JOURNAL OF THE IRISH LABOUR HISTORY SOCIETY

JOURNAL OF THE IRISH LABOUR HISTORY SOCIETY1988

Curnann Stair Lucht Saothair na hEireann 1988Irish Labour History Society 1988Honorary PresidentPresidentVice PresidentSecretaryAssistant SecretaryAssistant SecretaryTreasurerJohn SwiftFrancis DevineNorah O'NeillCharles CallanAndrew FinlayEvanne KilmurrayPeter RigneyCommitteeTrusteesPaddy BerginDaniel G. BradleyPaul CullenJoe DeasyHugh GeraghtyMatt MerriganFrank CanavanTheresa MoriartyErnmet O'ConnorJohn O'DowdRuairi QuinnSarah Ward-PerkinsPeter CasellsMembership of the Society is open to all individuals, labour movement organisations, academicc institutions, libraries andarchival bodies. The subscription rate of £10 is payable on 1 January each year and entitles members to Saothar, the Society'smagazine Labour History News and information about events and activities.General correspondence should be addressed to the Secretary and all membership enquiries to the Treasurer, Irish LabourHistory Society, Irish Congress of Trade Unions, 19 Raglan Road, Dublin 4.ChairpersonSecretaryTreasurerTerry CraddenAndrew FinlayJ onathan BellBelfast BranchCommittee Peter CollinsPaddy DevlinAnn HopeChris NortonBob PurdieMervyn WatsonFor the Belfast Branch contact Andrew Finlay, Irish Labour History Society, Workers' Educational Association, 1 FitzwilliamStreet, Belfast BT9 6A W.Derry BranchChairperson, Edward McWilliams, Department of Sociology, Magee College, Derry. Secretary, Dr. Emmet O'Connor,Department of Politics, Magee College; University of Ulster, Derry.InternationalFor international or overseas enquiries or information contact may be made with Dr. Emmet 0 'Connor, International Secretary,Irish Labour History Sodety, Department of Politics, Magee College, University of Ulster, Derry.SAOTHAR, journal of the Irish Labour History SocietyBoth journal and society are committed to the study of Irish labour history in the broadest sense: the economic and socialformation of Irish labour; the labour movement and Irish working class culture, and the experience and role of Irish labourabroad. Saothar is not, however, restricted to Irish labour history. Without losing the Irish focus it is fully intended to publisharticles and reviews on labour history in other countries and on problems and concepts which transcend national divisions.Saothar welcomes major articles, essays in argument, essays in review, reviews, notices of publications, thesis abstracts andnotification of work in progress, bibliographical essays and specialised bibliography lists, studies in labour historiography,document studies, museum reports and archival commentaries, treatinents of oral history and non-written sources, conferencereports, letters and correspondence.'Saothar appears once a year. Articles for consideration should be received by 31 January and reviews by 31 March. Afull set of Notes for Contributors is available on request from the editors.All contributions and correspondence should be addressed to: The Editors, Saothar, Clo Department of Modem History,Trinity College, Dublin 2.Editors: Francis Devine and Emmet O'Conn~rBusiness Editor: Norah O'NeillEditorial Advisory BoardFergus D' Arcy' (Dublin)John Foster (paisley)John Home (Dublin)Bob Purdie (Belfast)Joseph Lee (Cork)Austen Morgan (London)Donal Nevin (Dublin)Dorothy Thompson (Birmingham)Margaret Ward (Belfast)Dermot Keogh (Cork)Front Cover: Joe Deasy addre'ssing the 1946 Labour Party Conference in Wexford. Esther McGregor, mother of Donal and,Liam McGregor, is watching proceedings from the gallery.Back Cover: James Cannolly Election Manifesto in'Yiddish, January, 1902. Photograph reproduced courtesy of the NationalLibrary of Ireland.'

ContentsPageEditorial: Labour History Past and Present 2Obituary 4Correspondence and Notes 5The Decline and Fall of Donnybrook Fair: Moral Reform and Fergus A. D' Arcy 7Social Control in Nineteenth Century DublinA Passage to Britain: Seasonal Migration and Social Change Gerard Moran 22in the West oflreland, 1870-1890The Social and Political Views of Louie Bennett, 1870-1956 Ellen Hazelkom 32Essays in ReviewCosherers, Wanderers and Vagabonds: The Treatment ofthe Poor and the Insane in IrelandConnoUy: Myth and RealityReviewsEssays'Godliness and Good Citizenship': EvangelicalProtestantism and Social Control in Ulster, 1790-1850The Enigmatic Relationship: Fianna Fail and theWorking ClassThe Irish Immigrants' Contribution to ScottishSocialism, 1880-1926Gerard 0' BrienJoeLarragyDavid Hempton andMyrtle HillHenry PattersonJames D. Young454954688189SourcesThe Irish Labour History Society ArchiveTrade Union Journals in the National Library of IrelandSources for Irish Labour History in the Modern Records Centre, CoventryNorth West Archives and Labour HistoryTyovaen Arkisto, the Finnish Social Democratic Labour ArchiveTheses Abstracts99101105107108109ReminiscenceJoe Deasy: the Evolution of an Irish Marxist, 1941-1950Document StudyConnolly Socialism and the Jewish WorkerBibliographyA Bibliography of Irish Labour History, 1986-87Notes on ContributorsEvanne KilmurrayManus O'RiordanDeirdre O'Connell112120131147

EditorialLabour History: Past and Present'Traditional concepts of the working class, insofar as they exist in the Irish context, conjure upfamiliar, standard images. The toiling, landless rural labourer is hrred at the fair or subject to the evictionthreats of an absentee landlord. The Lagan valley's linen slaves sweat in crowded factories and sleephuddled in mean, back-to-back streets round the mills. In Dublin, casual, unskilled workers throng thebusy waterfronts and endure the rough and tumble of tenement existence. All these groups lived inpoverty and their greatest opportunity for upward social inobility was the escape route of emigrationor enlistment. They were of course, according to ihe accepted impressions, compensated for theirdeprivations by the close bonds of community that produced the 'characters' and an innate sense ofsolidarity. No lessons in marxism were required to inculcate a,crude class politics and organisation waspropelled by want in the face of continuous repression and economic uncertainty. Such groups tookimmense pride and consolation in their work. Tradesmen or not, many lived apparently contented livesas weavers or bakers, smiths or carpenters, carters or rail waymen for generations, father to son, and lessoften, for women are largely absent from the standard pictures, mother to daughter.Labour history has generally re-enforced such views, exposing the worst excesses of landlordismor unfettered industrialisation and portraying labour's response in tenns of the 'glorious march'.Labour history has also served to infuse those engaged in contemporary class struggle with a sense ofthe historic process of change and ofthe need to learn from past experience. Perhaps much of this kindof labour history could be accused of glamorising or romanticising working class life as it presents thesimple, honest labourer or the proud miner. In this way the rash of labour history museums andmuseums of industrial life might be seen as contributing to this negative aspect of labour history.Much of the current motive to 'preserve' working class life is because traditional industries and thecommunities they engendered are disappearing. A number of factors are acting in concert tosignificantly alter the composition of the working class and to dilute individuals' sense of class identity.The quickening impact of new technology is reinforcing the long process of decay within the old,manual heavy industries and heightening the growth of white collar and technical employment. Manyof the established craft or industrial unions are disappearing or striking alliances with what were oncesworn enemies within the trade across tightly drawn demarcation lines. Electro or stereo typers becameDublin's hand loom weavers of the late twentieth century. These technical processes have beenharnessed by the New Right, as evident in Ireland as in Britain even if less consciously identified in thepublic mind or less personalised in political tenns. The current demands are for privatisation, publicsector cuts, labour market deregulation and the host that is held aloft is that of individualism. All thisis transfonning the mass' relationship to the means of production. Areas of once thriving industry arebecoming wastelands and targets for.the speculators and the gro'wing industrial museum industry. WillBelfast spawn shipbuilding and linen centres in which the public can watch old shipwrights craftingmodels or listen to young actresses singing 'The Doffing Mistress' dressed as 'shaw lies'? Will Dublin'sCustom House Dock scheme open a Museum of Dock Life as a cultural contribution to set aside thefree market international finance centre?It is, of course, in many respects vital to preserve in such circumstances, but the value of retention'for antiquarian or folk memory must be challenged. A starting point is to recognise that the economic,social and cultural debris of current political economy is neither natural nor neutral. The harnessingof the flood waters by Thatcherism or its multi -faceted Irish equivalent is not for the benefit of the wholebut for the privileged few. Worse, for unspoken casualities of the New Right's juggernaut are the valuesthat labour history alone attempts to trace, identify and, in their contemporary application, defend.These are'the values of collectivism, of democratic socialism and of genuine liberty that includes the2

EDITORIAL 3freedom to participate in decisions for change that can make the present the past·. The past itself mustnot be allowed fall prey to commercial, trivial or other forces that will strip it of the necessary cuttingedge that should remind all who witness it, whether in museum fOIll) or in the written word, that virtuallyall significant freedoms of today were the p~ciductof struggle engaged in byordinary women and men.The relevance of labourhistory today has never been more apt as history is surely repeatingitself in aregressive and repressive way.1913, being celebrated or commemorated after seventy five years, is not simply a window on timespast but a valuable base from which to question the present. It is, after all, a present again dominatedby unemployment, unequal opportunity, poverty and emigration. History should assist us in the processof identifying the reasons for the apparent lack of real progress and identify the enemies of today, bethey personalities, attitudes or ideologies, just as we readily identify William Martin Murphy, narrowselfish capitalism and an unsympathetic, stultifying ch urch in 1913. Labour history m useums shouldnot serve as monuments or mausoleums but as resource centres and reference points for contemporarysociety that cannot aspire to call itself civilised until the fears and want of so many are tackled andassuaged. The past is not romantic nor irrelevant. The past was too often sorry, grinding and pathetic.We should learn from it in order to prevent its repetition.Francis Devine and Emmet O'ConnorCumann Oibrighthe na hEireannFEDERATED WORKERS'UNION OF IRELANDThe Federated Workers IUnion of Ireland supportthe Irish Labour HistorySociety in their task of uncoveringthe history of the·working people of Ireland intheir struggle for a societyfree from exploitation.Enquiries to: The General Secretary,29/30 Pamell Square, Dublin1. Telephone: (01-)748711 and786866 (10 lines)

ObituaryR. Dudley EdwardsIrish history lost one of its most distinguished practitioners and illustrious characters with thepassing of Professor R. Dudley Edwards a day after his seventy-ninth birthday. Born in Dublin on 4June, 1909, his family background was encouraging to history and liberal in outlook. His mother hadchampioned women's rights and Irish nationalism, while his father had collaborated with FrancisSheehy-Skeffington in the Dublin Socialist Society. Dudley Edwards gained an MA from UniversityCollege, Dublin in 1931 and a PhD from King's College, London in 1933. He taught modem Irishhistory at UCD from 1939 and was Professor from 1945 until retirement in 1979. He published onsubjects as diverse as church and state in Tudor Ireland to the Great Famine, Daniel O'Connell to .sources for history students and researchers. Together with the late T.W. Moody, he founded IrishHistorical Studies in 1938, the formative· and senior Irish history journal that has done so much todevelop standards, nationally and internationally for the subject. As a teacher he could be outstandingand his influence on successive generations of historians is testimony to his ability and impact.Dudley Edwards was ever a willing friend to the Irish Labour History Society, although he wouldnever have claimed to be a labour historian. Perhaps an innate sense of concern for the underprivilegedand a residual sense of disgust at injustice accounted for this sympathetic attitude. He played a role,indirectly, in the genesis of the Society. He was responsible for the Survey of Business Recordsundertaken by his students in Dublin in the summer and autumn of 1972. This survey revealedsomething of the wealth of trade unions records in the city and the urgent need for their preservationgave new impetus to the idea of establishing an Irish labour history society. Those with whom the ideawas already germinating, Fergus D' Arcy, a colleague of Dudley's at UCD, Matt O'Neill of the IrishTransport and General Workers' Union and Padraig 6 Snodaigh of the National Museum, were nowjoined by one of Dudley' s students, Ken Hannigan, who had u)1dertaken the trade union records survey,and the archivist Greagoir 6 Duill who had helped to guide the work. This group drew in others andformally launched the Society in 1973. Dudley Edwards had certainly set part of the final process intomotion. All the academics involved in that unique alliance with trade union activists were either. students or ex-students of his.Dudley Edwards was a member of the initial Saothar Editorial Advisory Board, serving in thiscapacity from 1976 until 1983. As an editor, I found him generous of his time and, when we met, fullof suggestions and willing to indicate potential contributors. His major contribution to the ILHS,however, was in the development of the Irish Labour History Society Archive. Dudley possessed anall encompassing vision for archives and was one of the architects of the concept of a National Archive.He was instrumental in convincing government of the need for a modem policy of access along the linesof contemporary European state archives.He established the Department of Archives at UCD in the early 1970s both to house collections andto train professional archivists. Dudley had already assisted in the development of an archivalconsciousness within the trade union movement and, together with the Society President, John Swift,was responsible for the arrangement whereby Society deposits remain the property in trust of the ILHSand the depositing trade union or individual. He was an enthusiast and I recall the glint behind thosebottle end glasses as he greeted boot loads of Limerick Bakers' records or the arrival from Dundalk ofIrish Shoe and Leather Workers' Union material. He stood in the hallway at Stephen's Green and gaveus all a sense of purpose and resolve to go out again and retrieve more from the jaws of oblivion.Afterwards, he generously directed archival students to the tasks of listing, cataloguing and introducingILHS deposits. His contribution to the work of the Society in this area was immense.We extend our deepest sympathy to his three children. His passing leaves a void that will not befilled. He will be missed.4Frands Devine,President, ILHS

CorrespondenceThe Irish Labour Party, 1927-1933 Debate ContinuedMy article in Saothar 11 deals with theLaboUr Party (LP) for the period 1927-33 only. Iattempted to portray the fortunes of the LP ascompared with those of the other parties strictlywithin that period - a period that witnessed greatstrains and tensions in party politics and culminatedin the highest-ever turn-out in a generalelection. The basic problem faced by the LP wasone of identity. This was recognised by Norton'sstrong leadership in 1932 and the LP emerged atthe end of this period as a far more identifiableparty than it had been in 1927.Ellen Hazelkom (Saothar 12 , Correspondence)alleges that I ignore' the distinction between classidentity and electoral popularity'. This is not thecase: the decision to separate the party from thelTUC in 1930 recognised that working-classidentity, as represented by the LP up to 1930,extended only to trade unionists. The attempt tobroaden the party's appeal to the working-classmeant shedding that narrow image and appealingto the vast majority ofIrish workers who were nottrade unionists. 'Electoral popularity' (to useHazelkom's phrase) demanded such a departure.Incidentally, electoral popularity is (or should be)a motivating force for any political party. Hazelkom'sdescri ption of the separation of the ILP­TUC into two distinct organisations as 'merely(my emphasis) an attempt to stem the tide ofelectoral decline' seriously underestimates theimportance of electoral behaviour for any politicalparty. There was no 'desire to abandon class'as Hazelkom argues, rather a recognition that theclass which the LP sought to represent was notfully catered for by the offical trade union movement.Hazelkom refers to events outside the scopeof my article. The deletion of the 'Workers'Republic' concept from the party's constitutionand the split of 1944 were indeed highly significant.But it is totally wrong to charge the LP ofbeing' devoid of ideological and class substance'.How could such a party operating in the Ireland ofthe 1930s ever have inserted a clause in itsconstitution calling for a Workers' Republic?The charge that the LP was (is?) 'devoid ofclass substance ' is refuted not only by a long listof policy papers and programmes that go backbeyond the Democratic Programme of the firstDail, but also by analysis ofthe social backgroundof both party representatives and supporters whichis, and always has been, overwhelmingly working-class.Enda McKay,St. Anne's,Margaret Road,Malahide,Co. DublinWomen in Irish HistoryI am engaged in a research project on womenin Irish history - more specifically on women inradical politics in Ireland from the end of theeighteenth century to the 1850s. I would be veryinterested in contacting fellow researchers on thesubject, or those working generally on women inIrish history.Priscilla Metscher,Heidland 15,2802 Ottersberg 2,Federal Republic of GermanyTrade Union Records in theRegistry of Friendly Societies,DublinI am grateful to Enda McKay of the ILHS TradeUnion and Labour Records Survey for drawingmy attention to the following errors contained inthe list of 'Trade Union Files' appended to the endof my article on 'Trade Union Records in the5

6Registry of Friendly Societies, Dublin' in Saothar11, 1986, pp. 92-101. The list should be amendedaccordingly:-151T Operative· Stonecutters· of IrelandTrade Unionthere are no returns for the period 1912-17176T Dublin Victuallers' Association1880; registered 1896; cancelled 1920285T286T286Tshould read 385Tshould read 285T Refuge AssuranceCompany's (Dublin District) Employees'Associationshould in fact read Irish AutomobileDrivers' and Mechanics' Union 1912-1919L324T INUVGATA should read L314TL348T LG PSU is correct but title first adopted in1970 according to AR21s and not until1973 according to Phil Flynn358T IEIETU started in 1920, registered in1922 as the Irish Engineering and IndustrialUnion changing to IEIETU in 1948366T there is a file for Electrical Trades Union(Dublin) 1924 when it both registeredand commenced. In 1925 it changed toETU (Ireland). There are no Annual Re-SAOTHAR13turns in the file though. See also L453T478T no such file. The file is for Kerry CattleTraders' Association and is hot on RFSlists surveyed by McKay. It was, how­. ever, on lists I saw. McKay could find noreference to the Packing Case Makers'Trade UnionL506T Irish Creamery Managers' Associationchanged their title to th~ Dairy Executives' Association in 1985259T is in the correct position but should read529T Stonecutters' Union of Ireland530T should of course read L530T as the NationalBusworkers' Union is ~ 'live' fileL538T is correct but should read 'merger ofNEU357T' (not 537T) and 'IEIETU 358T'(not 538T)I hope the correction of these errors will avoid anyunnecessary confusion in what is, in any case, asometimes difficult job of tracing files of 'dead'trade unions.Francis Devine,55 Evora Park,Howth,Co. DublinPublic Service Executive Union. The Executive Committee conveys fraternal greetings to theIrish Labour History Society and commends the Society on itsvaluable work in the field of Labour History where the Societyfulfills a· long -standing need in Historical Research andDiscussion.Daniel Mwphy,General Secretary,30, Merrion Square, Dublin 2.Tel: 76727112; 764315/6

; ~ ; ,The Decline and Fall of Donnybrook Fair:Moral Reform and Social Control in NineteenthCentury DublinFergus A. D' Arcy'This annual scen~ of fun and frolic commenced on Sunday,that b;;'ing what is termed 'the walking day'... the greatest harmony and good humour prevailed throughout the day and numerous groups were to beseen recreating and amusing themselves in an innocent manner. qSo wrote the correspondent of the Freeman's Journal newspaper in August 1819, describing theannual fair at Donnybrook. Four years later Charles O'Flaherty' s description was no less enthusiastic:'the amusements at Donnnybrook this season are on a grand and most extensive scale', and includedtight-rope ladies, slack-wire gentlemen, a family of monkeys, a rocket display at night, and a big fightbetween men from Bray and men from Mullingar over a woman. 2 His enthusiasm was shared by thereporter for Saunders' Newsletter who recorded an exceedingly numerous attendance and noted that'many females of the highest respectability drove through the Fair during the day, and the scene, inconsequence of the beauty of the weather, was particularly animated.'3For a very long time indeed, centuries in fact, Donnybrook had been one of Ireland's principalmarkets and fairs, and by that very token, a major scene of excitement and merriment for the mass ofthe people.- Founded by charter of King John in 1204, he gave licence to the citizens of Dublin to holdthis annual fair, its various tolls and taxes being vested in the Corporation of Dublin.4The great commercial importance of the fair declined from the seventeenth century. In the 1690sthe Corporation, in order to raise some quick money to clear a debt, conveyed the right to the revenuesof the fair to the local gentry family of Ussher. Finally, in 1812, the right to these revenues waspurchased outright by John Madden of Donnybrook for £750. How much the right to the revenues wasworth iri the eighteenth century is not clear, but in the nineteenth century they fell from around £400per annual fair in the 1830s to £120 in the 1850s. The income, for what it was worth, was derived froma series oflevies on various sales and stands. 5 While there is little doubt that the commercial importimceof Donnybrook Fair declined significantly over the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it still remaineda not unimportant market for horse trading and for all of its life span in the ninetee'nth century Dublincity's hackney cab drivers used the fair for procuring the animals essential to their trade. Furthermore,even as its overall economic significance in the life of Dublin and Ireland declined, its recreationalsignificance-almost certainly grew as the city itself grew and larger numbers~of the common peoplesought an annual outlet for their cares. '.There is no disputing its place as a major source of popular entertainment and rough merriment. Itwas in the eighteenth century that it became a byword in this respect. Jonah Barrington in his memoirsprovided a vivid arid memorable account of the fair at its liveliest towards the end of that century.6 Hisdescription serves to confirm many earlier references to a festival that had been often turbulent andsometimes violent. 7 But by the end of that century and the beginning of the next Donnybrook Fair hadbecome much less physically boisterous while still retaining its humour and high spirits.It was still a good place for runaway couples to find a priest to marry them. By one account a Germanclergyman named Schultz, and nicknamed 'Tack' em' used to marry them there,S and a Fr. Keamey ofLiffey Street claimed that more marriages were contracted in the week'~ter Donnybrook than in anytwo months of the rest of the year. 9 In the 1820s it was still a place where high and low, rich and poortame together to enjoy a good boxing match, wrestli~g contest, or to take part in the dancing ono listen7

8 SAOTHAR 13to the Rakes of Mallow played by a fiddler getting steadily drunker. It is clear from the absence ofreferences in the police and judicial records or in the press reports that the wilder excesses of theeighteenth century were not a feature of the occasion: as a press report of 1823 noted:'notwithstanding the immense numbers that attended, there were comparatively few rows ... some blackeyes were given and taken but a hearty apology and the 'deoch an dorais' made all well again.'IOThis was probably typical of the time. When the Halls visited Ireland a decade or so later they founda much quieter scene at Donnybrook:'We heard nothing and noticed nothing that could offend the most scrupUlous: there was no quarrellingapproaching to a brawl; wedid not encounter a single intoxicated person of either sex, and enquiry a~policeoffices the next day revealed 'no charges preferred'. '11Their findings were echoed in the private comments of the Dublin police magistrate WilliamWoodlock who kept a diary during this period. In 1854 he confided:'Fri 25 August. After my dip, walked to Donnybrook to look at the Fair. 'Alas for my country, her prideis gone by!' It was woefully quiet, almost respectable. There was no fun, no fighting, no drunkenness, orat least very little of it. The shows were just what fair shows may be expected to be anywhere, tawdry andcommonplace.' 1 2 'And in the very year that Woodlockmade his diary entry the reporter for theFreeman' s Journal gaveconvincing support to the accuracy of Woodlock's comment:'Alas for the glories of the 'Brook': less and less have they become each year and we should not feel muchsurprised if ... we were called upon ere long to record their being numbered wilh the things that were ... Thefair this year is worth no more than a passing mention. q 3Whatever had happened in the space of twenty years? The answer to this is that a revolution hadhappened. This revolution involved a relatively rapid and quite decisive breakthrough in terms of moralreform and social control of the common people of Dublin. The agents of this breakthrough werechurches and state, separately and together, through religious revival, temperance crusading and policereorganisation .. A determined, sometimes combined effort was made to civilise and moralise themasses, to imbue them with the mores of the ascending middle classes, and to prise them from theirtraditional attachment to rough sports and physical assertiveness. This effort directed itself with specialenergy to the abolition of Donnybrook Fair, once a festival, now increasingly an affront.Already as early as 1802 when the evangelical revival was beginning to gather pace, the writer HelyDutton introduced one of the first sharp notes of moral indignation:'Donnybrook Fair has long been complained of as a nuisance and a most dangerous one it is ... the scenesof riot and drunkenness that take place there are most disgusting arid can surely answer no purpose but toput money into the pockets of publicans at the expense of the morals and health of the people ... 'and, he concluded, 'I sincerely hope to see it abolished before the next meeting' .14 Although his hopewas not to be realised for a very long time, it became one that was shared increasingly by others, in therising tide of the evangelical revival. One of the key features of that revival was a strengthening waveofsabbatarianism. It was against this background that Lord Mayor Richard Smyth in the early 1820stried to have the fifteen days of Donnybrook Fair interrupted in order to secure the observance of theSabbath. He claimed that the fair was 'most fatal to the peace and happiness of the humbler classes'.The owners of the rights, John and Peter Madden, refused to comply and appealed to the Lord

THE DECLINE AND FALL OF DONNYBROOK FAIR 9Lieutenant to endorse their right to remain open for the duration set out in the charters; Somewhatunhelpfully he referred them back to the Lord Mayor.15 While the Maddens in the past had concededclosing on one Sunday they were not prepared to close for two and Lord Mayor Smyth'.s attempts toenforce this on the devotees of Donnybrook got nowhere. This much is clear from the fact that in 1837Lord Mayor WiIliam Hodges was approached 'by several of the clergy and most respectable citizens'regarding the 'disgraceful violation of the Sabbath Day carried on annually at Donnybrook Fair onwhich day all the idle and disorderly people congregated .. .'16 'In a forthright manner he issued aproclamation ordering the fair to end on Saturday, 26 August. He then secured the useof a Illilitary forcefrom the Lord Lieutenant and on Saturday, 26 August, in his own words, 'had the whole of the fair greencleared by eleven 0' clock that night without accident or breach of the peace, and the Sabbath protectedfrom desecration'. For his pains he was issued with notices of civil actions from outraged booth ownerswho claimed infringement of their rights. His legal costs in defending these actions were such that hesought reimbursement from the government. He got no satisfaction. A curt note from the Undersecretaryat Dublin Castle, Thomas Drummond, merely observed: 'your application having, according tothe usual practice, been referred to the Attorney General, I am to inform you that ... it cannot beentertained' .17 So ended the earliest efforts of the Sabbatarians to dampen the humours of Donnybrook.Yet, even as the fair itself entered a quieter and less boisterous phase in the 1840s and 1850s as testifiedto by the Halls, Woodlock and the press, a fresh effort was now made to abolish it.In 1853 a new Catholic curate, the Rev. Patrick J. Nowlan, came to the combined parish ofDonnybrook-lrishtown. A reforming priest of great zeal, he initiated the new attempt to end the fair.Doggedly and successfully organising public opinion on the issue, he secured the_support of LordMayor Joseph Boyce who summoned a public meeting to the Mansion House in May 1855. The aimwas to create a committee to raise funds to buy out the rights of the Madden family to the revenues ofthe fair. Those present constituted a social mix of considerable clout, from the Marquis of Westmeath,through aldermen and town councillors to some of Dublin's leading social and moral crusaders of theage: among them were the temperance advocate and anti-slavery crusader James Haughton, and thecelebrated Carmelite moral reformer Dr. John Spratt, himself another leading light in the cause oftemperance as well as being a pioneer in the local movement for the more humane treatment of animals.Opening the meeting, the Lord Mayor's very rust observation was that they aimed 'to do away withthe annual nuisance of Donnybrook Fair, the burden o/which every artisan must have/elt'. -He revealedthat the present owners of the rights were willing to be bought out for £3,000, a small price to pay toend a place where 'numbers of citizens and labourers spent a large portion of their time in drinking andidleness'. Significantly he added'There was scarcely a servant in any house in Dublin that had not a desire to pass a portion of the week atDonnybrook and by their connection with their fellow servants the evils resulting from-·the Fair werebrought home to their very doors.'18Following an edifying resolution denouncing Donnybrook as having been for long 'the theatre ofimmorality, drunkenness and its concomitant evils', proposed by the Marquis of Westmeath andseconded, by Rev. Dr. Spratt, a subscription list was opened and a committee appointed which includedthe names of prominent citizens and property holders like John Vernon, John Sibthorpe, WilIiamDargan, together with the Lord Mayor, the Archbishop of Dublin, the curate Rev. Nowlan, and withS. Radcliffe H. Featherstone as secretary. The committee soon secured support from importantquarters. First came the all-important backing from the press, the Freeman's journal commentingeditorially that there was neither commercial nor recreational need for the fair, its importance as amarket having declined and its recreational value having been superceded by cheap da:ily rail excursionsto country and seaside,I9Then the Commissioners of the Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP), Col. GeorgeBrowne and JohnLewis More O'Ferrall wrote to say they wished to see the fair abolished having already themselves

10 ··SAOTHAR 13taken great pains to reduce its excesses. Generously they enclosed £5 each.20 Additional support fromthe clergy soon followed when the local parish priest, Rev. Dean A. O'Connell, lent his mime to thecommittee. 21Notto be outdone the army chiefs joined in when ·garrison commander, Major General Falls, senthis contribution to tl)e funds:., .'from the conviction that the proposed abolition will prevent crime amongst. the garrison and maymaterially save the non-commissioned officers and men from exposure to temptation and disgrace.'22 .More support followed from the clergy in the shape of Dr. Yore of St. Paul's and from the aristocracyin the person of Lord Downes, and then from employers on behalf of their workmen. 23 One of these,WilliamBaxter offashionable .Grafton Street, retailer of military footwear, urged every employer inthe city-to induce workmen to subscribe to the fund. The men in his employment had 'in the mostcheerfull1lanner put down a subscription of one shilling each'. 24With such a procession of dignity and worth, it was inevitable that the Association for DiscountenancingViceshouldjoin in. On 21 June it duly did so with a public resolution of support and acontribution of £10.25 Within four months the requisite money had been raised and the proprietors ofthe revenues were accordingly bought out. By indenture dated 17 September, 1855, between themembers of the Madden family on the one hand and the trustees led by the Lord Mayor, Boyce, on theother, the ancient rights to the tolls and customs originally conferred by King John were finallytransferred for extinction.26Congratulations poured in from on high. Fr. Ma thew , the apostle of temperance, wrote from theImperial Hotel on 10 August, 1855 to congratulate the people of Dublin 'on the total removal of thatmoral plague-spOt, Donnybrook Fair':n Five days later, Dr. Paul Cullen, Archbishop of Dublin, issueda circular letter to the clergy, expressing 'sincere delight' at the' measures adopted to suppress the Fair':'Everyone acquainted with the city is aware that that Fair, to say nothing of the loss of time and othertemporal considerations, was the occasion of innumerable offences against God: that riotousness,drunkenness, debauchery and profligacy of every kind prevailed to an awful extent and seemed to walkin it in triumph:'28At the same time, the two commissioners of the DMP, having seen their £10 contribution bearingfruit, now issued ~ notice stating that they'will not permit any hackney car stand in any of the streets of Donnybrook or in any place adjacent thereto:No crowd or.assemblage of persons will be allowed on the Green ... All public houses will be visited bythe police and restricted to legal hours.'29The fair, it seemed, had at last been abolished. Amid all these grave expressions of support andapproval from on high only two small voices managed to squeak in slight notes of disbelief or protest.One, signing himself' An Artizan', wrote on 23 August to reject the idea that those who resorted toDOOllybrook Fair were bad characters and claimed that this was a slur on himself and on the manythousands of artisans who were used to going there and who were determined to uphold 'the onlyremnant ·ofamusement left to them'. 30And even before this letter, while the authorities were rejoicing, one n~.D. of Donnybrook wroteto express astonishment that anyone could call the fair a moral plague-spot - itself a slur on the police,since neither crime nor outrage had been perpetrated in the previous sixteen years. He took issue·seriously with 'the reverend and other gentlemen' who subscribed hugely for 'what they call the generalgood without having consulted any of us on the matter', and whose. actions now threatened the welfareoflocal people who obtained a living from the fair. He ended by throwing down the gauntlet: he invited

THE DECLINE AND FALL OF DONNYBROOK FAIR 11Dublin friends to continue to pay their annual visit 'as we have ample space on our licensed premisesto entertain and comfortably accommodate the public generally' .31 This J.L.D. was one Joseph DiIIon,none other than the nephew of John Madden who had died in 1850 and whose heirs had sold off the rightsto the abolition committee. A public house owner of the village, Dillun had been the effective organiserof the fair since the death of his uncle in 1850, and naturally was not going to take his own econorriicextinctiun quietIy.32 With his daughter Eliza he took up the task uf reviving Donnybrook Fair; Althoughthe Madden family interest had been bought out, there was nothing to prevent the nephew Dillon fromusing his licensed premises; which included a two and a half acre field facing on to the old faiqsTound,from organising the animal market and th~public.amusements.()(old. To the consternation of clergyand police, this he proceeded to do.. . _. .. .On25 August, 1855 he buldly published in the newspapers a notice of his intentionto.contiriue thefair by accommodating iton his property. When published, this notice appeared beside that of the policein which they hadannuunced their intention to crack down on hackney cab drivers in-the area 'incunsequence of the abolition of Donnybrook Fair' .33 In sume dismay, early in the next year, J.D.Fitzgerald, a legal advisor to the Irish Office in London, confirmed to CuI. Thomas Larcom,Undersecretary at Dublin Castle, that from the legal aspect the abolition committee's wurkhad beenall in vain, and that some special legislation would be needed. 34In the years immediately following the apparent abolition of 1855 Dillon and his daughter Elizacuntinued tu hold the fair in defiance of church and state. For the fair of August 1858-they had a largeposter printed, entitledAmusementfor the Millions, and when the Police Cummissioners sgughtadviceas to its legality they were formally advised that only sume special measure could stop the Dillons. Toadd insult to injury, in anticipation of the fair uf 1859, Eliza Dillon actually wrote to the Commissiunersof police in July: 'I am about holding 'the annual fair at Donnybrook'. And in order to preserve peaceand regularity I humbly require the aid and protection of the Metropolitan Police. '35 -Tu his chagrin the Divisional Superintendent for the area, James McMahun, had to admit that sincethe Custom House records showed her license to be for 'House and Premises', thdaw was not beingviolated by holding festivities and selling drink in the Dillon field. He had to add that as a cunsequenceuf this loophole every day of the fair some 20,000 people visited the village andavailed of theentertainments laid unby the Dillons in 1859; that this, in turn, required the presence. of one hundredofficers and men of the DMP and that' scenes of the most demomlising nature have occurred withinthis enclosure. '36In response to the dilemma nuw posed, the legal officers of the Crown suggested· that the ChiefSecretary should fully support the Dublin police magistrates in refusing to renew theDillons'licence. 37This turned out to be the key weapon in the fight against the Dillons' efforts to preserve the fair. On8 November, 1859 Eliza Dillon' s application for a renewal of the licence came before·the magistratesof College Street Police Office. Superintendent McMahon was happy to report to the PoliceCommissioners that her application had been refused. 38 But, if this louked like the end of the road, itwas not.In the summer of 1860 Joseph Dillon published a placard announcing that Donnybrook Fair wouldbe held this year 'as usual'. He intended to apply for a spirit grocer's licence to replace that refused tohis daughter in November, 1859. Determined to thwart him the Police Commissioners requested theCastle to ask the Commissioners ofInland Revenue in turn tu authurise their Dublin officials to refusethe issue of this licence. 39 With some misgivings Inland Revenue replied on 14 August; 1860. Theyinsisted that they had no legal authority to withhold the licence, but. given thatthe Dublin policer~uesthad the endorsement of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland,they instructed their Dublin.revenue officials'not to grant licences without further orders'. Nervously the London revenue authorities insisted thatsince they had no power to refuse Dillon 'they must therefore rely upon His Excellency's authority incase theirconduct in refusing the licence should be called in question' .40 The eventual result of theseand further exchanges between Dublin police and Inland Revenue was that no spiritousliquorsor beer(other than ginger beer) were sold'in Dillon's field during the days of the fair, and the police were able

12 SAOTHAR 13to report that the fair passed over 'without any of the scenes of drunkenness and disorder which tookplace at former times'. Still, if Dillon was partly frustrated, nevertheless the fair was held; horses wereoffered for sale and bought in his field; 'four or five hundred persons of the very lowest class collectedin this field each day'; drink was served in the village public houses, and there was sufficient animationabout the place for twenty eight arrests to be made for various transgressions. 41By the beginning of the new decade, then, the moral plague-spot was still not out. It was in thesecircumstances that the untiring Rev. Dr; Spratt and Rev. PJ. Nowlan redoubled their efforts to end theinfamy., In February, 1861 they wrote to the Chief Secretary of Ireland to insist that legislation wasabsolutely necessary .42 The government's response to their overtures, even though endorsed by PoliceCommissioner More O'Ferrall, was unhelpful,43 and the anxieties of clergy and police were reneweda few months later. On 1 July, 1861, with yet another fair in prospect, Crown Solicitor MatthewAnderson informed the Undersecretary that Eliza Dillon, whose spirit licence was successfullyquashed, was about to apply for anoiher licence for the same house and field, but was likely to use someother person's name 'in order to deceive the authorities'. He suggested that the Commissioners ofExcise refuse the licence 'if not to the person, then at least to the house and place in which such grossimmorality was proved to have been practised'in past years'.44 Next day, in reply, Corbett of the InlandRevenueiriLondon informed Larcom, the Undersecretary, that they had ordered the refusal of 'anyspirit licence for the house and premises at Donnybrook lately licensed as a public house in the nameof Miss Dillon'. Significantly, however, he added that the Revenue Commissioners pointed out that'the course now adopted is not a legal one' .45 Despite this warning the Lord Lieutenant went aheadand telegraphed Edward Steel, Acting Collector of Revenue in the Dublin Custom House, not to grantany spirit licence whatever in respect of these premises without further instruction. Four days laterwhen Elizaapplied for a beer dealer's licence he also ordered that none be given to her before 31 August,1861. 46At this point both police records and the press were silent as to what actually happened at the fairof 1861, but it seems likely that having been refused licences the Dillons proceeded to let other retailersof spirits and beer sell on their field. This conjecture is based on two points. Firstly, this is preciselywhat the Dillonsdid in the years after 1861 for which there is police information, as shall be seenpresently. And secondly, even as the authorities themselves were acting illegally according to InlandRevenue, moves were made to give the authorities the clout to act decisively in a legal manner: on 13June, 1862 the royal assent was given to a bill dealing with customs and excise duties. 47 Section 13 ofthis empowered the Revenue Commissioners to grant or to refuse an occasional licence for the sale ofbeer, wine, spirits or tobacco to existing licence holders at places outside their originally licensedpremises.In the summer of 1862 Dillon placarded' his field and gates with posters proclaiming thatDonnybrook Fair would commence on 'Walking Suriday' , 24 August, and that he had accommodationfor tents, stands, cattle and horse trading, and for the erection of booths for the sale of drink by licensedtraders. Divisional Superintendent McMahon acted immediately. He requested Inland Revenue torefuse all licences to sell drink in Dillon' s field or in any field adjacent' during the so-called Fair Weekat Donnybrook' . This request was swiftly and completely complied with, Nevertheless, despite all this,Commissioner More O'Ferrall had to admit to the Undersecretary that"the fair has been morenumerously attended this year than for some years past' , and McMahon reported from the spot that onSunday 24 August, 1862 Joseph Dillon had opened his field and conducted the fair until Saturday 30AugusLAccording to McMahon some 6,500 people visited Dillon' s field to enjoy four swinging boats,two merry-go-rounds, thirteen roulette tables, twenty shooting galleries, fiye ginger beer stands, elevenfruit and cake stands, one tent with stuffed whale and shark, one circus, one machine for weighing menand five tents for the saleof spirits and beer. Adding to this defiance, Dillon' s neighbour, publican J ohhLawlor who also had a field, opened his premises for the sale of horses; and, apart from the drink onsale in Dillon' s place, three village street publicans and one just outside the village had kept music anddancing going in their pubs till eleven o'clock each night of the fair.

·' THE DECLINE AND FALL OF DONNYBROOK FAIR 13McMahon's officers had had to admit that no drink had been sold in DiIIon' s house or by the DiIIonspersonalIy, and the I:'olice Superintendent had to concede that'DiIIon will succeed in continuing and reviving the fair unless his interest in the place is purchased or alegislative enactment for its abolition is passed. '48DiIIon had defied the authorities by getting licence holders from different parts of the cityto selI theirwares on his field, thereby flying in the face of the law. It proved to be a pyrrhic victory, however. Hecontinued to hold or to organise the fair in. the succeeding years of 1863 to 1866, using different setsof publicans from widely separated parts of the city each year, but police reports recorded dwindlingnumbers In attendance and dwindling entertainments. Average daily attendance feIl from 2,500 in theearly 1860s to a mere few hundred in 1865 and 1866.The symbolic climax to the conflict came in August, 1866. In that year Dillon and Donnybrook Fairvied with CuIlen and the Catholic Church for the support of the masses, resulting in a decided victoryfor the side of moral reform and social control: the foundation stone for the new Church of the SacredHeart, looking across to the old Fair Green, was laid in 1863 and the official opening for the completededifice was set for the traditional Walking Sunday in August, 1866, the opening day of DonnybrookFair. Thousands poured into the village on that Sunday of 1866. The church opening ceremony wasto be conducted by Paul CuIlen and special lustre was conferred on the occasion by virtue of the factthat he had become a Cardinal a mere eight weeks before this, the first such in Irish history. The localparish priest, Very Rev. Dean A. O'ConneIl, had intended the church not just as a means of providingmuch needed extra space but as an expiatory monument for the vices and wickedness of Donnybrook. Fair. On this point the press agreed with him, seeing it as 'a great landmark which will point out wherevice and immorality were vanquished' .49 The event proved one of the most memorable and impressiveof public occasions in the life of Dublin and of Ireland in the nineteenth century.On the very same day DilIon opened his field as usual in order to commence the annual festivitiesof Donnybrook Fair. This time he could only produce one licence holder willing to seIl drink in the field.Divisional Superintendent Daniel 0 'Donovan reported that a good number of gamblers were amongstthe crowds who came to attend the rival events, but, he added, their numbers were lessened 'by theappearance of some constables ... who interfered as far as possible to intimidate them'. He admittedthat this intimidation had good effect for 'their numbers grew less each day' and that the attempt torevive the old fair 'was a failure in toto this year'. It was his opinion that 'the last attempt had beenmade'. In this he was not quite correct: whereas by his own admission Joseph Dillon had finaIly givenup the attempt,50 two years later his daughter Eliza made one last effort: but after a few days the original'120 persons of the lowest class' who visited the field had fallen to a mere handful of 'horse dealers andragged idlers who are often to be seen lolling about corners'. In the triumphant words ofInspector PeterFitzpatrick of the new Donnybrook Police Station, 'thus ended the great failure of the attempt to reviveDonnybrook Fair'. He had his own explanation for the failure:'1 attribute the fall of Donnybrook Fair to the absence of music in the public houses of Donnybrook andthe neighbouring locality as there was not a sound of music to be heard in any public house in the wholesubdivision; no doubt they all dreaded the refusal of their licences if they went against the policearrangements which were carried out effectively.'slDonnybrook Fair finally ended in 1868, thirteen years after its abolition had been prematurelyannounced. The police were not slow to take credi t for its decline and fall. They had harried the hackneymen, thwarted the publicans, silenced the music and intimidated the gamblers. Their Commissionershad publicly given written and financial suppport to this particular cause of moral reform and socialcontrol. They did this at a time when the DMP force was run with a ruthless regimen and when itsaverage police constable was so badly paid that protest on their conditions appeared in print in the very

14 SAOTHAR13month and year that the abolition committee thought it had won its victory, in August, 1855. 52 ThePolice Commissioners believed they had wrought a social and moral revolution of which theDonnybrook saga was only one episode. That the common people should resort to enjoying themselvesin any large numbers had been a constant source of anxiety to the police authori ties apart altogether fromthe Donnybrook affair. From the earliest part of the century they had been kept under surveillance. Thepolice spy, Luke Brien, for example, in March, 1805, reported to the celebrated police officer MajorSirr that, in accordance with Sirr's orders, he had attended 'the football and wrestling match held in afield near the circular road, the top of Stony batter'. There he found 1,000 spectators, mainly workmenof the breweries, distilleries, bakeries and dairies of the area. After the football and a half hour of thewrestling match a Justice of the Peace came with a force and dispersed them.53In the ye~ before this some fifty men were taken prisoner following a football and wrestling matchin Rathmines. According to police magistrate J. Townsend, in his report to the Castle authorities, thismeeting was similar in nature to those 'often held at Donnybrook before the late insurrection, forhurling, but the parties in the present instant were wrestling and football playing'.54 He described howinformation about these matches circulated by word of mouth 'among the common workmen in themarkets, distilleries and breweries'. In the case of this meeting at Rathmines he believed the majorityof those arrested were 'mere spectators' who 'may really have been innocent'. Then, in a classic ofthelanguage of social control, he added that 'the mere apprehension and detention of some of the spectatorsfor a night may have good effects', and that 'their curiosity should be discouraged'.The grave dangers inherent in popular football and wrestling matches held on the outskirts of Dublincontinued to concern the authorities as the century wore on. In February 1845 constable Francis Scottof Stepaside Police Station reported on the wrestling matches held weekly at Leopardstown. Apparentlythe wrestlers and spectators travelled there each Sunday from as far afield as Bray and Kingstownto the south, and Howth and Baldoyle to the north. He believed their recreation would lead to a breachof the peace. His information was supported two days later in a deposition from fellow constableMichael Lyons who claimed a local blacksmith, Pat Con nor , a farm servant named Kelly, and one J amesSullivan of Sandyford told him they had 'come to wrestle with the mountain men'. Forwarding thesereports to Dublin Castle the local magistrate, Burgh Crofton of Roebuck Castle, requested a constabularyreinforcement of thirty men to keep control. 55Between the surveillance of popular recreations and rough sports by police informants in the early1800s, through the harrying and arrest of Dublin street balladeers like poor old Zozimus in the 1840sto the ultimately successful campaign against Donnybrook Fair in the 1850s and 1860s, the Dublinpolice claimed credit for a minor revolution. With the radical reform of policing through the comingof the DMP in 1838 - a body run with ruthless efficiency56 - there was a transformation of the social lifeof lower class Dublin, according to the police themselves. In an internal memorandum of 1857, twoinspectors who had served on the old force and who had survived to be promoted to the new, describedthe old force as one where some members were crippled or nearly blind and where others drank withthieves and prostitutes. They claimed that in those days Dublin's public houses never closed but 'werefurnished with relays of waiters' , and that 'the practice of stripping and fighting in a state of nudity inthe public streets (especially on Sabbath mornings)' was widespread. The ultimate degradation was that'the suburbs such as Ringsend, lrishtown, Harold's Cross, Phibsboro', Dolphin's Barn and Phoenix Parkon Sunday mornings were the scenes of the most disgraceful and disgusting proceedings, viz., wrestling,dog fighting, cockfighting, boxing, gambling and drinking in the open air. '57But twenty years later all this had changed, and the change was due, according to SuperintendentMonaghan, 'mainly, if not exclusively, to the operation of the police' .58 Such a claim to the main creditwas surely a bit much; but Monaghan was prepared to concede that 'the people of the working andindustrious classes are (now) much more amenable to the law', and he admitted that this may have beendue also, in some measUre, to 'educational influences' , and that the' calamities of the famine years may

THE DECLINE AND FALL OF DONNYBROOK FAIR 15have operated chasteningly, therefore beneficially upon the temper of the people'. He concluded hisassessment of the "moral revolution by admitting that' doubtless other ameliorating agencies may havebeen at work', without however specifying them.Quite clearly one of these unspecified forces or influences acting as a major agency in the moralreform that chastened the common people and abolished popular resorts and recreations like DonnybrookFair was that of religion. It was, after all, the Sabbatarians' sense of decency affronted andSundays desecrated that led Lord MayorRichard Smythin the 1820s and Lord Mayor WiIliam Hodgesin the 1830s to take the first practical steps to ~hallenge the traditions of Donnybrook Fair. Likewiseit was the resurgent Roman Catholic Churctijn thy persons of the ,Rev. P.J. Nowlan, Dr. John SprattandCardinal Paul Cullen who orgariised the final moral assault on the pleasures of Donnybrook Fair. Sprattwas a splendid example of the zeal for moral reform. He spent his life in Dublin working for the reliefof its poor, the protection of.animals and in the attack on drink. He was involved in the cause oftemperance even before his friend Fr. Mathew became a celebrity.59 Donnybrook Fair fell victim toa religious reformation and a temperance crusade just as much asit did to police desire for social controlof the populace. Donnybrook Fair was not the only victim of clerical zeal for the moral improvementof the masses. Beyond the northern boundaries of the city the village of Finglas had for long held"a MayFair on its green, and its May Queen was chosen in a ceremony 'celebrated with great pomp', but inthe early 1840s the new curate of Finglas parish, Fr. Young, put an end to the ancient popular festivitiesand saw to the cutting down of the May pole on the village green. 60The crusade for the moral reform of Donnybrook was not exclusively the product of a resurgentRoman Catholicism: rather it was an assault based on an alliance of the most zealous eiements inevangelical Protestantism working with the forces of militant Catholicism. This was ironic in a citywhich still exhibited an extreme, if normally covert, sectarianisrri. C~ltholics and Protestants, howeverprofessional, educated or respectable, entertained deep mutual hostility.61 Nevertheless, these deeplyheld mutual suspicions and animosities were quietly put aside between 1835 and 1866 in the religiousalliance to save the common people from the sinful pleasures of Donnybrook Fair.The ~lliance did not endure and in 1865 had a very remarkable denouement indeed. The newCatholic Church of the Sacred Heart had cost more than its originators had intended. In order to lessenthe outstanding debts the fund-raising committee decided to organise a lottery or raffle. The prize fundwas impressive, listing 450 separate items. First prize was a six-roomed cottage on DaIkey Hill, rentfree for ever. The draw was to take place at the Rotunda in Dublin on 16 October, 1865. Some ofDublin's Protestants took exception to this lottery and contacted Charles Bird, secretary of theProtestant Alliance in London. In turn he wrote to Thomas Mostyn, Crown Solicitor in Dublin Castle,on 8 September, 1865. He enclosed a sixpenny lottery ticket for this Catholic undertaking and hoped'measures will be taken to stop the drawing which is illegal'. He pointed out that Mostyn had stoppeda similar 'illegal and demoralising practice' in Ireland in 1860. 62 Mostyn wasted no time in sendingBird's letter and the lottery ticket to the Undersecretary, and begged to know 'if it is the desire of thegovernment that I take any steps'. Promptly caine the reply: 'no steps to be taken' .63First the police, and now the Catholic Church had been in breach of the law in association withattempts to extirpate the moral plague of Donnybrook. Although the Church could have found itselfin conflict with the secular authorities it is indicati ve of the growing power of the Church and significantof the government's sensitivity to this that the authorities acquieSCed in the Church's breach of the law.This, one must add, was no flash in the pan. There are other examples in the'1850s and 1860s of theCatholic Church in breach of law or customary rights in trying to prevent the holding of markets andfairs on Church holy days and where, despite protests, the state turned a blind eye. 64 Such examplesdemonstrate the growing moral power of the Catholic Church and make clear its moral contribution tothe qecline and fall of Donnybrook Fair and of other popular amusements of which it disapproved. Yet,that Church cannot be isolated from the society of which it was a part. Earlier in the century JonahBarrington spoke of,

16 SAOTHAR 13'an entire revolution in the nationallrish character (which) must have extended to all their sport and placesof amusement, and Donnybrook Fair, of course, has had its full share in the metamorphosis. '65Around the same period Philip Dixon Hardy noted of Dublin that 'the general character of theinhabitants, once gay and dissipated' had 'now become more serious and religious', and how their'ancient amusements of bull-baiting, hurling, cudgel-playing and wrestling are almost wholly laidaside'.66 Religious revival was clearly an important element in the moral transformation, but it is notthe entire story. Donnybrook Fair declined and fell just as much because of altered social relations asfrom police attention and religious crusading. The potency of the religious reform was that it coincidedwith the emerging value system of the rising Dublin middle classes. It was not just Protestant religionor Catholic religion that led to Donnybrook's fall, but middle class religion: a religion where time wasat a premium and popular pleasure at a discount.In this connexion it is quite clear from the comments of visitors like the Halls around 1840, of thepress in the mid 1840s and 1850s, and from the private comments of Wood lock in his diary in the mid1850s, that the wilder physical·and moral excesses of eighteenth century Donnybrook Fair no longerheld true and that the mid-nineteenth century festival was, by comparison, a tame and even soberoccasion. Yet it was precisely in this tamer and 'spiritless' form that the more intense exception wastaken to it, the greater indignation felt towards it, and the final assault of church, state and societylaunched against it. This is a sure indication of the extent to which social and moral sensitivity had nowdeveloped. Barrington's 'entire revolution' was well on its way by the 1830s to 1850s.Arising from this one cannot miss the impatience of Police Commissioners with 'idlers' and cornerboys, and their constant, disparaging references to the lower classes, nor pass over the significance ofCardinal Cullen's impatience with the loss of time which holding the fair entailed. One is confrontedwith the abolition committee's anxiety for the welfare of servants who had a seemingly incomprehensiblewish to attend the fair. It is clearly appropriate at this point to note that there is nothing peculiarto Dublin or to Irish history here and that priests and police played roles here not as prime causes so muchas agents, and by no means as sole agents at that. Much of Western Europe experienced the rise andtriumph of the new value system created by new social relations during this period. In this system hardwork, sobriety, privacy, individualism and hostility to time-wasting recreations were all preached andpractised as virtues. Rough sports and popular pastimes of the common people came to be frownedupon, despised and socially outlawed. In Britain particularly, scholarship has shed light on theprocesses at work 67 and there is surely significance that Donnybrook Fair was 'abolished' in the sameyear as the celebrated S1. Bartholomew's Fair in London.68The whole phenomenon is ultimately linked to the privatisation oflife and feeling and to the processof disciplining conduct bound up with the spread of capitalism and individualism in town and countryalike and which posed such a felt threat to political and social stability; Economic modernisation, evenin unfortunate Dublin of the mid nineteenth century, entailed a growing uniformity or pressure foruniformity of culture and conduct, at the same time as a heightening of class differences andseparateness. For Donnybrook itself, even Dublin itself, we have not yet got the detailed history thatcan nail down this process of class formation and its cultural consequences precisely. Nevertheless,it is clear enough that as the century wore on Donnybrook and its neighbourhood became much morea middle class suburb and much less a socially mixed but predominantly working class community.In the first half of the century, especially in the wake of Dublin's economic dislocation in the period1815-1840, there was undoubtedly a serious loss of working class employment in the general areabetween Donnybrook and Ringsend-Irishtown. The linen and printed textile mills of the Ballsbridgedistrict collapsed in the 1820s and 1830s in the face of English competition. Duffy's calico works atBallsbridge, for example, which employed some 500 people, went out of business at this time 69 andit is likely that the general area saw an exodus of working people to the city or the boats, in search ofwork. At the same time an opposite social migration occurred as middle class Dubliners deserted the

THE DECLINE AND FALL OF DONNYBROOK FAIR 17decaying city for the southern ·suburbs. The opening of the railway to Kingstown in 1834, and thebuilding of Anglesea Bridge, over the Dodder river at Donnybrook in 1832 no doubt gave impetus toconverting Ballsbridge, Donnybrook and Mount Merrion into middle class residential suburbs.Such an inverse residential redeployment of classes no dOl}bt made the continued existence ofDonnybrook Fair a social as well as a moral anomaly. Those involved in the abolition committee inthe 1850s admitted as much. Speaking at the foundation meeting in May 1855, the Marquis ofWestmeath insisted that' every person would consider the fair a nuisance, the moreso because .., Dublinhad now actually extended to Donnybrook'. At the same time Alderman Roe felt that 'the owners ofproperty in the vicinity of Donnybrook should contribute largely towards the project as they would begreat gainers by its success' .70 How right he was became evident when the abolition fund, havingreached two thousand of the required three thousand pounds, Mrs. Catherine Warren, a major ownerof property in the area, contributed the final one thousand. 7 !However, it was not simply the case that 'Dublin' had extended to Donnybrook, but that middle classresidential Dublin had done so, not just physically but culturally as well. In the eighteenth century,Dublin city, Donnybrook village, and Donnybrook Fair alike were more socially heterogeneous and thefair witnessed much more social interaction. The decline and exodus of the Irish aristocracy fromDublin and the simultaneous rise of the Dublin middle class put paid to that interaction. One of the mosttelling illustrations of this comes from a contemporary reminiscence of Donnybrook even as the fairitself was in its final days. Writing in the wake of a stroll over the Fair Green in 1861 a contributor tothe Dublin U nilier sity Magazine noted how the upper classes used to take their recreation there in thelate eighteenth century and gave 'friendly recognition of their humble friends', whereas by the 1830sthe labourers and tradesmen at the fair 'were in small peril of being recognised by any counsellormerchant or large manufacturer'. He went on to explain:'the spirit of caste is stronger among us than it was in the eighteenth century; and if we are more politeto our political and religious opponents we entertain rather less cordiality towards them than our outspokenblustering grandfathers did.towards their differing contemporaries.'72It cannot, perhaps, be sufficiently emphasised how far the decline and fall of Donnybrook Fair wasthe cultural consequence of class formation in Dublin. The cultural implications of the emergence ofclass society for the fate of popular sports and festivities have already been explored and revealed inthe British experience. These implications manifested a sequence beginning with gradual withdrawalof sponsorship, patronage and presence of the upper, gentry class in popular activities; the emergenceof separated, class-based cultures from the elite to the popular; and with the growing strength of themiddle class, a drive to abolish, emasculate or control and decisively alter the form and content of'popular culture as constituting a threat to social harmony in a class-divided society.Such a sequence is found to operate in the story of Donnybrook Fair. Barrington' s description ofsocial mixing in the eighteenth century fair and his own direct and personal experience of it is confirmedby early nineteenth century press reports which describe the presence of gentry and the moralparticipation of gentry ladies in the festivities. Indeed, in 1808 the Lord Lieutenant, the Duke ofRichmond, was an interested participant in the occasion. But gradually aristocratic favour andpatronage was withdrawn so that by 1855 another Lord Lieutenant, the Earl of Carlisle, lent his nameand financial support to its suppression. The whole process, sobering and fateful though it was for thecultural autonomy of the Dublin common people, is perceived and rendered tellingly but humorouslyin the poem Lament for Donnybrook: 73'Saints be about us, what are they driving at,All sorts of people are taking their share,All have their hands together conniving at,At the destruction of Donnybrook Fair.

18SAOTHAR 13Once in the good oui' times of the cityM.P.'s, farmers, the rich and the rare,Gentlemen, nobles, the wise and the wittyWent for a trifle of element there.Then was the real indulgement in jollity,Devil a one of them cared who was who,All took their glass of the old mountain dewAnd their hop in the tent on the ground of equality.But now it is over, this is the last of them,This is the last ould fair that we'll seeNow we must live as we can on the past of them,Such is the Corporation's decree.'But the last words should not be with the poet. One of the most interesting references to the socialand cultural changes in the life of Dublin at the time comes to us, with singular aptness, from the penof Dublin police magistrate, Frank Thorpe Porter. In his autobiographical Gleanings and Reminiscences,written in the 1870s, he gives a vivid account of class and society in Dublin of the 1850s, andprovides a remarkable contemporary rendering of the social function of certain cultural events andvenues in their relation to class. Although he provides a memorable (and unfavourable) account ofDonnybrook Fmr it is not this that captures the attention. Rather it is his account of the DublinInternational Exhibition of 1853 which was organised by the railway magnate, Williarn Dargan, whowas also involved in the abolition of the fair. Quickly dismissing the artistic, educational and utilitarianvalue of such displays as being merely obvious, what interested Porter was their social function. Hewas convinced that'they produce very salutary effects by bringing each c1assof society into the view and under the observationof the others, approximating without confounding them, requiring no relinquishment of rank or unduefamiliarity.'74 -Rarely does one encounter so explicit a statement of the case in the context of Dublin. Nevertheless,it is perhaps inappropriate to see the decline and fall of Donnybrook Fair, in itself, and as metaphor foran entire popular cuiture, as being exclusively the product of external pressure; or equally, to understandthat fate exclusively in termsofthe growing divisions between classes. The idea of division withinthe working community itself may also be relevant to the idea that a cultural fissure opened betweenan older folk and plebian tradition on the one side, and a newer artisanal tradition on the other. Sucha suggestion may be as applicable to Dublin in the age as it has been argued for some English townsand citiesofthe time. Bearing in mind what Cunningharn has found for London fairs, Wool ton andPoole for Lancashire wakes and fairs, and Reid for similar celebrations in Birmingharn,75 what strikesone most forcibly at the end,of the Donnybrook story, is the extent to which its suppression was notcontested to any significant degree beyond the dogged efforts of the Dillons as publicans, afl~ onepseudonymous' Aftizan 'writing to the press. Clearl y thousands of the 'lower classes' , of the 'idle' and'ragged' people protested with their feet on the final Walking Sundays of the 1860's; but they certainlylacked an articulate voice and one searches in vain for any working class leader who was prepared toendorse the Dillons. It is almost inescapable that Dublin's skilled working class had become tooconcerned with an image of respectability to do so: inescapable because this is precisely what has beenfound ofthem as trade unionists, from the 1840s.76 And even before this development manifested itself,the more robust popular culture of late eighteenth century and early nineteenth -century Dublin musthave been affected by economic dislocation and decline. The growing immiseration and eventualelimination of the Dublin hand loom weavers would not only have strangled one source ,of support for

THE DECLINE AND FALL OF DONNYBROOK FAIR 19such festivities as Donnybrook, but at the same time would have altered the composition of the skilledworking class itself, tilting the balance towards literacy, rationality and respectability, leaving the morepIebian working class to 'wrestle with the mountain men'.Notes1. Freeman's Journal, 25 August, 1819.2. Rory O'Reilly, stonecutter (Charles O'Flaherty), Retrospection, Dublin 1824, pp. 81-83,86.3. The Warder, 30 August, 1823, citing Saunders' Newsletter.,. . "4. L. O'Dea, 'The Fair of Donnybrook', Dublin Historical Record, xv, 1 October, 1953, 11-20; M .. Gorevan,'Donnybrook', in Dublin Historical Record .. xvii, 3 June 1962, pp. 106-125; R.J. Kelly, 'Donnybrook; originof name; its famous fair' ,Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, xliv, I, 1919, pp. 136-148.E. Malcolm, 'Popular recreation in nineteenth century Ireland' in O. MacDOnagh, W.F. Mandle & P. Travers(eds), Irish Culture and Nationalism, 1750-1950, (London, 1983), pp. 40-55._5. State Paper Office ofIreland, Official Papers, 1832/531: Clerk of Peace to Sir William Gossett, 9 February,1832, enclosing return by John & Peter Madden to Clerk of the Peace, 29 June, 1818. (Hereafter cited as SPOI.~P): In 1818 there was a charge of sixpence per horse sold, four pence per head of cattle, one penny per headof sheep, while stalls or standings paid from three to six pence. . .6. J. Barrington, Personal sketches of his own times, 3 vols,( London, 1932), iii. pp. 230-259.7. The fun and games were so pronounced in 1751 that the Lord Mayor, sheriffs and their constables had to goout to Donnybrook to pull down the tents and booths because of trouble between those ancient rival gangs ofDubliri, the Ormonde and the Liberty Boys. See Dublin Weekly Journal, 25 August, 1751. Fifteen years laterthe sheriff and his constables in a convoy of twenty five cars went out from the city to clear DOnnybrook FairGreen and restore order. See Freeman's Journal, 3 f August-3 September, 1765. (Hereafter cited FJ).8. P.J. McCall, 'Zozirnus', Dublin Historical Record, vii, 4, Sept-Nov, 1945, p. 147.9. Barrington, op.cit., ii.p. 239.10. The Warder, 30 August 1823, citing Saunders' Newsletter.11. S.c. & A.M. Hall, Ireland, its scenery and character, 3 vols, (London 1841), i. pp. 332-345.12. NU, Ms. 4497, Diary ofWilliam Woodlock, 25 August, 1845.13. FJ ,23 August, 1854. . . .14. Hely Dutton, Observations on Mr. Archer's Statist ical Survey of the County of Dublin, (Dublin 1802), pp. 56-57. .15. O'Dea, loc.cit., pp. 15-16.. .16. SPOI, OP /1837/377 & 1838/148, WilIiam Hodges to Lord Morpeth, 13 December, 1838.17. ibid., 183/148, Thomas Drummond to WiIIiam Hodges, 15 February, 1839~18. FJ, 15 May; 1855. .19. ibid., 17 May, 1855.20. ibid., 21 May, 1855 ..21. ibid., 21 May, 1855; the parish priest explained that 'so convinced have I been of the evil consequences of thisannually recurring intrusion upon the morality and quiet of this parish that since my appointment to it I havefelt it my duty to strictly prohibit those under my spiritual jurisdiction frequenting that scene of vice' .22. ibid., 29 May, 1855. . .23. ibid., 2,9, 14 June, 1855.24. ibid., 14 June, 1855.25. ibid., 22 June, 1855.26. SPO!, Chief Crown Solicitor's Papers, 1859/79. (Hereafter cited as SPOI, CCS):27. FJ, 13 August, 1855.28. ibid., 20 August, 1855.29. ibid., 25 August, 1855.30. ibid., 23 August, 1855.31. ibid., 15 August, 1855.32. SPOI, ChiejSecretary's Office Registered Papers, 1859179 (Hereafter cited SPOT, CSORP); Thom's DublinDir'ectory jor the year 1885.33. FJ, 25 August, 1855.34. NU, Ms. 7577, LarcomPapers, J.D. Fitzgerald to Thomas Larcom, 16 February, 1856.35. SPOI, CCS, 1859179, Case to advise proceedings to prevent a repetition of the holding of a Fair at

20 SAOTHAR 13Donnybrook.36. ibid., Superintendent James McMahon to Commissioners of the Dublin Metropolitan Police, 22 September,1859.37. ibid.38. SPO!, CSORP 1861/9340, James McMahon to Commissioners of the DMP, 8 November, 1859.39. ibid., 1860/17819, Commissioners of Police to Undersecretary, 7 August, 1860.40. ibid., William Corbett to Undersecretary, 14 August, 1860.41. ibid., 1860/18577, William Campbell to Commissioners of Police, 5 September, 1860.42. SPO!, OP 1861/45, J. Spratt and P.J. Nowlan to E. Cardwell, 14 February, 1861. .43. They claimed government had promised legislation in the past and they requested that clauses abolishing thefair be inserted in the Fairs and Markets Bill then before Parliament. Government in response claimed it wasa Bill dealing with places of business and not of amusement and that Donnybrook Fair did not fit in the formercategory, and that in any case it was a police matter. Dublin Police Commissioner More O'Ferrall supportedthe clergy and claimed Donnybrook Fair was a place of business, but to no avail. See SPOI OP,"1861/45, J.Sprattand P.1. Nowlan to E. Cardwell, 14 February, 1861, andJ. MoreO'Ferrall toT. Larcom, 28 March, 1861.44. SPOI, CSORP 1861/4862, Matthew Anderson to Undersecretary, 1 July, 186l.45. ibid., 1861/4863, William Corbett to Thomas Larcom, 2 July, 186l.46. ibid., 1861/17097/4997, Matthew Anderson to Thomas Larcom, 6 July, 186l.47.25 Vict. c.22, 3 June, 1862.48. SPOI, CSORP, 1862/16948, lames McMahon to Commissioners of Police, 11 August, 1862; & 1862/17561,1 September, 1862.49. FJ, 27 August, 1866.50. SPO!, CSORP, 1866/14573, Daniel Donovan to J.L: More O'Ferrall, 4 September, 1866.5l. ibid.52. FI, 11 August, 1855. While respectable society was glad to avail of police support to end the popular festivalof Donnybrook, respectable people within the same parish of Donnybrook-Irishtown objected strongly and ,publicly to the announcement that a police station was to be opened in Irishtown. On 4 September 1855 theresidents of the Tritonville district met "to consider the best means of averting the evil about to be done by theerection of a police barrack and a lockup house in the centre ... of that rising and respectable suburb, to thecomplete destruction of the value of property and the subversion of decency and morality". For this see FJ,5 September, 1855.53. SPO!, State of the Country Papers, 1805/1031/16, Luke Brien to Major Sirr, 10 March, 1805.54. SPO!, SOC, 1804/1030/21, I. Townsend to undersecretary, 27 February, 1804.55. SPOI, CSORP, 1845/9/3623: Information of Francis Scott, constable, and Michael Lyons, constable, andBurgh Crofton, to E. Lucas, 22 February, 1845. Forty years later the famous Dublin police chief, John Mallon,revealed similar anxiety about wrestling matches, this time in the Phoenix Park. In the 1870s and early 1880seach Sunday from May to November, several thousands used gather to watch wrestling contests between teamsfrom Meath, Kildare, Wicklow and Dublin. Mallon had plain clothes detectives present to gather informationand report and on the basis of these the police commissioner George Talbot wanted the Castle to act. Havingstopped the music in Donnybrook, the DMP was determined to stop the fun and games in the Park. But thistime the Castle authorities thought 'it would perhaps be more prudent not to interfere'. See SPOI, CSORP,1877/19113, 15892, 16629 and 1876n027, John Mallon to commissioners of police, 29 October, 17December, 1877, George Talbot to undersecretary, 13 October, 1877 and 13 May, 1876.56. N. Cochrane, 'The policing of Dublin, 1830-1846: a study in administration', unpublished MA thesis,University College, Dublin, 1984, pp. 55-56 ff; G. Alien, 'The Metropolitan Police' ,Police Journal, October,1977, p. 313; F.A. D' Arcy, 'Dublin artisan activity, opinion and organisation, 1820-1850', unpublished MAthesis, University College, Dublin, 1968, pp. 165-179; FJ, 11 August, 1855; F. Thorpe Porter, Gleanings andReminiscences, (Dublin, 1875), p. 87 ..57. NU, Ms. 7600, Larcom Papers, James Monaghan to Commissioners of Police, 17 Febraury, 1857.58. ibid.59. A.E. Farrington. Rev. Dr. Spratt, O.C.C., his life and times, (Dublin 1893), pp. 169-187.60. N. Donnelly, History of the Dublin parishes, 4 vols (Dublin, n.d.), iv.I72; MJ. Tutty, 'Finglas', DublinHistorical Record, xxvi, 2 March, 1973, p. 71; S.C. & A.M. Hall, op.cit., ii. 345.61. F.A. D' Arcy, 'Dublin: an age of distress and reform, 1800-1860' in A. Cos grove, ed.,Dublin through the ages,(Dublin 1988); J.P. Mayer, ed., Alexis de Tocqueville, Jounuiys to England and Ireland., (New York, 1968),(ed.,) pp. 127, 142-144; D. Bowen, The Protestant Crusade in Ireland, 1800·1870, (Dublin 1978); p. 267.62. SPO!, CCS, 1865/271, Charles Bird to Thomas Mostyn, 8 September, 1865.

THE DECLINE AND FALL OF DONNYBROOK FAIR 2163. ibid., Undersecretary to Thomas Mostyn, 12 September, 1865.64. ibid., 1860/116, Case on the right to hold/airs and markets upon days other than the days appointed by patent.65. Barrington., op.cit., iii. p. 230.66. P:D. Hardy, The new picture o/D ublin , or, stranger' s guide through the Irish metropolis, (Dublin 1831), pp.89-90.67. R. Malcolmson, Popular recreations inEnglishsociety, 1700-1850, (Cambridge 1873), P. Bailey, Leisure andclass in Victorian England, (London 1978); I. Walvin, Leisure and society, 1830-1950, (London 1978); I.Cuningham, Leisure and the industrial revolution, (London 1980); H. Cunningham, 'The Metropolitan Fairs:a case study in the social control ofleisure~, in A.P. Donajgrodski, (ed.,) Social control in nineteenth centuryBritain, (London., 1977), pp. 168-184; D.A. Reid, 'Interpreting the festival calendar: wakes and fairs ascarnivals', in R.D. Storch, (ed)., Popular culture and custom in nineteenth century England, (London 1982),pp. 125-153; D.A. Reid, 'The decline of Saint Monday', Past and Present, No. 71, May, 1976, pp. 76-101;R.D. Storch, 'Please to remember the Fifth of November: conflict, solidarity and public order in southernEngland, 1815-1900', inStorch,op.cit., pp. 71-99; R.D. Storch, 'Persistence and change in nineteenth centurypopular culture', in ibid., pp. 1-19; I. Obelkevich, Religion and rural society: South Liiulsey 1825-1875,(Oxford 1976), pp. 57-59, 84-86.68. H. Cunning ham, 'The Metropolitan Fairs', in Donajgrodski, op.cit., pp. 169-172.69. Gorevan,loc.cit., pp. 115-117.70. FI, 15 May, 1855.71. O'Dea, loc.cit., p. 17.72. Dublin University Magazine, October, 1861, pp. 496-497.73. ibid., March, 1863, pp. 331-334.74. Porter,op.cit., p. 321. .75. Cunningham in Donajgrodski, op.cit.; I.K. Woolton & R. Poole, 'The Lancashire wakes in the nineteenthcentury', in Storch, op.cit., pp. 100-124; Reid in ibid., pp. 125-153.76. F.A. D' Arcy, 'The artisans of Dublin and Daniel O'Connell, 1830-47', Irish Historical Studies, xvii, 66,September, 1970, pp. 240-241; and, 'Dublin artisan activity .. .', loc.cit., pp. 135-140, 165-168.Irish National Teachers' OrganisationESTABLISHED 1868represents 25,000 teachers throughout Irelanddefends the trade union and professional interests of teacherslights lor equality of educational opportunityprotects the interests 01 education and strives to raise educationalstandardsarticulates to government and management the collective adviceand experience of membersAFFILIATED TOIrish Congre •• 01 Trade Union.European Trade Union Committee lor Education. World Conlederation 01 Organisations 01 the Teaching Proles.lons.

'A Passage To Britain': Seasonal Migration andSocial Change in the West of Ireland, 1870-1890Gerard MoranThroughout the nineteenth century the labourer endured a most precarious existence within Irishsociety: the problems of famine, changing agricultural patterns and fluctuating economic circumstancescombined to drive him to the edge of extinction. Juxtaposed with the fate of the labourer wasthatofthe small tenant farmer. This was especiillly so along the western seaboard, where tenant farmersfound it increasingly difficult, for similar reasons, to survive on their holdings. It became imperativethat these men obtain additional income. Gradually, more and more came to depend on income derivedfrom a new source - seasonal migration.This phenomenon had two forms; migration to another part of Ireland (internal migration) andmigration to Britain (external migration). Itis the latter form which was of most concern to the peopleof the west of Ireland. As insufficient evidence exists to ascertain the extent of internal migration, itis difficult to quantify the numbers whose survival depended on this process. The extent of hiring fairsin Kerry, east Cork, east Donegal, east Galway and Tyrone, indicates that internal migration was asextensive as external migration. We are fortunate in having an insight into the conditions of thesemigrants in the works of the writer, Patrick McGill. What is clear is that few parts of the countryremained unaffected by seasonal migration, either as a recipient or donor of a transient labour force.It was not uncommon for agricultural labourers to traverse distances of up to twenty miles on footto attend hiring fairs at centres such as Letterkenny and Strabane. 1 Failure to obtain work at one centrenormally resulted in a trek to the next fair and such instances eventually led to a lowering of wagesamongst the migrants. This internal migratibn was very often the precursor of an external migrationto Britain, especially from Donegal. Often the final element of this triad was permanent emigration.The season of the migrant usually commenced with a mass departure oflabourers around April, Mayand June. Most migrants from west Mayo left on 9 June, the day after Newport fair. Here they wouldhave sold their produce to buy fares to Britain. The migrant would then return the following Septemberor October with money to pay the rent or to purchase conacre. 2 Prior to departure, the migrant planteda crop, usually potatoes, which then fed the family during their winter in Ireland. The importance ofthe whole family in the process mustbe noted in that, in the migrant's abserice, the other memberstended the crop and on his return the migrant harvested it. It was inevitable that the inexperience of thewomen and children in agricultural techniques resulted in lower output within those regions with highlevels of seasonal migration. 3Finance and communications determined the destination of the migrants. It was for exampleexpedient, and indeed cheaper, for the Achill and Newport migrants to leave from Westport, rather thantravel to Dublin first. Compared to the boat/train cost of £2.10/- from west Mayo via Dublin, the returnfare from Westport or DenY io Scotland was a mere 5/- on the cargo ships.4 For many migrants,especially in inaccessible districts, transport by rail was not even an option due to distances from railwaystations.Despite the major advances in rail construction in the west of Ireland from the 1860s, the moreremote regions were not incorporated into the transport network by the Congested Districts Board untilthe 1890s. Under such circumstances many migrants had to walk up to thirty miles to an embarkationpoint, as in the case with Ballycroy migrants in west Mayo, who walked to the port of Sligo. Theexpansion of the railway system in the last quarter of the nineteenth century enabled migrants to utilisethe railways to a much greater degree. .The importance of the seasonal migration custom was recognised quickly by the railway companies22

,'-,;-''''.A PASSAGE TO BRITAIN 23COUNTY BOUNDARIESPOOR LAW UNION BOUNDARIESCounties Mayo, Sligo, Roscommon, Leitrim and Donegaland a spe,cial fourth class passage was provided during those periods of the year when the level ofmigration was highest. Finance rather than philanthropy governed the attitude of the railway companies.There were constant complaints about the service and facilities provided, especially against theMidland Great Western Railway Company. The rail companies did, however, respond. In 1879 westof Ireland migrants were granted a thirty-five per cent farereduction. 5Despite these concessions, passage to Britain put a financial burden on many families. It alsohighlighted the working of the credit system within the community, and in particular the importanceof the shopkeeper in providing loans to migrants. The shopkeeper was important in providing creditnot alone during periods of distress, but also on a regular basis for needs such as seasonal migration.This role of shopkeepers m ust be regarded as a necessary evil as the absence of banks resulted in their"being the only source of credit. They extracted a heavy price. Credit placed the people in thestranglehold of the shopkeepers, a point that was noted in 1880 by Captain Spaight, a local governmentboard inspector: :Once they get any of these people into their books, they never let them out of theirpockets till they have all that can be got out of them.'6In most ofthe incidences Spaight had come across, shopkeepers arrang~ for all migrant remittancesto come through them and the money was paid back with heavy interest. Without credit, however, itismore than probable that the majority of m igrants would have been unable to travel to Britain in searchof work. At the same time dependence.on credit was great and the pitfalls obvious, as the migrant'swelfare was associated closely with the shopkeepers' ability to extend credit. During the distress of1879"80 c"redit was not available and the migrants suffered great hardship. A deputation of tenants fromthe Aughagower area, near Westport, sought relieffrom the Westport Guardians. They stated that in

24 SAOTHAR 13normal times they went to England to earn the rent for their holdings, but they were unable to do so in1879 as they could not secure credit from the local shopkeepers for their fares.?By the 1860s and 1870s migrants increasingly used the post-office to send remittancesto relativesat home. This contrasted with the previous practice of bringing the savings back personally at the endof their stay in Britain; an unsafe practice, as they had often become the targets of thieves and other suchrogues. But even the post-office system was not without its problems. High levels of illiteracy amongstthe migran~ made the collection and transmission of remittances difficult. That the migrants were ableto overcome this handicap illustrates the community spirit that existed amongst them. Illiteratemigrants came to depend greatly on local people or the minority of their fellows who could read. Inthe west ofIreland a major burden was placed on shopkeepers and postmasters to ensure that the correctperson received the money. Problems of identity ensued because frequently the illiterate recipient gota neighbour to sign the form and at times this resulted in litigation in pursuit of stolen money.sOnly with the aid of official returns, which came into being in 1880, is it possible to examine thegeographical spread of seasonal migration. Prior to this the only means of evaluating the overall extentof seasonal migration on a local basis is through the evidence supplied at the Bessborough Commissionin 1880. It is fortunate that returns were recorded from 1880, as this was the high point of seasonalmigration in the post-famine period and provides us with a norm from which to work with up to the1920s. The only other returns availabe were provided in 1841 and provide us with an insight into thepte-famine situation. What is apparent from the 1880 data is the concentration of migrants in what canbe regarded as the most remote and certainly the most agriculturally underdeveloped regions of thecountry, comprising such counties as Mayo, Donegal, Roscommon and Galway. It illustrates theinterrelationships between migration, poverty, and under-employment in these regions. Despite itsrecurrent division of communities, seasonal migration, because of the income it produced, was also anincreasingly relevant factor in the preservation of communities in remote regions until well into thetwentieth century. There was less incentive to emigrate permanently too due to other factors. A highproportion (over fifty per cent) of the migrants were Irish speakers. They found companionship intravelling with friends and relations who spoke the same language and came from their own townlands.Seasonal migration was iri effect the transference of whole communities from Ireland to Britain,communities which were prone as a group to return to their home place at the end of the season. Thosemigrants who did settle permanently in Britain tended to be individuals who had no ties to land in Irelandand who had travelled alone to their seasonal job.County Mayo appears to have held the highest concentration of seasonal migrants, accounting forforty percent of the total in 1880. Between 1841 and1880 the numbers remained static, but in relativeterms, owing to a significant decrease in the post-famine population, this meant a growing dependence.In 1841, thirty one per thousand of the county's population were dependent on the seasonal migrationremittances from Britain as a principal source of incorpe for rent. By 1880, of the 27 ,659 migrants whohad left Ireland, 10, 198 (or 41. 7 perthousand ofthe county) were from Mayo.9 Between 1880 and 1897,Mayo's dependency on seasonal migration remained high and was much greater than for the other threecounties with high levels of migration. The numbers per thousand from Mayo were up to four timeshigher.Within Mayo, Roscommon and Donegal major regional variations existed, with poor law unionssuch as Swinford, Claremorris, Castlereagh and Dunfanaghy being major suppliers of migrants. Theone common characteristic in all these regions was widespread poverty and the uneconomic size of theirholdings. Other unions remained untouched by the annual haemorrhage. With the exception of Achilland west Donegal, which had direct links with Scotland through the nearby ports ofW estport and Derry,seasonal migration was, up to the 1890s, confined primarily to the interior regions of the westerncounties. A number of factors were responsible for the low level of migration from coastal regions.Poor transport and communications discouraged travel. The manufacture of kelp, access to fishing, andthe government assisted emigration schemes of the Tuke Committee to North America in the 1880s,all contributed to the small numbers of migrants from areas like Clifden, Erris and Belmullet. It was

A PASSAGE TO BRITAIN 25only in the 1890s, when the Congested Districts Board helped to open the region with a rail and roadnetwork, that the passage east made migration an option in the coastal areas. It is ironic that while thisbody improved acceSs to these remote regions with a view to establishing industries and developingtourism, the effect was to accelerate the number of migrants leaving. Also of note is the co-relationshipbetween regional subsistence crises and migration, such as occurred in Erris and Belmullet during thepotato failures of the 1890s. The failure of the potato had the inevitable effect of a dramatic increasein migration, being the only alternative to famine.Officially, most migrants were classified as landless agricultural labourers for statistical purposes.In 1880, sixty-three per cent were returned as having :no land. This classification is, however,misleading and fails to highlight the importance of the whole family in the process. Many of th~ landlessmigrants were the relati ves oflandowning farmers, as was the case with Achill and Inishowen migrants,and they were supplementing the family income in both the payment of rent and warding off famine.This analysis supports Charles Trevelyn' s view, when he stated in the House of Commons in 1883:' ... the proportion of migratory agricultural labourers from a district is the proof of the poverty of thedistrict, and the inability of the holdings ... to support the people.' 10The most noticeable feature of the composition of migration from the west of Ireland was the.proportion of landowners who held under thirty acres, a further testimony to the unviable structure ofholdings in the region. These accounted for about forty per cent of Mayo migrants and thirty per centfrom the three other counties. In the 1880s a twenty acre holding was needed to support the averagefamily, with much larger holdings needed in western regions. It would have been difficult, if notimpossible, for tenant farmers in Swinford, Newport and Castlebar to exist on the average holding, apoint demonstrated by the number of farmers, as well as landless labourers, who were dependent onmigrant remittances. While a farmer was regarded as a person who was totally dependent on theproduce of his holding for a livelihood, it is clear that not many west ofIreland farmers accorded withthis classification. As the rent was paid from earnings from external seasonal migration, rentreductions, whether accorded judicially or voluntarily, meant little to these tenants, as demonstrated onthe Taaffe Estate in Mayo and Gal way. The poverty of the land rendered it impossible to remain totallydependent on its produce.The social impact of seasonal migration could be severe in the poorer districts. In 1880, migrantsacounted for 91.6 per thousand of the population in Swinford Poor Law Union, whilst the figure inClaremorris was 57 and in Dunfanaghy 51.4 per thousand. It is generally accepted that the estimate ofmigrants is conservative. 6 Grada has suggested that official figures accounted for only sixty per centof the totalY As the Registrar-General 's returns relied exclusively on data from the railway companies,and in particular on details of those availing of the special fourth class passage, and were compiled ata time when all migrants had not departed, they fail to consider the large numbers who made alternativearrangements. There are cases where the Registrar-General's returns are totally inaccurate, and nonemore so than in the case of the Newport Union. Migrant numbers from the whole of Ireland reachedpeak levels in 1881 for the period of the returns. Yet only 554 migrants are recorded as having leftNewport and of these only five went to Scotland. According to contemporary writers like MichaelDavitt, and witnesses to the Bessborough Commission, close to one thousand migrants actuallydeparted from Achill to Scotland. Consequently it would appear that even 6 Grada's estimates are toolow.Seasonal migration was crucial in the survival of many communities throughout the region. Using6 Grada's adjustment factor of sixty percent, migrants from Swinford would have numbered 152.6 perthousand of the population, 95 for Claremorris and 86.1 for Dunfanaghy in 1881. When spouses anddependents are taken into consideration the extent to which seasonal migration contributed to theupkeep of whole communities becomes clear. Up to three-quarters of S winford' s population dependedheavily on these remittances, whilst the figures lie close to one-half in the other two unions. This doesnot allow for those who benefited indirectly from the wages of seasonal migrants, such as landlords,

26 SAOTHAR 13shopkeepers, clergy and railwaymen. In Mayo up to 50,000, or twenty percent of the population, reliedheavily on migration. It was a dependency which continued unabated into the 1890s.Although figures do not exist, it would appear that the 1860s and 1870s were the peak periods formigration, providing an income of between £0.8 million and £1 million to the economy of the west andnorthwest. Income was not always uniform however. Regional factors occasionally caused their ownproblems for migrants as in 1884 when the mangold and turnip crop in England failed, causing severehardship for their harvesters, the Swinford migrant labourers.12Despite the apparent benefits of an external income, seasonal migration cannot be said to haveelevated the social or economic circumstances of the source regions. While the Great Famine is oftencited as ~e pivotal point of Irish history, it must be emphasised that this was not true for many of themore remote and poorer regions of the country. In communities reliant on seasonal migration, thesubdivision of holdings and other characteristics of pre-famine society persisted. Migration, by itsstructural nature, could not improve the living standards of its participants. Migrants failed to rise abovea subsistence living in Ireland. Their readiness to pay a rent which greatly exceeded the returns fromtheir holdings clearly points to a general inability to raise their economic position. This is more than. evident in the case of Achill Island.The Achill community depended heavily on earnings from seasonal migration, which averaged £ 10per person per annum. After an adequate potato crop had been planted, populations of whole town landswere then known to leave for Scotland for periods of four to five months. Children left as young asthirteen years and in many instances the only permanent residents on the island were the very old wholooked after those too young to travel with their parents. This phenomenon gave rise to the observationof many English officials that the migrants were in essence labourers who, through legal andcommunity ties, were forced to use Ireland as winter quartersP There was little or no incentive forthe labourers to ameliorate their condition during their stay in Achill, and in view of this many outsidersviewed them as lazy, and disinterested in improving their lot. It was difficult if not impossible for themto eke out an existence on the island, which was described by the Irish Daily Independent in 1894 as:' ... a stinking patch of bog and barren soil, yielding only stones and stunted weeds and hemmed in by tallhills, presenting here and there rocky fronts to the Atlantic and making sunless valleys dark and rugged,with scarce a vestige of grass - all hard rock - refusing to yield to labour even the smallest return in fruit.... There are 6,000 people living in the most miserable hovels that sheltered man or woman, worse thanman builds for his dog or fowl, getting not a penny, one might say with considerable truth, for the land forwhich they nevertheless pay rent .,.. The villages of Achill' swarm with people living under suchcon di tions. >14Despite the shortcomings of the seasonal migration system and the short term gains of the migrants,there were of course financial advantages. It enabled the migrants to pay their rent, and in addition asubstantial proportion of the season's earnings was spent on foodstuffs. The migrant found himselfintroduced to new commodities such as tea, sugar and strong beer, commodities which were seldomif ever part of his diet in Ireland. The introduction of these' new elements to migrants' lifestyles wasa contributory factor in encouraging many to settle permanently in Britain. Many observers, such asShaw of the Bessborough Commission, saw the migrants in essence as English, rather than Irish,labourers.The gradual assimilation of previously unknown ideas and customs can also be discerned in theintroduction of new elements into the diet, clothing and lifestyle of the Irish communities back home.The wearing of cheap cotton, easil y washable clothes, such as those worn by their English counterparts,bore tangible witness to the migrants' contact with Britain. This confirms the' fact that externalinfluences had not been introduced into remote areas exclusively by the higher social classes such aslandlords and clergy. Due to their first hand experience outside Ireland, lower social orders such as themigrant workers were improving aspects of their own lives, if not on the land, at least in diet and

A PASSAGE TO BRITAIN 27clothing._Demand for seasonal migrants in Britain was not annually dependable but varied with periods ofprosperity in British agriculture. Nevertheless it could be crucial as a cushion against distress; in 1868Swinford labourers were saved from starvation by money brought home from EnglandY It workedto the mutual advantage of parties on both sides of the Irish Sea, providing labour on tap for Britishagriculture. 16 Table 1: Seasonal)\1igration By Counties, 1880-1890. - - -. ~Year 1880 1882 1884 1888 1890Mayo 10,198 7,918 6,586 7,291 8,490Donegal, 2,435 1,594 1,603 954 1,075Roscommon 1,579 1,459 1,096 754 1,109Galway 1,935 1,954 1,357 1,416 1,376Ireland 22,200 6,836 13,140 12,028 14,081Table 2: Seasonal Migration From Poor Law Unions, 1880-1890Year 1880 1882 1884 1888 1890Castlebar 1,158 1,162 1,095 1,067 1,058Castlereagh 1,318 1,372 1,159 %7 1,098Claremorris 1,783 1,245 1,047 1,308 1,290Dunfanaghy 847 404 344 199 288Glenamaddy 481 554 546 573Glenties 552 623 600 355 333Swinford 4,862 3,523 3,557 3,193 3,795Newport* 554 474 435Westport* 349 491 162 627 1,262*In 1885 Newport and Westport Unions were amalgamatedThe late 1870s produced a downturn in the demand Jor agricultural labourers in Britain, and the1880s accelerated this trend. In the early 1880s, about eighty-eight per cent of regions in EnglandandScotland indicated a declining demand for Irish migrant labour. The primary reasons offered werereduced wages, a prejudice against Irish migrants,17 and the rise in permanent emigration. This last wasinaugurated by state aided emigration from centres such as Swinford which had previously providedlarge numbers of seasonal migrants. However, economic depression, mechanisation, and the changingstructure of British agriculture were crucial long term factors.The greatest problem facing migrants was the periodic economic depression. Under normalcircumstances the loss of the potato crop was offset by remittances from Britain. The agricultural andeconomic depression which hit Britain in the late 1870s highlights the precarious nature of the migrants'existence, and also the problems created throughout the whole community. Aslandlords lost rents,migrants became destitute and a burden on the poor rates. This is reflected in 1880 when the poor rateincreased dramatically in those poor law unions with very high numbers of seasonal migrants. lsPlummeting employment opportunities in Britain resulted in greater numbers being relieved by the

28 SAOTHAR 13poor rates. In normal circumstances this group would not have been resident in Ireland during theseperiods. Now they had to be catered for despite the rapidly diminishing food supplies in the poorestunions. This, coupled with the potato failure, exacerbated the migrant's situation and in the circle ofmisery he was forced into debt, procuring food mainly through credit.While the combination of reduced demand for migrant labour and the failure of the potato cropbrought distress to a head in 1879, these problems had begun to manifest themselves in the previoustwo years. Many Mayo and Donegal migrants in 1878-9 had to have their fares forwarded to them inBritain to bring them home. 19 The safety valve against crop failures, which seasonal migration had beenin the past, was no longer as dependable after 1879, with disastrous consequences for manycommunities. On Achill Island the average annual remittances of £10,000 from migration slumped to£ 1,000 in 1879. Throughout the west the net loss in migrant earnings for 1879 was £250,000, or onethirdof the normal total remittances.20 This devastating drop in income occurred at a time when theLand League was in its formative stages, and certainly helped harness migrants' support for the Mayomovement. There was little alternative for the labourers, for this financial loss meant poverty fromSeptember to the following spring, with the only fall back being credit and the poor law ..Besides relieving the burden on poor law unions, seasonal migration had a major impact on twofurther features of society. It was an important component in curtailing distress among the labouringclasses and it acted as a means of controlling social order within the community. As Kennedy hasindicated, the relative absence of agrarian violence in west Ulster in the. second half of the nineteenthcentury can be partly attributed to the safety valve of seasonal migration. 21 The same is true of Mayo,Galway, and Roscommon; agrarian crime became serious in these counties during 1879-81 and 1885-86 only. These periods coincide with record decreases in migrant remittances and a major reductionin the demand for labour. Consequently social order was balancing tenuously on the fortunes of theseasonal trends, as the primary factor which kept the tenants placated and law abiding was theremittances from seasonal migration. Success in the maintenance of social order in 1879-81 and 1885-86 was achieved only in those areas where landlords provided their tenants with rent reductions.Outside of remittances, the landlord was the only source who could directly assist these tenants andmaintain peace within the community.22Land agitation produced a militancy within Irish agrarian society, especially concerning landlordtenantrelations, which had not been previously evident. Reductions in remittances from Britainresulted in migrants' involvement in the agitation, as was evident with the Dillon estate in east Mayoand Roscommon when the 5,000 tenants became involved in the Plan of Campaign. Such an analysiswould reinforce the conclusion that seasonal migration was a direct consequence of the economicpolicies undertaken by the landlords, as the latter continued to extract from holdings rents well in excessof what they were capable of producing. 23 Farm rentals were inflated to an artificial level, for it wasthe level of English rather than Irish labourers' wages which were maintaining rentals at the artificialrate. .Seasonal migration played no small part in the extensive use of marginal lands for agriculturalproduction. This is seen in the un viable structure of the holdings on the Dillon estate - eighty-sevenper cent of holdings had a valuation of under £4. Large scale migration to Britain and a readily availablesupply of bog land for reclamation had played a major part in increasing the rent rolls of manylandlords. 24 The extended period of agricultural depression in the mid-1880s created further problems,with tenants adopting a more aggressive approach towards their landlords. The landlords were seen asthe only source of relief in that they had the power to reduce rents.25Despite their tough conditions migrants remained unorganised. Throughout the nineteenth centurylittle attempt was made to secure better wages and conditions for them. While labourers' organisationswere established from the 1870s, they tended to be confined mainly to Munster and south Leinster,providing little hope for the agricultural m igrants of the west. In 1873, the English National AgriculturalLabourers Union formed a branch in Ireland arising out of an increased demand for Irish agriculturallabour in Britain, brought about ironically by English agricultural labour unrest. English labourers had

A PASSAGE TO BRITAIN 29established the union to secure better wages and conditions and had withdrawn their labour fromEnglish farmers. The impact of their action was, however, minimised by the continuing migration ofIrish labourers. Not only were the Irish prepared to carry out the functions of the English labourers, butthey were prepared to accept a lower wage. To curtail this threat the union established a branch inIreland under the chairmanship of the west Cork land agitator, P.P. Johnstone.26There are a number of reasons for the'union's failure to become a force in Ireland and secure itsobjectives. It was more concerned with curtailing migration than in redressing the grievances of Irishagricultural labourers. No concrete attempt was made to improve migrants' conditions in England andScotland. As the union confined its operations to west Cork, where migration was primarily of aninternal nature, it failed to address the exodus to Britain from the main centres of Mayo, Roscommonand west Donegal.No unity in organisation is evident amongst the migrants in the 1880s, despite persistent complaintsof low wages and inadequate accommodation. In the nineteenth century the ganger was the onlyorganising force among the migrants, but he did little or nothing to protect their living standards orwages when in Britain. His concern lay in organising a sufficient labour force for the farmer. Z1 It proveddifficult, ifnot impossible, to secure unity of purpose from within the ranks of subsistence dwellers whoneeded money to pay their rent. With the decline in demand for migrants in the 1880s, the possibilityof organising to secure better conditions became more remote. The various agrarian organisations ofthe nineteenth century, including the Land League, failed to incorporate any of the migrants' grievancesinto their programme. Circumstances altered briefly, if dramatically, during the Great War, bringingabout a new demand for Irish migrant labour in Britain. Under the auspices of the United Irish League,the Migratory Labourers Union was established. Its main geographical base was in west Donegal, Errisand Achill. It was still not until the 1930s, that the demands for better wages and accommodationbecame enshrined in statutory law.28Due to their lack of organisation, the conditions and pri vations of the migrants both at home and inBritain were seldom highlighted in the nineteenth century. They did come to public notice duringperiods of acute distress and tragedy, such as in June 1894 when thirty-two Achill migrants weredrowned near Weslport harbour. The very nature of the migrants' livelihood made them morevulnerable to economic and agricultural change, depending on fluctuations in crops to a far greaterextent than any other sector. What is clear is that the less well off tenant farmers availed themselvesof seasonal migration as an escape route from distress or the failure of the potato crop in the same mannerthat their more prosperous counterparts used emigration. When the potato failure reached crisisproportions in 1882, with crop yields per acre of only 1.8 tons in Mayo, 1.9 in Donegal and 2.1 inRoscommon, there resulted a dramatic though temporary increase in the number of people going toBritain.29 It also corresponded with increases in emigration from these regions. On those occasionswhen a tenant obtained meal or seed potatoes on credit from shopkeepers or from the government duringperiods of distress, as in 1879-81 and the early 1890s, he found the only avenue open to him to repaythe loans was seasonal migration. It was under these circumstances that sharp increases in seasonalmigration occurred in the years immediately following those of great distress. 3DThe agricultural depression and changing structure of British agriculture in the last qUaJ1er of thecentury brought a terminal decline in seasonal migration. Machinery became more widespread and costeffective. Machines, such as the Dray's Hussey, cost only £25, against daily wages of £4 - £5. 31 Whilemachinery had been introduced into British agriculture in the 1850s, seasonal migration received a stayof execution because of the initial cost in purchasing the machines. However it was inevitable thatmechanisation would eventually result in seasonal demand being unable to sustain previous levels ofmigration. Only in 1884 did a government report officially acknowledge what had been realised forover a decade - that the introduction of machinery was a primary catalyst in the demise of migrantdemand.Seasonal migration was an inherent feature of the social and economic structure of the west of

30 SAOTHAR 13Ireland for most of the nineteenth century. However the crucial period 1879 to 1881 marked awatershed for those communities in the west where seasonal migration was particularly prevalent.External factors, such as changing agricultural patterns in Britain and the permanent emigration oflabourers, brought about this transformation. Remittances from Britain and sub-division of holdingscould no longer support a family. Under such circumstances, new alternatives, in particular permanentemigration, were more attractive to small holders. Nevertheless, seasonal migration continued as anessential escape for the subsistence dwellers who remained, and who faced periodically the ravages ofcrop failures. Its demise also had repercussions for all those incorporated into the network of travellingabroad. No longer could shopkeepers and gombeenmen derive their main source of income from theannual migrants. Instead the permanent emigrants became the main financial source for thesecommunities. Seasonal migration had helped to maintain traditional economic and social structures inthe west of Ireland. Permanent migration brought this rural economy into line with the rest of Ireland.Notes1. A. O'Dowd, 'Rabbles and runaways, church gates and street corners, temporary workers and how they foundwork' in A. Bailey & D O'hOghan, (eds.), Gold under the Furze: Studies infolk tradition, (Dublin, n.d.), p.169.2. Con acre was the renting ofland, sometimes through agricultural labour, which allowed labourers raise a cropusually potatoes.3 .. James Macauley,Ireland in J872,A Tour ofObservation;(London, 1875), p. 262. Macauley maintained thatthe annual loss to Ireland from the failure to control weeds was £1.5 million.4. K. Clarke, 'Clew Bay Boating Disaster' in Cathair na Mart 6, (1986),p. 5. The fare from Weslport to Liverpoolwas 30/- by the 1890s, James E. Handley, The Irish in Modern Scotland, (Cork and Oxford, 1947), p. 147.5. The Midland Great Western R~ilway granted the reduction after representations from the clergy in theBallyhaunis area because of the migrants' difficulties in securing credit from shopkeepers. See Freeman'sJournal, 20 February, 1879.6. Annual Report of the Local Government Board for Ireland, Being the Ninth Report Under the LocalGovernment Board (Ireland) Act, H.C., 1881 (c. 2926), lvii,p. 63. For further infonnationondebt, shopkeepersand gombeenism see, Peter Gibbon and M.D. Higgins, 'Patronage, tradition and modernisation: the case ofthe Irish 'Gombeenman", Economic and Social Review, vi, no. 1 (October 1974), pp. 27-44: Peter Gibbonand M.D. Higgins, 'The Irish' gombeenman'; reincarnation or rehabilitation?', Economic and Social Review,vii~ no. 4 (July 1977), pp. 313-20.7. Connaught Telegraph, 10 January, 1880.8. At Westport Quarter Sessions Judge Richards pointed out that if postmasters or shopkeepers were unsure ofthe bona fide identity of the recipients they should refuse to hand over the money. Mayo Constitution, 5January, 1869.9. Report and Tables Relating to Migratory AgriculturalLabourersfor the year 1880, H.C. 1881 (C. 2809), xciii,pp. 7-10.10. Hansard, cclxvi, (1883), p. 303. .11. C. 6 Grada, 'Seasonal migration and post-famine adjustment in the west of Ireland' ,Studia Hibernica, 13,(1971), p. 61. It was officially estimated that only sixty per cent of migrants had left by the time the returnswere completed, see Handley, op.cit., p. 171.12. C. 6 Gnida, 'Agricultural head rents, pre-famine and post-famine', Economic and Social Review, v, no. 3,(April, 1974), p. 392; BallinaJournal, 18 August, 1884.13. J.W. Boyle, 'A marginal figure: The Irish rural labourer' in S. Clarke & J.S. Donnelly (eds), Irish Peasants:Violence and Political Unrest,1790-1914, (Manchester, 1983), p. 320; W. Neilson Hancock, 'On the equalimportance of education, poor law, cheap loans for small holders and the land question at the present crisis',Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland Journal, (April 1880), p. 54; Report of Her Majesty'sCommissioners of Inquiry into the Working of the Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act, and the Acts AmendingSame, (Bessborough Commission), H.O. 1881/(c. 27791) xviii, p. 540 q.16759; p. 543 q.16682. Shaw at theBessborough Commission maintained that the labourers who were involved in seasonal migration hadcharacteristics more in common with English or Scottish labourers than with Irish labourers.

;:-.",.- .. .", ...... '.:. '

The Social and Political Views of Louie Bennett,1870-1956Ellen HazelkornlLouie Bennett was a suffragette, pacifist and General Secretary of the Irish Women Workers' Union(IWWU) from 1917 until herretirement in 1955. 1 Ranked nextto DeliaLarkin, Helena Molony, HannaSheehy-Skeffington and, possibly Helen Chenevix, she is the best known female figure of the labourmovement. A less judicious assessment might argue that her bourgeois origins and political moderationmake her's the more acceptable face of labour and feminism; notwithstanding these considerations,Bennett's significance and impact must surely lie in the depth of her commitment to issues as variedas conditions of women at work, housing, education, trade union organisation, suffrage, pacifism, cooperativism,vocational organisation, and opposition to fascism and to sections of Bunreacht nahEireann. Her anti-militarism brought her into conflict with lames Connolly and Irish nationalists.While it would be unfair to impart any degree of negligence on behalf of other women to these and otherissues, Louie Bennett's longevity and sustained commitment marks her apart.Born in 1870, Bennett spent her early years at the family home on Temple Road, Temple Hill,Blackrock, along with her five brothers and three sisters - a tenth child had died as an infant. Her fathercame from a family of prosperous merchants; he owned Bennett & Son, a reputable fme art and antiquesauctioneering firm with offices on Ormond Quay. Her mother was the former Susan Bolger. Schooledat Alexandra College, Dublin, and in London and Bonn (where she learned singing), she acquired therefinements appropriate to one of her class, including an ambition to write. Her earliest effort was adiary entitled 'Memories of Temple Road in the 80s,' which was followed by two novels, The Provingof Priscilla and A Prisoner of His Word. Both were romantic novels; the former followed the unhappymarriage of a very devout Priscilla, while the latter was set at the time of the 1798-1803 risings andinvolved a love affair between an English member of the United Irishmen and an Irish rector's daughter.There is little meat in either for feminists, notwithstanding Priscilla's constant claims to her husbandthat she should be allowed to live her life as she chose. On reflection, these endeavours caused Louiegreat embarrassment; 'But after all', she said, 'I wrote it at my dressing-table, not being honoured witha writing-table then. The foolscap sheets were hidden under stockings and handkerchiefs'.2Her first step away from secluded middle-class life and into the public and political arena came withthe suffrage movement. Influenced by the Pankhursts and Francis Sheehy-Skeffington, she followedher elder sister and brother, Lionel, an engineer, to suffrage meetings. By 1911, she had helped to startthe non-militant Irishwomen's Suffrage Federation (IWSF), as a link between various suffrage groupsaround the country; she became its joint honorary secretary with Helen Chenevix, who was to becomeher life-long friend and IWWU associate. 3 The Irish Women's Reform League (IWRL) was foundedby Bennett in Dublin subsequently as an affiliated body of the Federation. 4 During the great Lock-out,letters from Bennett on behalf of the Ladies 'Relief Committee appeared in consecutive issues of thesuffrage paper, Irish Citizen, appealing for funds to provide food for families affected by the dispute:.... we women, whilst trusting to those who have power and influence to find the way to the morehonourable settlement, must come forward and do what we can to mitigate the inevitable sufferings. '5Her absolute commitment to pacifism dates from this period, arising partly in response to theprogressively more militant tactics adopted by the suffrage movement but more especially in reactionto the increased militarisation of Europe. She became an active propagandist against militarism in anyform, and for peace and disarmament during World War One. She was a member of the Women'sInternational League for Peace and Freedom, which was formed 'at a time when leading figures in the32

LOUIE BENNETI 33feminist movement were turning their backs on their goals - temporarily, they felt, of course - in orderto win the war';6 she often acted as one of the League's delegates abroad and represented Ireland onits executive. Along with James G. Douglas, she was joint honorary secretary of the Union forDemocratic ControU Her firm opposition to war ultimately led her into conflict with promoters of theEaster Rising, the conscription laws of 1918, and later, to act as a mediator during the Civil War. sThe issues that initially attracted her were those concerned with expanding the formal arena ofwomen's rights; those rights of citizenship which affected women regardless of class, but mostespecially concerned middle class women. The 1913 Lock -out changed the direction of her activity anddramatically sharpened her political consciousness; she participated in relief work to aid strikers'families organised by the Lady Mayoress, Mrs. Sherlock.~ Letters and articles written by Bennett in1913 and 1914 reflect a growing regard for the conditions of women workers and an impatience.withthe narrowly defined politics of suffrage and nationalism.'A large number of the reforms we desire and hope to achieve by means of the vote are also the objectiveof the Labour Party. Further, the Labour Party - or rather should I say the Labour class as a whole - haverealised as no other class have done, the need for economic and political freedom of women. '10Similarly, an undated letter to Francis Sheehy-Skeffington criticised the view of the IWSF councilthat trade union and suffrage issues should not be mixed. Later, she was to encounter resistance whenshe sought to turn the Irish Citizen into a feminist labour paper; friction with Hanna Sheehy­Skeffington eventually led to the latter closing down the paper in September 1920.u Bennett'ssecretaryship of the IWRL could be seen as an attempt to broaden the terms of reference of the suffragemovement; R.M. Fox notes that she used her position to highlight the social and economic conditionof women workers. An IWSF conference, which she organised in December 1913, indicates her newconcerns; two of the four themes discussed dealt with the 'conditions of women's work in Ireland' and'women's trade unions and the vote',12This tension between the 'votes for women' campaign and· wider social and economic issuesbecame increasingly evident in her attitude towards Home Rule and the Easter Rising, and reflected ageneral schism opening up between the' suffrage-first and the nation-fIrst' positionsY While in 1912Bennett had been one of many who sent messages of support to a mass meeting in Dublin' demandingthe inclusion offemale suffrage in the Home Rule Bill' /4 by 1914, she had clearly modifIed her stance,reasoning in the 18 April edition of the Irish Citizen that the 'policy of sacrificing every other interestto ... Home Rule was 'short-sighted". This argument stemmed from her belief that unless women werepart of the legislative machinery, HomeRule would have no real impact on the 'impoverished economicconditions of women workers'. In this respect, it differed from the views of her future trade unioncolleague, Helena Molony, who as editor of Maud Gonne'sBean na hEireann advocated a militantalliance between feminism and separatism seeing little point in seeking the franchise 'from an aliengovernment' .ISBennett's first impressions of ConnoUy, written in Easter Week 1916, reflected her deep reservations:'He thought he saw in the [world] war a chance of grasping freedom for Ireland, and from that moment,Labour took second place in his thoughts ... I think hatred of England is the dominating passion ofConnolly's life. And he has deluded himself into the belief that industrial conflict cannot be imprOVed inIreland until she is free of England' .16 .The 17 May, 1913 edition of the Irish Citizen had conveyed similar views, stressing that the'women's movement ... is greater than the cause of a nation, because it is the cause of humanity'. Heropinion of Connoll y and the Rising did not soften with time; but it would be wrong to describe her asentirely hostile or anti-nationalist. It was in this light that her commemorative piece written in the 1930s

34 SAOTHAR 13sought to rationalise the events of 1916 as 'but one more terrible manifestation of the many evilsconsequent upon the unwilling sUbjection of a weak nation to the rule of a great nation ... ':17 ,An advocate ofIrish unity, her more moderate stance was clearly informed by her pacifism. In 1916,she proposed to Thomas J ohnson th'e formation of a conference to find a solution to the Irish problem,while in ,1922 she was a member of the Women's Peace Committee which mediated between the sidesin the Civil War. ls In 1955 she wrote a Labour Party pamphlet proposing a 'reunited Irelarid'19 whileas a member of the Irish Association, she drafted' Suggestions for a Public Statement' ,another proposalfor unity. Bennett summed up her position to Connolly as that of' a pacifist first and before everything';conflict, whether between nations or bt:

:... ~: ."

36 SAOTHAR 13Bennett as honorary secretary; the offices were at Denmark House, 21 Great Denmark Street, Dublin.Bennett's most clearly articulated ideas on the future of the union and the unionisation of womenworkers coincided with her editorship of the Irish Citizen in 1920, although a period during HannaSheehy-Skeffmgton 's absence in America in 1916-1917 was a crucial prelude. In these early editorials,the Irish Citizen departed from its traditional emphasis on suffrage issues to take up the gauntlet forthe women worker. There were repeated calls to 'organise, organise'. One issue announced theemergence of a hitherto unheard of class - the woman worker - who having long been 'down by fearand miserable conditions ... has aroused at last to a realisation that ... her fate is in her own hands andthat ... she has in trade unionism a force to control it. '39 The March 1917 issue expressed horror at thelow pay for women and said that as long as women held themselves cheap, 'they will be recompensedaccordingly'. Bennett deliberately organised the IWWU on a single-sex basis.'It is futile to deny a latent antagonism between the sexes in the world of industry. There is a dispositionamongst men workers not only to keep women in inferior and subordinate positions, but even to drive themout of industry altogether ... Men have not the same aspirations for women as women have for themselves,and in an organisation much time and trouble would have to be wasted in securing the co-operation of themen in a demand for reforms of which the women may feel urgent need. For it must always be borne inmind that in mixed trade unions the men are practically always the dominant element. '40Responding to counter-arguments from Cissie Cahalan of the Linen Drapers' Assistants' Association,who favoured mixed trade unions,41 Bennett claimed that until the sex problem in industry wassolved, industrial unionism was a non-starter. The purpose of the IWWU must therefore be to act as a'force in raising the status of women in industry and in influencing public opinion on industrial and socialproblems where they particularly affect women ... For the moment at any rate, I think the women in mosttrades would do better to organise independently of men within a women's federation, but it would havethe closest possible co-operation with the men's unions in the same trades on matters of common interestto both.'Moreover, Bennett recommended that women in other unions should join the IWWU and 'remain init until they have secured equal pay with the men in their respective firms' .42 The debate continued fordecades, with the IWWU arguing consistently that women, because of the' definite lines of demarcation[that] separate their work from that of men', required a separate trade union. 43 Helena Molony, as amember of the ITUC Commission of Enquiry into Trade Union Reorganisation in 1936, acknowledgedthat while 'the policy of organising women on sex lines' might be 'theoretically wrong', it wasnevertheless necessary under the circumstances. 44The most interesting and curious aspect of this entire debate was the constant reassurance thatunionised women workers would never seek to 'encroach on the men's sphere' .45 Bennett had madethis point very clear in her initial article on the subject in the Irish Citizen of November 1919:'In a society where the financial burden of keeping the home lies upon the male wage-earner, workingunder a system so heedless of human needs as the industrial system of today, it would be madness of womenworkers to attempt to disturb fundamentally the present distribution of work.'46This was a theme to which Bennett returned often; her address as lTUC President in 1932 went as faras to question the usefulness of women working at all.'N aturally, I have no desire to put a spoke in the wheel of women's employment. But this modem tendencyto draw women into industry in increasing numbers is of no real advantage to them. It has not raised theirstatus as workers nor their wage standard. It is a menace to family life, and in so far as it has blocked theemployment of men it has intensified poverty amongst the working clasS.'47

-.- '.LOUlE BENNETT 37While there is little doubt that in this respect BenneU mirrored conventional opinion, the views weremoderating in their impact. 48 .It was Bennett's traditional views on women working that dominated the IWWU contributions tothe debate on equal pay for equal work. Her persistent claims that there was a fundamentaiprincipleof equal rights and opportunities for all citizens rang hollow against her more negative assertions. 49This was particularly the case in the debates about the tailoring trade in the 1930s and 1940s. The majorunion involved was the National Union of Tailors and Garment Workers (NUTGW), composedprimarily of men, because men dominated the key operations like cutting, fitting, trimming, shaping,basting, alterations, pressing by hand or by machine, passing or viewing, packing and dispatching. Thecheapness of female labour threatened what had traditioria:ily beeha male preserve. In 1936 and againin 1941 the union, with the backing of the ITUC, approached the Minister for Industry and Commerce,Sean Lemass, with the view to having him introduce regulations, under section 16 of the 1936Conditions of Employment Act, restricting the access of women to the above-named operations. 50 TheMinister refused and was denounced loudly by the NUTGW; Mrs. Purtell, from that union, agreed withher male colleagues that women, particularly married women, should not be employed over men,especially when so many men were unemployedY Interestingly, only Bennett dissented. 52 Yet, if wetake Bennett's comments in 1942 in the context of her expressed scepticism of the value of women'swork, it seems clear that equal pay for equal work was a means of eradicating the 'advantage' thatwomen had over men, and thereby forcing them out of the labour market. This does notignore the.fundamentally progressive notion, but it does suggest a more traditional perspective from whichBennett and the IWWU were working. Indeed, both the concept of equal pay and that of noninterferencein male jobs reveals a deep rooted conservatism; likewise, the 1936-37IWWU AnnualReport opposed the shift system because it added 'seriously to the difficulties of the housekeeper andtends to disrupt home life and family relations' .53 Thus, working women were an aberration of modemsociety. While the union would represent their interests - and those areas which it defined as appropriatetargets it pursued relentlessly and progressively - it would not, nor did it ever, challenge the traditionaldual role of women as workers and as mothers' or the sexual division of labour.The IWWU, as Bennett saw it, was not an instrument of class power. Rather she suggested that theIWWU would be part of a larger women workers' federation which would draw together womenworking in all fields, both individually and industrially, under three general headings:'1. Women workers in industries which are quite clearly women's industries, or where the men'sorganisations do not admit them, or where their interests or desires are likely to be bestcserved by apurely women's organisation - to be organised as in the IWWU;2. Groups of women a1rea~y organised in craft or industrial unions with men, loosely affiliated with thewomen's federation, in order to work for better general conditions for work - women as a class - to paysmall affiliation fee; - .3. Individual women workers, professional, commercial or industrial ... they should have no control over·the actual trade union business of the Federation nor over its constitution. '54Initially, there were two key sections of the union/federation - nurses (who by 1920 had been formedinto the Irish Nurses' Union under the aegis of the IWWU) and domestic workers. Thedomestics hadpreviously been organised by Helena Molony who had been Secretary of the Domestic Workers'Union; the Irish Citizen of August 1919 noted that its membership stood at about 15,000. 55 Bennettthen concentrated on the printing trade and the laundries. There is little additional evidence of anyfurther progress towards fulfilling the schema that Bennett had mapped out for the IWWU as outlinedabove. It does illustrate, however, her belief that women were a body in society which shared certaincommon interests and abilities, and that one of these was their 'humanising' quality wiihout whichsociety was all the poorer. 56 While at other times she did articulate the sentiments abOut the 'labourclass' or the 'working people', she shared little sympathy with socialist or labourist notions of Class or

38 SAOTHAR13class power. 57 Indeed, her commitment to pacifism extended from the international into the industrialarena. Fox's account of Bennett' s style of negotiation illustrates the point. .·'Tempennentally no one had a greater dislike of class conflict then Louie Bennett. She always looked forpossible points of agreement and common action in industry. She sought for a community standpointratherthan a class standpoint. '58Bennett's own description of her style was 'nagging' .59 She often knew the employers on a personalbasis, and attempted to cajole or embarrass them into agreement with threats to expose how much theirwives or daughters paid for clothing. Her letter to PJ. Besson, Managing Director of the RoyalHibernian'Hotel, and at the centre of the laundry dispute of 1945, illustrates her approach:'In regard to payment for Easter Monday I must add that if your laundresses worked on Easter Monday,we hope that you will give them a double day's pay (in addition to the substitute day in summer) as hasbeen done in another Hotel with which we are in contact. We know you are not legally bound to do this,but it is some compensation to workers for having to be at work on a day when all their friends are onholiday, and we hope you will see it in that light. '60She disliked strikes, and endeavoured to solve industrial conflicts without them. When, as in thecase of the laundry workers in 1945, she endorsed strike action, she did so with determination andconviction, but also in desperation. A woman of strong moral principles, what appalled her most wasthe employers' contempt and indifference to 'human needs and rights' .61 The absence of a classperspective in negotiations was not in itself unique to Bennett although it was undoubtedly informed,in her case, by lack of actual work experience; unlike her trade union contemporaries, Bennett had risento prominence in a movement in which she had neither family nor personal history, and representedwomen whose circumstances she had never directly encountered.Her alternative to industrial struggle was lucidly expressed in a paper on producer-con'sumer cooperativesand vocational organisation. She had developed these views during the 1930s, and enlargedupon them·in the minority report thatSenator Scan Campbell and herself submitted to accompany the1943 Repor.t 6fthe Commission on Vocational Organisation, 62 to which both were ITUC delegates.'We agree.to the principle of vocational organisation, because the general trend of economic andsocial development impels us inevitably towards a system based upon it ... We endorse the mainRecommendations of the Report before us because we perceive in them an effort to evolve a schemefor the Irish people which will co-ordinate and direct their various free associations for the purpose ofderiving the optimum benefits for the community whilst preserving the freedom and rights of theindi vidual. '63Despite similar origins and enemies, Bennett's vocational organisation was not directly comparable tofascism; the above statement continued: .'This care for individual freedom is the crucial point of difference between Fascism and vocatiorialorganisation. Under Fascism the individual becomes acog in the machines. Under vocational organisationas envisaged in this Report, he is endowed with the responsibility of service to a vocation and of sharingin the control of its administration.'While Bennett was one of fascism's sharpest critics,64 her distinction between fascism, corporatismand vocational orgaiJisation was often tenuous. For many, including Bennett, a more sympatheticmodel was Salazaf, whose particular form of Christian authoritarianism met with considerable,although not entirely uncritical, approval in post-Euc:haristic Congress Ireland. 65 Her acclaimedreading of her friend G.D.H. Cole's guild socialism was overshadowed by the influence of Pope Pius

LOUIE ~ENNEIT 39Xl's encyclical Quadragessimo Anno, in 1931.66 Also, her submission to the Commission's reportpraised the efforts of Muintir na Tire, an early form of the irish Catholic social movement. 67 Jn doingso, she found no contradiction between her own Protestant beliefs and her support for Catholic socialteaching; indeed, Bennett shared the latter's revulsion of increasing conflict in capitalistsociety,especially conflict between classes, and the over-powering role of the state.'The problem for nations with democratic aspirations is to find a via media between this [fascism's] deadlyculmination and the anarchic position ofan unco-ordinated mass of associations and organisations;.often·in disastrous conflict with one another and without any clear plan for the common good. '68The profit-motive, she argued, encouraged ~ast inequalities of Zvealth, resulting in increasing socialtension; the state thus felt obliged to intervene in order to eliminate the worst excesses of capitalism,but by doing so it over-stepped the boundaries and endangered the rights of individuals. Poverty andinjustice incensed her because workers, and especially women workers, bore the brunt of the existingsocial system, she had found a home within the trade unions. It was a form of missionary service. 69In its place, Bennett advocated a total reorganisation of society based upon producer-consumer cooperatives,which would unite both worker and employer in a bond of co-operation. Modem societycreated a'tendency for men and women to form themselves into associations of various types for the variouspurposes of life, with the result that we tend more and more to think in terms of groups rather thanindividuals ... This attitude of mind lends strength to the theory that the welfare of the community as a wholemust take precedence over individual interests. '70Vocational organisation could build this natural development by forcing the rearrangement 'andredistribution of the responsibility of services to vocational groupings. Ultimate power would-remainin the control of a democratically elected, vocationally based Parliament. It was Bennett's concentrationon democratic structures that distinguished her proposals from fascism. .Yet, her vocational organisation - alternatively termed co-operativism or collectivism -did not seekto eradicate the profit-motive but only to control it. Nor did it intend to abolish trade unions, albeit theywould eventually be re-organised. It did not advocate any form of anarchism; the state would retaina necessary role, although in a much more limited way. Its goal was simply the elimination of conflict,individualism, unfettered competition and unrestrained pursuit of profit, and their replacement by asociety that insisted upon the 'natural rights of individual and family' .71'I certainly want to see our society system built up on Christian principles in our country ... '72'Our history, our traditions and our religious faith should make us competent as a nation to evolve asocialand economic programme which would 'enable us 'to break through to higher levels of experience' .'73'Life is a mystery: we do not understand whence it comes or whither it goes. We know nothing of itspurposes orultimategoal. But wehave no riihi,to'lay rude hands upon mysteries, above all upon mysteriesround which hang our deepest and holiest inspirations, our hope, or faith, our only intimation of thingsnot seen.'74Bennett's desire to create a better world was influenced strongly by these spiritual values. Againand again she stressed the impact that Ireland as a country with a 'powerful spiritual strain' could haveupon world peace and social progress. Her moral crusade against injustice enlisted the support of 'allunselfish and great-hearted men' including periodic appeals to de Valera and the Pope. In June 1952,the IWWU published the Pope's 'Discourse to the Congress of the World Union of Organisations ofCatholic Women' as a pamphlet entitled Peace and Fraternity (A Call/or Action Addressed to EveryWoman 0/ Every Nation). 75Bennett's support for trade uhionism, and membership of the executive of both the ITUC and the

40 SAOTHAR13Labour Party complemented these aspirations. Both were the means of introducing necessary reform,to bring to the worker 'economic power and even ... the much talked of social revolution, without anylapse int9 anarchy and bloodshed' .76 In this regard, her commitment was total, and uncompromising.Not surprisingly, she was appalled at the conflict between the Irish and British-based unions, andbetween the JimLarkins, Senior and Junior, and William O'Brien. Soon after the split in the LabourParty, Bennett approached and wrote confidentially to Thomas Johnson pleading with him to act as 'anappeaser' in the 'dreadful impasse' and urging the necessity to 'push the old feud into the background'.77Herimpassioned speech at the ITUC conference in 1945 took up the theme again anddeserves quoting at length:'The present 'split' is really tragic from the point of view of friendship ... What the Irish Unions ask us todo is really betray the principles of freedom of association. They are asking us to agree that pressure maybe put on large groups ofIrish workers to make them leave the Unions of their choice. If we were to makesuch an attack on this principle we would betray our movement and put ourselves in the hands of thegovl!Wment of the twenty-six counties and they would have the right and the power to lead fueTradeUnions in any way they wished. We know they have a very strong wish to control the Trade Unions andfrom i!very point of view we must resist any attempt to put pressure on the rank and file to leave the Unionsof tl1eir choice. We must oppose, yet more, any effort to make a high wall between Northern and SouthernIreland. '7 8 ..When the split within the unions followed, Bennett kept the IWWU within the ITUC, being co-optedonto thelTUC executive in April 1945 in place of five who resigned. In 1946, she was elected Vice­President of Congress, becoming President for the second time (the first was in 1931-32) for 1947-48.She remained on the executive unti11950, and as General Secretary of the IWWU until her retirementin 1955.The IWWU under her leadership was forthright in its promotion of numerous issues that affectednot alone the woman worker, but also her husband and children. Delegates made frequent calls to raisethe schoo1leavihg age; to provide adult and continuing education; to provide school meals for thoseunable to go home; to strictly limit juvenile employment; to improve social services, pensions, andhealth facilities by way of an all-inclusive insurance scheme; to introduce factory inspectors,particularly in the areas of safety and health; and to promote better nutrition and hygiene as a meansof improving health. In 1925, Bennett was appointed to an ITUC committee to promote a scheme ofworking class education in co-operation with the trade unions; a conference on the related theme ofadult education in 1948 established her as a founder of the People' S Coll~ge.79She was instrumental in the formation of a national housing group in 1943, and a Housing Councilin 1949 under TJ. Murphy, Labour Party Minister for Local Government in the first Inter-partygovernment. The former coincided with a survey undertaken by Dublin Corporation, of which herunion colleague, Helen Chenevix, was aLabour Party member; Bennett's own prominence on the issuealso led her into the electoral arena, becoming a Labour Party member of Dun Laoghaire BoroughCouncil in 1943, and contesting, unsuccessfully, for Dublin County Council and the Dilll in 1944. Shehad had an earlier encounter with electoral politics in 1918 when she was nominated by the Labour Party- indeed, she was the first woman candidate to be nominated by any party that year - for the GeneralElection, but she had refused to stand. 80In industrial struggle, Bennettis best remembered for her leadership ofthe historic laundry workers'strike of 1945 for a fortnight paid annual leave. These women had been the first IWWU recruits; Foxsuggests that the impetus for unionisation had come initially from employers who were angered bybeing undercut by poorer standards among their competitors. Bennett's own attitude during the strikeretained the ambiguity of her earlier days; her suggestion that as men were interested only in higher payit fell to women to improve working conditions implied the latter were there to 'humanise' the workplace. 8 ! The strike lasted{rom July to October with the women ultimately victorious. 82

LOUIE BENNEIT 41Bennett's own relationship with the IWWU and the trade union movement as a whole was alwaysslightly contradictory. Her interests in trade unionism had evolved from her concern with suffrage andthen with the conditions of women workers, which had fIrst come to her attention during the 1913 Lockout,when she was already 43 years old. When theIWWU was formed, she acquired their frrst premiseson Eden Quay, paying the rent herself. Over the next 38 years as General Secretary, she never drewa salary; family money enabled her to work 'voluntarily' for the union. In later years, when she movedpermanently to Killiney, she built a second bungalow and tennis courts on her property, which she gaveto a maximum of ten union members for weekend 'holidays' .83 Admirable as these gestures were, theydemonstate her social distance from the majority of women she represented. Her behaviour and attitudeto her members and to the working class were always guided by her strong moral values; through thetrade union movement she endeavoured to bring society into line with these aspirations. These werethe attributes of altruism and paternalism, not socialism or labourism.Ind~d, she never adopted a working class perspective, always retaining a conciliatory attitudetowardS'employers and social reform. Her elegant clothes highlighted the class divide. Herpersonalitywas sharp and austere. She operated a strict and orderly union organisation; one member of the IWWUexecutive recalled literally shivering when 'summoned' to her office. In other ways, too, she wasextremely old-fashioned, conventional in social and sexual matters, even for the time. She never soughtto disturb existing social relations or to alter the fundamental position of women in society. As GeneralSecretary of a union representing 5-6,000 women, the major women's organisation in the state, onlyon the introduction of the 1937 constitution did she strike a more questioning posture. But even then,her attack on the dual role of women, as represented in Article 41, was limited to the amount of stateaid available to women to enable them not to work. Once the more contentious sections were removed,IWWU protest stopped. 84 In the evolution of Irish feminism, Bennett's theoretical pedigree belongssquarely within the liberal tradition which sought to remove all 'restrictions on individual developmentand achievement' .85 Her views on the economic, educational, and legal rights of women echoed theconcerns of independently-minded, bourgeoi~ women such as Mary Wollstonecraft and Harriet TaylorMill; the latter also sought to reassure men that women did not desire to 'take out of the hands of menany occupation which men perform better than they' .86 It was an apologetic form of feminism.The women workers, in turn, saw Bennett as a person who, because she was better educated and ofthe bourgeoisie, was more capable of leading them than themselves. Their lack of class and personalconfIdence meant that they lacked the ability to produce leaders from amongst their own ranks. Thisclass insecurity was reinforced, in part, by an IWWU rule disallowing offlcership to anyone withouta suitable educational background. The effect was to dampen down class consciousness among womenworkers, to channel protest into specified areas, and always to see advancement in terms of acommunality between workers and employers. That the IWWU has been one of the least mili~t ofIrish unions is not surprising; Bennett's influence in this regard is hardly insignifIcant.Yet, Louie Bennett was an extraordinary woman. There were few opportunities for any woman inIrish society at the time. Certainly her bourgeois upbringing gave her the self-assurance necessary toenter not only into public life but also to take on a leadership role in the labour movement; moreover,it enabled her to be accepted, albeit as an 'oddity'. Conservative in many ways, she was capable ofadopting progressive positions, often putting herself outside mainstream labour opinion: she arguedvociferously against protectionism in 1924, fl7 and was the sole dissenter on the Labour Party executiveagainst co-operation with Fianna Fail in 1927 on the grounds that 'it was never right or wise t6 cooperatewith another party with fundamentally different principles' .88 Throughout the 1920s, sheremained a consistent opponent of a formal split between the industrial and political sections of the!LP& TUC, fearing undue influence being exerted by electoral acti vity - though no doubt her views werebased upon.an underlying support for the moderation of trade unionism versus the potential militancyofpoliticallabour. 89 Her criticism ofConnolly and the narrow parameters of nationalism could not havebeen taken easily. Likewise her consistent pacifism was a singular stance. Her campaign for improvedworking conditions deserves to be recorded for no lesser reason than that it heralded a 'victory' over

42 SAqTHAR 13a particularly mean and petty bourgeoisie. Ruaidhrf Roberts claimed that she was 'one of the mostsignificant trade union leaders of the period'.Notes, I,I wish to thank the following people for their help and encouragement: John Swift, the late Ruaidhrf Roberts,Eleanor Butler Wicklow, Nellie McCarthy, Mairead and Paddy Flanagan, Sheila Conroy, Andree Sheehy­Skeffmgton, John Manning, John de Courcy Ireland, the late Mai Clifford, and Padraigfn Ni Mhurchu. The IWWUsources are located in the IWWU Archives. Any errors and omissions remain my own.1. R.M. Fox, Louie Bennett - Her Life and Times, (Dublin, 1957); Missing Pieces. Women in Irish History,(Dublin, 1983); Henry Boylan, A Dictionary of Irish Biography ,(Dublin, 1978); JenniferS. Uglow, ed., TheMacMillanDictionaryofWomen's Biography, (Londori, 1982); 'Obituary,' ITUCAnnual Report, 1957, pp.28-29; 'Obituary,' IWWU Annual Report, 1956.2. 'Interview with Louie Bennett', Peoples, 20 October, 1948. The Proving of Priscilla, (London, 1902) and APrisoner of H is Word, (Dublin, 1908). An unpublished essay, 'Fiction as a Factor in the Women's Movement'argued that 'novelists helped to advance women's rights by instilling in them a sense oftheir own importance',Pat Feeley, 'Louie Bennett: Socialist, Feminist, Trade Unionist', Dun Laoghaire Tribune, no. 2, (nd).3. Federation founded 21 August, 1911 in the Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin. Little is written on the life of HelenChenevix, who was born in Dublin and died in 1963; she was a life long suffragist, trade unionist and pacifist- in her later·years being a strong advocate of nuclear disarmament. A Quaker by birth, she was guided by astrong inner religion, though often called herself a socialist. A close companion of Bennett, she worked toooften under her shadow in theIWSF, IWWU, and LP. Chenevix became the third woman presidentoftheICTUin 1951.4. Rosemary Cullen Owens, Smashing Times: A History of the Irish Women's Suffrage Movement. 1889-1922, (Dublin, 1984) pp. 42-3.5. Irish Citizen, 27 September, 1913; 13 October, 1913.6. Leah Levenson and Jerry H. Natterstad, Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington: Irish Feminist, (Syracuse, 1986), p. 155.See Sheehy-Skeffington Papers, National Library, Dublin (henceforth cited as SS Papers): Ms 22,687i and22,695iv; also Fox, op.cit., pp. 88-89. The fifth WILPF conference was held in Dublin between 8-15 July,1926. 150 representatives from 20 countries came. Bennett presided over the conference. Jane Addams wasPresident at that time.7. The Union for Democratic Control published 21 pamphlets on World War I between 1914 and 1918 by interalia, Bertrand Russell, J. Ramsay MacDonald and J.A. Hobson.8. Bennett led the IWWU members to City Hall to sign' A Solemn Pledge for the Women of Ireland Inauguratedon St. Colmcille's Day' against conscription, 1918. See Fox, op,cit., pp. 74-75. Also see 'Interview' op.cit.;Louie Bennett, 'Memories of Civil War', Peoples, 30 October, 1948.9. Owens,op.cd., p.77.10. Irish Citizen, 7 February, 1914.11. Regarding the conflict with Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington, see correspondence of Bennett in SS Papers: 5 March,1920 (Ms ,24,110),1 July, 1920 (Ms 22,692i), 27 July, 1920 (Ms 22, 692iii), 30 July, 1920 (Ms 24,112). Cf.- the explanation offered by Margaret Ward for the closing d9wn of the Irish Citizen in 'Suffrage first - aboveall else': an account of the Irish suffrage movement', Feminist Review, vol. 10, 1982.12. Irish Citizen, 6 December, 1913; also see undated letter to Francis Sheehy-Skeffington from Bennett (Ms21,633) and letter of 29 October, 1913 (Ms 22,664) in SS Papers;13. See Mary Cullen, 'How radical was Irish feminism between 1860 and 19207' in Patrick J. Corish, ed., Radicals,Rebels and Establishments, (Belfast, 1985), pp. 185-201; Beth McKillen, 'Irish feminism and nationalistseparation, 1914-1923', Eire-Ireland, vol. 7, no. 3,1982, pp. 52-67; vol. 17, no.4, 1982, pp. 72-90; CharlotteH. Fallon, Soul on Fire: A Biography ofMary MacSwiney, (Dublin, 1986) especially chapter 1; Owens,Smashing Times, .14. Owens, op.cit., p.51.15. ibid., p.46.16. Fox, op.cd., p.47.17. ibid., p.53.18. J. Anthony Gaughan, Thomas Johnson, (Dublin, 1980) p. 207. See also Bennett to Thomas Johnson, 8December, 1916 (Ms 17,237) in Johnson Papers in National Library, Dublin. See also Fox, op.cit., pp. 106-

LODIE BENNETT 43109; IWWU resolution sent to British TUC affirming opposition to British rule and calling for theestablishment of an independent government in Ireland, see Fox, op.cit.. pp. 80-81; as secretary of theWomen's International League, she signed the 'Appeal to Women's Association in Other Countries on Behalfof Irish Political Prisoners' which asked for neutrals to visit prisons: Kathleen Napoli McKenna Papers,National Library, Dublin: Ms 22,601.19. Bennett, Proposal/or Labour Policy to Promote a Re-united Ireland. January, 1955.20. See 'Manifesto from the Convention of Irish Women Workers', 15 October, 1922, in Fox, op.cit .• pp. 79-80and also p. 49.21. Fox, op.cit .• p.50-51.22. Bennett to Francis Sheehy-Skeffington, 1 October, 1914 (SS Papers: Ms 22,667i).23. Owens. op.cit.. p. 64.24. ibid .• p.43.25. Irish Citizen. 8 November, 1913.26. Irish Citizen. 22 May, 1915.27. Bennett to Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington, 3 September, 1916 in SS Papers: Ms 22,279v.28. Bennett to Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington, 12 May, 1915 in SS Papers: Ms 22,675.29. Irish Citizen. 22 May, 1915; see Levenson and Natterstad, op.cit .. p. 59.30. Bennett, 'Ireland and a People's Peace', 27 February, 1918 - a paper read to ajointmeeting of the Women'sInternational League and the Irish section of the Union for Democratic Control, and published as a pamphletlater.31. ITUC, Annual Report. 1918, p. 59.32. Louie Bennett, 'Europe's Enfant Terrible', The Irish Statesman. 7 April 1928; also Louie Bennett. 'Out ofa Rag Bag', Pax International, June, 1927. Pax International was the journal of the Women's InternationalLeague.33. Louie Bennett, 'Internationalism', Irish Citizen. 10 April, 1915.34. Louie Bennett, 'What is Woman's Work?' Irish Citizen. 11 December, 1915.35. Fox,op.cit .. pp. 67-68. See account of her first attendance at anITUC conference in 1916 in Gaughan, op.cit .•p.74.36. HelenaMolony was born in Dublin 1884 and died 28 January, 1967. Molony was an Abbey actress, militantnationalist, officer of the IWWU, and president of the ITUC, 1937. Became editor of Maud Gonne 's Bean nahEireann in 1908 and helped Constance Markievicz to found N a Fianna in 1909. She joined the Citizen Armyand was imprisoned for her part in the attack on Dublin Castle in 1916. She took the Republican side after theTreaty.37. See also Fox, op.cit .• pp. 49,65.38. Louie Bennett, 'Women and Trades Unionism', Irish Citizen. January, 1918.39. Irish Citizen. August, 1917.40. Louie Bennett, 'Is an Irish Women Workers' Union needed?', Irish Citizen. November, 1919.41. See Owens, op.cit .• p. 81; Dermot Keogh, The Rise o/the Irish Working Class. (Dublin, 1982), pp. 63-86.42. Irish Citizen. January 1920; Louie Bennett, 'Women and the Labour Movement', in James Con'nollyCommerationSouvenir, (Dublin Trades Union and LabourCouncil, 11 May 1930). See also Rosemary Owens,, 'Votes for Ladies, Votes for Women': Organised Labour and the Suffrage Movement, 1876-1922', Saothar9, 1983. pp. 37-38.43. IWwU, Annual Report. 1936-37, and 1945.44. See also IWWU response to Commission Report. 1936; Charles McCarthy, Trade Unions in Ireland. 1894-1960, (Dublin, 1977). pp. 150ff. .45. IWWU, Annual Report. 1945.46. Louie Bennett, 'Is an Irish Women Workers' Union needed?'.47. ITUC. Annual Report. 1932, p. 23.48. Cf. Mary E. Daly, 'Women in the Irish Workforce from Pre-industrial to Modern Times', Saothar 7, 1981,pp. 78-9.49. ITUC. Annual Report. 1935, p. 144.50. ITUC, Annual Report. 1941, p. 52; IWWU, Annual Report. 1936-37.51. ITUC, Annual Report. 1942, pp. 14344; see also Mary E. Daly, 'Women, Work and Trade Unionism', inMargaret MacCurtain and Donncha 6 Comiin, eds., Women in Irish Society: The Historical Dimension.(Dublin. 1978). pp. 76-7.52. ibid .• also see ITUC,Annual Report. 1947. p. 74.53 .. See also Mary E. Daly, 'Women. Work and Trade Unionism', op.cit .. pp. 75; cf. debate on night work, ITUC,

44 SAOTHAR 13Annual Report, 1931, pp. 80-82.54. Irish Citizen, January, 1920; see also February 1920 issue.55. Undated letter of Helena Molony to Hanna Sheehy-Skeffmgton in SS Papers: Ms 22,687i; IWWU, AnnualReport, 1920.56. IWWU, Annual Report, 1948.57. Irish Citizen, 7 February, 1914; Irish Citizen, 11 October, 1913.58. Fox, op.cit., p.21.59. IWWU, Annual Report, 1948.60. 6 April, 1945; see also Fox, op.cit., pp. 26-27.61. IWWU, Annual Report, 1948.62. Joseph Lee, 'Aspects of Corporatist Thought in Ireland: The Commission on Vocational Organisation, 1939-43', in Art Cos grove and Donal McCartney, eds., Studies in Irish History, (Dublin, 1979), pp. 324-346.63. Miss Bennett and Senator Campbell, 'Reservation No. l' of the Report o/the Commission on VocationalOrganisation, 1943, p. 477.64. ibid., also see ITUC, Annual Report, 1935, p. 121; ITUC, Annual Report, 1936, pp. 128-29; .IWWU, AnnualReport, 1938.65. Cf. Bennett, in ITUC, Annual Report, 1942, p. 164; Lee, op.cit., p.344.66. ITUC, Annual Report, 1924.67. Terence Brown, Ireland: A Social and Cultural History, 1922-79, (London, 1981), pp. 160-1; Joseph A.MacMahon, 'The Catholic Clergy and the Social Question in Ireland, 1891-1916', Studies, vol. 70, winter1981, pp. 263-288.68. Bennett and Campbell, 'Reservation No. 1', p. 477.69. IWWU, Annual Report, 1924.70. IWWU, Annual Report, 1924; in 1949-50, Bennett was instrumental in the formation of the Lower PricesCouncil, a producer-consumer market, that soughtto keep down prices. It lasted 3-4 years. See Seamus Cody,John O'Dowd and Peter Rigney, The Parliament o/Labour: 100 Yearso/the Dublin Council o/Trade Unions(Dublin, 1986), pp. 190-93.71. IWWU, Annual Report, 1948, pp. 312f.72. ITUC, Annual Report, 1948, p. 191.73. Presidential Address, ITUC, Annual Report, 1948,p. 92.74.' Bennett, 'Jane Addams on the Sanctity of Life', Irish Citizen, 18 December, 1915.75. See Fox, op.cit., pp. 105, 109.76. Bennett, 'Direct Action' ,Irish Citizen, July/August, 1920.77. Gaughan, op.cit., pp. 377-9.78. ITUC, Annual Report, 1945, pp. 123-25; see also ITUC, Annual Report, 1946, p. 162.79. Ruaidhri Roberts and R. Dardis Clarke, The Story o/the Peoples College (Dublin, 1986).80. Owens, op.cit., p. 126.81. Fox, op.cit., pp. 66-67.82. MaiClifford, 'They gaveus one week butwe wantedtwo',LabourHistory News, Autumn 1986,p.12; SeamusCody, John O'Dowd and Peter Rigney, op.cit., pp. 178-182.83. See Clifford, op.cit.,.84. IWWU letter to Irish Times, undated; also see Margaret Ward, Unmanageable Revolutionaries (London;1983), p. 242. See also, Mary E. Daly, 'Women in the Irish Workforce', op.cit., pp. 78-9.85. Mary Cullen, 'How radical was Irish feminism', op.cit., p. 186.-86. Harriet Taylor Mill, 'Enfranchisement of Women ' in Alice S. Rossi, ed.,lohn Stuart Mill and Harriet TaylorMill: Essays on Sex Equality, (Chicago, 1970), p. 101.87. ILP&TUC Annual Report, 1924, p. 39; Leader column, Woman Worker, December, 1926.88. Gaughan, Johnson, pp. 307, 310; also ILP&TUC Annual Report, 1928, p. 89.89. SeeILP&TUCAnnualReport, 1922,pp. 78-79; ILP&TUCAnnualReport, 1924,pp. 140-141; IWWUAnnualReport, 1924; ILP&TUC Special Conference Report, 1930, p. 137.

Essays in ReviewCosherers, Wanderers and Vagabonds: The Treatment of thePoor and the Insane in IrelandHelen Burke,The People and the Poor Law in Nineteenth Century Ireland, (Women's EducationBureau, Dublin, 1987), pp. xiv & 369, £14.95 softbackJoseph Robins, Fools and Mad:A History of the Insane in Ireland, (Institute of Public Administration,Dublin, 1986), pp. 256, £14.95 hardbackFew facts are as well established in history as that the Irish were poverty-stricken in the eighteenthand nineteenth centuries. So apparently pervasive and widespread was the problem that the socialattitude (it was too early for such a word as 'policy') of successive Irish and British governments toIreland was defined very largely in terms of poverty and its relief. The impressionistic accounts ofArthur Young and other quasi-tourists of the late Georgian era gave way to the more statistic-basedresponse of the parliamentary enquiries as passive perception led to active concern. But theinterpretation by modem historians of Irish poverty in Georgian and Victorian times has mirrored theperceptions (and occasionally the attitudes) of those who assembled the original evidence. So clearand so voluble was the exposition of the facts that few, if any, historians have ever questioned themotives which underlay their assemblage or the manner and timing of their presentation. l The causesof Irish poverty were assiduously sought by concerned contemporaries, but no enquiry has yet exploredthe definition of poverty in its Irish context nor the extent to which it was identified and measured inrelation to British poverty or the prevailing concept thereof.Attempts at the control and regulation of poverty began in England with the parliamentary measureof 1601, a brave effort to both amalgamate and rationalise a plethora of local practices and earliermeasures. The 'old poor law' naturally reflected the needs and preferences of Englishmen as well asthe social and political environment in which Englishmen lived. The failure to apply the provisions ofthe 1601 act to Ireland was rooted, likewise, in Irish political realities. Any extension of Englishlegislation to Ireland depended on the degree to which it could be enforced. The few Irish statutespassed during the first half of the seventeenth century which could be said to relate to poverty revealprimarily the incompleteness of the conquest; but the various factors referred to therein as 'causes' ofpoverty had a significant effect on later developments. Irish ignorance of English agricultural practiceswas at the centre of the 1634 act 'to prevent the unprofitable custom of burning corn in the straw'.Allegedly, 'iII-husbandrie and improvident care' by native Irish farmers had led to an annual 'greatdearth of cattle'. That the negligence in question stemmed from 'a natural lazie disposition' and wastherefore categorically criminal is clear from the act's determination to punish rather than relieve theperpetrators, who were also of course the victims. Cure rather than prevention was also the focal pointof an act of the same year for 'the suppressing of cosherers and idle wanderers'. The ancient Irishpractice of coshering (the custom of claiming legitimate dues and of asserting the system of deference)was interpreted in the act as a type of banditry conducted by men who 'live idly and inordinately'. Menrecognised locally as legitimate chiefs of tuatha were equated with the lawless and problematic youngersons who roamed England in the generation before the Civil War. However inaccurate the designation,crime as well as improvident farming practices were identified at an early stage as prominent causesof poverty in Ireland.Crime was to remain a permanent feature of the British attitude to Irish poverty even into thetwentieth century. From the eighteenth century onwards education schemes, successful and otherwise,replaced punishment as a general remedy. But throughout the early modern period the continuingpolitical strife, together with the lack of control over 'remote' or Gaelic areas, retarded the absorption45

46 SAOTHAR 13of Irish poverty into the English anti-poverty ideology, and naturally rendered any practical assistanceimpossible to administer. War in Ireland was almost always interpreted by the government as rebellion;in such cases the social misery which accompanied defeat was regarded as a form of natural justice notto be mitigated by human agencies. In more peaceful times, and in the absence of settlement laws orother regulatory systems, mendicancy developed almost to the status of an underworld profession inIreland, wondered at by disgusted tourists and connived at by more prosperous locals. Charity,unorganised (except in times of unusual crisis) and probably part of the landlord/tenant deferencerelationship, must have been one of the principal features of Irish rural life in the eighteenth centurysince, despite the rising population, the problem did not become uncontrollable until after 1800.The problematic nature of poverty in Ireland first became apparent in the cities, and it was there thatlong-term attitudes were to develop. Society in both kingdoms had traditionally been less concernedwith the reasons why 'vagabonds' wandered and were idle than with protecting citizens from theirdepredations. Even before Tudor times society protected itself by incarcerating the vagabonds. Thiscrude institutional solution was a means of containing the problem, since the worst aspects ofdeprivation for the vagabond disappeared once he was jailed, however otherwise unpleasant theexperience might prove. The ad-hoc relief of poor persons on the streets through almsgiving in someways compared unfavourably with the sanctuary and regularity of a prison existence. However, manybeggars, especially in Ireland, drew a sharp distinction between themselves and petty criminals. It islikely that the former had a clear view of their position and rights in society, and their rejection of theworkhouses in the period after 1838 may have stemmed from this as much as from any discomfortwithin the houses. 2 Aside from a somewhat superficial humanitarianism, it is probable that pressurefrom a harassed and importuned public lay behind the establishment of institutions in Dublin, Cork andBelfast in the early eighteenth century known variously as workhouses or houses of industry. Thesewere built to cope with beggars who, in the expanding urban environment, proliferated beyond the pointof ordinary social management or even public endurance. The determination of the city-dwellers toconiain the problem institutionally was a sign of failure rather than the solution the houses wereintended to represent. For the most part the ethic of mendicancy reasserted itself and respectablebeggars refused, except under duress, to be identified with criminals. Exceptionally cold weather,famine or other irregular disasters would periodically fill the houses, but for the most part the beggarsremained on the street. In virtually every street scene on every contemporary print and painting fromMalton to Petrie the beggar has his corner, a representation of reality as much as an artistic convention.At their worst the beggars of the eighteenth century were a nuisance. But in an age of poor hygiene,infrequent street repair, building and planning irregularities, and general congestion, it was easy andinevitable that urban-dwellers should eventually interpret nuisance as threat and to respond by labellingitas aminorcrime. The poorrelief institutions of the eighteenth century which aimed at the containmentof general adult mendicancy all failed in their objectives, less because of the horrific irregularities intheir operation than because they represented the losing side in a conflict of world-views, ethics, andideology. They lost because eighteenth-century society lacked the necessary coercive devices to enablethem to succeed. The purveyors of the New Poor Law in Ireland later won a partial victory because theyhad been able to identify the immediate reasons for the defeat of the Georgian institutions. Their victorywas only partial, however, because they_ failed to detect the underlying causes of that earlier defeat.With industrialisation came the beginning ofthe end of pre-industrial society in England. Thepurityof the deferential relationship in Ireland had always been sullied somewhat by historical events, and thedegree to which it prevailed remains, in the absence of proper investigation, a matter for speculation.The souring of deference in England, together with the desperate conditions at the close of theNapoleonic War, facilitated the spread of Malthusianism and the fear of social anarchy. In Ireland classrelations had been affected more by political events than by the concurrent social problems during thesame period. But in general the non-arrival of an industrial revolution on the British scale saved Irelandfrom the precise type of social threat which seemed to hang over early regency England. Ireland did" not have a centrally or locally-administered poor-relief system which could be supplemented, adapted,

••• .".'. >. '~"ESSA YS IN REVIEW 47or otherwise altered to meet the requirements of a collapsing social framework. Thus the Irish poorescaped the corrosive effects of the Speenhamland system and clung to the vestiges of a shaken butpartiaUy-intact social network. The final threat to Irish deference came not from race~memory orpolitics or industrialisation but from the financial decrepitude of Irish landowners and the presence ofan over-large peasant population. I use the word 'presence' advisedly since historians have still todecide whether the population of pre-famine Ireland was increasing or decreasing.British interesi in solving their own poor-relief problems spilled over into Ireland only when Irishpoverty itself had begun seriously to spill into Britain. The economic crisis in Ireland from 1815onwards caused many Irish landowners to rationalise their estate-management in order to improve, orin some cases to bring about their viability: The resultant clearances fused with concurrent growth inthe efficiency of steamships, and large numbers ofIrish paupers suddenly became an immediate Britishproblem. 3 Parliamentary enquiries into the state of the Irish lower orders coincided with the aftermathsof two earlier famines of the nineteenth century, and as barometers of 'normal' poverty they aretherefore of limited value. Certainly the enquiries led to no immediate attempt at a solution. Thegovernment had responded to the two famines by setting up short-term ad hoc relief committees, oftenlocally administered. Events later in the century would show this to be a pattern fraught with fatalconsequences. In the first third of the century the connection between inadequate estate-managementand lower-class poverty had become obvious, but uncertainty prevailed for most of the Victorian periodwith regard to a solution. In the event, discussions on a compulsory poor law for Ireland arose less froma desire to assist the poor than from a conviction that Irish property-owners should pay for Irish poverty;a law of settlement was aimed at rather than the relief of the poor.And so it was that the British and Irish authorities spent part of the 1830s in examining the variousoptions and approaches available regarding a poor law in the Irish environment. The report of a Select. Committee in 1830, valuable in its wealth of information but lacking in conclusiveness, led to a fullscaleRoyal Commission headed by the Archbishop of Dublin, Richard Whately, and rather weightedwith concerned Catholics. In the course of three extensive reports the commissioners rejected theworkhouse concept as inappropriate to a non-industrialised environment. The state ofIrish poverty wassuch that any outdoor relief system would, they believed, be ruinous. In a positive vein thecommissioners suggested emigration schemes, land reclamation and public works, all of which wouldnecessitate some degree of direct government intervention. 4 The commission had in fact cut its wayto some of the root-causes of poverty in Ireland and its recommendations were mechanical (thoughoccasionally imaginative) responses to those causes. The government's inevitable rejection of thecommissioners' proposals perhaps was rooted less in politics and economic theory than in a traditionalfailure to come to terms with the Irish environment.In the administrative sense the New Poor Law seemed a promising solution; the innovative nationalschool system had after all been successful in placing education where there had previously been none.B ut the replacement of poverty by industry and thrift proved less simple than had been anticipated. Thenew workhouses contained the sick, the mad, and children as well as able-bodied paupers. The poorlaw rhetoric echoed the belief that workhouse inmates were a new type of criminal being punished fortheir social inadequacies. Burke's account of the poor law in Ireland is the first full-length modemtreatment. One of its most interesting features is the tracing ofthe workhouse's progress from its cruderole as a social melting-pot in 1838 to its emergence as a surprisingly versatile health service later inthe century. Famine, administrative contradictions, changing social attitudes and other factors whichbrought about the expansion of the workhouse's facilities are charted by B urke with considerable skill.Despite the book's broad chronological expanse it is a work of impressive depth and is marred only bythe odd choice of the South Dublin Union as a 'typical' example of workhouse practice.One obvious historical conclusion to be drawn from Burke's researches (though not one spelt outin her book) is that the early poor law experience in Ireland represented the nadir of Irish poor reliefhistory. The workhouses when they opened signalled the absorption into the poor law system, andtherefore the closure, of several of the institutions which had until then catered for special categories

48 SAOTHAR 13of the poor such as orphans and the insane. Orphan children, being unable to protect themselvesphysically or legally, were often the victims of the horrific maladministration of foundling institutionsin eighteenth century Ireland. The transfer of these children into the early poor law system deprivedthem of the specialised care they might have received had the existing institutions been allowed tocontinue along improved lines. This is also true of the relief and treatment of the insane both beforeand after the introduction of the poor law. The eventual development of the workhouse into a centrefor social services reflected the long -delayed realisation of the links between sickness, illegitimacy andpoverty. Assistance rather than punishment gradually became the guiding principle.The undoubted quality of Robins's earlier work on charity children is reflected in his latest bookon the history of the mentally-ill. The book is mildy traditional in its approach in that it begins in pre­Christian times and concludes in the 1960s. Despite this the loss of depth in the most relevant areas hasbeen minimal. In general it is easier than its more specialised predecessor by Finnane whichconcentrated heavily on the history oflegislation. 5 Unlike Robins's earlier book, however, his historyof Irish insanity cannot be termed a definitive work but is rather a readable and highly competentintroduction on which others will hopefully build. One of his most important contributions lies in thebook's historiographical approach. Histories of Irish poor relief experience have been very few andvirtually all of them concentrate on institutions rather than on social processes. The useful if noddingreference to social context in Strain's history of the Belfast Charitable Society is departed from evenby Burke and Finnane who plunge straight into their history oflocal relief institutions. 6 To some extentthe historians have cleaved to the most accessible evidence, whether in the form of minute books orparliamentary reports. The sources used tend to be official rather than private and so the emergentportrait unavoidably mirrors the rather restricted field of nineteenth century official vision. The internalworkings of the various institutions have been explored and less attention has been given to the no-lessimportant impact of the relief system upon the local communities. This next and necessary step in thehistoriography ofIrish poor relief is anticipated to some extent by Robins whose treatment of the historyof the insane deals, however tentatively, with processes and so resembles true social history.NotesGerard O'Brien1. R.D.C. Black, Economic Thought and the Irish Question, 1817-1870, (Cambridge, 1960), is about the onlyexception.2. For examples of such rejection see G. O'Brien, 'The New Poor Law in Pre-Famine Ireland: a case history',in Irish Economic and Social History, xii, 1985,33-49.3. Black, op.cit., p. 102.4. Ibid., pp. 107-9.5. M. Finnane, Insanity and the1nsane in Post-Famine Ireland , (London, 1981); J. Robins, The Lost Children:A Study o/Charity Children in Ireland, 1700-1900 , (Dublin, 1980).6. R.M.W. Strain, Belfast and its Charitable Society, (Oxford,1961).

ESSAYS IN REVIEW 49ConnolIy:Myth and RealityAusten Morgan, James Connolly - A Political Biography, (Manchester University Press, Manchester,1988), pp.234. £17Morgan's book opens with the warning that it 'contests Greaves' view that ConnoUy was a wouldbeLenin, by examining his revolutionary politics through the focus of Desmond Ryan'sobservationthat he was 'a man who belonged to and worked within two worlds: the world of international socialismand the world of militant nationalism'.' (p. x) The thesis offered by Morgan is, in all its essentials, thatJames Connolly, after spending most of his life as an active socialist changed, or made a transition tonationalism. In the preface, Morgan says of Connolly:'The transition in his politics from 1914 was a product of historical crisis. Connolly's revolutionaryresponse in wartime was mediated by socialist collapse ... and by nationalist commitment ... He was aninternational socialist activist who witnessed for the Irish Revolution, thereby giving working class politicsa strong nationalist identity.' (p. x)The thesis argued by Morgan is put in a less' transitional' form later in the book where he states in thefirst line of chapter seven, 'National Revolutionary, 1914-1916','In August 1914 Connolly became a revolutionary nationalist, but he was not fmally accepted until early1916, when he joined the armed conspiracy planning an Easter Insurrection.' (p. 139)Morgan, in defending this thesis, anticipates that it will receive greater acceptance from exponentsof 'liberal revisionism or anti-national Marxism' (p. ix). Quite what Morgan's own position is is notexplicit. Although it is fairly clear that he is not in any definable Marxist tradition, it is probably fairto say that he is closer to liberal revisionism.In addition to the essential thesis on Connolly's dramatic conversion to nationalism in August of1914, Morgan argues that the Rising of 1916 was wrongly characterised by Lenin. In Morgan' s opinionthe Easter Rebellion was not simply 'premature' in the context of international conditions, butcompletely lacking in mass sympathy or support at the time. Hence, in Morgan' s view, the Rising wascorrectly described by Karl Radek as a putsch. Subsequent events too - the 1918 anti-conscriptioncampaign, the eventual War ofIndependence and the growth of mass support for the IRA and Sinn Feinat the end of the war - were, in Morgan' s judgment, not in any important respect due to the events ofthe 1916 Rising.These bold assertions are not especially new. Connolly did have his critics at the time of the Rising-and there is certainly room for a critical appraisal ofConnolly' s political theory and practice. Althoughsome of the biographical evidence which he marshals does shed some new light on the political flawsin Connolly's understanding and application of Marxism, it remains difficult to be convinced byMorgan's main contentions. Part of the problem with Morgan' s book is that, although he has done amountain of work in arriving at exactitude on the biographical details ofConnolly's life, there is littleexposition of the evolution and continuities in Connolly' s thought. Granted, Morgan does refer to theinfluences that formed the context for Connolly's political education; but if the central thesis inMorgan's book is to be upheld, it is necessary to come to grips more roundly with how Connollyunderstood the relation between the national struggle for independence and the Marxist programme forsocialism. In order to do this properly, it is necessary to distinguish the other influences that Connollyabsorbed and the manner in which he adapted his Marxism to them. Otherwise it becomes difficult torelate his eventual participation in the Rising to his previous thought, and even less possible to assessthe merits of ConnoIly's political thought in its own right.Desmond Greaves, for example, argues that Connolly' s thought and practice only reached maturity

50 SAOTHAR 13.in the latter part of his political career, 1910-1916 as a whole, because it is only in this period that heis assumed to reconcile the two strands, socialism and revolutionary nationalism. For Greaves,Connolly 'matured' to the extent that he softened an early emphasis on the leading role of the workingclass in the national struggle and began to recognise a progressive role for sections of the bourgeoisie:'In asserting working class leadership of the national struggle [Connolly] defined in Ireland what wassignificantly recognised as a general tendency during the epoch of imperialism. namely for a section of thecapitalist class of a subject nation to compound with the oppressors. But it was not for many years thathe appreciated that not all the captialists will necessarily do this.·1Greaves seeks to accommodate Connolly's mature thought within the framework of the PopularFront strategy practised under Stalin's tutelage in China in the 1920s and formalised in the 1930s inFrance. It is a view, the logic of which makes a virtue of Connolly's subordination of the red bannerto the green, as a historic stage prior to socialist struggle. In Greaves' view, Connolly's immaturethought consisted in not explicitly reserving a place for the bourgeoisie in the national struggle.Greaves' thesis deserves to be reassessed. Not onl y does Greaves view Connolly' s position duringthe 1914-18 war as akin to Lenin's, but he regards Connolly's thinking as close to Lenin's on therelationship between socialism and religion while comparing Connolly's views favourably with thoseof Engels on the question of monogamous marriage and the future of the family, even though Connollywas against socialists fighting for the right of divorce. Morgan, in flatly rejecting the main element inGreaves' thesis, fails to develop this argument on the terrain of theory to any extent. It may be thatMorgan believes that the living record of Connolly 's involvement in political events better reveals hisweaknesses than would a sustained attempt to understand his political subjectivity. On the other hand,there is the implication in this approach that not only was Connolly not close to Lenin in his theory butthat Connolly's political thought does not amount to a corpus worthy of detailed consideration eitherin itself or in its effect on Connolly' s political practice. Morgan implies as much when he suggests whatConnolly might be remembered for apart from the Rising. He regards Connolly's socialist bequest as'a respectable corpus of propaganda writings' from the first Marxist to express the desire for socialismin Ireland. This concession, however, is qualifed by the assertion that Connolly's participation in theEaster Rising is not connected with any 'putative socialist theory of the Irish revolution'. (p. 202)By not engaging in a fuller critique of Connolly' s political thought, and by implying that this thoughtwas so superficial as to be dropped completely in 1914, Morgan throws out the proverbial baby withthe Greavesian bathwater. Of course Connolly was not Lenin. But what was Connolly and how is heto be characterised politically? For Morgan, Connolly was variously a political activist of 'sectarian'socialism, later a syndicalist, and finally, when he abandoned socialism, a revolutionary nationalist.This view is unconvincing precisely because it ignores the very core of the Connolly enigma, namelythe continuous and lifelong attempt to render into an operative perspective for struggle in Ireland thetheoretical, political and historiographical culture he had at his disposal.Morgan's conclusion is disappointing also in view of the promise to follow the inspiration ofDesmond Ryan in treating Connolly as a man simultaneously working within two worlds - that ofinternational socialism and that of the Irish national liberation movement. Where, for example, is thereany serious consideration in this political biography of the crisis of the Second International broughton by the opening of the inter-imperialist conflict in 1914? Or indeed, what importance does Morganattach to the development of socialist theory and debate in the years preceding the war? The life of theSecond International, as Morgan is aware, spans exactly the political career of Connolly. Morgan,ho~ever, betrays a certain disdain and carelessness in his attitude to not only the International at large,but specifically to Engels and the Marxist analysis of women's oppression. For example, in a sectionon Connolly's views on religion (pp. 54-60), Morgan refers to The Origin of the Family, PrivateProperty and the State as something Engels was led to 'dash off' following his discovery of Marx'sethnological notebooks, glibly stating that 'The family therefore became a topic for rassing cbnsidera-

ESSAYS IN ~EVIEW 51tion' in the International. Bebel's classic work which reached its thirty third edition before beingtranslated into English and read by Connolly is summarily dismissed by Morgan as simply saying that'socialism was the answer to the women's question (whatever the question)'. (p. 55).More crucially, there is no attempt by Morgan to analyse the debates in the International on thenational question - a serious deficiency in a biography whose subject is a Marxist whose lifelongpreoccupation was with this matter and its relationship to socialism. Nor is there any discussion of thedebates on imperialism in the International and the divisions which were brought to a head in 1914 overhow the international socialist movement should respond to the new realities. Only in the context ofthe outbreak of the Boer War in 1899 does Morgan give some rather gnomic reference to the'contradictory' attitude of British-based SciCiaI Democraisand COnnolly's being less influenced by thisthan by what he saw on the streets of Dublin. (p. 36 ff.)Morgan has left us with a book that is laden with empirical detail, some of it new but not all of itcontributing to the thesis he wishes to sustain. The treatment ofConnolly' sLabour in Irish History andThe Reconquest of I re/and provides some usefully suggestive passages on Connoll y' s thinking on Irishhistory. (pp. 85-88, 105-107). The description of Connolly' s family background restates fairly vividlywhat we already know from other biographies, adding a detail here and there. The account of theRebellion could probably be developed to stand on its own as it is quite rich in logistical detail. TheLockout episode too is dealt with competently, though in both the account of the Lockout and of theRising, we only glimpse Connolly from time to time, as Morgan pursues different, often poorlyintegrated themes. The style of the book, and perhaps the choice of a biographical form itself, tendsto clutter the arguments or crowd them into the margins where they are stated rather baldly withoutproper development. In view of this it seems necessary to offer some suggestions to counter the overallimpression created by Morgan, namely of a Connolly who was without any worked-out conception tosustain him before and after the month of August, 1914.Connolly began to develop his own analysis of the Irish revolution in the mid-1890s after a numberof years on the Scottish Marxist left. His awareness of how Britain retarded Irish economicdevelopment led him to develop a schematic view of the relationship of the Irish national question toBritish colonialism and imperialism. In this schema, Connolly argued that independence on a capitalistbasis was not a viable road for Ireland to travel, the reason being, he argued (erroneously as it happens),that unless Ireland could gain overseas colonial markets it could not develop its fledgling industries.This theory identified the source of British imperial power as its monopoly of the trade of its coloniesthroughout its vast empire and its control of the seas. Connolly thus argued that an independent HomeRule Ireland could not develop economically due to the absence of overseas markets. This idea of'underconsumption' as the key to capitalist crisis was commonly expounded in Scottish and Englishsocial democratic circles in the mistaken belief that it was the view held by Marx. 2 In fact it arrivedfrom Germany but was transmitted by the followers of Lassalle. Connolly took it on board andaugmented it to deal with the problems of development in an independent Home Rule Ireland. Thistheory provided an objectivist explanation for a necessary confluence of the forces of socialism andnationalism in Ireland sooner or later.In his first period in Ireland (1896-1903), and after the initial introduction to his writings by JohnLeslie, Connolly incorporated the influence of the revol utionary populist, J ames Fintan Lalor, into hisreasoning on the impossibility of a viable Irish capitalism. Lalor had argued that the legislative question. of repeal of the Union was nothing more than the outer political echo of the social question embeddedin the ownership of landed property. Liberation of the peasants, qua labouring people, or the 'mostoppressed class', was the real kernel, he argued, of the national question. Connolly imbibed thisconception to develop an innovative theory of the Irish national struggle across the centuries in whichfeudalism and captialism were essentially a foreign implantation, and this theory implied that, in theconditions of the turn of the century, the wOl'-king class would inherit the centuries-long struggle againstthe class-based system of English colonialism. .But this perspective of ConnoUy's, summed up in his adage that 'the cause of labour is the cause

52 SAOTHAR 13of Ireland' and vice versa, served to conflate two analytically distinct problems, namely the struggleto establish nation states, one of the historical bourgeois tasks of the epoch of capitalism, and thestruggle to establish international socialism. True, Connolly developed this schema ina creativeattempt to deal with what he understood to be the global changes in capitalist society and the newrealities this created for socialists in Ireland. However, this theory had the potential to surrenderworking class independence of nationalism in any joint struggle with nationalists against colonialoppression by an imperial power. .He believed that the 'thoughtful patriot' would see the necessity for socialism, but he explicitlyexcluded the Irish bourgeois nationalist reformers from this category, believing in his first Irish periodthat theirs was, after Parnell, a 'dissolving view'. When the Home Rule movement gained a newascendancy, in his second Irish period from 1910 till after the Lockout in 1914, Connolly' s perspecti veleft him tactically disarmed on the burning question of the day and the initiative on national independenceremained in the hands of the native capitalist class organised behind Redmond' s banner. He wasequally disarmed in his tactics when initiative passed to the conspiracy by revolutionary nationalistswhose bourgeois class character was covered over, in Connolly's historiography. Connolly believedthat their willingness to struggle automatically placed militant nationalists in the historic camp of thetoiling masses. 3Connolly's adaptation to nationalism thus dates not to 1914 but from his early ISRP period, whenhe equated the struggle for the Irish nation with the struggle of 'Labour' in Irish history and placed thenational question in the 'maximum' programme as against the orthodoxy of the International which putit in the 'minimum' programme of tasks achievable under capitalism. Indeed, his action after1914might even be construed as something of a turn in the opposite direction. After all, Connolly did notcollapse into social chauvinism in August 1914 as did Hyndman in Britain and Karl Kautsky, etc.,internationally. This is the reason why Greaves argues that Connolly was as close to Lenin as one couldget. But, of course, it is not quite that simple either.Connolly's schema for the Irish Revolution was operative in the 1914-16 period. This time,however, it led Connolly to subordinate politically the strategic aim of independent and class-widemobilisation of workers (in strike action against the war) to a national rebellion. While Morgan selects'Germanophile' references from Connolly during this period, he overlooks the context and alsoConnolly's theoretical position on Imperialism. For Connolly, the European War was about England's·control of the seas, not an inter-imperialist war in which the German, French, Russian and Austrianempires were attempting to redivide the globe. Therefore, Connolly identified the defeat of Englandas the only hope for post-war expansion, industrialisation and the rebirth of the socialist movementinternationally. This strategic consideration became dominant only after he saw the major collapse ofSocial Democracy into imperial chauvinism. .It was Connolly's tragedy that the working class had been badly mauled in the 1913-14 Lockout,with the resultant sharp fall in ITGWU membership. He was faced with the further blow of economicconscription draining workers away to the war. Theonly aUies hecould identify were the IRB elementsof the Irish Volunteers, though he was ready to go it alone with the Citizen Army into open Rebellionagainst England if all else failed.Connolly's role from 1914 to 1916 was geared increasingly towards insurrection, the focus of hisplans being the Citizen Army. Although he worked to rebuild the ITGWU he was concerned by whatappeared to be a receding opportunity to deal a blow to British Imperialism. This contrasted withLenin's view of the war which, he correctly estimated, would eventually overcome the initiallyheightened chauvinist illusions of workers and peasants and change the mood of the masses in adirection favourable to his policy of 'defeatism' towards their own imperialist ruling class. ConnoUy,by contrast held the view expressed in the International which believed an all-out strike in all belligerentcountries could prevent the war from being undertaken - that the declaration of war should have beenthe tocsin for the workers' revolution. This view was proven to be abstract and inoperable, thoughConnolly does not exactly admit this when he refocuses his politics after the collapse of the

ESSAYS IN REVIEW53International:'I believe that the war could have been prevented by the socialists; as it was not and all the issues arelcnit1 want to see England beaten so thoroughly that the comnierce of the seas will be free to all nations, thesmallest equally with the greatest. '4Hence the focus of his attention switched from working:c1ass action against the war to the task of strikinga blow against the principal enemy, the monopolist of world trade and oppressor of Ireland. Hisperspective; however, was the same as that which grounded his call for an Irish Labour Party in 1912when Home Rule seemed a peaceful inevitability, i.e., a future independent Ireland in whichsyndicalism and socialis'm could re-emerge as a force.Such. a mixture of views reflected Connolly's location among the various currents in the crisiswrackedinternational Social Democracy. However, despite his different and weaker understanding ofthe dynamics of an imperialist war, as compared with Lenin, it would be wrong to conclude thatConnolly abandoned his syndicalism and socialism and his general commitment to internationalism.These remained in spite of his clear adaptation to revolutionary nationalism during the war, placing him,therefore, in the 'left-of-centre' in the spectrum of the Second International. Although it would bedifficult to argue that his centrist politics would have led him inexorably towards the right, he seriouslycompromised his socialism to the extent that he subordinated his politics to the propaganda and theconspiracy ofthe radical nationalists. He resorted to purely insurrectionary methods, isolated from anystrategy for revolution. behind the backs of the workers' organisations. In doing so he liquidatedpolitically any objective expression of working class independence other than the separate organisationof his workers' militia. There is no expression whatever of distinct working-class interests in theproclamation of the Rising. B ut to say that he thus became a revolutionary nationalist is wide of themark. Morgan lapses somewhat crudely when he asserts that: 'The Dublin insurgents, Connollyincluded, were opposed to over seven centuries of British domination, not to the havoc capitalism hadcreated across the globe.' (p. 10)Morgan's book deserves a qualified welcome. The book aims to 'demythologize' Connolly, andas a new biography pitched against received wisdom, it contains many suggestive remarks and somenew perspectives. But it is disappointing because the assertion contained is not thoroughly backed upin the main body of the work. The source of this problem is that Morgan does not treat the corpus ofConnolly's political ideas, and their bearing on his practice, wi th the seriousness they deserve. Withoutthis it is impossible to come fully to grips with the enigma of the founder of Irish Marxism.NotesJoe Larragy1. C.D. Greaves, The Life and Times of James Connolly, (London. 1976, cd), p. 78.2. See HenryCollins, 'The Marxism oftheSDF' in A. Briggs and 1. SaviIle (eds.), Essays in Labour f1istory. Vol.2. (London. 1971).3. For an extended critique ofConnoIly's historiography see Irish Workers' Group, ClassStruggle.i5. Dublin,March, 1985.4. international Socialist Review. March, 1915.

ReviewsJohn Horgan, Labour - The Price of Power, (Gill andMacmiVan, Dublin; 1986),'pp. 191, £6;95 ~.This book is not a scholarly analysis of the history,philosophy or performance of the Labour Party. It is,however, a readable and frequently gossipy stUdy of theparty from the mid-1960s to mid-1980s. Within the restrictiveparameters of the book there are thoughtprovoking sections on organisation, fmance;-trade unionsand electoral strategy. Of these the treatment of theparty's Commission on Electoral Strategy is superiorand more comprehensive. There are also .some goodpen sketches of many well known party and ex -partypersonalities.The book is marred.by.a number. of inaccuracies,the most glaring of which require attention. Horganrefers to John Ryan scraping home in 1977 following an87% transfer from DavidMolony of Fine Gael (p.9). Infact Ryan was easily elected and Molony was not acandidate. Miclc Lipper of Limerick ran as a Labourcandidate in the Donagh O'Malley by-election in 1968and not in 1973 as stated (p. 63). David Thomley losthis seat in 1977 not 1973 (p. 68). Senator Chris Kirwanis accused of 'voting against security legislation' therebylosing the Labour Whip (p.1l7). In fact, Kirwan andDeputy Michael Bell both lost the Labour Whip whenthey voted against the first 1982{3 Budget. Neither JoeBermingham (Kildare) nor John Ryan (North Tipperary)were elected in 1969 (p. 173). Both were firstelected in 1973. The unkindest cut of all! I received34% of the first preference vote in the 1985 LocalElection, not a mere 22% as stated (p. 14)! Such lackof attention to detail renders the book useless forreference purposes. .For some of the years covered by this book Horganwas a Labour Senator and later a Labour Deputy. I amaware from my personal contacts wi th rum that he holdsa politically centrist position and his examination of theLabour Party should be viewed in this context. Practicalityand professionalism would probably summariseHorgan's outlook and these are desirable ingredientsbut they must be held in conjunction with firm socialistobjectives of transforming society lest they degenerateinto dangerous and unprincipled opportunism. Somequotations will best illustrate Horgan's position.He writes of a 'maximum appreciation' of the factthat Labouf'operates in a-hostile environment, that'labour strategists have spent too much time analysingthe economic and social structures of society and toolittle time looking at the political structures'. It is notsurprising, therefore, that he later warns of the 'mythologyof1969' and of the 'real risk of attempting to dragthe party back to an Ireland that no longer exists andperhaps did not exist even then'.This is followed by a very muddled examination ofdefinitions of the working class - his italics: He urgesthat Labour should now look at some of its mostche~ished sacred cows in the light of the degree towhich - if at all - they contribute to what should be thetwo key objectives of the socialist society: ·~economicefficiency and distributive justice'. Socialism to him is,apparently, defmable as achieving 'equality and personalfreedomS' .The following sentence reveals perhaps most clearly.Horgan's ideology: 'People for whom belief in equalityis the dominant political motivation are a large andvaluable constituency, and if Labour neglects them topreach a hoary rhetoric conceived in the midclle of theindustrial revolution a century or more· ago, it willdeserve to lose them'. After eight years of Reaganismand Thatcherism, and in view of the daily threat to hardwonbasic trade union rights as exemplified in thePackard dispute, such an outburst from one describinghimself as a socialist is nothing short of astonishing.The book seems to reflect the new waveofrevisionismamong some British intellectuals. Many of thetraditional concepts and values of the Labour Movement,according to this new orthodoxy, must be discarded,especially conceptions of socialism. Connollyand Larkin are thus taboo. Not once does Horganmention Connolly, the party's founder and whose nameis invoked in the Labour Party Constitution.My opposition to such views does not imply nonrecognitionthat much has changed and that analyses ofcapitalist society and the alternatives need constant reexamination.Space does not permit further commentin this controversial area except to state that Connolly' slife and teachings still have a sharp relevance for theexisting capitalist order.Emmet StaggNoel Browne, Against the Tide, (Gill and Macmillan,Dublin, 1986), pp. 281, £9.95 paperbackLord Byron in his famous poem Don Juan declared'I want a hero, an uncommon want'. MyoId schoolmasterunkindly commented, 'No one wanted a heroless than Byron. He was his own hero'. So it is withNoel Browne. He will always hold an honoured placein the struggle for social change in Ireland and he haswritten a very remarkable and well written book. Inmany respects however, it is very bitter and unbalanced.Those parts of Against the Tide which relate theharrowing details of Brow ne 's family history when onetragedy of sickness closely followed another were verymoving. His account of the Mother and Child Scheme54

REVIEWScontroversy is real history. Yet the book is marred bythe messiaruc roieasswned by the author. There is theassumpiion that no one in political life or in the labourand socialist movement cared as deeply as himself ortried to do as much for the underprivileged. There islittle if any recognition by Browne, the socililist, of thedecades of struggle by the labour movement for thesocial advantage of our people.We are reminded of his 'adamantine stand' onprinciples, that he was the first Cabinet Minister 'seriouslyto concern himSelf with doing something for thesick and aged'. There eventually comes the piece deresistance: 'That was 'my last attempt to drag thereluctant Republic out of the nineteenth century '. Thatsentence swnmarises the spirit of the book and followsan account of the row which erupted, especially in theLabour Party, when in the course of an attack on churchdomination he made a suggestion of 'sexual ambivalenceamong celibate clergy'.'During the course of his career Browne was amember of five political parties: Clann na Poblachta,Fianna Fail, National Progressive Democratic Party,Labour Party and Socialist Labour Party. The latterparty, his last, mysteriously gets no mention whateverin the book. Very few of his mentioned associates inthose parties escape his attacks which are often bitter.The list is lengthy and includes MacBride, de Valera,Norton, Corish, Hartnett, Thorn!ey, Jim Larkin Junior'and Justin Keating. Many of the strictures are welldeserved, some are untrue or stretch credulity whileothers are vindictive. Some personal descriptions aregrossly offensive; his pen picture of William Norton ata banquet shows appallingly bad taste. Some read likecaricatures and are drawn with Dickensian skill. Infact, a photograph of the author shows him holding acopy of the Dickens masterpiece Pickwick Papers!Among the most confusing aspects of the book arereferences to socialism and communism. During hiscareer Browne made some speeches favourable toCommunist States. It is difficult to reconcile suchexperiences with some local witch hunting activities.In 1958 he stated at a meeting in UCD(not quoted in thebook): 'Ireland had a devout and zealous communistunderground, whose members had infiltrated the tradeunion movement, the press, the civil service and politicalparties. If the economic situation in Ireland andBritain worsened the communists would be presentedwith an opportunity to take over the country.'I was then an executive member of the Irish Workers'League. Our reaction to this statement was one ofshock. We delegated our Secretary MichaeI O'Riordanto interview Browne. He was to point out to him that wewere an open organisation, we were not undergroundand would he explain,Browne's response to 0' Rlordan w as to assure himthat he had not the IWL in mind, that he admired us aswe had nailed our colours to the mast. He had others inmind and proceeded to mention names which may notbe disclosed. The whole outburst was a farrago ofnonsense.' The motive? Possibly a tactic to counterwitch-hunting activities against himself. It is part of theenigma which characterises much of Browne's politicalcar~r.- TJlls enigma finds further expression in a chapter ofthe book entitled 'The Left In Ireland'. It isa strangetortuous. mishcmash. Reflecting the statement onCommunists aITeady quoted we find him stating thatthey (the Communists) were compelled to adopt threebroad strategies. One was for certain members to 'fade'into various key activities and 'wait'. There were thecommitted open Communists and then th(!re ""as thethird group which would enter a competing left winggroup, cause a split' and so eliminate it'. No authorityis quoted to support these allegations. Maybe he isrelying from memory on police reports to which he wasprivy when a member of the Cabinet. In fact, Browneadmits at the beginning that he kept no records andrelies heavily on his own memories and that of others.One must ask at times how reliable is Browne's memory.Police reports are often notoriously unreliable.Despite such theorising Browne did have somesympathy with the small harassed Communist movement.In fact while not being explicit about himself herecords that his wife Phyllis 'accepts the Marxist analysisof society'. He admires Grarnsci whom he describedas a Socialist rather than the Communist which he was.His references to Labour Party leaders are exclusivelyhostile extending to Jim Larkin Junior. He describesthe latter as 'a deeply conservative member ofthe Labour Party who like Justin Keating became itsmost notoriously right wing disciplinarian'. This isoutrageously false and damages badly Browne 's credibility.His main targets however, are William Norton,the Labourleader, andSeanMacBride. He really shaftsthese two men both politically and morally, On the leftthere would be broad agreement with his politicalindictments, reaction to many of his non-politicalcomments on these men would be mixed.Browne's role in the Mother and Child Schemecontroversy must determine his place in history. In awell documented account he gives his version of therelevant events in some detail. James Deeny, who wasthen the Chief Medical Officer in the Department ofHealth in a hostile review of Against the Tide challengessome of Browne's facts and claimed achievementsespecially respecting the building and financingof hospitals. He objects toBrowne taking credit forprojects already in hand and states' achievements in thehealth service are rarely brought -aoout by the action ofone man'. He admits, however, that there were someprojects like chest surgery for which Browne wasresponsible and he concedes that the latter did energeticallyadvance schemes which had been in preparation.The facts ofBrowne's courageous stand agaihst the55

56medical profession and the bishops has not been seriouslychallenged and the account recorded here standsas the most authoritative available. His career testifiesthat it is possible to challenge the domination of theHierarchy in Ireland and politically survive with outstandingsuccess.Despite the extreme difficulty of accommodatingBrowne in any political party his election performancesafter 1951 .wereby any.standard quite extraordinary.During that time he has been consistent and courageousin upholding public as against private vested interestsand he remained faithful to his principle of finding thecash means between patient and doctor indefensible.The labour movement especially has lessons to learnfrom the Mother and Child Scheme controversy. Thetwo parties of the Left, Labour and Clann na Poblachtaemerged from the crisis badly, the latter Party beingalmost wiped out of the subsequent election. The essentialpolitical issile was the undermining of the sovereigntyof the Dill by the Hierarchy. All the Dail partiesat the time failed in this respect but the Labour Partymissed an historic opportunity to assert itself as thedefender of that sovereignty. Brownemade a stand andhis political stature rose immeasurably and remainshigh.Joe DeasyAlvah Bessie and Albert Prago (eds), Our Fight -Writings by Veterans ofthe Abraham Lincoln Brigade,Spain, 1936-1939, (Monthly Review Press withthe Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, NewYork, 1987), pp. 360, $10Carl Geiser, Pr~oners of the Good Fight - the SpanishCiviLWar, 1936-1939, (Lawrence Hill and Company,Westport, Connecticut, 1986), pp. 298, $12.95Joe Monks, With the Reds in Andalusia, (JohnCornford Poetry Group, London, 1985), pp. 52, £3.95Eoghan 6 Duinnin, La Niiia Bonlta agus an Roisin. Dubh - Culmhni Clnn ar Chogadh Cathartha riaSpalnne, (Clochomhar Tta, Baile Atha Cliath, 1986),pp. 124, £3.00Joseph Donnelly, Charlie Donnelly - The Life andPoems, (Dedalus Press, Dublin, 1987), pp. 93, £4.50Maurice Levine, Cheetham to Cordova - a ManchesterMan of the Thirties, (Neil Richardson, Manchester,1984), pp. 54,£1.75James Yates, Mississippi to Madrid - Memoirs of aBlack American in the Spanish Civil War, (ShamalBooks, New York, 1986), pp. 221, $10Michael O'Riordan, Kolonna Konnolli, (IsdatelstvoPoliticheskoi Literaturi, Moscow, 1987), pp. 254, 80kopeksMax Parker, Al Tocar Diana - Songs from a FrancoPrison - a Reminiscence In Song and Prose, (PolkwaysRecords, New York, 1982), LP record and booklet,pp. 72, $10 .SAOTHAR 13The fiftieth anniversary of the first anti-fascist warthat raged in Spain from 1936 to 1939 has stimulatedrenewed interest in previously published accounts ofthat struggle as well as leading to the publication ofmany new ones. The Connolly Column by Michael0' Riordan remains the standard and most comprehensiveaccount of the 145 Irishmen who fought for theSpanish Republic.! Now as Kolonna Konnolli it hasbeen published in Russian translation, with 60,000copies being distributed throughout the USSR. Someappendices have Deen dropped for this edition, mainlythe reprint of Connolly' s own articles on insurrectionarywarfare and International Brigader Donie 0 'Reilly' syouthful recollections of the 1916 Rising. But theauthor has added some further appendices which aremore informative for the Soviet reader, including oneon Lenin's views on that Rising and another on the draftIrish-Soviet Treaty of 1920.A Russian-language account of the Irish anti-fascistfighters in Spain is indeed a landmark. In view ofthe fact that their leader Prank Ryan was such an ardentGaeilgeoir, an Irish language account is also particularlyappropriate. This need has now been met byEoghan 0 Duinnm with LaNifla Bonita agus an RoisfnDubh. I mbrollach don leabhar ceanna scriobhann EilfsNi Riain go gcuirfeadh se gliondar ar a dearthair,Proinnsias 6 Riain, da mbeadh se boo fos, go bhfuil aleitheid de chuntas ar fail faoi dheireadh, go mormhorle linn comoradh caoga bliain an chogaidh chCanna.Cuimhni cinn pearsanta ata sa leabhar seo agus dabhri sin roghnaionn an t-udar ce hiad na h-Eireannaigha bill sa Bhriogaid Idirnaisiunta gur mian leis a luadhagus re eile nach luaitear in aon chor. Ta iliomadtagairti ann ar nd6igh do laoch faoi leith aige, anRianach fein, agus ni sa Spainne ambain. Ceann de namireanna is suntaisi sa leabhar seo is ea an cur sios athugann an Duinnmeach duinn ar an eite chle i mBaileAtha Cliath le linn na dtriochaidi agus tabhacht anRianaigh mar ceannaire ag an gComhdhail Phoblachtach.Dob'~ an eite chle ceanna d'imigh na h6g1aighEireannacha chun na Spainne, chun an Phoblacht thalla chosaint. Ni hamhain go raibh an Stlit soo againneagus an Eaglais Chaitliceach inan-aghaidh, bill tromlachdaonra na tire fresin agus, nios measa fos, go minic adteaghlaigh fein. Agus an sceal amhlaidh, caithfearaontu gan dabht ar bith le raiteas an udair fein gur'ghniomh dushlanach ag na h-Eireannaigh e an cinneadha rinne siad ar neamh chead do thuairimi nacoitiantachta'. Ni sceallan de ghruaim ata sa leabharseo afach. A mhalairt ata ann, mar ta greann garbh an·udair le feiceail fiu amhain i gcuntas aige ar thrag6idphearsanta. Goineadh Eoghan 6 Duinnm le linn anionsal trasna an Ebro i 1938 agus b'eigean do nadochttiiri cos leis a theascadh ar fad da bharr. Ach se ansuimiu a dheanann se ar an gcailliuint sinna:- 'Peadaima ni, le firinne, go bhfuil cos liom san uaigh'!

REVIEWSJoe Monks was among the earlier Irish anti-fascistvolunteers in Spain who went into action during Christmas1936. His reminiscences, entitled With the Reds inAndalusia, provide a detailed account of the militarysignificance of· that campaign combined with veryvaluable portraits of some of its participants. Again,Frank Ryan looms large and aside from what theaccount reveals of Monks' own background and battleexperiences, the Irish volunteer whose heroism is bestrelated is Frank Edwards. Indeed this is a powerfullyevocative portrait of that Waterford teacher whoseplace in Irish labour history was earned on so manyfronts, with many illustrations of Frank's sharp-tonguedwit.It has taken over fifty years since the death in Spainof Charlie Donnelly for his collected poems to at lastreceive publication. In Charlie Donnelly, the Life andPoems his brother Joseph Donnelly has also broughttogether most, but not all, the tributes to Donnelly fromhis fellow poets - the one from his Republican Congresscolleague· Leslie Daiken being a notable omission.What is particularly valuable about this edition is thatthe collected poems are preceded by a very personalmemoir written by the younger brother which consti~tutes over half of the book. While not sharing hisbrother's politics he nonetheless gives us a very honestinsight into how Charlie Donnelly, coming as he didfrom a comfortable middle class home, became moreand more socially conscious and ultimately involved inthe fight against the oppressive conditions confrontingthe Dublin workirtg-class during the 1930s. When thebook turns to Spain itself the author has performed anexcellent job in drawing on a combination of CharlieDonnelly 's own correspondence and accounts from hisfellow-combatants to provide a very vivid account ofthe course of action which ultimately led to his death atJarama.If Joseph Donnelly's account contains a passingcriticism of some of the military decisions on theRepublican side which resulted in the doomed offensivein which Char lie Donnelly was killed, this is anissue that is gone into with a vengeance in Our Fight­Writings o/Veterans o/the AbrahamLincolnBrigade.The American volunteer Captain Robert Merriman hadloyally implemented -while vigorousl y protesting-someof these decisions at Jarama. His widow, MarionMerriman Wachtel, who herself fought alongside himin Spain, now recounts that controversy in one of thearticles in this collection of reminiscences. During thecourse of preparing this anthology its first editor AlvahBessie died in 1985 (as we were to lose Joe Monks inJanuary of this year), highlighting the manner in whichtime is now increasingly an enemy in securing a comprehensiverange of accounts from participants in thatanti-fascist struggle. Happily Bessie's successor aseditor, fellow International Brigade veteran Al Prago,was able to bring this particular project to completion.It is indeed a remarkably wide-ranging collection ofAmerican veterans' accounts of the struggle to get toSpain in the first place as well as of successive battleson the various fronts. Given the multi-ethnic characterof the Lincoln volunteers themselves, not to mentionthe International Brigades as such, one would understandablyexpect to fmd something particularly Irishamong such accounts. The Irish-American volunteerPaul Bums has provided a very vivid portrait of SergeantMick Kelly of County G al way, commander of theLincoln Battalion's James Connolly Section. Kellyhad been wounded on the Jarama front the same day asCharlie Donnelly was killed. Despite being certified aspartially disabled, however, he ignored doctors' ordersand returned to front-line combat. 'No doubt the wordwent round in the fascist lines that Michael Kelly wasback', writes Bums, 'hearing which General O'Duffyand his blue-shirted Irish legion slunk ignominiouslyinto the last pages of history'. Not a historicallyverifiable detail of cause and effect, of course, butBums knows that such imagery expresses a deeperhistorical truth. And he ends his tribute with a movingaccount of the death in action at Villanueva de laCanada of the Galwaymanofficially confined to 'dutiesof a clerical nature'. .It was also in the Lincoln Batallion that BlackAmericans achieved the historical breakthrough ofcommanding mixed units, something which had beendenied to them in their own country's army. FromMississippi to Madrid represents the memoirs of JamesYates who narrates how Black volunteers like himself,the grandson of a slave, experienced the Spanish Republicas the first place where they ever felt likefreemen. Yates provides us with a frightening pictureof what it was like to be the child of a Black worker inAmerica's Deep South seventy years ago. Indeed theonly white to come to his family's aid during an attackby a Ku Klux Klan lynching party was a sawmill workerwhom he recalls as follows' He had an unusual way ofspeaking English. I could only catch one or two wordsout of ten ... I often heard him talk about a place I'dnever heard of before - Ireland' .Becoming a worker in the industrial North andjoining the Communist Party, Yates volunteered forSpain. There he would meet many Irish, includingFrank Ryan, and be present at a very special Black-Irishevent during a lull from the fight: 'Among the Blackvolunteers on the medical team, Salaria Kee crossed mypath shortly after she arrived in Spain. She was the onlyBlack nurse to serve in the International Brigades ..,Some time before she was wounded, a young ambulancedriver, John Joseph 0' Reilly from Thurles, CountyTipperary in Ireland, discovered the courageous nurse.He was a member of the Connolly Column. The twowere marrried at Villa Paz, an ancient Bourbon estatepressed into service as a hospital for the Republic'.The diversity of nationalities within the Interna-57

58SAOTHAR 13tional Brigades was in itself an appropriate riposte tothe racism of the fascist forces they were confronting.But the 'national question' could occasionally posedifficulties within the Brigades themselves. JosephDonnelly's Memoir quotes from Peter O'Connor'sdiary record of the January 1937 meeting which resultedin 45 Irish volunteers switching battalions. AsO'Connor describes it, 'At that meeting Charlie Donnelly,Johnny Power and myself fought very hard to be'sent to the British Battalion. The main reason given bythose who were for going to the Americans was becauseof the wrongs done to the Irish by the English in the past... It was an understandable, historical but politicalmistake that the vote went against us by such a smallmajority - five votes'.As editor of the Book of the XV Brigade in 1938Frank Ryan ensured that the distinct national contributionof the Irish was appropriately honoured at the timein Spain itself. The book was sub-titled Records of theBritish, American, Canadian, Irish Volunteers. Thecontribution of another nationality was honoured in theSpanish Republic when The Jewish Volunteers forLiberty was published with an introduction by theInspector General of the International Brigades. Jewishvolunteers in Spain numbered 7,000, or a sixth of thetotal International Brigades, the largest single nationalcontribution. And Al Prago rightly includes his ownpioneering research on this contribution in the OurFight anthology, complementing the other nationaltributes which he has included as editor.One such Jewish volunteer, Maurice Levine, hastold his story in Cheetham to Cordova - A ManchesterMan of the Thirties. The son of immigrants who hadfled to Manchester from the Tsarist pogroms in theirnative Lithuania, Levine provides a very colourfulaccount of both immigrant and working class life in thatcity. When the Communist Party, of which he was amember, asked for volunteers for Spain, Levine readilywent in 1936. His account of that war in many waysparallels that of Joe Monks since they fought in thesame engagements in Andalusia.Levine's memoir contains a previously unpublishedaccount of an incident which would be of particularinterest to Irish readers. The commander of theBritish anti-fascists, George Nathan, was recognisedby some of the Irish as a former Black-and-Tan whowas believed to have been involved in the murder inMarch 1921 of the Mayor and ex-Mayor of Limerick.Levine recounts, 'At Madrigueras, Ryan and the otherIrishmen put Nathan on trial for his life, charging himwith being a spy for the Franco forces ... Nathan haddenied the charge and said he had come to Spainbecause he was anti-Fascist ... 'If you want to shoot mefor what happened in Ireland, all right, but I was underorders', ... They eventually accepted his explanationand deleted all references to the past'.Jce Monks had only the warmest of memories ofN athan in Spain and recalls his address to the 43-strongIrish unit which he had formed within the BritishCompany 'Feeling that he was now a Socialist, and abrother in arms to fellow Socialists who not long' agohad been just Nationalists, Nathan referred to the fact.that he had served in Ireland with the Crown forces. Hespecified that he had been with military intelligence inCounty Limerick. His exact words were:- 'We have allgrown up, politically . We are Socialists together now' .The meeting responded to the spirit of his speech andclapped him' .And indeed there cannot have been a more sinceretribute paid to him than that of Frank Edwards whorecalled, 'Nathan was a brave soldier, no matter what issaid or may be suspected of him. He was killed, stillrallying his men in that devil-may-care manner of his,in the Brunete salient north of Madrid, in July 1937'.2Maurice Levitas was a Dublin-born Jewish volunteerwhose father, an immigrant from Lithuania, hadbeen active in the Tailors' and Pressers' Union, commonlyreferred to in Dublin as 'the Jewish Union'. Thestory of Levitas' capture with, among others, FrankRyan and fellow-Dubliner Bob Doyle, as well as theirsubsequent imprisonment in the fascist concentrationcamp of San Pedro de Cardena, is among the individualaccounts detailed by their American fellow-prisonerCarl Geiser in Prisoners of the Good Fight. This bookis indeed a remarkable achievement. Almost fifty yearsafter that War the author tracked down as many survivorsas possible from among Franco's InternationalBrigade prisoners and meticulously chronicled theconflict that went on off the battlefields as anti-fascistprisoners resisted every effort to crush them spirituallyand often physically. New testimony as to Ryan'sbravery under such conditions as well as previouslyunpublished accounts of Dubliners such as Levitas andDoyle are of course of particular interest to the Irishreader.An American-Jewish prisoner who played a keyrole as Ryan's interpreter at the time of capture was thelate Max Parker. This is not the place to provide adetailed musical appreciation of Max Parker's powerfulrendition of an international repetoire of prisoners'songs from San Pedro de Cardena, which he recordedin 1982 when he was 70 years of age under the title AlTocar Diana. The record, however, also contains anarrative in which Parker reminisces about his experi-. ences of fighting fascism in Spain, as well as an accompanyingpamphlet in which these reminiscences areexpanded in greater detail. His particular admirationfor the inspiration which Frank Ryan gave to his fellowprisonersis again noteworthy. But Max Parker performedanother service to the history of Irish antifascistsin Spain when he recorded, to the air of 'O'Donnel!Abu~, an anthem of the Irish prisoners which wasotherwise either subsequently forgotten by those whosurvived or remained but a dim memory, 'The Con·

REVIEWSnolly-Column Song','Proudly we're marching, proudly we're singingThe song of our country we all hold so dearFar from our native land, proudly we take our standWe're members of the International Brigades.Think of the guns we bear, think of the clothes wewearThink of the insults endured in thy nameTempered by the sun of Spain, hardened by thewind and rainWe're members of the International Brigades.'3NotesManus O'Riordan1. Michael O'Riordan, The Con.n.olly Column, (NewBooks, Dublin, 1979). .2. UinseannMacEoin (ed), Survivors, (Dublin, 1980),p 13. .3. I am grateful toMary Parker, widow of Ma x Parker,for permission to quote the Connolly Column song.(Mary Parker's parents hailed from Oughterard,Co. Galway.) No Connolly Column veteran I'vespoken to could remember the song any more!Ronnie Munck and Bill Rolston, Belfast In the ThIrties:An Oral History, (BlackstaffPress, Belfast, 1987),pp. 209,£9.95The 1798 Rebellion and the 1932 Outdoor ReliefStrike have a special symbolic significance for manyIrish radicals. Both have been used as evidence thatProtestants and Catholics can transcend sectarian divisions,and unite against injustice. In recent years,however, some historians - mostly Unionist - haveargued that the unity of the 1790s was spurious, onlybriefly and partially masking ongoing sectarian conflict.One of the aims of the book reviewed here is tosimilarly deromanticise the 1932 strike, but this timefrom a leftist point of view. .The authors state their po si tion clearly. They arguethat in recent history there have been two major forcesoperating in working class life in Belfast; sectarianismand socialism. These do not necessarily cancel oneanother out. The apparent paradox, that the unity of the1932 strike was followed in 1935 by some of the worstsectarian violence seen in Belfast, is overcome whenwe realise that neither was an isolated occurrence.Socialism and sectarianism operated in Belfast beforeand after the 1930s. The upsurge of popular protest in1932 meant that for a time sectarianism was 'quiescent',but there is no need to postulate a sudden break-through in Belfast working-class consciousness. Forthe authors, the events of the 1930s are directly relevantto a central question for the Irish left. Can socialism beachieved and sectarianism obliterated before the nationalquestion it settled? Rolston and Munck, whodescribe their book in the concluding chapter as a'study of republicanism', make their own position veryclear. This will rouse strong passions in many readers,but whatever one feels about the position, their at timesalmost polemical statemeiIt of it makes a refreshingchange from historical works which pretend at empiricalobjectivity.AlI'of this would be sufficient to make the bOok asubject of debate. However, the bulk of the text dealswith working class life in the 1930s. Chapters dealingwith unemployment, poverty, and working'conditionsprecede a discussion of organised labour and republicanmovements in the city. Outlining the data presentedcould completely fill this review and createalmost as many arguments as the central theme. (Werethere 1,000 communists in Belfast during the 1930s asBetty Sinclair claimed, or fifty, a more accurate figureaccording to the authors?). Discussing the historicalcontent, however, would preclude consideration ofanother of the book's most important aspects - the oralhistory method used.. Labour historians have been attracted to oral historybecause of its potential to provide access to theexperience of the mass of working class people, whopreviously were anonymous. Many conventional historians,however, dismiss the method as, in A.I.P.Taylor's words, 'old men drooling about their youth'.Munck and Rolston strongly defend oral history, whiletaking major criticisms of the method into' account.They carefully describe how the fifty people interviewedwere chosen, and how interviews were conducted.They also describe how they cross-checkeddata with contemporary writings, and other oral sources.A frequent charge made against oral history is thatit is bound to be simply anecdotal. This is not how it isused in this book. Some sections, such as the generalsurvey of unemployment, or the description of sectarianattacks in 1935, are based largely on documentarysources, and oral tes timony is used to enrich the data, orto provide examples. Buteven in these sections the oralevidence is vital. Accounts such as the one describinga young Catholic couple's desperate and futile attemptto escape from a sectarian mob drive home the obscenityof this kind of atrocity more forcefully than statisticsof burnings or killings ever could.The method really comes into its own, however, inareas where it is the only possible historical source.Some of the most impressive sections of the book dealwith the variety of ways in which families tried to makeends meet, the position of women in working classfamilies, and the ways in which people heard aboutwork, or used patronage to get it. The detailed descrip-59

60tions of recruitment to the IRA and how it operated inBelfast during the 1930s would not be available fromcontemporary written sources.The oral data, which include three life historiesdescribing a shipyard worker's life, a republican's life,and a young worker's gradual conversion to socialism,are so fascinating that it seems almost petty to questionthe method by which they were collected. However, inthe last short chapter of the book, the authors deal withsome deeper problems raised by oral history. Someright wing phenomenologists in the social scienceshave dismissed the possibility of historical data beingextracted from an oral account. The account maycontain such data, they argue, but it can only be understoodas part of a communication between teller andlistener, which expresses their ongoing social relationship.Munck and Rolston would agree that the oralaccount is part of a living social relationship betweenteller and listener, but they also stress the relationshipbetween past and present. They see these connectionsas a strength rather than a weakness of the method, andpresumably expect their book to operate in the sameway. It is about the past, but it is given its meaning bythe present, and itmay have relevance for planning thefuture. The problems of oral history are in the end theproblems of any attempt at human understanding. Weare all in it up to the neck. We cannot detach ourselvesfrom life, or even bracket parts of it off except as a verytemporary stage in analysis.This is a very stimulating book. Many readers willbe arguing with it even while reading it. They shouldcertainly be arguing after they have finished it. Whetheror not the authors have achieved one of their centralaims, to debunk the 'myth' that 1932 was a transcendentmoment for the Belfast working class is problematic.They are certainly convincing when they arguethat most participants in the ODR strike did not seethemselves as part of a pre-revolutionary, anti-imperialiststruggle, and that sectarianism was only partiallyin abeyance even during the strike. However, to paraphraseE.P. Thompson, to say that something is a mythis not to say that it is all false. 1932 should remain asan inspiration. The events were remarkable, and thepreviously unsung heroes, who are now on recordthanks to this fine book, set us all an example by theirgenerosity of spirit, and sheer courage.Jonathan BellJim Cooke, Technical Education and the Foundationof the Dublin United Trades Council, 1886-1986. (feachers' Union of Ireland, Dublin, 1987), pp.64, no priceJohn Cunningham, with introduction by Michael D.Higgins, Mayday! Galway and the Origins ofInternationalLabour Day, (Galway West ConstituencySAOTHAR 13Council of the Labour Party, Galway, 1987), pp. 12, nopriceMichael Enright, Men of Iron: Wexford FoundryDisputes, 1890-1911. (Wexford Council of TradeUnions, Wexford, 19~7), pp. 68, illustrated, £2.00It is good that the current upsurge of interest in localhistory is not without its fair share of studies in labourand trade union affairs. Indeed, the investigation of thelabour movement at local level affords a tremendousscope to the aspiring historian, not merely because solittle has as yet been done, but also because the subjectitself is so diverse, a point well illustrated by the threepamphlets under review.John Cunningham takes Mayday! Galway and theorigins of International Labour Day as his theme andshows how an event with its origins in the evolution ofthe American trade union movement assumed an internationaldimension as labour's struggles became morepoliticised; especially in the aftermath of the BolshevikRevolution, when Red Flags came to plague the peaceof-mindof Galway's employers in 1919. He tells hisstory briefly but well, and one has but to close one'seyes to visualise milling workers outside the town hallat GoTt, lustily singing the 'Red Flag', to get a rareglimpse of what is the very guts of labour's story.Technical Education and the Foundation of theDublin United Trades' Council, 1886-1986, by JimCooke of the Teachers' Union of Ireland, undertakesthe far more ambitious task of portraying the contributionsof trade unionism to the establishment of technicaleducation. In a work of some 60 odd pages he givesan outline of the Capital's trade union heritage, evolvingfrom the medieval guild system, surviving thecombination laws of the 18th century, and anti-tradeunion laws of the 19th century, to the founding of theUnited Dublin Trades Council in 1886. Along the waythe author outlines the haphazard fashion in which theinstitutionalisation of technical education evolved inthe city, from its origins in the Mechanics' Institutemovement of 1825, to the establishment of a municipaltechnical school at Kevin Street in 1887, the first of itskind in the country. A study such as this invariablyprovides a bountiful supply of new and interestinginformation. I wonder how many today appreciate theimportance of the role played by the trade unions in thefounding of Kevin Street technical school. I certainlydidn't when, years ago, I trudged through its doors atnight to fulfil my apprenticeship obligations.The Pierce foundry in Wexford town was a longways from Kevin Street in more ways than one, and thisis well depicted by Michael Enright, whose bookletMen of Iron I enjoyed immensely. It is a wellresearchedand tightly written story of strife, of defeatsand of victory, as Wexford's iron workers came to gripswith the bread and butter aspects of industrial relations.The centre piece of the pamphlet is the lockout of 1911,

REVIEWSresulting from the arrival of the rrGWU on the localscene. The story of the ensuing conflict is front-linestuff: provocation, confrontation, rallies, importedblacklegs, baton-charges, arrests, yes, even a fatality inthe person of Michael Leary, who died from a blow ofa peeler's baton. The lockout dragged on from Agusut1911 to February 1912, first under the leadership ofP.T. Daly, then under James Connolly, who secured thesettlement which gave victory to the workers."Sean DalyTom Lyng, Castlecomer Connections, ExploringHistory, Geography and Social Evolution in NorthKilkenny Environs, (Castlecomer History Society,Castlecomer, 1984), pp. 429, £17.50Th~ beautifully produced book is a tribute to thehard working local committee that succeeded in publishingthe outstanding work of local historian, TomLyng. Heavily illustrated with photographs of excellentquality, the reader is introduced to various 'Connections'ranging from topographical to diocesan ones.For the labour historian, however, there is much tointerest those seeking regional accounts of radical andrevolutionary movements in detailed treatments of theCroppies, land agitators and the North Kilkenny Battalion.Radical politics was best expressed through theactions of the Castlecomer miners.Lyng details the origins of mining in the area from1600. He illustrates the descriptions of the variousprocesses and techniques with contemporary prints ofIffie drawings of method and maps of both surface andunderground workings to build a fme mental image ofthe industry and its demanding conditions. The men,their skills, families and leisure activities then follow inan account that demonstrates a deep comprehension ofthe miner and an equally clear commitment to theircause. Whilst the account is sympathetic, it is balancedand accurate. He sketches the family history of theultimate mine owners, the Prior Wandesfordes and usesoral history techniques in the reproduction of the extensiveand impressive account by Eamonn Brennan inpainting a picture of a' typical Castlecomertownminer',Jack Doyle. Lyng concludes his account by detailingthe various trade union organisations that flourished inthe town and their leaders, men of rare quality such asNixie Boran and Jimrny Walsh. He suggests that at theend of1971 'Nixie and the Colliery culture died', but itremains and was evidenced by the village'S generouswelcome to Ann Scargill and arrangement of holidaysfor South Wales Miners' children in the British coalstrikeofl984-5. Lyng's book will also help to maintainthat identity and allow outsiders to evaluate the importanceof the much ne glected area oflocal history for thelabour historian. Over four hundred pages, all lavishlyillustrated, make the book great value and an endlesssource of interest as a document of essentially ordinarylifestyles in a rural small town in Ireland over twocenturies.61Francls DevlneR. Mitchinson & P. Roebuck (eds), Economy andSociety in Scotland and Ireland, 1500-1939, (JohnDonald, Edinburgh, 1988), pp. 319,£20'Labour History' too often restricts itself to organisedmen in industrial society - 'if you can't fmd a tradeunion, then it's not labour history'. A collection of thissort belies that restricted view. Here we have a broadsweep of studies on the economy and society in Scotlandand Ireland over four and a half centuries whichcarmot fail to touch on some aspect of the lives of theworking people of both cO'untries.The essays are the proceedings of the third conferenceof economic and social historians of Ireland andScotland held at Magee College, Derry in September1985. The volume is set out in three sections. 'Land,Lordship and the Market Economy' deals with therelation between tradition and change in the rural worldof the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; 'SocialAdjustment and Economic Transition' looks at issuesarising in the period of economic divergence, such asreal wages, poverty, diet and class relations; 'PrivateEnterprise and Public Policy' concerns itself with industrialand infrastructural developments in the nineteenthand twentieth centuries. There is in these twentyfiveessays something for most tastes and the introductionby Mitchinson and Roebuck is a comprehensiveoverview of the essays and of the conference itself.In the first section the comparative essays were themore interesting. Roebuck's piece comparing the economicsituation and functions of substantial land-ownersin Ulster'and Lowland Scotland from the late seventeenthto the early nineteenth centuries concluded thatthe pressures on some Ulster land-owners preventedthem from successfully changing their region's ruraleconomy. Fragmentation of tenancies prevented consolidationof holdings and industrial developmentemerged in the countryside. In Low land Scotland landownerssuccessfully -from their point of view -consolidatedholdings into substantial farms and promotedagriCUltural improvement while industrial develomentcentred on towns and villages, soaking up the inevitablerural de-population. As far as the powerless rural workerswere concerned, the results were probably littledifferent - in crude terms they were alienated from theland to provide labour for the developing industrialrevoluton: in the case of Ulster the physical alienationwas only partial and the compensating industrial workwhich was available turned out to be less secure than

62that available to the Scottish Lowland urban workerwho was completely dependent on industrial developmentThe other essays in the fIrs t section deal with issueswhich, on the face of it, may seem arcane to thoseinterested in popular history. But this is not always so.A discussion of land and lordship in sixteenth andseventeenth century Ireland, for instance, reminds us ofthe reification of rights, the disruption of traditionalsocial connections and the growth of dependency onthe colonial power. Lordship, while a feudal concept,did have some sense oflegitimacy, particularly in celticculture and society: strenuous but not always successfulefforts were made to break the dependency of thelordship on the people and replace it with a dependencyon the government. Equally, West Highland chiefsengaged, over two centuries, in what might be describedas proto-capitalist concentration of wealth andthe means of exchange which laid the foundations forthe development in the eighteenth century of absenteeism,money rents, reification of rights and, eventually,the eviction of the 'clanspeople'. A study of landedsociety during the inter-regnum in both Scotland andIreland reveals that this period of standardisation andcentralised government did not lead to uniformity inboth countries: the crucial difference being Ireland'sstatus as a colony.The middle section of the essays throws up anumber of very interesting contributions. Connollyproposes a reassessment of the policing aspects of thetraditional 'unruly Ireland/quiescent Scotland' view bysuggesting that the harsh measures deemed necessaryagainst some popular disturbances in eighteenth centuryScotland and the systematic extension of militarycontrol over the Highlands saw no Irish equivalent untilthe end of the century. Things did, of course, changethen. Devine also contrasts the relative levels of unrestand stability in rural Ireland and Scotland in the period1760-1840. He contrasts the more or less acquiescentacceptance of change in rural Lowland Scotland withthe sporadic resistance in Ireland in the same period.Equally, while Highland resistance was a last-ditch andpoorly organised reaction to the threat of eviction, Irishdefence of the peasant code was more organised, withmilitary overtones.Aspects of the more modem period are addressed inthe third section. A contribution on the linen industriesof Scotland and Ireland compares its continuing preeminencein Ireland in the mid-nineteenth century withits less prominent role in Scotland and underlines thefact that the Scottish, or Angus, coarse linen comple~mented rather than competed with the Irish fIne linen.Two essays illuminate the darker recesses of banking.The fIrst, on bank lending in post-famine Ireland,argues that the banks' role was more positive andcomplex than had previously been suggested while theother proposes a positive reassessment of the role of theSAOTHAR 13banks in the development of Scottish industry. Thediffering signifIcance and importance of sewing outworkingamong women in the social and. economicdevelopment of Scotland and Ulster is teased out byBrenda Collins in an essay on the 'flowerers' of bothcountries. In Ulster, sewing seems to have underpinnedand encouraged the spread of business enterprise to aless industrialised area while in Scotland no such connectionexisted, runildevelopment concentrated on theagriCUltural and young people emigrated to the cities,especially Glasgow. The physical interface betweenScotland and Ireland is, of course, the sea and it isperhaps not surprising, as Vivien Pollock shows, thatconnections between the Down fIshing industry and itsScottish counterpart were strong. The place of theDown industry in the wider industry perhaps explainswhy fresh fish from local sources are much less predominantthan, say, on the Angus coast. GrahamWalker contrasts the way in which the labour movementin Scotland overcame much of its early sectarianproblems, largely because of its dilution in broader UKissues, to become an integral part of the British labourmovement in the inter-war period. In Northern Irelandno such victory, he argues, was possible: it was notbuilt into the British labour movement, it operated in aUnionist statelet where the national question remainedparamount and the labour movement could not effectivelyrise above sectarianism to embrace class politics.Overall, this is a useful comparative study of theeconomy and society of Scotland and Ireland over theperiod 1500-1939, and itis one which many interestedin labour history will enjoy dipping into. There are afew valuable nuggets in this volume and a few reassessmentsmay also be lurking there.Ken LogueJames D. Young, Making Trouble. AutobiographicalExplorations and Socialism, (Clydeside Press,Glasgow, 1987), pp. 129, £4.20 paperbackMaking Trouble is a short, highly readable, andprovocative book. The author, a Scottish socialist andlabour historian, presents his case for a more optimistic'democratic socialism' based on a tradition of socialism-from-belowwhich he traces through Maclean, deLeon and Debs. This Promethean tradition is counterposedto the Leninist tradition to which he attributesmuch of the 'serious crisis of late twentieth centurysocialism' and accuses of 'hiding behind a cynical,tired and timeless, urihistoric and abstract internationalismunrelated to real communities or real people'.While such arguments are clearly contentious andhighly debatable, the power of this book lies, to a largeextent, in the conviction of the author in his presentationof his argument. Young develops his polemic in

REVIEWS,63the book by means of an amalgam of autobiography andanalysis of the state of the socialism in a number ofcontemporary societies: .The book contains five main chapters, each cOntributingto the development of his central thesis concerningthe way forward for socialists in contemporarysociety. The firSt two chapters follow the course of theauthor's early life in a working.class community in theEast of Scotland and onwards through his return toeducation at N ewbattle Abbey and Ruskin. Chapter ~meprovides a colourful and descriptive insight into 'workingclass life in that part of Scotland from the 1930sonwards and reveals the formative influences on Youngin his development towards being a 'professional histo- .rian',and a 'democratic socialist' . Although the particularmedium through which he chooses to articulate thisearly part of the book suffers, by its very nature, froma degree of subjective selectivity, it is nevertheless aninteresting and illuminating device, if only because itleaves the reader with more questions than answers.The author, by means of this autobiographicalexploration of his early life, not only allows us aninsight into the privations of working class existenceduring this period but also, more importantly, laysstress on the divisions, bigotries, prejudices and contradictionswithin the working class community of hisyouth. If for nothing else, this book is laudable for itseffective destruction of the superficial romanticism ofthe 'Kailyard' school of Scottish writing. However, thequality which exerts itself most strongly in this chapter,and indeed throughout the book, is the optimism exhibitedin the political potential of the working class to bethe conscious harbingers of radical change within oursociety. Chapter two, in which the author describes hisexperiences at Newbattle and Ruskin against the politicallyvolatile backcloth of post-war Europe and America,again provides the reader with a number of interestinginsights both into the political development of theauthor himself and into the debates and characters ofthe British Left at that time.The latter part of the book contains chapters onPoland (which includes an interesting discussion on therelationship between the Catholic Church and the rulingCommunist Party); and another on 'ContemporaryScotland' in which he explores the dynamic betweennationalism and socialism, the emergence of a popularand irreverent counter-culture, and the potential for thefuture development of socialism in Scotland. Finally,he defends his polemic against what he secs as theredundant pessimism of 'socialist intellectualism'.In conclusion, this is a book worth reading both forwhat it has to say (and perhaps for what it does not say)and for the way in which it says it. Its style and presentationmake it accessible to a wide r'ange of potentialreaders throughout the trade union and labour movement.Kenny ChrlstlneRonaldo Munck, The Difficult Dialogue: Marxismand Nationalism, (Zed Books, LOndon, & AtlanticHighlands, New Jersey, 1986), pp. 184, no priceAny book on Marxism and Nationalism is welcomein the hope thatit might illuminate what Munck labels'The Difficult Dialogue'. He offers a basically chronologicaljourney; the treatment is economical and inforcmative, the test is a handy guide for anyone seeking apath tln:"9ugh thi§ swamp. Significant figures and themesare introduced and analysed. The scope is wide and iscertainly free from Eurocentrism. But sometimes thepace is too brisk. There is a staccato-like tendency toorganise the material too much around quotations fromauthorities. On occasions, Munck's own argumentsbecome submerged beneath a concern to incorporate awealth of reference within a relatively brief text Indeedthis is that rare phenomenon, a book that couldhave been lengthened with profit.Any treatment of this complex topic surely requirestwo strands. One is the analysis of the protagonists'arguments. How do they define their key concepts?How coherent are their arguments? How do a specificwriter's claims relate to other positions in the Marxisttradition? Yet there is also a need to relate theoreticalclaims to an often recalcitrant world. Some ofMunck' shistorical references are both significant andcontroversial.For example, in discussing the collapse of Socialistinternationalism in August 1914, he suggests (p. 36)• that there had been an 'ebbing of the anti-militaristmovement amongst the European working class'. Thesupporting evidence is limited and ambiguous. TheOctober 1912 mobilisation of Berlin workers againstwar ignores the basic distinction between opposition towar in the abstract and opposition to a specific andimmediate war threat. The anti-war declaration of theSocialist International 's Basle Congress should be seenas a formal decision within an institution backed by fewresources, not as clear evidence of working class opinion.These are difficult yet fundamental questions, butthey must be faced if the complexities of the dialogueare to be appreciated. Arguably the lack of historicaldepth weakens the treatment of Ireland.Munck suggests that the Irish case produced significantdevelopments in the thinking of Marx andEngels on the National Question, but he could havepenetrated further into their specific analysis. Oneconcern by the end of the 1860s was clearly instrumental.It was based on the judgment that Anglo-Irishtensions within the working class in Britain had. aderadicalising impact on the British Labour movement.The conflict combined economic and national rivalries.The consequence for Marx was clear: 'This antagonism... is the secret of the impotence of the Englishworking class ... q. A response to this diagnosis must be complex.Anti-Irish prejudice was politically significant, but

64SAOTHAR13perhaps Marx and Engels over-generalised from theLancashire case. More crucially, is it reasonable tocharacterise this as 'the secret' of English workingclass 'impotence '? Marx and Engels knew all too wellthat any adequate explanation of British working classreformism was complex and was not cashable into asimple proposition.. Their diagnosis incorporated a nineteenth centuryvariant on the domino thesis. A successful attack onlandlordism in Ireland would generate a weakening ofaristocratic rule in Britain - how simple it all seemed.'Ireland lost, the British Empire is gone and the classwar in England till now somnolent and chronic willassume acute forms'.2The fear about loss of Empire might have helped tofuel British opposition to Home Rule in the 1880s, butthere is a massive difference between Establishmentparanoia and Marxist wishful thinking on the one hand- and on the other, a thorough interrogation of expectationsby inconvenient facts. The dominoes never fellaccording to plan.Marx was clearly right to emphasise the centralityof the Anglo-Irish relationship for an understanding ofnineteenth century politics. His proposition 'Any nationthat oppresses another forges its own chain '. retainsits resonance, but this should not inhibit the asking ofsignificant questions. If the claim is to be more than amoral judgment about the character of genuine freedom,then it raises the problem of the connectionbetween internal and external oppressions. Marx cer- •tainly posed the question, but surely his substantiveanswer has serious weaknesses. Indeed Marx's writingson Ireland retain a concept of the 'nation' which isnot integrated into his overall theory.' He suggests theinseparability of the land question from the nationalone without clarifying the latter's theoretical status;and in correspondence he is prepared to toss in anational stereotype as an explanatory aid. 'The passionatecharacter of the Irish and the fact that they are morerevolutionary than the English'.3 Overall the problemwith Munck's treatment of Marx and Engels is that anawareness of the significance of their questions shouldnot deflect us from a thoroughly critical assessment oftheir answers.The treatment of Connolly raises similar problems:The initial survey is brief and the lack of reference tocontext makes it easy to claim that his attitude towardsIrish Nationalism was consistent. One strand in Munck'sassessment of Connolly's politics is stereotyped. Inwhat sense could the Irish Citizen Army as involved inthe 1916 Rising be seen as 'the advance guard of theIrish Labour movement'? Here indeed is an ideologicalsymbol masquerading as historical fact. Similarly itseems inadequate to argue that Connolly's writings onnationalism were consistently Leninist. Surely thosepieces articulating the morality of Catholic Ireland orpraising the superiority of German civilisation wouldhave posed a few problems for Vladimir Ilyich? Connolly,a principled Socialist facing agonising choicescannot be given a ready label and so consigned to hisdoctrinal niche.The analysis of recent debates over Marxism andIrish Nationalism is controversial. In response to thosehe characterises as Revisionists,4 Munck suggests thatpartition is a question of democracy and as such ofconcern to Socialists. He contrasts the reality of partitionimposed by military force with the hypotheticalpossibility of consent by a majority of the Irish people.Yet a few lines further on we are told that 'the wholemethod of a numerical head count is 'un Marxist' - themain question should be whether a nationalist war ishindering or promoting the prospects of s~cialism'.(pp. 64-65) .This conflates two claims into one. Certainly thereis a strand in the Marxist tradition which insists thatradical changes will not be produced as a consequenceof formal majority decisions, but as a result of directaction. Yet there remains in principle the insistencethat such a strategy be based on widespread support.The claim is that formal headcounts tend to be overwhelmedby other methods at moments of decisivechange; whether they deserve excommunication to theranks of the 'un Marxist' is another matter. This is aseparate issue from Munck's 'main question'. It issurprising to fmd a consequentialist morality trottedoutas if the history ofthis bleak century had never been.A bald justification of actions in terms of consequencesraises the obvious question of limits on means. Ofcourse consequences are significant in any socialistproject but a failure to discuss the complex relationshipof means and ends is a deficiency that socialist argumentcan do without.Munck's subsequent statement - 'Most independentobservers seem to agree that the war is destabilisingthe bourgeois political structure of north and south.Irish unity would be achieved in this process as part ofa much wider social revolution which would overthrowthe structures of dependent capitalism'. (p. 65) - makesa massive claim.If socialist experience teaches anything it is thatradical projects often have unexpected, sometimes grim,consequences. This should not be a veto on radicalismbut simply a plea for an awareness of complexities.This is absent from Munck' s image of stages - 'Until thenational question is settled, there can be no 'pure' classpolitics in Ireland'. (p. 65)But what would count as a settlement of the nationalquestion? What is a pure class' politics? Whatabout the' Unionist working class so absent from theanalysis? The Revisionists are reproached for theirformalism, but what else is this?These criticisms must be placed in context. TheIrish material is only one element in a wide ranging andknowledgeable text. Given the difficulties of the dia-

REVIEWSlogue, it is hardly surprising that Munck's treatment ofany particular theme will generate controversy. He isright to insist on the centrality of this dialogue tosocialist politics; a formal internationalism has toooften been an evasion. Yet the terms of the complexdebate can constitute their own kind of evasion. Claimsmust be fitted continually against a complex world.Here is another difficult dialogue.NotesDavld HoweIl1. Marx to Mayer and Vogt, 9 April, 1870 in SelectCorrespondence edited by DonaTorr, (London, 1941),p.290.2. Cited by Munck p. 18, sources to Marx and EngelsIreland and the Irish Question, (Moscow, 1971), p.290.3. Marx to Mayer and Vogt, 9 April, 1870, loc .cit., pp.288-289.4. The label is applied to Paul Bew, Peter Gibbon,Henry Patterson and Austen Morgan.BarryColdrey, Faith and Fatherland: The ChristianBrothers and the DevelopmentofIrish Nationalism,1838-1921, (Gill and MacMilIan, Dublin, 1988), pp.338, £27.50Coldrey is in a unique position to write 50th objectivelyand with an insider's perspective on the ChristianBrothers. An historian from Australia, he is himself aChristian Brother and this book is based on a PhD forthe University of Melbourne. It is divided into fivemain sections: Christian Brothers' education and thepatriotic challenge; the education of the rural elite; theideology of resistance; the language revival and nationalism;and the Brothers and political questions.This is not a history of the Brothers nor does itpretend to be. The author confines his argument strictlywithin the limits suggested by the sub-title. WhatEdmund Rice set out to do was to educate, in a distinctivelyCatholic fashion, young boys who had no prospectof receiving education from any other source.Later in the nineteenth century the Brothers were tooffer secondary education to a slightly higher socialclass. In both of these activities the Brothers werepromoting, probably unconsciously, a social revolution.While the content of their education, particularlythe teaching of Irish history, could be seen in retrospectto have had political implications, what was moredecisive in the medium term was that an entire segmentof society was receiving an education previously restrictedto their 'social superiors'. As Coldrey suc-cinctly puts it: 'In a colonial situation education isinherently revolutionary'. (p.5), The Brothers not only taught boys from poorer. backgrounds: the content of their education was differentfrom that of other schools, including those of otherCatholic teaching orders. The Brothers were concernedabove all with the socio-economic advancementof their pupils; hence their concentration on the morepractical subjects such as book-keeping and mechanics.Later developments in nineteenth century educationlaid a far greater emphasis on examination performanceand in time the Brothers' Schools, particularlythe more famous ones such as the North Monasteryin Cork and O'Connell's in Dublin were to dominatethe awards arising out of the 'payments by results'system in spite of the strong oppositon of the Catholiccolleges and their Protestant counterparts.The author examines in some detail the influence ofthe Brothers on the generation that eventually achievedIrish independence. His researches have revealed that125 past-pupils of O'Connell's were involved in the1916 Rising while only five past-pupils of the JesuitBelvedere College, a few hundred yards from O'Connell's,were traced. Seven of the fifteen men (notfourteen as Coldrey states) executed in Dublin after theRising had attended Brothers' schools.Coldrey does not fail to distinguish differenceswithin the Brothers, above all in the attitudes of theolder and younger members towards the 'NationalQuestion'. There were frequent differences of opinionbetween conserv ativ e superiors-general such as RichardMaxwell and young novices, just as there were in thepriesthood and indeed the hierarchy, althoughColdreydoes not develop this.It would be easy to criticise this book for failing togive any account of the relationship between lay teachersand the Brothers who were their employers, or therelationship between the Brothers and the hierarchy,but such topics are outside the scope of this study. Therole of the Brothers in cultivating a strong sense ofpatriotism through a romantic and simple version ofIrish history, of Gaelic sports, of songs and ballads, andin the revival of the Irish language are all dealt withconvincingly through deep and thorough research.The structure of the book is thematic rather thanchronological and this sometimes makes forrepetition.This, however, is a minor criticism. Coldrey hasdocumented admirably the role of the Brothers in thegrowth of a conscious and articulate Irish nationalismin the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Someof the evidence he cites is necessarily impressionisticbut compares more than favourably with present-dayassessments on the role of the Christian Brothers inindependent Ireland, which has not been subject tosimilar treatment.Coldrey might have incorporated the growth of the65

66SAOTHAR 13Brothers within the spectacular growth of the institutionalCatholic church in nineteenth century Ireland inorder to give a wider context. For example, in 1831there were only 45 brothers while in 1891 there werenearly 1,000. This great increase did not take place ina vacuum as the increase in the number of priests andparticularly nuns, demonstrated. While the great changeswrought by Paul Cullen are touched on, moderriisationof Irish society at large is not given the attention itdeserves. The inherent equation of Catholicism withNationalism that runs throughout the book can certainlybe questioned. The conflict between Republicanismand Catholicism is not dealt with in any depth,though in this respect it would be unfair to single outColdrey as most Irish historians have flot given thisissue the attention it deserves. At times the writing israther bland and unadventurous: 'In teaching Irishhistory the Brothers were part of a socialisation processthat did something to undermine British hegemony inIreland'. (p. 139) In his conclusion the author writesthat 'The nature of the Brothers' influence is circumstantialand cannot be quantified ... but there is such anaccumulation of circumstantial evidence that a substantialcontribution by the Christian Brothers to thegrowth of Irish national consciousness can confidentlybe inferred'. (p. 271) This is, perhaps, too modest aclaim. The mass of information that Coldrey has un- •earthed has added substantially to our knowledge ofIrish nationalism and for this reason alone this bookdeserves a wide readership.Enda McKayable pointers on the uses of trade journals as a primarysource for the study of social and economic history inIreland. Periodicals such as the Irish Vintner andGrocer, the Farmer's Gazette and the Irish MotorTrader both educated theirreaders and acted as propagandistson their behalf, but yet, compared to newspapersare a very neglected source for social and economichistory.Scientific journals are represented by a case studyof the s'pecialist periodicals of the Geological society ofIreland. TugannCaoilfhionnNic Pha.idmcuntas ginearaltaduinn ar na hlris! Gaeilge i dtr! ranganna, iris!acadula, iris! literartha agus nuachtliin, ach is ar staid nateangan fein agus n! ar chas an leinn atli an beim.David Dickson's brief survey of historical journalsconcentrates more on the market for such publicationsthan on their content. Finally Peter Denman discussesIreland's 'little magazines', part of the definition ofwhich he tells us that the little magazine is 'not a'learned journal' and does not exist to disseminateknowledge within any particular academic or scientificdiscipline'. The same could perhaps be said of 300Years of Irish Periodicals. It is neither book tradehistory, nor intellectual history, nor social history, buttouches on all these and on more. It has the laudable aimof attempting to draw attention to the heritage which islocked away within the covers of the vastrangeoflittleknown periodicals which have been produced in Irelandover the last 300 years. More attention might havebeen given to proof reading and production to eliminatetypographical errors,jumbled paragraphs, and the mostunsuitable quality of paper used in the cover.I"Barbara Hayley & Enda McKay (eds), 300 Years ofIrish Periodicals, (Association of Irish Learned Journals,Gigginstown, Lilliput Press, Dublin, 1987), pp.146, £12.95 hardback, £7.95 paperbackDesigned to accompany an exhibition mounted bythe Association of Irish Learned Journals in 1987, thispublication does not, however, deal exclusively withlearned journals. Rather the seven short essays are amiscellaneous collection on selected aspects of thehistory of Irish periodicals with little uniformity ofpurpose or approach. Apart from Barbara Brown'sessay which analyses the periodical holdings of theRoyal Dublin Society Library in the eighteenth century,the emphasis is on the late nineteenth and twentiethcenturies. Illustrations, mainly title pages of someof the periodicals discussed, occupy a quarter of thebook.Barbara Hayley's essay on periodicals as the voiceof nineteenth century Ireland, despite traditional"nationalistassumptions about the impact of the Union,outlines a fresh approach to source material for understandingthat century, Enda McKay offers some valu-Bernadette Cunningham

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Essays'Godliness and Good Citizenship': Evangelical Protestantism andSocial Control in Ulster, 1790-1850Elie Halevy's famous thesis that the growth of evangelical Protestantism made a substantialcontribution to English social stability during the period of the industrial revolution by imbuing upperand middle class Englishmen with a new sense of moral duty to the poor, and by channelling workingclass energies into politically safe forms, has occasioned a remarkably prolific historiographicaldebate.! The range of interpretations is, of course, bewildering and ultimately owes as much toideological disagreements about the nature of religion itself as it does to different methods ofinvestigation. But in general terms one can state that the pioneering work of E.P. Thompson and EricHobsbawm in the 1950s and 1960s was concerned primarily with the relationship between evangelicalreligion (particularly Methodism) and the development - or lack of it - of political and classconsciousness. 2 This controversy is far from over, as the recent work on the contribution of religionto the factory culture of nineteenth century Lancashire has shown,3 but increasingly the debate hasshifted away from the role of religion in the social structure to the actual content, meaning andexperience of popular religion within a wider social environment. 4 This work has shown that popularreligion cannot always be understood as a mere solvent of class tensions but rather has the capacity torelate to the wider concerns of ordinary people including home and family life, community morality,social and ethnic identity, literacy and education, self-improvement and respectability, work andleisure, and the development of political consciousness. sIn Ireland the impact of evangelical religion has been considered almost exclusively in terms of itscontribution to internal denominational conflicts or to sectarian animosities in society as a whole. 6Thus the problems of ecclesiastical discipline posed by evangelicals within the Church of Ireland andthe debates within Irish Presbyterianism in the 1820s have been well documented, as has the evangelicalcrusade into Catholic Ireland by the so-called Second Reformation movement. 7 A remarkableresurgence of interest in the history of Irish evangelicalism in the past decade has considerablyexpanded our knowledge of these areas without challenging the old agenda of priorities. s What has beensingularly lacking, with a few notable exceptions, has been a serious attempt to understand the impactof a multi -or even non-denominational evangelicalism on nineteenth century Irish society, particularlyin Ulster where it made its greatest gains. This is all the more remarkable since it is widely acceptedamong historians and sociologists that no other part of the British Isles, not even South Wales, theScottish Highlands and South West England, has been shaped so strikingly by evangelical religion asthe province of Ulster. 9There are, of course, usually good reasons for historiographical gaps and this one is no exception.Mostreligious records in Ireland have been collected and preserved by either the various denominationsor crypto-religious organisations like the Orange Order. This institutional and clerical bias makes itdifficult to uncover the beliefs and practices of ordinary men and women, especially the latter. Sucha project faces formidable obstacles and is clearly beyond the scope of a short essay like this. Our moremodest and strictly limited aim, therefore, is to look at some of the ways in which the distinctive ethosof evangelical religion was transmitted to working people during a period of rapid social and economicchange from a predominantly agrarian to a growing industrial society between 1790 and 1850, and toraise some questions which clearly need further attention.Space does not permit a lengthy discussion of either the theology of evangelicalism or its mostcharacteristic organisational forms. Suffice to say that by evangelicalism we mean that conversionist,biblicist, activist and cross-centred type of popular Protestantism which is to be seen most clearly inearly Methodism, Presbyterian secession churches and a host of voluntary associations dedicated to68

ESSAYS 69mission and moral refonn.lo Preoccupied with sin and its multitudinous social expressions, evangelicalsoffered personal regeneration and social improvement. Though intensel y individualistic, evangelicalswere also capable of grasping a wider social purpose and therein lies many of their emotionalstrengths and unresolved ambiguities~ But, for good or for ill, and there was a good deal of both inevangelicalism, this organisationally pragmatic and emotionally volatile fonn of religion made asubstantial contribution to the lives oflarge numbers of Ulster men and women even before the muchmisunderstood revival of 1859. How this was achieved and with what consequences are the questionsto which we must now turn.The complex inter-relationship between religious expression and popular culture suggests that thefull extent of religious influence cannot be measured purely in terms of church attendance orinvolvement in specifically religious exercises. Thus, while the actual number of adherents to acommitted evangelical lifestyle was always a minority in terms of percentage of population, its socialideology penetrated deep into Ulster culture. In times of political insecurity and social stress,evangelicalism's strong emphasis on personal morality and its conservative social code came to be seenas major stabilising factors. Against a background of rising Catholic nationalism, radical politics,secularisation and industrialisation, aristocrats, employers, clergy, churchmen and women, imbuedwith evangelical seriousness, attempted to propagate a scripture-based culture which upheld social andpolitical stability. Their target was the spiritual regeneration and' moral elevation' of the lower classesof society, and their weapons were temPerance, education, sabbatarianism, charity and moral campaignsunlimited. Through new agencies such as Sunday schools, temperance movements, townmissions, tract and Bible societies, as well as more traditional modes of control, evangelical leaderssought to promote 'higher and nobler ideals of life'. From pulpit and press, attacks were launched ona whole range of traditional leisure-time activities - drinking, dancing, theatre-going, cockfighting andboxing. This pietistic campaign was thus a combination of cultural conflict and social control in whichpublic respectability was generally interpreted as a reflection of personal morality. The extent whichthese were in fact synonymous is highly debatable.In Ireland, at least before the mid-nineteenth century, the part played by the landed aristocracy intenns of organisation, leadership and finance was an important element in the campaign for moralrefonnation. Their enthusiasm for this new type of religious experience can only be understood in thecontext of the post -revolutionary shock -waves experienced by all western European societies in the lateeighteenth, early nineteenth centuries." The Reign of Terror was a stark indicator of the transience ofworldly things, and in Ireland the stability of long-held privileges was shaken both by developmentsin the rural economy, and by the rise of Catholic nationalism. Evangelical landlords, for whom political,social and moral issues were inextricably interwoven, utilised their wealth, prestige and personalinfluence in the furtherance of a creed which offered both personal and constitutional reassurance. Thesize of their holdings, in addition to their marital interconnections and contacts with evangelical andpolitical leaders in England, gave them a strong power base and ensured their extensive influencePFor aristocratic landlords such as the Earls of Roden, Farnham, Mandeville and Gosford, the dailyroutine of life was dominated by the duties and responsibilities of their pietistic faith.13 Scriptural rulegoverned not only their personal and family lives, but determined their relations with local tenantry.For these men the extension of their own religious beliefs was not a matter of choice or politicalpragmatism, but a sacred responsibility, and one which required personal intervention in areas such asBible instruction and Sunday school work. Their paternalism was not, however, limited to the provisionof religious facilities on their estates. The system of 'moral management', giving secular expressionto the evangelical idea of responsibility for the salvation of one's fellow man, was introduced by LordFarnham in his county Cavan estate in 1830, and subsequently came into operation in several ofIreland's largest estates, and in many smaller ones. 14 Farnham explained the foundation of his systemas 'the religion of the Bible, and the principles upon which it is built up' .15 In return for the landlord'sprovision of churches, day schools, Sunday schools, a lending library, and material aid for those whoearned it, the tenant was expected to respond with· punctual payment of rent, hard work, and a

70 SAOTHAR13'respectable' and sober lifestyle. The moral agent was the mainspring of the whole system, supervisingpersonal behaviour, and 'continually urging and exhorting the tenantry' .16 The behaviour of all familymembers was expected to comply with the landlord's religious convictions. Any tenant charged withillegal' distillation was assured of im!llediate eviction, the singing of bawdy ballads was discouraged,and psalmody was taught in the schools in a direct attempt to replace them. Parents were advised tokeep their children from such vices as swearing, gambling and dancing, and all children were expectedto attend the estate schools. Since these were run along strictly evangelical lines, Roman Catholictenants were at somewhat of a disadvantage, and accusations of proselytism led to a heated controversyon the Farnham estatePIn this exercise of paternalistic benevolence can be seen the interaction of social, political, religiousand economic motives. The whole system seemed designed to erode traditional rural folk culture andreplace it with an alternative set of values. It indicates too how evangelical Protestantism and social andeconomic progress were inextricably linked in the minds of its promoters in the same way as IrishCatholic culture was associated with backwardness and inefficiency. The system professed to heightenthe individual responsibility of the tenants by cutting out middlemen and coercion. But the emphasis- indeed insistence - on high standards of personal and social morality meant that their lives were tightlymonitored and controlled, and choices strictly limited. ls The personalising of estate management, andthe obvious temporal advantages to be gained by conforming to the landlord's expectations, were adeliberate attempt to reinforce the bond between landlord and Protestant tenant, introducing a newelement of control at a time when other social, economic and political developments were weakeningthe traditional bonds. There' were also economic advantages. An overhaul of methods of estatemanagement was one aspect of the process of modernisation already under way on Irish farms in thelate 1820s.19 A consolidation of holdings, the closer relationships between landlord and tenant, and theimplementation of a more streamlined and efficient system of management was entirely reconcilablewith the new 'moral' order. This reform of estate administration was in may cases carried out withregard to purely materialistic considerations. But, as in other areas of Ulster life, evangelicalismsupplied a religious sanction for more prosaic concerns. Allegations of hypocrisy against evangelicallandlords WOUld, however be largely misplaced. The harmony of religious and secular motivationwhich they achieved, albeit conveniently, is not amenable to such simple or crude explanations.Whatever their critics might say these men professed to love their God more than their estates.The educational objectives of evangelical landlords were capable of much wider application,especially through Sunday schools which were the most successful of all the devices through whichevangelical leaders sought to promote respectable and morally-uplifting habits among the uneducated.Since the establishment of the Reverend Kennedy' s Sunday school in county Down during the 1770s,Anglicans, Methodists and all shades of Presbyterians had taken up the cause, supported by the highestecclesiastical, social and even commercial interests. 2o The Hibernian Sunday School Society foundedin 1809 as a co-ordinating body, listed 256 Sunday schools in connection with it in 1816;by 1846 thenumber was 1,975,21 Some idea of the influence of these schools can be gleaned from the fact that in1831 the proportion of Sunday school scholars to population in the province was 1: 14, in county Antrimit was 1:9.22 All Protestant evangelicals agreed that Sunday schools were 'a means of eventuallyrestoring political tranquillity to this long-distracted country'.23 They strove to promote class harmony,stressing the 'mutual kindness and affection between rich and poor', exemplified in the bond ofsympathy promoted between the instructed and their (unpaid) teachers.24 The emphasis of the societywas on instilling the social niceties - good manners, morals and appearance, and the Committee ofEducation in 1826 concluded that itwas 'oneofthe most powerful instruments for raising the character,and for advancing the general welfare of the people' .25However, while Sunday school managers had their own motives and expectations, they would nothave achieved their outstanding de'gree of success if they had not been providing the lower orders wiili- .something they needed and wanted in practical as well as spiritual terms. The utilitarian attributes ofthe Sunday school movement were particularly relevant to a society suffering the stresses of transition

.. ...... ~.~ -~ .'- '.ESSAYS. 71from rural. to urban life. They offered educational and recreational facilities, and a social substitute forthe old rural relationships. The educational provision was particularly important in the days before theestablishment of a national system, especially in the north east. 26 With the mills and factories of the linenand cotton industries keeping many young people and even children in employment during week days,Sunday was often the only day in which any kind of educational purs,uit was possible. The Sundayschools, particularly in the early days, reached out to the very poorest elements in society. For listeningto the scripture passages and the 'theology of poverty' preached by the teachers, the scholars receivedin return, warmth, shelter, education, sometimes material aid in the form of shoes or clothes,intermittent outings and entertainments, and - not least - a faith which helped them to cope with thevicissitudes of life.27 The fact that many·schools. werd,nitiated by those working and living in thecommunity, further suggests that they were less 'a fomi of social manipulation than is commonlysUpposed.28 This matches the conclusions of English social historians who suggest that Sunday schoolsflourished because 'working class parents wanted the education they provided, and generally endorsedthe values that they taught' .29 The benefits of literacy, cheapness and entertainment outweighed theobvious disadvantages of religious paternalism. W.R. Ward is therefore right to conclude that they werethe only religious institutions in the nineteenth century which the great mass of Protestant workingpeople had any intention of using. 30In the evangelical crusade for moral reformation, temperance was a recurring theme. Drunkennesswas regarded as the prime cause of sexual immorality, gambling, broken homes, poverty and socialstrife, and was so prevalent thaUt was regarded as 'the national curse of Ireland' .31 As with so manyUlster movements, the impetus for temperance societies originated in America, was taken up by localclergy of various denominations, and with the support of influential laymen spread rapidly throughoutthe province. 32 By 1833, only four years after the first plans were published, there were 15,000 membersof temperance societies in Ulster.33 The emphasis of these societies was on moderation rather than totalabstention. 34 The teetotal movement which began in 1834 was regarded as extremist, and middle classfears of its radicalism appeared justified when Father Mathew's popular Roman Catholic crusadeagainst 'all intoxicating liquors' became linked in the public mind with O'Connell's Repeal movement.35While the records of churches and missions suggest a unified stance on the part of the religiousversus the irreligious on the question of alcoholic consumption, there were several distinguishableapproaches. The middle classes, while publicly supporting the values of sobriety, were not always keento align themselves with the cause of temperance. The Rev. Dr. John Edgar, an orator of some abilityand instigator of the movement in Ulster, found himself abused and ridiculed at his first campaignmeetings.36 The editor of the liberal Belfast Guardian refused to print a public letter announcing theformation of the new society, and the members of Edgar's church declined the use of their meetinghouse. 37 This indicated how the consumption of alcohol was considered acceptable by 'respectable'citizens. It should also be remembered that Ireland was the first European country to attempt such aventure, and that the element of novelty was itself a disincentive for conservative citizens.Nor did all those who supported the temperance movement do so from pure! y religious motives. Thebasic underlying impulse, the idea of 'improvement', was central to evangelical ideology, but therewere others who saw in the benefits arising from a more sober, industrious and thinking peasantry, thebasis of political as well as personal advancement and independence. Not only landlords andevangelicals, but employers, radicals, and reformers in general supported the 'improving' movement,each viewing the advantages of a sober working class in a different light. The interests of employersin promoting the sobriety of their workforce is self-evident, and in Belfast mill-owners, manufacturersand merchants promoted the cause. 38 Catholic nationalists were also convinced that the self-respect andself-esteem arising from sobriety could advance not only moral, but political aspirations. 39 Self-denialwas thus seen as the foundation of more than mere religious reform. The course of the temperance·campaign shows how popular movements, particularly those with a religious basis, were drawn intowider Irish political concerns, with spokesmen of every colour and creed intent on utilising their

72 SAOTHAR 13strength. 40But while a decline in the popularity of whiskey drinking and general drunkenness was noted bymany visitors and commissioners in this period, the problem of drunkenness in Ireland was by no meansresolved. Many thousands remained unmoved by the crusade, while the resolutions of others were alltoo short-lived. 41 Nor should all the responsiblityfor the reported decline in alcoholic consumption beattributed to the endeavours ofEdgar and Mathew. The introduction of revenue police and the reductionof duty on whiskey were undoubtedly significant factors in reducing the number of 'shebeens' and thelocal customs and festivities which surrounded them, while the increased supervision of 'improving'landlords and their agents was a further effective deterrent. 42 Evangelicalism with its network ofaristocracy, gentry and clergy, exercised considerable social influence, provided an organisationalstructure, and offered an alternative sub-culture; but it was also a beneficiary of more specificallysecular trends. Outside the polemics of religious reformers, the temperance movement can be seen morerealistically as part of a wider process of adjustment to socio-economic trends. Illicit distillation andlarge scale alcoholism were only one aspect of the Irish culture which was giving way to more legitimateand socially acceptable modes of behaviour. Visits to Holy wells, the custom of the Irish cry,cockfighting, card-playing and dancing were in decline,43 not only because of the vigilance of bothCatholic and Protestant clergy, but because of the increasing pressures on time and money as the declineof the linen industry forced many rural dwellers to concentrate their energies on farming, while rapidurbanisation changed the lifestyle of the town population. 44 Evangelicalism was thus both the agentand the beneficiary of other changes in the Ulster economy and society in this period.In an increasingly pluralistic and secular society, it was recognised that to engage successfully incompetition with popular cultural activities it was necessary to provide not only morally, but sociallyacceptable alternatives. The success of the temperance movements - Catholic and Protestant -depended largely on their creation of alternative social outlets to the pubs or drinking houses byproviding an opportunity for social intercourse and recreational diversion, through tea drinking,reading rooms, and participation in bands, dances and processions. 45 Similarly, the formation of YoungMens' Clubs, Ladies' Societies and Children's classes reflect the churches' endeavours to provide forall, and to bind the inhabitants of a locality into a unified group with a sense of religious identity .. Theleisure time of the masses thus became contested territory.46The Reverend William Magee, speaking on behalf of the Association for Discountenancing Viceand Promoting the Knowledge and Practice of the Christian Religion, noted the popularity of storybooks and ballads among the working classes. 47 He determined to utilise this literary form byintroducing 'under the garb of fable' the virtues of honesty, sobriety, industry, cleanliness andsubmission to the law. Tract distribution thus became a popular aspect of religious propaganda, theeffectiveness of which, however, is difficult to assess. The cheap and readily available reading materialsupplied religious explanations for poverty and distress, and sought to raise the religious and moralsentiments of the poor to a level beyond the excesses of drink and gambling in which so many soughtcomfort. The titles of some of these publications suggest both the vulnerability of those to whom they.were addressed, and the perceived urgency of the gospel message:The Danger of Delay, TheImportance of Sobriety, Honesty is the Best Policy, The Surest and Safest Way of Living. 48 The extentof their success in competing with ballads, or with the cheap 'penny dreadfuls' which flooded thepopular market in the 1830s and 1840s is unclear. J.R.R. Adams, speaking of the Belfast ReligiousTract Society formed in 1815, suggests that 'in view of the large numbers of titles published thedistribution must have been large' .49 That the tracts were actually read and their contents digested, doesnot necessarily follow. Even the most sanguine of tract distribu tors were unable to recount many talesof popular behaviour being radically changed by an encounter with a tract without other kinds ofpersonal support and influence.The relation between the essentially 'religous' and 'traditional' aspects of popular culture is, ofcourse, complex. The two were never completely separate, but interacted and merged at many points,particularly during the ritualised highlights of the personal and social calendar, o'{er which the church

ESSAYS 73claimed authority but which reached deep into folk history - birth, death, marriage, Easter andChristmas. 5o There was often a good deal of tension between clerical and popular attitudes to thecelebration of these occasions. Easter Monday outings to Cavehill with drinking, dancing, eating andsinging, for example, were the despair of religious leaders,51 but when Thomas Drew, the energeticcurate of Christ Church in Belfast, and other Sunday school managers set out to promote a 'moraloption' , they wisely compromised by investing their religious celebrations with all the noise and colourof more traditional festivities. 52 Sunday school anniversaries and the opening of new churches werealso celebrated in this way in an attempt to offer a lively alternative to the temptations of the new age.The process of modernisation - in the shape of cheap Sunday railway excursions, for example -prompted a vigilance more suggestive of the urgency of the campaign than of its success. 53It is already clear that, despite evangelical intentions and claims, a series of compromises and mutualaccommodations was a greater actuality than the supposed imposition of a code of behaviour on anunwilling but passive section of society. The interaction between religious expression and secular lifecan most clearly be seen in the emergence of 'respectability' as a central feature in the Protestantculture. 54 The desire for upward mobility on the part of the working classes is too often overlooked asan explanation for the encroachment of evangelical principles on popular culture. For many UlsterProtestants the temporal advantages of moral elevation were self-evident and personal ambitions werejustified by the Puritan idea that worldly position was a reflection of divine approbation. 55 Religion andrespectability were thus mutually reinforcing, and divisions between classes were perhaps less distinctthan those between types of social behaviour and values which cut across class boundaries. Thechurches, for example, offered support for an orderly and self-respecting way of life, while for wivesand mothers and for members of the lower and middle classes wishing to improve their situation, thevirtues advocated by evangelical leaders - frugality, temperance and education - had temporal as wellas religious benefits. 56For their part, the traditional religious denominations were motivated by a growing awareness ofcontemporary social problems and pressure from evangelical groups and individuals to reconsider theirrole in society. ·From about the 1830s, doctrinal abstractions became less important than practicalinvolvement in the everyday life of the community. As urban society became more complex andconcentrated, the churches were able to fill an important, if transitional, social gap by meeting thefinancial and material as well as spiritual problems of their flocks. By providing charity and sociability- in the shape of loan funds, clothing funds, dispensaries and a proliferation of societies - churchmenhoped to make their facilities relevant and their theology meaningful. 57 In the event they were far moresuccessful in the former than the latter. It is clear that the idea of self-improvement could uniteevangelicals and non-evangelicals in a cultural identity reflecting conservative social values. Indeed,by the late nineteenth century the Protestant churches had thoroughly appropriated those early -evangelical characteristics of voluntary associations and moral improvement by establishing aformidable array of denominational improvement societies (the Church of Ireland Mutual ImprovementSocieties and the Presbyterian Young Men's Guilds, for example), Sunday schools, YMCA andYWCA auxilaries, Boys' Brigades and Boy Scouts, Women's Temperance Associations and Daughtersof Empire, friendly societies and recreation clubs, and musical and literary societies. When theHome Rule crisis awakened the slumbering unionist associations in provincial Ulster, they foundthemselves already lying on a bed of respectable Protestant culture that was not too difficult topoliticise. 58For those who embraced it, evangelicalism's conservative social code provided a framework ofstability in a period when the rapid progress of migration, urbanisation and industrialisation generatednew tensions in the social structure of the north east. Belfast was most dramatically affected by the paceof socio-economic changes; the liberal market town of the late eighteenth century was transformed ina few decades into a bustling centre of manufacturing. 59 Migration from the depressed southern andwestern areas of the province brought a large influx of Catholic labourers,6o so that the pressures ofpoverty and urban hardship both played upon and provoked outbursts of the sectarian strife by then

74 SAOTHAR 13traditional in many of Ulster' s rural counties. While before 1830 religious riots in the town were stillrare, in the succeeding decades clashes became more frequent. 61 But sectarian animosities, importantthough they were in shaping Belfast's development, and in creating a strong sense of religious identityin both Protestant and Catholic communities, were not the only outlet for religious energy. This aspecttends to overshadow the rich diversity of religious! experience, both formal and informal, which wasan integral aspect of everyday society.The records of the Belfast Town Mission - 'a moral engine for the benefit of the poor, the untaughtand neglected population of our town' - offer valuable insights into popular urban religious attitudesin the fIrst half of the nineteenth century.62 Despite the strenuous efforts of local clergy, limited byinadequate funds in their attempts to increase church provision, church attendance does not seem tohave been a major priority of the lower classes. 63 There may well have been practical reasons for this.Pride and tradition required potential churchgoers to invest in at least a decent suit of clothes, and itseems that many of those who neglected public worship did so partly because poverty rendered themunable to meet the social demands of the occasion. 64 It seems likely that those who did atttend thechurches were already endeavouring to lift themselves to a stable social level, and availing themselvesof every opportunity to do so. This suggestion is supported by clerical comments on the social and moralimprovement consequent upon regular church attendance. 65 For a majority of sluni dwellers, however,social distinctions, seating patterns and the cultural assumptions of those in control of the content ofpublic worship reinforced a sense of alienation.It was these 'outcasts' whom the Belfast Town Mission endeavoured to reach. The society operateda system of domestic visitation which was strictly religious in purpose. Agents were instructed to visit,converse on religious matters, to read tracts or scripture portions and issue invitations to churches orSunday schools. Although their efforts often met with opposition or hostility, they were frequentlymade welcome, and their conversations with the 'rough' working class often revealed a variety ofreligious experience, no less potent because of its informal nature. 66 Many people who had been in thehabit of attending religious venues in their youth now, either because of migration, lack of facilities,or simply as a natural result of the ageing process, neglected even the most basic' religious duties.Nonetheless, it was evident that religion could retain its emotional hold while losing its institutionalframework, with Bible reading and religious conversations offering nostalgia, diversion and comfortin the midst of bleak poverty. The mission agents had some success in persuading backsliders to attendthe local 'stations' which organised religious services outside the rigid social pressures of the church.However, many of those who retained a grasp of what they considered the 'essentials' of religion,displayed no interest whatsoever in.doctrinal orthodoxy. Their vague belief ihat a generally wellintentioned life, lived free of the worst debaucheries, would be rewarded, was more prevalent than openscepticism or unbelief - and more difficult for the churches to counteract. 67 And while clergy perceivedtheir role to be that of organisers of social and cultural cohesion, religion - particularly of the aggressive,evangelical variety - could also be a di visi ve force, both in the family and the community. Rifts betweenparents and children, husbands and wives, over the expression of their belief were common, and piousattitudes undoubtedly alienated a significant section of the working class community. 68 In wider socialterms, the emotive rhetoric of popular open air preachers could play on tradi tional sectarian fears. Thiswas particularly true in times of socio-economic competition and political vulnerability, when a newurgency was given to religious commitment, and a more emotional type of religious activity was bothencouraged and promoted. The border counties of Ulster in the late eighteenth century, and Belfast inthe late 1850s, were particularly susceptible, both to enthusiastic religious endeavours and to thecommunity friction which all too often followed. 69 .For many Ulster Protestants, Belfast's industrial expansion and relative prosperity was viewed asa direct consequence of its religious and ethnic base. 70 To what extent religion played a day-to-day rolein the workplace is, however, particularly difficult to determine in this period. For many employers,whatever the depth of their personal religious conviction, evangelicalism supplied an ethic, based onscriptural principles, with which to deal with the economic realities of life. The New Testament

ESSAYS 75provided the basis for social and industrial relations, with acceptance of hierarchical divisions anintegral part of the religious framework, and the interdependence of the classes similarly determined?lPaternalistic practices were thus justified, while attempts to assert class interests were seen not only associally and politically radical, but as unscriptural, and indeed, immoral.Working mens' combinations, regarded by one eighteenth century rector as 'the greatest of allpossible evils' , were, however, firmly established in Belfast by the mid-nineteenth century.72 What isless clear in this early period is the relation between religious sectarianism and the development of thetrade union movement. Paddy DevIin takes the traditional view that with many trade unions tied to theOrange Order, workers, foremen, managers andfactory owners 'rere linked in a combination againstRoman Catholicism which undermined the developmen(ofdass consciousness. 73 Others see this asan oversimplification. Henry Patterson, for example, points to a variety of tensions existing within andbetween sections of the workforce, suggesting that religious and sectarian factors would' at most, haveexacerbated these problems at particular times of heightened political tension' .74 Ronaldo Munck' scontention, thatexclusi vist practices, whether for sectarian, political or economic reasons, had the effectof segregating the workforce along religious lines, even ifthis was not always the intention, is probablya fair assessment 75In more general terms moral elevation was encouraged, both directly and indirectly, in the interestsof social stability and industrial harmony, although this can best be seen as a pervasive ideology ratherthan a systematic practice. Employers and manufacturers supported temperance, Sunday school, Townmission and revival movements, and joined with workers in a variety of paternalistic and benevolentmovements. The Belfast Working Class Association for the Promotion of General Improvement wasone such body, aiming to improve both sanitary conditions and moral welfare, to advance the characterand conditions of working men by circulating 'useful, moral and entertaining' works, and stressing thebenefits of temperance and thrift. 76 In its attention to the rights and duties between employer andemployed, it made the familiar link between personal morality and social harmony. The Protestantwork ethic was reaffirmed, with the assertion that 'idleness is the parent of crime and the forerunnerof poverty'.The clergy of Belfast, similarly concerned to encourage the interdependence of the classes, unitedwith the empoyers in these efforts. When a group of churchmen set out to develop an 'economicdoctrine of religion' to deal with the commercial realities of nineteenth century life, the scriptures onceagain provided inspiration and example. In a collection of essays entitled Gold and The Gospel. theyreminded the material beneficiaries of industry of their social duties, stressing the responsibility of manas God's steward, and urging a more systematic exercise ofbenevolence. n To what extent evangelicaltheory was put into practice by employers is almost impossible to determine, though the greatproliferation of voluntary societies concerned with social as well as spiritual problems in Belfast in thesecond half of the century suggests at least a nominal commitment to the principle of charity?8Nor is it easy to assess the extent to which paternalistic and benevolent movements influencedworking men and women. No doubt a combimltion of apathy, fatalism and faith did encourage manyof the lower classes to accept the inevitability of their place oh a rigid social scale. Community strifeand the wider political framework which intensified local disputes undoubtedly gave credence toreligious agitators and promoted religious solidarity. B ut while ethnic loyalty was no doubt important,it was never all pervasive. Competing and sometimes overlapping loyalties to denominations,employers, neighbourhoods and centres of recreation, though often neglected, were just as influentialin creating the rich texture of working class social relationships.The aim of this essay then has been to draw attention to the range of methods used by landlords,employers, clergy and voluntary associations - under the influence of evangelicalism if not activelycommitted to its theology - to remodel the society in which they lived. Through moral agents, education,temperance, self-improvement societies, tract distribution, domestic visitation and a host of otherdevices, this activist minority made a substantial contribution to the social and cultural life of Ulsterin the first half of the nineteenth century. But their relative success - not to be exaggerated - was not

76 SAOTHAR13only due to their activism but to the social utility of such views for a society undergoing rapidtransformation and in whiCh religious and ethnic loyalties were strong, at least in times of crisis. Beyondthat, evangelicalism was an important catalyst in the creation of a culture emphasising voluntaryorganisations, mutual and self-improvement, religion and respectability, and Protestant identity.Ironically, but for some of the same reasons, Irish Catholicism was steaming on the same course. Thus,the polarisation of rough and respectable cultures is common to both Protestant and Catholiccommunitiesbetween 1800 and 1850, the ramifications of which are discernible in the broader political,economic and social history of the period.Evangelical Protestantism did not, of course, have to be politicised, but its strong Englishconnections dating from the mid-eighteenth century, overt anti-Catholicism and stereotyped view ofitself and Irish Catholics made it a useful sentiment to exploit in times of economic or constitutionalcompetition. What we still need to know is what exactly are the dimensions of this movement, whatprecise impact did it have on working people in town and countryside, in what ways was its socialessence distilled from its theological apparatus and how does it relate to issues of class consciousness,denominational loyalties, sectarian animosities and Ulster's social, economic and political distinctivenessfrom the rest of Ireland. Such a research agenda, as the preceding pages have indicated, is wellworth pursuing. Nineteenth-century Ulster Protestantism may not have played as creative a role in theformation of class consciousness and labour politics as did some elements within English nonconformityin the same period, but its influence over social mores was almost certainly even more pervasive.NotesDavid Hempton and Myrtle Hill1. Elie Halevy, A History of the English People in the Nineteenth Century, 4 Volumes, (London, 1949-51). Forrecent historiographical surveys see E.S. Itzkin, 'The Halevy Thesis - A Working Hypothesis?' in ChurchHistory, 44, no. 1 (1975), pp. 47-56; A.D. Gilbert, 'Methodism, Dissent and Political Stability in earlyIndustrial England' in Journal of Religious History, 10, (1978-9), pp. 381-99; and David Hempton,'Evangelical Revival and Society: A Historiographical Review of Methodism and British Society c. 1750-1850' in Themelios, 8, no. 3, (April 1983), pp. 19-25.2. E.J. Hobsbawm, Primitive Rebels, (Manchester, 1959); Labouring Men: Studies in the History of Labour,(London, 1964); and E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class, (London, 1963).3. John Foster, Class Struggle and the Industrial Revolution: Early Industrial Capitalism in Three EnglishTowns, (London, 1974); and Patrick Joyce, Work, Society and Politics: the Culture of the Factory in laterVictorian England, (Brighton, 1980).4. HughMcLeod, 'Recent Studies in Victorian Religious History' in Victorian Studies, 21, no. 2 (1978), pp. 245-55; and his Religion and the Working Class in Nineteenth Century Britain, (London, 1984).5. Hugh McLeod, 'New Perspectives on Working Class Religion: The Oral Evidence' in Oral History, 14, no.1 (1986), pp. 31-49; John Rule, 'Methodism, Popular Beliefs and Village Culture in Cornwall 1800-50' inR.D.Storch (ed.), Popular Culture and Custom in Nineteenth Century England, (London, 1982), pp. 48-70; and E.and S. Yeo (ed.), Popular Culture and Class Conflict, 1590-1914, (Brighton, 1982).6. A.R. Acheson, 'The Evangelicals in the Church of Ireland, 1784-1859', Queen's University Belfast PhD thesis(1967); A.T.Q. Stewart, 'The Transformation of Presbyterian Radicalism in the North of Ireland, 1792-1825',Queen's University Belfast MA thesis (1956); Peter Brooke, 'Controversies in Ulster Presbyterianism, 1790-1836', University of Cambridge PhD thesis (1980); and R.F.G. Holmes, Henry Cooke, (Belfast, 1981).7. Desmond Bowen, The Protestant Crusade in Ireland, 1800-70, (Dublin, 1978); I.M. Hehir, 'New Lights andOld Enemies: The Second Reformation and the Catholics of Ireland, 1800-1835', University of Wisconsin MAthesis (1983); and David Hempton, 'The Methodist Crusade in Ireland, 1795-1845' in Irish l/ istorical Studies,22, no. 85 (March, 1980), pp. 33-48 ..8. For a survey of recent work see Myrtle Hill, 'Evangelicalism and the Churches in Ulster Society, 1770-1850',Queen's University Belfast PhD thesis (1987); Joe Liechty has recently completed a PhD thesis on Dublinevangelicalism in Maynooth College, and Terence Duffy is engaged on a PhD thesis in Nuffield College,Oxford on 'Religion and Community in Belfast and Londonderry, 1859-1923'.

ESSAYS 779. For comparisons see E.T. Davies, Religion in the Industrial Revolution in South Wales, (Cardiff, 1965); E.T.Davies,.A New History of Wales: Religion and Society in the Nineteenth Century, (Dyfed, 1981); and DavidLuker, 'Revivalism in Theory and Practice; the Case of Cornish Methodism' in Journal of EcclesiasticalHistory, 37, no. 4, (October, 1986), pp. 603-19. . .. .10. For evangelical theology see Roger Anstey, The Atlantic· Slave Trade and BritishAbolition, 1760-1810,(London, 1975); for its organisational characateristics see F.K. Brown, Fathers of the Victorians, (Cambridge,1961); Ian Bradley, The Call to Seriousness, (London, '1976), and Myrtle Hill, op.cif ..11. For the importance of aristocratic leadership of the moral campaign, see F.K. Brown, op.cit., p. 3. See alsoV. Kiernan, 'Evangelicalism and the French Revolution' in Past and Present, no. I, (February, 1952), pp. 44-56.12. For the importance of the Irish evangelical aristocracy in English political life, seel.S. Rennie, 'Evangelicalismand English Public Life: 1823-1850', University of Toronto PhD thesis (1962); for the interconnectionsbetween Irish evangelicals see Myrtle Hill, op.cif., pp. 379-80.13. Correspondence of the Third Earl of Roden, (public Records Office of Northern Ireland, (PRONI), RodenPapers, Mic.147/5); Farnham Papers (National Library ofIreland, Ms. 18,608-18,630); C.E. Tonna, Lettersfrom Ireland, (London, 1837).14. A Statement of the Management of the Farnham Estates, (Dublin, 1830); J.R.R. Wright, 'An EvangelicalEstate, c. 1800-1825: The Influence on the Manchester Estate, County Armagh, with Particular Reference tothe Moral Agencies of W. Loftie and H. Porter', Ulster Polytechnic PhD thesis (1982); Hugh Kearney,'Evangelical Landlords in Nineteenth Century Ulster', UnpUblished Paper; Rev. C: White, Sixty YearsExperience as an Irish Landlord, (London, n.d.).15. A Statement r;fthe Management of the Famham Estates, (Dublin, 1830).16. C.S. Stanford, Memoir of the late Rev. WH.Krause, (Dublin, 1854); Krause was moral agent for LordFarnhamfrom 1826 to 1838; For some of the difficulties involved in appointing a suitable individual to this post, seethe correspondence between the Annesely and the Manchester estates, (PRONI, Annesely papers, DI854/6/14 March 1839).17. George Ensor, Letters Showing theJnutility and Showing the Absurdity of what is Rather Fantastically Termed'The New Reformation', (Dublin, 1828); The Substance of a Speech delivered by the Right Hon. LordFamham, at a Meeting held in Cavan on Friday 20 January 1828, for the Purpose of Promoting theReformation in Ireland, (Dublin, 1827); J. Madden, Famham Hall or The Second Reformation in Ireland, APoem, (Dublin, 1827); Second letter of Right Rev. J. M cH ale, Bishop of Moronia to Lord F arnham, (Dubln,n.d.); Anon, Specimens of the Conversions at Cavan by Bible Saints Submitted to the Common Sense of thePeople of England, (Dublin, 1827); Rev. T. Maguire, False Weights and Measures of Protestant Curate ofCavan ExiJ.mined and Exposed, (Dublin, 1833).18. On the Manchester estate, more tenants were dispossessed for offences against the landlord's moral code thanfor non-payment of rent, Wright, 'An evangelical estate', p. 213; see also Report of the commissionersappointed to enquire into the occupation of land in Ireland, 1845, Vol. XIX, p. 572, evidence of Captain Hill.Asked whether Lord Roden referred to political or religious distinctions in chosing his tenants or determiningtheir fate, Hill stated, 'we do not make any; but I would not say that as to moral distinctions. There are severalmen who have been put out in consequence of being very bad characters'.19. Report of the commissioners appointed to enquire into the occupation of land in Ireland, 1845, Vol. XIX, pp.18-19; J.S. Donnelly, Landlord and Tenant in Nineteenth Century Ireland, (Dublin, 1973), p. 22. -20. Helen Clayton, To School Without Shoes: A Brief History of the Sunday School Societyfor Ireland, 1809-1979,(Dublin, 1979).21. Sunday School Society for Ireland records 1809-1971, (Representative Church Body Library, Dublin, Ms.182).22. Hibemian Sunday School Society Report, 1831, (Dublin, 1831).23. Adam Averell to BFBS, 6 August, 1807, (British and Foreign Bible Society Records, Cambridge UniversityLibrary, Miscellaneous Book No. 2).24. Hibemian Sunday School Report, 1826, (Dublin, 1826); Hintsfor Conducting Sunday Schools; Useful alsofor Day Schools, and Families, compiled by the committee of the Sunday School Society for Ireland, 2ndedition, (Dublin, 1819).25. Quoted in Hibernian Sunday School Report, 1826, (Dublin, 1826).26. Helen Clayton, 'Societies Formed to Educate the Poor in Ireland in the late 18th Century and early 19thCentury', Trinity College Dublin MLitt, (1981).27. Hints for Conducting Sunday Schools, containing suggestions for rewards for Sunday school pupils. Lettersfrom teachers indicate that responses are largely dependent on local conditions; see letter from Lisburn, 3November, 1811; and from Castledawson, 14 February, 1811, Hibemian Sunday School Report, 1812,

78 SAOTHAR13(Dublin, 1812).28. Letter from Belfast Sunday School SocietY, 26 May, 1811, Hibemii::zn. Surulay School Report. 1812. (Dublin,1812).29. T.W. Laqueur, Religion arul Respectability: Sunday Schools. and Working Class Culture. (London. 1976);Hugh McLeod, Religion arul the Working Class in Nineteenth Century Britain .. 30. W.R. Ward, Religion and Society in Englarul. 1790-1850. (London, 1972), p. 13; David Hempton, Methodismarul Politics in British Society. 1750-1850. (London, 1984), pp. 86-92.31. R.M. Sibbett, For Christ arul Crown: The Story of a Mission. (Belfast, 1926), p. 35.32. P.T.Winskill, The Temperance Movement arul its Workers: A Record of Social. Moral. Religious arulPoliticalProgress. (London, 1892), p. 50; Report of the committee of the Ulster Temperance Society. 1838. (Belfast,1838).33. Address afthe ULSter Temperance Society. 1833. (Belfast, 1833).34. Address of the Ulster Temperance Society. 1829. (Belfast, 1829); W.D. Killen, Memoir of John Edgar.(Belfast, 1867), p. 94.35. See the correspondence between Lord Downshire and Father M athew , (PRONI), D671/C/l2/131, D671/C/I2/831, and Downshire to Dr. John Shaw, D671/C/12j821; J.G. Kohl, Travels in Irelarul. (London, 1844), pp.93-113.36. W.D. Killen, Reminiscences of a Long Life. (London, 1901), p. 188.37. C.E. Crookshanks, History of Method ism. 3 Volumes, (London, 1885-1888), Vo!. m, p. 134; Killen, Memoirof John Edgar. p.36.38. 'In Belfast twenty-seven firms in the provision trade, with Messrs. John and Thomas Sinclair at their head, andtwenty millowners and manufacturers, proclaimed their determination, in a published resolution, 'to furnishtheir workmen with no spirituous liquor as refreshment, but to substitute, when necessary, some wholesomebeverage',' Killen, Memoir of John Edgar. p. 63.39. C.G. Duffy, My Life in Two Hemispheres. 2 Volumes, (Dublin, 1969), Vo!. I, p. 54; J.G. Kohl, Travels inIreland. (London, 1844), pp. 93-113; Feudal Slavery Broken arul1relarul Freed by Temperance. (Belfast,1840); Colm Kerrigan 'The Social Impact of the Temperance Movement, 1839-1845', in Irish Economic arulSocial History. Vo!. XIV, (1987), pp. 20-38; Elizabeth Malcolm, Irelarul Sober. Irelarul Free; Drink arulTemperance in Nineteenth Century Irelarul. (Dublin, 1986).40. Despite early optimism that the temperance crusade would unite Catholics and Protestants, two separatemovements emerged in Ireland; see Rev. P. Rogers, Father Theobald Mathew: Apostle of Temperance.(Dublin, 1943); and for a wider discussion of nineteenth century temperance see Brian Harrison, Drink arulthe Victorians. (London, 1971).41. BaptistNoel, Notes ofa Short Tour Through the MiddleCountiesofIrelarul in the Summer of 1836. with Noteson the Peasantry. (London, 1837), p. 78.42. C.E. Tonna,LettersfromIreland. (London, 1837), p. 28; H.D. Inglis,AJourney Through IrelarulDuring theSpring. Summer arulAutumnof 1834. (London, 1837), notes that legal whiskey was becoming as cheap as illicitbecause of the reduction on Irish spirits, therefore the illegal trade was greatly reduced, pp. 109-10; See aisothe ordnance survey memoirs (PRONI, Mic. 6) for numerous reports on reductions in illicit distillation andin alcoholic consumption itself.43. Ordnance survey memoirs for the parishes of Layd, Cushendall, Mallusk. Ardclinis, Ballyclugg, Derrykeighan,Culfreightrin provide examples.44. J. Binns, The Miseries arul Beauties of Irelarul. 2 Volumes. (London, 1837). p. 82.45. For a vivid description of a procession by a local temperance band, see Sibbett, For Christ and Crown. p. 37.46. For a discussion of this aspect of religious history, see Brian Harrison, 'Religion and Recreation in NineteenthCentury England', in Past arul Present. no. 38, (1967) pp. 98-125.47. J.R.R. Adams, The Printed Word arul the Common Man: Popular Culture in Ulster. 1700-1900. (Belfast,1987), pp. 48-9. .48. These are taken from the collection of tracts of the Belfast Religious Tract Society belonging to the LinenhallLibrary, Belfast.49. Adams, The Printed Word. pp. 133-5.50. For a discussion of the definition of popular religion and its relation to official Christianity, see J. Obelkevich,Religion arul Rural Society: South Lirulsey. 1825-1875. (Oxford, 1976), p. 261, and John Rule, 'Methodism,Popular Beliefs and Village Culture'; for the Roman Catholic parallel seeSean Connolly, Priests arul peoplein Pre-Famine Irelarul.1780-1845. (London. 1982).51. John Gray, 'Popular Entertainment' inJ.C. Beckett(ed.), Belfast: the Making of the City. 1800-1914. (Belfast,1983), pp. 98-111; Ordnance survey memoirs, PRONI, Mic 6/13, p. 157.

ESSAYS 7952. Annals of Christ Church, Belfast, (PRONT, T2159), pp. 87-93.53. 'One minister declared that the railway was sending souls to the Devil atthe rate of 6d ahead', Ionathan Bardon,Belfast, An Illustrated History, (Belfast, 1982), p. 89.54. Hugh McLeod comments on the changing usages of the term 'respectability', which by mid-century denotedmoral worth, regardless of position, and was thus a status to which all could aspire; . Class and Religion in theLate Victorian City, (London, 1974), p. 13 .. ,55. R.H. Tawney, in the introduction to Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, (London,1930). .' ,56. McLeod, Religion and thePeople of Western Europe, p.32; Gail Malmgreen, 'Domestic Discords: Womenand the Family in East Cheshire Methodism, 1750-1830' in Jim Obelkevich, Lyndal Roper, Raphael Samuel(ed.), Disciplines of Faith: Studies in Religion, Politics and Patriarchy', (London, 1987), pp. 55-70.57. Annals of Christ Church, Belfast; Rev. James Motgan, RecolleciiOnsof My Life and Times, (Belfast, 1874);Mathew Lanktree, Biographical Narrative, (Belfast, 1836), p. 274.58. Stephen Kerr, 'The Church ofIreland in Belfast, 1800-1870', University of Edinburgh PhD thesis (1978); Iam grateful to Dr. Alvin Jackson for letting me see his paper, in advance of publication, on 'Unionist politicsand Protestant society in Edwardian Ireland', in which the importance of voluntary societies is stressed.59. D.J. Owen, History of Belfast, (Belfast, 1921); PRONT, Belfast: Problems of a Growing City, (Belfast, 1973);Bardon, Belfast.60. W.H. Crawford, 'Economy and society in Eighteenth Century Ulster', Queen's University, Belfast PhD thesis(1982), p. 48; Clogher Record, Volume 3.61. I. Budge and C. O'Leary, Belfast: Approach to Crisis, (London, 1973).62. The major source of information for the Belfast City Mission is Sibbett, For Christ and Crown.63. Annals of Christ Church, Belfast, pp. 10-11; T. Drew, 'The Church in Belfast' ,quotedin W.B. Mant,BishopMant and hisDiocese, (Dublin, 1857); Rev. J. McConneIl, Presbyterianism in Belfast, (Belfast, 1912); Forthe zealous efforts of the clergy to increase provision in this period see Fourth and Final Report of the Downand Connor Church Accommodation Society, 19 January 1843, (Belfast, 1843). The Rev. 0 'Hanlon in 1853suggested the churches did not 'touch the very lowest elements of Belfast society', Walks Among the Poor ofBelfast and Suggestions for their 1mprovement, (Belfast, 1853), p. 3.64. Sibbett, For Christ and Crown; see also Hibernian Sunday School Society Reports, 1811, 1813,1817,1822,1823, for comments on inappropriate clothing and the attitude of parents.65. Morgan, Recollections of My Life and Times, p. 69.66. Extracts from missionary journals are quoted in Sibbett, For Christ and Crown.67. For parallels in English cities see Hugh McLeod, Class and Religion in the Late Victorian City; Jeffrey Cox,The English Churches in a Secular Society: Lambeth 1870-1930, (Oxford,1982), pp. 90-128; S. Yeo, Religionand Voluntary Organisations in Crisis, (London, 1976), pp. 117-62; John Kent, 'Feelings and Festivals' inH.J. DyosandM. Wolff(ed.). The Victorian City, Vol. 2, (London, 1973),pp. 855-71; E.R. Wickham, Churchand People in an 1ndustrial City, (London, 1964).68. Malmgreen, 'Domestic Discords'; Harrison, 'Religion andRecreation'.69. David Miller, 'The Armagh Troubles' in Sam Clark and I.S. DonneIly, Irish Peasants: Violence and PoliticalUnrest, 1780-1914, (Manchester, 1983), pp. 155-91; David Hempton, 'Methodism in Irish Society: 1770-1830', in TransactionsoftheRbyalHistoricalSociety, 5th series, Vol. 26, (1986). pp. 117-42; Bardon,Belfast,pp. 107-9.70. For a typical example of this perception see Irish Intelligence: The Progress of the Irish Society of London ,Vol. I, (London, 1848), pp. 92-5; see also Sean ConnoIly, 'Religion, Work-Discipline and EconomicAttitudes: the Case of Ireland', in T.M. Devine and DavidDickson, (ed.), Ireland and Scotland,1600-1850,(Glasgow, 1983), pp. 235-60.71. A Lecture on tfie Connection between Religion and Industry delivered in the Music Hall, Belfast on Tuesdayevening, 2 December 1851 to Members of the Working Classes Association, by the president of the Queen'sCollege, Belfast, (Belfast, 1852); Thomas Drew, 'The Rich and.the Poor' in The Irish PUlpit. A Collectionof Original Sermons by the Clergymen of the Established Church, (Dublin, 1839), pp. 251-69.72. AndrewBoyd, The Rise of the Irish Trade Unions, (Dublin, 1985),pp.13-14; The Ordnance survey memoirsfor Whitehouse make the same point.73. Paddy Devlin, Yes, We Have No Bananas: Outdoor Relief in Belfast, 1920-39, (Belfast, 1981), p. 27.74. Henry Patterson, 'Industrial Labour and the Labour Movement, 1820-1914', in Liam Kennedy and PhilipOIIerenshaw (eds.), An Economic History of Ulster, 1820-1939, (Manchester, 1985), pp. 158-73, p. 176,ConnoIly, 'Religion. Work-Discipline and Economic Attitudes', p. 243.75. Ronnie Munck, 'The Formation of the Working Class in Belfast, 1788-1881', Saothar 11, (1986), pp. 75-89.

80 SAOTHAR 1376. The Belfast People' s Magazine. Vol. I, (i847). ,77. Jane Garnett, 'Gold and the Gospel', in WJ. Sheils and Diana Wood (ed.) The Church and Wealth. Studiesin Church History. Vo\. 24, (1987). pp. 158-83; Morgan. Recollections of My Life and Times. p. 110.78. Stephen Kerr, 'Voluntaryism within the Established Church in Nineteenth Century Belfast' • in W.J. Sheils andDiana Wood, (ed.) Voluntary Religion. Studies in Church History, Vol. 23. (1986). pp. 347-62.Amalgamated Transport &General Workers' UnionIF YOU DON'TFIGHT BACK,YOU'LL GO UNDERAmalgamated Transport & General Workers' Union:Transport House, 102, High Street, 'Belfast BTl 2DL. Tel: 232381.John Freeman, Irish Secretary.55, Middle Abbey Street, Dublin 1. Tel: 734577.Charlie Douglas, Republic of Ireland Secretary.

ESSAYS' 81Fianna Fail and the Working Class:The Origins of the Enigmatic RelationshipIn his textbook Contemporary Irish Society. Michel Peillon comments on 'the astonishing capacityof Fianna Fail to hold on to such a wide range of support'. I This capacity is linked to its ability to elicitthe support of a majority of the working class whilst at the same time 'Fianna Fail policies correspondto the project of the bourgeoisie'. 2 Is it to be explained, as Peillon implies, by the 'blindness' of socialforces to their interests, produced by the large part that he claims ideology, particularly an ideology ofpopulist nationalism, plays in Irish politics? This begs the question of in what sense is ideology moreimportant in Ireland than in other countries, to which no answer is provided. More important, is therenot implied here, as in many other commentaries on the relationship between Fianna Fail: (FP) and theworking class, the notion that the working class has an interest which should lead it to support a socialistparty and that its failure to do so has been due to some process of mystification?What we have here is another example of teleological thinking about class which can be traced backto the distinction Marx once made between a 'class in itself and a 'class for itself'.3 According to thisview class exists as a reality at the economic level and this existence will ineluctably express itself inan appropriate form of political class consciousness. In this sense classes are seen as existing prior toclass struggles. The effect is to treat actual political and ideological struggles as secondary toPlatonically conceived class interests. In contrast to this, it will be suggested here that a moreappropriate approach is to treat class as an outcome of specific struggles rather than the pre-givenreality: 'Classes must be viewed as effects of struggles structured by objective conditions that aresimultaneously economic, political and ideological'.4 One element of these conditions is the strategyof left forces which can often contribute substantially to the continuing political domination andideological subjection of the working class.Apart from the theoretical problem there is a major empirical one: we still do not possess a scholarlyhistory of the dominant party in the Irish state. This will continue to be an obstacle for serious debateabout the politics and ideology ofthe working class. However the picture is not totally black. Over thelast two decades an increasing amount of work has been done which is relevant to our concerns. As Leenoted in Saothar 6, the development of Irish political science, political sociology and electoralgeography has transformed our grasp of electoral history.5 At its best, work by Garvin and Mairl' issensitive to the need to relate electoral patterns to economic and social change and the various effectsof such change on the electoral behaviour of different classes. Here the crucial and beneficial influenceof Rumpf' s social-geographical analysis of the national struggle and republicanism is obvious.?A major weakness of such work is its severe neglect of the role of the state. It was possession ofstate power for extended periods which allowed FP to develop and cement its hegemony over theworking class. The state itself was no monolith - as the site at which ruling strategies are elaborated,in Ireland as elsewhere, it was necessarily beset by fissures and conflicts. It was not until partial accessto state papers was granted to scholars that these types of division could begin to be examined, and evennow the restricted amount of material available limits what can be achieved. Nevertheless state papersremain a much under-worked source for those interested in specifying the elaboration of FP strategytowards social classes - apart from the working class there is the whole area of agrarian policy in the1930s and its implication for FP's constituency amongst small farmers. Access to new material willnot in itself be enough. Irish historians, and this includes labour historians, aversion to theoreticalquestions presents a continuing formidable obstacle.A more serious investigation of the elaboration and development of FF policies in crucialconjunctures like the early 1930s may well cause a reassessment of conventional wisdom about theparty and its relation to the working class. One of these is the notion that the history of the party is ofa movement from a leftist populist radicalism (1926-1938) to an increasingly centrist or conservativerole - Dick Walsh in his recent survey of the party's history entitles one of his later chapters 'Ireland's

82 SAOTHAR 13Tory Party? '8 This sense of the party's radical roots is one that is encouraged by the party itSelf. CharlesHaughey in 1974 reminded Dublin members that FF had come to power as a radical party;'At that time, Fianna Fail was looked upon by certain sectors as a troublesome, even dangerous arrival onthe scene. It represented a threat to the established order of things. That the established order includedslums, chronic unemployment, subsistence level farming and primitive health services, did not deter themfrom condemning Fianna Fail for wanting to upset it. '9Haughey was here reiterating a view of the party's history which had been established by Eamonde Valera. Mair quotes an interview given by de Valera in 1976 in which he claimed that in the earlyyears of the party he was worried that it was being perceived as too oriented towards the working class;'In those days I believe we could be called socialists, but not communists' .10 Indeed de Valera was notabove calling up the ghost of James ConnoUy at crucial junctures at this time. The left in Ireland maywell have underestimated the party's continuing ability, down to Haughey 's denunciation of the 1982-87 Coalition government's 'Thatcherism', their support by a reactionary clique of monetarist economistsand his own affiliation to Keynes, 'the last economist worth his salt'!1, to maintain a populist,radical appeal. .But it would be seriously to underestimate de Valera's own shrewd evaluation of the balance ofpolitical forces in the Free State to take him at his word on these issues. A better insight into his realcalculations is given in a letter to Joseph McGarrity, the leading Clan na Gael figure in the USA. It waswritten after the extraordinary Sinn Fein Ard Fheis in 1926 and the subsequent decision to create thenew party. Justifying this decision de Valera provided an interesting evaluation of the political situationin the Free State:'You will perhaps wonder why I did not wait any longer. It is vital that the Free State be shaken at the ,nextgeneral election, for if an opportunity be given it to consolidate itself further as an institution -if the presentFree State members are replaced by Farmers and Labourers and other class interests, the national interestas a whole will be submerged in the clashing of rival economic groups. '12The failure of abstentionism as a tactic after the Civil War has been ably documented by Pyne. 13 Butclearly de Valera was not simply concerned with Sinn Fein' s inability to hold onto its constituency, Theletter demonstrates a real fear that despite the limitations on, and truncated nature of, the independenceof the Free State, an early prediction of ConnoUy's about the progressive effects of self-governmentmight be materialising: .'An Irish Republic would be ... the natural repository of popular power; the weapon of popularemancipation, the only power which would show in the full light of day all those class antagonisms andlines of economic demarcation now obscured by the mists of patriotism. '14The end of 'Civil War politics' is something which has been often proclaimed since the 1960s, withthe Progressive Democrats being the latest in a long line of would-be realigners, more usually from theleft. Ironically it was de Valera, too often portrayed as a man of illusions and dreams, who clearheadedlyperceived that the Civil War fissure, though a deep and bitter one, would not inevitablyreproduce itself as the fundamental alignment in Irish politics.Although the division in the leadership of Sinn Hin over the Treaty had no crucial social oreconomic dimension to it, despite the clear reliance of the anti-Treatyites on the small farmers of thewest and the support for the Treaty of large farmers and the financial and mercantile bourgeoisie, theramshackle lumber room of Sinn Fein social policies would be visited increasingly by de Valera andhis lieutenants in the post Civil War years. This was, in part, a response to Cumann na nGaedheal'sevolution as party of government, an evolution which in itself helped to 'socialise' the Civil Wardivision. The Army Mutiny and the secession from the party of a group which constituted itself as Clann

ESSAYS 83Eireann in 1925 visibly distanced Cumann na nGaedheal from important elements of the Griffith/Collins legacy and made it relatively easy to portray it as a rump of pro-British reaction. Thus whenJ.J. Walsh, Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, resigned in 1927 over the government's lack of" commitment to protectionism, he wrote an"open letter to Cosgrave alleging amongst other things:'The party itselfhas gone bodily overto the most reactionary elements of the State .. , A Governmentcalmotdepend on the votes of ranchers and importers and at the same time develop industry and agriculture. '15To allow such a government to continue in power when the main opponent was the Labour Partywould have been precisely to risk the institutionalisation of class divisions in the Free State: the LabourParty's relatively strong performance in the first election of 1927 demonstrated the danger."The FP response was a subtle one, in part determined by an astute evaluation of the weaknesses "inthe ideological heritage of Labour. In this a major, if only partially conscious, ally was that section ofthe leadership of the IRA associated with Peadar O'Donnell. O'Connor establishes the autonomousroots of the syndicalist upsurge of Irish labour in the period 1917-21, conterminous as it was with therise of militant nationalism. 16 He demonstrates that class militancy was not, in any substantial way,a by-product of the national revolution and that the leadership of Sinn Fein was either cold or hostileto it. The substantial autonomy of the dynamics of the two processes of syndicalist militancy andnational revolution had clear implications for the subsequent development of politics in the Free State.O'Connor points out that in some senses Irish syndicalism was a caricature of the weaknesses ofsyndicalism generally: .'amorphous, incoherent and transitory' .17 But was the labour militancy of theperiod, with its disregard for 'politics' and the state, simply symptomatic of the lacunae of the widersyndicalist movement? Or was there no alternative to a militant class-oriented strategy which attemptedto maximise the possibilities of wage movements? There could be no conflagration a la Russia in 1917as the rural bourgeoisie was already fIrmly in control of the countryside. The discontent of the smallfarmer population, particularly in the west, would give rise to some localised and sporadic 'antirancher'manifestations but it had neither the social depth nor geographical reach to turn the countrysideupside down. The small farmer and landless labourer were still mesmerised by visions of piecemealacquisition which were easily assimilable by an anti-rancher rhetoric which had been the stock in tradeof Irish nationalism since the days of the Land League.The objective basis for a radical worker-small farmer alliance was not a strong one and thereforethe strategic choice facing the working class was between a militant and necessarily 'sectional' defenceof its interests within a predominantly conservative social and political order or some variant of a'national' approach involving the search for support from other groups which would necessarilyinvolve a dilution of the class strategy. However, once the economy entered recession in 1921 thepertinence of the choice evaporated as the material conditions for syndicalist militancy disappeared.Yet a choice, of sorts did remain.The Labour Party chose the 'national' approach culminating in the severing of the link with theITUC in 1930 to demonstrate that the Party. was more than a political appendage of the trade unionmovement. But the Party had in fact, in its gyrations between class and national vocations, done littlemore than concretise the fatal ambiguities in Connolly's legacy. ForConnolly's own syndicalism hadsat increasingly uneasily with his view of the leading role that the working class must play in the nationalrevolution. The latter implicitly demanded a policy of alliances, yet Connolly's weakness in analysingrural Ireland meant that the nature of the unity of town and countryside was never specified. B ut clearlythe possibility of allying working class militancy and some substantial section of small farmer Irelandwas central to his thinking and to what became the common sense of the left after 1916. As long as itwas not discarded for the chimera that it was, it provided a major point of access for a populistnationalism.It has often been argued that it was the failure of post-1916 labour to challenge Sinn Fein for theleadership of the national revolution which consigned the working class to a subordinate project within

84 SAOTHAR 13the Free State. Yet once the new state emerged what increasingly characterises both Labour Party and'social republican' thinking is the need to build a popular alliance to achieve a set of 'national' goalswhich differ little from those of FP. The left critique took the form, not of an assault on Fianna Failobjectives, but rather of the claim that FP had not the capacity to achieve the goals which it proclaimed ..Supposedly this was due to the class nature of the FF leadership: as the manifesto of Saor Eire putit in 1931, it was 'the party of the Irish middle class' .18 However, this characterisation of the party seemsto have had little effect on working class perceptions of it. The unconvincing nature of the left republicancritique, which remained the staple of left analysis for decades, brings us to the heart of the problemof analysing FP. It is a problem of more general significance, for it stems from central facets of thesocialist evaluation of the historic role of the bourgeoisie. In its classical form, this analysis combinedcritique and opposition with an appreciation of the progressive role that the class could play indeveloping the forces of production. In countries where industrialisation came later, and where it waspossible to identify capitalism as a 'foreign' mode of production and its bearers as 'anti-national' , therewas the basis for forms of populist socialism which sought to overleap the capitalist stage ofdevelopment and proceed immediately to a new social order based on the superior traits of nationaltraditions. From this perspective the indigenous middle class was irredeemably consigned to the roleof either comprador or ineffectual foe of the main enemy - 'imperialism'. The a priori logic ofnationalism held sway, especially in its most left wing forms.However, the nationalist project was/is an insatiable one for nations that are small and weak. Noamount of political independence can compensate for the sense of historic injustices perpetrated againstit. In the Irish case the facts of geography reinforced the nationalist's inevitable dissatisfaction withthe meagre fruits of a purely political, and at that partial and truncated, form of independence. Theoverwhelming fact of continued British dominance in economics and culture was at once unacceptableand not easily shakeable. For any small state, the nationalist dream of entry as a full and free individualinto 'the world of nations' can easily transform into the nightmare of inequality and marginalisation- so damaging to the national psyche. The tragedy of such small states is that self-determination canbut slightly compensate for the memories of past wrongs and the realities of continued (relative)powerlessness. This is a tragedy, not for the bourgeoisie, but for the masses; for it is they who willcontinue to bear the brunt of nationalist ambitions.What is being argued here is that the fundamental source of the notion of an 'incomplete nationalrevolution', that profound epistemological obstacle to thinking in a materialist way about Ireland, laynot fundamentally in partition but in the inevitable disj!lncture between the idealist discourse of Irishnationalism (concerned with the 'national being' to the exclusion of material resources) and geopoliticalrealities. Those who treat the nationalist discourse of FP as some superstructural survival tobe eliminated by inevitable modernisation, ignore the profound inequalities in the internationaleconomic order and system of states to which its populist nationalism gives a particular form ofideological expression. Irish backwardness in so many economic, social and cultural spheres, whichcontinued after independence as before, did not undermine the appeal of nationalism. Rather it providedthe continuing material basis for a reconstituted nationalist politics - that ofFF. The hegemony of thatparty can be measured by the fact that its most militant critics from the left challenged not its objectivesbut rather its capacity to attain them given the social composition of its leadership.During the Free State period, the most militant and substantial left critique of FP came from leftrepublicanism, particularl y that expressed by Peadar 0 'Donnell, editor of An Phobiac ht, prime moverin the agitation against the Land Annuities, and articulate champion of a workers' and small farmers'alliance. For O'Donnell the essential revolutionary perspective was encapsulated in the notion ofundoing the 'conquest', that is, not simply removing foreign political domination but also uprootingits implanted and alien mode of production: capitalism. But the class which would be the engine ofchange was, he consistently argued, the small farmers. The urban working class tended to be treatedas a class which had sold its soul for a mess of imperialist pottage. The emphasis on the centrality ofthe small farm population and the need to rouse it through the annuities campaign was an implicit

ESSAYS 85recognition of the impracticality of a revolutionary strategy based on the working class in thecircumstances of inter-war Ireland. The notion that the annuities campaign was the way out of theconservative impasse, the detonator for a revolutionary alliance between town and countryside waswholly chimerical. But strategies that are illusory do not, for all that, necessarily have no effect. Anunintended effect of social republicanism was the creation of a formidable ideological obstruction tothe development of a more realistic socialist strategy which at the same time contributed to theideological resources of FF. For the annuities campaign did, when FF decided to colonise it, make amajor contribution to its radical image in the 1932 election. 0 'Donnell himself has recently mentionedPaddy Hogan, then Minister for Agriculture, claiming that 'de Valera rowed in on the crest of a waveof agitation promoted by the communist Peadar O'Donnell' .19 This was an image based on the pettybourgeois radicalism of rural Ireland, where the large grazier had displaced the landlord as the enemyof the proprietorial ambitions of small farmers and landless men. Such an ideology did not have aninevitable import for the urbanworking class. 0 'Donnell had already noted amongst the working class'a distrust, acynicism' towards the annuities campaign which reflected a feeling that the peasantry were'a hard, mean, clutching, self-centred, self-seeking lot who really want to payout nothing'.20This recognition of a potential rift between rural and urban wings of his revolutionary alliancedemonstrated O'Donnell's capacity for sharp insights within a fundamentally fuzzy and ambiguousconceptualisation of the Irish social order. More importantly, it demonstrates the basis for Fianna Failhegemony in this period. This hegemony had nothing to do with any reputation as a 'left wing' party.The most disturbing elements ofFF policy were those which threatened a degree ofland redistribution,something which alarmed the rural bourgeoisie but represented no threat to the fundamental pattern ofland ownership. Ironically, it was people like de Valera who had least illusions about the fundamentalpassions of the countryside. He had at various times made clear that he was well aware of its capacityfor sectional selfishness. Seeing the essence of the annuities campaign as a demand for petty bourgeoiscomfort, he would have been well aware of its fundamental variance with the objectives of socialrepublicans like O'Donnell.Understanding the hegemony of FF in this period needs no resort to notions of ideologicalmystification. The label 'party of the Irish middle class' hung around its neck by Saor Eire was onlyvery partially true. Of course its ultimate philosophical position was the famous middle way betweenthe extremes of capitalism and communism, a rather threadbare suit of populism and Catholic socialteaching. However its actual operative set of medium term policies for industrial development, housingand welfare could obviously have an appeal to the working class. As significant ideologically was thefact thatFF' s middle class, was still more a potentiality than an oppressi ve presence: as part of a nationalproject of industrialisation it could still be defined as part of the 'people' as opposed for example to thefinancial and mercantile fractions of the bourgeoisie. Therefore a simple class denunciation of FF wasunlikely to have much popular resonance. This was, of course, in part the product of the influence ofCatholicism and the recent clerical denunciations of Saor Eire and other organisations committed to aclass based view of the world. There was also a specifically political factor. Possession of state powerwould allow FF to define itself concretely to the working class as a party that was truly 'national', onethat used power to benefit all the main 'legitimate' interests in the state. Thus although the annuitieswould not be paid to Britain any more, they had, at a reduced level, to be paid to the state, as the farmersheld their land in trust for the nation as a whole. O'DonnelI had favoured the scrapping of annuitypayments altogether as part of his attack on the 'conquest', but this would have appeared to urbanworkers as an unrealistic wager on the radical impulses and wider vision of the peasantry.In the early 1930s the working class was offered three variations, with different inflections ofpopulism and class, on one 'national strategy' by FF, the Labour Party and left republicans. There wasnever any doubt which would be chosen. The Labour Party complained that FF had stolen its policies.This was to miss the point. FF's appeal lay not in this or that piece of social or economic policy, butin identifying itself as the only realistically 'national' party. By attempting to compete with FF a LabourParty which could never hope to appeal to the large constituency of petty bourgeois radicalism that

86 SAOTHAR 13existed in the countryside, hopelessly caricatured and thus ultimately vindicated the FF approach.More significant for the. longer term was the social republican analysis which culminated in theRepublican Congress split. For at the heart of this analysis was a central ambiguity about the nature ofFF. Although labelled a middle class party, it was reckoned to have progressive tendencies within it.For 0' Donnell these comprised more than workers and small farmers in the rank and file, they includedindividual prominent members and even de Valera was not seen as fundamentally hostile to progressivepolicies. In asking the question why workers voted FF it is necessary to remember that O'Donnellhimself saw his agitational and ideological work as aimed at pushing FF to the left rather than displacingit. 21From 0' Donnell down to the distinctions that were still made between FF and the 'really' bourgeoisparties by some sections of the left in the 1960s, the weaknesses of left analysis mirror the strength ofFF hegemony . When FFJeaders described their party as a 'national movement' rather than a party theywere reflecting in their own way on a reality which the left failed to come to terms with for decades.To label FF a middle class party would only have been to discredit them with the working class if therewas a widespread conception that the stage of nation-building was over and that the fundamentalcontradiction in the society was a class one. Instead FF could relatively easily give the problems ofbackwardness a nationalist inflection which provided the basis for a pan class consensus around the poleof development In the 1930sa familiar pattern of left discourse was established - the didactictransmission to the masses of 'truths' which are in fact obvious to them. If workers voted FF in the 1930sit was not because they had failed to notice that it was a 'middle class' party. More fundamentally itwas because ~e realities of Irish economic backwardness continued to provide a base for a popularnationalism of development which was assented to not only by the socialists of the Labour Party butalso by their revolutionary scourges - the 0 'Donnells and Gilmores - who simply warned the workingclass that FF might not-ultimately deliver. Leftism had moved in a decade from a syndicalismunconcerned with the significance of state power for the political and ideological resources of thebourgeoisie to a position where the dispute with the bourgeoisie was over who could best complete thenational revolution - an ideological collapse which syndicalism, for all its faults was incapable of.Support for a bourgeois project of economic development and class awareness are not, in fact,necessarily contradictory. It all depends on the con jucture, nationall y and internationally. The workingclass can have an interest in the development and success of its national capitalist class. FF wouldexperience problems not by being identified with the bourgeoisie but with a bourgeoisie that was visiblyfailing - from the early 1940s .. onwards -to'deliver employment. But the failure of protectionism didnot fatally damage its sponsors because it was still possible to unfurl another strategy for developmentwhich, while at variance with traditional Sinn F6in economic policy, could still derive support from thedismal facts of emigration and unemployment and their demonstration that 'real' independence had notbeen achieved.The new policies of free trade, EEC membership and attraction of foreign capital appeared to someofFianna Fail's opponents on the left to open up new possibilities. The social republicans of the 1960s,together with a section of the Labour Party in the Dail, tried to arouse the masses by pillorying Lemassand Lynch for betraying the core principles of 'republican' economic policy.22 More forward-looking,if equally unsuccessful, were those in the Labour Party who saw in the new policies, and in theindustrialisation they encouraged, the hope of a modernisation process which would render traditionalparty cleavages redundant. But despite all the conservative encrustations that FF had developed as thenormal party of government between 1932 and the 1960s, despite even the less salubrious aspect of itsrelationship with sections of the bourgeoisie revealed in the T ACA episode,23 the party would not easilygive up its populist image. For protectionism and welfarism it now substituted a form of practicalKeynesianism and corporatism.The crisis of the traditional protected industries in the freer trading conditions of the 1970s, togetherwith the international recession, have put the material basis for the party's new strategy underconsiderable strain. Intersecting with severe factionalism in the party, a legacy of the Arms Trial of

ESSAYS 871970, it created the conditions for a Fine Gael upsurge in the late 1970s and early 1980s. However, thisdevelopment of Garret FitzGerald ~s 'social-democratic' Fine Gael would be short-lived and largely atthe expense of the Labour Party.24 Or FitzGerald's increasingly neo-liberal prescriptions for theeconomy as Taoiseach would make it easier for FF to reassert its progressiveness in opposition. In officethe party, even while implementing some radical:and intensely unpopular public expenditure cuts, hasensured that it will escape the 'Thatcherism', label, by bringing the leadership of ICTU along in itsProgramme/or National Recovery.25The left, ever hopeful that FF will alienate its working class supporters, should ponder the lessonsof the 1930s. Populism then depended not simply on the quality QHhe economic and social policies itproposed, but on the denunciation of them by the most conservative elementsin political life. Popularappeal depends on the overall context in which policies are proposed. As the Economist noted in itsrecent provocative survey of the Republic, Haughey's recent toughness on public spending does notat all justify a comparison with Thatcher, for he has not broken with what it refers to as 'The vaguelyformulated socialism of his Fianna Fail party'. What the Economist's blue-tinted spectacles define associalism is more correctly specified later as Haughey's tendency to see himself as 'the embodimentof the spirit of Ireland, the true voice of the common man' and his reluctance to take on 'Ireland'scosseted public sector trade unions'. 26 The continuing ability of Fianna Fail to reproduce a populistappeal of this sort, half a century since it was originally developed, would appear to make left hopesof a realignment produced by the pressure of economic crisis as chimerical as ever.NotesHenry Patterson1. M. Peillon, Contemporary Irish Society, (Dublin, 1982), p. 113.2. ibid., p. 114.3. A. Przeworski, Capitalism and Social Democracy, (Cambridge, 1986), p. 47.4. ibid.5. Joseph Lee, 'Irish Nationalism and Socialism: Rumpf Reconsidered', Saothar 6, 1980, p. 59.6. Tom Garvin, The Evolution of Irish Nationalist Politics, (Dublin, 1981); Peter Mair, The Changing Irish PartySystem, (London, 1987).7. E. Rumpf and AC. Hepbum, Nationalism and Socialism in Twentieth Century Ireland, (Liverpool,1977).8. Dick Walsh, The Party, (Dublin, 1986), ch. 10.9. Martin Mansergh (ed.), The Spirit of the Nation: The Speeches and Statements of Charles 1. Haughey, 1957-1986, (Dublin, 1986), p. 198.10. Mair, op.cit., p. 17.1l. Irish Times, 6 February, 1987.12. Sean Cronin, The McGarrity Papers, (fralee, 1972), p. 14l.13. Peter Pyne, 'The Third Sinn Fein Party, 1923-26' in Economic and Social Review 1, 1970.14. 'Socialism and Irish Nationalism' in James Connolly, Socialism and Nationalism, ed. Desmond Ryan,(Dublin, 1948). .15. Brian Reynolds, 'The Formation and Development ofFianna Fail, 1926-1932', DPhil, Trinity College, Dublin,1976, p. 138.16. P.E.I. O'Connor, 'Syndicalism in Ireland, 1917-1923,' PhD, Cambridge, 1984.17. ibid., p.292.18. AnPhoblacht, 3 October, 1931.19. Peadar O'Donnell, Monkeys in the Superstructure, (Galway, 1986), p. 26.20. An Phoblacht, 24 March, 1928.21. See his revealing reflections on Fianna Fail in his pamphlet The Bothy Fire and all that, (Dub'lin, 1937).22. Paul Bew & Henry Patterson, SeanLemass and the Making of Modern Ireland,-(Dublin,.l982),.pp. 173-186.23. Walsh, op.cit., pp. 83-88.24. Mair, op.cit., p.42.25. The Progranune seeks not only to regenerate the economy but to 'improve the social equity of our society ... '

88 SAOTHAR 13- both the wetness of the sentiment and the corporatist approach of the Programme are far removed from theThatcherite repertoire. Programme for National Recovery, (PI. 5213), 1987.26. The Economist, 16-22 January, 1988.AONTAS MtJINTEOIRI EIREANNTEACHERS' UNION OF IRELANDHead Office:73 Orwell RoadRathgar, Dublin 6.Tel.:961588,961510The progressive professional teachers' union"To organise teachers engaged in post-primary, higher and further education ".The Executive Committee of the TUIcongratulates the ILHS on its very valuable educational work in the field ofLabour History;urges all labour movement organisations to support the ILHS through corporateaffiliation;urges all unions to deposit their records in the Irish Labour History SocietyArchive, UCD, Belfield, Dublin 4, where they will be catalogued by 'the Archive'sprofessional archivists and preserved for purposes of scholarly research.35, Lower Gardiner Street,Dublin 1. Telephone: 743662IPUIrish Print UnionEnsure your printing is done by Trade Union Labour.List available from the IPU.

ESSAYS89The Irish Immigrants' Contribution toScottish Socialism, 1880-1926'The proletarian is without property; his relation to his wife and children has no longer anything incommon with the bourgeois - family relations; modern industrial labour, modern SUbjugation tocapital, the same in England as in France, in America as in Germany, has stripped him of every traceof national character. Law, morality, religion, are to him so many bourgeois prejudices, behind whichlurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests.'Karl Marx and Frederick Engels,The Communist Manifesto'It is noteworthy that Frederick Engels, notwithstanding his long residence in England and acquain~tance with the English people, never in himself became completely anglicised. He always retained tothe last his German individuality.'Emest Belford BaxAlthough there were Utopian socialists in Scotland in the 1830s and 1840s, not one of themadvocated or subscribed to the class struggle. When socialism began to develop in Scotland around1880, it was restricted mainly to a minority of working class men and women. Yet despite the perennialmyths about the almost innate 'democratic intellect' of the Scot in the late eighteenth, nineteenth andearly twentieth centuries, Scottish socialism - or should I say socialism in Scotland? - crystallised withina society characterised by Presbyterian' superiority', a suffocating Kail yard sentimentality, and ethnicconflict.!Although a small minority of the Irish immigrants were Protestants, the unspoken assumption ofScottish historiography is that the Irish immigrants in Scotland were exclusively Roman Catholics.There are really no statistics distinguishing Catholics from Protestants amongst the Irish immigrants.The census figures tabulating the number of Irish immigrants did not take account of men and womenof Irish parentage. Despite the Presbyterian critics' wild exaggerations of the large number of Irishliving in the Athens of the North between 1880 and 1914, historians of Scotland's shifting populationhave not been able to muster much detailed infonnation about their actual number. While the largeinflux of about 110,000 Irish immigrants during the 1840s was not sufficient to compensate for theheavy emigration from Scotland, Irish immigrants continued to arrive in a country with passionate anti­Catholic prejudices. What was not in doubt, according to the most recent research into Scottishpopulation history, was that many Scottish towns and cities 'contained a substantial population ofIrishimmigrants?In 1851 the population of Scotland was 2,888,742. By 1921 it had increased to 4,900,000. In the1920s as in the 1880s, the Presbyterian Establishment were raging about the very large number of Irish­Catholics in Scotland. In summarising one such critic, James Handley said: 'The writer estimated thatthe Catholic communion in Scotland (in 1926) numbered about 650,000 or 13.26% of the population- not in itself an alarming encroachment on the Protestant predominance of the nation if the balance werenot undergoing a constant modification in favour of the Catholics by their higher bihh-rate'. TheCatholic community in Glasgow was calculated at 250,000 in a population of 1,100,000 or 23 % of thetotal population. 3Furthennore, Irish-Catholic immigrants were concentrated in such courities as Lanarkshire,Renfrewshire, Dumbartonshire and Ayrshire. Despite the propaganda in the Kailyard novels, the Irish­Catholic immigrants were restricted to unskilled work, particularly in the coal mining industry of thewest of Scotland. In a vivid, graphic and racist essay Rublished in 1888, Robert Haddow divided 'theminers of Scotland' into 'the Scottish miner pure and simple, the Scoto-Irish miner and the miner whois altogether an Irishman'. The miners in the first group were 'the best' miners; and they had an

90 SAOTHAR 13education 'quite equal to that of a skilled artisan'. According to Haddow, the indigenous minersexpressed resentment towards 'the untrained Irishmen who flock into the pits'. In a paragrapharticulating the typical racist sentiments of the time, Haddow said: 'B ut differences there are, and thechief one is that the ScotocIrishman seldom seeks to rise or get beyond where he is. He is clamorousindeed for big wages, and is generally a strong union man, whereas the Scotsman as a rule looks askanceon unions and the men who manage and manipulate them. As one of a crowd the Scoto-Irishman is loudin the demand for what he thinks his rights ... The strain of Irish blood is predominant in him, he likesto have a grievance and to ail his discontent'. But in most other anti-Irish writings, the Irish-Catholicimmigrants did play an important role in the Scottish labour movement. Haddow was not a particularlyreliable chronicler of working class self-activity.4In the recently published A Century of the Scottish People, 1830-1950, T.C. Smout asserts that amajor weakness of Scottish socialism was 'theinability of the Independent Labour Party (in the 1890s)to carry the Irish, who were deterred by their priests from backing obvious socialists, and equally wereoften putoffby the visible distaste of men like Keir Hardie and Bruce Glasier for Irishmen, whom theystill openly inclined to regard as simple victims of superstition and POpery'.5 Yet despite the very visibleand widespread anti-Catholic and anti-Irish prejUdices in the labour movement as well as in the widerScottish society from 1880 onwards, the gradual growth of the important twentieth-century Catholicvote behind Labour and socialist candidates in Parliamentary elections was the outcome of the IrishCatholic immigrants' social assimilation.6Notwithstanding the powerful anti-Catholic prejudices in Scottish society between 1880 and 1926,the Irish-Catholic immigrants and their descendants played a crucial and often pioneering role in thedevelopment of modem socialism. Indeed, the Irish-Catholic immigrants' assimilation into the Scottishlabour movement began about 1880. In 1881 a few Irish-Catholic immigrants were active in theabortive attempt to found a Scottish Labour Party in Lanarkshire under the leadership of John Dunn;7and in 1885 the immigrants' newspaper, The Exile, was already chronicling their activities in the labourmovement. sWhilst the Scottish labour movement played a crucial role in the process of assisting the Irish­Catholic immigrants to assimilate into the wider society, the indigenous Scots developed a dualconsciousness.In depicting the consciousness of the Scottish working class from Chartist times, S moutargues that: 'Such dualities of consciousness -of being Scottish and British, of being Breton and French,of being Catalan and Spanish - have been much commoner in European history since 1800 than is oftenacknowledged'.9 Just as the indigenous working class Scots often displayed duali ties of consciousness,so the Irish-Catholic immigrants developed a dual-identity within Scottish society between 1880 and1926 ..In discussing the problems of such dualities of consciousness, Hobsbawm argues that: 'An Irishlabourer migrating to Boston, his brother who settled in Glasgow, and a third brother who went toSydney would remain Irish, but become part of three different working classes with different histories.At the same time, and as this example suggests, it is also wrong to assume that the members of suchnational working classes are or ever were homogeneous bodies of Frenchmen, Britons or Italians, or,even when they saw themselves as such, that they are not divided by other communal demarcations,or that they are exclusively identified with the State which defines their effective existence as a classand an organised movement'.lDIn a pioneering book, The Irish in Modern Scotland, the late Father James Handley was verysensitive to the Irish-Catholic immigrants' dual-identity. Although he did not deal with the pioneeringwork of the Irish-Catholic immigrants in the Scottish labour movement in the 1880s and 1890s, hecoped with the implicit question of their dual-identity by devoting a chapter to what he characterisedas 'the Scoto-Irish'. Nevertheless there was considerable evidence of the role of Catholic priests, theAmerican Knights of Labour and the individual endeavours of Michael Davitt, Dr. William Carroll ofPhiladelphia, and John Murdoch, the crofters' leadcr, in raising socialist consciousness in the coalfieldsof the west of Scotland.!!

ESSAYS" 91Although anti -Catholic prejudice remained strong in Scotland throughout the inter-war period, andalthough Scottish newspapers seldom used the expression' Scoto-Irish' after the Easter Rising of 1916,the intense antagonism and abuse engendered by the Orange Order ensured the survival of the dualidentityof the Irish-Catholic immigrants until 1922. When S. V. Bracher published The Herald Booko/Labour Members in 1923, he did not quite know how to describe the immigrants. In a sympatheticaccount of Joseph Sullivan, who had just been elected to Parliament for the North Lanarkshireconstituency in 1922, Bracher described him as 'an Irish Scot', though Sullivan had been born inCambuslang, Lanarkshire, in 1866.12Nevertheless the processes unleashed by the First World WaT assisted the Irish -Catholic immigrantsand their descendants to assimilate into Scottish society. Despite the Presbyterian Churches' intensifiedanti-Catholicism, the role of the 1918 Education Act in providing the Irish-Catholics with their ownseparate schools under the State system and the granting of a measure of Irish self-government helped"the process of assimilation. Furthermore, dualities of consciousness and dual-identity are not eternalor unchanging. By 1926 sectarian bigotry no longer kept the Irish-Catholic immigrants out of anysection of the labour movement: they were prominent in the General Strike in Glasgow, Perth, andFalkirk. 13Social being determines social consciousness, and some Marxists still insist that the way anindividual sees himlherself is part ofhislher 'social being'. By social being Marx meant something likecollective being (social experience) and by social consciousness he indicated something like commoncultural life. If so, the way an individual sees himlherself is individual consciousness - and certainlynot 'social being'.14The mid-Victorian labour movement was engendered within a specific national context in whichPrebyterian traditions, values and attitudes impinged on the consciousness of working men and women.The anonymous author of a study of British coal miners asserted that in Lanarkshire and the West ofScotland 'only the Irish or the worst of the Scotch from other counties' belonged to the miners' tradeunions'. But although the Irish were marginalised economically as part of the Scottish working class,they had a cultural cohesion as Irish immigrants. Moreover, when modern socialism was born in "the1880s, the Irish workers in Scotland had a greater potential to become labourites/socialists. 15 Racialprejudice was not only discernible later on; it was, in fact, very m uch accelerated. Far from the Scottishproletariat - and especially the disharmonious, foreign compdnent part of it, the Irish immigrants andtheir descendents - being stripped of national character between 1880 and 1926, it actually struggledto articulate the double national identities of working men and women who carried a distind culturalbaggage into the new factories, mills and coal mines. Instead of recognising and acknowledging thiscentral aspect of Scottish working class history, the dominant historiography focuses on uniqueindividual leaders - for example, James ConnoIly (1870-1916) and John Wheatley (1869-1930) -without attempting to relate them to the wider social and political forces unleashed by the process ofcapitalist modernisation within a particular national milieu.Long before Home Rule for Ireland became a controversial issue in Scottish working classcommunities in the 1880s, ethnic conflict and religious sectarianism coloured social, intellectual andpolitical life. While the intensity of religious sectarianism was reflected in nineteenth century books,novels and newspapers, the hidden assumptions of the dominant Presbyterian historiography obscurethe efforts o(those historians who want to portray the contribution of the Irish immigrants and theirdescendants to the Scottish working class movement.The Irish immigrants played an important role in the Irish National League in Scottish communitiesas well as in the infant Scottish Labour Party (cf. John Ferguson and R. Chisholm Robertson) and theSocial Democratic Federation. 16 In using a remarkably accurate phrase' Irishmen as Scottish socialists' ,H.W. Lee and E. Archbold went on to say that 'some of the best comrades in the socialist movementin Scotland were Irishmen' .17 The best known and most prominent of them included James ConnoUy,John Leslie (1856-1921), R. Chisholm Robertson, J. Shaw MaxweIl (1885-1929), Patrick or"PeteCurran, John Wheatley, Fred Douglas, Andrew McNally and Harry McShane. But although thos~

92 SAOTHAR 13socialists of Irish origin often developed a dual-identity, they owed their basic loyalty to the politicalobjectives of the Scottish labour movement as they understood them.Far from Roman Catholic historians challenging the dominant Scottish historiographical orthodoxy,they have usually, if unwittingly, reinforced it. Thus in The Irish in Modern Scotland. Handleysaid: 'Even in the mining industry ~ where grading according to skill did not enter and where theimmigrants were numerically very strong, they failed to make their voice heard and left the leadershipto Scotsmen such as Alexander MacDonald, Keir Hardie and Robert Smillie' .18 He was factually wrongabout Smillie. An Ulster Protestant who wasbom in Belfast in 1856, Smillie came to live and workin Lanarkshire when he was fifteen years of age. 19The renaissance of Scottish working class radicalism took place against an immediate backdrop ofracial tensions and ethnic conflict within most working class communities. This was particularly thecase in Lanarkshire. In July 1877 Alexander MacDonald attempted to re-organise the miners' tradeunion branches in Lanarkshire and Ayrshire. Reporting on MacDonald's failure, the editor of theGlasgow Sentinel. the Scottish miners' newspaper, said that 'a large number of the men had gone to theOrange demonstrations'.20 In moving a vote of thanks to Alexander MacDonald, the veteran Labourleader, ata miners' meeting in Larkhall in 1879, the young Keir Hardie compared MacDonald's workfor the Scottish miners to that of 'Martin Luther at the rise of Protestantism '. Most of the miners presentwere Roman Catholics and the meeting ended in uproar. As William Stewart explained: 'There wereloud murmurs of disapprobation, and Hardie had actually to be protected from assault' YIn a pioneering essay on 'Irish nationalism and radical politics in Scotland, 1880-1906' , Ian S. Woodsays that 'modem work on Irish-American nationalism serves to underline the fact that people with nodirect personal memories of the homeland may develop even deeper politically expressed loyality toit, whether as a result of parental example or the influence of an immigrant sub-culture'.22 While theUlster Protestants appear to have integrated themselves into the dominant culture without too muchdifficulty, the hostility directed at the Irish-Catholic immigrants stimulated them to create their ownsub-culture in Scottish working class communities. This immigrant sub-culture overlapped with andimpinged on a predominantly Presbyterian culture throughout working class Scotland. Significantly,Roman Catholicism in Scotland was, as Anthony Ross argued, austere and puritanical. But the Irish­Catholic immigrant'" sub-culture was most visible in the sphere of Scottish working class politics.Born of Irish immigrant parents in a slum in 'Little Ireland', John Leslie (1861-1921) became themost prominent socialist in Edinburgh. This role was held initially by the erratic John L. Mahon. Thelatter left the SDF in 1884 to join the breakaway Socialist League founded by William Morris, thoughhe re-joined the SDF later on. A socialist missionary in the Scottish coalfields, Mahon did not attachso much importance to the Irish Question as John Leslie or R. Chisholm Robertson. Like Leslie andConnolly, Mahon was born in the Cowgate or 'Little Ireland' area of Edinburgh. As David Roberts.the Catholic historian, wrote: 'He was baptisedatSt. Mary'sRC Cathedral on 2July, 1865. The additionof the name Lincoln is interesting and one presumes it derives from Abraham Lincoln assassinated on15 April ofthat year. This shows that McMahon's parents were very politically minded because it wasnot usual for Catholic children to receive such names in the nineteenth century'. Later on, he droppedthe Mc from his name. Unlike other Irish-Catholics who were prominent in Scottish working classpolitics, Mahon, though a practising Catholic in the late nineteenth century, did not lecture on the IrishQuestionYWhile the sons of Irish immigrants such as ConnoUy, Leslie, Mahon and Douglas 24 were active inEdinburgh, Chisholm Robertson and Hugh Murin25 in Stirlingshire, J. Shaw Maxwell, Pete Curran andJohn Wheatley in Glasgow, the real political stronghold of the Irish-Catholic immigrants was alwaysin Lanarkshire. 26 A key figure in the Lanarkshire coalfields was the miners' leader, Andrew McCowie;and in the 1870s the Glasgow Sentinel and the North British Daily Mail were constantly reporting thespeeches and activities of the man they depicted as 'the Scoto-Irishman'. McCowie - sometimes speltMcCowey - worked amongst the Irish immigrants in the Lanarkshire coalfields with another Irish­Catholic miners' agent, James Roden.

ESSAYS 93McCowie played a key role in the birth of Scottish socialism. With the death of AlexanderMacDonald in 1881, McCowie, 'an enthusiastic Scoto-lrishman, thought he saw in William Small(1847-1903) a successor to Mr. MacDonald'.27 A member of the SDF, the Socialist League and theIndependent Labour Party (ILP), Small was a pivotal figure in Scottish trade union and socialist circlesuntil his death. Supported by John Ferguson, an Ulster born Protestant nationalist, and John Murdoch(1818-1903), the Scottish crofters' leader whose five volume manuscript autobiography I found inGlasgow in 1968, Small 'taught Keir Hardie and Robert Smillie the principles of socialism\28With Michael Davitt and rank-and-file Roman Catholic priests, Small toured the Lanarkshirecoalfields in 1884-85 setting up branches of the Scottish Anti-Royalty and Labour League. 29 Theillegitimate son of a wealthy Dundee manufacturer, Small was converted to Catholicism just before hejoined the SDF. 30 Furthermore, Small's prominence in the SDF, Socialist League and ILP did not vitiatehis warm and intimate relations with John Ferguson, John Murdoch, Chisholm Robertson or theCatholic priests who worked hard to organise the miners and unskilled workers in the West of Scotland.Indissolubly linked with the land agitations in Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland, the ScottishAnti-Royalty and Labour League agitated for the nationalisation of the land and mineral royalties. Incommon with John Ferguson, J. Shaw Maxwell,31 John Murdoch, Michael Davitt, ChisholmRobertson,32 Keir Hardie and Dr. Charles Cameron, the editor of the left-wing Liberal North BritishDaily Mail and MP for Glasgow ,33 Small was a passionate advocate of Home Rule for Scotland as wellas Ireland.Despite his lack of Irish ancestry, William Small became increasingly identified with the Irishimmigrants in Scotland. When the Irish National League extended its political activities in Scotland,Small, Chisholm Robertson and other Irish immigrants articulated their double-identity as Scots andIrish sympathisers. In its opening issue in 1885, the Glasgow Observer approved of the efforts of theIrish National League to mobilise the Irish vote in the cause of Home Rule for Ireland. 34 But theGlasgow Observer did more than that; it also helped to organise Irish immigrants and native Scots intonew trade union and labour organisations, and became the voice of the Irish-Catholic immigrants in theWest of Scotland. In 1885, for example, the Glasgow Observer published an article byWilliam Smallon 'A New Labour Movement' .35 At the same time, Small, Michael Davitt, and Chisholm Robertsonorganised branches of the American organisation, the Sons of Labour, in the Lanarkshire coalfields.RObertson, a young electrical engineer in Slammanan, canvassed 'the Irishmen of the locality' whowere interested in forming a branch of the Irish National League; and he gave a lecture in Glasgow onthe question, 'Should an Irishman be ashamed of his nationality?' .36In the general election of 1885 Small, Chisholm Robertson,37 J. Shaw Maxwell, J.G. Weir, BruceGlasier and others devoted equal attention to the agitation for Home Rule in both Scotland and Ireland.Yet despite their double-identity as Scots and Irishmen, Robertson, John Leslie, Andrew McCowie; J.Shaw Maxwell and John L. Mahon owed this basic allegiance to organised labour. R. ChisholmRobertson made this crystal clear when the leaders of the Irish National League in Glasgow asked,theIrish electors to vote for the Liberal candidate, R. Caldwell, against J. Shaw Maxwell, the Land andLabour candidate in the Blackfriars constituency. In Slammanan Robertson persuaded the Irish­Catholic activists to pass the following resolution:'That we, the members of the Daniel O'Connell branch of the Irish National League, deeply regret theaction of the executive in withdrawing the Irish vote from Mr. Shaw Maxwell, the candidate for theBlackfriars division of Glasgow, and that the motion be sent to the Glasgow Observer for publication. '38In those years, Chisholm Robertson, later to be the first secretary of the ILP, was a passionate socialistwho was proud of his dual-identity as a Scot and an Irishman.By 1895 an increasing minority of the Irish-Catholic immigrants were arguing for the nationalisationof the means of production. In supporting the ongoing agitation for the nationalisation of the landand mineral royalties, Catholic priests were now creating problems for themselves. As well as

94 SAOTHAR.13,"defending the view that 'a person had a right to private property', the Glasgow Observer also deploredthe ILP' s doctrine that 'religion must be banned from the schools'. Unlike private property in the meansof production, land could be nationalised because it 'had not been made by man but by God Almighty'.While complaining that 'some of our Catholic young men have been so far misled as to become incertain localities members of the local branches of the ILP', the priests were really admitting that theyhad unleashed forces they could no longer control. 39Yet despite Irish-Catholic attempts to integrate themselves into the Scottish labour movement bydeveloping a double-identity, some of their leading figures and supporters were kept out of prominencethrough ethnic and religious prejudices. Orangeism remained a decisive and devisive influence. KeirHardie was,for example,believed to harbour anti-Catholic prejudices; and Hardie's gaffe in 1879 incomparing Alexander MacDonald with Martin Luther before an audience of mainly Catholic minerskept this belief, whether justified or not, alive for a long time afterwards.Robert Smillie was known to express Orange sympathies; 4 °and Chisholm Robertson, 'the mostgifted speaker' in the early Scottish labour movement, was driven outof the miners' union in 1900 afterengaging in bitter quarrels with Smillie and Hardie. 41 Bob Selkirk, the veteran communist, insisted thatSmillie's Orangeism played a crucial role in the demise of both Chisholm Robertson and WilliamSmall. B ut in contrast to Chisholm Robertson, Small remained a Marxian socialist as well as a Catholic.'Artdrew McCowie, William Small, Chisholm Robertson, John Leslie and James Connolly werepractising Catholics as well as active socialists.While James ConnoUy's relationship to Catholicism was always very complex, he was, at leastaccording to Harry McShane, always very touchy when John Maclean and others criticised the CatholicChurch. Although Connolly privately informed Matheson in 1908 that he had not been to his religiousduties for fifteen years, he was criticised by American socialists in 1905 for attending Church. Just asRalph Chaplin said that Connolly at this time 'spoke too much like an Irish nationalist to suit me', soHenry Kuhn, an American De Leonite, complained abut his pro-Catholic sympathies. 42In making a perceptive critique of Walter Kendall's argument that the doctrinal purity of the DeLeonite Socialist Labour Party (SLP) in Scotland could be attributed to the Calvinist background of itsfounders, George Monies said: 'This seems to be a superficial explanation of the nature of the SLP sinceCalvinism is basically elitist, many of the Scottish SLP were Irish Catholics and it does not explain whythe SLP gained members outside of Scotland'.43 The important pioneering role of the comparativelyunknown Irish-Catholic immigrants in the SDF and SLP as well as in the ILP deserves recognition. Butthe really crucial point is that the collective social being of Irish-Catholics in Scotland between 1880and 1926 produced a distinctive common cultural life in the conclaves where they gathered togetherin the Scottish labour movement.In this specific sense the social being of Chisholm Robertson, Andrew McCowie, John Leslie, J.Shaw MaxweU, Jaines ConnoUy, Patrick MacGill and many others engendered their own distinctivecultural life. By 1909 Patrick MacGill was an active member of the Greenock branch of the SDF. Withthe assistance of Maclean he published his first book in 1911. Despite Maclean' s intense hatred of theCatholic Church, he tried to encourage and foster MacGill' s literary talent as part of a general endeavourto spread socialist enlightenment. Even sO,Maclean was distressed by the fact that MacGill wassympathetic to the Catholic Church.44 But although MacGill was active in the Marxist SDF, he wasvery aware of and portrayed the distinctive way-of-life of the Irish immigrants in Scotland.The tensions were never one-sided. In attempting to promote MacGill's first book in the' pages ofForward. MacLean articulated a strong anti-Catholicism; and he was, as Harry McShane says,'opposed to the Catholic Church in a Calvinist way as well as in a Marxist way' .45 In a later, thoughsomewhat different, version of the same story, Tom Bell said that Connolly 'related stories of workersin the Irish Socialist Republican Party going to mass of a morning and delivering the Irish Worker atthe houses on the road' . In insisting that Connolly denounced the Catholic Church, Bell said that henevertheless made it clear 'he was a Catholic'.46 On the other hand, Harry McShane says that Connollywas not prepared to tolerate any criticism of the Catholic Church.47

:. -,,'.' ',. .~.,:.ESSAYS 95Although the Catholic Socialist Society was founded in Glasgow by John Wheatley and WilliamRegan, it attracted as much sympathetic publicity in the American as in the Scottish socialist press. 48In reconstructing the Scottish context, RaphaelSamuel says: 'Scottish socialism in this period seemsto have been particularly militant in its atheism, and for many of those who came to it - whether throughthe !LP, the SDF orthe SLP - religion and the Church were (as Tom Bell recalls) 'the big enemy". Thepolitical attitudes of Wheatley and Regan were made crystal-clear in a letter that Regan sent to CarlThompson, the Secretary of the American Socialist Party in July 1914:'One piece of advice I would venture to o.ur American comrades, .Do not meet the Catholic attack by acounter attack on the priests and the Church. That may be the temptmg way, but that way lies failure. TheCatholic workingman will not be attracted to you when you attack institutions he holds dear. '49In glancing back to the growth of the labour movement in Scotland before the First World War,David Lowe argued that 'the appearance of the Catholic Socialist Societies' was 'altogether inspiring'in so far as the Irish immigrants had become less hostile to organised labour' .50 IfConnolly, ChisholmRobertson, John Leslie and others had not previously developed a dual-identity as Irish patriots andScottish citizens, the Catholic Socialist organisations would not have found the space in which theycould grow and flourish. In acknow ledging Connoll y' s dual-identity, Owen Dudley Ed wards said: 'Hewas an Irishman, and we rightly claim him as ours; but he was born in Edinburgh, and the magnitudeand pain of his struggle there gave him every right to Scottish nationality also' .51 But the forcesunleashed by the First World War played a contradictory role in the history of the Irish in Scotland.While the Easter Rising in 1916 created the pre-conditions in which a mass Labour vote could developamongst the Irish immigrants, the execution of Connolly initially re-kindled sectarian strife in someScottish working class communities. 52In depicting the impact of the Easter Rising on the Fife coalfield, Bob Selkirk wrote: 'Widespreadanger at the cowardly shooting of Connolly, the wounded leader of the 1916 Irish uprising, intenseindignation at the tactics of the Black and Tans in Ireland, a big sale of Connolly's pamphlets, madeit inevitable that 'help' should be organised for the Sinn Feiners and their tactics imitated under differentconditions'. In reinforcing what Selkirk said, John McArthur gave a similar account: 'We took a closeinterest in the Irish struggle. There were quite a number of Irish militants in Fife with whom we had theclosest association because in those days Irishmen were expected to be' agin the Government' and forthe trade union and labour movement' .53In 1921 Sinn Feiners in Fife started a series of 'farm fires'. When the culprits were charged in theDunfermline Sheriff Court, a sympathiser' called upon them to keep 'the Red Flag flying' '. Some Irishimmigrants joined the Comm unist Party in Fife, Glasgow, Edinburgh and elsewhere, and the Sinn Hin,organisation in Fife co-operated with the. local communists during the bitter coal strike of 1921. An. editorial in the conservative D unfermline Journal asserted that: 'A plot to establish a ScottishCommunist Republic was seriously projected, while the Scots were referred to in a leaflet as 'bloodytools of the English against our brother Celts of Erin'. A week later the editor said:'In Fife the revolutionary spirit is widespread and it would be dangerous to minimise it. Extreme socialismas known in 1914, has given place to communism, and Irishmen have been swept into Sinn Feinism ...Reviewing the incidents of the last fourteen days, when at times mob rule ruled supreme, conclusions areaccepted indicating that had the authorities not acted with promptitude Fife would ere now have been ina rebellious state. '54Although the aggressiveness amongst the Irish immigrants in places like Fife gave a new impetusto Orangeism, the growth of a mass Labour vote could not bestopped. The fact that many of the Irish­Catholics in the Gorbals constituency voted for George Bames, a right -wing leader of the Labour Party,rather than John Maclean, the friend of Connolly, in the'general election of 1918 was not decisive

96 SAOTHAR13evidence of political conservatism on their part. Some Irish-Catholics - who were otherwise sympatheticto Maclean - were probably alienated at a mass eve-of-the-poll rally where Maclean said: 'Therewere two Jews - Jesus Christ and Karl Marx.One appealed to the heart and the other appealed to thehead' .55 Yet despite the most obvious political feature of the Irish immigrants' sub-culture - that is,the Catholicism which often made them more radical, yet divided from the Scottish workers on somesocial issues - the Easter Rising ended the Irish question in Scottish politics by creating the Anglo-IrishTreaty in 1921.At the same time as they supported Irish independence, John Leslie and John L. Mahon dissociatedthemselves from bourgeois Sinn Fein and the Easter Rising and asked Irish-Catholics to vote Labour.Whilst the process of social assimilation was not complete, the dual-identity of Irish immigrants wasnow reinforcing the still evolving class solidarity of the Irish and the indigenous Scots. In the dramaticelectoral breakthrough in the general election of 1922, John Wheatley, Hugh Murin and Joseph Sullivan(1866-1935) were elected as champions of the Scottish working class .. Certainly; there were setbacks; and in the general election of 1924 J oseph Sullivan lost his seat inParliament as the result of an Orange backlash in the North Lanarkshire constituency. But elsewherein Scotland the militant Irish-Catholic immigrants played a new role in the labour movement andassisted their own assimilation into working class Scotland. In 1922 the Irish-Catholic immigrantshelped to elect Emanuel Shinwell in the West Lothian constituency. By 1924 the Irish-Catholicimmigrants were accepting their class identity within Scotland; the Catholic Socialist Society waswound up and absorbed by the wider Scottish labour movement. 56Although the dual-identity of the Irish immigrants was evident from at least the 1880s, it was notinconsistent with, indeed was sometimes a force for, activism in Scottish working class politics. AlsothIs dual-identity ultimately facilitated Irish incorporation into the Scottish labour movement. Thisconclusion is consistent with the observation made by Joan Smith that working class support forLiberalism in Glasgow before the First World War helped to contain 'the Protestant-Catholic divide'.It is also compatible with Patrick Renshaw' s assertion that the supporters and advocates of the IndustrialWorkers of Great Britain (IWGB) were either Scottish, Irish, or Welsh, the' 'immigrant' workers fromthe Celtic fringe'. By 1926 the Scottish workers - or rather the minority of them involved in politics -entered the General Strike as a more unified political force than they had been at any time since 1880.The dual identity of the Irish immigrants had played an important role in this new development. 5 ?NotesJames D. Young1. John GaIt was allegedly the first of the Kailyard novelists. Kailyard propagandists asserted that Scotland wasa democratic society with an almost irmate 'democratic intellect', a rural idyll remote from strife or classconflict. The Kailyard was, however, threatened by the Irish-Catholic immigrants. As one influential Scottishhistorian put it: 'Scottish democracy was the ideological basis of the Liberal Party in Scotland, but it couldnot apply to the Irish, Roman Catholic, uneducated, and not too concerned with the digni ties of man in the faceof struggle for survival, the Irish working class (and there were not many in any other class) seemed a threatto the Scottish way of life '. James G. Kellas, 'The Development of the Liberal Party in Scotland., 1868-1895' ,.PhD, University of London, 1966, p. 26.2. M. Flinn (ed.) Scottish Population Historyfrom the 17th Century to the 1930s, (Cambridge, 1977), p.303 andp.365.3. James Handley, The Irish in Scotland, (Glasgow, 1950), p. 348.4. Robert Haddow, 'The Miners of Scotland', The Nineteenth Century, September 1888, pp. 360-368. In aninteresting description of the sexual jealousy between the Scottish and Irish-Catholic immigrants, T.e. Smoutsaid: 'Indeed, sometimes Irishmen were guilty of precisely the same double-standard as the middle-classScottish male: Patrick MacGill in his remarkable autobiographical novels oflife among Irish harvest workersin Scotland described how experienced men would go with Scottish prostitutes but condemn with horror a

ESSAYS 97young girl of their own band who had been seduced by a farmer's son'. T.C. Smout, 'Aspects of SexualBehaviour in Nineteenth Century Scotland', in A. Allan MacLaren (ed.), Social Class in Scotland: Past andPresent, (Edinburgh, 1975), p. 73.5. T.C. Smout, A Century of the Scottish People, (London, 1987), p. 258.6. lan S. Wood, 'Irish Nationalism and Radical Politics in Scotland, 1880-1906' ,Journal of the Scottish LabourHistory Scoiety, No. 9, 1975, P. 21.7. Labour Standard, 13 August, 1881. James D. Young, 'Working Class and Radical Movement in Scotland andthe Revolt from Liberalism, 1866-1900', PhD thesis, University of Stirling, 1974,passim.8. The Exile, 16 May, 1885.9, Smout, op.cit., p. 238. .10. Eric J. Hobsbawm, 'Working Classes and Nations', Saothiir 8,1982, pp. 75-85.11. In the early 1880s William Small and Catholic priests founded the Scottish Anti-Royalty and Labour Leaguein Hamilton. 'In the coalfields of the East of Scotland, where there were few Roman Catholic miners of Irishorigin, socialism was halted for a few more years. But in the coalfields of the West of Scotland, where a numberof Roman Catholic miners were active in the branches of the Irish National League, socialism spread likewildfIre'. James D. Young, 'Changing Images of American Democracy and the Scottish Labour Movement,1866-1900' International Review of Social History, Vol. XVII/, Part I, 1973, p. 82.12. S. V. Bracher, The Herald Book of Labour Members, (London, 1923), p. 179.13. Interview with Tom Murray, veteran Communist Party organiser in Edinburgh, 3 April, 1980 and interviewwith Bobby Baird, veteran member of the Independent Labour Party in Falkirk, 4 December, 1987.14. For example, see R. Archer's commentary on the writings of Franz Mehring: 'Here, especially in the extractsfrom the Lessing Legend, he shows that the way individuals see themselves is itself part of their social being'.Dr. Archer, 'Foreward', Franz Mehring, Absolutism and Revolution in Germany, 1525-1848, (London, 1975),p. xiii. .15. A Traveller Underground,OurCoal and Coal-Pits, the People in Them and theScenesAroundThem, (London,1956), p. 224.16: lan S. Wood, op.cit., pp. 21-38.17. H.W. Lee and E. Archbold, Social-Democracy in Britain, (London, 1935), p. 144.18. James Handley, The Irish in Modern Scotland, (Cork, 1947), p. 320.19. Robert Srnillie, My Life for Labour, (London, 1924), pp. 15-22.20. Glasgow Sentinel, 21 July, 1877.21. William Stewart,l. Keir Hardie, (London, 1921), p. 11.22. Wood, op.cit., p. 21.23. Letter from the Right Rev. Monsignor David Roberts in response to information that I sought about John L.Mahon's place of baptism, dated 24 May, 1969. There is also considerable information on Mahon in theSocialist League Archives, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam. See also E. P. Thompson,William Morris: Romantic to Revolutionary, (London, 1955), passim.24. When I interviewed Bob Selkirk, the veteran Scottish communist on 3 April, 1971, he told me that FredDouglas, a foundation member of the Communist Party in Edinburgh, was the son of lrish-Catholicimmigrants .25. Bill Knox (ed.), 'Hugh Murin', Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Labour Leaders, (Edinburgh, 1983).'Born in Glasgow, 1860, ofIrish parents. At 11 (PeteCurran) commenced work in blacksmith's shop. JoinedIrish Land League in Glasgow, 1880; afterwards Scottish Land Restoration League founded by HenryGeorge'. Labour Annual (London, 1896).26. James D. Young, 'The Rise of Scottish Socialism', in Gordon Brown (ed.), The Red Paper on Scotland,(Edinburgh, 1975).27. 'William Small', Glasgow Herald, 24 January, 1903.28. Fred Reid, Keir Hardie: The Making of a Socialist, (London, 1978), p. 95.29. 'John Murdoch', The Scotsman, 2 February, 1903; James D. Young, 'John Murdoch: Scottish Land andLabour Pioneer', Bulletin of the Society for the Study of Labour History, No. 19, 1969; 'Death of JohnMurdoch', Glasgow Weekly Herald, 7 February, 1903.30. Bella Smalls' Papers on her father, WiIliam Small, and her annotation on page 21 of Lowe's Souvenirs ofScottish Labour and on The Independent Labour Party, 1893-1943: Jubilee Souvenir; manuscript memoirby William Small; and manuscript memoirs by his daughter and Andrew McCowie. William Small Papers,National Library of Scotland, Ms. Ace. 3359.31. 'J. Shaw Maxwell was born about 1855 near Salkrnarket of Glasgow; a lithographic designer by trade; hemarried at 21; wa.s secretary of the Glasgow Socialist Society, joined Irish Land League about 1880'. Labour

98 SAOTHAR 13A1I1Ula1 (London, 1895). For an account of John Murdoch's autobiography, see James D. Young, 'JohnMurdoch', op.cit.32. 'Although Dr. CharlesCameron appeared on the same platfonn as John Ferguson, R. Chisholm Robertson,William Small, J. Shaw Maxwell, Michael Davitt, Bruce Glasier and J.G. Weir and advocated resistanceagainst the ongoing Clearances, he played a double-game. In a private letter to J. McLaren, the Lord Advocate,he criticised the Glasgow branch of the Irish League for encouraging the resistance of 'the Valtos tenantry'.Moreover, he stressed the need to wam 'the tenantry against the danger and folly of such resistance'. CharlesCameron to the Rt.Hon. J. McLaren, MP, 4 July, 188l. Lord Advocate's Papers, Box 2, Bundle 2. ScottishRecords Office, Edinburgh.33. Wood, op.cit., p.25.34. Glasgow Observer, 29 August, 1885.35. ibid., 24 October and 10 October, 1885.36. 'R. Chisholm Robertson', The Miner, January, 1885.37. Glasgow Observer, 12 December, 1885.38. ibid., 12 October, 1895 and 4 January, 1896.39. 'The Late William Small', Scottish Co-operator. 6 February, 1903: Glasgow Observer. 31 January, 1903;Interview with Harry McShane, 27 March, 1986.40. 'Mr. Chisholm Robertson', Glasgow Observer. 22 March, 1930; 'Mr. R. Chisholm Robertson', GlasgowHerald. 14 March, 1930.41. Interview with Bob Selkirk, the veteran communist leader, 4 April, 1972.42. Ralph Chaplin, Wobbly. (Chicago, 1948), p. 105; Letterfrom Henry Kuhn to Daniel MacDonald, 15 October,1905, Archives of the Socialist Labour Party, MSS. 399, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, USA.For a new assessment of De Leonism, see my forthcoming article, 'H.M. Hyndman and Daniel De Leon: TheTwo Souls of Socialism', Labor History.43. George Monies,l ournal of the Scottish Labour History Society, May, 1969, p. 26. By 1919 Maclean was lesscritical of the priests in Ireland. See John Maclean, 'Ireland for Marxism', The Worker. 4 October, 1919.41. Letter from Nan Milton, 24 January, 1981.45. John Maclean, 'Gleanings from the Scrap Book of a Navvy' , Forward. 18 April. 1911 and Harry McShane andJoan Smith, No Mean Fighter. (London, 1978), p. 56.46. Tom Bell, Pioneering Days. (London, 1941), p. 51.47. Interview with Harry McShane, 24 March, 1981.48. For example, Anonymous report in the Appeal to Reason. 22 June, 1912.49. R. Samuel, 'Sources of Marxist History', New Left Review. No. 120, 1980; and William Regan to CarlThompson, 1 July, 1914. American Socialist Party Archives, Duke University, North Carolina.50. David Lowe, Souvenirs of Scottish Labour. (Glli!'gow, 1919), p. 61.51. Owen Dudley Edwards,lames Connolly: Mind of an Activist. (Dublin, 1971), p. 18.52. Bob Selkirk, The Life of a Worker (Dundee, 1967) and interview with Bob Selkirk, 3 April, 1972.53. Selkirk, op.cit .• p. 12 and Ian MacDougall (ed.), Militant Miners. (Edinburgh, 1981), p. 18.54. Dunfermline Journal. 16 April and 23 April, 1921.55. Interview with Harry McShane, 24 March, 1986.56. A. Currie to Fenner Brockway, 17 January, 1924, Francis Johnson MSS, British Library of Political and. Economic Science, London.57. Joan Smith, 'Labour Traditions in Glasgow and Liverpool', History Workshop. No.l7. 1984, p. 33 and PatrickRenshaw, The Wobblies: The Industrial Workers of the World. (London, 1967), p. 279. For a more traditionalview of the anti-progressive role of the Irish in Scottish politics, see David Howell, British Workers and theIndependent Labour Party. (Manchester, 1983), p. 172.

SourcesIrish Labour History Society ArchiveThe ILHS Archive is housed in the Archives Department, University College, Dublin,Be/field, Dublin4, (Tel: 693244, ext. 7547). Please note that the Archive has moved from its previous address at St.Stephen's Green. The Department is now re-opened and enquiries regarding access or iriformationabout extensive lists should be directed to the Department or Convenor, ILHS Archive Sub-Committee,clo ICTU, 19 Raglan Road, Dublin 4.September, 1988 saw the conclusion of the ILHS Survey of Dublin Labour Records. Most of thelists have been processed and the material is being edited intoA Guide to Dublin Labour Records. TheSociety is investigating the publishing difficulties for such a guide and is being assisted in this task bythe Irish Manuscripts Commission. It is still possible that the guide will appear before the end of theyear as a Society contribution to the Dublin Millenium butthis is taking an optimistic view. The Societyremains deeply in the debt of the Fedemted Workers' Union of Ireland for the provision of officeaccommodation and other generous assistance. The Society must also acknowledge the large financial _contribution made by the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union early in the year that enabled theProject to remove its debts and engage on the second phase of its operations regarding the compositionof the guide. Pat Murray and Martin Kelly ofFAs, Centre City Training Centre have again supplied--guidance and encoumgement. The staff of Dublin's archival institutions such as the National Archive,the National Library of Ireland and UCD Department of Archives have co-opemted fully with the work.The Surveyor, Sarah Ward-Perkins, and her Assistant Co-ordinators Enda McKay, Aoife O'Neill andKieran Hanmhan have jointly supervised between twelve and eighteen junior tminees. Enda McKay,chiefly responsible for compiling material for publication, has enlisted the voluntary assistance of manyin the job of writing outline histories of the unions and organisations that will feature in the catalogue.The Society is grateful to these individuals.The Society has continued, albeit at a slower pace, to rescue material. Bob Purdie, now enjoyingpastures new as a Tutor at Ruskin College, Oxford, received material related to the Northern IrelaridLabour Party and the National Union of Sheet Metal Workers, Coppersmiths, Heating and DomesticEngineers from J.H. Barkley, and Paul Cullen succeeded in securing papers from the late Sean Dunne,a WUI official and Labour TD. The Society's Archives Sub-Committee is reviewing policy in the areaof acquisition, in part due to the large volume of material now uncovered by the Project and, equally,because of rethinking imposed by the developments on the Museum front. In the meantime, wecontinue to enjoy the valuable assistance of Kerry Holland and Seamus Helferty in UCD's ArchivesDepartment. Elsewhere in Saothar, tribute has been paid to the late Robin Dudley Edwards who wasthe architect of the ILHS Archive in UCD and it would be inappropriate for this report not to add- itsvoice to the sense of loss felt by his death.'Work on the Museum of Labour History has now commenced. John O'Dowd's extensive labourshave borne fruit and a fuller, more detailed outline will be carried in the Annual Report. Until mattersare finally completed the litany of thanks must await but the £50,000 grant from the National Lotterymust be acknowledged. The Society has co-opemted with the North West Archives Project in Derryand received a splendid paper from Emil Horn, Curator of the Budapest Labour History Museum, onthe topic of the Hungarian poster artist Mihaly Biro. Finally, Francis Devine's badge collectioncontinues to attract audiences. It has featured in'exhibitions held by the Galway, Sligo, Wexford andDrogheda Unemployed Centres and at an exhibition in the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham organised byBrother Shay Hurley and a local history group in Inchicore. In conclusion, the Society must recognisethe work undertaken by the Archives Sub-Committee of Charles Callan, Paul Cullen, Joe Deasy,99

100 SAOTHAR 13Francis Devine, Hugh Geraghty, Norah O'Neill, Peter Rigney and Sarah Ward-Perkins.Sean Dtinne DepositSean Dunne: born Waterford 1919. Educated Mount Sion CBS. Joined Workers' Union oflreland1936; lead 'hunger marches' 1937. Interned 1939-40, 1941 returned toworkforWUI. 1944 Secretary,Agricultural Workers' Section, WUI and founding General Secretary, Federation of Rural Workers,1946. Contested 1947 County Dublin bye-election for Labour, Labour ID for County Dublin 1948,1951, 1954. Declared bankrupt and unseated from Dail, 1956. Worked in England for a number ofyears. Regained County Dublin seat as Independent Labour in 1961 after failing to get Partynomination. Re-elected as official Labour candidate 1965 and 1969 (for Dublin South West). Died1969.Vast majority of papers are dated 1961,1964-7: mainly correspondence with individual constituents,residents' associations, Labour Party Head Office and branches; local authorities and governmentdepartments; posters, pamphlets, circulars etc. re 1961,1965 General Elections; notes from canvassingand clinics.Enrolment card into 'Boys of Pear se ',c. 1929; correspondence between Patrick Desmond (Dunne' sstepfather), Gerry Boland, Minister for Justice, William Norton and Roddy Connolly for release ofDunne from internment, 1941; miscellaneous material 1948 General Election; correspondence withFinglas constituents, 1950-51; Labour Party Manifesto, 1951; speakers' notes and election leaflet,1954; legal document re bankruptcy, 1956; type-script by W. Norton, 'The Labour Party - Policy onParticipation in Government' , n.d.'Contacts' with notes of meetings of Rush, Clondalkin, Dundrum and Balgriffen Labour PartyBranches, 1961; membership lists Rush, Balbriggan Branches Labour Party, 1961; annotated electionlists and other details 1961 election; accounts and receipts, 1961 election; pamphlet, Sean Dunne' sPlanfor Ballyfermot, n.d.; typed document 'The Labour Party: the next five years', signed B. McC.,23 March, 1965; Labour Party leaflet attacking plans to abolish PR; Abbey Theatre, 1965, 1966; EquityCalling, Annual Report Irish Actors' Equity Association 1965-6; correspondence re play DawnChorus written by Dunne and broadcast by Teleffs Eireann, 1965; 'Contacts in County Dublin', n.d.but probably 1965.Tuairisc, newsletter of MuintirWolfe Tone, no. 5, Jan-Feb, 1966; typed document 'Memo on theOffences Against the State Act, 1939, 1940' signed Con Lehane, 15 February, 1966; ConfidentialReport by Barry Desmond, Secretary Labour Party Finance Committee to AC, 31 March, 1966;Kennedy Memorial Committee, 1966; Roger Casement Commemoration Committee, 1966; Anti­Apartheid Movement, 1966; pamphlet For Your Tomorrow, Athlone Labour Party, n.d.; explanatorymemo to Disabled Persons (Employment) Bill moved by Dunne; and various undated correspondence,personal papers and leaflets.In addition there are a large volume of official publications, commission reports and electoraldocumentation.Northern Ireland Labour PartyMinute Book of Potting er Branch, Nll.,P, 1 February, 1968 - 17 January, 1974. J.H. Barkley's fileof Executive Council and Policy Sub-Committee Minutes, 11 February, 1973 - 3 March, 1974 includingfinance and staff matters; policy drafts on Direct Rule; Relations with the Labour Party; Towards aNew Stormont; Role of the Nll.,P; Economic and Social Policy; and Education.The Socialist, Monthly Magazine of the NILP, three issues, no. 6 March/April, 1971 to no. 9, n.d.;Labour Challenge, The Voice of Labour in Northern Ireland, vol. 1 no. 7, Sept/Oct 1971; NILPNewsletter, January, 1974; Impact, Newtownabbey Labour Party, nos . .5-7, June-August, 1971;Workers' Weekly, BelfastBulletin of the British andIrish Communist Organisation, sixteen issues fromno. 15, 14 July, 1972 to no. 110,23 May, 1974; Workers' Association Bulletin, four issues from 24August, 1974 to 5 September, 1974; The Two Nations, Workers' Association Bulletin, four issues, no.

SOURCES 101INovember, 1971 to no. 17, December, 1972.NILP Election handbill, c. 1974; Newtownabbey Labour Party, AgendaiElection checklist, n.d.,Labour Party 87, Vote Lillis, 1987; other election ephemera. Newtownabbey and Carrickfergus TradesCouncil, Annual Report, 1981.''c.National Union of Sheet Metal Workers, Coppersmiths, Heating and Domestic Engineers,Belfast BranchAwards and Temporary Decisions between National Society of Coppersmiths, Braziers and Metalworkersand Harland & Wolff, 29 March, 1938 - 17 November, 1950; Demarcation Disputes in Harland& Wolff, 26 January, 1951- 11 June, 1956; Contracts Disputes, 1954-56; Demarcation Disputesincluding The National Demarcation Procedure Agreement between Shipbuilders and RepairersNational Association and Trade Unions Affiliated to the Confederation of Shipbuilding and EngineeringUnions, 1970. Correspondence with J. MacDonald and later A. Barr, District Secretaries,NSCBMW and, later, NUSMWCHDE.Trade Union Journals in the National Library of IrelandJournals are a valuable but underused source for the study of trade union history. They maycompensate for either the total absence of records or fill in gaps in any surviving series of records. Inany case, journals are an important starting point for a researcher as they delineate a union's mainconcerns and activities, at both national and local level, and provide useful information about unionstructure and administration.While the size of journal, frequency of issue, length of time published and information contentvaries cqnsiderably from journal to journal, a number offeatures are common to all. The most importantof these are reports from executive councils or general secretaries, ranging from minutes of meetingsto notes of deputations; items concerning annual conferences including agendas, motions andresolutions and the union's annual report; financial reports, audited accounts and membership details;nominations and elections for officerships, executive council or standing orders committee; reportsfrom delegates to Congress, Labour Party or other organisations to which the union is affiliated;conference reports in either verbatim or annotated form; reports from branches; and reports on specialactivities, social events, obituaries, appreciations and profiles of personalities.In many cases, journals are the only or fullest surviving record of a union's activities. This isespecially true for branch activity as few branch records have survived. A large portion of the IrishTeachers' Journal in the 1870s was taken up with reports from the local associations of the IrishNational Teachers' Organisation. As the years passed such coverage diminished and, generally, tradeunion journals became less detailed from the 1950s and 1960s. Other journals that give notably richinformation about branch organisation and endeavours are the Distributive Worker, Postal Worker,Civil Servant and Bakery Trades Journal.At national level, coverage of executive meetings is often fuller than that found in the actual minutesthemsel ves, many of which merely record decisions reached or matters resol ved. Most journals recordwage claims, agreements and disputes affecting the membership and details of legislative changes.Many journals include articles or notes on social, industrial or economic affairs of a broader range butof interest to the readership. The Local Officer, for example, includes a regular section entitled'Happenings of Local Authorities'. International comparisons are commonplace, often in the contextof reports from delegates to intern~tionaltrade union'conferences.Trade Union Information, issued by the Irish Trade Union Congress from 1949 until 1959 and thenby the Irish Congress of Trade Unions until 1981 , contains a wealth of information in article, digest and

102 SAOTHAR13statistical forms. Regular features include notes on Congress activities; copies of Congress statementsand submissions; summaries of official reports and legislation; Labour Court, Rights Commissioner,Employment Appeals Tribunal and Equality Officer recommendations and determinations; and wagemovements, consumer price indeces, unemployment figures at national and sectoral levels anddemographic data. All this information covered trade union concerns in both the Republic and NorthernIreland.The value of some journals stretches beyond the union itself. The Postal Worker and Civil Servantare important not only for the history of the Post Office Workers' Union and the Civil Service ClericalAssociation but for public service organisations generally. Major concerns for. these bodies from theearly 1920s to the early 1950s include the cost of living bonus, the Stabilisation of the Cost of LivingBonus Order, 1940, and the fight for the establishment of an independent conciliation and arbitrationsystem. Both journals give extensive details on these issues.General workers are, perhaps, not so well served by journals. The Irish Union of DistributiveWorkers' and Clerks (IUDWC) was the only union consistently to issue a journal. The Irish Transportand General Workers' Union (lTGWU) issued Liberty 'from 1949 on and had, of course, beenassociated with the Irish Worker, Watchword anda number of other titles at an earlier time,! and theWorkers' Union of Ireland issued Report between 1952-54 and later Bulletin from 1957-65. Themonthly issue of the Distributive Worker remains, however, the most consistently valuable source.Annual delegate meetings, branch meetings and, up to 1934, details of the union's national healthinsurance section featured in the journal. 2 The annual reports of the general secretary are supplementedby branch secretaries' annual reports. There is important information relating to the organisation ofparticular categories of workers such as tailors, garment and clothing workers in the 1920s and lawclerks and typists in the early 1940s. Law clerks and typists proved hard to organise as, despite apublicity campaign only 13% out of a potential membership of 700 had been organised by the end of1943. 3The Distributive Worker covers issues such as the minimum wage question, the Shop Acts, closinghours/orders, apprenticeship and legal cases such as the Enniscorthy picketing case. From at least 1934the IUDWC was involved in legal cases concerning the right to picket in trade disputes. 4 'Branch Notes'cover disputes and strikes ranging from a lock out of members in Ballaghadereen, 1925,5 to a disputeover the question of minimum wages in the Belfast Damask and Linen Company, Dublin, which lastedover eight and a half years before ending in 1945. That strike was one that th~journal claimed 'wouldgo down in history as one of the most protracted in the whole history of trades unionism'.6In common with other unions, the lUDWC' s principal activity in the early 1940s was the negotiationof standard wage orders, bonus orders and additional bonus orders under the terms of EmergencyPowers (No. 166) Order and its various amendments, (1942!3V Copies of wage rates and bonus ordersachieved are usually printed in the journal; later, this practice continued with Labour Court WageOrders, National Wage Agreements and copies of other negotiated agreements. s Branch reports werea regular feature with the Dublin ones being particularly comprehensive. Both R.M. Fox and HannaSheehy-Skeffington were regular contributors as the journal carried articles of general interest, shortstories and other literary works.Some information given in union journals should be treated cautiously. Obviously the organisationalinterests of the union will dominate "at times and consideration should be given to inter-unionrelations, particularly for unions operating in a competitive fashion within the same industry or workarea. The Postal Worker was extremely critical of the Association of Irish Post Office Clerks, formerlythe Dublin Civil Service Telegraph Association, in the 1930s and later of another breakaway from thePost Office Workers' Union organising indoor workers, the Post Office Clerical Association, thejournal seldom mentioning the association's name but using the term 'secessionists' instead. Similarly,the Distributive Worker was occasionally critical of the Irish National Union of Vintners, Grocers' andAllied Trades' Assistants and of the Irish Commercial T~avellers' Federation, which for a short period,1936-44, was amalgamated with the lUDWC.9 Sometimes different unions, in their separate journals,

SOURCES 103would claim credit for the same achievement. Thus the ITGWU in Liberty stated that it was they ratherthan the Irish Women Workers' Union who fIrst achieved the principle of two weeks holidays withpay.10 More modestly, the Postal Worker stated that' among civil service organisations the union holdsa place of honour and it has ever been in the vanguard of every fight to improve the conditions of civilservants'. 11 / .;' .. • -' ,An employers' perspective, some would argue already well represented in the press, can also'.befound in the relevant trade journal and these should be consulted, where available, to complementresearch based on trade union journals. 12 B ut trade union journals are often the only source giving aunion viewpoint on a particular subject, are readily accessible, are important supplements to survivingrecords and, sadly, in many cases comprise the most significant or only record source for the union.When the Irish Labour History Society Trade Union and Labour Related Records Survey guide ispublished, researchers will have available an accurate list of what trade union journals survive andwhere they may be consuItedP The National Library ofIreland already has many journals available,some on microfilm. The general catalogue will indicate precise reference for periodicals but a shorterguide is available for consultation at the counter for those journals classifIed as newspapers, A guideto the trade union journals in the National Library is reproduced here. Many unions have neverdeposited their journals with the NU and in such cases access can only be achieved by direct applicationto the unions concerned.NotesSarah Ward-Perk ins1. For details of rrowu journals held by the union itself, see Mary Carolan, 'Expanding Trade Unionism: therrowu Library', Saothar 11,1986, pp. 101-4.2. The Health Insurance Act, 1933, revolutionised the whole system of health insurance in Ireland providing thatthe.existing sixty five approved societies would gradually be absorbed into a unified society. The IUDWCsociety was transferred to the Unified Society on 30 June, 1934. See Distributive Worker, xii, 1933, p. 81;xii, 1934, pp. 115-6, 136-9.3. ibid., xxiii, 1944, pp. 34-5.4. The decisions in these cases 'were of great importance, establishing ... the right conceded in the Trade DisputesAct, 1906 of workers to assemble near the premises in which the dispute occurred for the purpose of receivingor conveying information that a trade dispute exists or is in contemplation', ibid., xiv, 1935, pp. 234-5; xiii,1934, pp. 219-221, 241-2:5. ibid., iv, 1925, pp. 185-6.6. ibid., xxv, i946, pp. 39-42,66-7.7. See, for example, ibid., xxiii, 1944, p. 3: xxv, 1946, p. 81.8. For example see Hours Agreement with Dublin Merchant Drapers' Association, ibid., x, 1931, pp. 161-2;Agreement with Wholesale Clothing and Cap Manufacturers, ibid., xiii, 1934, pp. 161-3; and BelfastNationalJoint Industrial Council for retail Drapery, Outfitting and Footwear Trades, ibid., xxiii, 1944, pp. 77-81.9. ibid., xxiii, 1944, pp. 42-3.' .10. Liberty, vo!. 1, no. 3, 1949, p. 4.11. Postal Worker, xxii, 1944, p. 56.12. Enda McKay, 'A Century ofIrish TradeJoumals, 1860-1960' in B. Hayley and E. McKay (eds.), 300 Yearsof Irish Periodicals, (Dublin, 1987), pp. 103-121.13. A Guide to DublinLabour Records, (forthcoming). The ILHS Survey has virtually completed the compilationof the guide and it is expected to be published late 1988, early 1989.

104 SAOTHAR 13Trade Union Journals Held by the National Library of IrelandThe NatioTUlI Library of Ireland holds journalsfrom thefollowing trade unions. Complete sets are notguaranteed. Where the material is held or is accessible in microfilm form this is indicated thus, MF.Unions are listed under their current titles, previous titles are given in brackets. The NU is situated inKildare Street, Dublin 2, tel: 765521. Normal opening hours are 10-9, Monday-Thursday; 10-5,Friday; 10-1, Saturday. External circumstances may occasion change. If in doubt telephone inadvance.Association of Secondary Teachers, IrelandIrish Journal of Education, 1910-17, MFIrish School Weekly, 1920-37Secondary Teacher, 1966-Astir,1970-Bakery and Food Workers' Amalgamated Union,(Irish Bakers', Confectioners' and Allied Workers'Amalgamated Union)Bakery Trades Journal, 1936-47Civil and Public Services Staff Union, (Civil ServiceClerical Association, C&PS Association)Civil Service Staff Officer, later Bulletin, 1946-59Communications Union of Ireland, (Irish Post OfficeEngineering Union)Relay, 1951-Federated Workers' Union of Ireland, (WUI)Report, 1952-54Bulletin, 1957-65Unity, 1984-Irish Bank Officials' AssociationIrish Banking Magazine, 1919-73Irish Banking, 1973-75Irish Congress of Trade Unions, (Irish Trade UnionCongress)Trade Union Information, 1949-81Irish Distributive and Administrative Trade Union,(Irish Drapers' Assistants' Benefit and ProtectionAssociation, Irish -Union of Distributive Workers'and Clerks)Drapers' Assistant, 1910-14Distributive Worker (bearing parallel titles AnSaothruideRiartha, An t·Oibr£ ImdMla), 1921-Irish National Union of Vintners', Grocers' andAllied Trades' AssistantsBanba Review, 1962-Irish Nurses' Organisation, (Irish Nurses' Union)Irish Nurses' Union Gazette, 1925-31Irish Nurses' Journal, 1936-39Irish Nurses' Magazine, 1939-63Irish Nurse, 1963-67Irish Nurses' Journal, 1968-71World of Irish Nursing, 1972-Irish Postal Union, (Association ofIrish Post OfficeClerks)Irish Postal and Telegraph Guardian, 1917-23Irish Transport and General Workers' UnionIrish Worker, 1911-14.1923-25.1930-32 MFVoice of Labour, 1917-19.1921-27. MFThe Irishman, 1910-13. 1927-30. MFWatchword of Labour, 1919-20. MFLiberty, 1949-84Liberty News, 1984-Irish Women Workers' UnionIrish Citizen, 1912-20Local Government and Public Services Union, (IrishLocal Government Officials' Union)Local OffICer, 1928-37Local Government Officer, 1953-54ILGOU Forum, 1969-71ILGOU Reporter, Reporter, 1970--Local and Public Reporter, 1971-Local and Public Forum, 1972-Postal and Telecommunications Workers' Union,(Post Office Workers' Union)An Dion, 1923-35Postal Worker, 1936-84Journal of the PTWU, 1985-Public Service Executive Union, (CSE and HigherOfficers' Association, CSE Association)Civil Service Review, 1943-Sales, Marketing and Administrative Union ofIreland,-(lrish Commercial Travellers' Federation)Irish Commercial Traveller, 1957-67Union of Professional and Technical Civil Servants,(Institute of Professional Civil Servants)Scientific Service, 1950-

SOURCES105Sources for Irish Labour History in theModern Records Centre, CoventryModern Records Centre, University of Warwick Library, Coventry CV4 7AL. Telephone0203 24011,ext. 2014. Open 9-5 Monday to Thursday, 9-4 Fridays. Half hour closure for lunch. Not openweekends. Reading room usually open throughout summer vacation, except August Bank Holiday butwrite or telephone in advance to check.Some of the oldest archi ves of local trade societies catering for craftsmen in Irish towns and citiesare to be found in the Modem Records Centre (MRC). Not because the Centre's agents have beenclandestinely stealing the Irish nation's heritage (the sad truth is that no one from the MRC has set footin Ireland since the Centre was established in 1973) but rather because the archives in question had beenabsorbed into the head office records of a number of British trade unions. In the course of rescuing thearchival heritage of the British trade union movement from a variety of dirty attics and damp basements,the Centre has, without any conscious intention of so doing, found itself acting as an agent for thepreservation of Ireland's trade union history too.Those who wish to be well informed about the Centre's holdings should consult its published findingaids which ought to be available in any good academic or reference library. The most comprehensiveof these publications is R.A. Sto~ey and A.G. Tough, Consolidated Guide, 1986, available fromthe Centre, price £5. The Consolidated Guide's first part contains brief descriptions of all accessionsreceived up to April 1986. The second part of the Consolidated Guide and the original Guide (1977)and Supplement (1981) contain fuller descriptions of the same material. The Centre's Annual Reportcan be used to keep abreast of additions to the MRC's holdings. Another publication which deservesto be mentioned is N. Baldwin, The 1nternational Transport Workers' Federation Archive, (1985),which is also published by the University of Warwick and is available from the MRC, price £2.25. Allof these publications are backed up by detailed descriptive lists and indexes compiled by the Centre'sstaff. These can be consulted in the Centre's reading room and copies of the lists are available at theNational Register of Archives in London. The Centre produces some useful Notesfor Researcherswhich explain its classification scheme and the structure of its finding aids: these and a location planwill be sent on request to potential research visitors.Irish trade union records in the Centre include the following.EngineersDrogheda Branch or the Amalgamated Society of Engineers: 1 volume containing minutes, 1855-60and out-letters, 1860-95 (Ref. MSS.259/BR/D/3/l). .GeneralRulebooks of County Wicklow General Labourers' Association (n.d.), Irish Agricultural and GeneralWorkers' Union (1918) and Irish National Trade and Labour Union (n.d.) (Ref. MSS.I27/NU/5/5/6/I-Ill).PrintersRulebooks ofTypographical Association branches: Armagh (1955), Belfast (1936), Bray and Wicklow(1939), Cork (1954), Dublin (1965), Omagh (n.d.), Waterford (n.d.) and Wexford (1965) (Ref.MSS.39Dff N4/6). Rulebooks of Typographical Association chapels: Athlone (n.d.), Belfast Telegraph(1946) and Kerryman (1947) (Ref. MSS.39DffN4n).Railway WorkersRules of benevolent and benefit societies: Belfast and Dublin Locomotive (1888), Great Northern

106 SAOTHAR 13Railway (Ireland) Sick Fund (1887) and Midland Great Western Railway of Ireland Benefit Society(1883) (Ref. MSS.127/NU/5/5ntl). Rules of Irish Railway Workers' Trade Uriiori (1910) (Ref.MSS.127 /NU/5/5/6/l-111). Great Northern Railway (Ireland) wage~ and hours arbitration: volumecontaining applications from the workforce, evidence submitted, proceedings of arbitration and awardof arbiter, 1911 (Ref. MSS.127/NU/MVl/l/14). National Union of Railwaymen files re the withdrawalof the union from Ireland and the creation of the National Association of Transport Employees, 1940-56 (Ref. MSS.127/NU/OR/3/56-96).White Collar WorkersAssociation of Supervisory Staffs, Executives and Technicians (from 1967 Association of Scientific,Technical and Managerial Staffs) Number 10 Divisional Council ~orthern Ireland, later Ireland as awhole): duplicated minutes, 1960-72 (Ref. MSS.79/AS/l/23/57-63).WoodworkersBelfast. Journeymen Cabinet Makers of Belfast: 1 volume containing rules, minutes and membershiplist, 1788-1830 (Ref. MSS.78/TC/Bel/l/l).Belfast Branch of Friendly Society of Operative Cabinet Makers: 2 volumes containing minutes, 1873-85 (Ref. MSS.78/TC/Bel/l/2-3).Belfast Cabinet Makers' piece price lists, 1922-36 and n.d., (Ref. MSS78/TC/Bel/7/l-4).Belfast 6th Branch of Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners: 1 volume containing minutes,1892-9.Cork. Cork Coachmakers' Friendly Society: 2 volumes containing rules and records of contributionspaid, 1812-24 (Ref. MSSI26NB/6/BR/CO).Dublin. Reg!llar Carpenters of the City of Dublin: Rules (1881) (Ref. MSS.78/ASW/6jDub/l) andphotographs of the Carpenters' funeral bier'and Carpenters Hall (taken in the 1930s) (Ref. MSS.78/ASW/7/3-4).Dublin Managing Committee of the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners: 1 volumecontaining minutes the Managing Committee, 1884-90 and of the United Trades Committee, 1890(Ref. MSS.78/ASC & J/6/1/6).Important and impressive as some ofthe items highlighted above may be, there is a far greater wealthof information about Irish labour history to be found in records which form an integral part of the HeadOffice archives of certain British trade unions. A good deal of patience and a considerable backgroundknowledge may be needed before apparently routine conference proceedings, annual reports, committeeminutes, correspondence, etc., will yield up their"Irish content. Nevertheless it is there, especiallyin respect of unions which had a substantial Irish membership. These include the railwaymen's,printers', bricklayers', stonemasons', carpenters, and engineering unions.In addition to the holdings of the MRC (most of which are on loan from trade unions) the Libraryof the University also possesses fine collections of trade uriion publications. Among these is the libraryof the Labour Department of the Board of Trade. This was donated to the University of WarwickLibrary by the present -day successor of the Board, the Department of Employment. The Board of Tradecollection contains a great many annual and other reports of trade unions and the following TradesCouncil annual reports: Belfast (1892-6,1898-1900,1904-5), Cork (1893-6), Dublin (1892/3-1894/5,1898/9, 1900/1-1903/4, 1906), Limerick (1893/.4",1896) and Londonderry (1903-6).It is probably also worth mentioning that the MRC holds some records relating to the activities ofsmall marxist organisations in Ireland. Further information about these can be obtained from theCentre's publictions.Alistair G. Tough

SOURCES 107NorthWest Archives and Labour History Project40,Shipquay Street. Derry. Telephone: 260630. Open 9-5. Monday to Friday. Director: DessieBaker.The North-West Archives and Labour History Project was setup in January 1986. The project issponsored by the Irish Labour History Society and funded by the Department of Economic Development.The two-fold purpose behind it's inception being to create an archive facility in the North-Westarea accessible to the public, and to carry out much needed research on the neglected subject of labourhistory·. . .. '. .The initial task was to find out what exactly was available in the way of relevant archive materialin our local area, which proved to be practically nil. There is no public record office in the Derry area,so we decided to employ a researcher to work solely in the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland(pRONI) in Belfast, to seek out all references to Derry and the North-West. The result of this was thatwe were able to computerise some 600 plus source records of a general nature, (from a photographiccopy of a drawing of Derry circa 1600, to papers relating to Derry Nationalist Party in 1970) and toprepare for computerisation hundreds more, covering such topics as school records, transportations toAustralia, Stormont Papers and Hansard Reports. We also transcribed the microfilmed OrdnanceSurvey Memoirs for the large parish of Clondermot, which we found to be a valuable source of social,economic and historical data.Computer print-outs of the material so far processed provide in chronological order a briefdescription of the contents of the material, the title and volume numbers of the collection/s from whichthe material comes and the references number/s: thus producing a free, easily readable and conciseguide to the material available. The print-outs have been given to the local libraries and other centresthroughout the area.The history of Derry as a major port and shipbuilding 'centre was another area which warranteddetailed research, for which we employed some of the documentary sources already gleaned fromPRONI, combined with new material from the local Customs House records which supplied us withdetails of the ships which called at Derry, cargoes, tonnages, etc. From this material we were able tocompile a computerised list of all ships registered in Derry from the mid-nineteenth century up untilthe run-down of the port, with owners' names, where the vessels were built and their type. Runningparallel with this documentary history of the port we began an oral history of work at the Derry docks,. relying heavily on the memories of retired dockers who recalled vividly the adverse workingconditions, the complicated 'button system', the berthing of captured German submarines duringWorld War II, along with the songs, myths and customs peculiar to their work, as well as therecollections of those who worked there in a 'white collar' capaCity.Another important topic covered by the oral history project is the genesis of the 'Troubles' in Derry.People who were involved in the Derry Housing Action Committee in the mid~sixties, who protestedagainst American involvement in Vietnam, who defended tenarits against eviction and who wereinvolved in the embryonic Civil Rights' Movement in Derry were interviewed. There are vivideyewitness accounts of the first Civil Rights march in Derry on 5 October, 1968, Bloody Sunday inJanuary 1972, and life in Crumlin Prison as a result of political activity. All aspects of the upsurge ofstreet protest leading up to the resurgence of the present IRA campaign are recalled.We received a request to carry out research regarding the history of May Day in Derry.Unfortunately we were unable to acquire the records of Derry Trades Council, which would of coursehave been invaluable, and so had to rely on contemporary newspaper reports in the local press, madeavailable to us on microfilm by the local library. Although only twenty demonstrations are reported(from the first May Day labour demonstration in 1892 to the mid 1970s) there is quite detailed reportageof the unions invol ved, the local marching bands who participated and vertabim reports of the speeches

108 SAOTHAR 13made. A copy of this material was then sent to the IALHI Archives in Zurich, and a copy was used aspart of an exhibition in the Orchard Gallery, Derry, depicting the international history of May Daycelebrations.Michael HarkinTyovaen Arkisto, The Finnish Social Democratic ArchivePaasivuorenkatu5B, 00530 Helsinki. Open during winter time, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 11to 5; Tuesday and Thursday, 11 to 8: during summer time, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 10 to 4;Tuesday and Thursday, 10 to 7Tyovaen Arkisto, founded in 1909, forms the oldest and largest private archive dealing with socialand political matters in Finland. It is the central archive for the Social Democratic labour movementand many other labour organisations and contains three thousand shelf metres of material.There are six permanent employees plus a secretary for the Oral History Commission (Tyovaenmuistitietotoimikunta). The archive is run by a foundation and its board contains representatives of thetrade unions, the Social Democratic Party (Suomen Sosialidemokraattinen Puolue), the Workers'Educational League (Tyovaen Sivistysliitto) and of academic circles. The state provides sixty five percent funding with the balance coming from the SDP, the People's Educational Fund (KansanSivistysrahasto), the Association of Labour Tradition (Tyovaenperinne ry) and certain trade unions.The archive uses Dewey's decimal system (a former variation of today's UDK-classification) inarranging material. The provenance is applied inside its collections. The five major collections are:(1) Social Democratic Party with all material over 15 years freely open; (2) trade union movement(Soumen Ammattijarjesto), the Organisation of the Finnish Trade Unions, 1907-30, about eightynational unions and some two thousand local trade unions; (3) about 2,400 local labour associations;(4) biographical including, among others, K.A. Fagerholm, Tellervo M. Koivisto, Pentti Kymensalo,Tyyne Leivo-Larsson, Vaino Leskinen, Matti Paasivuori, Martta Salmela-Jarvinen, Miina Sillanpaa,Yrjo Sirola, Emil Skog, Vaino Tanner, N.R. afUrsin, Edvard V alpas, Niilo Wallari and Axel Ahlstrom;and (5) the Finnish Civil War of 1918.Other major collections include: Finnish Socialist Labour Party (S uomen Sosialistinen Tyovaenpuole,SSTP) 1920-23; Finnish Swedish Labour League (Finlands Svenska Arbetar-forbund); SocialDemocratic League of Workers and Small Farmers (Tyovaen ja Pienviljelijain SosialidemokraattinenLiitto); and the Leagues of Social Democratic Women, Youth, Temperance, Education, TenantFarmers and Athletes. In addition to documents there are 50,000 photographs, thousands of posters,badges and banners.In 1987 the archive's library associated with the collections of the Folk Archive (Kansan Arkisto)and formed an indepenant Library of the Labour Movement (Tyovaenliikkeen Kirjasto) run by theAssociation of Labour Tradition controlled by all the major organisations of the Finnish labourmovement. The library is adjacent to the archive and can easily be visited. The library has threeemployees and some 140,000 volumes. The printed records and histories of many organisations arealso in the library. There is much international material here as well as Finnish .. The Oral History Commission of the labour movement operates from the archive, its activitiesdirected by experts from history, folklore and labour. Begun in 1960, there are now 150,000 pages oftranscripts of over 6,000 persons. They cover the period from the turn of the century to the present.Seven books based on this collection have been published.The 1918 Civil War cut the nation in two. It made the viewpoint of labour unpopular for academicresearch. It was not until the 1970s that labour history enjoyed a renaissance in Finnish universities.

SOURCES 109In 1966 the Finnish government, when SDP Chairman Rafael Paasio was Prime Minister, began aproject on Red Finland, 1917-18 and after twenty years the project has come to fruition with manydissertations. In the 1980s, many labour organisations began sociological and history surveys ofthemselves including the Finnish TUC. Hannu Soikkanen, 'the grand old man' of Finnish labourhistory, is writing a major work on the SDP. Finally there has, of course, been a rich functioning ofthe'bare-foot' non-academic research.Simo LaaksovirtaTheses AbstractsSeamus S. Duffy, Mechanics' and Similar Institutesin Counties Antrim, Armagh and Down, 1820-1870,and their Contribution to the Education of theworking class Adult. (DPhil, University of Ulster,Magee, 1987)This is a study of the Mechanical Institutes andsimilar societies in the counties of Antrim, Armagh andDown in the period 1820-1870. It was the aim of thisresearch to throw some light on an heretofore neglectedaspect of the social history of education. The investigationwas based on the minute books of varioussocieties in the local newspapers of the day. This lattersource was, indeed, where much of the information wasunearthed. Other sources which provided some informationwere contemporary pamphlets, and governmentreports.The work is divided into an introductory sectionwhere the self-help philosophy is examined, and theMechanics' Institute movement in England is treated asan expression of that philosophy. A chapter on the Irishsocio-econorruc background precedes a study of howthe self-help philosophy impinged on the Irish consciousness.The main part of the work, a study ofindividual societies in the counties of Antrim, Downand Armagh then follows.In the case of Armagh, it is the Mechanics' Institutein the City of Armagh that is treated in depth, thoughreference is made to the later Natural History andPhilosophical Society. The history of working classeducation in Belfast then follows. Here, again, it is theBelfast Mechanics' Institute which forms the mainbody of the study. However, other important attemptsat educating the Belfast working classes' are alsomentioned. Principal among these latter are the WorkingClasses Association with its associated People'sReading Rooms, and the government sponsored Schoolof Art. In dealing with County Down, efforts at selfhelpin education in Downpatrick are dealt with in somedetail, and the chapter concludes with an examinationof other interesting societies in County Down.The concluding chapter of the thesis attempts todraw together the threads which have been pursued inthe case studies. It is the author's conclusion that theMechanics' Institutes and similar societies in NortheastUlster contributed to a significant extent to theeducation of the working class adult in a period wherethe provision of such education was veryJow on the listof priorities of successive governments.Eithne McLaughlin, Maiden City Blues: Employmentand Unemployment in Derry City, (PhD.,Queen's University, Belfast, 1987)This study used qualitative and quantitative, historicaland contemporary, data and methods to examinegender, household, and familial relationships and rolesin the context of an area which has experienced veryhigh male unemployment rates since the mid-nineteenthcentury. Lack of economic development in thearea and the corresponding dominance of the clothingindustry (employing a 90% female labour force) has ledto both popular and official representation of the city asa place where traditionally 'women work and men areon the dole'.The study found, however, that household economicpractice and labour supply, both in the past andpresent, has borne little relation to this social andpolitical representation of the city. The causes andimplications of the disparity between representationand practice is explored and the complex interplay ofsocio-economic practice, economic policy and Stateintervention, and political and social constructions of'gender' and 'unemployment' drawn out. The contradictionsand strains of everyday life inherent in an areacharacterised by high male unemployment, a highintensity of women's reproductive role and femalecentredkin networks, and dependence of the localmanufacturing base on (primarily young, single) femalelabour, set in a wider framework of Church andState definitions of men as heads ofhouseholds/providersand political division and conflict with the State,form the conclusions of this study.

110Christopher Norton, Unionist PolitiCs" the BelfastShipyards and the Labour Movement In the Iilter­War period, (PhD, Queen's Univeristy, Belfast, 1987)This thesis looks at developments within Unionistand Labour politics in Ulster during the period 1920 tothe early 1930's. In particular it seeks to explain whythe Protestant working class accepted the leadership ofa politically conservative Unionist Party, why it supportedthe Northern Ireland State, and why it rejectedindependent socialist politics. These actions have, innumerous accounts of Northern Ireland's Labour history,been characterised as 'irrational' or 'reactionary'and have been explained in terms of 'manipulation','privilege', 'sectarianism' or through the' notion of the'labour aristocracy'. Rejecting these forms ofcharacterisationand blanket explanation as empirically unfounded,this thesis undertakes a detailed analysis ofwhat is generally accepted as the most politically significantsection of the Protestant working class: theBelfast shipyard workers. The thesis emphasises theheterogeneous nature of the workforce which is shown'" SAOTHAR 13.to be not only occupationally but also politically andideologically baSed. It also outlines withm the shipyardworkforce, the existence of two contrasting and competingpolitical and ideological traditions which can bedesignated 'sectarian' and 'labour and trade union'.The dominance of sectarian ideological traditions andpolitical practices in the shipyards of 1920 (most visiblydemonstrated in the July expulsions of that year)and their effects on the workforce and on the Unionistpolitical leadership are dealt with at some length. Thethesis also examines how the policies of the NorthernIreland State, after its establishment in 1921, wereaffected by Protestant middle class and working class. non-sectarian traditions.This appreciation of the complexity of Unionistpolitics allows for a greater understanding of Governmentpolicy decisions of the time and the divisions thatthey caused within the State. Finally the thesis analysesthe political organisations of the Left in order to determinethe reasons for their failure to attract appreciableworking class support ..POSTAL AND TELECOMMUNICATIONWORKERS' UNIONThe Executive Committee of the Postal and TelecommunicationWorkers' Union extends fraternal support to the IrishLabour History Society in the important task of developing anunderstanding of Irish working class history.PTWU is affiliated to the Irish Congress of TradeUnions, theLabour Party and the Postal Telegraph and Telephone International.The Union's monthly organ is The Postal Worker.PTWU Head Office: 52, Parnell Square, Dublin 1.

TURNINGANEWLEAFThe CPSSUis the largest Civil and Public service union.We represent members throughoutthe country.We believe that a modern and efficient public service canonly be developed through a well paid staff that has a genuinecareer structure with good promotional outlets available tomen and women whetherthey are basedin Dublin or around the country.~:'-=-~~"W-JCML AND PU8L1C Sf:RVlCf:S STAFF lINlOI'!72 Lr. Lt.:e:-;on ")trel't. Duhlin 2 Telephone 765394('). {} 15,"'>fi9. (l J S44H

112 SAOTHAR 13ReminiscenceJoe Deasy: The Evolution of an Irish Marxist, 1941-1950Evanne Kilmurrayloe Deasy was born on 12 luly, 1922, in a placecalled the Ranch just opposite Inchicore Works.He attended school first in St. Michael's inInchicore and then went to lames's Street. Bothwere Christian Brothers' Schools. Deasy'sfatherwas the well known Dick Deasy, an activist in theNational Union of Railwaymen (NUR) and laterthe first President of the National Association ofTransport Employees and an executive memberof the Irish Trades Union Congress during the1950s. 1My father was a thinking man. He worked onthe railway first as a locomotive fireman and thenas a locomotive driver. Politically conscious andlabour minded, he was involved with the LabourParty and some of the election campaigns in the1930s. In 1944 he acted as election agent for J im Larkin (J unior). He was a trade union activist in theInchicore Works, being local organiser for the NUR. Indeed he acquired quite a reputation as alocomotive worker representative in the early' 40s. So much so that Big Jim Larkin publicly paid hima tribute at the 1944 Labour Party Conference. He was a staunch and very effective trade union ~ctivist,at times fiery and at times militant. He was devoutly religious and was sensitive to the Catholic Churchteachings on all matters. This fact impinged on his political thinking and inhibited a socialistcommitment. He was, however, a deeply compassionate man with an acute social conscience. Thefollowing story is typical of my father. .On returning home one evening while a City Councillor I was advised by my mother that I waswanted in Kehoe Square Barracks which was adjacent to our scheme; it was an old army barracksconverted into flats by the Corporation and was a half way house between tenements and a regular Corporationdwelling. At the time it lacked electric lights for which I was pressing the City Manager.Circumstances are slightly hazy but a family had been locked out of their flat. Maybe the Corporationhad a case but the immediate need was accommodation for the night. I discussed the matter with myfather. He suggested that they might be housed for the night in the local St. Vincent de Paul rooms. Weapproached the local priest who was on duty. He happened to be reading a biography of the Cure ofArs. 'I have just been reading where the Cure took families off the street and accommodated them inhis own home'. This remark proved to be ill advised. My father quickly and perhaps somewhat unfairlysaid 'Then Father the writing in on the wall for you'. Thepriestmade no reply.The following day, the father was returning from work when the same priest stopped him on thestreet. 'Mr. Deasy, you didn't really think I should have taken that family in for the night?', to whichmy father replied, 'Well Father, it shouldn't have been beyond you'. Hardly a rational judgment on thepriest but the plight of the family had deeply upset my father. Despite subsequent severe strain between

REMINISCENCE 113us due to my politics I have always cherished such memories of my father. In the words of EwanMacColl's song 'Yes that was myoid man'. I should say, thefamily were accommodated by neighboursfor the night.From his early youth foe Deasy was and still is an avid reader. Even in his late teens he wasinvariably drawn towards both socialist writing and ideas.The fIrst ideological change I experienced would be in my late teens when I started to read BernardShaw. My reading was facilitated by a period of two years of unemployment after I left school atseventeen in 1939. Much reading and thinking during this period conditioned my mind for new ideas.Shaw was a huge influence on people of my age, notably in drawing them towards socialism but alsostimulating one to question as you never had questioned before. The next writer that had an impact on·me would have been Connolly. In fact it was during my time in the New Theatre Group that somebodymentioned Connolly as being worth reading.2 I don't think it is possible to say at what particularjuncture a person becomes a Socialist. You don't just wake up one morning a Socialist. It is not a Roadto Damascus revelation. When I became more conscious of socialism I began to read Marx. Althougha Socialist before I read Marx he clarifIed ideas for me and again opened up a whole new world.However, any indepth reading such as Marx, Engels and Lenin was left until after I'd joined the IrishWorkers' League (IWL).3Deasy' s first job was as a clerk for Great Southern Railways in the Kingsbridge Parcels Office.Conditons in his work place were almost Dickensian and having made an issue ofthisfact Deasy foundhimself transferred to Liffey function as Station Master's Clerk.I often think my first job as a clerk strengthened my socialist convictions. When I was working inKingsbridge I worked different shifts. I worked from six in the morning till three in the afternoon andthe late shift from seven to one o'clockin the morning. This was during the war and trains were verymuch delayed because of fuel problems. Trains suffered clinkers and firemen took hoUrs before theycould clear the clinker and enable the engine to restart 4 We had to wait till these trains came in. Iworked closely with the outdoor staff ~ porters, parcel porters and road freight carters. What struck mewas that they were mostly married men with large families and some of them were earning about £2a week. If they were parcel porters their basic wage was £2.10 shillings which was appallingconsidering the average wages were approximately £3 a week. I identifIed myself with them and it didhelp lead me to the labour movement.In 1944, Deasy met his wife to be. Pat Hayden, an active member of the Crumlin Branch of theLabour Party. Pat camefrom a left-wingfamily and she and they were to be extremely supportive duringthe subsequent critical years. Pat was both wife and comrade. She had been in the Communist Partyas a teenager and was still a member at the time that it was disbanded in 1941. Alongside Deasy'spolitical evolution was an equally strong commitment to the trade union movement. Deasy joined theRailway Clerks' Association (RCA). a British based Union. In 1951 the RCA became the TransportSalaried Staffs' Association. 5At that time I joined the Union without examining whether it was British or Irish based. It wassimply the Union for the job I was in. The RCA had organised clerks since before the First World Warso it had a long tradition. It changed its name not because it had amalgamated but because it had reachedthe position where it was representing much more than railway clerks. Its new members included otheroccupations such as the road freight staff.From 1944 onwards foe Deasy began to play an active trade union role. Narrowly defeated in his

114 SAOTHAR 13first election as a delegate to the Trades Council, he then became a member of the RCA committee andrepresented the union between 1945-50 to negotiate pay agreements with the Company. By 1945 Deasyhad become a delegate to the Dublin Trades Council (DTC) and was present at the meeting before itsplit into the Dublin Council of Irish Unions (DCIU) and the DTC.6 loe served on a Prices Sub­Committee and remained a delegate to the DTC until 1952. Embarked on his political activist career,Deasy turned his attention to cultural matters.I joined the Gaelic League in Inchicore and met a chap by the name ofDonal McGregor and he gaveme the name of a theatre group which I should join.7 He told me they were doing a particular play byClifford Odets called 'Awake and Sing' . 8 So I went down to the theatre which was based in RutlandPlace, sat through the play and afterwards indicated a desire to join the group. It was 1941.The New Theatre Group (NTG ), however was to influence Deasy's socialist thinking to aconsiderable degree. In concurrence with most Irish thinking of the '30' s Deasy was very pro-Franco.M cGregor, brother of Liam McGregor killed with the International Brigade in Spain, was thefirst manto ever put forward the other side of the Spanish Civil War case. The NTG was also one of the onlytheatres in Ireland to have an experimentalist aspect to it. 'Awake and Sing' was produced by MadameCogley who had been a founder of the Gate Theatre and associated with MacLiamm6r and Edwards.At first I had no idea that the New Theatre Group had any ideological dimensions ... thingsdeveloped from there. It was during some of the plays in which I participated that I got talking to someof the other members of the Group and it began to dawn on me that there was something here involvedother than just a drama group. I think you could say that the first socialist spark ignited when we wereperforming Odets' play 'Waiting For Leftie', the first play incidently in which I got a good part. Myleft wing inclinations further came to the fore in a play by Miles Malleson called the' Six Men of Dorset' ,a play about the Tolpuddle Martyrs. As I stood in the wings waiting for my cue something clicked. Thiswas more important than the Theatre - this was part of a struggle. This was the culmination point whenI decided to get involved in the socialist and labour movement.Deasy cherished a hankering to make a vocation of the theatre.I askedJoe McColum, Manager of the NTG, whether I should give up my job and go into full timeacting.9 Joe said no, pointing out what an impossible life it could be. Maybe he was too polite to tellme that he didn't think I'd make the grade as a professional.Deasy became increasingly involved in the Labour Party becoming Chairman and Secretaryrespectively of the Inchicore Branch. He also workedfor limLarkin in the 1943/44 General Election,when the latter wasfirst elected to the Dail. Ayear later it was suggested by Donal McGregor' smother,Esther, that Deasy run as a candidate in the 1945 Local Elections. 10At that time we were a well known family in the area. So at 22 I stood for election and got electedto the City Council. It was claimed on my behalf that I was the youngest Councillor on DublinCorporation since Sean T. O'Kelly was elected at the age of 21. I was then the youngest Councillorin the country. .Deasy was a member of Dublin Corporation from 1945-50. The issues of the time included thePrices and Housing Campaigns and the Teachers' Strike of 1946. He has many vivid recollections ofpersonalities and events.One of my colleagues at the time was the late Jim Larkin Senior. I must say it was always an event

REMINISCENCE 115when Jim was present because the meeting was always lively. Jim had been Chairman of the HousingCommittee of the Corporation for years long before I joined it ... Following my first speech in theCorporation I had a complimentary letter from Dan Breenwho was a Fianna Fail Councillor at thetime. ll A comrade of J ames Connolly, he wanted to put me right in his view about the latter. He pointedout that Connolly was a Nationalist before a Sociruist! Somewhat later I wrote an inspection report forTB patients in Crooksling Sanatorium which exposed some shocking conditions. A special meeting of, the Public Health Committee was convened to discuss it. It was one of the last, if not the last such,meetings atterided by iim Larkin Senior. He nearly lifted the roof off City Hall with a roar of indignation.I discovered recently that the report is not aJt1ong,the Corporation ArchivesPThen there was the exchange with Alderman John McCarirtP There was a proposal·that twoCorporation houses be allocated to two priests at Clogher Road, Crumlin. The housing situation wasat the time desperate so I opposed the allocation. It gravely violated the conditions for Corporationhousing. I was, however, a lone voice. McCann expressed himself 'shocked' at my attitude. He wouldchallenge my stance at any street corner in Dublin at any time. It was 1949 and this was just devoutdemagogy. McCann was also hostile to the Producer/Consumer Market which the Corporation hadinitiated in response to the Lower Prices Campaign of the DTC. He alleged that it was not fair to businesspeople .. Then there was the Nelson Pillar episode in August, 1948. I moved at a City Council meeting thatthe statue of Lord Nelson be removed from the pillar and to the best of my recollection a Fianna FailCouncillor added an amendment which I accepted that he be replaced by a statue ofPadraic Pearse. Themotion was passed almost unanimously but was never acted upon because the pillar was privateproperty. I was then undergoing a very nationalistic phase but the motion wasn't one of my brightestideas. I received some hate letters. One of them sarcastically saluted me as t.he saviour of the sick, theold age pensioner and the unemployed. There were hostile editorials and Myles na Gopaleenlampooned me in his Irish Times column, ... even left wing associates didn't spare me. It was a salutary,sobering experience.From 1947 onwards Deasy became increasingly left-wing and subsequently grew disillusionedwith aspects of the Labour Party. This resulted in growing conflict between himself and hisfather. Thelatter was afraid that foe would eventually turn to Communism, a possibility which Deasy hadn'tconsidered at that stage of his life. Deasy, however, decided to stand as a Labour candidate in the 1948General Election which led to the Inter-Party Government.There were three of us standing as Labour Party candidates in Dublin South West as it was thencalled. I polled reasonably well. In fact on a humerous note, I might well have been elected if Clannan Poblachta hadn't rurt Sean MacBride in my area. He headed the poll taking the lion's share of theradical vote.While in theory Deasy approved of the intitial idea of an Inter-Party Government he was soon tochange his mind.At the time there was general approval among the left within the Labour Party for the Inter-PartyGovernment. It was not an exclusively Fine Gael alliance as the Government also included Clann naTalmhan and Clann na Poblachta and the latter was seen as a rather left wing party. In fact atone stageit was hoped that there might be an alliance between Clann na Poblachta and the Labour Party. Therewas also a further consideration in the shape of a threatened Wages Standstill Order. The trade unionmovement had very ugly memories of the Fianna Fail Wages Standstill Order during the war whe'1profits and prices were allowed to soar while wages were either at a standstill or else rigidlycontrolled. 14Within twelve months of the formation of the Inter-Party Government, I was strongly against the

116 SAOTHAR 13Labour Party continuing in the '" set up, especially in the light of the foreign policy being pursued byMacBride. We all considered he was gravely threatening the neutrality of the country. He was evenprepared to go into NATO, if the unification of the country was achieved. IS In later years he played amuch more progressive role in international issues.After the 1948 General Election, Deasy's socialist development accelerated and he becamestrongly influenced by international events.The Cold War was beginning and I became very sympathetic to the cause of the Soviet Union. Asothers will tell you, to get up for election in Ireland in the late 40' sand 50' s with a reasonable chanceof winning a seat you had to make it clear that you were not only non-Communist but anti-Communist.In fact you had to be totally hostile to the Soviet Union and accept the dominance of the Catholic Church.A further disillusioning feature at the time was the 1948 Italian General Election. It became a majorissue in Ireland because it was feared that the Communist and Socialist Parties were going to win.According to the prevailing wisdom this would have been a fate worse than death for the Irish people,so there were numerous collections outside Churches and in jobs to be sent to the Italian ChristianDemocratS.The Cold War and the 1948 Italian General Election deeply upset Deasy and triggered off apersonal political crisis. Deciding that he had become apublic representative too young Deasyfelt thathe was too immature and hadn't sufficiently developed his political views.At one stage in 1949 ~ was anxious to resign from public life but then something happened withinthe Labour Group of Dublin Corporation to change my mind. One of the members of the Group becameinvolved in the embezzlement of money in his union and he was charged and went to jail and of coursehad to resign from the Corporation as a result. 16 I couldn't resign as well so I decided to continue andfor a while I was actually Secretary of the Labour Group on the Corporation.Deasy did not go forward as a La.bour Councillor in the 1950 Council Election. Although he workedfor the Labour Party their performance left a lot to be desired. Disillusionment with the Labour Party'sperformance in the Inter-Party Government of 1948 led to the number of Councillors droppingfromeleven to five. Although never formally resigningfrom the Labour Party, Deasy subsequently joinedthe Irish Workers' League. Many left wing people were shocked by his decision to abandon what many- would have regarded asapromising political career. It was thenfelt that he could have served the causeof socialism far more effectively by staying within the broad labour movement.For a left wing socialist the conditions for staying in public life in the' 40s and' 50s were impossible,__ especially if you were young and inexperienced. The fact that one had to profess hatred for Communismcombined with the absolute dominance of the Catholic Church made life very difficult indeed. Thesetwo factors united on several vital occasions.In 1947 there was the trial of Archbishop Stepanic in Yugoslavia accused of Nazi collaboration. InIreland resolutions were passed all over the country condemning the trial of an Archbishop. Jim LarkinJunior, who was then a TD, asked me if it came up at the Corporation what I was going to do. I answeredfrankly saying I didn 'tknow what I was going to do. Larkin replied, 'Well, I don't want to vote for thatresolution' . I have to admit that I felt the same way .In any event the resolution didn't come up at DublinCorporation. Frankly, I don't know what J im Larkin did in the Dilll where it did surface. The next issuewhich was rather acute was the Italian Election of 1948, to which I've already referred. In 1949 camethe most serious trouble of all, the trial of Archbishop Mindszenty in Hungary which was a re-run ofthe Stepanic affair although on a larger scale. A huge meeting was held in O'Connell Street about thismatter attended by about 100,000 people and chaired by Deputy Fahy who was the Ceann Comhairle

REMINISCENCE 117of Dail Eireann. 17 At this time anybody in public life, if they held differing views to the vast majority,simply had to keep their heads down. I didn't like that This was one of. the reasons that alienated mefrom public life. I didn't feel happy representing people who took such a different point of view frommy own, on these basic issues.These differences of opinion especially on matters relating to the Catholic Church were to affectDeasy's relationships within his own family, the bond between father and i6n was to become severelystrained.Then the Mother and Child Crisis in 195 iemerged. Thepbsiiibn of the Church on a social domesticissue manifested itself and (grieve to say the Labour Party leadership did not emerge from this crisiswith much credit. IS There was a general submission even within the Labour Party to the interventionof the Bishops on the social and political issue. These are some of the factors which might illustrate thedilemma of a young socialist in the ' 40s and ' 50s. To some extent I hope that will explain why I did whatmany considered at the time wrong, namely abandon a public career. Arguably, I should have held on'- but the cost might have been very high.The late' 40s and early' 50s were without doubt critical years for the young Deasy. Not only washe undergoing his own personal political trauma but he was also heavily involved in the struggle forthe control of the Ballyfermot Co-op. The idea of starting a consumer Co-op was originally initiatedby the Inchicore Labour Party Branch. AlthoughDeasy joined the Co-op at itsfirstfoundation meetinghe didn't become active until a couple of years later. Tim Graham, Secretary of the Co-op, approachedDeasy and asked him if he would take the position of chairman. 19The Co-op decided they would try to extend their activities to Ballyfermot from Inchicore. Theyalready had a shop in Inchicore that paid two di vidends. The Corporation were letting shops in the newhousing scheme in Ballyfermot at that time. The Inchicore Group applied for tenancy of a shop andI made representations on their behalf. Arising out of that the Co-op was granted the tenancy ofthe shopin Ballyfermot. We had several hundred members and used to go out canvassing two nights a week.On Saturday we would go around collecting the dues. Then somebody decided to promote the plansof the Society further. It was felt we should hold a public meeting as part of a Co-op week.The Ballyfermot Co-op Committee, however, were totally unaware that any agitation against theCo-op was brewing. The meeting turned into a debacle and had to be abandoned. People keptinterrupting and asking whether or not it was true that several of the Co-op Committee were membersof the Communist Party. As chair Deasy refused to answer these questions as hefelt the politics of theCommittee bore no relevance to the Society. The campaign against the Co-op accelerated helped byvenomous attacks against it by the Catholic Standard.The following Sunday we were denounced from the pulpit of the three churches in Inchicore andBallyfermot. We were denounced as having refused to disclose whether there were Communist Partymembers on the Committee of the Co-op. It was announced from the pulpit that I had been challengedas chairman at this meeting to answer these questions and declined to answer. At what was to be thebeginning of a venomous campaign people were asked not to support the BaIlyfermot-Inchicore Coop.Four of the Committee of twelve including myself were members of the Irish Workers' League.Now it could be argued that having regard to the environment at the time we made ourselves rathervulnerable. The Cold War was hotting up and a very strong anti-Communist feeling prevailed. Therewere also several details about the nature of the attack which were personally upsetting. As a result ofdenunciations from the pulpit my parents couldn't go to mass locall y but had to go to Church in the nextparish. There were all sorts of allegations doing the rounds. One described how I had gone into the

118 SAOTHAR 13Vestry and physically attacked Father Troy. This would have been rather unwise on my partconsidering the impressive physique of the man.20Deasy and the other members of the IWL decided they would try to appease their attackers byresigning from the Committee. The campaign at this stage was so scurrilous that several otherCommittee members had already resigned. A Special General Meeting was called, a meeting whichthe opponents of the Co-op with the help of the clergy called on the people to boycott.We couldn'tfmd a local hall, and had to hold the meeting in the Irish Women Workers' Union Hallin Fleet Street. A special delegation arrived from the opponents' camp, people who were actually inthe Co-op but who were collaborating with the opposition. Some of our opponents not only wanted theIWL members to resign off the Committee but to resign from the Society completely. While we wereprepared to resign from the Committee we were not prepared to leave the Co-op. A new Committeewas elected and four people were elected to fill the vacancies.In accordance with the thinking of the time Deasy and his three comrades were totally isolated.Although there were some people both in the Labour Party and throughout the Republican movementwho were aghast at the vicious nature of the clerically inspired attack.Tim Graham, Secretary of the Co-op, went to the Civil Liberties Association and met no less aperson than Sean 6 Faolain, the celebrated author, who was very active within the Civil Liberties at thetime. However, 6 Faolain wasn't that sympathetic towards our plight and the Civil Liberties decidedthere was not a Civil Liberties question involved. I went to see Peadar 0 'Donnell who was Editor oftheBellinagazine at the time. I called to O'Donnell's house. He began to reminisce about Paddy 'theCope' Gallagher. The latter had started a Co-op in Donegal but had met with much opposition fromthe local Bishop. Peadar suggested that we write to Paddy the Cope asking for a message of support. 21At this stage Mrs. O'Donnell interjected saying, 'Peadar don't mislead the young chap. If Communismis involved the Co-op is dead - you know that'. Unfortunately it transpired that she was right. A letterwas sent to Gallagher, who duly replied saying he was sorry to hear that Communism was involved.That he was now on excellent terms with the Bishop and that every time he was in the vicinity of thepalace on business he used to call and pay the Bishop a visit and have tea with him. So that was the endof any assistance that might be derived from that source.Although the Co-op lastedfor some months afterwards, opposition to it became so vehement thatthe whole project had to be terminated. While Deasy felt the campaign was without doubt clericallyinspired he was unsure as to whether they were the actual originators of the campaign.Perhaps the whole campaign was sparked off by local shopkeepers who would have had a vestedinterest in preventing the progress of the Co-op. The clergy did promise the people that they would starta Christian co-op based on Christian principles. This idea never materialised.By now loe Deasy had become both privately and publicly identified with the IWL. He was to bean active Communist for the next twenty five years of his life,facing proscription within his union,persecution politically and even social ostracism. Maintaining socialist principles and applyingmarxist analysis to Irish political questions demanded courage of all those who worked in the IWL. loeDeasy's early,formative years of political activity were to prove a valuable source of strength in thosedifficult years for Irish socialism.

REMINISCENCE 119NotesThe above article is based on a series of interviews with Joe DeasyfromNovember, 1987 to May, 1988.I wish to thank Dee Guckianfor transcription and typing.1. See' Socialist Trade Unionist: Matt Merrigan's Political Fonnation', Saothar 12, 1987, pp. 95-6 for detailsof Dick Deasy.2. New Theatre Group was the only political, left wing group in Ireland in the 1940s and '50s. See I. Deasy,'Reviving the Memory: New Theatre' Movement', Labour HistoryNews. 3, Spring, 1987, pp. 3-5.3. The Communist Party in the Republic was dissolved in 1941. The IWL was fonned by old Party members in1948. SeeS.Nolan(ed),AnOutlineHistoryoftheCPI.(Dublin,1975)andM.Milotte,CommunisminModemIreland. (Dublin and New York, 1984).4. 'Clinkers' was an inferior fuel used as substitute for coal which was in short supply.5. The RCA was founded in Sheffield in May, 1897, affiliating to the TUC in 1903. It becatne the TSSA in 1951.For a brief outline see I. Eaton & C. Gill, The Trade Union Directory. (London. 1981), pp. 42-5. The RCAwas long an ITUC affiliate and was a founding member of the ICTU in 1959.6. See S. Cody, J. O'Dowd & P. Rigney, The Parliament of Labour. (Dublin, 1986), 'Rival Councils', pp. 194ff.7. Donal McGregor was a well known Labour Party activist in the 1940s. He was a member of the AdministrativeCouncil and, with people such as Sheila Greene, was an organiser for the Party's paper the Irish People.8. Clifford Odets was a celebrated American left wing playwright whose works included 'Waiting for Leftie'.9. McColum was manager of the Louis Dalton Players before becoming attached to the NTG.10. Esther McGregor was It well known communist activist in Inchicore. She ran as a candidate, to Deasy'smemory, on a Revolutionary Workers' Group ticket in 1930. She lost her son, Liatn, on the last day of theSpanish Civil War where he fought with the International Brigade.11. Dan Breen, Tipperary, had fought in the War of Independence, see his, My Fight for Irish Freedom, (Tralee,1964).12. Deasy was annoyed to find these public records unavailable. A TSSA colleague, Councillor Sean Kenny,Labour, was unable to track the source of the material despite official questions.13. IohnMcCann, FiannaFail, was later to become an Abbey playwright and is father of the actor, DonalMcCann.14. For discussion of the Wages Standstill Order see C. McCarthy, Trade Unions in Ireland, 1894-1960. (Dublin,1977) and Cody, O'Dowd, Rigney, op.cit .. pp. 190 ff.15. See Noel Browne, Against the Tide. (Dublin, 1986), p. 135.16. For reference to this sorry affair see S. Redmond, The Irish Municipal Employees' Trade Union. 1883 -1983,(Dublin, 1983), pp. 111-3.17. See S. Cody, 'May Day in Dublin, 1890 to the Present', Saothar 5. 1979, pp. 77-8.18. For what Deasy would not regard as a reliable source from a Labour Party perspective, see Noel Browne'srecent autobiography, op.cit.19. Tim Grahatn was Secretary, Inchicore Branch, Labour Party and associated with the Plough.20. Father Troy was Ballyfennot Parish Priest during the Co-op episode.21. Patrick GaJlagher, Paddy the Cope - My Story. (Tralee, 1979).COMMUNICATIONS UNION OF IRELANDAffiliated to Irish Congress of Trade Unions andPostal Telegraph & Telephone InternationalPRESIDENT: Con ScanIonGENERAL SECRETARY: Seamus de PaorHEAD OFFICE"Arus Ghaibreil"575-577 North Circular Riad, Dublin 1.

Document StudyConnolIy Socialism and the Jewish WorkerThe establishment of an Irish Jewish Museum in Dublin in 1985 has ensured the preservation ofmuch valuable historical material which might otherwise have been lost. One such item was broughtto the attention of this writer in late 1986, by the Irish Jewish Museum's archivist Asher Benson. It isa roughly-typed document entitled 'The Municipal Elections January 15th 1902' and is addressed toJewish workers of Dublin by the 'East London Jewish Branch of the Socialist Federation' (sic) on behalfof J ames Connolly, 26 Fishamble Street, Dublin. The awkward English of this document reads in partas follows:'Friends, January 15th the elections are coming on, and you will have to thinkfor whom you will give yourvote. But before you come to a decision we want, Jewish Social Democrats to say afew words ... Whichof the candidates will you votefor ... ? The Home Ruler, the candidate of the bourgeois? No ... you can'tand must not do it ... The bourgeois are those that rise the people against one another with hate for warlikereasons ... The bourgeois is the cause of anti-semitism, they and their press encourage hate and cast allthe caluminies [sic] on the Jew to hoodwink and cloak their own faults to their followers '" No! you cannotvote for the Home Ruler the bourgeois candidate, who is walking in step with the English Capitalists ...No matter how nice the Home Ruler talks, no matter how democratic and friendly they are or how theycry about oppressed Ireland ... they are bourgeois ... And you Jews what guarantee have you that one fineday they come your way? ... you have to vote for the Socialist candidate, and only for the socialist candidate.The Socialists are the only ones with the oppressed national minorities ... In conclusion a word to you,Jewish workers of Dublin, on you lies the responsibility to help with all your resources· ... The Councilof the Irish Socialist Republican Party need you near them. This is in your own interest, the interest forwhich every right minded worker must campaign... The party want to abolish private ownership undt;rwhich the working class is condemned to slavery, working for the capitalists of the world and the workerhimself gets damn all... Jewish workers how few you are you can do a lot... Work hand in hand withyour Irish brothers ... go canvassing and talk to others and your friends to vote on the 15th January forthe Irish Socialist candidate James Connoliy ... '1From the language style of the above it seemed likely that this document had been translated fromYiddish by a member of Dublin's Jewish community whose own mama-loshen (mother-tongue) wasYiddish and who was still experiencing some difficulty in wrestling with the English language. Hadthe translation been provided by the author of the original document he would correctly have namedthe issuing body as the East London Jewish Branch of the Social Democratic Federation and not the'Socialist Federation'. But where was the original Yiddish document to be found, who had authoredit and why had Connolly issued it?No such document exists in the archives of the Irish Jewish Museum itself. An investigation of thecatalogue of the William 0' Brien Papers in the National Library of Ireland, however, revealed an entryentitled' James Connolly EleCtion Manifesto [in Hebrew?]'. This turned out to be a photo-copy of apartially-torn election leaflet on behalf of Connolly. 2 Asher Benson of the Irish Museum subsequentlyconfirmed that the language was not Hebrew but Yiddish - the German-related lingua franca of Russianand Polish Jews which is written with the Hebrew alphabet. In turn, Sid Resnick of the YiddishlanguageAmerican socialist newspaper, Morning Freiheit, provided this writer with the modernEnglish-language translation of the leaflet which is carried at the end of this article. 3If Jewish workers of Dublin were being asked to vote for James ConnoUy in January 1902, wherehad he himself stood on Jewish issues? A few years previously Connolly had published an article inthe Workers' Republic favourable to Zionism which he himself introduced as 'the political ideal of thatsection of the Jewish race who are at present advocating the establishment of an Israelitish nation in120

DOCUMENT STUDY 121James Connolly in the United States. 1902Boris Kahan. Secretary. East London (Jewish)Branch. SDF. 1902Palestine'.4 On the other hand, during the. course of tlte Boer War he had also reprinted an article fromthe Brisbane Worker which had rhetorically asked: 'What would you do in the same position as theBoers? Supposing yo:= ~ountry was invaded by a mob of Jew and foreign exploiters ... What wouldyou do?'5Connolly's associate in the pro-Boer solidarity campaign in Ireland, Arthur Griffith, had infused hisUnited Irishman propaganda with rabid anti-semitism.6 But the fact that Connolly himself hadreprinted the passing anti-semitic remark quoted above was an uncharacteristic lapse on his part.Nothing similar occurred in any other issue of the Workers' Republic. in stark contrast with the antisemitismwith which the pro-Boer propaganda in Justice. organ of Britain's Social DemocraticFederation (SDP), had been infected on the commencement of that War.The question arises as to whether or not in later years in the United States, when Connolly finallybroke with the Socialist Labor Party (SLP) of Daniel de Leon, he had indicated an anti-semiticprejudice. An American authority on de Leon, James A. Stevenson, has said of Connolly, 'As he sawit, the only SLP members to which a personaiity of de Leon's type could appeal were Jewish'? Theevidence cited was a private letter which Connolly had written to J .C. Matheson, editor of the ScottishSLP newspaper The Socialist. Connolly had remarked of de Leon:• My friend Dan made a grand effort to destroy me at general party meetings here in New York, but he wasrouted. horse. foot and artillary. As a result he made enemies of nearly all the American, German, Swedish.Irish and British members of the party in New York, and has nobody left he can trust outside of the Jewishelements. The Jews. 'you know, are still looking for a saviour. The rest of us have had our saviour already,and as he made a mess of it we intend to mistrust saviours in the future. '8But it would be a mistake to read too much into such a casually-made ethnic joke in privatecorrespondence. American socialist organisations at the time were composed of many immigrantgroupings and foreign language publications. A political difference between one party section and

122 'SAOTHAR 13another could therefore manifest itself as a national difference when, for convenience of language, aparty section was centred on a particular national grouping. It was such a development whichoccasioned Connolly's quip. But, more to the point, one of the issues which had originally attractedConnolly to de Lean's SLP and repelled him from H. M. Hyndman' s SDF in Britain had been the latter'sresort to anti-semitism in expressing its differences with de Leon. Connolly was to denounce the SDForgan Justice for having boasted of 'dealing effectually with those malcontents who are bent uponfollowing the lead of the German-Venezuelan Jew Loeb (or de Lean) to the pit of infamy and disgrace'.9Connolly maintained that this was an example of precisely the type of anti-semitic propaganda thatJustice had pursued on the outbreak of the Boer War, and he argued:'Justice, instead of grasping the opportunity to demonstrate the unscrupulous and bloodthirsty methods ofthe capitalist class, strove to divert the wrath of the advanced workers from the capitalists to the Jews; howits readers were nauseated by denunciations of' Jewish millionaires • and 'Jewish plots'. 'Jewish-controllednewspapers', 'German Jews'. 'Israelitish schemes'. and all the stock phrases of the lowest anti-semiticpapers until the paper became positively unreadable to any fair-minded man who recognised the truth, viz.that the war was the child of capitalist greed and inspired by men with whom race or religion were mattersof no moment.' 1 0Despite the factthat the SDF had its own East London Jewish Branch organised in the middle 1890s,Justice had carried an article on the eve of the Boer War by the SDF leader H.M. Hyndman en~t1ed'The Jews' War on the Transvaal' Y This elicited a vigorous riposte from leading SDF memberTheodore Rothstein who reproached Justice with preaching from its pulpit rank anti-semitism. Its anti­Jewish propaganda might be dangerous and lead to Jew-baiting if the paper had a wide circulation inthe country. 'Happily for the case, though unhappily for the general cause', he added, 'Justice is readby a comparatively small section of the community, so that a national anti-Semitic movement is not tobe expected'.12Given the coincidence of views between Rothstein and Connolly in deploring Justice's antisemitisrri,was it possible that Rothstein might also have authored Connolly's Yiddish-languageelection appeal? A query from this writer to the former's son, Andrew Rothstein, brought a responsewhich suggested a different relative as author:'I am inclined to think that my uncle (on my mother's side) Boris Kahan, may have drafted theappeal. The reason is that he was secretary of the East London Jewish branch of the SDF in 1903 (theyheld a Paris Commune commemoration meeting in that year at which Lenin spoke), and was a guestat the 5th Congress of the Russian Social Democrats in London in 1907, in the capacity of hissecretaryship. The text which you append is much more in his style than my father's! They were closefriends'PBoris Kahan had been born in Kiev in January 1877 but Tsarist oppression of both Jews andSocialists had driven this particular Jewish socialist into exile like multitudes of others.14 Having settledin the UK he became Secretary of the SDP's East London Jewish Branch at a very young age.Subsequent research among the William O'Brien Papers confirmed Andrew Rothstein's belief that ithad been Kahan who had authored the Connolly appeal.The initial request by the Irish Socialist Republican Party (ISRP) for a Yiddish-language appeal toDublin Jewish workers was unfortunately not recorded in the minutes of its executive committee. Theminutes for the meeting of 5 October, 1902, however, record that 'it was decided to payoff ale for theJewish election literature'. On 14 October it was reported back that' Jewish alc for election literature7s.7d. paid as arranged'. A week later the minutes record receipt of correspondence from 'M. Kahn[sic], sec. East London Jewish Branch, SDF ... acknowledging receipt of 7s.7d. in payment of alc andenclosing Is. (stamps sent to WR)',IS The ISRP minutes secretary had, of course, misread the,signatureof Boris Kahan in this letter addressed to Connolly, which is also contained in the O'Brien Papers.Kahan's letter stated how glad he was to receive the Workers Republic, asked for it to be sent to him

DOCUMENT STUDY123SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION.EAST LONDON' (",•• I.h) BRANCH .. V·,---,Ail Ct)mmunirallofU< 10I.106, Com.ntenclII.l koad, ELetter to James Connolly, Secretary, ISRP,jrom Boris Kahan, Secretary,East London (Jewish) Branch, SDF, 19 October, 1902regularly, and in enclosing a shilling subscription he further requested that 'when money runs shortplease let me knoW'.16. What had occasioned Kahan' s leaflet on behalf ofConnolly? At the ISRP meeting of 14 November,1901 it was announced that the United Labourers' Union, with headquarters at 26 Fishamble Street,Dublin, were anxious to run a candidate in the forthcoming municipal elections and that Party Secretary

124 SAOTHAR 13James Connolly would deliver an address to them as a possible candidate. The minutes of23 Novemberreport back that 'J ames Connolly gave an outline of his own position as the selected candidate for WoodQuay Ward stating that the final understanding was that though he was running as the candidate of theUnited Labourers, this should not prevent him from giving expression to his views as a socialist duringthe contest' .17 Connoll y' s campaign mainly consisted of open-air meetings, 'the stance favoured beingin New Street' .18 Such public meetings would have brought Connolly into direct contact with Dublin'simmigrant Jewish population, since New Street was a direct continuation of Lower Clanbrassil Street,the principal thoroughfare of the South Circular Road area of Dublin which had become known as'Little Jerusalem'. The Jewish population of Dublin, while remaining relatively small even at itsmaximum, rapidly grew at the turn of the century as refugees fled from pogroms and persecution in theRussian Empire. Numbering only 352 in 1881, Dublin's Jewish population increased to 1,057 in 1891,to 2,169 in 1901 and to 2,965 in 1911. 19 When the future founder of Sinn Hin and first President ofthe Irish Free State, Arthur Griffith, gave full support to the anti-semitic campaign of the Redemptoristsin Limerick, he would denounce these refugees from Tsarist persecution in the following terms: 'Nothoughtful Irish man or Irish woman can view without apprehension the continuous influx of Jews iritoIreland ... strange people, alien to us in thought, alien to us in sympathy, from Russia, Poland ... ' etc. 2DSuch refugees, who hailed mainly from Lithuania, were among the electors of Wood Quay Ward.Connolly's approach was to reach out to them, particularly to the proletarian and semi-proletariannumbers among them. As the late Louis H yman noted, ' Among the Jews of foreign birth listed in Dublinin the Census of 1901 there were 261 drapers, 223 pedlars and hawkers, 200 students and scholars, 88commercial travellers, 72 tailors, 66 domestic servants and 64 general dealers' .21 In that year two suchJewish immigrant workers, Barnet and Abraham Volkes of Pleasant Street, would become membersof the ISRP, having been previously members of the SDF in Salford. 22During the years 1901 to 1911 Jews came to constitute a majority of the inhabitants in many of thestreets in the Wood Quay Ward. 23 The circumstances of the workers among them have been describedas follows by Maurice Levitas, the son of one such worker who emigrated to Dublin from the Lithuanianprovince of Kovno in 1911 but whose circumstances were similar to those of the Jewish -workers towhom Connolly had appealed in 1902:'i hail from the South Circular Road neighbourhood - and your researches into the Jewish input into tradeunions in Ireland reminds me of my father's part in the Tailors' and Pressers' Union ... My father, HarryLevitas, tried a number of ploys when we lived in Dublin in order to gain a living. Like some other Jewsin Dublin he tried 'travelling' around the countryside, collecting rags and metal etc. for sale to dealers inthese salvage commodities. Buthe was not successful at this. In the main he worked for a wage as a presserin the tailoring trade and since he was left-wing in his politics, he played a part in his trade union. Indeed·the main impression we all have of my father is his strong trade union principles. The origin of all this washis association in Lithuania, as a very young man, with the Poale Zion (or Labour Zionists) - a kind ofJewish socialist movement' .24Other Lithuanian Jewish immigrants in Dublin's 'Little Jerusalem' would have been influenced bythe ideas of the Jewish Social-Democratic Party known as the Bund which stood for Je'Yish nationalautonomy within Russia, Poland and Lithuania. It was in Vilna, known as 'the Jerusalem of Lithuania' ,that the Bund had been founded in 1897, its full name being 'The General Jewish Workers' Union(Bumf) in Russia and Poland' (Lithuania was added later). The following year the Bund itself hostedthe founding Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Workers Party (RSDWP), of which the Bundbecame an autonomous member. The Bund seceded from the RSDWP in 1903, rejoined itin 1906, andafter the Russian Party irrevocabl y split between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, the B und affiliated to thelatter in 1912.25Connolly had been most impressed by the Bund and he greeted its development with particularenthusiasm. He wrote: 'The Socialist movement is developing at a remarkable rate amongst the J ewis,h

DOCUMENT STUDY 125proletariat of the Russian Empire. The organisation known as 'The Union ofJewish Workmen of Russiaand Poland' actually issues eight journals from its secret printing press - more than any [other socialist]organisation in the Empire' .26But how was ConnoUy to relate to those Russian Jewish immigrants who were now among theelectors of Wood Quay Ward and how could he draw on the sympathy which they had for the Bundistand other socialist currents which were rapidly developing among their Machatonnim un Landsleit inder Heim (relatives and fellow-countrymen in their native provinces of Tsarist Russia)? Language wasa major difficulty. At the 1923 Annual Meeting of the Irish Labour Party and Trade Union Congress,aJewish tailor representing the Tailors' and Pressers' Union, Isaac Baker, had made a briefbuteloquentspeech against 'any discrimination between Jew and Gentile, so long as either does his work right' PButwhile the 1911 census form had shown that lsaac Baker could now 'read and write', the earlier 1901census had recorded that at the time of Connolly's election campaign this Russian-born immigrantworker 'cannot read'.211 The extent to which this would be a major problem for newly arrived immigrantworkers in Dublin was most clearly demonstrated when a new set of rules for the International Tailors',Machinists' and Pressers' Trade Union was registered in 1915. Only the Secretary, Waiter Carpenter,and the one non-Jewish executive member were able to sign their own names in English. An 'X' hadto be entered by each of the fi ve Jewish executive mem bers, with Carpenter certifying on behalf of eachthat it was 'his mark'. ~ It would be a grave mistake to assume that these Jewish workers were illiterate.The census authorities were only interested in whether one could read or write English or speak Irish.For example when the Shamas (beadle) of Dublin's Lennox Street synagogue asked the censusenumerator in 1911 to put down that he himself could 'write and read Hebrew' (and obviously Yiddishas well) and that his wife and daughter could both 'write and read Yiddish', the enumerator's superiorcrossed out these entries and substituted 'cannot read' in each case. 30A Jewish immigrant worker like Isaac Baker, then, while initially illiterate in his neWly-acquiredlanguage of English, would have been highly literate in his native language of Yiddish at the time ofConnolly's 1902 election campaign. It is precisely for this reason that Boris Kahan drafted a Yiddish­. language appeal to the Jewish workers of Dublin asking them to vote for Connoll y at their local pollingstation in New Street School. The purpose of the leaflet was to convey to Kahan' sBrider Yiden (Jewishbrothers) in Dublin the clear political message that the Home Rule candidates only represented theinterests of the Balabattim (bosses), that indeed the principal candidate was a Balaboss himself, andthat only the Irish Socialist candidate James Connolly was a true Arbeter Fraint (workers' friend).But Connoll y had more serious obstacles to face than the production of Yiddish-language literature.His principal opponent in the election was the Nationalist publican and patriotic song-writer P J.McCall, who was the author of such famous songs as 'Boolavogue', 'Kelly the Boy from Killane', and'Follow Me Up to Carlow'. McCall ostentatiously paraded the local Catholic priests on his platformto state that 'no Catholic could·vote for a Socialist, nor be a Socialist', while the ISRP itselffurtherclaimed: .'On election night Mr. McCall's public house was crowded till a late hour ... Every public house in theward was a committee room for Mr. McCall and all who were degraded enough to sell their votes couldsoak themselves in liquor, free of expense. Father Staples, Father O'Brien, and Father McGough, of S1.Nicholas of Myra's Chapel inFrancis Street, lent their sanction to all this debauching of the people byjoining the committee responsible for it,and invoking all the terrors of religion against all those who '"voted for Mr. Connolly.'31In such an environment it is not surprising that PJ. McCall of the United Irish League won the seatwith 1,434 votes. A rival Home Ruler, W.H. Beardwood, received only 191 votes. A year laterConnolly was.to recall,'Let us remember how the paid canvassers of the capitalist candidate - hired slanderers - gave a.different

126 SAOTHAR 13.account of Mr. Connolly to every section of the electors. How they said to the Catholics that he was anOrangeman, to the Protestants that he was a Fenian, to the Jews that he was an anti-Semite, to others thathe was a Jew. '32 .'With prejudices being whipped up in this manner, for Connolly to have come second in the 1902Wood Quay Ward election, and to have secured 431 votes from both Gentile and Jewish workers in thatWard, was certainly a most creditable performance. Boris Kahan's Yiddish leaflet had played aprominent part in Connolly's campaign. The following year, once again in his capacity as Secretaryof the East London, Jewish Branch of the SDF, Kahan was to the fore in organising a Paris CommuneCommemorative meeting in Whitectiapel on 21 March, 1903 at which Lenin was a speaker. One of onlythree public meetings which he addressed during his period of exile in London?3 Kaban wassubsequently associated with the Fifth Congress of the Russian Social Democrats which was held inLondon in 1907 and described as follows by Andrew Rothstein,'There were 105 Bolsheviks (representing 46;000 members), 97 Mensheviks (from 38,000 members), 57(Jewish Social Democratic) Bundists (25,000 members), 44 Polish Social Democrats (25,000 members),29 Lettish Social Democrats (13,000 members) and 4 'independents'. It was by far the largest SocialDemocratic Congress ever held by the Russian parties - and it was the last at which all these groups met"under a single roof ... It was Lenin who moved the vote of thanks (on 16 May, 1907) to 'the representativeof the British Social Democratic Federation for its help in arranging the Congress'. There were among theguests a number of Russian political emigrants who had joined the SDF -Zelda Kahan; ... her brother Boris,secretary of the East London (Jewish) branch of the SDF; ... Theodore Rothstein and his wife Anna(Kahan).'34Zelda Kahan, later to be a founding member of the Communist Party of Great Britain, would marryKinsale-born W.P. Coates who organised the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union in theKilkenny-Waterford area during 1918-19. Coates went on to become Secretary of the 'Hands OffRussia' Movement and later of the Anglo-Russian Parliamentary Committee. 35 Theodore Rothsteinwould become a very close associate of Frederick Ryan (founding first Secretary of the reorganisedSocialist Party of Ireland in 1909) between the years 1907 and 1913 in vigorously campaigning onbehalf of Egyptian independence. 36 Rothstein afterwards became a founding member of the CommunistParty of Great Britain in 1920 but was forbidden re-entry to Britain following a visit to Russia thatsame year and went on to become the fIrst Soviet ambassador to Persia. Boris Kahan also returned tothe land of his birth following the Russian Revolution. He died in Moscow in December 1951. Hisnephew, Andrew Rothstein, writes 'Boris K .... worked until the end of his life in the Soviet trademachinery ... He never was a victim of repression, but died of a late-treated 'minor operation' '.37The Connolly election address in Yiddish resulted in a legacy of good-will between his politicalassociates in the ISRP and Dublin's Jewish community which persisted after his own emigration to theUSA in 1903. When Arthur Griffith made his United Irishman the political organ of Father Creagh's1904 anti-semitic campaign, the only voice of protest in its columns was that of the Dublin socialistFrederick Ryan. He maintained:'The Jew has been historically made the ~capegoat of Christendom. Anti-Semitism is the refuge of theContinental reactionary parties. It may seem good tactics on the part of corrupt militarists to set the mobat the heels of rich Jews. But the cause of true liberty has nothing to gain by being associated with suchtricks ... Let us resolutely shut our eyes to questions of race and creed, which are only raised by the reactionariesto create disorder in the camp ofprogress.'38In 1906 one of the ISRP's successor groupings, the SoCialist Partybf Ireland (SPI), decided to holda meeting on Sunday, 21 January to commemorate the first anniversary of the Bloody Sunday massacrein St. Petersburg which had precipitated the 1905 Russian Revolution. The SPI also decided to seek

DOCUMENT STUDY 127the support of Jewish refugees from Tsarist Russia and if possible have a number of them speak at thismeeting.' 'Comrade Lyng reported that he had seen the Rev. Godansky [sic] who stated he would notbe able to address the meeting but promised to give a lecture later on'. 39 The SPI minutes further record,that they were nonetheless successful in having their Beresford Place meeting addressed by 'threeRussian sympathisers'from among $.e Jewishcommunity following the Russian Bloody Sundaycommemorative procession through the streets of Dublin: 40 - ,", ,"Meanwhile class organisatio~s~ \v~r~_beibgJormed~itli_4t the Dublin Jewish community itself.Jewish Cabinetmakers' Unions were periodically established and re-established. 41 The most significantorganisational development was" however, the' foundation of the international Tailors', Machinists'and Pressers' Trade Union, in November 1908 by Jewish immigrant clothing workers from the SouthCircular Road area of Dublin.42 The union was formally registered in April 1909 and was engaged instrike action two months later ~ Ata solidarity meeting for the Jewish strikers Walter Carpenter on behalfof the newly re-organised SPI declared that 'there were in Dublin two or three Christian firms that didmore sweating in a week than the Jewish firms would do in twelve months' .43The one SPI member who remained unco-operative during this dispute was WilIiam O'Brien,because of narrow craft -based objections to the 'new union from 0 'Brien' s own Amalgamated Societyof Tailors. He recorded that a deputation of' Jewish tailors now out on strike' had approached the DublinTrades Council 'to ask advice re. dispute with Karmel and Lloyd and Lloyd', but the Executive saidthey 'would not interfere' without the permission of 0 'Brien' s union. 'One of the deputation,a memberof the Socialist Party. Very awkward position for me. 'Workers of the World Unite' !!!!! '44In July 1910 Connolly returned to Ireland after a seven-year exile in the USA. Connolly nowbecame the SPI'sNational Organiser after the Party's founder and National Secretary, Frederick Ryan,had ensured that his financial security could be guaranteed through employment with the Irish"Transport and General Workers' Union. 45 Waiter Carpenter became secretary of the SPI's Dublinbranch in February 1911 and over the next few months it was decided that he should speak at SPI publicmeetings at the Canal Bank, Martin Street 46 This was a noteworthy location because out of 301residents of that street's artisan dwellings as many as 195 were Jewish. 47At the time of these Canal Bank meetings a number of the tailors in the leadership of what hadbecome known to Dubliners as 'the Jewish Union' were among those living in Martin Street. 48 Otherswere living in the adjoining Warren S treet. 49 Links between the 'Connolly Socialists' and 'the JewishUnion' were further developed during 1913 when Walter Carpenter, Tom Kennedy and Tom Lyng ofthe SPI all spoke at a public meeting organised by the International Tailors' , Machinists' and Pressers'Trade Union itself. 50 When the union's founding secretary, Harry Miller, resigned through ill-healthin December 1913, it was the Gentile socialist Walter Carpenter who was invited to become 'the JewishUnion's' new General Secretary.51 At that time the Union's headquarters were at 52 Lower CamdenStreet, a house which it shared with the local synagogue. 52 "Carpenter was to remain secretary of that union until 1925 when he resigned due to terminal illness.In September 1921 he had become Secretary of the SPI with Connolly' s son, Roddy, as Party President.The following month the SPI was transformed into the Communist Party of Ireland with WaiterCarpenter and Roddy ConnoUy continuing on as Secretary and President. Roddy Connolly also editedthe Party newspaper the Workers' Republic and in his coverage of the struggle against those forcestrying to crush the Russian Revolution he particularly highlighted the horrific pOgromist activities ofthe Ukrainian nationalists. In January 1922 he reported on a Conference held in London by theFederation of Ukrainian Jews in aid of the Jewish pogrom victims at which the Chief Rabbi spoke ofhow 'one of the blackest pages in the annals of mankind had just been closed. 100,000 human beingsat least had been butchered; one community of 1,500 had been wiped out' .53 TheWorkers'Republicalso provided advance publicity for the following event held in Dublin's Empire T.leatre (now theOlympia Theatre)

128SAOTHAR 13'The Dublin Jewish Dramatic Society Presents(in aid of the Ukrainian Jews' Relief Fund)the following playsSpecial Pleading by Bernard DuffySpreading the News by Lady GregoryDer DoJaor (in Yiddish) by Sholom AleichemAbigail by David Pinskion Sunday, April 2, 1922'54Twenty years after James Connolly's election campaign among Dublin's Jewish community, hisson Roddy had maintained that link. And since it is a tradition among Jews to mark a birthday with theYiddish wish to livebiz hundert un tzvantzik! (for 120 years), it is particularly appropriate to now markthe 120th anniversary of James Connolly' s birth in 1868 with a reproduction of his Election Manifestoto the Jewish workers of Dublin in their own Yiddish language.Manus O'RiordanNotes1. The Municipal Elections, January 15th, 1902, Irish Jewish Museum archives.2. James Connolly Election Manifesto (in the Yiddish language), ILB 300 p.ll Item 81, National Library ofIreland (NLI).•3. Sid Resnick to Manus O'Riordan, 12 May, 1987.4. 'The Ideal Government of the Jew', Workers' Republic, 24 September, 1898.5. Workers'Republic, 30 December, 1899.6. Manus O'Riordan, 'Anti-Semitism in Irish Politics - The Sinn Fein Tradition', The Irish Jewish Yearbook,1984-1985.7. James A. Stevenson, 'James Connolly and Daniel de Leon: The Personal Aspects of de Leon's influenceamong Irish and British Militants', 1978, (unpublished).8. James Connolly to lC. Matheson, 27 September, 1907, O'Brien Papers, NLI.9. The Socialist, May, 1903.10. ibid.11. Justice, 7 October, 1899. Hyndman subsequently reversed his pro-Boer stand in favour of the Britishimperialist position.12. Justice, 21'October, 1899. For a detailed account of this controversy see Edmund Silberner, 'British Socialismand the Jews', Historia Judaica, April, 1952.13. Andrew Rothstein to Manus O'Riordan, 19 February, 1987. Born in 1898, Andrew Rothstein is a foundationmember (1920) of the Cornmunist Party of Great Britain.14. Walter Kendall, The Revolutionary Movement in Britain, 1900-21, (London, 1969), p. 332.15. Irish Socialist Republican Party minutes, October 5, 14 and 21, 1902, NLI.16. Boris Kahan to James Connolly, 19 October, 1902, O'Brien Papers, NLI.17. ISRP minutes, November 14 and 23,1901, NLI .. 18. C. Desmond Greaves, The Life and Times of James Connolly, (London, 1961), p. 110.19. Census of PopUlation, 1911. .20. The United Irishman, 23 January, 1904. Quoted more fully by Manus O'Riordan, in Dublin Jewish News,March-April 1979 and in Morning Freiheit (New York), 17 February, 1980.21. Louis Hyman, The Jews of Ireland from Earliest Times to 1910, (Shannon, 1972), p. 161.22. ISRP minutes, 23 July, 1901, NLI. .23. Census of Population street-returns 1901 and 1911, Public Records Office.24. Maurice Levitas to Manus O'Riordan, 25 October, 1986. Included in 'Irish and Jewish Volunteers in theSpanish Anti-Fascist War', a 50th anniversary lecture by Manus O'Riordanwith particular reference to thestory of an Irish-born Jewish Volunteer, Maurice Levitas, delivered at the Irish Jewish Museum, 15 November,1987. .25. Louis Harrap, 'The Bund Revisited', Jewish Currents, (New York), February and April, 1974.

DOCUMENT STUDY 12926. The Workers' Republic, 24 November, 1900.27. Manus Q'Riordan, 'Jewish Trade Unionism in Dublin', in Q'Riordan and Pat Feeley, The Rise and Fall of IrishAnti-Semitism, (Dublin 2nd edition, 1985), p. 31.28. Census enumerators' returns, 1901 and 1911, Public Records Office.29. File of the Irish Garment Workers' Trade Union (formerly the International Tailors, Machinists and Pressers'Trade Union), Registry of Friendly Societies. The 1915 EXeCutivecOnsistedofPatrick Doy1e, Bamet Sigman,Edward Baker, Harris Guttenberg, Bamet Glass, Morris Goldstein and WaIter Carpenter, Secretary.30. Census enumerators' returns, 1911, Public Records Office.31. Workers' Republic, March, 1902.32. Wood Quay Ward Election Address, January, 1903.33. Andrew Rothstein, Lenin in Britain, (London, 1970), p. 14.34. ibid., pp. 22 and 26.35. C. Desmond Greaves, The Irish Transport and General Workers' Union - The Formative Years, (Dublin,1982), pp. 203, 239 and 350.36. Introduction by Manus Q'Riordan (ed.) to Frederick Ryan: Sinn Fein and Reaction, (Dublin, 1984), pp. 4 to8. Also pp. 31 to 35. For a biographical study of Theodore Rothstein see the essay by David Burke in JohnSlatter (eds.), From the Other Shore: Russian Political Emigrants in Britain, 1880-1917, (London, 1984), pp.81-97.37. Andrew Rothstein to Manus O'Riordan, London, 20 April, 1988.38. United Irishman, 28 May, 1904. Reprinted in full in Ryan, op.cit., pp. 13-14 and in O'Riordan and Fee1ey,op.cit., p. 12.39. SPI minutes 2, 15 and 22 January, 1906, NU .. Reverend Abraham Gudansky, a native of Lithuania, was theMinister of Dublin's premier synagogue at Adelaide Road. His son, the future District Justice Herman Good,would be a candidate for the Irish Labour Party in the 1944 General Election. Good's election poster is ondisplay in the Irish Jewish Museum, Walworth Rd. (off Victoria St.), Dublin 8.40. SPI minutes, 22 January, 1906.41. O'Riordan, 'Jewish Trade Unionism in Dublin', op.cit., pp. 32-36.42. Manus O'Riordan, 'The Tailors and Pressers Union', Dublin Jewish News, July 1987 ..43. Freeman's Journal, 8 July, 1909.44. William O'Brien diaries, 1 and 8 July, 1909, NU.45. Introduction by Manus Q'Riordan (ed.) to Frederick Ryan, Socialism, Democracy and the Church, (Dublin,1984), pp. 3 and 4.46. SPI minutes, 6 February, 6 March, 7 July, 1911, NU.47. Census enumerators' returns, 1911, Public Records Office.48. ibid., Isaac Baker No. 11, Abraham Sevitt No. 17 and Morris Taylor No. 29 Martin Street.49. ibid., Aaron Klein No. 14 and Harry Guttenberg No. 30 Warren Street.50. Leaflet for ITMPTU public meeting on 7 July, 1913. O'Brien Papers, NU.51. ITMPTU Returns, 1913, Registry of Friendly Societies, File 274T.52. ibid., 1912 to 1915 incl. Also certificate of marriage at the Camden Street synagogue on 16 August, 1914,between Leah Rick and Harry Levitas, a tailor's presser, of 33 Martin Street, who was a member of theITMPTU.53. Workers' Republic, 21 January, 1922.54. Workers' Republic, 1 April, 1922.Document: A Connolly Address To Dublin Jewish Workers(Note: Thefollowing is the 1902 Yiddish leaflet authored by Boris Kahan, Secretary of the East LondonJewish branch of the SDF, as translated for Saothar by Sid Resnick, of the US Yiddish socialistnewspaper, Morning Freiheit, on 12 May, 1987, the 71 st anniversary ofConnolly' s execution.)

130 SAOTHAR 13THE DUBLIN MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS, 15 JANUARY, 1902 .Friends!On 15th January the Municipal elections will take place and you are asked to consider for whomto cast your vote. But, before you reach your decision we, Jewish Social Democrats, wish to say a fewwords.There are three candidates on the list for the Wood Quay Ward: you have here a Home Ruler, anothera publican, and one labour candidate of the Irish Socialist Republican Party, James ConnoUy, who issupported by the Dublin United Labourers Union.For which of the candidates will you vote on 15th January? For the Home Ruler, the candidate ofthe bourgeoisie?No, you cannot and you ought not do that! It is the bourgeoisie which always has the bag of goldbefore its eyes. Everything that stands in its way, everything that does not agree with its gut interestsit tramples underfoot no matter how sacred that may be. It is the bourgeoisie that arouses race hatred,incites one people against another and causes wars. The bourgeoisie is the cause of anti -Semitism; withits press it provokes hatred of the Jew and seeks to throw the blame for everything upon the Jew in orderto deceive the people and conceal its sins against its own people.No, you cannot vote for the Home Ruler, the candidate of the bourgeoisie! The Home Rulers speakout against the English capitalists and the English landlords because they want to seize their places sothat they themselves can oppress and exploit the people. No matter how nicely and well the HomeRulers talk or how much as friends of man they seek to appear or how much they shout about oppressedIreland - they are capitalists. In their own homes they s,how their true colours and cast off theirreVOlutionary democratic disguise and torment and choke the poor as much as they can. And you, Jews,what assurance do you have that one fine day they will not turn on you?You ought to vote for the Socialist candidate and only for the Socialist candidate. The Socialistsare the only ones who stand always and everywhere against every national oppression. It is theSocialists who went out into the streets of Paris against the wild band of anti-Semites at the time of theDreyfus case. In Austria and in Germany they conduct a steady struggle against anti-Semitism. Andin England, too, the Socialists fight against the reactionary elements who want to shut the doors ofEngland against the poor Jews who were driven to seek a refuge in a strange land by the Russiangovernment's brutality and despotism.The Socialist candidate is the only one for whom you ought to cast your vote.In conclusion, a few words to you, Jewish workers of Dublin. Upon you rests the obligation tosupport the Socialist candidate as much as you can. The aims of the Irish Socialist Republican Partyought to be close to you. These are your own interests, the interests for which every knowledgeableworker must fight These are the objectives for which every worker must strive. What does this partywant? It wishes to abolish that system of private ownership under which the working class iscondemned to labour, to create the wealth of the world and enjoy for itself absolutely nothing. It wishesto construct a system in which the worker shall have the right to benefit from his labour and live a free,happy and enlightened life without bosses and rulers over his body and soul.Jewish workers! No matter how small your numbers are you can achieve much. Do your duty andwork earnestly hand in hand with your Irish brothers. Canvass for votes, vote yourselves and persuadeothers to vote on the 15th of January for the Socialist candidate, James Connolly.You must cast your vote at the New Street SchoolJames Connolly, 26 Fishamble Street, Dublin.With Socialist greetings,The East London Jewish Branch of the. Social Democratic Federation.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY 145Pres, 1987.O'Brien, G. Anglo-Irish politics in the age ofGrattan and Piu. 231 pp. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1987.O'Bymes, S. Hiding behind aface: Fine Gael under Fitzgerald. 330 pp. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1986.o 'Callaghan, M. 'Irish history, 1780-1980'. Historicallnl29 (2), 1986, pp. 481-495. (Review article)O'Carroll, lP. 'Strokes, cute hoors and sneaking regarders: the influence oflocal culture on Irish political style'.Irish Political Studies 2, 1987, pp. 77-92.O'Connor, P.I. Exploring Limerick's past: an historical geography of urban development in the country and city.185 pp. Newcastle West, Co. Limerick: Oireacht na Mumhan Books, 1987.O'Halloran, C. Partition and the limits of Irish nationalism: an ideology under stress. 243 pp. Dublin: Gill andMacmillan, 1987.O'Halpin, E. The decline of the Union: British government in Ireland, 1892-1920. 258 pp. Dublin: Gill andMacmillan; Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1987.Orr, P. The Road to the Somme: men of the Ulster Division tell their story. 248 pp. Belfast Blackstaff Press,1987.O'Toole, F. The Southern question. 28 pp. Dublin: Raven Arts Press, 1987.Palmer, S .H. Police and protest in England and Ireland, 1780-1 850. 736 pp. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1987.Parker, A.I. 'Geography and the Irish electoral system'. Ir.Geog. 19 (1),1986, pp. 1-14.Paz, D.G. 'Anti-Catholicism, anti-Irish stereotyping, and anti-Celtic racism and mid-Victorian working-classperiodicals'. Albion 18,1986, pp. 601-616.The people of Ireland; edited by P. Loughrey. 208 pp. Belfast: Appletree Press, 1987.Power, B. Mitchelstown through seven centuries: being a concise history of Mite he 1st own, County Cork. 138 pp.Fermoy, Co. Cork: Eigse Books, 1987.Raymond, R.J. 'Irish nationalism in the early twentieth century: a reappraisal'. Canadian Review of Studies inNationalism 14 (1), 1987, pp. 19-30.Raymond, R.I. 'Irish neutrality and Anglo-Irish relations, 1921-1941', International History Review 9 (3), 1987,pp. 456-464.Reactions to Irish nationalism; edited and with an introduction by A. 0' Day. 401 pp. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan,1987.Regan, M.C. and Wilson, F.L. 'Interest-group politics in France and Ireland: comparative perspectives on neOcorporatism'.West European Politics 9 (3), 1986, pp. 393-411.Roberts, H. 'Sound stupidity: the British party system and the Northeq Ireland question'. Government andOpposition 22 (3), 1987, pp. 315-335.Sewall, M.I. 'Rebels or revolutionaries? Irish-American nationalism and American diplomacy, 1865-1885'.Historicallnl. 29,1986, pp. 723-733.Smyth, P. 'The Northern Ireland Assembly, 1982-86: the failure of an experiment'. Parliamentary Affairs 40,1987, pp. 482-500.Spellissy, S. Clare: county of contrast. 199 pp. Ennis, Co. Clare: The Author, 1987.Stewart, A.T.Q. The narrow ground: patterns of Ulster history. 208 pp. Belfast: Pretani Press, 1986. (Firstpublished Faber and Faber, 1977)Taylor, A. Tramore: a glimpse of other days. 59 pp. Tramore, Co. Waterford: The Author, 1987.'E.P. Thompson: [an interview], Labour History News no. 3, 1987, pp. 6-8.Thuillier, I.R. History ofKinsale: afield study approach. 77 pp. Kinsale, Co. Cork: The Author, 1987.Toibin, C. Walking the border; with T. O'Shea. 160 pp. London: MacDonald, 1987.'A various country': essays in Mayo history 1500-1900; edited by R. Gillespie and G. Moran. 180 pp. Westport,Co. Mayo: Foilseachain Naisiunta Ta., 1987.Wall ace, M. A short history of Ireland. 95 pp. Belfast: Appletree Press, 1986.Wallis, R., Bruce, S., and Taylor, D. 'Ethnicity and evangelicanism: Ian Paisley and protestant politics in Ulster'.Comparative Studies in Society and History 29 (2),1987, pp. 292-313.Wayman, P. Dunsink Obseratory, 1785-1985. 353 pp. Dublin: Royal Dublin Society, 1987.Wilson, T.M. 'Local government and local power in Meath 1925-1942'. R(ocht naMidhe 7(4),1985-86, pp. 68-78.Woods, C.I. 'American travellers in Ireland before and during the Great Famine: a case of culture shock' inLiterary interrelations: Ireland, England and the world; edited by W. Zach and H. Kosok. 1987. v.3. pp. 77-84.Wright, F. Northernlreland: a comparative analysis. 334 pp. Dublin: Gill andMacmillan; Totowa, M.I.: Bamesand Noble, 1987.

146 SAOTHAR1310. Addenda, 1973-1985The number prefIXing entries denotes their bibliography category . Any further omissions and suggestions shouldbe sent to the compiler.7. Aheam, M. 'Irish emigrants to South Australia, 1850-1882: a list of Irish emigrants who sailed to SouthAustraliavia Plymouth, England (from the manifests of twenty ships)'. Irish Family History 1, 1985, pp.41-46.2. Bartlett, R. 'Defenders and Defenderism in 1795'. IrHistStud.24 (95),1985, pp. 373-394.1. Bew, P. 'Recent research on the Ulster problem' . Parliamentary Affairs 38 (2), 1985, pp. 253-254'. (Reviewarticle)6. Connolly, R.M. 'The labour movement in Bray before 1920'. Bray 1nl 1985, pp. 43-45.9. Cox, W.H. 'The politics ofIrish unification in the Irish Republic'. Parliamentary Affairs 38 (4),1985, pp.437-454.2. Deane, S. Heroic styles: the tradition of an idea. 18 pp. Derry: Field Day, 1984.7. Emmons, D.M. 'Immigrant workers and industrial hazards: the Irish miners of Butte, 1880-1919'. 1nl. ofAmerican Ethnic History 5 (1),1985, pp. 41-64.4. Feingold, W.L. The revolt of the tenantry: the transformation of local government inl reland, 1872 -1886. 280pp. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1984.1. Funchion, M.F. 'Irish-America: an essay on the literature since 1970'. Immigration History Newsletter 17(2),1985, pp. 1-8.7. Geary, P.T. and 6 Gnida, C. Modelling migration to the new world: some problems. 11 pp. London: Centrefor Economic Policy Research, 1985.9. Griffm, W.D. and Elliott, M. 'The green and the black: Ireland's Catholic hierarchy confronts the rebellionof 1798'. Consortium on Revolutionary Europe 1750-1850; proceedings, 14. 1984, pp. 419-423.7. Iackson, P. 'Women in the 19th century Irish emigration'. International Migration Review 18 (4),1984, pp.1004-1020.9. Kearney, R. Myth and motherland. 24 pp. Derry: Field Day, 1984.7. Lowe, W.T. 'Irish Confederates and the Fenians: radical mobilisation among the Irish in Britain, 1848-1871'.Consortium on Revolutionary Europe 1750-1850 14, 1984, pp. 434-441.4. Moran, G.P. 'Famine and the Land War: relief and distress in Mayo, 1879-1881, Part I'. Cathair naMart:1nl of the Westport Historical Society 5 (1),1985, pp. 54-66.3. O'Carroll, C. 'Lead mining in East Clare'. The Other Clare 9, 1985, pp. 24-25.3. O'Donnchadha, L. 'Overton Cotton Mill'. Bandon Historical 1nl. 2, 1985, pp. 3-8.2. O'Donnell, S. 'The investive famine decade'. Eire-Ireland 20 (3), 1985, pp. 141-144.3. 6 Grada, C. Eire roimh an nGorta. 77 pp. Dublin: An Gum, 1985.6. Palmer, S.H. "1848' in England and Ireland: a nonrevolution'. Consortium on Revolutionary Europe 1750-1850: proceedings 14, 1984, pp. 424-433.7. Stortz, G.J. 'The Irish in Canada: an update'. Immigration History Newsletter 17 (2),1985, pp. 8-11.7. Thach, Q.T. Classe sociale et mobilite residentielle: les cas des irlandais cl Montreal de 1851 a 1871. 30 p.Montreal: McGill University, 1985.4. Watson, M. 'Common Irish plough types and tillage techniques'. Tools and Tillage 5 (2), 1985, pp. 85-98.7. Wilgers, D.K. 'The Aisling and the cowboy: some unnoticed influences of Irish vision poetry on Anglo­American balladry'. Western Folklore 44 (4), 1985, pp. 255-300.

147Notes on Contributorsf onathanBell is Assistant Keeper in the Department of Material at the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, Cui tra,with responsibility for agriculture. .Kenny Christine lectures in Adult and Continuing Education, Magee College, University of Ulster and is Vice­Chair, Derry Trades Union Council.Bernadette Cunningham is an archivist in the Dublin Diocesan Library. A history graduate of University College,Galway, she has written extensively on early modem Gaelic society and politics.Sean Daly is a Cork bookseller and publisher. His Cork: A City in Crisis - A History ofLabourC onflict and SocialMisery, 1870-1872, vol. 1 was published in 1978 and his book Ireland and the First International in 1984.Fergus D'Arcy lectures in modem history at University College, Dublin and has published on the political andsocial history of nineteenth and twentieth century Ireland and Britain. He was the founding President, ILHS.foe Deasy, a retired transport official, is a member of the Executive Committee of the Labour Party DublinRegional Council and ofthe South City Constituency Council. He is a former Treasurer, ILHS, and serves onthe Committee.M ichael H arkin was a researcher with the North West Archives and Labour History Project from 1986-1988. Hewas a delegate to the ITH in 1987.Ellen H azelkorn. lectures in politics at the Dublin Institute of Technology. She has published widely on marxismand Ireland and is currently completing work on clientelism and class, labour politics in the 1970s and 1980s,and the work experience of Irish immigrants. She is a former Secretary, ILHS.DavidHempton lectures in Modem History atQueen's University, Belfast and is author of Method ism and Politicsin British Society, 1750-1850, (London, 1984).Myrtle Hill is a Junior Research Fellow at the Institute of Irish Studies, Queen's University, Belfast and completedher PhD in 1987 entitled, 'Evangelicalism and the Churches in Ulster Society, 1770-1850'.David H owell is Senior Lecturer in Government at the University of Manchester and is author of A Lost Left: ThreeStudies in Socialism and Nationalism, (Manchester, 1986).Evanne Kilmurray, a freelance journalist, completed her MA in politics at University College, Dublin in 1984, isauthor of Fight, Starve or Emigrate: A History of the Irish Unemployed Movements in the 1950s, (Dublin,1988); and is commencing a doctoral study on Irish unemployed movements. She is Assistant Secretary, ILHS.S imo Laaksovirta works for Tyovaen Arkisto in Helsinki. He is editor in charge of the Centennial book on VainoTanner (1981) and has written many articles on Finnish labour history and culture.foe Larragy gained BA and MA degrees in sociology at Trinity College, Dublin and University College, Corkrespectively. Since 1980 he has alternated between teaching and research and has published work on tradeunion organisation and growth and done extensive research on the ideas of J ames Connolly. He is a researcherat the National Institute for Higher Education, Dublin concerned with new technology and the trade unions.Ken Logue, author of Popular Disturbances in Scotland, 1780-1815, (Edinburgh, 1979), is past Chair of theScottish Labour History Society and an activist in the WEA. He now lives in Bangor, Co. Down where he isa freelance consultant.EndaMcKay co-edited 300 Years of Irish Periodicals, (Dublin,1987)and is currently preparing A Guide to LabourRecords in Dublin for publication as part of the ILHS Survey of Dublin Labour Records. He is researchinghis doctoral thesis on Irish local government in the early twentieth century.Gerard Moran teaches at James's Street CBS, Dublin. He is author of The Mayo Evictions of 1860:. the 'War'inPartry, (Westport, 1986) and co-author of A Various County: essays in Mayo history, 1500-1900, (Westport,1987). He is currently researching a biography of Fr. Patrick Lavelle.Gerard 0' Brien lectures in history at the University of Ulster, Magee College, Derry. He is author of Anglo-lrishPolitics in the Age ofGrattan and Pitt, (Dubliit, 1987).Deirdre 0' Connellis Science Librarian, University College, Dublin and a former Treasurer, ILHS.Manus 0' Riordan is employed as Research Officer, Irish Transport and General Workers' Union, Dublin and isauthor of Connolly in America, (Belfast, 1971) and The American Trial of Big fim Larkin, (Belfast, 1976).Henry Patterson is Senior Lecturer in Politics, University of Ulster, Iordanstown. He is author of Class Conflictand Sectarianism (1980), SeanLemassand the Making of Modern Ireland (1982) and British State and UlsterCrisis (1985). He is currently completing books on politics in the Irish RepUblic and republicanism andsocialism since partition.

148 SAOTHAR 13Emmet Stagg is Labour Party Deputy for Kildare.Alistair Tough is Assistant Archivist, Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick Library, Coventry.Sarah Ward-Perkins is Archivist, ILHS Survey of Trade Union and Labour Records, Dublin.JamesD. Young left school in 1945, aged 14 and worked as a sawmill labourer and railway worker before winninga scholarship to Ruskin College, Oxford in 1953. He lectures in history at the University of Stirling and isauthor of the controversial, anti-imperialist book, The Rousing of the Scottish Working Class, (Croom Helm,1979). This autumn Harvester/Wheatsheaf publish his Socialism and the English Working Class, 1883 -1939and Pinter publish his magnum opus Socialism Since 1889: A Biographical History. He insists on the needfor militant, democratic socialism-from-below.The EditorsFrancis Devine, Tutor, Education and Training Department, Irish Transport and General Workers' Union, Dublin,is President, ILHS.Emmet O'Connor, studied at Waterford Regional Technical College before going up to University College,Galway. At present he teaches politics in Magee College, Derry.The editors wish to thank others who have assisted in the production of Saothar 13: Jean Kennedy for wordprocessing; the Communications Department, Irish Transport and 'General Workers' Union for computertypesetting and pagination;· Norah O'Neill for general management and proofing; Ann Riordan, Caoimhe NiDhuibhinn, Fiachra 6 Duibhinn and Liam Healy for proof reading; the National Library of Ireland for permissionto reproduce the Connolly election handbill and SDF letterhead; Andrew Rothstein, London, for the Boris Kahanphotograph; Manus O'Riordan for assistance with the illustrative material; Joe Deasy for the photographs ofhimself; Yvonne McGlynn, Department of Geography, UCD, for cartography; and, as ever, Patrick Funge and hisstaff at Elo Press for their usual high professionalism, courtesy and encouragement.IMETU: Irish Municipal Employees'Trade UnionThe Irish Municipal Employees'Trade Union, in commemorationof its centenary as Ireland's oldest general workers' union,produced a published history of the Union and recommendsthe work to all concerned with the study of the history of Irishworking people.Sean Redmond, The Irish Municipal Employees' TradeUnion, 1883-1983, (150 pages, illustrated). Available from theUnion for £3 plus 60p postage.IMETU, 8 Gardiner .. Place, Dublin 1. Telephone: (01-)743392

1901: Ireland's first general union foundedIRISH DISTRIBUTIVE ANDADMINISTRATIVE TRADE UNIONO'Lehane House, 9, Cavendish Row, Dublin 1.Dublin: (01) 746321Cork: (021) 270101-'- Galway: (091) 62750Limerick: (061) 314648Waterford: (051) 746311988: IDATU is Ireland's largest independent trade union

MSF members are shaping the future. With a union for the future.A union that stands for the development and prosperity ofIrish manufacturing. And sound, efficient public services.MSF is a strong, new union with a powerful and influentialvoice. A bigger union with greater assets, increased representation,better services.A professional union for skilled· arid professional people.' Thepower behind our members.MSF is the union for the future. Ireland's future.mSFEUROPEMANUFACTURING· SCIENCE. FINANCERecent Publications:1992THE IRISH ECONOMIESCumann na Meanmhuinteoiri, EireAssociation of Secondary Teachers,IrelandThe Central Executive Council, in celebration of the seventy-fifthanniversary of the ASTI, published the Union's official history.John Coolahan, The ASTI and Post-Primary Education in Ireland,pp. 449This work, which includes detailed appendices and 28 photographicplates, is available for £12 in harback and £7 in paperback versions.Head Office: 36 Lower Baggot Street, Dublin 2.

ELECTRICAL TRADES UNION .Established 1923The Executive Council extends good\vishes to the Irish Labour History Society on. the valuablework it perfonns in recording and preserving Labour History.T.G. BrowneGeneral PresidentFrank O'ReillyGeneral SecretaryThe Electrical Trades Union caters for all workers in the electrical industry.Head Office: 5 Cavendish Row, Dublin 1. Telephone: (01-) 747047/8Dublin Branch SecretariesNo. 1 BranchG. SwanNo. 4 BranchM. KeoghNo. 7 BranchI. NolanESB Area SupervisorsSeamus Thompson. Ballinacarrig,Carlow.I. O'Rourke.17 Willow Drive,Athlone,Co. Westmeath.O. Wills,ETU Office,Carpenters' Hall.Fr. Mathew Quay, Cork.I. Coyle,64 Chord Road,Drogheda,Co. Louth.No. 2 BranchR. BrowneNo. 5 BranchM. DuffNo. 8 BranchI. KellyProvincial Branch SecretariesG. Tarmey85 Wellpark Grove,Galway.Ioe Dempsey4 Ballycannon Heights,Meelick, Co. Clare.Limerick No. 1 BranchMichael McBrearty"ETU,PO Box, GPO,Sligo.B. Cunningham,86 Meadow GroveDundalk,Co. Louth.No. 3 BranchP. PierceNo. 6 BranchP. MullenP. McEvoy5 Beladd,Portlaoise,Co. Laois.P. MackeyESB Staff Houses,Ardnacrusha, Limerick.No. 2 BranchM. Guerin,Oieveragh,Listowel,Co. Kerry North.Paddy Fitzgerald,33 Lr. Yellow Road,Waterford.T. Meade,Ahane, Cullen,Mallow, Co. Cork.Bill Hartigan,Murrintown,Wexford.Fionan Lawless,5 Cavandish Row.Dublin 1OfficialsDan Millar,ETUC Office,Mechanics' Iflstitutt?,Perry Square,Limerick.Arthur Hall,5 Cavandish Row,Dublin 1.

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