scenario." in which he himself implicitly backs the German-French "federal core" idea.

His position illustrates the sheer irresponsibility of key elements of the Republic's political elite. They are bent on selling their country to the EU for any price.

You would think the Dublin politicians would remember that Ireland had experience of an economic and monetary union before.

In 1800 the population of the island of Ireland was five million, while that of Britain next door was 12.5 million, a ratio of I to 2.5. In 19(H) Ireland's population was still live million, having increased to 8.5 million at the time of the IX40s famine and then fallen back again by (he century's end.

Bui in 19(X) Britain's population had grown to 40 million. The population ratio of one to 2.5 had become one to eight. That sums up Ireland's historical experience of membership of an economic and monetary union with a country which was the most economically advanced anywliere at the time, and known as the 'workshop of the world.'

Membership of 'Euroland' can hardly be that disastrous — although for some east European countries it could be, if they are foolish enough to join it — but then the EU's monetary union will certainly not last as long.

C H A T S W O R T H P R O T E S T

Democrat reporter

MEMBERS OF the Connolly Association recently struck a blow against the machinations of absentee landlords, temporarily occupying part of the Duke of Devonshire's 3,000-acre Chatsworth estate in Derbyshire.

Incensed at the Duke's claim to own salmon fisheries and part of the Blackwater river bed in Youghal, County Cork, protesters staked out a 100-square foot plot of land in front of Chatsworth House, raised the Irish Tricolour and handed out notices of 'seizure' on behalf of the people of Ireland.

The protest, which took place at the end of July, was supported by Chesterfield Trades Union Council and environmental campaigners and attracted considerable favourable press coverage. An indignant Times journalist,

Hamill family to meet Tony Blair PRIME MINISTER Tony Blair has said that he is to meet the family of Robert Hamill sometime in October. Hamill died in 1997 after being beaten by a loyalist gang in Portadown in full sight of an RUC patrol.

The meeting with the British leader follows a personal request by the Irish Taoiseach for Mr Blair to meet the family.

The prime minister has said that the meeting would give the family "the opportunity to explain why they think a judicial inquiry should be set up into the tragic death of Robert Hamill".

I R E L A N D INSTITUTE

Democrat reporter THIS SUMMER saw the launch of The Republic, an important new and progressive journal of contemporary and historical debate.

Published by the Ireland Institute and edited by Finbar Cullen, The Republic looks set to establish itself as an important forum for debate about the future of republicanism in Ireland.

Founded in 1996, the Ireland Institute has as its core objective the promotion of republican ideas and the importance of Irish self-determination, in its broadest sense.

Its patrons include prominent figures

A friend in deed A FRIEND and comrade generously supplied me with a copy of the Irish Democrat and I was pleased to note that you are not only concerned with the plight of workers in the north of Ireland but also that of Irish workers in England.

A dear friend, the late Laurie Pavitt MP, was one of the few British politicians to share your concerns. Laurie was a staunch champion of the rights of all the immigrants to Britain. His campaign for fair treatment of immigrants received scant attention from the Callaghan government and the Labour leadership general and nothing but hostility from the Thatcher government.

When Thatcher was forced by public opinion to appoint a parliamentary commission of inquiry regarding British policy re the north of Ireland, in order to give the impression of objectivity, she

however, claimed that the Duke's home had been "violated" by "a gang of republican Irishmen".

Fishermen in Youghal are forced to pay substantial annual fees to the Duke, who insists on using his claim to frustrate efforts by the democratically-elected Youghal corporation to provide

from the world of Irish literature and cultural and historical studies including Elizabeth Butler Cullingford, Seamus Deane, Brian Friel, Fred Jameson, Richard Kearney, Thomas Kenneally, Declan Kiberd, Terence McCaughey, TJ Maher, Edna O'Brien and Padraig O Snodaigh.

Full-length articles in the first edition feature contributions f rom business journalist Colm Rapple, the poet and broadcaster, Theo Dorgan, sociologist Liam O'Dowd, historian Mary Cullen and political activist Kevin McCorry of the Campaign for Democracy.

The journal also features several shorter contributions from non-governmental organisations including the Irish Traveller Movement, the Irish

appointed Laurie to the commission. He later told me that the commission was a charade, an ineffectual attempt to mask the naked imperialism of British policy in Ireland.

I am pleased to note that there are other voices in Britain to carry the message that Laurie sought to convey.

Terence E Carroll Virginia, USA

Racist Irelander THE REPORT 'Solidarity with besieged Northern communities' (ID August/ September) informed us that Young Irelander John Mitchel was a "lawyer, journalist and patriot".

extra berthing and additional leisure and tourist facilities for the area. The Duke also claims to own 8,000 acres around Lismore Castle, regarded as some of the best pasture land in Ireland.

The Connolly Association insists that the Duke's claim is defective and that the land controlled by Richard Andrew

Council for Civil Liberties and the National Women's Council of Ireland.

The launch of the journal is the second milestone reached by the Ireland Institute in recent months. Earlier this year the Institute moved its headquarters to the now fully-restored former family home of Padraig Pearse in central Dublin, which it acquired in a near-derelict state 1996.

0 For further details of the work and activities of the Ireland Institute write to: Ireland Institute, 27 Pearse Street, Dublin 2. To order a copy of The Republic (£6 UK residents , inc. p&p, IR£5 Ireland) or to enquire about subscription details contact The Republic, PO Box 5467, Dublin 2, or email mdcullen@eircom.net

However, it failed to mention that he was also a racist and proudly declared: "We deny it is a crime to hold slaves, to buy slaves, to keep slaves to their work by flogging or other needful correction."

Here was a man who rebelled against the savage treatment of one race yet viewed another as sub-human. Had the southern states, backed by the landowners and capitalists of England, prevailed in the American civil war Mitchel would have been quite happy to use the bullwhip and the branding iron.

And if the Young Irelanders had succeeded in ending British rule in 1848 Mitchel himself would still have been enslaved by his own racism.

John Morgan Luton

Robert Buxton Cavendish, 11th Duke of Devonshire, was stolen from the Irish during Queen Elizabeth I's plantation of Munster in 1586.

Large tracts of stolen land were given to Sir Walter Raleigh. It is part of this land which is now in the hands of the Cavendish family.

Commenting on the protest, CA executive member Frank Small stressed that it was intolerable that the fishermen of Cork and Waterford had to pay a foreign absentee landlord to be able to fish for a living in their own river.

"We urge the Duke to enter into negotiations with the Irish government and local authorities in Munster with a view to transferring his Cork and Waterford landholdings back to the Irish people.

"Returning the ill-gotten gains of the colonial era in Ireland would make a significant contribution to the improvement of Anglo-Irish relations."

New bugging row FURTHER EVIDENCE of British security services' continuing efforts to eavesdrop on senior republicans involved in sensitive discussions came to light in September after a suspected bugging device was dicovered in a Belfast hotel room used by the international decommissioning body headed by General John de Chastelain.

Commenting on the discovery, Sinn Fein's Michelle Gildernew said: "If proved to be true, this incident would constitute a serious breach of faith and could have far-reaching consequences for the Good Friday agreement itself."

Cork veteran dies

THE CONNOLLY Association has expressed its sadness at the news of the death of the prominent Cork republican, George O'Mahony.

Last year Mr Mahony, a long-standing Sinn Fein activist, was a keynote speaker at the revived annual Terence MacSwiney memorial lecture in London organised by the Association.

Prisoner repatriation TONY HYLAND, Liam Grogan and Darren Mulholland have had their documents and papers signed by the home secretary, Jack Straw, and expect to be repatriated to a prison in Ireland to complete their sentences.

Although promises were made and broken in the past we are of the opinion the home secretary will keep his word this time.

On behalf of the prisoners repatriation committee I should like to thank the Connolly Association and its members for the support given during repatriation campaign, for maintaining contact with the three prisoners, and for supplying them with reading material.

Michael Holden Political Prisoners Repatriation

Committee

m ^ R K . : * * I j R " — ^ J —

Hpf a ^ ^ ^ ^ E 'f : j t :' t 1

jJSPi.

Connolly Association members were among those taking part in a recent vigil to mark the fourth anniversay of the shooting of unnarmed IRA volunteer Oiarmuid O'Neill during a raid on a house in hammersmith, L o n d o n , in 1 9 9 6 . Campaigners are demanding an independent inquiry into the police operation which led to O'Neill's death.

Ireland finally gets The Republic

Letters to the Editor Write to: The Editor, Irish Democrat, c/o 244 Gray's Inn Road, London W C 1 X 8JR

or email at: democrat@hardgran.demon.co.uk

Irish Democrat October/November 2000 Page 5

News analysis

Bill paints a distorted Patten Paddy Hillyard argues that radical amendments to the Police Bill are needed in the House of Lords if key elements of the Patten recommendations for policing in the north are not to be subverted or ignored

P a t t e n ' s neighbourhood-centred approach has far-reaching Implications for a hierarchical counter-insurgency force like the R U C

PATTEN recommended a fundamental transformation in the form of policing in Northern Ireland. Instead of the dominant Anglo-American model of

policing as a specialised monopoly function of the state, Patten argued for a dual system in which policing is a function of both the state and local communities.

As one of the commissioners, Professor Clifford Shearing has expressed it elsewhere, what is involved here is "a network of intersecting regulatory mechanisms" in which policing becomes "everybody's business".

On this model, the government operates indirectly, seeking the participation of non-state agencies, private organisations and individuals and devolves responsibility for crime and security to them. The model recognises that the sovereign state, as we enter the 21st century, can no longer satisfy the variety of popular demands for security.

This model of policing, with neighbourhoods at the centre, naturally has far-reaching structural and other implications for a counter-insurgency, hierarchical police force like the RUC.

In practice policing has to be decentralised to much smaller units, the management style has to be open, transparent and delegated, and every level of policing has to be democratically accountable to local neighbourhoods.

At the same time, the form of policing has to be far less reactive and much more geared to problem-solving and crime prevention in conjunction with a range of other agencies. Above all, the police service has to be representative of the communities it serves.

The Police Bill, although amended in some important respects, by the House of Commons, still fails to implement this model of policing in three main areas.

First, the Bill assigns far too much power to the secretary of state and the chief constable and too little to the police board. In particular, there are too many restrictions before the board can initiate inquiries into police conduct.

The chief constable can object to an inquiry in a number of circumstances: in the interests of national security, if the matter relates to an individual and is of a sensitive personal nature or because it may prejudice the detection or prevention of crime or a case proceeding through the courts. The secretary of state can then deny an enquiry on any of the above grounds or if "it would serve no useful purpose".

The current Bill fails what may be called the 'Stalker Test'. Stalker, it will be recalled, was appointed in 1984 to investigate three separate shootings by the RUC. If this Bill had been law then, the chief constable could have opposed it on at least two of the four grounds and it would have been difficult for the Secretary of State not to support the chief constable's objections.

Second, the Bill fails to implement a number of Patten's recommendations concerning his core idea that "policing should be decentralised" to local neighbourhoods.

He argued that local government, local police and local policing partnership board boundaries should be coterminous in order to strengthen the relationship between the police and "an identifiable community".

Therefore, he proposed that the district policing board for Belfast should have four sub-groups, covering north, south, east and west Belfast.

The new Bill provides only that Belfast will have up to four police districts and the chief constable is left to determine both the number and the area and there is no provision for the principle that all policing districts should be coterminous with district councils.

Patten also recommended that district councils should have the power to contribute an amount towards improved policing of a district. This stemmed from the notion that security is a public good not a commodity, and should be available to everyone. The better off have always been able to purchase this good privately. As a result public safety has increasingly been distributed on the basis of class.

Patten's proposal for district policing partnership boards to buy-in extra policing would reduce the inequalities in security provision and also provide an opportunity for the democratic control of this public good rather than leaving it, as at the moment, to local vigilantes or the market. The government has rejected the idea for the moment.

Third, Patten recommended that policing must be transparent and open. He argued that everything should be available for public scrutiny unless it was in the public interest — not in the police interest — to hold it back.

The Bill fails to implement this principle and makes no statutory provision for the publication of such basic information as the use of police powers and their outcome or circulars on police procedures and policies.

Instead, policing in Northern Ireland is to be subject to the Freedom of Information Bill which specifically excludes the public access to most documents relating to policing and the administration of justice.

Hopefully, this detailed exegesis, will go some way to convince those that, whatever they may have been told by the Northern Ireland Office or Mr Mandelson, the Police Bill does not "faithfully reflect" Patten. It needs to be radically amended in the House of Lords. • Paddy Hillyard is Professor of Social Administration and Policy at the University of Ulster.

No middle-way on equality Northern correspondent Bobbie Heatley examines the significance of the DUP's election win in South Antrim and looks at what's ahead for the Good Friday deal

ON THE face of it, the victory in the South Antrim election for what the victorious candidate described as 'traditional unionism' (ie the croppies

lie-down variety) was almost as much a disaster for Northern Ireland proconsul, Peter Mandelson as it was for David Trimble and the UUP.

Not one for taking the blame, Mandelson continues to insist that the problems which beset politics in the six counties rest with the northern parties themselves — republicans and nationalists on one side want too much democratic change too quickly while a strong, multi-faceted, claque of unionists will brook no reform at all.

However, his argument for a middle road between the two positions looks increasingly threadbare as there is no equivalence between the demands of the two sides. Nationalists and republicans are only asking for those civil, democratic and human rights which are taken for granted by citizens of a normally-functioning European liberal democracy.

What the 'traditional unionists' seek is the preservation of a system that

brought about the armed insurrection of the past thirty years — a system characterised by one-party, police state, rule based on religious discrimination and sectarianism.

In his search for the 'middle way' between these two diametrically-opposed positions, the secretary of state has come up with an intriguing solution — to concede apparent reforms to the nationalists and republicans while retaining for unionists as much of the old regime as can be salvaged. This, he concludes, amounts to inflicting "pain on both sides" and is, therefore, "fair".

His instrument for pushing through this project has been the Trimble wing of the Ulster Unionist Party.

Pain for the No-men of unionism lies in having to give up just one shred of dominance which the Orange segment of the British state formerly accorded to them All Trimble's efforts to forestall implementation of the agreement, and to render its effects more apparent than real, have not satisfied them. Nor have his efforts to water-down the Patten report and other crucial reforms. Indeed, his successes have merely whetted their appetites.

With a British general election at

most only eighteen months away, and the Tories again riding high in the polls, unionism's No-men may now consider that they have every to go on pushing for the agreement's dismantlement — perhaps forgetting that it was Margaret Thatcher who 'imposed' the Anglo-Irish Agreement on them.

Yet, despite all Trimble's pandering to the No-men, and Mandelson's pandering to Trimble, the DUP stole the South Antrim seat at Westminster.

Throughout this period the 'pain' for the nationalist/republican side of the community should have been obvious enough. Real improvements remain a long way from being delivered.

If pain for the unionists lies in them having to countenance equality of treatment for the other nearly-half (43 per cent) of the community, then that pain is entirely justifiable. What they refer to as 'concessions' they have been forced to concede as a result of the Good Friday deal are nothing of the kind. They are rights which non-unionists have struggled for and which they expect to see delivered in full.

Pain for them now also lies in having to witness the huge efforts being made to bring down the agreement in its entirety or to perpetuate the 'long-fingering' of their just demands.

As the impasse widens, it is clear that Downing Street's policies to date have failed. But, Blair and Mandelson had other options. They could have made it

clear that the agreement, with its attendant off-shoots, such as the Patten reforms, was going to be implemented without unnecessary delay.

They could have appealed over the head of 'politically-organised' unionism to 'civic' unionism — the professional and business classes, trade unionists and the ordinary unionists in the street who desire peace. Such an approach that was used to win their support, albeit by a narrow margin, for the Good Friday agreement in the first place.

Had this been done perhaps the general apathy witnessed among the Protestant community would have been overcome and even the UUP would have been able to field a 'yes' candidate in the South Antrim by-election.

These 'civic' unionists want the fear of unnecessary armed conflict taken out of their lives.

Yet the reversal for Mandelson need not be cataclysmic. Steps are, at long last, being taken to sort out the UUP problem. Its 100-member executive has already helUl a crisis meeting to consider party rule changes that would reduce the influence of the Orange Order (without actually cutting the link) and the 'rejectionist' Ulster Young Unionist Council within the party's decision-making body, the Ulster Unionist Council (UUC).

These moves could strengthen Trimble's position, but need to be approved by the UUC at its meeting

scheduled for October. They could also turn out to be too little too late — following the by-election result, some UUP Assembly members and district councillors are running scared before the rejectionist camp and are said to be in a mood to cut themselves adrift from Trimble's faction.

A greater danger is that the secretary of state, despite his brave face, will be panicked into feeding yet more rejectionist-friendly concessions to Trimble in order to save his bacon — a continuation of the gross errors which brought us to this state of affairs in the first place.

If anyone has made hurtful concessions in this whole process, it is the republican/nationalist side which has agreed to postpone, pro tem, the most fundamental of its democratic rights, namely its right to belong, as Irish nationals, to the developing democracy of the Irish state. In exchange for equality of treatment inside the six counties it will pursue that ineradicable objective by purely political means. Influential sectors of Irish society are anxious to see which way the secretary of state will jump now.

At the very least the Irish government, Sinn F6in, the SDLP and the Catholic church in Ireland are looking to see the Patten proposals faithfully and fully implemented, along with judicial reform and an acknowledgement of equal treatment in the display of national flags and emblems — expectations are supported by much of the international community. Nothing less will suffice.

Page 7 Irish Democrat October/November 2000

Connolly column Britain's involvement in

the recent war against

Yugoslavia and the

government 's attitude to

the euro points to the

contemporary relevance

of Connolly 's article,

published in Workers'

Republic of 22 September 1900

Parliamentary democracy PARLIAMENT IS dissolved! By whom? By whom was parliament elected? By the Miters ot Great Britain and Ireland. Was it then the voters of Great Britain and Ireland who called upon parliament to dissolve?

No. it was the Prime Minister of England. Lord Salisbury to wit, whom nobody elected and who is incapable under the laws of his country of being a parliamentary representative; it was this gentleman with whom lay the power of putting an end to the deliberations of parliament and sending its members back to the ordeal of the hustings.

This ridiculous situation is highly illustrative of many anomalies and absurdities with which the English constitution abounds. Eulogised by its supporters as the most perfect constitution yet evolved, it is in reality so full of illogical and apparently impossible provisions and conditions that if presented to the reasoning mind as the basis of a workable constitution for a new country it would be laughed out of court as too ridiculous to consider.

Let us examine a few of its provisions in order that we may the more effectively contrast this parliamentary democracy with the democracy of the revolutionist.

Parliament is elected by the voters of Great Britain and Ireland. When elected, that party which counts the greatest number of followers is presumed to form the cabinet as representing a majority of the electorate. But it by no means follows that a majority in the House represents a majority of the people.

In many constituencies, for instance, where there are more than two candidates for a seat, it frequently happens that although a candidate polls a larger vote than either of his opponents and so obtains the seat, he only represents a minority of the constituents as the vote cast for his two opponents, if united, would be much greater than his own.

The cabinet formed out of the members of the party strongest numerically constitutes the government of the country and as such has full control of our destinies during its term in office. But the cabinet is not elected by the parliament, voted for by the people, nor chosen by its own party. The cabinet is chosen by the gentlemen chosen by the sovereign as the leader of the strongest party.

The gentlemen so chosen after a consultation with the Queen (who perhaps detests both him and his party) selects certain of his own followers and invests them with certain positions, and salaries, and so forms the cabinet.

The cabinet controls the government and practically dictates the laws, yet the cabinet itself is unknown to the law and is not recognised by the constitution. In fact the cabinet is entirely destitute of any legal right to existence. Yet although outside the law and unknown to the constitution it possesses the most fearful powers, such as the declaration of war, and can not be prevented by the elected representatives of the people from

committing the nation to the perpetration of any crime it chooses.

After the crime has been perpetrated parliament can repudiate, when it meets, the acts of the cabinet, but in the meanwhile nations may have been invaded, governments overturned, and territories devastated with fire and sword.

The powers of parliament are also somewhat arbitrary and ill-defined. Every general election is fought on one or two main issues, and on these alone. It may be the franchise, it may be temperance, it may be home rule, or any other question, but when parliament has received from the electorate its mandate on that one question it arrogates to itself the right to rule and decide on every other question without the slightest reference to the wishes of the electorate.

If parliament, elected to carry out the wishes of the electors on one question, chooses to act in a manner contrary to the wishes of the electors in a dozen other questions, the electors have no redress except to wait for another general election to give them the opportunity to return other gentlemen under similar conditions and with similar opportunities of evil-doing.

The democracy of parliament is, in short, the democracy of capitalism. Capitalism gives to the worker the right to choose his master, but insists that the fact of mastership shall remain unquestioned; parliamentary democracy gives the worker the right to a voice in the selection of his rulers but insists that he shall bend as a subject to be ruled. The fundamental feature of both in their relation to the worker is that they imply his continued subjection to a ruling class once his choice of the personnel of the rulers is made.

But the freedom of the revolutionist will change the choice of rulers which we have today into the choice of administrators of laws voted upon directly by the people; and will also substitute for the choice of masters (capitalists) the appointment of reliable public servants under direct public control. That will mean true democracy — the industrial democracy of the socialist republic.

Although outside the law and

unknown to the constitution it (the cabinet) possesses

the most fearful powers

Features

Friends over the sea

Irish Democrat editor David Granville spoke to Joe Jamison of the Irish-American Labour Coalition during his recent trip to New York

AS WITH several Irish-American campaigns which have come into existence during the most recent phase of the Irish conflict, it was the impact of the 1981

IRA hunger-strikes that were to provide the impetus for the formation of the Irish-American Labour Coalition (IALC).

"After the hunger strikes Irish-American labour activists wanted to take a more activist approach to the situation in the north," explained New York-based trade unionist Joe Jamison, director of the organisation for the past 19 years.

Bringing together senior trade union figures, most, though not all, of Irish descent, IALC has over the years earned its place as the main labour voice on Ireland in the US.

Joe remembers plastic bullets as their first campaign after it was discovered that they were manufactured by Allegheny Internationa], a Pittsburgh-based company.

It was around this time that Joe met the former editor of the Irish Democrat Desmond Greaves, during a senior-level AFL-CIO (the US trade-union equivalent of the TUC, ed.) visit to the north to look into the question of discrimination. Two members of that delegation, Tom Donahue and John Sweeney, subsequently became national presidents of the AFL-CIO.

"I had read Greaves' stuff for years as a reader of the paper because of my work for the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association support group in the US," says Jamison.

Not long after, the MacBride Principles were launched, providing what was to become the IALC's main focus for more than a decade. As a result of efforts to build contacts with both the Irish and British labour movements, Jamison was to meet up with Greaves again as well as trade union leaders such as Inez McCormack and senior Labour Party figures such as Clare Short, both of whom were brought across to the US by IALC. "Inez McCormack was the only northern trade unionist in a leading position to sponsor the MacBride Principles," he recalls.

The organisation has not just confined itself to the situation in the north. Projects commemorating Ireland's great labour leaders James Connolly and

Jim Larkin — the Connolly statue in Dublin and the publication of Donal Nevin' book on Larkin, Lion of the Fold, being just two initiatives in which it has been involved.

"The committee has also taken up the issue of construction safety in America. Last year an Irish immigrant committed suicide as a result of being abused by a non-union construction contractor. We ran ads in the Irish Echo and the Irish Voice, appealing all new Irish immigrants to contact union organisers in that industry, as well as in health care, hotel, and food-service industries where new Irish are also concentrated. We also successfully pressed the US Department of Labour to launch an investigation."

The end of the Cold War greatly increased the chances of moving a US government previously unmoveable by grassroots Irish America, he insists.

"Since 1992 everything has changed," Jamison explained.

In 1992 Clinton secured Irish-American support in New York on the basis of his endorsement of an MacBride Principles and promises to look afresh at the issues of a visa for Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams and US foreign policy towards Northern Ireland.

'I hope that the republican

movement will take further steps

to broaden its work in Britain'

"From January 1993, when Clinton took office, to December 1993, not much happened, despite persistent petitions reminding the President that he needed to make good his promises. The news that Adams had again been denied a US visa sent Irish-American groups, including IALC into 'overdrive'.

"By January the whole thing gets reversed and ends with a triumphant visit to the US by Adams. This helped the peace process because it permitted Adams to argue for the political path within his own movement."

During the campaign for the Adams visa figures representing different stands of Irish-America started talking. Key among this group were journalist Niall O'Dowd, former congressman Bruce Morrison, Jamison and the trade unionists associated with IALC, and businessman Bill Flynn and Chuck Feenev. Their coming together was to play a crucial role in advancing the Irish peace process.

Above: members of the Irish-America Labour Coalition with the Connolly Association contingent on the Garvaghy R o a d earlier this year, above. Below: J o e J a m i s o n

It is beyond question that a series of meetings in Ireland between a group of Irish-Americans and senior Sinn Fdin leaders in the Summer of 1994 played an important role in securing the IRA's 31 August ceasefire. Those involved included O'Dowd, Flynn, Jamison, fellow trade unionist Bill Lenihan, Clinton aide Bruce Morrison, and the billionaire businessman Chuck Feeney.

"During the meetings, especially the first which took place in Belfast in July, the Irish-American succeeded in providing the necessary clarifications and assurances concerning probable reactions to an IRA ceasefire by the Clinton administration, by Irish America and by the wider US public, which finally enabled Sinn F6in to go to the IRA with its ceasefire plans.

"The group was, for the Sinn Fein leadership, a useful symbol of the influential new friends in America that could be won by the republicans through an unarmed strategy," said Jamison.

However, while the 1994 ceasefire was important in opening doors — at all levels — that had previously been closed, Joe Jamison expresses the hope that national democratic forces in Ireland will take the opportunity to put more effort into fostering solidarity in Britain.

"I hope that the republican movement, in the new conditions, will tak" further steps to upgrade and broaden its work in Britain. Republicanism has a unique relationship with America, going back to the 1790s. But, though there will always be a base of support here in America, the final victory will depend on Irish nationalism's ability to influence British policy. I think that Britain should be the main arena of international solidarity work."

Irish Democrat October/November 2000 Page 5

Features

Republicanism in the new century Sinn Fein TP Caoimhghin O Caolain addressed the twelfth Desmond Greaves Summer School at the Irish Labour History Museum, Dublin, in August. An edited version of his contribution is reproduced below

IT WAS James Connolly who said of Wolfe Tone that he united "the hopes of the new revolutionary faith and the ancient aspirations of an oppressed people". An examination of Irish

republicanism in the new century must perform a similar task.

We need to identify the best in the republican tradition, which we have inherited, and develop republicanism to meet the needs of our own time.

Irish Republicanism is based on a number of core principles. First and foremost is the commitment to the sovereignty of the people. There is the commitment to unity of Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter and the rejection of sectarianism of any kind. And there is the commitment to the unity of this island and its people, national self-determination, an end to partition and the establishment of a sovereign 32-county republic.

These are still the basic principles which motivate Irish republicans today. I would define a republican as one who adheres to these principles and acts upon them.

The term 'republicans' is often used in a narrower sense to describe members and supporters of Sinn Fdin. I think a broader definition is required which embraces all who share our commitment to the complete freedom of tljp Irish people.

Flowing naturally from the basic principles are other commitments. Our historical experience gave us an affinity

with other peoples who were struggling for national self-determination. Thus anti-imperialism and internationalism have been embraced by Irish republicans.

Belief in what Pearse described as the 'sovereign people' has led Irish republicans to develop their politics along the lines laid down by Pearse and Connolly, seeking social and economic democracy as well as national political democracy.

The RUC must be replaced with a

police service that can be supported by all sections of the community

Connolly's measurement of freedom as expressed in 1915 is just as relevant today: "In the long tun the freedom of a nation is measured by the freedom of its lowest class; every upward step of that class to the possibility of possessing higher things raises the standard of the nation in the scale of civilisation."

We cannot divorce these core republican principles from the struggle which they have inspired. The new

century has dawned at the end of the longest period of continued organised resistance to British rule in the history of Ireland.

Throughout almost 30 years of armed conflict the British government sought unsuccessfully to defeat Irish republicanism politically and militarily. It waged a counter-insurgency war with the aim of isolating and eradicating organised republicanism.

In spite of the overwhelming resources at their disposal, and the full backing of successive British governments, the securocrats failed to defeat resurgent republicanism. We pointed out many times to their political masters that the path to peace lay through dialogue and negotiations and for that to happen the rights of all voters and the mandates of all parties must be fully recognised.

I am convinced that the peace process would have begun years earlier if the British government had ended its futile policy of attempted isolation and censorship of Sinn Fein. And surely nothing can be more shameful in that period than the conduct of the major political parties in this state, in successive governments, whose use of political censorship and demonisation of republicans was equal to, if not worse than, that of the British government.

Through building political alliances, though dialogue and debate, through engagement with our political opponents and with our political enemies, republicans helped to chart a course out of armed conflict and towards the peaceful resolution of the causes of conflict. That is the basis of the peace process and of the Good Friday agreement — an historic compromise between nationalists, unionists, republicans, the British and Irish governments.

It is surely not the Republic. But it is based on the principle of equality and it thus provides a route to further progress towards our republican objectives.

For the first time unionists have begun to work with nationalists and republicans on the basis of equality. That is a hugely positive development which needs to be nurtured and progressed. The institutions established under the agreement create an all-Ireland framework within which the common interests of all who share this country can be addressed. This too needs to be developed.

These are key challenges for republicans in the new century and we need all the resourcefulness and commitment shown by republicans throughout our struggle to ensure that the agreement indeed provides the vehicle for real change.

The most immediate task is to ensure that the RUC is consigned to the pages of history and that a new police service is established.

The failure of the British government to implement the Patten report in legislation shows the persistent influence of the securocrats. The same forces have resisted the requirement in the agreement for British demilitarisation.

The British government must face down these securocrats. The RUC must be replaced with a police service that can have the support of all sections of the community. The British army must dismantle its posts and barracks and

leave Ireland for good. We have entered a new phase of

struggle where those qualities are needed just as much. It is essential that the lessons of the past are learned.

Speaking against the Treaty in the Dail, Liam Mellows warned prophetically of how the selflessness and dedication which characterised a struggle could be transformed. He said: "Men will get into positions, men will hold power, and men who get into positions and hold power will desire to remain undisturbed and will not want to be removed..."

The story of this 26-county state is a story of how the hopes and promises of the years 1916 to 1921 were dashed by those who claimed to honour them.

The root of corruption is the cosy relationship

betwen big business and the

two major parties

The 1916 Proclamation's promise to "cherish all the children of the nation equally" was broken. The Democratic Programme of the first D4il Eireann declared that "the nation's sovereignty extends not only to all men and women of the nation, but to all its material possessions, the nation's soil and all its resources, all the wealth and all the wealth-producing processes within the nation" and that "all right to private property must be subordinated to the public right and welfare". It recognised "the right of every citizen to an adequate share of the produce of the nation's labour".

Successive governments in the 26 counties have ignored the Democratic Programme and presided over an economy where profit comes before people and where the people's sovereignty over the wealth of the nation has been surrendered to multinational capital and to the European Union.

HE CHALLENGE for Irish republicanism in the new century is to offer the alternative to the political paralysis which Mellows so accurately predicted.

In recent years the com"*ion among sections of the political elite in this state has been exposed as never before. The root of this corruption is the cosy relationship between big business and the two major political parties.

On another level is the pure careerism and lack of real politics which characterises so many public representatives.

People are turning to Sinn F6in in increasing numbers to provide the real alternative.

There has been a lot of speculation recently about the prospects for Sinn F6in in the next general election and about the possibility of Sinn F6in entering some form of coalition. Much of this speculation is ill-informed.

The position as adopted at the Sinn F6in Ard Fheis this year is that any proposal for such an arrangement after the next general election would be decided by a special delegate conference.

On the final day of the last D£il session I supported a motion of no confidence in the present government on the basis of its record on critical issues

during the past three years. These issues included: the growing housing crisis; the intolerable situation in our health service with staffing shortages and hospital waiting lists; inequality in education; and the decision to join NATO's Partnership for Peace without a referendum.

I see no evidence that the government can reverse these failures in its remaining time in office

I voted for Bertie Ahem TD as Taoiseach in June 1997 solely on the basis of his and his party's positive disposition towards a genuine and inclusive peace process. However, Sinn Fein is not a single-issue party and no government can be a single-issue government.

Given the record of the Fianna Fail/Progressive Democrats government across a range of issues, and their fundamental failure to share the wealth in this economy, I could not vote confidence in them.

Any informed comment on possible post-election scenarios must take all of this into account. If the electorate of the 26 counties places Sinn Fein in a position of strength which may require other parties to negotiate with us, then it is my belief that we should take up that challenge.

Given the record of this Fianna Fail-dominated administration it is very difficult to envisage circumstances in which the activists of Sinn Fein would vote to enter a coalition with them. In many ways the speculation about coalition is a distraction.

The greater task is to build Sinn Fein as a party which can provide the catalyst to end the domination of politics in this State by Fianna Fail and Fine Gael — the most natural coalition partners.

The real coalition we need to build is between republicans in the broadest sense of the term and all those campaigning for real and lasting change in our country.

We need a coalition of all those seeking an end to poverty and inequality through the sharing of the wealth in our economy; a coalition of people across sectarian and racial divisions and an end to racism and sectarianism in all their forms; a coalition of those in rural and urban communities who have not been allowed to take full advantage of increased prosperity; a coalition of environmentalists who will make the aim of a green, clean Ireland a reality; a coalition of those who cherish Irish neutrality and the sovereignty of the Irish people and wish to see them enhanced and not eroded through the gradual creation of an EU super-state.

Republicanism in the new century needs to embrace these diverse but progressive forces. It also needs to have a clear view of our place in the world. Are we to completely submerge Irish foreign policy within a giant EU state? Will we pursue an independent course, meeting as equals the poorer, formerly colonised nations with whom we have so much in common? Or will we help to exploit them as part of one of the world's economic and political power blocs?

To Irish republicans the Republic has always meant more than a form of political administration. The vision of the Irish Republic which we seek encompasses all of Ireland and all of its people.

It involves social and economic equality as well as political freedom. It values the Irish language and Irish culture and embraces cultural diversity in Ireland and internationally. Many people have sacrificed much to make this vision and this ideal a reality. Can we succeed? I believe we can.

I believe that our children shall dwell in that Republic — your children, my children and, for the first time, all the children of the nation equally.

Page 8 Irish Democrat October/November 2000

Book reviews

The importance of revealing women

Lynda Walker reviews Women in Ulster Politics 1890-1940 by-Diane Urquluirt, published by Irish Academic Press. Pric e £35 hbk

THIS STUDY of female affiliation to mainstream nationalist and unionist political associations, suffragists and women who stood as MPs, poor law guardians and local councillors provides a detailed and descriptive view of some women's contribution to political life in 'Ulster'.

It is based on previously well-known publications and the political writings and activities of Ulster women — the uncovering of which is its major contribution. The chapter on the campaign for women's suffrage deals with lesser-known figures like Miss LA Walkington and Lillian Metge, founder of the l.isburn Suffrage Society, as well as those like Elizabeth Todd, whose pioneering role is now recognised.

The author gives evidence of the physical and verbal abuse directed at the suffragettes. The campaign for the vote was portrayed as undermining unionists' efforts to keep Ulster British. The fight for Home Rule was also seen as conflicting with the suffrage issue. The problems faced by women in pursuing a feminist cause continue to surface in

Irish politics. Ironically, both sides condemned the

suffragettes for their violent tactics, mostly window breaking and arson, whilst themselves preparing for civil war.

In describing the work of nationalist women, the author makes a class distinction when stating that the overwhelming majority of nationalists were not drawn from the 'province's' landed social elite, unlike many unionists. The result is that there are fewer written sources for nationalist women.

However she does write about the contribution of women, including the production of Shan Van Vocht, "the first publication to air advanced nationalist views in Ireland", which was founded by Alice Milligan and Anna Johnson.

Although she touches briefly on the labour movement, with some reference to Nora and Ina Connolly and the influence of their father, James, she does not give a detailed analysis of the work of women in the "smaller political movements such as labour and communism ", though she acknowledges that this is "deserving of a separate study". Nor does she refer to Connolly's writing on women.

The analysis of unionist women to some extent compliments an excellent chapter by the author in a previous book,

Coming Into The Light, which details the type of "auxiliary" but clearly "important" work carried out by unionist women.

Indeed the Ulster Women's Unionist Council is one of the few women's organisations to survive and in many respects can be said to be the backbone of the Ulster Unionist Party. (Anyone who has read Mothers Into The Fatherland by Claudia Koonz, with its excellent, if chilling, account of the contribution of women in Nazi Germany will recognise how important this 'auxiliary role' is.)

Though Women in Ulster Politics is heavy going at times, it will be of interest to academics, historians and researchers interested in women, politics and Irish history .

Roger Casement's German episode (icrard Curran reviews Prelude to the Easter Rising, Sir Roger Casement in Imperial Germany. Reinhard R Doerries (ed.) frank Cass, £17.50 pbk

AMONG THE documents captured by American troops on Germany's defeat in the second world war were German Foreign Office records relating to events in the previous war — including letters and documents concerning Casement's stay in Germany as an emissary of Clan Na Gael.

Casement's mission was to raise a brigade of Irish volunteers among the prisoners of war to aid the proposed rising in Ireland, to persuade the German government to support Ireland's right to independence publicly, and to seek military help for the coming rising.

P r e l u d e

1 ^ ' '"t

to the

E a s i e r

R i s i n g

R E I N H A R O R D O E R R I E S

His efforts to persuade some the prisoners got off to a bad start when the military insisted that Casement address them at political meetings instead of seeing them individually to sound out their opinions.

Many of the men were strongly

influenced by Redmond's ideas of home rule and at one meeting some prisoners hurled abuse — and stones — at Casement.

When word came through from Ireland in 1916 that the rising was imminent. Casement decided to return without the brigade with the aim of calling it off.

Casement's support for a rising was dependent on considerable outside help and he regarded what the Germans were offering as too meagre to risk the lives of the Irish brigade.

When he landed on Banna Strand with Robert Monteith, in a small boat, there was no-one to meet them.

Monteith went into Tralee to get help and the exhausted Casement was picked up by the local police and taken to London to be lodged in the Tower.

This book adds useful and interesting information to previous accounts of Casement's activities in Germany and includes an historical introduction, bibliography, photographs and copious notes.

Reviews in brief WITH A history like Ireland's it must have been something of an editorial nightmare to select just eighteen rebels from the 16th century to the present day for A Pocket History of Irish Rebels (O'Brien Press, £4.99 pbk).

Nonetheless, Morgan Llywelyn has given it her best shot and produced a shortlist which includes the pirate Grace O'Malley, United Irish leaders Theobald Wolfe Tone and Fr John Murphy, murdered mayor of Cork Terence MacSwiney, labour leaders James Connolly and Jim Larkin, Countess Markievicz, IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands and even the current Sinn Fdin president Gerry Adams.

In A Pocket History of Gaelic Culture by Alan Titley, (O'Brien Press, £4.99 pbk), the author attempts the near impossible task of answering the question "what is Gaelic

culture" in just 108 short pages. Written in a lively, engaging and

entertaining style — one chapter, The Scottish Connection, is written in verse — Titley manages to cut through accumulated myths about his subject while at the same time providing a substantial amount of fascinating information.

Jonathan Bardon's A Guide to Local History Sources In the Public Record Office of northern Ireland (Blackstaff Press, £9.99 pbk) is intended as a sequel to Tracing Your Ancestors in Northern Ireland published by The Stationery Office and PRONI.

The new guide includes a comprehensive description of the wide range of source materials held by PRONI, including church, school, business, work-house and landed estate

records, personal journals, diaries and memoirs.

Bardon's guide includes useful tips and hints for novices and is a must for anyone with ancestor's in this part of Ireland who wants to find out more about how lived.

A new edition of Sean Duffy's Atlas of Irish History (Gill and Macmillan, £10.99 pbk) has provided an opportunity to bring this excellent book up to date with recent developments in the Irish peace process and the economy of Jie twenty-six counties. A number of errors which appeared in the first edition have also been corrected.

The book's visual approach is particularly accessible while the essays on each period, written by prominent Irish historians, are of a generally-high standard. Well worth the investment if you didn't buy it first time around.

No holds barred Ruairi 6 Domhnaill reviews T h e Politics of Force: conflict management and state violence in Northern Ireland by Fionnuala Ni Aolain, Blackstaff Press, £14.99pbk

JOHN WADHAM, director of the independent civil-rights group Liberty, maintains that "this book starts from the premise that everyone has a right to life and questions whether all those (in the six-county sub state) who were "killed at the hands of the security forces needed to die. The conclusion is that they did not".

In fact, the author, a gifted thirty-two year-old p.ofessor of law, finds that lethal force is an administrative convention, an integral part of the state's evolving policy of conflict management, along with emergency legislation and the abuse of the legal process.

Her conclusions are based on a rigorous investigation of the treatment of all 350 deaths caused by the security forces between 1969 to 1994. She impartially includes the deaths of British Army personnel killed by "friendly fire".

The common factor is the state's obstruction of all enquiries, including those which its own law demands.

Fionnuala Ni Aolain analyses the British 'justice system' from inquests to the highest courts. She adroitly presents advanced legal concepts in non-technical language, offering her readers exceptional insights into the law, and society's underpinning of it.

She argues that when that society is "exclusionary, privileged and unaccountable", as in the Six-counties, the effects are dire. It is not surprising that its chief engineer, James Craig was branded a failure by his biographers.

Inquest procedures are described as inadequate and hamstrung. The criminal courts reach Gilbertian depths in support

of members of the security forces. For example, a judge described their position as in a wild west film, "where the posse go ready to shoot their man if need be..."

If the licence to issue forth as a trigger-happy lynch mob is not the public relations flavour of the month, the courts turn somersaults to produce suitable verdicts.

The author observes that while its security forces employ combat methods, the UK treats republicans as criminals, denying them rights under the Geneva Convention.

She admits that the international legal requirements might not have been satisfied by the paramilitaries, for example through their attacks on civilians. Would it matter, when leading authorities of the UK's ad hoc constitution held, somewhat airily, that "the sovereignty of parliament is not limited by the rules of public international law..."?

This brilliant work complements professor Dermot Walsh's Bloody Sunday (see ID June/July 2000), which has a stronger element of 'human interest'. On the other hand, Nf Aolain applies impeccable reasoning, and looks through and beyond six-county and British law.

Towards the deal Enda Finlay reviews Paths to a Settlement in Northern I reland by Sean Farren and Robert F. Mulvihill, Colin Smythe Ltd, £8.95 pbk

WHEN THE Good Friday agreement was published a republican commented to me that if anybody asked you what is wrong with the north, you could now point to a government-published document that outlined the problems in no uncertain terms.

The lie that the north was "as British as Finchley" had been nailed. You could not imagine such a document being published about Yorkshire or Suffolk!

In more recent years a very obvious change has occurred. This book sets out to examine that change and the prospects for the future.

Farren, a senior SDLP figure, and

Mulvihill, and academic, examine the many failed attempts to solve the Irish question, pointing out that these failures are related to a broadly structural approach to the problem which does not consider "the accumulated grievances experienced by all the involved communities".

Things began to change with the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement (AIA), which looked at the totality of relations between Ireland and Britain — the authors cite it as fundamental in the move towards a possible resolution of the conflict.

They also argue that the Good Friday agreement shows that the future for opposing communities lies in working together rather than apart.

An interesting examination of the road to the Good Friday agreement and a useful contribution to our understanding of recent events as seen from the perspective of moderate Irish nationalism.

Irish Democrat October/November 2000 Page 9

Book reviews

For the 'Joy of penal servitude and the Grace of Joe Sally Richardson reviews Mounfjoy: The Story of a Prison by Tim Carey, Collins Press £12.99 pbk and Grace Gifford Plunkett and Irish Freedom by Marie O'Neill, Irish Academic Press, £14.50 pbk

THE PRISON architects must have studied hard to evolve a soulless building," wrote Ernie O'Malley of Mountjoy prison, where he was held during the civil war. "No touch of warmth of earth or stone; nature was barren here, only the ruthless strength of men who built such walls to crush, to teach a lesson, rather than to cure men, to make the grey stones eat into grey souls."

Yet, as Tim Carey's new book explains, Mountjoy, 150 years old this year, was designed with the best of intentions as a model prison that would not only punish, but educate and reform.

The prisons Mountjoy was meant to replace were filthy holes whose inmates were almost beyond any control. Typhus was endemic.

They were described as 'universities of crime' as early as 1820. Yet for all the reformers' good intentions, Mountjoy was often little better.

In this humane and compassionate book Carey traces the ebb and flow of prison reform and practice — experimentation, trial and error. He also

M O U N T J O Y

depicts the stories and experiences of the men and women who committed crimes and provides details of how the penal system dealt with them.

Mountjoy, like Kilmainham and Long Kesh, holds an iconic position in Irish political history. These places are holy ground, sanctified by what so many men and women endured for Ireland's freedom.

A veritable roll-call of great political and literary figures did time in Mountjoy for resistance to British tyranny. Here were executed Kevin Barry, Liam Mellows, among other. More died of ill

treatment. The two chapters that Carey devotes

to Mountjoy's political prisoners could easily be expanded to fill a whole book, but he packs a lot into them and Carey is careful to give an overall history with emphasis on Mountjoy's role in penal rather than political history.

Carey admits he was shocked by prisoners' conditions in Mountjoy today. A 25-year-old prisoner hanged himself while Carey was writing the epilogue to his book.

Undoubtedly, the prison system needs reform. But it can't cure crime. To do that we have to tackle the problems of poverty and inequality in society.

GRACE GIFFORD Plunkett, thanks to her marriage to Joe Plunkett. has gone down in history as an icon of 1916. The details are undeniably romantic — the sobbing girl in Grafton Street buying a ring, the candlelit ceremony in Kilmainham prison chapel and Joe's execution a few hours later. Thirty-nine years of widowhood followed. She never remarried.

Marie O'Neill has written this book to rescue Grace's memory from what Margaret MacCurtain in her introduction calls "a few stark moments frozen in time".

Grace was one of twelve children, all reared as Protestants by their unionist

parents. Lively, artistic and rebellious, Grace and four of her sisters became active in the Irish republican movement. It was Grace's interest in Catholicism that brought her and Joe Plunkett together, to her mother's disgust, although Mrs Gifford had yielded to the charm of another Irish rebel, son-in-law Thomas McDonagh, who married her daughter Muriel.

After 1916, Grace earned a precarious living as a commercial artist and cartoonist and remained in straightened circumstances until Eamon de Valera granted her a civil-list pension in 1932. Her relationship with her in-

laws deteriorated and she eventually sued them tor the money Joe intended her to have.

Although she remained close to her sisters and their children and had many friends, some of whose patience she tried sorely, what had been independence and wit in her twenties had turned to prickliness and a quarrelsome tendency. Her behaviour became markedly more difficult after the death of her sister Muriel, another 1916 widow, in 1917.

Yet, despite her biographer's efforts, Grace remains a rather shadowy figure. This may not be entirely the fault of O'Neill, who points out that "Grace was a reserved woman who seldom revealed her inner self'.

We are left with little knowledge of Grace's feelings and beliefs. Some details, for which documentation is available and which throw light on her character, are omitted.

More information about the Gifford sisters, an interesting bunch, and more analysis of Grace's character and motivation, particularly in the context of the position of women and their emerging freedoms, would have made for a more illuminating biography.

Nevertheless, O'Neill has uncovered material from hitherto unused sources and her book is a welcome addition to the growing literature about women's role in Irish history.

Protestants speak for themselves

Jack Bennett reviews Nor thern Protestants, An Unsettled People by Susan McKay, Blackstaff Press, £12.99

NO ONE reared in a northern Protestant environment could fail to recognise every subtle variation in the woeful tale of sectarianism and bigotry depicted in this sad, sad book.

The author interviews more than sixty Protestants across the social spectrum. Most reveal their own personal degree of prejudice — from the genteel and refined bigotry of middle class respectability to the savage and murderous hatred of the "poor white trash" in the deprived ghettos of Portadown and the Shankill Road.

She lets them all speak for themselves and refrains from intruding her own political views except for a mild observation or two such as: "There was a terrible lack of humanity in the way many Ballymoney people of all classes spoke about the Quinns" — those three children burnt to death in a loyalist outrage.

ff i W ^ r

OMorthern

Susan McKay

A book, however, not so much for those who already know the scene, but more for those who think they do but don't. Essential for those dreamers who still exist on the fringes of the left, and of republicanism and nationalism, in Dublin and further south, who talk in archaic terms of "uniting Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter", as if those theological categories still existed and were relevant to the problem.

Susan McKay's record is not without intelligent and telling comments from the non-moronic twenty-five per cent of the

Protestant population. Where are they and what are they doing? "I keep my mouth shut", says one, after remarking, "I don't see any difference between Catholics and Protestants, and that is why Ireland should really be united."

Says another: "If any middle-class person tells you they are not bigoted, they are telling lies." And another: "A lot of middle-class people are incredible bigoted... but they daren't let it show."

And not without a wry laugh or two. A Protestant artist, some of whose paintings feature headless bandsmen in uniform, explained: "Being a Protestant, for me, is like having no head... you are not allowed to think."

An "unsettled people" she calls them (a quote from John Robb). More like a very disturbed and mentally disorientated people. After being cock-o'-the-walk for 50 years, they are reeling from the shock of discovering that their fantasy of a "loyal Ulster" is totally shattered.

An immensely wide and richly illustrated survey, with a political range covering all the political nuances, this book, despite the largely depressing content, leaves at the end an overall impression of subdued optimism and hope. It is the most important sociological study of the problem yet to appear. And not a word of psycho-babble in it

Refugees discover a poor welcome

Enda Finlay reviews Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Ireland by Paul Cullen, Cork University Press, £6.95 pbk

WRITTEN EARLIER this year when the media was replete with headlines bemoaning Ireland's lot in having to deal with a comparatively small number of refugees and asylum seekers, Cullen's short book, the latest in the excellent Cork University Press Undercurrents series, cast a critical eye over the treatment of refugees and asylum seekers.

Cullen tackles the task by looking at the historical context, the European perspective, the Irish response. He also examines options for the future.

What is clear from his study is the utter incompetence of successive governments in dealing with this issue.

According to Cullen, only the courts and the Eastern Health Board have come out of the whole period with any credit.

'Ireland of the welcomes' has become as cliched as Irish theme pubs,

the reality has been a nation which has historically been scarred by emigration but it also has "fortified our sense of victimhood, allowing us to forget that many other peoples have suffered the yoke of colonial oppression and have had terrible experiences in their own histories".

Sadly, like Britain and other parts of prosperous Europe, where racial intolerance and xenophobia are also rife, Ireland has recently gained a reputation for its less than welcoming attitude towards asylum seekers from eastern Europe and Africa.

Earlier this year, official incompetence led to a backlog of 6,000 cases, many having spent years in limbo awaiting decisions. Attacks on refugees have become distressingly common.

Cullen expresses the hope that lessons can be learned once the backlog is cleared and crucially that Ireland "with its new economic might comes a duty to do more to alleviate suffering in the world, and part of this entails taking a greater share of the refugee burden".

Other new titles in the Undercurrents series include Prison Policy in Ireland, criminal Justice versus social Justice by Paul O'Mahony and Farm, myths and reality by Alan Mathews.

Heart of the matter Calum McConnell reviews A Nat ion Of Ext remes by Diarmaid Ferriter, Irish Academic Press, £35.00 hbk, and Alfred Webb: the autobiography of a Quaker national ist by Marie-Louise Legg (ed.), Cork University Press , £8.95 pbk

THE IRISH have always had an extraordinary relationship with alcohol. This book seeks to explore this relationship in the 20th century from the point of view of the group who were intent on reducing alcohol consumption through membership in the Pioneer Total Abstinence of the Sacred Heart.

Formed in 1898, by the mid 1950s the association was to claim a

membership of nearly half a million, identifiable by the wearing of a pin, the outward expression of an internal and deeply personal piety.

But the stereotype of the Irish as a nation of heavy drinkers continued unabated, aided by vast expenditure on alcohol. As the century progressed two diametrically opposed cultures, abstinence and heavy drinking, lay alongside each other.

Ferriter makes use of previously unpublished sources, examining the Irish temperance movement in the context of Irish society as a whole and attempting to tease out some of the intricacies and ambiguities associated with these two cultures.

Although the leaders of this temperance crusade insisted that it was primarily a religious movement given the pervasiveness of the Irish drink

A N A T I O N ( ) ! 1 V I R1 M l s

culture it was inevitable that in their desire to transform attitudes they would have to involve themselves in the wider.

and more material debates about the role of drink in Irish society.

The fact that the movement was founded at a time of intense cultural nationalism gave these debates an added potency, particularly as it had often been contended that increased sobriety was essential for any self-respecting self-governing nation.

After independence, the quest for sobriety and an initially robust Catholic crusade ultimately led to confrontation and confusion.

THE NAME Alfred Webb sadly does not come to mind when we think of those who agitated for Home Rule, but this son of a radical Quaker played his part. This book is an attempt to redress this imbalance.

The book illustrates in the selections from his autobiography just how

remarkable a man he was, a man of rare breadth of vision and moral courage. He took up the campaigns of anti-slavery, the fight against sectarianism, the disestablishment of the established Church and franchise reform.

Indeed Webb wasn't scared to mince his words, on the outbreak of the Boer War which encouraged him to finally leave parliament he writes in his autobiography: "Parliament from being the mother of free nations had become their murderer".

Alfred Webb may be a forgotten man in Ireland but he is unlikely to be forgotten in India, where he presided as the President of the Indian Congress of 1894. Webb's involvement with the Congress was to lead to partnership between Irish and Indian nationalists who shared the common goals of self-government and land reform.

Page 11 Irish Democrat October/November 2000

kwn-ottt.

AF-TKR A couple of bonanza years there were noticeably fewer Insh acts at the 36th Cambridge Folk Festival — although the quality was as high as ever.

De Dannan have rightly earned a reputation as one of the finest modem traditional Insh music bands around. They've also acted as something of a traditional music 'academy' with a host of Ireland's top vocalists and instrumentalists, including Mary Black and Delores Keane. passing through their ranks.

The current line up continues to revolve around founder members Frankie Gavin (fiddle, flute and tin whistle) and Alec Finn (bouzouki, guitar). The hand's latest vocalist, Andrew Murray, is certainly a name to watch for the future.

US-based band Solas's display of all-

Reviews/culture

Frank Foley reviews N e w Vo ices in I r ish Cr i t ic ism, P.J. Mathews (Ed.), Four Courts Press, £14.95 phk

IN SPRING 1998, Professor Declan Kiberd convened a series of seminars on Theorising Ireland, providing a forum for young academics, intent on elevating Irish criticism to the status of Irish literature.

The resulting essays embrace

politics, history, literature and literary theory in a variety of styles and from disparate perspectives.

Greg Dobbing's excellent contribution distinguishes James Connolly as "the first Marxist theorist who wrote from the perspective of the colonised". Dobbing also associates Connolly with James Joyce's anxiety concerning the uses of history for political purposes.

Theorising the Novel follows, with

the well-argued essay on Irish, Bildungsroman, by Kathryn L Kleypas, comparing the work of Edna O'Brien with James Joyce and expressing the fundamental differences between male and female coming-of-age models.

Moynagh Sullivan's examination of dialogue between feminist theory and Irish studies, is among the more theoretically-orientated work.

So is Derek Hand's John Banville and Irish History: the Newton Letter, which states: "In the modern/ postmodern world there can be no distinction made between different texts

and different genres." Orthodox post structuralism tends

towards this type of oversimplification, ignoring the fact that we can and do make these distinctions. Sullivan, by contrast, suggests a more subtle approach — a sceptical awareness of subjective bias.

To dwell on such matters, however, would be to distort the overall effect of New Voices, which is both balanced and informative. This book corroborates PJ Mathew's claim that this is a period of great productivity and expansion for Irish studies.

Chonaic me ag teacht chugham I Tre Lar an t-sl6ibhe Mar r6altan trfd an gceo. Bht'os ag caint 'sa c6mhra lei go ndeachamar go pairc na mtx5. Shutamar sios ilu'b na fhail Go dtug me di scriobha faoi mo laimh Nach raibh cor cM ndeanfadh si nach ntocfainn a cain Do pluinn na mban donn 6g.

Foclair da dtiocfa (if you would come); bhdarfainn mil bheach (wild honey and mead cup); bhearfainn aor na long (I'll show the ships and sails)snf leigfinn aon bhr6n (grief would not reach us); ni rachad-sa leat (I shall not go with you); mile cead fearr liom (sooner would I live and sooner die a maid); ni'or thug chrof duit (my heart never said that I love you) chonaic me (I saw her come); Mar realtan trfd an gceo (like a star shining through the mist); bhf m6 ag caint (I was talking); go ndeachamar go piirc na mb6 (we went to the field below); Shuiamar sios (we sat down); Go dtug m£ di scriobha (I promised her in writing); N£ch raibh cor da ndeanfadh-si (to bear all blame of her love for me).

Sin E : a big hit at Cambridge this year

round musical talent will have done much to confirm their reputation as a top-drawer traditional ensemble. However, for this festival-goer at least, their performance could have done with a little more passion alongside the undoubted technical ability.

Some of the finest traditional music heard this year came from Scottish fiddler John McCusker and his collection of 'friends' who included, on this occasion, ebullient Four Men and a Dog frontman Gino Lupari (bodhran).

One of the highlights of the friends'

Cambridge Festival delights Irish Democrat editor David Granville reports on some of the highlights of this \ear s Cambridge Folk Festival

The art of the Celts

set was Lupari's bodhran solo during which he demonstrated an ability to wring complex rhythms and a rich variety of tones from his instrument.

Scottish fiddle 'supergroup' Blazin' Fiddles (Bruce MacGregor, Iain MacFarlane, Alan Henderson, Aidan O'Rourke, Duncan Chisholm and Catriona Macdonald) likewise hit the spot, proving that the Scottish fiddle tradition is alive.

By way of contrast, Sin E successfully combined the skills of traditional musicianship and diverse musical influences — including funk, jazz, techno and world music — to produce some of the most invigorating and highly danceable music of the weekend.

Their energetic performance in the Radio 2 tent at the close of the festival undoubtedly brought that part of it to a close on a suitably high note.

Unfortunately, I missed the only performance of The London Lasses and Pete Quinn. If the reports of other festival goers and the quality of their eponymous CD is anything to go by, those of us who opted instead for Billy Bragg missed a real treat.

Seamus 6 Cionnfhaola

Pluirin na Mban Donn Og (Flower of the brown-haired maidens)

This beautiful song breathes the very soul of love and sorrow. It seems to have been written at the period when famine afflicted the land. The poet's mistress declines, through dread of hunger, to go with him to County Leitrim. The song concludes with a burst of fierce love, chastened down by grief and resignation.

Da dtoicf liomsa go Co. Liatrom; A phluirfn na mban donn 6g Bhearfainn mil bheach agus meadh mar bhia dhuit A phluirfn na mban donn 6g. Bhearfainn aor na long na seol is na mbad Fe bharrai na dtonn is sinn ag filleadh on d-traig Is ni leigfinn-se aon bhr6n chaoiche I dhail A phluirfn na mban donn og.

Ni rachad sa leat is nil aon mhaith dhuit dom d'iarr Duirt pluirin na mban donn og Mar na coinneodh do glortha beo gan bhia me Duirt pluirin na mban donn 6g. Mile cead fearr liom 'bheith chaoiche gan fear Na 'bheith siul na druchta 'sna bhfasach leat Nior thug mo chroi duit gra na gean. Duirt pluirin na mban donn og.

DFBORAH O'BRIEN'S new book. Ce l t ic D e c o r a t i v e Art , a living tradition (O'Brien Press, £9.99 pbk) features many of her own modem designs, including the two pictured right, which are inspired by ancient sources such as the magnificent Book of Kelts.

Informative and attractively presented, this beautifully-illustrated b(xik is divided into three clear sections.

The first contains a brief illustrated history of the Celts ' and their art by Mairead Ashe Fit/Gerald,whose other work includes Exploring the World of Colmcille.

Part two features Deborah O'Brien's colour designs and provides an explanation of the various traditional motifs and forms which appear in Celtic art, including their symbolic meaning.

The final part of the book features the author's black-and-white designs. It includes templates and a host of practical suggestions for how the designs can be used for everything from stenciling to tatoos.

A n a _

Cairde na nGael's Irish Studies Course 2000 Cairde na nfiael's Autumn programme continues with 16 October: Lady Gregory, presentation by Moira O'Sullivan and John Garton. (Includes a performance of The Old Woman Remembers as performed by Sara Allgood at the Abbey Theatre in December >923) T ^ ^ M M P j ^ . 30 October: George Bernard Shaw: 50 years after Shaw's death, Moira O'Sullivan, Paul O'Callaghan and John Garton read from the works of the great Irish writer : 0 a m 13 November: a talk by Colm Kerrigan (topic to be announced) Venue: Cairde na nGael, 57 Woodgrange Road, Forest Gat6, London E7 OEL • ^ - r M ^ : Events begin et 7.30pm :

£2 members, £3 non-members. Further details tel. 020 8518 5089

Anniversary Parade Chris Maguire selects some notable days for October and November

3 October IRA and INLA prisoners call off their hunger strike after it becomes clear that relatives will intervene to save their lives, 1981. 7 October Tory prime minister Margaret Thatcher announces plans to abolish the GLC and the Metropolitan County Councils, 1983. The councils were duly abolished in 1986. 1 1 October Irish delegation meet British negotiators at 22 Hans Place London, 1921. The delegation, which was led by Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins, took up residence at 15 Cadogan Gardens in Kensington, London. 1 7 October William Smith O'Brien, Young Irelander, born Dromoland, Co.

Clare, 1803. 1 9 October Jonathan Swift, writer and dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin dies, 1745; Oliver Cromwell bans the celebration of the Catholic mass in Ireland, 1649. 2 1 October United Irishman Thomas Russell is hung for his part in Robert Emmet's failed rising, 1803. 2 2 October Irish National Land League founded in Dublin, 1879. Michael Davitt, it's chief architect, intends it to promote and co-ordinate a country-wide campaign against landlordism; First parliament of Great Britain meets, 1707. 30 October Richard Brinsley Sheriden, playwright and orator, is bom at 12 Upper Dorset Street, Dublin, 1751.

4 November Ulster businessmen announce a 'tax strike' until Home Rule abandoned by the British government, 1913.

9 November Dylan Thomas, Welsh poet and writer, dies in New York aged 39, 1953. 1 3 November Birmingham-based republican James McDade dies when a bomb he is planting at a Coventry telephone exchange goes off prematurely, 1974 1 5 November Edna O'Brien, novelist and short-story writer, bom Tuamgraney, Co. Clare, 1932. 1 7 November Belfast-born Scottish physicist and mathematician, William Thompson, inventor of the Kelvin temperature scale, dies, 1907. 2 4 November Erskine Childers, author and Irish patriot, executed by the Free State government, 1922. 2 8 November Sinn Fdin founded Arthur Griffith and Bulmer Hobson, 1905. The party's emphasis was on cultural and economic independence.

Irish Democrat October/November 2000 Page 5

Flag of the free This recruiting song for Union volunteers in the American civil war has a uniquely Irish-American lyric. It was set to one of the finest Gaelic melodies, Eibhleen A Ruin (Treasure of my Heart), which became known to the English-speaking world as Robin Adair.

Could we desert you now? Rag of the free When we made a solemn vow, Hag of the free You from all harm to save, Made when we crossed the wave, And you a welcome gave, Flag of the free.

Are we now cowards grown, Flag of the free? Would we you now disown, Flag of the free You to whose folds we've fled, You, in whose cause we've bled, Bearing you at our head Flag of the free?

Could we desert you now? Rag of the free And to false traitors bow, Hag of the free? Never! through good and ill, Ireland her blood will spill Bearing you onward still Hag of the Free.

Do you want your lobby washed down? The Cork landlords were so 'reasonable'at the turn of the century that tenants managed to earn part of the rent by agreeing to look after the maintenance of the premises. Washing the stone steps and hallway must have saved a couple of bob.

I've a nice little cot and a fair bit of land And a place by the side of the sea And I care about no one Because, I believe, nobody cares about me.

Gerard Curran's songs page

My peace is destroyed and I 'm fairly annoyed By a lassie who works in the town She sighs every day as she passes the way: 'Do you want your lobby washed down?'

Chorus Do you want your lobby washed down, Con Shine. Do you want your old lobby washed down? She's sighs every day as she passes the way: 'Do you want your old lobby washed down?'

The other day the landlord came by for his rent I told him no money I had Besides 'twasn't fair to ask me to pay The times were so awfully bad. He felt discontent at not getting his rent, And he shook his big head in a frown, Says he 'I'll take half ' , 'But' says I with a laugh, 'Do you want your old lobby washed down?'

Now the boys look so bashful when they go out courtin' They seem to look so very shy As to kiss a young maid, sure they seem half afraid But they would if they could on the sly. But me, I do things in a different way I don't give a nod or a frown When I goes to court, I says 'Here goes for sport. 'Do you want your lobby washed down?'

Many thousand gone This song, made famous by Paul Robeson, was a

favourite among the 100,000 Afro-Americans who joined the anti-slavery side in the American civil war.

No more auction block for me, No more, no more; No more auction block for me, Many thousand gone.

No more peck of corn for me, No more, no more; No more peck of com for me, Many thousand gone.

No more driver's lash for me, No more, no more; No more driver's lash for me; Many thousand gone.

No more pint of salt for me. No more, no more; No more pint of salt for me. Many thousand gone.

Irish ways and Irish laws This song was written on the back of a cigarette packet in the Baggot Inn, Dublin, by John Gibbs and handed to Christy Moore for the first rendering. No self-respecting bookshop should be without copies of Christy's songbook.

Once upon a time, there was Irish ways and Irish laws. Villages of Irish blood, Waking to the morning, Waking to the morning.

Then the Vikings came around. Turned us up and turned us down. Started building boats and towns They tried to change our living They tried to change our living.

Cromwell and his soldiers camc. Started centuries of shame But they could not make us turn We are a river flowing, We're a river flowing.

Again, again the soldiers came Burnt our houses, stole our grain, Shot the farmers in their fields, Working for a living, Working for a living.

800 years we have been down. The secret of the water sound Has kept the spirit of a man Above the pain descending. Above the pain descending.

Today the struggle carries on I wonder will I live so long To see the gates being opened up To a people and their freedom A people and their freedom.

Celtic Art Cards Christmas and New Year Cards

Pack of t e n cards (various designs) £5 .50 (pr ice includes p&p) - UK only

Cheques payable to Northampton Connolly Association (Single design packs available on request)

All greet ings in English a n d Irish Available from: Northampton Connolly Association,

5 Woodland Avenue, Abington, Northampton NN3 2BY.

Tel. 01604 715 793 email: pmcelt@compuserve.com

Seasonal gifts from Four Provinces Irish bookshop

244 Gray's Inn Road, London WC1X 8JR

tel: 020 7833 3022 For a wide selection of Irish-interest books, calendars music, CDs and cassettes, commemorative mugs and

badges, seasonal cards in English and Irish, and videos, including Philip Donellan's classic documentary of Irish life in Britain, The Irishman (£17.50 plus £1 p&p)

Now in stock: 2001 Beautiful Ireland calendars. Large £3.50, plus 50p p&p, small £2.50 plus 50p p&p

Open 11am-4pm, Tuesday to Saturday Mail order and catalogue available on request

Join the Connolly Association In Its campaign for unity and peace In Ireland

Membership £10 per year; £12 (joint), £6 (joint unwaged); £5 students, unemployed and pensioners. Membership includes a subscription to the Irish Democrat

For further details or a membership form contact: The Connolly Association, 244 Gray's Inn Road, London WC1X 8JR

Sources said.. .

Options for disengagement — "Plainly the British government is trying to disengage from Northern Ireland. The negotiations of the past few years, including the latest cosmetic deal with the IRA. might have been inspired by the advice an American gave his country over Vietnam 30 years ago: declare a victory and get out. It might well be the wish of the British people.

"The British — 'English' would be more accurate — have not great emotional affinity, or love, for the Ulster Protestants. When Harold Wilson attacked the loyalists strikers as 'spongers' in 1974 he was echoing, less eloquently, what John Milton said more that 300 years earlier — and what many Englishmen vaguely feel to this day. (Geoffrey Wheatcroft in The Obsener)

UDA home — "A convicted sectarian killer recently released early from the Maze prison is moving to England to join the neo-Nazi terror group, Combat 18. Stephen Irwin was sentenced to life for his part in the 'trick or treat' massacre at Greysteel in Co. Deny seven years ago. The 26-year-old UDA member, who was befriended by English neo-Nazis while he was held in the Maze, will find himself in the middle of a violent dispute among British fascists." (The Observer)

Orange SS — "The Orangeman took off his shirt to reveal tattooed swastikas and tattoos which said SS Storm Troopers. The Orangeman went on to talk about his belief in the supremacy of the Anglo-Saxon race. I'll be interested to see if the Orange Order expel this fascist in their ranks." (Tom Paulin in The Guardian)

Banking irregularities — "The Ulster Bank, a subsidiary of the Royal Bank of Scotland, is to make a I£4.2 million settlement with the Irish tax authorities after a parliamentary probe into the misuse of non-resident bank accounts. (Financial Times)

Even more money — "The Northern Ireland Office will be given an extra £316 million to implement the reforms of the Good Friday Agreement including policing, criminal justice and compensation payment." (The Guardian)

Loyalist conflict — "A senior RUC officer has watched C company's trajectory from skinheads to sectarian assassins: 'The community on the Shankill is reaping what they sow. These boys were once just an ordinary gang of thugs who were then elevated into defenders of the people. Now they are turning on their own people. They are not just motivated by drugs, that's facile. Intelligent drug dealers don' t draw attention to themselves by going to armed displays and starting feuds with the UVF. These people are fanatical loyalists who want the war to start again.'" (The Observer)

LAST WORD "If the north-east corner of Ireland is, therefore, the home of a people whose minds are saturated with conceptions of political activity fit only for the atmosphere of the seventeenth century, and if the sublime ideas of an all-embracing democracy equally as insistent upon its duties as upon its right have as yet found poor lodgement there, the fault lies not with this generation of toilers, but with those pastors and masters who deceived it and enslaved it in the past — and deceived it in order that they might enslave it."

James Connolly

i

Iwsh Oemociuc Anonn Is Anall: The Peter Berresford Ellis Column

Cork's neglected history Prompted by a report demonstrating British media ignorance of recent Irish history, Peter Berresford Ellis reminds us that Terence MacSwiney, right, was not the last republican to be elected the position of Lord Mayor in Ireland prior to recent events in Perry

HEN CATHAL Crumley of Sinn Fein was elected lord mayor of Derry on Monday 5 June, the BBC described him as the first republican lord mayor since Cork's Terence

MacSwiney died on hunger strike in a London jail in October, 1920. What a colossal piece of historical ignorance.

Having said that, I have been increasingly concerned that histories of the war of independence and the civil war do seem to end their references about the civic struggle in Cork with MacSwiney's death. True, they mention the burning of the city by British troops in December, 1920, and its capture by Free Staters in August, 1922. But histories mention no republican civil administration in the city after MacSwiney.

Even the most recent book on Cork — The IRA and its Enemies: Violence and Community in Cork 1916-1923 by Peter Hart (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1998) astounded me by not having a single reference to Cork's third or fourth republican lord mayors.

I did a quick poll of knowledgeable friends and not one) even those from Cork, could name MacSwiney's successors.

Terence MacSwiney's deputy as lord mayor, was Domhnall Og O Ceallachain (Donal O'Callaghan), bom in Ardglass, 20 July 1891. He was not a native Irish speaker but, attending Eason's Hill school, in the North Parish, he studied the language and was able to complete with native speakers and carry off prizes at the Feis Mumhan. He became a member of the IRB and joined the Volunteers, being appointed a section officer before 1916. In 1917 he was arrested but later released. He was then elected as a Sinn Fdin councillor in January, 1920, to the city council (corporation).

When MacSwiney succeeded Tom&s MacCurtain, after the latter's murder by British forces in his own home, in front of his wife and children, on 20 March 1920, Domhnall became MacSwiney's deputy. When MacSwiney was arrested on August 12,1920, in City Hall, Domhnall took over as acting lord mayor and remained so during MacSwiney's hunger strike in Brixton, where he had been illegally incarcerated.

After MacSwiney's death on 25 October Domhnall was confirmed in office. In fact, on 2 June 1920, Domhnall, who was also elected a councillor for Ballincollig on the Cork County Council, became chairman of that council. Sinn F6in Councillor Barry M Egan, a jeweller from Glanmire, was appointed deputy lord mayor.

British soldiers were open in telling Domhnall that he would be the third republican lord mayor who would not last long in office.

On the night of 11 December the British occupation forces showed that they meant to break Cork's republican spirit by burning down the centre of the city and looting it. This was not just an act of the 'Black and Tan' vandalism but involved regular troops.

British propaganda immediately tried to claim that Cork citizens had set fire to their own city. The army authorities announced an inquiry. Domhnall and the entire city corporation issued a statement that "we charge the English military and police force (with the destruction of the city) before the whole world".

Domhnall was now advised by seniors members of the Irish government that it might be wise for him to leave Cork for a while and that he could do equally good service fund raising in the USA.

Domhnall, together with Terence MacSwiney's brother, Peter MacSwiney, managed to stow away on board the American steamer West Canon which had been tied up at the Cork jetties. He hid in a coal bunker, but sickness forced him to come on deck after seven days.

They reached Newport News, Virginia, about 5 January. A board of special enquiry in Washington ordered the lord mayor's deportation. Domhnall appealed and the matter was referred to the State Department.

Meantime Domhnall and Peter MacSwiney arrived in New York to a tumultuous welcome.

He was in New York when on 31 January 1921, the election for lord mayor was held in Cork. It was held annually in January. The council met in the courthouse and it was immediately surrounded by British troops and RIC with a district inspector at their head. They burst into the council chamber and demanded the names of everyone in attendance. They confiscated the roll which the councillors had just signed and left.

histories mention no republican civil

administration in the city after MacSwiney

The councillors proceeded with the meeting. Alderman Liam de Roiste proposed the reelection of Domhnall as lord mayor. This was seconded by alderman Liam Russell. There was no opposition. Barry Egan was also reelected and was making an address when the British troops reentered the chamber.

They called for three aldermen and eight councillors to step forward. Only nine of the eleven

although Domhnall was hiding in the hills he

was once again re-elected Lord Mayor

in absentia

names did so. They were aldermen Collins, Tadhg Barry and Charles Coughlan and councillors SJ O'Riordan, John O'Leary, John Sheridan, M Walsh, S Daly and T Daly. Two other councillors, W Russell and John Good, refused to surrender and were hidden by their colleagues.

The arrested councillors were taken to an internment camp. Alderman Tadhg Barry was shot by a British soldier in October that year.

Domhnall returned to Ireland and on 19 May 1921. He was elected to the second D£il and appointed minister for home affairs. On 30 January 1922, during the troubled days of the debate on the Treaty, Domhnall was re-elected as lord mayor. Barry Egan, now also a member of the Diil, and re-elected deputy mayor.

IN JUNE 1922 Civil War broke out. Carlton Younger in his study Civil War in Ireland (1968) claims: "the hard beating heart of Republican intransigence lay in Cork". It was true that the city held firmly to its allegiance to the Republic. As the tide turned Cork had

become the 'capital' of the diminishing Irish republic.

Michael Collins gave approval to 24-year-old Emmet Dalton, to launch an attack on the city. The approaches to Cork by road and rail were well defended. Dalton decided to attack from the sea. Commandeering two steam packets, the Arvonia and Lady Wicklow, Dalton took 456 officers and men. On the Lady Wicklow they embarked a Lancia armoured car called 'The Manager' and an 18-pouruj* fi -Id piece.

On tht night of Monday 7 August, between 11pm and midnight, they steamed up the River Lee on the tide. On Tuesday 8 August about 2am they landed at Passage West.

The fighting was fierce but with other landings at Youghal and Union Hall, near Skibbereen, and reinforcements coming by road and rail, the republican forces began to pull out of the city on Thursday evening to take to the countryside. Among them was the lord mayor who was now part of De Valera's 'cabinet'.

Barry Egan, the deputy lord mayor and now a

pro-treaty TD, entered Cork with the victorious Free Staters and tried to take charge of the civil administration.

On Saturday 12 August 1922, General Dalton, posted a proclamation declaring that the Free State was in control of the city.

A surprising development was that although Domhnall was hiding in the hills with the guerrillas, still fighting for the republic, in January, 1923, he was once again reelected lord mayor in absentia and the pro-treaty deputy Barry Egan was firmly rejected.

As there needed to be a practical executive in the city, it was agreed that the deputy lord mayor would be William Ellis.

William Ellis (1873-1951) had first been elected to the city corporation in 1916 as an independent nationalist for the South Area No 2. He had been reelected in 1920. It was alderman Liam de Roiste, who had been elected a Sinn F6in and Transport Workers alderman and also TD in the first Dail in 1918, who proposed Ellis as acting Lord Mayor to steer the fortunes of republican Cork during what was to be the last year of the civil war.

On 24 May 1923 the civil war ended when Frank Aiken gave the order for the cease fire and for the republicans to dump their arms.

The lord mayor of Cork was now a fugitive, on the run from the Free Staters.

Throughout the period from the fall of the city in August, 1922, to the end of 1923, the lord mayor had not been able to attend any council meetings and the city solicitor was asked to report by the Cumann na nGael (the Free State party) on the legality of this. He declared that the lord mayor was now disqualified from office.

On 25 January 1924, Domhnall wrote: "I hereby resign the lord mayoralty of the city... The thoughts and opinions I had when I was elected are the same thoughts and opinions I have today on the question of the Irish Republic. Because of that I have been unable to be with you for more than a year. Because of that I should probably be unable to take part in municipal affairs for some time to come. Wishing prosperity to the city and those who will be working for it..."

At the election of a new lord mayor on 30 January Sir John Scott, an independent nationalist, paid a tribute to the outgoing lord mayor and to the work done by his deputy William Ellis.

Two candidates for lord mayor were proposed at that 30 January 1924 meeting. The Pro-Treaty Barry Egan and the anti-treaty councillor Sean French of Sinn Fein, who was also a D&il candidate for the city in a by-election that year.

Once again 'Rebel' Cork choose a Sinn F6in lord mayor.

The pro-treaty government then passed an Act which empowered the minister for local government to dissolve any local authority found to be "negligent, insubordinate or corrupt" and appointed a city commissioner to administer the affairs of Cork city.

It has been argued that Sedn French thereby remained lord mayor of Cork for the years 1924 until the Fianna F4il government reinstituted the city council and office of lord mayor in 1929.

William Ellis, the acting lord mayor for 1923-24, remained a member of the city corporation until 1935. He specialised in technical and vocational education and was a key figure in developing the Cork City vocational education committee. He died in Cork in 1951.

Domhnall O Ceallachain continued to give his allegiance to the Irish Republic. He married Eibhlin Ni Shuilleabhain, a native speaker of Irish from the West Cork Gaeltacht. Eibhlin was sister of Michedl O Suilleabhain author of the famous account of the war of independence in West Cork, Where Mountainy Men Have Sown (1965). They were married in London, at the Holy Trinity church in the docklands on 2 August 1924.

Domhnall remained loyal to de Valera until de Valera broke with Sinn F6in. Political pressures forced him to leave the country and he spent some years in Europe, working as an accountant in Strassbourg, before returning to Ireland and settling in Athlone.

In 1936 he declined an invitation to a gala banquet in support of the opening of the new city hall calling it a 'Free State' occasion and an outrage to Cork's republican past.

Domhnall O CeallachSin, Cork's third republican lord mayor, and successor to MacCurtain and MacSwiney, died in Dublin in 1962, aged seventy years. He is buried in Glasnevin cemetery.

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