Irish Democrat July 1990

Campaigning journal of the Irish comm in Britain No 563 July 1990 Price 40p
e hundred years after the Battle of the Boyne. loyalism lurches from crisis to crisis
tent on raising tensions to boiling
point by forcing republican and
unionist prisoners to share
prison facilities and neighbouring
cells.
Unionism has failed the Protestants
of Ulster. It has pledged its
their loyalty to an external power
that is determined to pursue its
own political goals without them
if necessary. It has hidden from
history their radical roots in the
leadership of modem Irish republicanism.
It has fostered the
hatreds and divisions in the Six
Counties of today.
There is an alternative: transformed
by British disengagement
from a 2 percent minority in the
United Kingdom to a 25 per cent
minority in a united ireland, they
would have substantial means to
influence the constitutional, financial
and political future of their
country. Then, and only then,
would they finally be on the
match to somewhere.
• MARTIN MORIARTY and
CONOR FOLEY
LONDON
CONNOLLY
ASSOC:ATION
July meeting
The Protestant
identity in a
united Ireland
Speaker: Kevin McCorry
Author of new
Connolly Association
pamphlet
8pm, Wednesday 11 July
Marchmont Street
Community Centre
Marchmont Street, WC1
(Nearest tube: Russell
Square)
INSIDE: JUDICIAL RFVENGF 3 m REVISIONISM DEMOLISHED 4 R BOYNE HiSTORY 7 IS FIELDS OF r HE SLAUGHTER 8 •

NEWS
IRISH
JMWS
EDITORIAL
Physical force in
British politics
PATRICK LAWLOR on how justice isn't being done in the 'Casement' trials
WE HAVE been here before. In 1939, we questioned
whether bombs in Britain would win
this country's workers to the republican cause.
After the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings we said:
"Let this be the last" - and our prediction that they
would set back the Irish movement in Britain by a decade
has largely been proved true.
We have opposed the trawling operations through
the Irish community that inevitably follow in the wake
of military operations in Britain. They can and do
make people's lives a misery. When six men were arrested
under the Prevention of Terrorism Act after the
Lichfield shooting last month - the three lifted in Nottingham
mostly on the strength of the Irish accent of
one of them - screaming headlines called them killers.
Their relase without charge barely merited a mention.
But while we have consistently argued against violence,
we have never fallen in with the hysteria of the
mass media denunciations, which have sought to deny
any legitimacy to the use of physical force in an attempt
to cover up the colonial roots of the Irish crisis.
Whether or not the killing of a 19-year-old recruit on
a railway station platform will hasten Irish reunification
is a debatable point: the heart of the matter is that
bombs and bullets are the price people in Britain pay
for failing to get to grips with the problem, whose origins
lie in the 1920 Government of Ireland Act.
It is because a British Act of Parliament established
Britain's claim to sovereignty over Ireland's six northeastern
counties that it is imperative that British
people force the amendment or repeal of that Act. Central
to such a movement for change must be the organised
working class - it is in their direct interests.
But it is the labour movement's failure to take the Irish
question to the centre of its political strategy which
has left a vacuum to be filled by the proponents of
physical force.
The alternative is clear: it is the demonstration to the
British labour movement that were it to add its organised
voice to the majority sentiment for British
disengagement, that would mark the beginning of the
end of the attacks on army offices and bases up and
down the country. That means a steady campaign inside
the frade union movement to lay bare the essentials
of the Irish crisis - and the enormous potential for
change held by British labour.
MM
EDITORIAL BOARD: Gerard Curran, Conor Foley
(news), Martin Moriarty (production), Peter Mulligan
ADDITIONAL TYPESETTING: Roz Hardie
PUBLISHED BY: Connolly Publications Ltd., 244-46
Gray's Inn Road, London WC1
PRINTED BY: Ripley Printers Ltd (TU), Nottingham
Road, Ripley, Derbyshire
Many thanks
WE HAD a steady stream of donations
to our sustentation
fund last month which established
a healthy target for next
month. Big donations are always
appreciated but any thing
you can spare us is of help.
Sustentation fund
R McLaughlin £3.50, COS £5, P
Bransfield £10, S Farrelly £5.50,
J Bradley £10, H Kelsey £3.50,
WA Booth £10, W Charles £5, D
Morgan £3, C Cunningham t2,
M Taylor£5, 0 Kotz £18, PW
Ladkln £2, K Doody £1, KPM
Haldane £5, M Duggan £2, R
Long £5, R Harmon £1, F Campbell
£12.60, F Rushe £2, S Healy
£2, P O'Fialch £1, O Cahn £2,
P&G Horgan £5, M&R Sellers
£5.
In memoriam of Charlie Flndlay.
J&R Rea £5, J Tate £5, J&L Robinson
$20, G Flndlay £50. -
Memorial appeal i
R Brown MP £10, M Gaster £20,
Haringey Trades Council £15, J
Bird £5, M Morrison $25. Bankers
Orders Totel £67.
Grand Total
£242.5
I Sally Mulready (standing) last month urged delegates
to local government union NALGO conference
to help ensure a debate on the case of the
Birmingham Six at TUC Congress. Tricia Power (far
left), one of the daughters of Billy Power, added a
powerful personal statement after Connolly Association
executive member Martin Moriarty (far right)
explained the need for a trade union campaign to
protect civil liberties, and NALGO Scottish secretary
Donald Mcintosh outlined how the union was
developing its Irish policy. North-West NALGO secretary
Graham Burgess (centre) chaired the fringe
meeting.
Pic: David Granville
DEREK O'FLAHERTY on the case of Gilbert McNamee
GILBERT "Danny" McNamee's
appeal against his
conviction in 1987 in connection
with the 1982
Hyde Park bombing,
which was scheduled to take place
this month, now seems likely to be
delayed until November.
It is the latest setback in the campaign
to get hinm a fair hearing after
his original trial was described by
one US observer as a "symphony orchestrated
for guilt".
Danny - born Gilbert - McNamee
was arrested at his home in Cross maglen
in Armagh Northern Ireland on
August 161986 when soldiers broke
down his door and whisked him off
to Britain. He was charged with conspiracy
to cause explosions in the
United Kingdom between January 1
1983 and January 26 1984.
Just 10 days before the trial began
on monday October 12 1987 - some
14 months after McNamee's arrest -
the Crown announced that it would
add the 1982 Hyde Park bomb charge
to the indictment. The dates when
conspiracy was alleged to have taken
place was put back by one year.
When the defence sought time to deal
with this startling development they
were was refused.
There was worse to follow. The
Crown introduced into open court a
previous case against McNamee in
Dublin, for which he was acquitted.
Pictures of the awful carnage at Hyde
Park were shown to the jury. The
prosecution inferred that both the:
distinguised US observers - one of
whom, Wisconsin judge Andrew
Somers Jr had 30 years experience as
a lawyer and judge - and McNamee's
Irish solicitor were linked to the IRA.
But the final card up the Crown
sleeve was to alter the indictmentyet
again, only this time after the defence
7 , *» I "
had sat down after final submissions.
The charges now alleged that
McNamee had conspired between
the revised dates in the UK "or elsewhere"
to cause explosions This got
around the fact that he lived in the
armpit of an army base in Northern
Ireland (i.e. in the UK) but worked in
the Irish Republic.
The defence case rested on three
points: Danny McNamee worked a
few miles from his home in Dundalk,
South of the border, with Kimble's
Manufacturing making circuit
boards for CB radios and gambling
machines. It had since come to light
that two brothers who ran the factory
had links with the IRA. The defence
argued, quite simply, that this was
how materials McNamee had used in
routine work, like batteries and insulating
tape, had wound up in the
wrong hands.
McNAMEE cut an unlikely IRA
figure. He had dragged his
father from a pub bombed by
the IRA when he was just 13 and
watched him die of his injuries a year
later.
"I totality disagree with the IRA,"
he told the court. "I have had nothing
to do with bombs. If you had seen the
results of bombs as I have seen them,
you would not even accuse me".
He also told the court hotv two of
his cousins, one aged 54, the other 60,
were shot dead by the IRA. None of
this testimony was contested by the
Crown.
The third aspect of the defence related
to Hyde Park. No evidence had
been produced linking him with the
bomb or explosion, but the prosecution
said that fragments of a circuit
board found at the scene were similar
to circuit boards found in dumps
where McNamee's prints were found
also. It was evident, the prosecution^
contended that they were the work Of
"the same master craftsman". vt
McNamee rejected this. He was a>
graduate in physics, proud of his
work. The circuit boards producedia
court were shoddy, he said. Experts
for the defence concurred. I
The judge's summing-up was
extraordinary. The hotly contested."
expert evidence on whether the ciis
cuit boards were shoddy or the wort?
of a master craftsman was dismissed*
by him as "very much undisputed*.
McNamee's relatives murdered b^
the IRA were also downplayed. Ttar
judge suggested to the jury that hisi
cousins may have been in the IRA*
and his fathered murdered
enemies of the IRA. i,
What was particularly startling was
that no one in court including the
prosecution had said anything like
this. So little did the judges "summary
of evidence" tally with whathad
transpired that US judge Somers
recalled: "I thought I was sitting in
the wrong court". 4
McNamee's trial and conviction
took place before the release of the.
Guildford Four and the Winchester
Three. It demonstrates the extent of
latent prejudice linked to a horrific
crime like the Guildford or Hydfr
Park bombings. 1
This aspect of the case and of others
like it runs much deeper than a reform
of the appeals system can deair
with. 1
The moral and political erosion of
the British political and legal sys->
tems is the short-term price paid by.
everyone for the government's ab*
session with security because of its
wretched role in Ireland. The price in
the long-term may be incalculable." |
ON 16 MARCH 1988, nationalists
in Belfast converged
on Milltown
cemetery to mourn the
passing of and show solidarity
with Hie three unarmed IRA
members murdered by the SAS in
Gibraltar. Unbeknownst to them a
Loyalist hitman, Michael Stone, was
also in the cemetery to launch a grenade
and gun attack on the funeral.
As a result of Stone's attack three
people died and scores were injured.
But for the bravery of those mourners
who chased, captured and disarmed
Stone, the death toll would have been
higher. Pictures of the attack flashed
across television screens and the area
was left in a state of shock, nervousness
and unease.
The widely publicised attack added
a new horrificdimension to the levels
' of brutality which the people of Belfast
have witnessed over the years:
even the dead it seemed could not
now be laid to rest in peace.
It is only in this context that the
events on Belfast's Andersonstown
road three days later can be understood.
Yet the judiciary have dismissed
the effects of this attack on the
people of Belfast as irrelevant when
presiding over what have become
known as the Casement Trials.
Three days after Stone's murderous
attack, on 19 March, the funeral of
oneof his victims, Caoimhin MacBradaigh
took-place. His cortege was
makingits way to Milltown cemetery
flanked by hundreds of mourners
and the west Belfast taxi association.
Suddenly a car, with two armed men
in it, drove straight at the head Of the
cortege. It mounted the pavement at
considerable speed, scattering mourners
in the process. Mourners, on
seeing a gun and hearing a shot, believed
that they were again under
attack and disarmed the two men
who turned out to be British soldiers
in plain clothes.
After the two were disarmed the
IRA took over and executed them.
Those who disarmed the men had no
control over subsequent events.
Thirty-seven people have been
charged in connection with this killing.
None of them have been identi-,
tied as the actual gunmen but so far
22 of them have received sentences
ranging from two years to life.
Convictions have been based in the
main on poor quality photographic
evidence. None of the accused have
been charged with belonging to a
paramilitary organisation. Five have
received life sentences for "aiding
and abetting": three of these had
been out on bail of a few hundred
pounds before their conviction.
The judges have not allowed "mitigating
circumstances" to be part of
the defence despite the fact that the
law states a person has the right to
self defence when attacked. No one
was brought to book for assaults on
Stone during his capture since it was
clearly recognised that his captors
were acting in self-defence but this
standard seems to have changed.
The courts are also ignoring what
thetWosoldiers were doing and why
a rescue attempt was not made. Considering
the tension in the area atthe
time it is hard to believe they strayed
there unwittingly. The security
ON FRIDAY 17 May 1974 three car
- bombs exploded In Dublin at 5.30
pm during the rush hour. These
bombs were positioned at choke
points in ParneN St, Talbot St, and
Sooth Lefnster St. A fourth car
bomb exploded in Monaghan at
6.48 pm.
Twenty eight civilians lay dead in
Dublin, a further five in Monaghan.
The bombers disappeared into
thin air, never to be apprehended.
The greatest atrocity in the whole
imbroglio, In Ireland or Britain, lay
unsolved. So It rests today.
There Is little room for doubt that
this atrocity was organised by British
Intelligence. Dirty tricks, run
by MI6, flourished at the time.
There are several outstanding
examples, north and south of the
border. Nor was it the first time
that they bombed Dublin.
These particular bombings had
all the hallmarks of a professional
Job. It took a degree of organisation,
together with a lot of expertise,
to mount what was a successful,
albeit evil, operation. Loyalist
paramilitaries, on their own, could
not have implemented this foul
deed. However, that they were
used by the British Is also unquestionable.
The composition of the bombs
alone denotes British involvement.
0ver300lbofgelegnltewas
used. At the time the loyalists had
access only to fertiliser based
bombs.
The synchronised nature of the
Dublin explosions indicates the involvement
.of a British officer with
the requisite bomb expertise,
which reduces the field of candidates
considerably. How many officers
were serving In Northern
Ireland in May 1974? Who were
they? We know that Craig Smellle,
now dead, was the head of MI6 In
NJ at that time. It could scarcely
have been done without bis knowledge.
What he knew should not be
allowed to die without him.
Mi^HHBHHBI^HMHPM
atthe | ° Ult8 | 8re iflnorin 9 what ihe two plain clothes soldiers were doing
forces would have certainly declared
the area a no-go zone for soldiers
unless they were on some sort of
covert operation. If this is the case
then British intelligence have a lot of
questions to answer and bear ultimate
responsibility for creating the
circumstances in which the men were
killed.
This article is not an attempt to apportion
blame for the tragic sequence
of events described. It is an attempt
to highlight the concerted campaign
The thraeoara used In the Dublin
bombings were stolen or hijacked,
that morning, Hi Loyalist areas of
Belfast. The car used krtMonaghan
was stolen that afternoon from
a Portadown car park. Subsequently,
ell four cars were
loaded with prepared bombs,
driven to their destinations,
parked at predetermined points
and, the tlmlw devices having
been activated, left to wreak their
havoc. But where did the car
bomb craws go to? And who
were they?
The actual bombere-were
Loyalists manipulated by the British.
They did not, there and then,
head back north. To do so would
have been to run into theeecurity
net consequent to the later Monaghan
bombing. This would have
been disastrous. Dublin too
would not suit. It was bound to be
intensively searched. Where, then
to go?
Part of the bomb emplacement
dilemma was the risk of the Northen
Ireland-plated cars attracting
attention. They should not be put
in position too earty. However, the
timing should be such as to silow
the crews ic make their getaway,
ideally, to be gone to ground before
the bombs exploded. A haven
south of Dublin should suffice. It
would be outside the dragnet.
Anols has discovered thst the
bombers did not go to ground st
such s location. Also, that North-
of vengeance wreaked by the British
authorities against the people of west
Belfast.
A distinction must be drawn between
people acting in legitimate
self-defence against what seemed at
the time to be an armed attack and
the people who actually carried out
theexecution of the two soldiersonce
they had been disarmed. This distinction
is unfortunately lost on
the British authorities.
Werners used this site, which is In a
hamlet about one hour's drive
sooth of Dublin, prior to the bombing,
where they had two Northernplated
landrovers in the adjacent
yard, to which the locals, apparently,
had become inured. One
particular bearded Northerner was
therefor months, we are told. It is
said it was to here the bombers
were rushed In the landrovers,
after putting their deadly appliances
in piece. Here, they went to
: ground until the hue and cry
abated. Then, at a later dale, they
returned north. If stopped, had
they not, for some period of time,
been on legitimate business with
the landrovers at this rural location?
The cover was good.
Thus, our information has it, was
the crime of the century conducted.
In such a manner did the
perpetrators elude the searchers.
Anola In the interests of fair play
and justice, refrains from naming
people who, in the event, may be
innocent However, all our information
will be put at the disposal
of the Garda Siochana for their
pursuance. We believe such is
warranted; though we would point
out that people may have been
duped into involvement. As of
now, the greetest crime in the history
of the 26-county state remsins
unsolved.
• This Is an edited version of an
article which first appeared In
Anois
JOHN JOE r.'cGIRL A memorial
fund has been estsblished to
erect s plaque for veteran republican
John Joe McGirl.
Launched at a social in Kllburn
it is being being sdministered
by Clare Moran c/o the Brent
Irish Centra and hopes to soon
have enough money to pey this
tribute to John Joe in his native
Leitrim.
ANYWHERE BUT HERE T h e
London Race and Housing Research
Unit have produced a
new report on the racism suffered
by travellers in the London
Borough of Camden. Entitled
Anywhere But Here, the report
describes the harrasment and
discrimination suffered by the
travelling community from the
council, the police and from
hostel managers end Includes
recommendations for urgent
ection. Copies can be obteined
priced £3.50 (plus £0.50 p&p)
from the Runymede Trust, 11
Princelet St, London E1 6QH.
SB The Irish in Greenwich Project
end Greenwich council
have recently produced an excellent
pocket-sized pamphlet
on the Prevention of Terrorism
Act. For the price of e postage
stsmp you can have the fscts
and figures at your finger tips
either from the Project or the
Four Provinces bookshop.
aeajBSi Congratulations to the
organisers of last month's
Fleadh, in London's Finsbury
Park, which could easily eetablish
itself as an annual event.
Interesting that not even Britain's
"quality" newspapers can
resist ths odd racist dig; witness
The Independent's piece
on the "drunken Irish in the
park". I wonder how 25,000 of
England's "animal army" in Italy
would have behaved at a similar
event. Especially given the provocative
policing and London
Undergound's mind boggling
stupid crowd control, which
threatened another Hlllaborough
by the end of the night.
Que aera, sera.
SAFETY LAST It is "highly likely"
that the construction giant
Costains will face charges for
breaches of heelth and safety
legislation over the death of Dan
Flanagan, an inspector from the
Health and Safety executive
ssid. He W88 speaking after an
inquest heerd that the wall
which collapsed on Flanagan,
crushing him to death, on a
building site last March should
have been demolished before a
trench was dug alongside it.
Flanagan's sister, Bridget Kerans,
has meanwhile pledged to
take a case of corporate manslaughter
against Costain's director
after a jury returned a
verdict of accidental death at
Flanagan's inquest.

IRISH
NEWS
J. • ' •". . ~ . % -
IRISH NEWS
, / A B R I E F
f
East Cork continues to suffer, reports JIM SAVAGE
WORLD
COMMENT
BY P O L I T I C U S
Revisionism's
Third World
A challenge to the anti-national historians - from Cambridge University
tmebomb
TEVENS ANGER A new
committee has been formed
by friends and relatives of
loyalists detained during the
Stevens Inquiry. The committee
is angered that the inquiry,
into collusion between the security
forces and loyalist paramilitaries,
has scapegoated
the "small fry" receiving
classified information to protect
more serious mal-practices
by the security forces.
No member of the RUC has
been charged and UOR members
faced only minor charges,
such as theft, enabling
them to get bail and stand trial
in front of magistrates.
Twenty-seven loyalists, by
contrast, face serious terrorist
charges and internment-byremand
for the equivalent of
two year prison sentences before
Oiplock court trials. The
loyalists say they are victims
of political machinations due
to Stevens' concern to whitewash
the security forces but
still be seen to have done
something.
NTEGRATIO E Anger is also
mounting, in both loyalist and
republican areas, at the government's
determination to Integrate
remand prisoners in
Belfast's Crumlin Road
prison. There has been rioting
on the Shankhill road; an explosion
and roof top protests
at the prison; and petrol bomb
attacks on prison warders'
homes. Eight warders were
injured in a clash with loyalist
prisoners on one occasion
while 26 youthful republicans
were manacled and strip searched
in another clash. The
Northern Ireland-based Committee
for the Administration
of Justice is amongst the organisations
which has called
on the government to review
its policy of forced integration.
AY FORWARD An international
conference is being
held at the Europa Hotel Belfast
on 9 - 11 August 1990.
There will be sessions on
human rights and democracy,
British withdrawal, economic
restructuring in a post-colonial
Ireland, the civil authorities,
comparative
constitutional experiences
and religious tolerance. Speakers
include Raymond Crotty,
Liz Curtis, Naomi Wayne, Bernadette
McAliskey and Fr. Oes
Wilson as well as the Director
of the American Civil Liberties
Union and the Chairperson of
the Helsinki Committee on
Human Rights. Registration
costs £20 waged £12 unwaged
ind bed and breakfast accomodation
can be booked for
an additional £30. Registration
forms Springhill Community
House, 123 Springhiil Ave,
Belfast BT12 and must be returned
as soon as possible.
FOR DECADES NOW an influential
school of anti-national
historians lias been
trying to brainwash the
Irish people into being
ashamed of their history. Mostly
university professors, the poison
they brew in their college studies
is spread to children through
school textbooks and transmitted to
the general public through liberal
TV and press publicity.
Fanning, Foster, Cullen, Eliott,
Boyce, Lyons, Moody and Edwards
,ire among the leading names of the
revisionists With book-contracts
generously guaranteed by English
publishers, a whole squad of academics
have laboured to prove
that Irish history is not a long story
of popular resistance to English conquest.
Thus the Plantations were a good
thing The Penal Laws were not
penal at all The United Irishmen
were not united and the 1798 Rebellion
was a sectarian bloodbath. The
landlords were mostly well-intentioned
agriculturalists. The Great
Famine was an accident. Partition
was inevitable. The 1916 Rising is
responsible for the violence of the
Provisional IRA De Valera had a
mother complex. The general message
is that the English are in Ireland
for Ireland's good and the position
of the Ulster Unionists, the Irish minority,
has as much right to consideration
as that of the Nationalist
Irish majority
Now from no less a place than
Cambridge University comes a root
and branch attack on the mainstream
revisionist current in Irish
history-writing since the 1930s. In
the latest issue of Irish Historical
Studies, the principal journal of Ireland's
professional historians, Dr
Brendan Bradshaw of Cambridge
University tackles the revisonists.
Dr Bradshaw is an authority on mediaeval
Irish history and a Fellow of
the Royal Historical Society - which
is about as high as you can get in the
history-writing profession in this
country.
Dr Bradshaw exposes the revisonists'
intellectual tricks. Trick No.I
is to pretend thay are writing
"value-free" history from a standpoint
of pure professionalism. This
is supposed to contrast with the nationalist-style
history of the earlier
20th century , which held that the
struggle for Irish independence was
a good thing. But it is an illusion to
think that negative bias - applied by
the revisionists as an antidote to positive
bias - can be construed as being
"value-free". The anti-nationalist
history of the revisionists turns out
in effect to be neo-unionist history.
Their books are apologias for English
rule and Unionist politics. The
revisionist enterprise is as ideological
as the nationalist school it attacks,
while at the same time it hypocritically
proclaims ideological impartiality.
Revisionist Trick No 2 is to adopt
Dublin politicians afraid of giving them the vote
Irish emigrants get the worst
political deal in Europe
ABOUT 225,000 people emigrated
from Ireland between 1982 and
1988, most of them going to Britain.
For every 1,000 Irish graduates
who emigrate the Irish State has
invested about 12 million in their
third-level education alone. If one
estimated the full cost to their parents
of rearing them from birth it
would be double that again.
Irish emigrants are politically the
worst treated in Europe. Many
countries allow their emigrants
abroad to vote at their local embassies
for their national elections.
Others give them a postal
vote. Italy partially subsidises the
fares of its citizens who want to
return home to vote.
Presumably Ireland's politicans
fear their political apple cart would
be overturned if the huge numbers
of the country's emigrants abroad
could organise so as to vote at
home. So there is little chance they
will permit such a development.
But by organising abroad nonethe.ass,
as the Connolly Association
has always urged, Irish
emigrants can be a powerful force
in the country they have emigrated
to - both for improving their own
status in society and at the same
time changing British government
policy on Ireland.
These and other facts were recently
given to a meeting in Dublin
organised by Brent Irish Centre
and Bord na Gaeilge.
Patricia Finnegan of the Brent
Centre told the meeting about the
plight of elderly Irish people in Britain.
A recent survey shows that
only 19 per cent of them own their
own homes. The rest have been
paying rent to landlords all their
lives. Half of them are interested in
returning to Ireland and two-thirds
of them live alone.
These were the migrants of the
1940s and 1950s whose remittances
kept the Irish economy afloat
at that time and enabled many
more to remain in Ireland than
would otherwise have been the
case. She urged the Irish Government
to fund more social workers
to advise such older Irish people
in Britain. She said it should also
facilitate them to return to Ireland
by offering free transport and subsidised
accommodation to the
homecoming elderly.
• TONE: latest victim of revisionism
the most corrosively cynical view of
Ireland's heroes. Instead of being
well-regarded as hitherto, our national
leaders are put in the dock by
academics who conduct the case for
the prosecution from their armchairs
- in the name, of course, of supposed
historical objectivity! A
sound historical interpretation of the
likes of Tone, Davis, Pearse, Connolly
or De Valera does not have to
make them saints or free from fault.
Demythologing, looking facts in the
face and showing Ireland's leaders
"warts and all", in no way means
to rob such men of their heroic stature
or their unique significance in
Irish history.
Trick No. 3 is to turn the nationalist
approach to history on its head.
The more naive nationalist historians
tended to project their ideology into
former centuries, seeing the outlines
of the modern Irish State in the
strivings of the immemorial past
Clearly this was anachronistic. Inverting
the anachronism, the response
of the revisionists has been to
hold that one can speak of an Irish
national consciousness only in the
modern period. But a fair look at
the evidence shows that some form
of national consciousness existed in
Ireland a millenium before the onset
of modernity, though it was in no
way a feeling for an Irish Nation
State in the modern sense. That came
only with 18th century Republicanism.
That the people of past centuries
had a sense of Ireland as a
whole and of its Irishness is shown
in the ancient Gaelic origin-legends,
in the early-Christian theme of
missionaries being "exiles from
Erin", in the mediaeval references to
the "Island of Saints and Scholars"
and in much other evidence.
Finally, Dr Bradshaw indicts the
impoverished view of history held by
the revisionists. They see history as
a a puritan pursuit by academic
specialists who pretend, quite mistakenly,
that they are above ahd
apart from the vulgar preoccupations
of the society they form part of.
The academic works of the revisonists
deny any continuity linking the
national comunity of modem times
with the "native races" of earlier
epochs. Their motto is "the past is a
foreign country." They sneer at
people's desire to "feel good"
about their past, their need to see
history as validating their efforts in
the present.
This destructive approach of the
revisionists is morally irresponsible.
For history is also public history
- the collective memory by
which a community gives meaning
to its existence and its best strivings
for liberty and solidarity. Revisionism
attacks historical myths. But it is
a very impoverished and confused
notion of "myth" which sees it as
being simply a fallacy. Myth is vital
to human communities. It is a product
of history itself and the collective
myth the revisionists sneer at, as
they seek to substitute one moral interpretation
of Irish history for another,
is in fact generally
constructive and enriching for ordinary
people.
For example, the myth of the "native
race" has been attacked by revisionist
as purveying a racist and
thereby exclusivist concept of Irishness.
Historically considered, however,
its function has been precisely
the opposite. By the skilful use of
anachronism and idealisation the
ancient Gaelic origin-legend has
been reworked and developed over
time in order to graft on successive
waves of new settlers to the native
stock and to enable an ever more varied
national community absorb the
rich heritage of the original Celtic civilisation.
Thus the likes of Hyde, Griffith and
Pearse - each of English background
- in seeking to mould a notion
of Irishness which would
establish continuity between themselves
and the Gaelic past, stood in a
tradition stretching back to Geoffrey 1
Keating, the Four Masters and the
Gaelic writers of the lOth century;
who first wrote about the Irishness of:
Ireland. The same rich creative
"myth" stands ready to embrace
today's Ulster Unionists, when they
eventually find themselves as Irishmen.
History-writing just cannot avoid
being rooted in the needs of the present.
This does not mean the historian
has to whitewash or ignore historic
cal truth. It means rather that he
must be aware of his social funct'on
in the community and of the c n-
structive role which public history
can play in it.
This article is a turning-point.
Taken with other signs of a developing
critical attitude to revisionism
among some recent Irish historian^,
it is an indication that henceforth the
revisionists will be on the defensive,
Indeed Dr Bradshaw's attack is so
powerful that they may try to
counter it by ignoring it. So if you
want to help in the vital battle of
ideas about Ireland's past - which is
so important for influencing its future
- you should ask your library to
get the issue of Irish Historical
btudies that carries the article. And
pass on word about it to others.
• FEICHREANACH
I AST CORK has suffered
badly since they won their
I campaign to stop the controversial
Merrell Dow
1 pharmaceutical plant at Killeagh.
Sadly, Youghal, Middleton
and Cobh are still burdened with unacceptably
high unemployment levels,
and even in the smaller centres
of population there is little to be
hopeful about.
Youghal is not just the worst unemployment
blackspot in East Cork, but
veiy probably in the entire country.
And unless new labour-intensive industries
are attracted to nearby
Middleton, the town is sure to die a
slow death.
Out of an urban population of
6,000, more than 1,200 people are on
the dole. Over 1,000 jobs have been
lost with the collapse of manufacturing
industry in the 1980s.
Against this bleak scenario, a cloud
of uncertainty hangs over the town.
Deep shockwaves of anxiety were
sent through the entire community
during the bid for the local distillery
last year, which only went to show
the increasing vulnerability of Irishbased
industry when targeted by
multinational corporate raiders.
The degree of concern felt among
the townspeople is reflected by the
local parish priest, Canon William
Twohig, who fears the faceless nature
of industrial giants. "Our experience
with multinationals is that they
don't usually increase jobs when
they take over an Irish company.
"At the very minimum, I fear there
is a risk to jobs, as we have already
seen too many redundancies and too
many companies going to the wall
here in Middleton," he says.
The litany of failures includes East
Cork Foods, Woolcombers, Worsted
Mills and Rohfab. There are mixed
feeling about the future of Freshbake,
a British-based group subject to a
£109 million takeover by US giant
Campbell Soups. A replacement for
a semi-state outfit which created
hundreds of seasonal jobs, it processes
vegetablesgrown on the rich
farmland of East Cork.
Great expectations were centred on
the possible re-opening of Verolme
dockyard at Cobh last January when
a senior government spokesperson
announced a Norwegian deal was
near completion. Now that hope has
collapsed with the news that the deal
is off.
But the Soviets are waiting in the
wings with a keen eye on Verolme.
At one stage a Soviet bid for the dockyard
was vetoed by the US in a
blocking tactic reminiscent of the
Cold War. But Cobh people pledged
their support for Soviet investment
when six high-ranking officials arrived,
fuelling further speculation.
However, it is unlikely that anything
will come out of their two visits to the
yard as a result of the US veto.
Ever since the Dutch-Irish yard
closed with the loss of 600 jobs five
years, Verolme has been dogged by
the on-off syndrome, which has crea
great deal of bitterness. Charlaughey
promised the people of
Cobh that Fianna Fail would re-open
the place once in office.
In the meantime, the yard is literally
rusting away, its assets are fast erod-
New Four Provinces Bookshop
T-shirt
Please send me.
NAME
ADDRESS
. T-shirts @ E6.50 per shirt
Green on white
1 size: XL
Best quality cotton T-shirt
Only £6 plus 50p postage
and packing
Available exclusively from
Four Provinces Bookshop,
244-246 Gray's Inn Road,
London WC1.
Tel: 071- 833 3022
Postcode
ing and the state is owed £2 million
while Cobh, waiting for the outstanding
rates of £300,000, has been
pauperised by the closure.
Now we find that the Verolme file
in the Companies Office in Dublin
Castle indicates that there are no upto-date
records of payments and receipts
for public inspection. But it
does show that receivers appointed
to the defunct dockyard were paid
expenses and fees totalling £288,658
in the three years to December 1987,
while maintenance costs and repairs
over the same period amounted to
£10,612.
Current receiver Alan Hofler has no
explanation as to why the current abstracts
showing the basic financial
state of the closed yard had not been
inserted in the Verolme file, and refuses
to disclose how much it cost to
maintain the yard over the last six
years.
Two receivers were charged with
the task of managing the affairs of the
dockyard. In the first six months
from December 1984 to June 1985, the
fees of one of them, Noel Holland,
amounted to £181,873, and in the six
months after that, Mr Hofler's fees
and expenses came to £36,755 - all
this apart from the loss to the taxpayer
of £1 million.
Correction
Doris Daly laid a wreath at the Jim
Gralton commemoration at Effernagh
in May on behalf of the Leitrim
Exiles in Britn in and not the Connolly
Association as stated in last month's
Irish Democrat.
And which
foot do you
kick with? I
ONLY 19 per cent of the 2,000 employees
in 17 car retailing companies
companies in the Six
Counties are Catholics, according
to the latest Fair Employment
Comission study. Yet. Cathofics
are nearly 40 per cent of the
North's population as a whole, i
In the firm of Charles Hurst oply
17 per cent outofa6l7*lze workforce
are Catholics and ttiey
have only I Catholic apprentice out
of 71. [
In only two of the 17 car retailing
companies is there under-representatlon
of Protestants in relation'
to their catchment areas. In
the rest of the firms it Is the Catholics
who are underepresented.
For example out of 359 management
staff only 60, or 17 per cent,
are'Catholic and in sales and finance
staff only 12 per cent are
Catholics.
Every company with 25 or more
employees in the North is required
to work positively to promote
equality of opportunity. But despite
years of surveillance by the
Fair Employment Commission it is
evident that anti-Catholic discrimination
is still going strong.
IN LOOKING AT international politics we should always remember
that there are three worlds. The riches of the First
World, which have become the envy of the socialist Second,
are based on on gigantic pyramids of debt that must inevitably
collapse. The only question is when. But more fundamentally
they are based on the exploitation of the Third
World.
Historically, the foundation of First World industrialisation
was the robbery and exploitation of Asia, Africa and Latin
America from the 17th century to the 20th. This left the countries
of the South with a legacy of backwardness and institutional
distortions which endures to this day. Irish economist
Raymond Crotty has pointed out that no country which was the
victim of capitalist colonialism has developed.
The First World's robbery of the Third is not just history. It
continues to this day. Each year far more resources move from
the Third World to the First than go the other way. During the
1980s net transfers from the Third to the First amounted to 300
billion dollars. Rising interest rates on Third World debts are
screwing these countries. The World Bank and IMF are now
more powerful than the old colonial powers in Africa, according
to UN Deputy Secretary-General Adedeji.
The Third World is also robbed through adverse terms of
trade. Third World countries import manufactures at monopoly
prices from First World ones, but have to pay for them by raw
material and agricultural exports sold at knockdown prices.
Thus more Third World resources have to be exported all the
time to pay for the same volume of imports. Which means more
belt-tightening for their populations. If many Third World governments
are corrupt and inefficient, that is indirectly the result
of First World policies - either an historical legacy of colonialism
or reflecting current First World support for dictatorships
and oligarchies on whom Western arms manufacturers push
their surplus weapons.
At a generous estimate there are 1,000 million human beings
in the First and Second Worlds. There are 4,000 million in the
Third -1,000 million of them living in absolute squalor. The
prospect of starving to death haunts 500 million people. Every
day malnutrition kills 40,000. Over 600 million are unemployed.
More than 2,000 million have no access to safe drinking
water. The prosperity of the First World is the obverse of the
fact that most of mankind is worse off than ten years ago.
The poverty of the Third World underpins the population explosion.
The numbers currently being added to our fragile
planet each year are greater than ever - some 90 million - the annual
equivalent of a new Bangladesh. It has been calculated
that the past 20 years' population growth accounts for twothirds
of the increase in carbon dioxide emissions causing the
greenhouse effect and two-thirds of the deforestation. Global
pollution is overwhelmingly caused by First World industrialisation.
Yet now the First World tells the Third it should not industrialise
by using their coal or cutting down their forests for
fear of more disastrous environmental effects. How can they
persuade them? Now that we cannot even breathe fresh air or
absorb the sunlight pouring down on us without caring for
others who are doing the same thing, will not the Third World
acquire a vital bargaining counter with the First?
With luck the world's population will stabilise at 11,000 million
- double what it is now - some time in the 21st century. By
then revolution will have swept the Third World, a revolution
motivated by hostility to the First Third World leader Fidel Castro
has warned against the growth of capitalist values in the socialist
Second World, as they look enviously at the high living
standards of the First Are countries like Poland and Hungary
that are now seeking to restore capitalism, and from whose political
discourse all reference to internationalism and imperialism
seem to have disappeared, not really seeking to join the
First World in its exploitation of the Third, he asks?
Castro's words are worth noting by the many these days
who have illusions about transnational capitalism: "Capitalism
means unequal terms of trade with the peoples of the Third
World, the aggravation of individual selfishness and national
chauvinism, the reign of irrationality and chaos in investment
and production, the ruthless sacrifice of the peoples on behalf
of blind economic laws. It means the survival of the fittest, the
exploitation of man by man, a situation of everybody for himself.
It means prostitution, drugs, gambling, begging, unemployment,
abysmal inequalities among citizens, the depletion
of natural resources, the poisoning of air, seas, rivers and
forests and especially the plundering of the underdeveloped nations
by the industrialised capitalist countries. In the past it
meant colonialism. Now it means neo-colonising billions of
human beings, using the most sophisticated, most effective,
most ruthless economic and political methods."
IRISH DEMOCRAT July 1990 page 4
IRISH DEMOCRAT July 1930 page 5

IRISH SONGS BY PATRICK
REMEMBERING THE PAST
Captain O'Neill
THE DEATH of former Unionist Premier Terence
O'Neill brings to mind the time he wrote to the Connolly
Association. It was 1966. For 10 years the CA
had been agitating in British Labour and trade
unions circles about anti-Catholic discrimination in
the Six Counties. The message was getting through. The Labour
Party, which had underwritten Ulster Unionism in the
1949 Ireland Act, now contained a growing number of MPs
who wanted the government to intervene against the Unionists.
For decades the British government had let the Unionists
do what they liked under cover of the 'convention' that matters
devolved to Stormont under the Government of Ireland
could not be raised at Westminster by MPs. This convention
was a happy way of ensuring that sleeping dogs were left to
continue their slumber. The Connolly Asociation pointed out
that Section 75 of the 1920 Government of Ireland Act - the
original Partition Act - gave Parliament supreme power to do
what it liked in the Six Counties. The question was how to induce
Parliament to use its powers. The CA launched a campaign
for an enquiry into the working of the Act.
In October 1966 Prime Minister O'Neil gave a speech in
North Antrim in which he urged the South to abandon its
constitutional claim on the North, saying that the Ireland Act
1949 guaranteed the North's constitutional position in the UK.
Sean Redmond, then Connolly Association general secretary,
wrote to O'Neill on behalf of the CA standing committee
stating that the Ireland Act offered no protection
whatever if the British Parliament "in its wisdom decides to
merge the Six County territory with the rest of Ireland and
abolish your government altogether."
O'Neill must have been worried, for the next month he
wrote a lengthy letter in reply: "I was entertained to read
your complex and ingenious version of our constitutional
status. It completely fails to take account of the fact that constitutional
questions within the British Commonwealth have
a conventional as well as legislative basis.... It is very easy to
make generalised allegations of 'gerrymandering, discrimination
and police repression' without offering one shred of evidence
for them."
Sean Redmond gave the evidence in his reply. He quoted
Prime Minister Harold Wilson's acceptance of Gerry Fitt's allegations
about gerrymandering as "facts."
O'Neill had concluded his letter by saying, "Between
your outlook and mine there is evidently an unbridgeable
gulf." Redmond responded: "As you say, there seems an unbridgeable
gulf between your views and ours. We can only
hope therefore that the course of experience will convince
you that the interests of the people of Northern Ireland, both
Protestant and Catholic, are best served by the most thoroughgoing
measures to achieve complete democracy, including
the right to combine or federate with their countrymen
south of the border. We venture to suggest that such
measures correspond equally to the interests of the British
people."
Subsequent events proved Redmond right. O'Neill's reliance
on the "constitutional convention" of Westminster
non-interference proved a flimsy reed when the civil rights
movement forced London's hand and blew O'Neill himself
into the history books. Sadly though, British intervention,
while eliminating some abuses, did not really introduce
democracy in the Six Counties. It introduced direct rule instead,
just as direct rule from London had replaced the unpopular
College Green Parliament at the time of the 1800
Act of Union. But direct rule has proved as bad or worse than
indirect, while at the same time being much harder to tackle,
so that it is going as strong as ever 20 years later.
Sean fhocail agus abairti
Le Seamus 0 Cionnfhaola
1. lonnas go ngreamoidis ar a chomradh: That they might catch (or
take hold of) his words
2. Na goillfeadh an nidh sin ort: Let riot that thing trouble you
3. Nil fhios againn cad a tharla do: We know not what is become of
him
4. Chuir tu moill fada orm: You made me stay late
5. Bi go reidh leat tein: Go slowly please (of speech or movement)
6. An n-alrinn tu leat me: Do you not hear me speaking to you?
7. Thdinig se le-bhas go hEirinn ceart: It was surely to meet his fate
he came to Ireland
8. Ni raibh aon rud le dul de: Nothing was likely to escape him (his
observation)
9. Tc» s6 in 6r bfagaint dall: He is leaving us as wise as we were
10. Nior mho leithe a bheith ionam: She waanted to over reach ne (in
a bargain) lit. to be in me
The People's Own MP
Sliabh Gallion Braes
Ai, the hunger strike wore on through the long hot summer
of 1981, coffin followed coffin from, the H-Blocks. To view yon fair valley and meadows so gay,
As I went out walking one morning in May
In late ]une the British government responded to Bobby I was thinking on those flowers, all bom to decay
Sands election and death by changing the law to prevent
prisoners standing in elections. Joe McDonnell Gallion braes.
That blow around those borniy, bonny Sliabh
and Martin Hurson died in ]uly.
How many more must die now, how many must
we lose
Before the Irish people their own destiny can
choose
From immortal Robert Emmet to Bobby Sands MP
Who was given thirty thousand votes while in
captivity
No more he'll hear the lark's sweet notes upon the
Ulster air
Or gaze upon the snow flakes pure to calm his deep
despair
Before he went on hunger strike young Bobby did
compose
The Rythm of Time, The Weeping Wind and The
Sleeping Rose
He was a poet and soldier, he died courageously
And we gave him thirty thousand votes while in
captivity
Thomas Ashe gave everything in 1917
The Lord Mayor of Cork MacSwiney died his freedom
to obtain
Never a one of all our dead died more courageously
Than young Bobby Sands from Twinbrook
The people's own MP.
Rathfriland
• CHRISTY MOORE
There's a spot that I love dearest,
Sure 1 think I see it still,
It's that little town in County Down,
Rathfriland on the hill.
On its brow is decked with emeralds,
While flowers around it grow,
When the sun does shine, it looks so fine
All in the golden glow.
Sure if I were in Rathfriland
1 would count myself at home -
It's there I'd be contented
And never more I'd road.
Maidin i mbeara
Is e mo chaoi gan mise maidin aerach,
Amuigh i mBaara im' sheasamh ar an tra,
Is guth na n-ean im tharraingt thar na sleibthe cois na
farraige
Go Ceim an Aitinn mar a mbionn mo ghra.
Is obann aoibhinn aiteasach a leimfinn,
Rithfinn saor o ana-bhroid an tlais,
Chuirfinn droim le scamaill an tsail seo,
Da bhfaighinn mo leirdhothain d'mharc ar mo
chaoimhshearc bhan.
Is e mo dhith beith ceangailte go faon lag,
Is neart mo chleibh a thachtadh anso sa tsaid,
An fhad ta reim na habhann agus gaoth ghlan na
farraige
Ag gloach's ag gairm ar an gcroi seo'm lar.
Is milis briomhar leathanbhogan t-aer ann,
Is gile on ngrein go fairsing ar an mban,
'S ochon a ribhean bhanuil nagcraobhfholt
Gan sinn araon imeasc an aitinn mar a bhimis trath.
Oft o'er those mountains with my dog and my
gun
I rambled those mountains for joy and for fun
But those days they are all over and I am far
away,
So farewell unto those bonny, bonny Slaibh Gal*
lion braes.
i
Oh, it is not the want of employment at home
That cuases us poor exiles in sorrow to roam,
But those tyrannising landlords, they would not
let us stay,
So farewell unto those bonny, bonny Slaibh Gallion
braes.
The Boys of
Barnasraide
Oh, the town it climbs the mountain
And looks upon the sea;
At sleeping time or waking
It's there I long to be
To see again that little place
Where first I grew a man
With the boys of Barnasraide
Who hunted for the wran.
With cudgels stout we roamed about
To hunt thedreoilin
We searched for birds in every furze
From Nipper toBuneen;
We jumped for joy, beneath the sky
Life held no print nor plan
As we boys of Barnasraide
Went hunting for the wran.
And when the hills were blazing
And the rifles Were aflame
To the rebel hills of Kerry
The Saxon stranger came.
And the lads who fought the Auxies ,
And beat the Black and Tan
Were those boys from Barnasraide
Who hunted for the wran.
And now they toil on foreign soil
Where they have gone their way
deep in the heart of London Town
Or over on Broadway
And I am left to sing their deeds
And praise them as I can
Those boys of Barnasraide
Who hunted for the wran.
So here's a health to them tonight
The boys who roamed with me
Through the groves of Carron River
Or the slopes of Vennatee -
John Dolly and Bat Andy,
The Sheehans, Con and Dan
And all those boys of Barnasraide
Who hunted to the wran.
And when my lamp of life rims out
And peace comes over me
Just lay me down near that old town
Between the hills and sea; 1
In those green fields I'll make my peace
Where first my life began
With the boys of Barnasraide
Who hunted for the wran.
DONAL KENNEDY casts a jaundiced eye over the papers
IN ENGLAND'S South-east, you
tan recapture part of the Sundays
you knew." So it said in The Irish
•Post advertisement for The Sunday
Press currently under threat
of closure by its proprietors.
I remember the first edition of The
Sunday Press, for my brother brought
it back from the All-Ireland Hurling
Final in 1949. It first supplemented
and then supplanted The Sunday Independent
at home. My father used t&
argue with its uncritically pro-De
Valera line, but preferred it to The
Independent, just as he always voted
Fianna Fail as "the besfrof a bad lot."
I think he always had it in mind that
The Irish Independent had virtually
called for the execution of Connolly
and Sean MacDermot in 1916 and
was glad to have an alternative Sunday
read. English Sunday papers
didn't appear in our house for decades
and those that the neighbours
bought were not the qualities. Some
bought The People, Empire News and
Sunday Express for their sensationalism,
or their coverage of England's
Royal Family, according to taste, but
The Observer and Sunday Times never
swam into my ken.
The Sunday Press that the advertisement
evokes for me had a full page of
comic strips, two of which, and this
was unique, were Irish produced and
one in the Irish language. A Jesuit,
Father Nash, had a column of great
individuality, I thought when I last
saw it that the man had died and left
a legacy of pieces to be published ad
nauseam, like the ghost stories of VictorO'DPowerand
therecycled 1920s
jokes with their 2/6 prizes for publication
that appeared in the Our Boys.
i Incidentally, the Irish Christian
Brothers, publishing a monthly for
boys (when every other children's
er origbxated^body and soul in
Britain and the USA) did sterling
work - or should mid I say, were worth
their weight in gold!) I was con-
vinced of Fr Nash's distance from
tarriest affairs when he fulminated
against revolutionaries and their
universal cowardice at a time, such as
a hunger strike, which belied his
case. I found out later that it was a
contemporary effort. Father Nash
has sincegone to "Ancien Regime" in
the Sky, and is happy there, unless
the Liberation Theologians*have
turned it into the Republic of Heaven
Best of all to my mind, were the
memoirs or biographies of old heroes.
Florrie O'Donoghue's book on
Liam Lynch and Ernie CMallie on
IRA Raids knocked The Sunday Express's
"Cockleshell Heroes" into a
cocked hat. When, in 1954, the IRA,
which most people had thought had
di&olved like Finn McCool's Fianna
intofthe mists of legend, staged a raid
on Armagh'sGough Barracks, taking
enough rifles to arm a regular Battalion
from the British Army, The Sunday
Press was jubilant. When EOKA
guerillas were hanged by the British,
it was angry.
But the paper was always a bit of a
ragbag or lucky dip, with the serious
cheek by jowl with the trivial. It later
acquired an Agony Aunt, who might
be said to have thought an Asprin
and a Decade of the Rosary was the
best way out of a conundrum. But I
remember her writing, in t{£ mid-
19708, that Ireland was acquiring a
grasping, amoral middle class, for
the old values and civilities were
dead letters.
TODAY'S Sunday Press bears all
the signs of having been taken
over by that new class, and except
for one veteran columnist, Gulliver,
none of the regular writers for
the paper seems to have any historical,
philosophical, geographical or
grammatical terms of reference.
When the paper's resident London
columnist did a piece of an Irishman
working in Windsor Great Park, he
said the fellow could see Buckingham
Palace from it. (I suppose, like
Marie Lloyd, he'd also have seed the
'Ackney Marshes, if it wasn't for the
'ouses in between!) But the final
straw for me was the front page
photograph of the wedding of the
RUC's Sir John Hermon, with the
caption saying he had "the toughest
police job in Britain Csic)." To avoid
blaspheming on the Sabbath, I gave
up The Sunday Press and all the advertising
in the world will not get me to
buy it again.
The Sunday Press had a virtual monopoly
of Irish Sunday papers in my
local patch in London, until, a few
months ago, The Sunday Independent
made its appearance. If The Sunday
Press was chiefly a Nationalist paper
with pious Catholic incidentals, The
Sunday Independent, like its daily
stablemate, always seemed to me a
cloyingly pietistic Catholic paper
with Nationalist incidentals. Its Nationalism
was chiefly of the anti-Fianna
Fail kind, and you'd sometimes
think it had been founded by Michael
Collins, rather than the old Irish
Party's William Martin Murphy.
If Rip Van Winkle found his old
haunts unrecognisable when he
woke up after 20 years asleep, his
shock cannot have been greater than
mineon making a recentre-acquaintance
with The Sunday Independent. It
is far more skilfully written than I
remember it. Gone istheold pietism,
together with "old dacency", and
there is neither religion nor what I
would recognise as national self-respect
in it. In some ways it is more
brash and vulgar than anything published
in London, and even Dublin's
own gutter Sunday World. Its star columnist,
Colm Tiobin, though a Modernist
in ethics, has a contempt for the
Irish majority that would stagger
Trinity's elitist Professor Mahaffy or
his contemporary, the 19th century
British Prime Minister, Salisbury.
In a profile of Senator Mary Robinson
Mr Toibin is at his revealing best.
"When Mary Robinson began to
campaign in the Senate for legislation
making contraceptives available, the
abuse began. Unreconstructed Ireland
showed its face, the people who
did't read the Irish Times, didn't have
a vote in Senate elections, had not
been enlightened by Vatican Two,
nor liberated by free education,
wrote le iters to Mary Robinson. Letters
full of four-letter words with
holy pictures attached came to her
home and to her office in the Senate,
as many as 15 or 20 per week. Cut up
garden gloves, or the parts of them
which resembled condoms, were
often enclosed. Mother Ireland was
rearing them still."
Significant here, and a confirmation
of what I Was saying earlier, neither
the Press nor Independent groups with
a wider readership than that of The
Irish Times, are evoked ai enlightening
agents, while The Irish Times is
accorded the reverence which The Independent
used to give to the Pope.
Neither of my parents, nor most of
their generation, would have recognised
a condom had it hit them in the
face, and my father a Varsity man
too, one of the privileged minority
with a Senate vote. But he went to
National, nor Trinity, and I suppose
like those who read The Press and
Independent rather that The Irish
Times, he couldn't know any thingbetter.
I'm not here knocking The Irish
Times, a very good paper in its own
way, nor even the issue pursued by
Senator Robinson.
But the urchins and young wans of
Dublin's non-academic streets used
to have the perfect put-down for the
pretensions of a CoH* Toibin.
"Would you go an' have a Mass said
foryouself!"
BOOK
REVIEW
Ireland after the
Derek O'Fihfcrty
Ireland's Fate: The Boyne and After, Robert Shepherd, £14.95 hbk
IRELAND in the 17th century exposes the pitiful
mythology of English imperial history with far more
clarity than any other period. It is the time, not only
of the destruction of the Irish aristocracy, not only of
the horrific mass plantation of the great mass of the \
Irish people to the badlands in the west, but it is the
origin of the most enduring myths and the bitterest hatreds.
Author Robert Shepherd - he was adviser to Jim j
Prior, former Northern Ireland Secretary of State -
bases his account of the Battle of the Boyne on contemporary
and eyewitness accounts..
The bias sometimes shines through the assiduous research.
The Jacobite army, Irish, French, English and
Scottish, are frequently referred to simply as Irish. The
Williamite army, English, Irish, Dutch and Scottish remain
Williamite.
This reflects some of the Protestant mythology with
which Shepherd deals admirably. At stake in Ireland
in 1690 was not just the English throne or the Dutch,
Austrian and Vatican campaign against an expansionist
France, but the survival of the leadership of the
Irish nation, a nation still loosely formed and ill
defined.
It was part gaelic landed, it was mostly gaelic and dispossessed.
But it was also Old English, Norman aristocrat
and Latterly, English adventurers and settlers who
had lost land during tile reformation and hoped to regain
it under the restoration of the monarchy.
S SUCH, there was some element of nationalist
^aspiration. Although'tittelrish jacobite leadership
epresented whaf Connolly called "land thieves
and their lackeys" they were sufficiently aware that j
success or failure depended on the support of the /
Gaelic Irish.
For the Williamites, the Irish Anglicans sought to
hold the land that they had seized and destroy the oiv
ganised opposition of the dispossessed and exclude
them forever. The Williamite victory at the Boyne secured
this.
But the treaty of Limerick which followed had an inauspicious
history. Within 20 nyears it had been effectively
torn up and a sectarian apartheid constructed in
Irish life. All this is echoed on the Glorious Twelfth
each year.
Other echoes ring clear today. The signature tune
used by the BBC World Service for example comes
from an anti Irish song Lillieburlero from around 1661
which became something of an anthem to the Williamite
army.
I
The occasion was the appointment of an Irish Catholic
as the King's Lord Deputy in Dublin. The song is
written in "an insulting mock Irish brogue". The man
referred to is Richard Talbot Earl of TyrconnelL
"Ho brother Teague, dost hear de decree Lilli Burlero,
bullen a-la;
Dat we shall have a new debittie Lilli Burlero bullen
a-la."
It continues:
"Ho by my shoul it is a Talbot,And he will cut de
Englishman's troat."
No doubt in die 1660s it was the equivalent of The
Sun toddy. For most of the Irish the war is over. For the
Dutch, English and French it is a dim memory in a j
largely irrelevant conflict.
But in the loyalist slums of the Six Counties the war
is relived every July. What superpower conspiracy
threatens their tattered economy today?

P E T E R
MULLIGAN'S
PEEPSHOW
Myths about the Battle of the Boyne continue to be wheeled out today
Fields of slaughter
O EXTRADITION Joseph
Simpson who was viciously
beaten by prison wardens
after he took part in the great
Maze escape in 1983 has finally
been awarded £7,500
damages by the High Court.
The Northern Ireland Office
has been instructed to make
the payment. Simpson is serving
a 20 year sentence NB In
1974 The Anglo-Irish Law Enforcement
Commission set up
to look at the question of political
offences, split on national
lines. The British totally
opposed the Irish viewpoint.
The Irish members all took the
view that the Irish constitution
ruled out extradition for political
offences. Their position,
which their government
shared, was that the constitution
bound the republic to observe
generally recognised
rules of international law, and
that one such rule was the political
offence exception. The
British members all disagreed.
MAGUIRES "Certainly, the inquiry
appears to have taken on
something of an adversarial
quality, with the assembled
lawyers representing the
Police, the Director of Public
Prosecutions Office, the
Forensic scientists and prosecution
team at the time, lined
up against those representing
the Maguires." Independent
NB "We are not here to decide
innocence or guilt" Sir. John
May addressing the lawyers
representing the institutions
of the state and the legal representatives
of the Maguires.
BEING IRISH "It was only
when I went to prison that I
realised that I was in prison for
being Irish. I wasn't in because
I was British, born in the North
where Britain rules." Gerard
Conlon
HARLAND AND WOLF [g has
announced an operating loss
of £2.7 million even after the
British government wrote off
£400 million in bad debts and
invested £500 million in the
now private firm headed by
Fred Olsen.
H2QEEEE The British Government
has announced that
spending on law and order in
Northern Ireland will increase
by £46 million to £684 million
next year and by £96 million to
£780 million in 1992-93. This
excludes the cost of the British
army in Ireland and the Ulster
Defence Regiment the local
territorials
MII»W
"Al
banir is are not short of vegetables
and the country is rich in
chromium ore, but Sony Walkmans
and Paco Rabanne aftershave
are thin on the ground."
Independent
JULY is, of course, the tercentenary
of the Battle of the
Boyne, if anyone needs reminding.
No battle has left
such an indelible impression
on the folk memory of the Irish
people. As the author of 'The Boyne
Water; The Battle of the Boyne, 1690',
I understand it is expected of me that
I should make some mention of the
event as the 300th anniversary is
commemorated Well, it would be
churlish of me to refuse to meet that
expectation, although 1 have written
Neveral pieces already in addition to
my book which (and forgive my blat.int
commercial streak!) is available
in paperback from Blackstaff Press
(Belfast) at £5.95.
Naturally, as the tercentenary is
commemorated, all the old myths are
being trotted out. Mythology fits
more comfortably with some
people's outlook on life than the realities.
It's sad but a harsh fact of life.
One cannot repeat the correctives to
the mvths connected with the Boyne
loo often, especially as they are still
being perpetuate during the current
commemorative 'festivals'. Therefore,
1 make no apology for the repetition
in this article.
The Battle of the Boyne, July 1 ,
1690, was not an overwhelming military
victory for the Williamite cause.
True, it left the Williamites in possession
of the Boyne area; true it precipitated
the flight of James II; and
true the Jacobite army withdrew to
regroup But the Boyne was more of
a Mexican stand-off'. The Jacobites
continued their war for another year.
The real decisive victory of the war
was the tragedy of Aughrim (Auhghrim
of the Slaughter) on July 12,1691,
and the siege and surrender of Limerick
on October 3. Therefore, the
Jacobites held out for over a vear after
the 'defeat' of the Boyne.
The Battle of the Boyne was not the
'overthrow of the Pope and Popery'
bv the Protestant forces. It was a conflict
between the Grand Alliance of
the League of Augsburg, whose
leaders not only included William of
Orange but Pope Innocent XI, against
the imperial ambitions of Louis XIV
aiid his allies, who just happen to
include James II of England. The
Boyne was simply a sideshow of a
greater European conflict and the
irony (so far as our Orange friends
are concerned) was that the Papal
States and Pope Innocent were on the
side of William of Orange and paying
for his army at the Boyne.
Religion was not a factor in the issues
which led to that battle.
Nor was the Boyne a simple battle
between Irish and English. Both armie
uv.® international as might be
expected in a war between two international
alliances. True that the preponderance
of James H's army had
been raised from the Irish but there
were other nationalities involved in
significant numbers. Indeed, the
composition of both armies consisted
of both Protestants as well as Catholics.
An irrelevant but amusing irony
was that poor William of Orange was
nearly bumped off by the Inniskilliners
who didn't recognise him and
didn't really give a damn about the
I They are remembering what never happened
wheezy, little man who was obviously
a stupid foreigner anyway! Had
they succeeded in shooting William,
one wonders what the outcome
might have been. One of those interesting
'ifs' with which history is plagued.
The story that William
won the day
because of the cowardice
of the Irish
regiments of James
Il's army, is a rank
lie, actually spread
by James the Shithead
(as the Irish
endearingly called
James afterwards)
to save his own face
after he had skedaddled
back to France.
In fact it was the
bravery of the Irish
troops who saved
James' bacon and
gave him time to
flee, and allowed
the rest of the
Jacobite army to
withdraw and regroup.
Otherwise
William's troops
could have simply
overwhelmed
them. The Irish cavalry,
under Berwick,
acting as a
rear guard, behaved
with great
calmness and courage.
The truth of the matter was that
William was the better general and
his~feint and deployment at the
Boyne caught James on the hop.
James was really forced to fight by his
generals and when he did so it was
on William's terms rather than his
own. Several better battlefields could
have been utilised by him before the
Boyne but he was more intent on
withdrawing much to the anger of
his men. James fell into the trap
which will had set for him and he
divided his army.
The classic military ruse won the
Ulster
Presbyterians
took an active
part in the
United Irish
uprising, in
Young Ireland
and the Fenian
movement.
They were at
the forefront of
the struggle for
'The Rights of
Man'
day in which you make a feint, causing
your enemy to think you main
attack is coming from another position
so that they divide their army.
Then you fall on the smaller part of
their army with the greater party of
yours and in the ensuing panic, do
not altew-'ti^m^'
regroup or regaijft
control of the field.
So it happened on
that day.
The story that the
Williamite victories
ushered in a new
era of religious and
civil liberty in Ire?
land is also utter
fanciful nonsense.
The Irish Parliament,
meeting in
Dublin in 1689, free
of the constraints of
their "big brother' in
Westminster,
passed several acts,
Acts XIII and XV,
which had abolished
all religious
discrimination by
law, declaring that
all religions should
be equal under the
law and that each
priest and minister
should be supported
by his own
congregation, and
that no tithes
should be levied upon any person for
the support of a church to which he
did not belong.
When the Jacobites agreed to surrender
at Limerick in October, it was
a principal condition of the Treaty
that William respect freedom of religious
worship in Ireland, as embodied
in these acts of the Dublin parliament.
A few months after the surrender,
and with the remnants of the
Irish army gone to France, William
neged on that treaty and instead of
.eligious toleration commenced the
system of discrimination known as
the Pena! '.aws. That was why the
battle cry of the Irish Brigade of the
French Army, which devastated the
English at the Battle of Fontenoy in
1745 was 'Remember Limerick!'. f
More specfically, and somethingwhich
our friends in the North ought
to contemplate in their current worship
of William of Orange, was the
fact that William not only outlawed
Catholics butall Dissenting religions,
Prebysterians, Methodists, Baptists
et. al. Only those who adhered to the
Anglican faith were allowed full civil
rights.
I have already explained (Irish
Democrat, February, 1990, and Labour
and Ireland, June-September, 1988)
the implications of this. But to reiterate,
these Penal Laws enacted
against Presbyterians caused the migration
of 250,000 Ulster Presbyterians
to the New World in search of
religious freedom, during the early
years of the 18th Century alone. In
America they supported the War of
Independence, providing many of
the leaders in the fight against England.
They became convinced republicans
and it was they who brought
back the republican ideology to Ireland
and took such an active part in
the United Irish uprising, in Young
Ireland and the Fenian movement.
They were at the forefront of the
struggle for The Rights of Man'.
yr. ;:. : v - • r .
IT WAS their very 'high profile' as
republicans which caused the
English to lift the Penal Laws
against Presbyterians in the years
following the suppression of the
1798 uprising in Ireland and by the
1830s they were even allowed into
the Orange Order, which had previously
excluded them. With judicious
bribes and not a little
brain-washing from the 'revisionist'
writers of the 19th Century they have
come to believe the myths they now
propound about William of Orange
and his victory at the Boyne.
That, in fact, is the tremendous sadness
of the current situation in lieland.
That, in fact, is the immediate
lesson of the celebration of the tercentenary
of the Battle of the Boyne.
Hugh Bolter, Anglican Archbishop
of Armagh, writing to William Pitt
about the new creed of republicanism
which Ulster Presbyterians had
brought back from America into Ireland,
said: The worst of it is that it
tends to unite Protestant and Papist
and whenever that happens, goodbye
to the English interest in Ireland
for ever.'
Well, since that time, the English
Establishment and done their best to
divide and conquer. And, let us face
it, with only a few notableexceptions,
they have succeeded. They have
played the 'Orange Card' well. It has
been their tr -mp. History has
become a myth agreed upon, a$ Napoleon
once cynically remarked.
Unionist have fed the myth of the
Boyne for their own cynical ends.
The implicit belief in the myth of the
events at the River Boyne in July,
1690, is at the root of attitudes in the
North of Ireland today. It is a testament
to the brain-washing skills of
the English Establishment.
IRISH DEMOCRAT July 1990 page 8