Irish Democrat October - November 2000

Irosh Oemociuc 

October/November 2000 Connolly Association: campaigning for a united and independent Ireland ISSN 0021-1125 60p 

Further radical Republicanism 

changes needed in the new 

to Police Bill 

century 

Page 5 

Page 7 / ; r . _ >N \ 

END THE C 

Cork's 

forgotten 

history 

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COLLUSION 

ALLEGATIONS 

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 

Pat Flnucane's widow Geraldine, the couple's daughter Katherlne and the solicitor's brother Martin 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 

Irish Centre 

Blacks Road, Hammersmith Broadway, London W6 

Speakers: 

Jeremy Corbyn MP (Labour), Pat Doherty 

(Sinn F6in vice president and Nl Assembly member), 

Jlprenda Callaghan (Belfast and District TUC), 

Daltun O'Ceallalgh (author and trade unionist) 

Chair: Owen Cook, Hammersmith and Fulham TUC 

Bookstall • lieomod

Iwsh OemocMt 

Founded 1939 Volume 55, Number 5 

The whole Patten 

THE GOVERNMENT'S position on the Police Bill is so at 

variance with the careful deliberations of the Patten commission 

recommendations on police reform as to beggar belief, a point ably 

illustrated by professor Paddy Hillyard elsewhere in this edition. 

When considering the list of those backing Patten's 

recommendations, ranging from top academics to the President of 

the USA — not to mention both US presidential candidates, the US 

House of Representatives the Catholic Church, the Irish 

government and 

human rights groups — it is easy to forget the 

desires and legitimate aspirations of the 43 per cent of the 

population of the north who've born the brunt of discrimination 

Yet here is a Labour leader who has just made it clear that his 

government has no intention of restoring the link between pensions 

and earnings, no matter how big a majority within his party votes 

for it. This is also Ireland, where the political sensibilities of most 

British politicians desert them as soon as they encounter the 

political minefield of their own and their predecessors making. 

It there is one thing that can save the principles of the Good 

Friday agreement — even if not Trimble's leadership of the UUP 

— it is the full and unequivocal implementation of Patten: the 

Patten, the whole Patten and nothing but the Patten. 

To do anything other is to accept that unionists continue to hold 

a veto over the whole peace process and prove to a new generation 

of nationalists and republicans that their lot is to remain as the 

second-class subjects of an alien Queen. 

Mowlam moves on 

THE ANNOUNCEMENT by Mo Mowlam at the beginning of 

September that she is to stand down as an MP at the next general 

election ends speculation about the political future of the former 

Northern Ireland secretary of state. 

Her decision to pursue a career outside of Westminster will no 

doubt have come as a great relief to those in and close to the Labour 

leadership who have actively worked for her marginalisation in 

recent years. Mowlam has openly complained of a 

'whispering' 

campaign against her and had made it clear that she had wanted to 

finish the job handed over to Peter Mandelson. 

She undoubtedly played a key role in breathing fresh life into an 

ailing peace process following Labour's 1997 victory and was 

particularly instrumental in convincing nationalists and republicans 

of the British government's commitment to finding an equitable 

and lasting solution. 

Her blunt and no-nonsense style, which upset so many unionists, 

came as a breath of fresh air following a succession of 

unionist Tory secretaries of state. Her approach paid 

openly 

dividends 

during her early tenure. However, once unionists found a way to 

bypass her, establishing direct links with Blair through his chief of 

staff, Jonathan Powell, her influence waned. 

Yet, despite her popularity, it must be remembered that she has 

been a long-time supporter of Blair's right-wing 

'modernising' 

project and all that that implies. She also placed the Irish peace 

process in grave jeopardy by authorising the bugging of the car 

used by senior Sinn Fein figures at a delicate stage of the 

negotiations, recently claiming, without any justification, that it had 

been necessary because "lives were at risk". 

This confirmed for republicans what they had always suspected, 

that Mowlam was in essentials, if not outward style, remarkably 

similar to her British pro-consul predecessors. A harsh judgement 

perhaps, but one with more than a grain of truth. And so it is ever 

likely to be until the British government bases its policy on 

Ireland's right to be united and independent and takes positive and 

unequivocal steps to end Britain's colonial tenure there. 

Iwsh Oemoout 

Bi-monthly newspaper of the Connolly Association 

Editorial Board 

Gerard Oirran; F.nda l-inlay; David Granville (editor); Peter Mulligan; Mnya Si Leger 

Production: Derek Kotz 

Published by Connolly Publications Ltd. 244 Gray's Inn Road. London WCIX 

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8JR, 

News 

Page 3 Irish Democrat October/November 2000 

Family calls for Immediate action 

McBRIDE 

CAMPAIGN 


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 

VATICAN 

AFFAIRS 

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 

TRADE 

UNIONS 


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." 

Beastly beatification 

and early 20th century. 

Pope Pius IX willingly allowed 

himself to be a tool of British interest and 

cared nothing for the nationalist cause. 

Union women link up 

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. 

ImshOemoctuc 

For a united and independent Ireland 

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of the Connolly Association, which campaigns for a united and independent 

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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. 

EVENTS 

28 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. 

28 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 2001 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 19 September 2000 

J Morrisey £13; U MacEoin £8; R Kelly 

£5; J Doyle £2; A Noone; FHO £10; F 

Jennings; £110; A Higgins £10.40; B 

Feeney £10; C Arnold £5; T Donaghy 

£10; G McClafferty S Hone £10; P 

McKenna; £6.73; W Shillam £5; J 

Clambers £110; PW Ladkin £5; A 

Barlow £5; E Reidy £4; P Riley £5; PW 

White £110; S Komer £110; M Caffell 

£10 (in memory of Paddy Bond); K&M 

O'Brien £118; M Donohoe £8; A 

Southern £1.76, anon £8.30 

Bankers orders (two months) £297.00 

Ibtal £510.19 

Irish Democrat October/November 2000 Page 5 

News 

A progressive schooling In Dublin 

GREAVES 

SCHOOL 

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", 

Chilling message: Shankhlll mural 

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 

Warring factions split 

loyalist community 

LOYALIST 

FEUD 


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. 

Hands across the water 

1820 COMMEMORATION 


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 southwest 

of Scotland. 

He also unveiled a bilingual 

(Gaelic/English) memorial to his late coauthor, 

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. 

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, 

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 

NEWS IN BRIEF 

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 

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 workingclass 

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 interloyalist 

conflict. 

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. 

BNFL 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. 

WORLD 

COMMENT 

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.



EUROWATCH 

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 eurolederalist. 

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. 

News/analysis 

Wealthy aristocrat told to give back land 

CHATSWORTH 

PROTEST 


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". 

IRELAND 

INSTITUTE 


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 

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 

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 democraticallyelected 

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 from 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 nongovernmental 

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 

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, London, in 1996. 

Campaigners are demanding an independent inquiry into the police operation 

which led to O'Neill's death. 

Ireland finally gets The Republic 

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 nearderelict 

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 

Letters to the Editor 

Write to: The Editor, Irish Democrat, c/o 244 Gray's Inn Road, London WC1X 8JR 

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

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 longstanding 

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 

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 

Patten's neighbourhood-centred approach has far-reaching Implications for a 

hierarchical counter-insurgency force like the RUC 

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. 

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 diametricallyopposed 

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 decisionmaking 

body, the Ulster Unionist 

Council (UUC). 

These moves could strengthen 

Trimble's position, but need to be 

approved by the UUC at its meeting 

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. 

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.



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. 

Although outside 

the law and 

unknown to the 

constitution it (the 

cabinet) possesses 

the most fearful 

powers 

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. 

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 Pittsburghbased 

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 Road earlier this year, 

above. Below: Joe Jamison 

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." 

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 Faildominated 

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.


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 

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. 

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 

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, 

Prelude 

to the 

Easier 

Rising 

REINHARO R 

1 ^ ' '"t 

DOERRIES 

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 

Reviews in brief 

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 

Book reviews 

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 . 

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. 

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 The 

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 

Towards the deal 

Enda Finlay reviews Paths to a 

Settlement in Northern 

Ireland 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 

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. 

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. 


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 

Protestants speak 

for themselves 

Jack Bennett reviews Northern 

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. 

Heart of the matter 

Calum McConnell reviews A Nation 

Of Extremes by Diarmaid Ferriter, 

Irish Academic Press, £35.00 hbk, and 

Alfred Webb: the 

autobiography of a Quaker 

nationalist 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 

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 

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 

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 

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 

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 

A NATION ()! 

1 VI R1 Ml s 

culture it was inevitable that in their 

desire to transform attitudes they would 

have to involve themselves in the wider. 

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. 

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, 

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 selfgoverning 

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 

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 inlaws 

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. 

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. 

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 selfgovernment 

and land reform.


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- 

Frank Foley reviews New Voices in 

Irish Criticism, P.J. Mathews 

Four Courts Press, £14.95 phk 

(Ed.), 

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 

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. 

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 

Reviews/culture 

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 

DFBORAH O'BRIEN'S new book. Celtic Decorative 

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 beautifullyillustrated 

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 :0am 

13 November: a talk by Colm Kerrigan (topic to be announced) 

Venue: Cairde na nGael, 57 Woodgrange Road, Forest Gat6, 

London E7 OEL 

: 

• ^-rM^: Events begin et 7.30pm 

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

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' 

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 

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. 

11 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. 

17 October William Smith O'Brien, 

Young Irelander, born Dromoland, Co. 

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. 

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. 

Clare, 1803. 

19 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. 

21 October United Irishman Thomas 

Russell is hung for his part in Robert 

Emmet's failed rising, 1803. 

22 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. 

kwn-ottt. 

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. 

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). 

9 November Dylan Thomas, Welsh poet 

and writer, dies in New York aged 39, 

1953. 

13 November Birmingham-based 

republican James McDade dies when a 

bomb he is planting at a Coventry 

telephone exchange goes off 

prematurely, 1974 

15 November Edna O'Brien, novelist 

and short-story writer, bom Tuamgraney, 

Co. Clare, 1932. 

17 November Belfast-born Scottish 

physicist and mathematician, William 

Thompson, inventor of the Kelvin 

temperature scale, dies, 1907. 

24 November Erskine Childers, author 

and Irish patriot, executed by the Free 

State government, 1922. 

28 November Sinn Fdin founded Arthur 

Griffith and Bulmer Hobson, 1905. The 

party's emphasis was on cultural and 

economic independence. 


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 peck of com for me, 


No more driver's lash for me, 


No more driver's lash for me; 


Celtic Art Cards 

Christmas and New Year Cards 

Pack of ten cards (various designs) £5.50 

(price includes p&p) - UK only 

Cheques payable to Northampton Connolly Association 

(Single design packs available on request) 

All greetings in English and Irish 

Available from: Northampton Connolly Association, 

5 Woodland Avenue, Abington, 

Northampton NN3 2BY. 

Tel. 01604 715 793 

email: pmcelt@compuserve.com 

i 

No more pint of salt for me. 


No more pint of salt for me. 


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. 

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 allembracing 

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

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 

w 

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 reelected 

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. 

(

Irish Democrat October - November 2000

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