Irish Democrat August 1964

MEW 

PRICE 

DEMOCRAT 

9" 

No. 237 

August 1964 

SANG SOLDIERS SONG 

Six-County 

police are 

still armed 

HE B.B.C. announcement 

T that the six - county 

police were being disarmed, 

which was made shortly before 

the debate on Northern 

Ireland held in the British 

House of Commons, has been 

completely falsified in practice. 

The six-county Government 

has played a trick on the 

world. 

While the officers who 

stroll along the quayside as 

passengers come off the crosschannel 

steamers now carry 

no guns, and while there are 

no guns on the police in the 

popular holiday resort of 

Bangor, Co. Down, the police 

are armed throughout the rest 

of the city. 

Armed police stood guard 

over anti-Catholic banners 

throughout the twelfth of 

July period. 

They were still armed a 

week after the twelfth. 

They were armed in Dungannon. 

They were armed in 

Omagh, Strabane and berry. 

And they were armed 

throughout the city of Belfast 

except for the small 

areas named. 

IRISH LABOUR 

MAY MEET 

BRITISH 

FINED £2 

Ballycastle meeting sequel 

But other change dismissed 

D EPUBLICAN election organiser, and prospective Parliamentary candidate 

for North Antrim, Mr. Sean Caughey was on Monday, July 20th, fined the 

sum of £2 on a charge of having participated in the singing of the "Soldiers' 

Song" in Irish at the close of a meeting held in Ballycastle during the month of 

May. 

Dismissed was an earlier know, since the words were a few days before July 12th, and 

charge of having used insult- spoken in Irish, 

the writ on the second charge 

ing words and behaviour 

(singing the National Anthem in 

whereby a breach of the peace 

Questioned by Mr. Gerald Lynn, Irish) was served some days later. 

R.M.. as to what were the actual 

might have been occasioned. 

Police offered evidence that 

IRISHMEN SUMMONED 

OVER C.A. POSTER 

TWO members of the West London Branch of the Connolly 

Association were served with writs to appear in the West 

London Magistrates' Court at 2 p.m. on Monday, August 10th. 

They are Joseph Long, a native 

of Co. Kilkenny, and Michael 

Keane, of Co. Roscommon. 

Mr. Keane is familiar to thousands 

of Irishmen as the seller 

Jj^ND of the long estrangement 

between the British 

Labour Party and'the Dublinbased 

Irish Labour Party may 

of the "Irish Democrat" at Marble RESOLUTION 

Arch. Mr. Joseph Long also distributes 

the paper. 

OLLOWING a poster parade 

be in sight. 

F from All Saints to Piatt Field, 

organised by the Manchester 

On the motion of the Galway They were charged with fixing branch of the Connolly Association, 

several hundred Irish men 

branch the annual conference of < a poster upon private premises 

the Irish Labour Party instructed | namely 171 Askew Road, Hamthe 

executive council to take steps mersmlth without the owner. s 

and women heard Robert Rossiter 

and Desmond Greaves give an 

to urge upon the British Govern- 

account of their visit to the six 

consent. 

ment the need to undertake an 

counties. 

enquiry into the. administration 

At the conclusion of the meeting 

a resolution was passed con- 

of the Government of Ireland Act, 

1920, with a view to ascertaining IMMIGRANTS AND demning the serving of writs on 

the extent of religious and political 

discrimination. 

restoration of democracy in the 

Mr. Sean Caughey, demanding the 

ELECTION 

This was the measure first proposed 

by Mr. Marcus Lipton a few 

,r PHE United Ireland Association 

six counties. 

years ago, and since made its is the latest organisation to 

official policy by the Nationalist 

Party in the six counties. 

Another motion, this time from 

Sligo, proposed that steps be taken 

to resume relations with the 

British Labour Party. 

issue an appeal to Irish immigrants 

to play a full part in the 

coming British election campaign, 

bring the Irish question to the 

fore, and vote for the friends of I promising 

Ireland. 

MANCHESTER 

PROTEST 

Telegrams were sent to Mr. 

Craig, six-county Home Affairs 

Minister, and to the Head Constable 

at Ballycastle, Co. Antrim, 

urging them to withdraw the 

charges against Mr. Caughey and 

them that the world 

would hear about their actions. 

LONDON T.C. DISCUSSES PARTITION 

AN the initiative of the Hugh Cassidy finally won his Mr. Cassidy is a prominent 

Hayes & Southall Trades point that the question of member of the Amalgamated 

Council, the partition of Ire- partition should be thoroughly Transport & General Workers' 

land is to come up for discus- discussed in view of the ex- Union, and has been responsion 

on the London Federation penditure of large sums of sible wi;h others for a number 

of Trades Councils. - British taxpayers' money to of anti-partition resolutions on 

This follows a full-scale de- subsidise the six-county puppet the agenda of national conferbate 

in Southall in which Mr. state. 

ences of that organisation. 

insulting words, Mr. Babington when thoge attending the meeting 

DID NOT KNOW 

said: "The words were 'The 

began to sing the National Anthem 

a hostile crowd gathered 

Soldier's Song' in Irish. They 

The magistrate, who could were not so much the words but 

not Resist making light of the the tune and the use of the Irish 

and it was necessary to protect 

them. 

police evidence, asked the language." " ,J P" 

R.U.C. witness to tell him what At the suggestion of the magiswere 

the insulting words that trate the charge was withdrawn. 

RESOLUTION 

It was pointed out, however. 

were used. The policeman The writ relating to this charge that Ballycastle is a Nationalist 

said that he did not rightly had been served on Mr. Caughey town and that there is a Nationalist 

majority on its urban council. 

Great indignation is being expressed 

in Ballycastle at the suggestion 

that the people of that 

town would object to the "Soldiers' 

Song" being sung there— 

especially in Irish. Recently the 

urban council sent a resolution 

to Mr. Sean Lema86 urging on 

him the necessity of doing everything 

possible to revive the Irish 

language as the spoken language 

of the people. 

JAIL 

ALTERNATIVE 

Mr. Caughey did not attend the 

court, but a representative of the 

National Council for Civil Liberties 

who did so. described the 

proceedings as a "ridiculous 

farce." 

MR. SEAN 

CAUGHEY 

MINISTER 

REFUSES 

ENQUIRY 

^ MONOSYLLABIC "No'' 

was the reply Mr. Marcus 

Lipton (M.P. for Brixton) rereceived 

when he asked Mr. 

Henry Brooke, British Home 

Secretary, whether he would 

order a public enquiry into 

the operation of the Government 

of Ireland Act of 1920. 

This is the second time Mr. 

Lipton has pressed this question 

in recent times, and this was the 

curtest response he has yet received, 

well-befitting the Home 

Secretary with the most anti- 

Irish record since the Tories attained 

power. 

Mr. Lipton told the "Irish Democrat" 

that he intends to press the 

matter further. 

He would have raised the question 

in the debate on the six 

Nevertheless Mr. Caughey was 

given the alternative of two weeks 

in jail, which he says he is pre counties but unfortunately did not 

pared to serve rather than pay I succeed in catching the Speaker's 

the fine. I eye. 

Patrick Macjogan found 

dead in his garden 

IÔRMER 8inn Fein President During his period at Portlaoise 

1 Padhraig Mac Logain Was he was for many years a subscripfound 

dead from gunshot wounds tion reader of the "Irish Demo 

ln the back garden of his house crat." 

at Herbert Road. Blanchardstown, His tragic death will be deeply 

Co. Dublin, on Tuesday, July 21st. regretted far beyond the imme- 

It is understood that foul play diate membership of the Repubis 

not suspected. 

Mew movement. 

Mr Maclogan, who until his ANDREW MacDONNELL 

retirement was a publican in Port- Brigadier Andrew McDonnell, 

laoise, was president of Sinn Fein aged 66, veteran of 1916, the tan 

from 1957 to 1962. 

war and the civil war, where he 

During the war of independence fought on the Republican side, 

he was attached to general head- died suddenly at Dun Laoire on 

quarters of the Northern Division, the same day. He collapsed on 

I.R.A., and fought on the Repub- the pier and was dead on admislican 

side in the civil war. slon to hospital. 

He was elected Republican M.P. He was a close personal friend 

for South Armagh In the early of President De Valera, and was 

'thirties, and was Interned In The Irtsh manager of the Universe for 

Curragh during the war. 

the past 38 years.

2 THE IRISH DEMOCRAT August 1964 

LETTER FROM THE LIFFEY 

By ANTHONY COUGH LAN 

PEADAR O'DONNELL TO MAKE FILM 

^ FILM on Glencolumbcille, to 

show people throughout 

Ireland 

and Britain what Father McDyer 

and his co-operative project have 

accomplished there, is now being 

planned. 

Mr. Peaclar O'Donnell. who is helping 

Fr. McDyer and the other small-farm cooperatives 

in the West, is appealing to 

Donegal and western county associations 

in Ireland and Britain 

for £2,000 with 

which to make the film. The film—if 

these funds are obtained—will also be used 

to persuade the Irish pub'.ic of the value 

of setting up twelve pilot schemes in the 

West of Ireland on the Glencolumbcille 

pattern. 

It was the County Donegal Association 

in Dublin that gave Fr. McDyer his first 

major breakthrough in his campaign to 

raise capital for Glencolumbcille. Mr. 

O'Donnell looks to the other western 

county associations to do the same 

for 

projects in their areas. 

Subscriptions for the film should be sent 

to Mr. Joe Harvey, 147 Swords Road, 

Whitehall, Dublin 9. 

* * * 

T?OR the third time in less than four 

F months the Irish Anti-Apartheid 

Movement packed the Mansion House in 

Dublin the other week. 

It is doubtful if 

any political organisation has done this 

here for years. It is an index of the 

amount of work carried out by a devoted 

group of people, many of them impelled 

to take part in politics for the first time 

in their lives by their indignation against 

apartheid. 

This time the occasion was a "Sing Free 

South Africa" conceit to raise money for 

the work of the movement here, as well 

as for the Defence and Aid Fund 

for 

South African Political Prisoners and 

their dependants. 

Almost 100 people had to 

be refused 

admission to the Round Room, the crowd 

was so great. 

Artistes included such .wellknown 

fo'.k-singers as Luke Kelly, specially 

over from England for the occasion, Bill 

I t T T K 

BRITISH GUIANA PROTEST 

OIR—It is all very well for Dr. Jagan 

^ 

and his PPP to protest, but why do 

they weaken their case by trying to defend 

the indefensible? 

To talk about "constitutional manipulation 

designed to secure . . . the defeat of 

the PPP" sounds as though some outrage 

were being committed—until we 

remember that the PPP ought to be defeated 

because the majority of the voters 

are agaiast it. The figures for the 1%1 

election were:— 

PPP 42.7 per cent of the votes, 20 seats 

PNC 41.0 per cent of the votes, 11 seats 

UF 16.3 per cent of the votes. 4 seats 

The 1953 election gave the PPP an even 

larger unearned majority of seats, and the 

mistakes made by inexperienced rulers in 

this position of unchecked 

power led to 

the suspension of the constitution. 

It really will not do for the PPP to complain 

because an attempt is being made 

to remedy this injustice. They might 

legitimately complain that 

Mr. Duncan 

Sandys has chosen to give British Guiana 

a party list form of proportional representation 

instead of the single transferable 

vote form as in Ireland. 

The proposed 

system will do Justice by the parties, which 

is a good thing so far as it goes, but it 

will do nothing to break down »ne «f the 

evils of British Guiana, the association of 

race with party. 

The single transferable 

vote form would—Just as, in the Republic 

of Ireland, it has prevented the association 

of religion with party which is such 

a curse to Six County politics. 

Yours faithfully. 

ENID LA REM AN. 

!In her generous dedication to the cause 

of lair elections. Miss Lakeman may 

have overlooked other grievances of 

which Dr. Jagan might legitimately 

complain. These include the destruction 

of his parliamentary majority 

by the 

imprisonment without trial o( his supporters, 

the organisation of subversion 

from abroad, and the over-riding 

lact 

that the British are in his country at 

ail. 

These would be sufficient to distract 

most men from the dispassionate 

examination of alternative electoral 

systems Editor 1 

Meek, from Killinchy. Co. Down-wellknown 

to Connolly Association audiences 

in London, Mr. Othmar Remy Arthur, 

from Dutch Guiana, Maureen Hurley, the 

harpist, and many others. They gave 

their services free as a mark of support 

for the Anti-Apartheid Movement. 

Loudest applause went to Mr. Conor 

Farrington, the playwright and actor, who 

read excerpts from the 

moving defence 

speech of Nelson Mandela at his recent 

trial in South Africa. Those present obviously 

understood that Mandela and his 

comrades were the Pearses, Connollys, 

and the Cathal Brughas ol mid-century 

South Africa. 

Mandela's speech concluded with 

the 

following passage:— 

"During my lifetime I have dedicated 

myself to the struggle of the African 

people. I have fought against white 

domination and I have fought against 

black domination. 

I have cherished the 

ideal of a democratic and free society in 

which all persons live together in harmony 

and with equal rights. It is an 

ideal which I hope to live for and 

achieve. 

But if needs be, it is an ideal 

for which I am prepared to die." 

Clearly words such as these could not 

go unheard among Irishmen. 

TIOW free is the Irish press? 

Free to 

publish whatever it wishes, or only 

what its advertisers wish? 

It looks like 

the latter, to judge by what happened to 

a Workers' Union of Ireland advertisement 

given tc the "Irish Times," the "Irish 

Press" and the "Irish Independent" some 

time ago. 

The advertisement was directed to all 

unorganised clerical workers, urging them 

to seek trade union help to obtain the 

advantages of the recent 12 per cent 

wage and salary agreement. 

The advert 

said: "By making an application to your 

employer through a trade union, you will 

be protected in seeking the salary increase 

with a greater possibility 

of obtaining 

it. The payment of the 12 per 

cent salary increase is not compulsory on 

employers by law; only a trade unioh-can 

ensure that a recalcitrant employer will 

pay it." 

The proprietors of the national dailies 

—apparently after consultation among 

themselves—decided not to print the 

W.U.I, advert and informed the union 

accordingly—by telephone. The union 

journal states that, "up to the present 

not one of the three newspapers has had 

the courtesy to explain in 

writing why 

they refused to insert the advertisement." 

Significantly, the W.U.I, journal also reports 

that over 90 tier cent of the clerical 

staff of Independent Newspapers-^-of 

•which Jim Larkin's old enemy, 

William 

Martin Murphy, was once proprietor—have 

recently joined the Workers' Union of 

Ireland. 

* * * 

r pwo months ago one-way 

traffic was 

introduced on some of Dublin's main 

streets. 

A motorist friend assures me it 

has meant a great improvement. 

"I can 

now get from the Green to Parnell Square 

twice as fast as formerly." he says. 

One 

can well believe it, seeing the juggernauts 

rush by. 

But what has helped the 

motorist has baulked and frustrated the 

ordinary citizen more than ever 

before. 

Formerly he could take advantage of the 

struggle of different traffic streams as they 

tried to intertwine with one another. Now 

there is no breaking the continuous flow 

unless one waits ten minutes for assistance 

from some distracted garda. 

College Street is a case in point. 

The 

present difficulty in crossing it in the fa:e 

of the river of traffic has prompted a correspondent 

in the evening papers to suggest 

that there is no need to take a bus 

from D'Olier Street in order to cross. 

A 

simpler method, he says, is to walk along 

the quays to Ringsend where in offpeak 

hours it is possible to cross 

the roads without much difficulty. 

This 

will provide anyone who cares to do it 

with exercise; it will save him money, and 

will protect his nerves. 

He goes on to write: "A lot of silly asses 

complain of the difficulty met crossing 

Westmoreland Street. 

I often pity them 

as I walk on my way to Christchurch Place 

where between ten and eleven o'clock each 

day it is easy to pass from one side of the 

street to the other. 

"If a little thought is given to problems 

like this an answer can be found. I know 

that some times one is in a hurry, but in 

these circumstances it only costs two or 

T.U. recognition 

now likely 

"TALLOWING the decision of the Irish 

Congress of Trade Unions to amend 

its constitution so as to give the Northern 

Ireland Committee of the Congress policymaking 

powers on matters relating to the 

"internal industrial economic and political 

conditions of Northern 

Ireland," the 

six county Government is expected to give 

recognition. 

This has been withheld for many years 

on the grounds that the I.C.T.U. had implicit 

anti-partitionist tendencies. 

Whether the suspicions of the Unionists 

are now allayed may be doubted: but it 

is fairly certain that they have suffered 

from the lack of recognition more 

grievously than the workers, and it may be 

that they would accept any face-saver the 

unions would give them. 

A LARM is being expressed in some 

- ' quarters lest the impending recognition 

should go to the heads of the leaders 

of some unions and lead to an era of 

"class collaboration." 

Trade union leaders are likely to appear 

on many joint committees. 

They will be 

tempted to parade themselves as "sober 

citizens" and some may succumb to the 

political blandishments of Unionism. 

Undoubtedly the Unionists are calculating 

upon this. 

On the other hand the influence of the 

trade unions will tend to weaken the diehard 

"not and inch" of the Stormont hard 

core. 

Militant trade unionists in general believe 

that the I.C.T.U. has made a compromise 

that costs it little, and won a victory 

lor principle. They feel however 

that the way this victory is used will determine 

whether the compromise was justified 

or not. 

L E T T E R The Manx Language 

;'T \EAR SIR,—Quite apart from considerations 

of patriotism, 

it is hateful 

that ancient cultures should iierish 

from lack of support from their natural 

custodians, the people who previously 

practised them. 

This was brought home to me some 

time ago when I tried to interest the 

B.B.C. in recording a programme of some 

of the last Manx speakers, 

engaged in 

conversation. 

The B.B.C 

was not interested, but in 

the course of my enquiries I discovered 

tiiat it would have been useless even if 

it had been, because there was only one 

surviving Manx speaker left! 

The Manx people have allowed their 

ancient language to die out during 

our 

own lifetime. 

No doubt the Manx Government 

could have done something to 

prevent this, if it had been so minded, but 

the chief fault lay with the Manx people 

themselves 

They did not care enough. In 

the words of one commentator in the 

Manx press. "They sit huddled over their 

TV sets and couldn't care leas." 

Is this couldn't care less attitude also 

true of Uie Irish people and the Irish 

language? Your article on the White 

Paper (July 

gives reason to suppose that 

a large proportion of the people do care. 

Nevertheless, the modern world looks too 

much to governments to do everything. 

Are we poor? The Government must make 

us rich. 

Is an ancient language dying? 

The Government must revive it. 

Governments can do something. 

But to 

"make Irish commonly used in the dayto-day 

lile of the people" (your correspondent's 

phrase) which is the crux of 

the revival and survival of any language, 

the real work lies with the people. The 

Government has done much for the revival 

of the language during the past forty years, 

but its success has been limited because 

too many of the people do not care enough. 

The real vitality of a nation Hes not 

in its government, but in its people. 

If 

this were not so, there would be precious 

few nations alive today. 

When Ireland roalises tills and her 

people pull their full weight in saving the 

language from extinction, there will be no 

need for any more "grey papers" on the 

language problem 

Cambridge. 

H. A. J. MARTIN. 

three shillings to get a taxi and .sknn 

across the street." 

Unless something is done quickly all ul 

us without motor-cars will soon have to be 

thinking of ruses like these to cro>s our 

streets. 

* * * 

i I"'HE 12 per cent wage incrsase was fine 

•*• —for those who got it. At least, it 

looked fine when it was first granted six 

months ago. But things are different now. 

Pi'ces have risen so much in the meantime 

that for most people half of the increase. 

or more than half, has already 

been swallowed up. and some trade union 

voices are now speaking of the folly ol 

having made a promise not to make a 

further wage claim for 2\ years in return 

for the 12 per cent. 

Between February and June the cost of 

living index rose by over four per cent. 

Most food items have gone up, and 

especially meat. 

Steak had gone up by 

Is. a lb., herring and whiting by 3d. per 

lb., and almost all kinds of fruit have become 

dearer, tomatoes showing the most 

startling increase; they are 7Jd. per 

lb. 

dearer than this time last year, while tea 

has become almost 4d. dearer in the same 

period. Margarine, cheese, milk, bread and 

flour have all gone the same way, as have 

clothes and many 'so-called durable consumer 

goods. 

The rise in bus fares in the last few 

months has hit most people—they 

have 

risen by 14 per cent. So also have Dublin 

Corporation rents and rates. 

Quite a lot 

of that 12 per cent wage increase has 

been eaten up by the price rises, which 

will no doubt continue to eat more still on 

their ascending course. 

NOTES & NEWS 

AT 

last th€ six-county Government 

has intervened in the Lough 

Neagh eel fishery row. There is 

great public resentment that the eelfishing 

rights on this lake should be 

owned by a London company and 

ft is stated that severe and vexatious 

restrictions are being placed 

on the local fishermen so that they 

cannot make a living. 

It was high 

time the local people were protected. 

TÔR only the second time since 1841 the 

Co. Tyrone records an 

increase of 

population in the census figures now published. 

The increase is entirely in tlie 

towns Rural population continues to 

fall. 

One notable feature of the census returns 

is people's refusal to state their religion. 

And is it any wonder? 

ACCORDING to the Board of Trade 

Journal at the end of 1962 England 

had no less than £55 million invested privately 

In ttie twenty-six counties. This 

excludes eH, banking and insurance. The 

corresponding figure for India with 

its 

papulation nearly two hundred times that 

ef the Republic was £170 million. 

That 

simple oomparison shows Ireland as probably 

the oountry most intensively exploited 

by British monopoly oapttai. 

* * * 

"I''HE total eclipse of Labour in the Ros- 

1 

common by-election poll (the Labour 

candidate lost his deposit) is the logical 

consequence of the tie-urwof that part with 

the big farmer. 

Roscommon is a small 

farm county, with a sprinkling of ranches 

that seem to have strayed across the Shannon. 

Labour couldn't touch the small 

farmers who voted Fianna Fail, and the 

workers thought they might as well vote 

for the large farmer himself rather than 

for his side-kick. 

Labour's hostility to the 

small farmer is due to the old hoary 

theory that the larger man "gives employment." 

* # * 

HTHC "new tourism" is being boosted In 

fr.-hmd, and soon the smaller hotels 

and boarding house keepers will learn how 

they have baen bstniyed. 

The Mea Is to 

•outer tor *he "mobile holiday maker" who 

does not want to know anything about (be 

country but wishes to dash from point 

to point along ths motorways and get 

away home as quiokly as 

possible. The 

need for him is the large hotel, or motel, 

preferably a member of a chain, to that 

he can book his "tour" on an alHn basis. 

The Americans are said (o be interested In 

this. 

August 1964 THE IRISH DEMOCRAT 3 

THE 

IRISH 

D E / H € C K A T 

374 GRAYS INN ROAD 

LONDON, W.C.I 

Subscription:ll'6 per year 

Editor: DESMOND GKEAVES 

Associate Editor: SEAN REDMOND 

WORLD COMMENTARY 

By PAT DEVINE 

IMPERIALISM NEVER GIVES UP 

IRELAND 

A NATION 

r PHE Westminster debate on Northern 

Ireland may prove to 

have been more significant than 

its 

immediate results would suggest. 

Its importance was partly the admission 

of subject-matter previously rigidly 

excluded. 

The facts of discrimination in 

the six counties were presented 

and debated 

in the House despite the discomforture 

of the Home Secretary. That in 

itself was an important gain. 

But perhaps more notable was the spirit 

of Mr. Simon Mahon's speech. 

Not many 

years ago he roundly ticsed off Connolly 

Association lobbyists who sought his aid in 

releasing the republican prisoners. 

That 

wasn't the right way to go about it at all. 

Yet now he introduced into Westminster 

a spirit that has been absent for many a 

long year. 

He dared to speak of Ireland 

a nation . And it is hard to avoid the conclusion 

that Mr. Mahon, an Ulsterman by 

descent, from the good old Monaghan 

clan, experienced a stirring of the blood 

which brought the warm note of pride into 

the remarks he chose to make. 

For what the new spirit means is that 

the Irish question is back in British politics, 

from which the Tory Party have consistently 

tried to exorcise it. 

Every Irish republican, nationalist and 

socialist, should recognise the tremendous 

importance of that fact. For it means that 

we have to our hands one. at any rate, of 

the factors which are required to end the 

deadlock of forty-four years, free Ireland 

from the deadening settlement that wfes 

no settlement, and set forth along the 

last path to freedom. 

Some of the other pre-requisites 

are 

maturing also. 

The twenty-six counties 

is far from what we would like it to be. 

But it no longer loses by comparison with 

the six. 

All the specious economic arguments 

against national unity have not 

succumbed to practical demonstration — 

but they are in process of dissolution. 

Perhaps the hardest nut to crack is the 

six-county Government itself. With an 

England where the Irish question is once 

more a political issue, a twenty-six counties 

which has proved its viability in real 

life, only one thing more is required. 

That is that the myth of six-county political 

stability should be exploded. 

What is 

needed to achieve this is a prospect that 

the Unionists should be isolated from 

within. 

For many a long year this~may 

have 

seemed utterly Utopian. 

But the gradual 

encroachment of change on human affairs 

brings solid things through time to their 

breaking point, and when this third factor 

appears the three-pronged attack will 

sharpen with irresistible momentum. 

What is wanted above all in the n»xt few 

months is to prepare the severest possible 

set-back to Unionism in the coming election. 

Every immigrant in Britain who has 

friends or relations 

in the six counties 

should urge them to vote, and 

to vote 

against the Unionists, so as to register the 

maximum protest against 

their regime. 

Never mind whether the candidate voted 

for has a chance of being returned, or 

w hether he haa no chance 

Something more, friends in the six counties 

(and for that matter the twenty-six 

also) might be urged to write to 

their 

friends in Britain, urging them in turn to 

vote against the British Tories. 

During the election campaign in Britain 

what: is most i>eedful is to bring the Irish 

question to the forefront in every 

constituency 

whore tl>ere is an appreciable 

Irish electorate. 

The Irish question is back 

in British 

politics. But it is only just back. It is 

not yet playing anything like the part it 

i an play. The British people have not yet 

more than the slightest inkling of what it 

would mean for them were the bastion of 

reaction in the six counties to fail. 

The Connolly Association's "teU-everytxidy." 

tour of Irish constituencies is part 

of the strategy that will ripen into the 

full fruit) of Irish independence. 

Y T the Commonwealth 

Conference 

in London in July the Powerful 

influence of the Great African independence 

movement, compelled the 

Tory Prime Minister and supporter 

of Hitler, Dr. Verwoerd and Mr. 

Smith of Southern Rhodesia, officially 

to recognise the fact that Africa 

is determined to end Imperialist Rule 

for all time. 

Almost simultaneously 

with the Commonwealth 

Conference came the news 

that bombs had been hurled into the 

offices ot the British Guiana People's Progressive 

Party in Georgetown and that two 

people had been killed. 

Mrs. Jagan. Minister for Home Affairs 

until June 2nd when she resigned, and 

wife of Premier Cheddi Jagan was injured 

together with Mrs. Nunes, wife of Education 

Minister Cedric Nunes. 

Eight other people were seriously hurt. 

Mrs. Jagan, who is general secretary of 

the P.P.P. had previously warned that the 

situation in British Guiana had so 

worsened as a result of intrigue against 

the Government struggling for independence 

that it will require great effort from 

all friends of independence to maintain 

the integrity of the independence movement. 

A BLACK 

RECORD 

The best answer to those who talk about 

the change of heart by British imperialism 

—the wind of change—is an examination 

of what has and is happening in British 

Guiana. 

In three successive General Elections the 

P.P.P. has won a majority and formed a 

Government. 

Each election was preceded by the most 

vicious campaign by the big business 

interest, British and U.S. imperialism. 

As 

far back as January, Premier Jagan 

warned against the move to replace the 

existing method of voting by a system of 

proportional representation whieh he 

claimed was a sinister form of gerrymandering 

aimed at defeating his Government. 

He said the old racial organisations 

withered away as the P.P.P. gained in 

strength. 

But they were back again in 

the wake of proportional representation, 

nourished and sustained by American gold 

and his hopes for national unity were cast 

in the dust. 

At the same time Dr. Jagan protested to 

the then Governor Sir Ralph Grey against 

the appointment of a new Governor, Mr. 

R. E. Luyt, former secretary of Northern 

Rhodesia. Jagan demanded that the 

Governor should be Guianese, but without 

avail. 

Striving to stem the deterioration in the 

situation and growing violence, Dr. Jagan 

made an offer to bring the opposition 

"Peoples National Congress" led by Mr. 

Forbes Burnham into a Coalition Government. 

Mr. Burnham rejected the offer. 

On June 2nd this year Mrs. Janet Jagan 

resigned her office as Minister for Home 

Affairs because of brazen discrimination 

by the police. 

It was impossible to get 

a balanced and impartial police force. 

Criticising the activities of the police 

who should be under her control in any 

real government, because of their reaction 

in the face of widespread violence, arson, 

rape and murder, she said, "one can only 

argue that planned genocide of a village 

was carried out with the connivance of all 

concerned." 

DRACONIAN MEASURES 

The new Governor Luyt lost no time in 

getting to work. 

He ordered the arrest of 

a number of PP.P. leaders, and members 

of the government including the Deputy 

Prime Minister, Mr. Bradley Benn. 

Dr. Jagan strongly protested and in a 

personal appeal to Mr. U Thant requested 

immediate U.N. intervention. To date, 

nothing has been done. 

On July 7th the Governor 

introduced 

an order giving sweeping powers to the 

police to flog and jail for life—introduce 

curfews and use all necessary force to prohibit 

publication of newspapers and seize 

printing presses. 

And of course more British troops were 

rushed to the hot-spot. 

To Irishmen with experience of the 

"troubles" these measures are reminiscent 

of Ireland in the days of the Black and 

Tans. 

Commenting on these measures the 

"London Times" ol June 7th said: 

"Dr. Jagan has already balanced his 

budget, thus challenging Mr. Sands' contention 

that the Government is insolvent. 

The bumper autumn sugar crop 

has repaired 

the injury of the general strike 

las' summer. He recently opened the 

Tapakuma irrigation project . . . everyone 

should recognise (including the Americans) 

that the proportional representation 

may nonetheless show that if Dr. Jagan 

does not get a majority of votes it will be 

impossible for anyone else to govern the 

country without him." 

At the Commonwealth 

conference Dr. 

Eric Williams, Prime Minister of Trinidad 

and Tobago supported by many of the 

Prime Ministers expressed alarm at the 

attitude of Mr. Sands (Commonwealth 

Minister) towards Dr. Jagan and British 

Guiana. 

GOLDWATERISM 

Owing to emergencies in Aden. Cyprus, 

Borneo, and East Africa British forces are 

strained to the limit. 

The United States 

Government is desperately concerned that 

British Guiana does not become another 

Cuba on the eve of the Presidential Elections. 

The nomination of Goldwater 

as the 

Republican candidate for the 

American 

Presidency adds considerably to the 

alarm and the danger. 

It would be no exaggeration to 

state 

that many of his views are typically 

Fascist. 

He is far worse than Nixon. 

He has publicly committed himself to 

action of a decisive character to bring 

Cuba to heel. He will not tolerate a free 

and independent British Guiana in South 

America. He is a blatant segregationist 

anti-Negro pro Ku Klux Klan and John 

Birch Society fanatic. 

Although not yet and probably never 

likely to be President of the United States 

—although his defeat should not be taken 

for granted—his nomination and campaign 

will influence every action of the 

United States Government from now onwards. 

It will also give new life to reactionaries 

everywhere among the British Tory Party, 

as in South Africa and Southern Rhodesia. 

Whom the gods would destroy 

OUTSIDE the Belfast G.P.O. there 

were strike pickets, of whom I 

took a photograph. 

It was a pleasant 

surprise when one of them came 

forward and revealed himself as a 

former member of West London 

Connolly Association. 

He had been 

back home fourteen years, but had 

not forgotten what 

he had learned 

as a young emigrant. 

Indeed in every field of the progressive 

movement in Ireland, men and women who 

were trained in the Connolly Association 

are playing their part. 

Some people may fall for the bogey 

stories that the Association still directs 

their work. K does not. It is naturally 

delighted when members 

who go home 

continue to work for Ireland. 

But it does 

not tell them how to do it. 

That is for 

organisations on the spot 

* * * 

H UT returning to the postmen, what is 

the British Government playing at? 

Do they really think they can get away 

with offering the postipen the four per 

cent they rejected six months ago? 

There is no national organisation in 

Britain run more capably than the Post 

Office. There is a special pride in all 

grades that has been built up over several 

generations of achievement 

In some Continental countries if you 

don't tip the postman he will throw your 

mail away and you'll never see it 

Likewise 

there are places where the customs 

men are so poorly paid they only live by 

taking bribes 

Does the Tory Party 

want to degrade 

the British Post Office to this level? 

They seem prepared to sacrifice the 

loyalty of the Past Office workers and lose 

mHlions ot pounds worth of business for 

the sake 

of carrying out their theory 

that private industry will be short of 

A LONDON DIARY 

BY 

KILLESHANDRA 

labour if Government servants are not 

underpaid. 

Are they trying to create a backlog of 

chaos to plague the Labour Government 

when it is elected? 

Or has the imp of 

self-destruction entered into them and 

sent them off their heads? 

Quos Iuppiter 

vult perdere prius dementat! 

* * * 

AIRS O'Reilly the well-known Man- 

Chester Irish Dancing enthusiast, 

whose pupils have performed it 

almost 

seems for generations of Irish 

national 

events, tells me that the number of children 

wishing to learn is keeping up well. 

This Is surprising for the 

Manchester 

Gaelic League is in the doldrums—more s 

the pity. 

I asked her whether her pupils keep it 

up when they grow older. 

She was pensive at this question. 

The 

relentless propaganda pressure for socalled 

popular music is inclined to take its 

toll. 

Nevertheless, for what indication it is. 

the Clancy Brothers easily outsell the 

Beatles in Ireland. 

* * * 

1JOP-MUSIC all day. 

The adolescent's 

' 

dream 

That's the fare served out by the pirateradio 

ships the British Government says 

it can't do anything about. 

It, Is heard tm tinny transistor sets without 

which extreme brainlessness is 

sufficiently conscious to feel lonelj. 

One might be tempted out of curiosity 

to try the advertisements as entertainment 

and regard the intervening twanging 

as an interlude falling into a "natural 

break." 

But I haven't done so. 

I am deterred 

by the reflection that since the music 

seems intended to attract children 

who 

have just left school, the things advertised 

are probably for the same age-group. 

OUT does anybody seriously believe that 

the British Government couldn't 

stop the "pirates" if it wanted to? 

They are said, it is true, to have got 

good legal advice and are satisfied they 

are breaking no law and can't be touched 

as long as they keep outside territorial 

waters. 

But suppose the IR A. was to fit out a 

vessel in Lough SwHly and disturb the 

silence of Moyle by beaming revolutionary 

programmes on the Country Antrim from 

a position four miles off Rathlin Island? 

Do you believe that they would be allowed 

to go on? Or the Welsh Nationalists with 

a ship in the middle of Cardigan Bay? Or 

the Scotch grabbing a disused fort (if 

there Is onei on Ailsa Craig? 

I have a 

feeling something might happen to those 

ships. 

Something might go wrong with 

their 

works. 

* * * 

( STAYED with a friend whose elevenyear-old 

Greek-born niece had Just 

paid a visit from Athens. 

She wasn't interested in the television 

at all 

Of the Beatles she said "what a 

dreadful noise." Of the Rolling Stones she 

said "what nasty men!" She didn't want 

the record-player, and she discovered more 

about the country roond the houae than 

my trlend knew himself.

4 THE IRISH DEMOCRAT August 1964 

A SPECIAL ARTICLE ON BOYNE, LAGAN AND TIBER, 

BELFAST ON THE TWELFTH 

^HE Orange demonstration on the 

twelfth of July is surely the 

maddest annual exercise in these 

islands- 

It commemorates something 

which 

happened nearly three centuries ago, 

and didn't happen on the 12th of 

July at all. 

For the Battle of the Boyne 

occurred on July 1st, 1690. 

To add to the confusion, the Orangemen 

who walk serious-faced to 

Finaghy 

Field bearing banners depicting King William 

on his white horse, are for the most 

part 

unaware that the Pope of the day 

was on King William's side, and that Te 

Deums were sung in Rome when he 

achieved his victory. 

* * * 

XS7"HAT is the explanation of this? 

" It is simple. 

The Orange Order was not founded until 

more than a hundred years after the 

Battle of the Boyne. 

There was no great 

Protestant hosting for William in the 

North of Ireland. 

King William's accession 

brought nothing but oppression to the 

Protestants of the Belfast area for the 

simple reason that they were Dissenters, 

and as such suffered disabilities similar 

in character, though not so severe, as 

those inflicted on the Catholics. 

The Orange Order was founded by the 

landlords in an effort to extend the 

"Church and King mobs" (then terrorising 

the English radicals) across the water to 

Ireland, to split the tenantry and defeat 

the ideals of the French revolution then 

being preached by Protestant Wolfe Tone, 

Protestant Henry Joy McCracken and 

Protestant Jamie Hope. 

It has no more to do with William of 

Orange historically speaking than it has 

with Brian Boru. 

faces are lined with years of toil. 

They 

look like squeezed-out lemons, all of 

whose juice has gone out in the form of 

profits for the boss. 

Some of them creak and hobble on 

rheumatic limbs. 

Their faces betray no 

joy. They have crippled themselves 

heaving weights, half-blinded 

themselves 

welding, sprained and cracked their limbs 

in falls and accidents. A lifetime of 

slavery lies behind them, their faces are 

scrolls that tell the story. 

This they will maintain. 

The only lively people are the 

bandsmen. 

For they are paid, together with 

the little boys who carry the banner 

strings and get a few bob for their 

trouble. 

* * * 

rrHE more depressed the workers the 

' 

more loyal they are. 

Across Brown Street with its dilapidated 

slums hangs a magnificent composite 

banner that must have cost hundreds of 

detached houses being bought on mortgage 

by professional people and a few lucky 

ones who had attained that nirvana of 

modern individualism "home-ownership." 

Here were people who had cause to 

thank the Union Jack. 

The educational system gave them their 

training; the discriminatory system ensured 

that they could use it at home. 

Yet scarce a Union Jack was to be seen. 

Partly this was because these people 

owned motor-cars, and were out for the 

day along the coast, or had gone away for 

the holidays. 

While their dupes paraded and banged 

away laboriously at the drums, to maintain 

not their own but these people's 

privileges, the respectable classes were engaged 

in the respectable occupation of 

spending the lolly. 

Also there is an inverted 

flag-snobbery. 

To fly the Union Jack is to proclaim oneself 

a member of the lower orders. 

Not 

to fly one shows you are above these vulgarities. 

And letters in the newspapers 

MEASURING THE WIND OF CHANGE BY 

W, 

ANEMOMETER** 

TT is of course the biggest annual parade 

-*- in Western Europe. 

It takes three to four hours to pass a 

given point. 

More bands are mustered for 

the one day than probably exist in the 

whole of fifty-million population Britain. 

The banners are colourful, the sashes 

make a brave sight, and the general air 

of pomp and circumstance impresses the 

visitor, provided he has not too sharp 

eyesight or too much social Insight. 

It cannot, of course, be tenably asserted 

that every Orangeman is an ogre, a living 

embodiment of conscious evil, harbouring 

no thoughts but for the destruction of his 

Catholic neighbours. 

On the contrary the average 

member 

thinks he stands for "religious freedom," 

and "civil liberty." 

I say " believes" not 

"thinks." 

For it is only necessary to see 

the hard bone-faced expressions as 

the 

procession goes by to realise that it consists 

of people who do not think. 

It is not a Joyful relaxed gathering such 

as might be seen on a London May Day. 

It is not composed of people fighting for 

a hope or a prospect, but of men fearful 

for the loss of what they believe is a 

privilege, whence the slogans, "this 

we 

will maintain," which being translated 

means, "what we have we hold." 

* • • 

H EADING the procession are immaculately-dressed 

men in Rolls-Royce 

motor-cars. 

They are too grand to walk 

with the commonalty. 

Then come some lodges composed exclusively 

of black-coated men in hard hats 

whose faces are those of any scowling 

tycoon trying to look impressive at a 

board meeting. 

The vast majority of the lodges have a 

composite character. 

' 

At the front, or near it, is always a 

well-fed bowler-hatted character with the 

Jaunty air of a cock on an outsize dungheap. 

A number of others will usually 

have 

hats as well, according to the status of 

the Lodge. 

When a man becomes a foreman in the 

shipyard, people say of him "he's got a 

hat." 

The hat therefore has great social 

significance. And behind the be-hatted 

aristocracy come the hatless proletarians. 

For the most part these are men whose 

pounds to make. 

Every week of the year 

the collector knocked at every door and 

took up the shilling contribution. Neighbouring 

streets are the same. 

Every window 

has an orange lily in a vase. 

The 

employers who brought in these workers 

from the country and built the houses 

for them (thus exploiting them two ways 

at once) provided each house with a wallsocket 

into which anyone with a ladder 

can insert the pole of a Union Jack. That 

is how you know a Protestant distriet. 

Flag-sockets are not provided for Catholic 

workers. 

In Brown Street and its environs every 

house flaunts the emblem of the enslavement 

of nations. 

On a wall there is painted the slogan 

"f k the Pope." This indelicacy is not 

removed by the authorities. It is not 

thought to corrupt Protestant children. 

The banner-makers have learned arithmetic. 

They can do division if not addition. 

A streamer says "six into twentysix 

won't go," and this futile slogan summarises 

the whole confusion of Orange 

thinking. 

For of course six into twentysix 

won't go. 

But six plus twenty-six is 

thirty-two. 

One slogan runs, "All power to our 

southern loyalist brethren in their 

fight 

against papish tyranny." Another says, "It 

must be remembered that to deal with 

Rome is to sleep with the devil." 

Not much sleeping here, though. 

The 

debris of huge bonfires litter the streets 

and the acrid smell of burnt wood is 

everywhere. 

At the junction of Brown Street where 

the display is at its bravest a policeman 

stands guard day and night. 

At his side is a revolver. 

And as we leave the place (the day 

before the procession) a crippled old 

worker struggling home from the drinking 

club calls over to us: "Hello there, I see 

yer all happy and smilin'. 

Go home and 

get yer mother ter bless yeh. 

Yer goin' 

to need it tomorrow." 

'fiver 

his head another slogan runs: "In 

God our strength—in us our guilt." 

Think that one over a bit. 

It shows one 

more contradiction in the fantastic semifascist 

ideology of orangism. 

Think this over too. Why should the 

old man think we were "paplshes" 

(two 

of us were, two of us weren't). 

Answer— 

because we were "happy and smiling." 

For there is no happiness and no smiling 

in the Orange philosophy. 

* # * 

/ \P course only a fanatic could stand 

^ 

four hours of watching the banners 

go by. 

We sought the fresh air of 

Cave Hill 

where at MacArt's fort Wolfe Tone took 

his oath of loyalty to the Irish Republic. 

The bus goes through the middle-class 

suburbs. Here there are semi-detached 

houses rented by the aristocracy of labour, 

deplore the bad example set by the snobs 

who will not conform sufficiently to keep 

the vast pretence alive. 

Some of these who have motor-cars even 

object to the obstruction caused by the 

bands. 

They want them there to protect 

their privileges, but would prefer if they 

would lie down so that they could drive 

over them. 

* * * 

iTiHE theme of the speeches was "eweetness 

and light"—after all wasn't the 

B.B.C. recording the whole thing, and 

wasn't it all being shown on Telefls 

Eireann? 

Tolerance, tolerance—provided it didn't 

go too far. 

"Tolerance, prosperity is the Prime 

Minister's theme" banner-headlined the 

"Belfast News-Letter." 

The "brethren" at Ballygowan where he 

spoke gave their approval to a resolution 

welcoming every opportunity for "genuine 

friendship with their Roman-Catholic fellow-countrymen." 

Its editorial said: "To be sure of what 

is a debt of honour we owe to those who 

signed the Covenant and ran the guns in 

Larne half a century ago 'to protect a way 

of life which they believed would offer far 

more to their children and their children's 

children than the mirage of 

Irish 

Nationalism'." 

The words quoted are from 

Captain O'Neill's speech. 

But Mr. Norman Porter warned that 

"Rome was not changing," and that 

Catholics practised religious discrimination 

"to the last letter." 

The meaning of "genuine 

friendship" 

was revealed by Mr. Walter Scott, M.P., 

who said:— 

"Until friendship in the present constitutional 

basis of Northern Ireland was 

acepted by the South, we should refuse the 

extended hand ... let those who professed 

friendship show it in tangible 

form." 

And Mr. Faulkner warned: "The 

Nationalist Party and the Government and 

people of the Irish Republic are as openly 

dedicated to a United Ireland as they ever 

were. 

They make no secret of their ambitions 

... we must be equally dedicated, 

equally firm, equally consistent." 

* * * 

T|7"HILE the speeches were proceeding. 

* * another incident took place. 

An ice-cream van was espied on the 

field, the owner of which had decided 

to 

take the "toleration" talk at its face value 

and turn an honest penny. 

He was approached by a number of 

Orangemen and asked what Lodge he belonged 

to. 

For toleration has Its limits. 

He was unable to satisfy them. 

"He's a Mick," said one of them. 

A few minutes later a group of officials 

came to him, and gave him ten 

minutes 

to be out of the field. 

"And if you don't 

drive out you'll be 

burned out," they told 

him. 

He went. 

* * * 

C'FHE Scottish Orangemen, always more 

fanatical and bigoted than their Irish 

counterparts, also showed the true character 

of the order. 

One of their leaders objected to the possibility 

of Mr. Fenner Brockway's Bill 

against racial and religious discrimination 

coming into force. 

He said that such a development might 

make the annual "Orange walk" in Scotland 

illegal, and urged the entire Orange 

fraternity to organise opposition to the 

bill. It would be hard to find a clearer admission 

that the Orange order exists to 

foment and maintain anti-Catholic 

discrimination. 

And indeed this issue has 

paralysed the Glasgow Labour Movement 

for forty years—though few would have 

the courage to admit it. 

To show that whenever talkers talk, 

actors will be found to act, on the night 

of the twelfth the Catholic sanctuary at 

Carfin, Glasgow, was wrecked by Orange 

hooligans and thousands of pounds worth 

of damage was done. 

'I F the political content of Orangeism is 

still the same—sectarian divisions, 

maintenance of partition, support for 

British imperialism—why the talk of 

toleration? 

One reason has already been given—the 

foolish softness of the anti-national brainwashers 

in Dublin has aroused hopes that 

the Republic might be cajoled into operating 

the Blythe-Barrington policy of "end 

partition by accepting it." 

"Recognition" 

is already given de facto, but the Unionists 

want the kind of recognition that 

represents the abandonment of the 

national demand. 

Another reason is that the work of the 

Connolly Association has brought the Irish 

question into British politics. 

When the 

Unionist M.P.s enter Westminster 

Parliamentary 

debates with clumsy justifications 

of Tory policy, Labour members now know 

enough to silence them with references to 

gerrymandering, discrimination and police 

excesses. 

Hence headlined also was Terence 

O'Neill's appeal to "give Ulster a New 

Look." 

Hence the B.B.C. beamed to the 

world the utterly untrue assertion that 

the six county police were no longer to 

carry arms. 

And arms were withdrawn 

along the quay where the tourists arrive, 

between the quay and the B.C.D.R. station—and 

the police did not carry 

arms 

at Bangor where all the Scotchmen go for 

their holidays. 

Everywhere else they were 

as armed as ever, especially where 

there 

were Orange banners to be protected! 

And the reason was admitted in the 

resolution. -"It began by pledging loyalty 

to the Protestant Reformation, said there 

had been "no reform in the official doctrine 

of the Roman Catholic Church" and 

pledged "wholehearted support to all who 

uphold true Protestantism." 

Then came the paragraph:— 

"At the same time we reaffirm our devotion 

to the cause of civil and 

religious 

liberty, and protest against the continual 

propaganda that misrepresents our 

Institution as guilty of bigotry, intolerance 

and hatred towards our Roman 

Catholic 

fellow-countrymen." 

What are we to say to that? 

The answer is simple—take them at 

their word. End discrimination against 

Catholics in jobs and housing. 

End gerrymandering, 

disband the exclusively 

Protestant B-special constabulary, and repeal 

the Special Powers Act . 

* * # 

1 \ID the twelfth this year show a gain 

or a loss? 

That it was only slightly smaller than 

last year is true. But the drain or the 

youth continues. 

Every year now a number 

of the .older people will pass on, and 

within ten years normal wastage 

should 

reduce the procession to about half Its 

present size. 

The young people are not coming into 

the Orange Lodges. 

The young workers 

want to go away for a fortnight's holiday 

like the middle-class people. The 

"twelfth" Is based on the assumption that 

the majority of workers cannot afford to 

(Continued on page 5) 

August 1964 

THE IRISH DEMOCRAT 5 

HOPE FOR THE WEST \ 

Y'OU will have noticed that Father 

to bring their neighbours "out." 

McDyer's proposal for twelve 

xt is e;ls . v to see how office men should 

pilot schemes, somewhat on the 

taU into error > but is it not a wonder 

Glencolumbeille pattern, as a first 

that 

a 

government resting on a political 

step towards 

arresting the decay of 

party ' 

within which sma11 farm comm u- 

the West has been rPrnmmonW t« , 

are stron gly represented, should 

be taken in by that error? 

The area of wonder can 

be widened: 

the West has been recommended to 

the Government for adoption by the 

interdepartmental committee on 

small farm problems, to whom it 

had been referred by An 

Taoiseach, 

Mr. Lemass; Father McDyer addres 

at a meeting of the Dail, a Minister for 

Lands dared to justify the sale of 2,000 

acres of good land, fringed by 

a throng 

of smallholdings in the hands of as 

sed his proposal to Mr. Lemass in the skilled agriculturists as are in Ireland, 

first case. to a non-national, on the ground that 

the big farm which gives employment is 

You will have noticed, too, that Father 

McDyer has disagreed with the directive 

on promoting the schemes which were from"'" small-farm 

a feature of the interdepartmental 

coma 

better social unit than the family farn 

He did this in the hearing of 

Deputies 

constituencies 

and 

Labour Deputies, and got away unscathed 

mittee's recommendation. Father Mc- with his reactionary blether 

Dyer, with representatives of the Charlestown 

Committee, met Mr. Lemass and 

But you can have even more than that 

the Minister of Agriculture Mr. Smith, 

to wonder at: trade union 

officials, 

as 

to discuss the points of disagreement. 

de s k -"dden in their view of the West 

but the interview sharpened 

rather than 

as 

the 

interdepartmental committee, supresolved, 

those differences. P orted the Mmister - 

J^T is clear, ' therefore, that Father 

The interdepartmental committee re- 

McDyer is adventuring far ahead of 

commends the pilot scheme ". . . with the public opinion in his cmsade to save the 

prime object of endeavouring to bring West_ or Ls it that Father McDver faces 

the people together . . . to develop a us all with an aspect of the independence 

sense of community spirit and to reduce m0Vement that still has life in it? Can 

the tendency to look to the State for the anyone imagine 2,000 acres of land going 

solution of their problems." lnt0 the hands of a non-nationa], in 

This is unreal. It has not been the defiance of small farmers in revolt, in 

way of the people of the West to look 19209 WlU somebody invoke Pearse to 

to- the State for help. They have solved a PP rove of such a transaction? Is there 

their problems themselves, painfully, 

a trade union offlcial in &eland wh0 wil1 

house by house, by emigrating. In daily dare take the side of the big-farm syndicontact 

with the crumbling townlands, 

cate in the name of 

Connolly? 

Father McDyer sees that this method 

of solving personal problems creates a 

The Dail has among its members many 

men with deep roots in the independence 

national problem, the break-up of the movement. Labour Party T.D.S acclaim 

West. He has this in mind when he 

the 

teaching of James Connolly 

Why 

asks people to link themselves together 

should such men betra y 

thelr trust on 

this issue? 

Betray is not the word. When an 

as neighbours, within a co-operative 

society, for one further, hopeful stand 

before surrendering their countryside to independence movement loses momentum 

non-nationals, who will fence themselves 

and 

«an the conservative forces conin 

behind "No trespass" notices. 

cealed wlthm [t , 

work theu " way forwara 

to influence policy. 

irpHE interdepartmental corutuittee's Each government In turn tries to screen 

I mistaken view of the West is car- its shift away from the people by chantried 

forward into its vision of how the 

ing slogans that have retained some of 

pilot schemes are to develop. Father the magic of that other period. Then, 

McDyer shares the committee's view that too, the most oppressed section of the 

they must have their roots in local Irish people, the small-farm communities 

initiative, but while the committee ex- on whom the conquest had fallen heavipects 

local initiation to arise in response .est, made it easy for successive 

governto 

a call from officers of the agricultural 

ments to abandon them, for they turned 

advisory services, Fr. McDyer knows from their back on the governments and took 

direct experience that local initiative is the road to the migrant ship, 

a tough crop to cultivate, where people 

The most powerful, conservative, policyhave 

lost faith in their environment to making influence over the past forty 

give them a living. He and his band of years has been • the industrial lobby, 

crusaders trudged from house to house within which native industrialists made 

but a poor showing. 

They lost a great 

opportunity, for public opinion had been 

conditioned by the slogans of the independence 

struggle to look on native industry 

as a national weapon to give 

reality to political freedom by promoting 

economic independence. Had Irish industrialists 

related themselves to that 

aim, they could have got 

to grips successfully 

with the Government on credits, 

not alone for themselves but for agriculture 

so as to widen the home market 

for their products, and to strengthen 

the national economy. But there was 

one furth step: they must advocate state 

initiative in all those fields outside their 

own scope and experience, and here they 

were spancelled by their hesitations on 

state initiative. 

The trades unions failed to push past 

them. 

With both Irish industrialists and 

the trades unions on the sideline, it was 

almost inevitable that shallow-rooted 

branch firms of foreign, monopoly industries 

should come swaggering into Ireland 

making it almost a favour to dip into 

the national savings to set themselves 

up. 

This is not industrial expansion to 

strengthen political freedom, but 

rather 

to undermine it. 

If, at the same time, 

agriculture lags, the trend towards economic 

deoendence develops rapidly. 

TT 

is in this setting that "local initia- 

J- tive," "community development," are 

prescribed for the countryside, 

and exclusively 

for the countryside. 

It was not 

local initiative brought a few 

thousand 

workers to co-operate in production in 

Finglas nor in the dockyard at Cobh, but 

capital investment. 

If there was a diamond 

or gold strike in Connemara, local 

initiative would no longer be the slogan 

for that area. 

Capital investment would 

pull the countryside apart and set up 

hundreds of new homes almost overnight. 

Dividends are what matter, not people. 

It could happen, of course it could 

happen, in a country like ours where 

landlordism, confiscation, persecution, 

clearances have driven communities in 

among rocks and up mountainsides, that 

it might be foolish to attempt to create 

a reasonable standard of living in a particular 

environment; it would mean 

burdening other sections of the people 

beyond reason to achieve it. 

But would 

the nation then have no duty towards 

such a community? Would they not 

still be people, part of us and 

part of 

the nation? 

Must we not take them out 

of the corral which the conquest set up 

around them, and help them into another 

environment or, if this nation has no 

use for them, will we not at least help 

them emigrate as families with some regard 

for their dignity and our own? 

KEVIN NEVILLE 

R.I.P. 

regret to announce the death 

' " 

of Kevin Neville, of Cork City, 

who passed away at the early age of 

42, alter an illness lasting two 

months. 

Mr. Neville joined \a Fianna Eireann 

as a boy in the thirties, later 

becoming a member of the Irish Republican 

Army. 

During the Spanish 

Civil War he was a strong opponent 

of General Franco and was one of a 

number of I.K.A. men who volunteered 

for service with Frank Ryan 

in the International Brigade. Michael 

O'Riordan and Jim O'Regan were 

Cork City men who saw service 

against Franco, but Kevin Neville 

was adjudged too young and was rejected. 

He was only fifteen. 

He was picked for an active service 

unit of the I.R.A. and according to 

the obituary published by his comrades 

he took part in every operation 

carried out by the Cork No. 1 Brigade 

up to the time of his arrest by special-branch 

detectives in June, 1940. 

While in prisonbegan to practise 

as an artist and produced fine 

paintings of Wolfe Tone and 

James 

Connolly. 

During the war period he was interned 

in the Curragh and there identified 

himself with the anti-fascist 

group up to the time of his release 

in 1943. 

In more recent times he joined an 

active service unit of Saor Uladh, taking 

part in the raid on Rosslea barracks 

wehre Con Green lost his life. 

He was designated O/C Southern 

Command of Saor Uladh. 

While extremely active in the various 

branches of the Republican movement, 

Kevin Neville was at one time 

a member of the Cork Socialist Party, 

and at the time of his decease was a 

member of the Irish Workers' Party. 

BELFAST ON THE TWELFTH 

go away for holidays. 

Politically speaking there are even more 

favourable signs. The Unionists know they 

are coming under attack on a wide front, 

and they are on the defensive. Their 

critics have proved too much, and they 

also expect to be involved in the general 

debacle of conservatism 

anticipated this 

autumn. 

* * * 

(JPLIT as it is into warring factions, 

^ 

Belfast Is nonetheless a friendly city. 

The two sides are still one people, and 

even the most bigoted Unionist knows this 

in his heart. 

The madness is milder than it was, and 

now lasts only a "day or two. 

Even when 

these words appear in print the sections 

will have settled down to living side by 

side. 

If, as is sometimes thought, the typical 

Dublinnian is really cold but conceals it 

liehind a flow of talk, the Belfastman's 

surface dourness hides his essential 

warmth. 

For this is indeed a warm-hearted 

people. 

The Belfast Catholic is, of course, 

the salt of the earth. 

No section of people 

in these Islands comes up to him. The 

mutual help, comradeship and 

solidarity 

of the Republicans who have chalked "Up 

Sinn Fein" and "The Irish Republic" along 

the walls of their ghettoes on the very day 

of the midsummer madness surpasses 

description. 

But underneath the mask the Orangeman 

Is the same. 

All this fierce fanaticism 

is a politically-motivated perversion of the 

fine principle of standing by their own. 

Only they do not yet know that the world 

Is their neighbour. 

T TOW can the Orangemen be made into 

good Irishmen? 

The late Mr. Se&n Murray used to say 

that one way was for them to become 

socialists first. Then they would see the 

need to separate Protestantism from 

Unionism, and unite with their Catholic 

fellow-countrymen to win and build up a 

better Ireland. 

One could do worse than think of that 

when watching the odd assortment walking 

behind the huge multi-coloured 

banners. 

If somebody could run a comb down the 

wbqip procession and pluck out the selfconftdtajfl 

bowler-hatted 

bosses and leave 

the pinched and shrivelled old shipyardmen, 

the sturdy journeymen, artisans and 

the scattering of lively apprentices, the 

result would not differ too much from a 

May Day procession. 

The effect of Orangeism is to over-ride 

class divisions and class interests. 

We know the cant that class-consciousness 

is a bad thing. 

But we think it is 

good. 

Only a heightened class-consciousness 

can change these men. The 

Nationalists can defeat the Tory Unionists 

very quickly indeed if they unite their own 

not inconsiderable forces with those in 

the Protestant community who resent the 

domination of Protestantism by big 

business, and the increasing number 

of 

working people who are seeing for the 

first 

time that Unionism is simply making 

use of them to line other people's pockets. 

* * * 

irpwo Incidents 

from Llsburn show up 

the old and the new. 

The twelfth Is an occasion for celebra- 

—Continued from Page Four 

tion, and the wine had flowed before these 

conversations took place. 

One old man in a public house bitterly 

lamented his loneliness and told how he 

got on badly with his wife and his son, 

who had won the George Cross, was away 

in England. 

"Why don't you go and see your son?" 

asked a by-stander. 

"I can't," he replied. 

"Why not?" 

"Because of what he done. 

He married 

a papish." He explained that the day 

the boy announced he was marrying an 

English 

Catholic he threw him out of the 

house. 

"What does your wife say?" he was 

asked. 

"My wife," said the old die-hard, "does 

what I tell her." 

Two minutes later he 

was full of suspicion. He thought his 

questioner must be a "papish" herself 

And indeed she was—one who had 

married a Protestant without any family 

disturbances. The difference? Thirty 

years of time. 

The same night one celebrant explained 

to a crowded bus that he had left the 

Orange Order. 

He had learned that the 

battle of the Boyne was not fought on the 

twelfth of July at all and it had made him 

suspicious. 

As the bus passed under one of those 

vast Union Jacks which are seen only in 

the six counties (the English do not need 

to demonstrate their Englishness; the 

Ulster Unionists doi he protested loudly: 

"That flag shouldn't be there. 

That's not 

the flag of Ulster." 

And, you know, it Isn't. 

Where dividends are the overriding 

consideration, such a community is not 

looked upon as people but as a drag on 

industry. The easy way, the politicallywise 

way, to get rid of them is to leave 

it to nature to disperse them, nature's 

way being emigration, one by one. 

The explanation of the fierce hostility 

Father McDyer has drawn upon himself 

lies somewhere within this field. He is 

interfering with nature's way of dispersing 

the West. 

He seeks to involve capital 

investment in the West, arguing for 

consideration for demographic and cultural 

values in measuring dividends. 

He 

is an embarrassment and a menace. 

T)UT who among us is free from blame? 

Who among us has not, one way or 

another, joined in the refrain, "There is 

no future for anyone in the West"? 

The 

people of the West themselves 

are not 

without blame. Ask any emigrant on 

his way out. 

"There is nothing for anybody 

back yonder." 

Where all share in 

the blame, it is easier for all to share 

in the remedy. 

The progressive way to approach the 

problems of small-farm communities is 

to bring the holdings to full, intensive 

productivity within co-eperative 

societies 

that provide skilled guidance, modern 

equipment, bulk purchase of manures and 

seeds, and experienced marketing. 

If it 

is then found that a change in pattern 

of size of holdings is necessary, this can 

be brought about on a high level of 

family survival. Father McDyer asks 

that a dozen pilot schemes be 

develped 

to give guidance on how the general 

problem is to be approached. 

Father McDyer could bring twelve areas 

forward to commit themselves to pilot 

schemes, but his Glencolumbcille experience 

must warn him of the need for 

capital investment, beyond what the local 

community Itself can provide by way of 

shares in a co-operative society. He knows 

there is no climate of public opinion on 

which he can rely to compel state aid; 

public opinion will not take his side 

effectively until pilot schemes have been 

successfully developed. 

The interdepartmental 

committee's vision of pilot 

schemes is a form of make-believe in 

which he can have no part. 

What then? 

H ERE again, Father McDyer can refer 

his problem to life. The County 

Donegal Association in Dublin gave him 

his first major break-through in his campaign 

to raise capital for Glencolumbcille. 

But it did more. It demonstrated 

that, however numb public opinion might 

be to the problem of the West, local 

neighbourliness was alive and a force. 

The success of the Oounty Donegal Association's 

share-raising meeting at the 

(Continued on Page 7)

6 IRISH DEMOCRAT August 1964 

inii 

C 

mil 

THE ROSE OF ARANMORE 

|y|Y thoughts today, though I'm far away, dwell on Tirconnaill's shore, 

The salt sea air and the colleens fair of lovely green Gweedore. 

There's a ftower there beyond compare that I'll treasure ever more, 

That gratict colleen in her gown of green, she's the Rose of Aranmore. 

I've travelled far 'neath the Northern Star since first I said goodbye, 

And seen many maids in the golden glades beneath a tropic sky, 

But there's a vision in my memory that I always wHI adore- 

That grand coHeen In her gown of green, the Rose of Aranmore. 

But soen I will return again to the scenes I loved so well, 

Where many an Irish lad and lass their tales of love do tell; 

The silvery dunes and blue lagoons along the Rosses shore, 

And that grand colleen in her gown of green, the Rose of Aranmore. 

A SHAWL OF GALWAY GREY 

'^WAS short the night we parted, too quickly came the day, 

When silent, broken-hearted, I went from you away; 

The dawn was bright'nmc o'er Glenrue, as stele the stars away, 

That last fond took I caught of you in your shawl of Galway grey. 

Oti, I've seen the silks and laces, and well they loek and show, 

Beneath the pretty faces of gentle girls t know; 

Rut this—a secret I'll con Me—I'd leave them all today 

Ta meet you on a green hillside in your shawl of Galway grey. 

The wen Is sparkling as of yore, the sky still grey and bfkie, 

The dog outside your father's door keeps watch and ward for you. 

And all this picture now I see, but ah! so far away— 

1$ brightened by yotur grace so free in yoitr shawl of Galway grey. 

Let others love some prouder dame with frills and flowers bedecked, 

Vour power o'er me Is stiff the same, its play remains unchecked. 

And all i wish for is Gfenrue, my homeland far away, 

AmHifa and lave beside you in your shawl of Gatway grey. 

SENTENCES TO DEATH 

(Commemorating Jamee Duty, leader of the Oonnaught 

Ranger* Mutiny. Mlhindur, India, ttttl). 

THE g«ey dawn, bad crept »"»r the stillness of morning, 

The dewdrops Uwy glistened Hko i*i«le»' breath, 

The n*te erf tho butt* had sounded its warning, 

A young Irish sahHer lay sentenced to death. 

He enfcHtiwtfed murder had stained his pure conscience, 

Me «att«d M a witness his Maker on high, 

Hftoftknaly NwlfMHl* f

THE 

RISH 

DEMOCRAT 

! OR IRISH WORKERS AND PATRIOTS WITH THE COURAGE TO THINK 

DISCRIMINATION 

DEBATE 

AT WESTMINSTER 

Mr. Simon Mahon attacks partition 

THE Deputy Speaker allowed discussion of administrative powers "transferred" to the sixcounty 

Government under the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, when Mr. Eric Lubbock 

(Orpington, Liberal) referred to article 75 of the Act which "reserved powers to intervene in 

matters which are delegated to the Northern Ireland Government." 

This admission is of the greatest Mr- Simon Mahon (Bootle, Labour) ful to the Unionist party once it was on 

possible importance, and amounts to backed up what Mr. Lubbock had said the run has thus proved justified, 

an acceptance of responsibility by a ? d ve „? ever agreed Wlth Captain Orr said that the North 

the British Parliament. 

the division of treland " ' '" 

Ward of Derry with 5,469 electors had a 

Though the law on the subject is clear, He pointed out that though many rateable value of only £63,000. Waterside 

the pretence has been kept up by sue- Irish patriots had been Catholics, both South Ward with 7,844 electors had a 

cessive governments that the British Tone and Emmet were Protestants, rateable value of only £63,000. Eaterside 

Government had no power to curb the "Every Irish patriot did not come from with 3,632 electors had a rateable value 

six-county Unionists who could tyrannise the south of Ireland," he went on, and of £35.079 electors. 

and persecute as they wished. added that "the family name of the hon. presumably on the basis that "money 

Mr. Lubbock was quoting facts to show and gallant member for Down (South, talks» he argued that it was just to give 

the gerrymandering in Derry City. And Captain Orr) figures in a great deal of eight representatives alike to the 5,469 

he quoted the speech of Senator J. Barn- patriotic history of Ireland going back to and the 7 844 electors, and four to the 

hill i.who said: * the United Irishmen." 3 632. 

"Charity begins at home, and if we speaking of Senator Barnhill's outburst In other words in Derry City property 

art going to employ people we should he said: "I thought I was listening to votes, not people. 

employ Unionists. I am not saying that senator Goldwater." He said there was no religious diswe 

should sack good Nationalist em- crimination at all. "It is entirely a matployees 

but If we are going to employ TJEPLYING to Mr. Lubbock's criti- ter of a different basis for the calculanaw 

man they should be Unionists." Ha 1 1 cisms of the Derry City gerrymander, tion of dividing the boundaries' of local 

out that whe&v Miss Shelagh Captain Orr made use of the argument government." 

^j^poyided lor the Unionists in the "North- g^ you tak e ycur choice. Either the 

RtffctS *JM in 4 | t ^-'ern Ireland Problem" written by Messraipgîojjstg^ ^ per cent. oT the seats 

son than tha Ni Wtorney, Barritt and Carter. , . i w ith 40 per cent, of the voters because 

PfpWKv The "Irish Democrat" prophecy that jhey cram all the Nationalists into one 

i In ' that "impartial" work would prove use- ârd an

Irish Democrat August 1964

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