Irish Democrat June 1974

MOCRAT 

FOUNDED IN 1939. 

MONTHLY ORGAN OF THE CONNOLLY ASSOCIATION 

No. 360 

JUNE 1974 

MORE DEMANDS 

Abairt an lae 

le S£amus 0 Cionnfaola 

1. De an chial ata agat e 

sin a dheanamh. 

2. Ta an-chion agam ort. 

3. Ar chiosa na re. 

4. Bean mic, agus mathair 

ceile. 

5. Nior chuir se 'na gcead e. 

6. Brobh feir. 

7. Ta bua 6 dhia aige. 

PRICE SISTERS 

I DESPERATE attempts to save 

the lives of the hungerttriking 

Price sisters were being 

made at the end of May. 

Spearheading the struggle in England 

were Mr A. W. Stallard, M.P., 

and Lord Brockway who, it is 

understood, were trying to work out 

a compromise solution, but found 

the Home Secretary, Mr Jenkins, 

unrelenting. 

Also on the job was Mr Amphlett^Micklewright, 

of South London 

Connolly Association, who secured 

action from the Haldane Society 

and the Society of Friends (the 

Quakers). He also made approaches 

to the Catholic Church at high 

level. 

Miss Maire Comerford's house in 

Dublin was the centre of a band of 

helpers who drew up lists of prominent 

individuals to send telegrams 

to the English authorities when it 

was known that the girls were at 

death's door and too ill to be forcibly 

fed any more. 

If the girls are still alive when 

this column sees the light, readers 

of the "Irish Democrat" should 

get demands sent to the Home 

Secretary that he should climb 

down from his uncompromising 

position, and announce his willingness 

to discuss a formula that will 

enable their lives to be saved. 

FOR BRITISH TO 

WITHDRAW 

WHITEHALL POLICY IN RUINS 

^•HREE days after Stan Orme held a political pistol at the heads of the S.D.L.P. and 

forced them to abandon the Council of Ireland, solemnly promised at Sunningdale, 

Unionist extremists entered Northern Ireland factories, and ordered the workers to strike at 

the point of the gun. 

Instead of arresting them, the armed forces are said to have 

given them every facility. There are rumours that there was a 

minor "Curragh mutiny," tor the army went on raiding in the 

Falls Road area, looking for I.R.A. men, though the I.R.A. had 

tacitly suspended operations. 

UNPOPULAR 

Unpopular at first, the "strike" 

grew as it appeared to be 

achieving success. Mr Harold 

Wilson, looking old and haggard, 

a man without power, 

abused the so-called Ulster 

Workers' Council, and asked 

for more patience. It was all 

he had to offer. His Government 

had capitulated to Unionist 

violence as Asquith's did 60 

years ago. Labour is still to 

reap the whirlwind. 

Led by A.U.E.W. organiser 

Jimrfty Graham and Len Murray 

of the T.U.C., trade unionists 

tried to organise a back-towork 

demonstration. But there 

were road-blocks everywhere, 

REPEAL THE EMERGENCY POWERS ACT 

PUBLIC MEETING 

and armed men. Fascism was 

in the air. They had'to give up. 

Doubtless Len Murray wishes 

the T.U.C. had acted.during its 

years-long period of inaction. 

As everything ground to a 

halt and sewage flowed out of 

the manholes into the streets, 

Mr Faulkner resigned. 

Messrs. Fitt and Hume did 

not resign. But they were 

bundled into the street. Without 

so much as by your leave 

Mr Rees prorogued the Assembly, 

and now he is, ruling the 

six counties himself with the 

aid of Stan Orme. What a 

lovely time they'll have. They 

might begin to change their 

under the auspices of the Irish Democrat, The British Peace Committee, 

Communist Party, Connolly Association, Haldane Society, Liberation, 

London Co-operative Society Political Committee, National Council 

Civil Liberties, National Union of Students. 

TUESDAY, JUNE 25th • 8 p.m. 

CONWAY HALL, RED LION SQUARE, LONDON, W.C.I 

EDWINA STEWART 

(Belfast Nicra, Gen. Sec.) 

BILL RONKSLEY 

(President, A.S.L.E.F.i 

STEVEN PARRY 

(Gen. See., Nut. U. of Student:.) 

Doors open 7.30 

Chairman : ALF 

LOMAS 

A W. STALLARD, M P 

(North St. Pancras) 

DESMOND GREAVES 

(Connolly Association) 

Admission 

25p 

for 

minds about the "direct rule" 

we, warned them against. 

NATIONALISM 

But they may go from folly 

to madness. Mr Rees talked 

about "taking account of Ulster 

nationalism." British politicians 

always deplored Irish nationalism 

and took very little account 

of it. But "taking account of 

Ulster nationalism" means more 

concessions to the bully-boys. 

In the chaos of Whitehall's 

policy southern politicians found 

their voice. Mr Lynch demanded 

a statement from England 

in favour of a united Ireland. 

Over seventeen Fianna Fail 

T.D.s were among the signatories 

of a demand sent to 

every member of the British 

Parliament demanding a declaration 

of intent to get out of 

Ireland. They pointed out that 

the declaration of intent is quite 

a different thing from the withdrawal 

of troops while leaving 

the Unionists armed to the 

teeth. 

The Connolly Association conference 

in Birmingham adopted 

a resolution demanding a declaration 

of intent. And a large 

number of Labour M.P.s expressed 

the growing feeling in 

England that there must be a 

withdrawal, based on an Irish 

solution to Irish problems. 

This is the demand that must 

be pushed. 

Translations 

I.What was your reason 

for doing that ? 

2.1 am very fond of you. 

3. On the edge of the moon. 

4. Daughter - in - law and 

mother - in • law. 

5. He did not do it with 

their permission. 

6. A blade of grass, 

7. God has given him exceptional 

talent. 

RESULTS OF 

DELEGATION 

R GEORGE SLESSOR, Secre- 

df the Luton Trades 

Mtary 

council, who recently visited Belfast 

and reported back to a conference 

organised by the "Irish 

Democrat,' 'informs us that he has 

reported back to a number of organisations 

in the Luton area. 

These include several trade union 

branches, Hemei Hempstead Trades 

Council, Stevenage Trades Council, 

the Home Counties Federations of 

Tirades Councils (now defunct) and 

the new Bedfordshire Association of 

Trades Councils. 

He is booked to speak at ttie 

Bedford Trades Council, the Bletctiley 

Trades Counqjl and the Blechley 

branch of the Transport and 

General Workers' Union. 

This important grass roots work 

was made possible by the initiative 

of the Connolly Association. 

MISS SINCLAIR 

LECTURE TOUR 

UBS ELIZABETH SINCLAIR, 

- 1 **- secretary of the Belfast Trades 

Council, will be arriving in London 

on June 5th. After a brief rest she 

"Will start on a lecture tour in the 

Midlands arid South of England. It 

had been hoped to get her to the 

north as well, but that must now 

come later. 

Her first engagement is at the 

Connolly Association Head Offl< e 

on Sunday, June 9th, at 3 p.m. 

This wiH be a seminar on Irish 

trade unionism, and is an opportunity 

for English trade unionists 

to learn how different the picture 

Is in Ireland from that in England. 

That evening she goes to Oxford 

and speaks in Ruskin College to a 

a meeting organised by the Oxford 

Connolly Association," with the 

president, Alf Ward, in the chair. 

Next night we hope to have her 

at a "meeting in Battersea where 

the otherwise good anti-EJS.C. 

Member of Parliament Douglas jay 

has not very enthusiastically responded 

to his Irish constituents. 

f)N Tuesday she speaks at another 

CA. meeting at the Tottenham 

Comumnity Project, 628 

High Road, Tottenham, N.17. This 

at 8 p.m. 

On the Wednesday she is in 

Leicester at Uhe A.U.E.W Hall, 

Barn Street at 8 p.m. 

On the Thursday she has been 

switched to Northampton because 

of needing to be back in London 

the same night, and to gc next 

evening to Birmingham. The 

Northampton meeting will be held 

at the Co-operative Hall, Exeter 

Road. 

On the Saturday she returns 

once more to London v, here the 

West London branch of the Connolly 

Association is combining with 

the Ealing Trades Council to put 

on a social evening at Avhich she 

will be the guest of honour. 

Next afternoon, Sunday, June 

16th, she speaks at the A.U.E.W. 

Hall In Luton, returning to London 

for a farewell and bark to 

arduous duties in Belfast. 

her

2 THE IRISH DEMOCRAT 5 June 1974 

i S H H H H H H a i I V S l l t K B R I T A I N SCOTLAND 

C o n n o l l v a s s o c i a t i o n C o n f e r c n c c 

DRAFT EXECUTIVE RESOLUTIONS 

Resolution 1 

I'UIS i-ont'errMi-i t tin- Conimlh 

' A -ori.iinjn held in Birming- 

!i un on Jiim l-i ;ir.d 2nd. 1974 calls 

i,pon the Labour Government to 

make a romplele break with 

the 

policies of the previous Conservative 

Government in relation to Ireland. 

and to abandon the principle 

and practice of bi-partisanship on 

this question. 

In particular it asks 

that the Government should make 

a declaration of intent to withdraw 

irom Ireland, totally and unconditionally. 

to cease to lay claim to 

iny part ol the territory of 

that 

country, and thus make attainable 

the desire of the majority of the 

Irish people for a united Republic. 

It should at the same time recognise 

the right of the majority of 

the Irish people to determine 

the 

.-cope and timing of such withdrawal 

in the light of their knowledge 

of political conditions within 

the country, and should offer to 

submit to their decision in this 

matter. 

There should be no question 

of using the threat of sudden 

unilateral withdrawal of the armed 

forces as a means of facing the 

Irish people with a danger of civil 

war and thus compelling a further 

toleration of Westminster control. 

In the interval between the 

declaration of intent and the withdrawal, 

the British Government 

should express its willingness to 

extend civil rights and liberties in 

accordance with the wishes of the 

civil rights organisations and 

the 

trade unions, and to foster by 

every means the reconciliation 

of 

the divided communities. The 

British Government should compensate 

those affected economically 

as a result of past mistaken policies. 

ACTION IN 

BATTERSEA 

VI/"HEN Connolly Association 

* member Jim McKeever went 

to lobby his M.P., Mr Douglas Jay, 

at the House of Commons in April, 

he was treated with what he regarded 

as insufficient courtesy by 

Mr Jay. who abruptly accused him 

of wasting his (Mr Jay's) time 

when he showed Mr Jay the Connolly 

Association's list of suggestions 

for a progressive solution 

of the six-county crisis. 

Jim has now collected and 

sent 

oil to Mr Jay a number of signatures 

to an open letter in which 

the signatories (all Mr -Jay's constituents 

in Battersea North) state 

that they deplore the reception 

given to Jim, and that they agree 

with the C.A.'s proposals of a 

declaration of intent to withdraw, 

release of the internees, etc. 

Furthermore, the newly amalgamated 

Battersea - Wandsworth 

Trades Council has asfcfed Mr Jay 

to receive a deputation on the 

matter. 

Jim McKeever's Trade Union 

branch, Battmea No. 2 Branch of 

UCATT, is affiliated to the Trades 

Council, and its representatives 

naturally 

supported the proposal. 

The Branch has also forwarded a 

resolution on Ireland to the Annual 

Conference of UCATT, which has 

been accepted for the Conference 

agenda. 

_ 

It is however only fair to add 

that in a letter to Mr McKeever Mr 

Jay denies having acted abruptly 

and says one of the companions of 

Mr McKeever was abrupt to him. 

He >suggest8 that there should be a 

calm and dispassionate discussion 

and we trust that this can be 

arranged. 

Resolution 2 

T HIS conference notes with 

concern 

the degree to which 

the 

failure of successive governments to 

bring about a democratic solution 

of the problem of the six counties 

has led to the growth of discrimination 

against the Irish people 

in Britain. 

It deplores the practice 

of mass raids on and searches of 

Irish homes following acts of violence 

by persons unknown, searching 

and questioning of Irish people 

at seaports and airports, the harassment 

of Irish people by repeated enquiries, 

and the practice of visiting 

premises where Irish gatherings 

customarily take place, with the result 

that the bookings of legitimate 

organisations have been placed in 

jeopardy. It is particularly alarmed 

at allegations that security forces 

have employed blackmail to induce 

agent provocateur activity and at 

reports of the irregular treatment 

of Irish persons taken into custody 

on suspicion, and of undue pressure 

brought upon them to persuade 

them to undergo finger-printing . 

It urges the Government to bring 

in early legislation to protect the 

civil liberties of all persons resident 

in Britain, and to institute a public 

enquiry into the conduct of the 

Special Branch as a means of satisfying 

public opinion, which has 

been shaken by recent allegations, 

It urges the Irish community on 

no account to permit itself to be 

intimidated into relinquishing its 

right to legitimate political activity, 

and asks all who consider themselves 

the victims of discrimination 

to take the matter up through 

their trade union, the National 

Council for Civil Liberties, or * the 

Connolly Association. 

It warns our friends in the 

Labour and trade union movement 

that the growth of repression 

against any section in Britain increases 

the power of the authorities 

to oppress themselves, and creates 

the type of atmosphere in which all 

who press for necessary changes in 

society may find themselves at risk. 

Shop Stewards 

tackle M.P.S 

A 

GROUP of shop stewards at 

* * the famous E.M.I, factory in 

Hayes, West London have sent 

telegrams to Members of 

Parliament 

demanding the repeal of the 

Emergency Powers Act, and have 

followed it up with letters requesting 

interviews. 

Their action followed an appeal 

made at the Connolly Association 

meeting fn the Euston Hall which 

was addressed by Mr O'Riordan. 

In their letter to Mr Sandelson, 

they say: "It was the view of the 

signatories on that telegram that 

only a political solution points the 

way forward in Northern Ireland. A 

Bfl'l of Human Rights for all living 

there Is an absolute necessity." 

The shop stewards who have 

sfgnetf ttie letters in their personal 

»a|Mblty are tNteasrs 

E. Speck 

^WPTlW BMnntfh JSViaimitMi)i 

O'Brien trf mst Ittidtti Vwineffy 

Association, A.U.E.W. Shop Steward 

afttf Seoretwy of Eating No. 1 

A.U.E.W. Branch; I*. Lyons, 

T.A.S.S.; B. Morley, A.U.E.W. Shop 

T.G.W.U.; T. Reeves, A.U.E.W. 

Shop Steward; R. Stookdale, 

t.EP.Y.U. - 

One of the Members of Parliament 

approached has already 

agreed to meet the tfhop stewards. 

— — 

Resolution 3 

^ 'ONFERENCE 

notes with .satisfaction 

the discovery under 

Irish soil or Irish territorial waters 

of vast quantities of valuable 

minerals which If developed would 

be adequate for raising the 

standard 

of living of every Irish family 

to heights previously scarcely 

dreamed of. 

As well as providing 

for economic development, these 

discoveries bring about 

important 

political changes, raising the standard 

of Ireland in the world, and 

giving Unionist-minded Irish people 

in the six counties a solid motive 

for transferring their allegiance to 

a United Irish Republic. At the 

same time we are aware that unless 

firm action is taken by the Government 

in Dublin, so that these Irish 

resources are owned and controlled 

by the Irish nation, then foreign 

interests and international firms 

are likely to exploit them for their 

own private capitalistic interests 

without benefit accruing to the 

people. With this in view we 

strongly applaud the efforts of those 

of our countrymen at home who are 

engaged in bringing pressure 

to 

bear on the Leinster House Government 

to nationalise or otherwise 

take into public control Irish 

mineral and oil deposits, and 

to 

establish industries which will process 

these resources within Ireland 

to provide wealth and employment 

for the Irish people. 

PROTEST AT 

LEGALISATION 

OF THE U.V.F. 

•n 

i'THE following resolution was 

passed) at the Connolly Association 

Executive at Leicester on April 

28th and sent to the Ulster Office 

and Prime Minister: 

The Executive Council of the 

Connolly Association while welcoming 

the lifting of the ban on Sinn 

Fein as a step towards restoring 

freedom of political expression, regrets 

that this should have been 

accompanied by the legalisation of 

the Ulster Volunteer Force. This 

organisation is self-confessedly 

military in character and is at 

this very time openly threatening 

to resume vidlent attacks on Catholic 

areas with the probability of 

destruction and murder. 

There is no parallel between the 

two organisations, and the decision 

is most unfair to the Republicans 

who are being given political freedom 

of action which should never 

have been taken from them, while 

their opponents are tjellag given a 

licence to organise murder. 

The 

parallel to legalising the Ulster 

Volunteer Force would be the legalising 

of the provisional I.R.A. We 

urge Mr Rees to t&tak again end 

to reimpose the ban on the 

at the first sign of military action, 

since otherwise a grave responsibility 

will rest upon him and the 

Government. 

Only a fortnight after the legalisation 

of the V.V.T. there began the 

mass wave of intimidation Which 

characterised the early days ot the 

general strike of Unionist workers. 

Grave responsibility undoubtedly 

does rest on the British Government. 

It is widely believed that the 

legalisation of 

the XJ.V9. was a 

material help to the Unionist extremists. 

Scottish culture finds 

response in 

Ireland 

o 1 

I \URING the first week in April 

' 

many Irish people in towns 

throughout the Republic received a 

delicious taste of the very best in 

Scottish culture. The artists 

taking part in the tour were 

truly Scottish in the full and proper 

sense in that 

they were all 

speakers of the Scottish 

national 

language (Gaelic); this linguistic 

aspect surprised and captivated 

many Irish people who were unaware 

of Scotland's historical unity 

of culture with Ireland and as a 

result quite a few firm friendships 

were established. 

The thronged listeners everywhere 

expressed their enthusiastic 

delight with the Scottish solo piping 

so ably represented toy Mr Finlay 

MacNeill. Mr MacWeill's piobaireachd 

selections received enormous 

acclamation with, the audiences 

calling for more and 

more. One 

member of the audience was heard 

to exclaim: "If Mr MacNeill stood 

for President of the Republic he'd 

be elected." 

The sustained applause was well 

deserved for the singing performance 

of highly talented 

Kathleen 

MacDonald tof the famous MacDonald 

Sisters) who is possibly the 

finest female singing voice in Scotland, 

particularly in traditional 

Gaelic songs. 

kF the other artistes, 

probably 

the "star" was 73-year-old 

crofter Mr Murdo Macfarlane (the 

Melbost bard) who read his own 

verse. His was a first, "longawaited" 

trip to Ireland which he 

has always regarded as his historical 

home. As he put it: "The source 

of all that is fundamental to Scottish 

culture." He has never in all 

his lifetime had such audiences as 

those in Ireland who came to hear 

his poetry. In the town of Cork the • 

7000-strong audience would hardly 

allow him to leave the stage. The 

youngsters clamoured for his autograph. 

He was completely 

"overwhelmed'' 

by the enthusiasm. 

Mr Macfarlane—like nearly all 

the leading Scottish poets and 

writers—is a staunch supporter of a 

Scottish Socialist Republic and he 

later referred to the irony of their 

tour being sponsored 

by the socalled 

Scottish Arts Council; they 

would never dream of such a tour 

of Scottish towns where the Scottish 

language is barely recognised 

as such. If an Irish person were to 

ask any group of people in any 

town in Scotland (even in the 

Gaeltachd!) what the Scottish language 

was—he would toe entertained 

for long enough by the 

ensuing 

debate around whether it is Gaelic, 

English or so-called "Scots." The 

subject doesnt appear at any level 

in the "Scottish" educational curriculum—hence 

the general quandary. 

A T time of writing the Scottish- 

Irish cultural link is being carried 

forward by the Pan-Celtic 

Uttttval In Killarney which, going 

by the calibre of those taking part, 

should be interesting and enjoyable 

It was in TCfilEirtiey two years ago 

that Mr Macfarlane's songs took 

first and third places in the two 

main traditional »ng seotions and 

whan he was asked how he felt 

with his "success" at 71 years of 

says 

R. Mulholland 

age, he replied: "Spiritually compensating. 

It is like putting a stons 

on the cairn of the great music oatancestors 

left us." 

Amidst the healthy resurgence of 

interest in things Scottish there are 

encouraging signs that Scots an? 

taking a much greater interest in 

the language question in Scotland. 

They are beginning to realise just 

how they have been cheated out 

of their heritage by the so-called 

"Scottish" educational system which 

still emphasises French, Latin an* 

German to the exclusion of Gaelic 

The National Independence movement 

likewise is realising that 

Gaelic is, or ought to be, at the cultural 

core of the movement otherwise 

it would be without a historically 

genuine basis. The "cairn of 

the great music" is certainly helping 

to rouse the attention of many 

Scots to the "treasures" right in 

their own back door; in time TO 

hope to see them 

receiving the 

same unrestrained enthusiasm as 

witnessed in Ireland. 

LEICESTER 

'"THE Connolly Association is snrg- 

1 

ing ahead in Leicester, wher» 

Harry Foreman is organising 

group to distribute the "Irish Democrat". 

Mr Foreman, who is 3. 

railwayman, will be attending 

th? 

Birmingham conference of th° 

Association. 

Arrangements are. in hand for ? 

meeting which will be addressed by 

Miss Elizabeth Sinclair, and her 

presence in the city is also being 

availed of to call a meeting of university 

lecturers interested in 

the 

critical position in Northern 

Ireland. 

CENTRAL LONDON C.A 

BRANCH MEETING 

283 Grays Inn Road 

8 p.m. WEDNESDAYS 

June 12 : JOE WHELAN 

Milters and ttit T.U. 

June t9: PAT ODONOHOE 

Wolfe Tone 

June 26: 

DESMOND GREAVES 

LooKhtg B&Cfr on ttie Crisis. 

West London CA 

rpHE West London Branch of 

the 

J- Connolly Association has ai - 

ranged to meet each of the four local 

M Ps, S. Bidwell, R. Kerr, W. Mol 

loy and N, Sandelson, at local surgeries 

to discuss the crisis situation 

brought about by the fascist-style gtinmeti 

of TThlontsm. They will urge a 

new Government policy based on England's 

intention to end the enforced 

Union as the only one offering a per 

manent, peaceful solution. 

The meetings of the Branch 

ar? 

held on alternate Thursdays at Hanwell 

Library, W.7 at 8 p.m. and for 

this month the following lectures are 

1: June 13th: The Case Against 

ed SMMfls in N. Ireland 

Cntutac McKeever. Jone 

Ntid ISemocracy in N. Ire 

DWBhd it th England. Speaker: 

John Hostettler. 

London ratlwoyvnen say move the Price sisters 

C ONNOLLY Ascoolation member 

Tom Leonard reports that liM 

North London District Council Has 

patted a resolution oaHing upon the 

Nome Offioe to transfer the hungerstriking 

Price slaters to • prison in 

Northern 1 Miami. Tfte councH 

represents IMN workers. 

West Ealing No. t Braneh ef the 

National Union of Railwayman has 

passed a resokitten suppertlug the 

Northern Ireland Committee ef the 

Irish Congress Of Trade Unions In 

eoiiBwnhtug the vtrik* MM Uy tjta 

so-called "Ulster Workers' Council" 

and calling on the Government to 

stand firm. 

The Branoh has also 

called for a ParfftHMNlMy enquiry 

into the aotlvlttw «f the 

Special Branoh of the polio* with 

particular reference to the 

case. 

WEST LONDON CONNOLLY 

ASSOCIATION 

EALING TRADES COUNCIL 

Socio/ Cvening 4rt The 

Grosvenor 

Grosvenor ftoad, Han well, W.7 

8 to 11.30 p.m. SATURDAY, JUNE 15th 

Guest of Honour: 

ELIZABETH 

SINCLAIR 

(Secretary, Setfa9t Trades Council) 

ADMISSION, 50p 

Trades 

Council 

hears 

lecture 

on 

Connolly 

| vN the evening of Monday, May 

" 2nd, the Editor of the "Irish 

Democrat", Mr Desmond Greaves, 

addressed a meeting 

convened by 

the Belfast Trades Council in the 

UCATT Hall, on the subject of 

James Connolly, Trade Unionist". 

There was an attendance of about 

fifty or sixty people, very remarkable 

in view of the disturbed conditions. 

Among those present, apart from 

President Joe Cooper and Secretary 

Miss Elizabeth Sinclair, were 

Mr 

John McClelland, formerly 

Liverpool 

Secretary of the Connolly 

Association; Mr Joseph Deighan, 

former President and Manchester 

Secretary; and Mrs Dorothy Deighan, 

formerly Bookshop Manager; 

Mr R. W. Heatley, well known in 

London, and many well-known local 

trade unionists, including Miss 

Anne Hope of NICRA. 

Mr O'Ragan of the I.N.T.O. 

Gloved the vote of thanks, and Miss 

Joan O'Connell of the I.C.T.U. in 

Dublin, also spoke. 

The meeting was a demonstration 

that the Labour movement of Ireland 

is still united, and that it is 

possible even in the midst of all the 

hatred and prejudice, for 

Trade 

Unionists both Catholic and Protestant 

to sit down together to dismiss 

the aims of the working class. 

In the course of his address, Mr 

Desmond Greaves said that no decent 

person ever blamed an 

individual or penalised him for 

something that he was not responsible 

for, and this must apply to 

-ex, age, colour, nationality 

and 

creed. 

BUS STRIKE CHAOS IN DUBLIN 

BY OUR INDUSTRIAL CORRESPONDENT IN DUBLIN 

y^T the time of writing, Dublin is 

about to enter its third week 

of a total bus strike. There is not 

a bus to be seen, apart from the 

country" ones. I should state early 

on that this writer believes that 

every strike is justified; workers 

never resort to industrial 

aotton 

without good reason. 

However, the 

present bus strike can have very 

little said in its favour. 

Unfortunately 

it's the worst type of strike 

~an 

inter-union dispute—and invariably 

these are the hardest to 

resolve. 

The Irish busmen are divided between 

four unions: the Irish Transport 

& General Workers' Union; the 

Workers' Union of Ireland; the 

National Association of Transport 

Employees, and the odd man out, 

the National Busmen's Union. The 

latter differs from the other three, 

usually referred to as "the group", 

in that it is not affiliated to the 

Irish Congress of Trade Unions. 

It 

was formed about ten years ago as 

a breakaway, and consequently has 

always been outside the Congress 

pale". 

Four unions for this industry 

are too many — three too 

many, in fact — but the situation 

would be greatly improved if they 

were all within Congress. 

The dispute is over the claim for 

a five-day week. 

It has a long 

history and there have been disputes 

in the past. For example, 

the N.E.U. were on strike over this 

issue in 1965. 

However, Ireland's 

national transport Company, C.I.E. 

finally agreed to operate a five-day 

week, instead of the present 

sixday. 

Obviously if the number of 

hours worked were to remain the 

same, there would have to be new 

schedules. Back in November 1973, 

C.I.E. announced to the Unions 

that arrangements were being made 

to prepare schedules on the basis 

of a five-day working week, and 

that Sunday, May 5th, wt 

had 

beon set as the target date for the 

introduction of the new system. 

A ballot of all four unions was 

then held and a majority accepted 

the five-day week. However, the 

group unions maintain that 

this 

ballot was on the one issue only of 

whether or not the five-day week 

should be accepted. They insist 

that the favourable vote did net 

mean acceptance of the new 

schedules. Both C.I.E. and the 

National Busmen's Union insist 

otherwise. They claim that the ballot 

was all-embracing. 

Accordingly, C.I.E. announced 

that the five-day week, and the new 

schedules would operate from 

the 

target date, May 6th. 

The group 

unions requested that these 

arrangements 

be deferred until 

further consideration had been 

given to the schedules. 

But the 

C.I.E. refused, and consequently 

the three unions went on strike on 

May 5th. 

The N.B.U. are also on 

strike, because they want the new 

schedules to operate and also they 

won t pass tickets. Hence the total 

absence of buses from the streets of 

Dublin, 

NEW BILL 

Mr Michael O'Leary, Minister for 

Labour, which is one of the 

Ministries held by the Irish Labour 

Party in its governmental alliance 

with Fine Gael, recently introduced 

in the Dail the Trade Union (Amalgamations) 

Bill, 1974. Although 

the trade union movement has not 

yet had time to study the Bill, few 

will deny that such a Bill is needed. 

There are far too many trade unions 

in Ireland. 

This is accepted by the 

trade union movement and mergers 

have been taking place. But at 

present the law makes mergers difficult. 

The stated intentions of the 

Bill are to facilitate the coming together 

of Unions. Its principal 

effects will be:— 

Two or more trade unions 

can 

amalgamate after a simple 

majority 

have passed a motion to that 

effect; 

A trade union may transfer its 

engagements t« another trade unien 

again by a simple majority of the 

votes cast. 

The rights of members seem to 

be safeguarded in the Bill, and 

while the trade union movement 

will have to examine it carefully, it 

does seem to be a positive measure. 

BREAKTHROUGH 

The Transport & General 

Workers' Union, or the "Amalgamated 

Transport", as it is known 

here to distinguish it from the 

Irish Transport, recently secured 

an important breakthrough in the 

industrial field. Agreement was 

reached with the 

state electricity 

company, the Electricity Supply 

Board for the placing of craftsmen 

and other non-white collar workers 

on an incremental scale. In all 

state concerns, the clerical staff 

and technicians are paid increment 

increases, and any general revisions 

that a particular grade may 

receive, they also receive each year, 

generally on the anniversary of the 

date of employment, a specific sum. 

For example, draughtsmen employed 

by the Local Authorities in 

Ireland, last year reeeived the 

Wage 

rounds, and their salarfes 

were revised nationally as their 

union claimed that they had fallen 

behind draughtsmen in other state 

bodies. But also each individual 

received an extra £60 on his "incremental 

date", and will continue to 

do so each year. 

By and large, manual workers are 

not in this happy position. 

While 

sometimes long-service awards are 

paid, the emphasis Is on "long". 

They usually only apply after ten 

years, or more. 

Consequently the 

manual worker in the E.S.B., with 

perhaps eight or nine years' service, 

was paid the same as. the man recruited 

last week. 

There was thus 

no reward for service or experience. 

However, this has now changed in 

the E.8.B. and the gate is wide 

open for workers In other state industries, 

and indeed in private 

employment, to march right 

through. 

SHORT LIFE AND EARLY DEATH OF THE COUNCIL OF IRELAND 

BY ANTHONY COUGHLAN 

' THE Council of Ireland was said 

by the politicians to be a tremendous 

achievement of Sunningdale. 

In the Soulh people were told 

it would provide a road towards the 

end of Partition. In the North 

Faulkner told the Unionists it 

would leave the Union as impregnable 

as ever. 

Faulkner was telling 

the truth, although few of his 

followers believed him, so sceptical 

had they become of his chameleon 

political turns. Cosgrave and 

Cruise O'Brien, Fitt, FitzGerald 

and Lynch all assured their supporters 

that Sunningdale was an 

integral whole. The Council of 

Ireland was an essential part of the 

package — in return far which the 

South would, "recognise" the North 

and the "power-sharing" Executive 

could come into being. 

In the winter of last year, when 

the S.D.L.P. were negotiating with 

Whitelaw, they stated that the 

establishment of a Council of Ireland 

with real powers and the possibility 

of evolving as an instrument 

of national unity was an 

essential prerequisite for their joining 

Faulkner on the "powersharing" 

Executive. 

Southern politicians 

loudly echoed their hopes 

and columns of commentary by 

leader writers and pundits extolled 

for the public the merits of 

the 

promised Council. 

In the light of 

what has happened it is worth setting 

down what Sunningdale 

envisaged 

for a Council of Ireland. 

SUNNINGDALE 

Paragraph 7 of the Sunniagdale 

Communique stated that the Council 

of Ireland "would comprise 

a 

Council of Ministers with emeoutivo 

and harmonising functions and a 

consultative pole and a Consultative 

Assembly with advisory and review 

functions." 

There would also be 

a secretariat and secretary-general 

to implement the executive decisions 

of the Council. 

There would 

be a Consultative Assembly, 

elected from the Dail and the 

Northern Assembly, on which 

all 

parties in the country would 

be 

represonted and which would offer 

advice and make recommendations. 

On policy and security the Council 

of Ireland would have a consultative 

or advisory role, the relevant 

sentence from the Sunningdale 

communique being 

"The Governments 

concerned will co-operate 

under the uu6pices of the Council 

of Ireland through their respective 

police authorities." The police 

authorities in question were consultative 

and advisory bodies, 

not 

executive agencies. The Governi 

rnment would consult them alKsut, 

security, but the security forw»K 

North and South would remain 

responsible to London alwl Dublin 

respectively. 

This was the l.unous Suuuagdafr 

package 1 ' and at the seoend. f«rmal, 

stage of the Confetenro this 

year it was to be decided what 

executive powers would be devolved 

on the Council of Ireland. The 

British and Irish Governments, 

Faulkner and the SDLP gave a 

solemn commitment to carry, out 

what was proposed. 

WORDS EATEN 

Acres of newsprint were covered 

hy the statements of politicians expressing 

their faith in Britain's 

firm, coramitmewt to. th£ arrangements 

agreed at Sunningdale. 

A 

random selection may sUU prove 

instructive. 

Tbey are mostly from 

the Nationalist side of the fence. 

It is the Loyalists who have most 

interest in the textual 

slitheriness 

of Messrs Faulkner, Bradford and 

Napier:— 

l*r Ltam Cosgrave: "What we 

agreed on was a package worked 

out with great care and attention. 

It must be taken as a coherent 

whole. 

No party or interest can 

select part of the package and say 

that it is acceptable but the 

rerrmiader 

is not. This, I may say, is 

a fundamental attribute of what 

Sunniagdale i6 about. What the 

communique describes must be accepted 

or rejeoted in its totality" 

(Dail 27-2-1974). 

Qr. Cruise O'Brien: 

The agreement 

is a package with every part 

interdependent on the remainder 

and it is impossible to take parts 

out and discuss them, accepting 

some and rejecting others. ... If 

1 he Irish Government had not made 

the declaration (on the status of 

Northern Ireland) then the rest of 

the Sunningdale packago would not 

be obtainable" (Dail, 12-2-1974). 

Mr Gerry Fltt, M.P.: "For the 

first time in the history of Ireland 

we have a body which would have 

executive powers ta bring the two 

separate parts of the country 

together" 

(Press conference. 10-12-73). 

*r Jaek Lyneb, T.O.i "One of 

the most imported 

parts of the 

agreement was that there was a 

clear commitment t» have a Coun 

cil of 

Ireland and a Council of 

Ministers which would have executive 

and harmonising functions. We 

in Fianna Fail have advocated that 

and it is what we now support" 

(Dail debate, 12-12-73). 

"In my talks with Mr Heath I 

consistently advocated the setting 

up of a Council of Ireland with 

executive powers and representative 

of both parts of the country. . . . 

My party wants to see powersharing 

in operation and they want 

to. see the Council of Ireland with 

executive functions. 

Pi arm e Fail 

has worked hard to bring about 

these two major advances." (Fianna 

Fall Ard Fheis, »-2-74i. 

Mc Riehie Ryan, T.fts "The 

Council of Ireland is a great 

achievement ot the Coalition Government 

and an achievement which 

offers the greatest premise" (Dail 

debate, I3r.ia-7a>. 

Mr Stanley Ovme, H*.P.i "The departure 

of a Council of Ireland 

could free Ulster from the dead 

hand of the past ami create 

the 

conditions in which Irish working 

people North and South could find 

common cause in building, a new 

socialist democratic Ireland" (statement 

of the Campaign for Democracy 

in Ulster, chairman Mr Orme, 

10-1S-T3). 

Mr Paddy Qu«y, S.D.L.P. 

Assemblyman: "I am convinced 

that Mr Faulkner will quickly see 

tlie merit of developing the Council 

of Ireland into a new Irish Parliament 

and that seeing it he will 

embrace a new Ireland now in the 

course of formation" ("Irish Times ' 

22-1-1974). 

Mr Austin Curria, S.D.L.P. 

AseemMyman: Sunmngdale has 

fulfilled Wolfe Toners desires, to 

break the connection with England 

and substitute the common name of 

Irishman for that of Catholic, 

Protestant and Dissenter." 

WHO &CUPPERED IT ? 

The ouun responsibility rests 

with the British Government — 

the sovereign power nwnoasiUe for 

law aaaordw - which allowed law- 

I'ssneee and disorder to flaunt 

•taetf m tte streets of Belfast during 

the manth of May until 

the 

S.D.fc.P. were pressurteed ami 

(Continued on Page Pour) 

CONNOLLY ASSOCIATION 

Results of Spring Draw - 1974 

name ADAMHESS TICItBT No. 

• FIRST P&UE I lit turn Air Ticket to Inland for Two or £84) 

TOM HgNEGHAN, 22 Gilby Road. London, SW17 23805 

• SGQ&N& intra

4 THE IRISH DEMOCRAT 5 

s i x c o r v n s c e x e 

COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN BELFAST 

£ i N \ INGD.U E was the 

answer—thf on/y answer, 

we were told Peace, perfect 

peace at last, to replace 300 

years of strife. So we were told. 

Well, the chickens have come 

home to roost in the merry 

month 

of May. 

The Sunningdale Agreement, 

the temporary Tory expedient to 

get Britain off the hook in 

Northern Ireland, now appears 

to be destined for the dustbin as 

the Ulster Workers' Council and 

the Unionist para - military 

forces are allowed to bring industry 

in the six counties to a 

standstill. 

The agreement that promised 

Unionists one thing and nationalists 

another, contained all the 

elements required further to 

confuse and divide a confused 

and divided 

community. If it had 

any long term objectives at all, 

then it could only have been 

looked upon as the framework 

for building permanent sectarian 

government in Northern Ireland. 

JOHN 

by 

MCCLELLAND 

gl'NNINGDALE did not change 

anything 

fundamentally. 

The boss still lived 300 miles 

away, but a "power-sharing" 

executive containing a few 

Catholics as a sop to the 

nationalist population was more 

than the loyalists could bear. 

Gerry Fitt and Paddy Devlin 

were not the sort of medicines 

Orange stomachs could take. 

One did not have to 

understand 

the Constitution Act or the 

Sunningdale Agreement to know 

that the rot had set in. Catholics 

were now "Ministers" at 

Stormont. 

While the Council of Ireland, 

meaningless in Republican 

terms, has been the visible target 

of loyalist abuse, it is the 

sight of Catholic "Power- 

Sharers" which really turns the 

Orange supremacists on. A Protestant 

parliament for a Protestant 

people is their real goal and 

while "government" in Northern 

Ireland is based on sectarian 

appointments, then the Protestant 

people will be offered the 

objective of obtaining that goal 

by their political 

leaders. 

Ironically, the S.D.L.P. has 

been much less effective in 

directing political affairs since 

taking part in the executive. 

Their big concern—the Concil 

of Ireland—has been watered 

down further to a Council of 

Ministers and will in fact hamper 

future developments towards 

a United Ireland as the 

Executive have agreed to what 

amounts to another referendum, 

i.e. a vote on the Council 

of Ireland 

at the next Assembly elections. 

Any real reform of the 

R.U.C. seems to have been put 

on the very long finger and internment 

is not only still with 

us but there are more internees 

than 

ever. 

DEATH OF THE COUNCIL OF IRELAND 

tricked into abandoning their Sunningdale 

commitment to a two-tier 

Council of Ireland with Executive 

powers. The secondary responsibility 

lies with Belfast and Dublin 

politicians, who through opportunism 

or folly gave the maximum encouragement 

to Britain to do what 

she did. 

For "weeks prior to May 1974 

pressure was brought to bear on the 

SDX.P. to abandon their commitment 

to a meaningful Council 

of 

Ireland, which had become for the 

Loyalists the symbol of institutions 

they had had no part in making 

and to-which they felt no spark of 

allegiance. 

There was no principle 

of constructive policy in this except 

the aim of maintaining Mr Faulkner 

and his colleagues in office, 

despite the fact that Faulkner had 

no mandate from the mass of 

Loyalist opinion 

for the arrangements 

he consented to at Sunningdaie. 

Messrs Wilson, Rees and 

Orme 

found themselves hoist with the 

petard of Heath and Whitelaw's 

Irish policy, while Whitelaw enjoyed 

the May weather on his Cumberland 

estate and Heath flew off for 

» holiday in China. The British 

Government together with Brian 

Faulkner, egged on by the scheming 

Roy Bradford, consequently agreed 

to scupper the Sunningdale arrangements, 

at least so far as the 

"Irish-dimension" and the Council 

of Ireland were concerned. In 

March the Northern Executive 

established a sub-committee to see 

what might be done to moderate 

the ofTensiveness of the Council of 

Ireland to the Unionists. 

MAYHEM 

The Loyalist strike in mid-May 

and the takeover by the Ulster 

Workers' Council • in the streets 

brought the pressure on the 

S.D.L.P. to a climax. The power of 

right-wing Unionism, which had delayed 

and obstructed every 

move 

to reform in the Six Counties and 

which Mr John Hume had so often 

and so eloquently denounced, 

needed to be conciliated again. 

While 16,000 British troops 

sat 

quietly under orders in their 

barracks 

and in Derry R.U.C. men 

played football with the U.D.A., the 

loyalists rationed petrol, organised 

food deliveries and controlled movement 

and amenities in Belfast, as 

it they were a Provisional Government 

in everything but the name. 

BBC. Northern Ireland broadcast 

dvice on how to get passes from 

the Ulster Workers' Council, businessmen 

queued as supplicants 

at 

their headquarters and members of 

the Northern Executive had to 

thumb lifts home in the evening as 

ttie British Army could not supply 

petrol tor their official cars. 

The British Government and 

Army made not the slightest at- 

(Continued from Page Three) 

tempt to use the power at their disposal, 

the power they had used so 

vigorously in the past in the Catholic 

areas of Belfast. 

They looked 

on benignly at the all-pervasive lawlessness 

— despite the rivers of cant 

which they and their predecessors 

had directed at the South over the 

years, about the need to stand up 

to the "men of violence", not to 

succumb to lawlessness, to take 

stronger action against terrorism 

and private armies, etc. 

The scene was now set for getting 

thes S.D.L.P. to back down. 

It was 

a situation reminiscent of Lloyd 

George confronting Collins and 

Griffith in the 1920s. 

BRITAIN WENT TO WORK 

ON THE S.D.L.P. 

Mr Conor O'Cleary, Belfast correspondent 

of the "Irish Times", details 

the miserable and shameful 

story (May 25th,- 1974): 

"At two o'clock on Wednesday 

afternoon (May 22nd) grim-faced 

S.D.L.P. Ministers emerged from 

the Executive meeting to join 

their Assembly colleagues waiting 

in Stormont Parliament building. 

They detailed a document which, 

they told their startled colleagues, 

had been produced by the Executive 

as a final compromise and 

which provided for the effective 

shelving of the Council of 

Ireland 

for four years. . . . The 

document itself was not available 

for examination but the 19 

S.D.L.P. Assembly members were 

asked to vote for or against. . . . 

All but one of the six S.D.L.P. 

Ministers and three of their backbench 

colleagues voted to accept 

the compromise. 

But 11 S.D.L.P. 

men voted against. 

The compromise 

was rejected and the meeting 

broke. 

Within minutes, the 

Executive and the Northern Ireland 

Office was informed of 

the 

vote. The Dublin Government 

and Lisburn Army headquarters 

were warned by telephone to expect 

the reimposition of 

direct 

rule within an hour, following the 

inevitable resignation of Brian 

Faulkner. An army Whippet 

armoured car parked at the gate 

of Stormont grounds and other 

military vehicles were poised 

nearby. 

While this happened the 

S.D.L.P. Assembly members were 

summoned urgently to the Castle 

for their confrontation with Stanley 

Orme. In terse tones, the 

Minister of State informed them 

that their decision meant the end 

of power-sharing and chaos in 

the North. The S.D.L.P. men 

were made to feel that they had 

taken a step which would lead to 

"immediate and terrible war". On 

the other hand, they were given 

to understand, if they changed 

their minds, the British Government 

would find the confidence to 

at last throw its weight behind 

the united Executive and restore 

the authority of Executive Ministers 

by moving against the Loyalist 

strikers. 

At half past three 

the 19 S.DjL.P. Assembly members 

returned to Parliament 

Buildings. After much heartsearching, 

the vote was again 

taken, with agreement that 

the 

majority verdict would be accepted. 

This time, .14 voted to 

accept the compromise and only 

five voted against.y The Executive 

and the British Government were 

. quickly infqgped, that power-, 

sharing and Sunningdale had 

been salvaged, for the time being 

at least." 

DUBLIN REACTION 

This was merely the hope that Mr 

Faulkner would survive — and that 

the British Government would 

sustain him — the hopes which had 

for long served as substitute for all 

constructive policy. 

On May 22nd 

Mr Faulkner 'and his colleagues 

issued a statement, which had the 

approval of the Irish .Government, 

to the effect that the establishment 

of a two-tier Council of Ireland 

with executivfe powers "must await 

a test of the ojfinion of the Northern 

electorate" in 1977-78, which 

was as good as putting the whole 

scheme off for ever. 

Instead North- 

South conferences of Ministers, 

without powers, secretariat or secretary-general, 

would constitute the 

much-trumpeted Council of Ireland. 

It would be no more than baptising 

with a name the North-South discussions 

between Ministers which 

have taken place for years. 

Mr Cosgrave expressed 

himself 

satisfied. 

Mr Lynch for the Opposition 

stated that "in the interests 

of peace in Northern Ireland and of 

progress towards our ultimate aim 

for the whole of Ireland his party 

would not comment further on the 

document of the Northern Ireland 

Executive." 

On the next day, May 

23rd, Mr Cooney, southern Minister 

of Justice, accepted the report of 

the Joint Commission on Law Enforcement 

established after Sunningdale 

"as a contribution towards 

bringing to trial those responsible 

for violence in Ireland." 

Law-enforcement meanwhile 

was 

non-existent in Belfast, as the 

British Government wondered 

whether they should make further 

concessions to Loyalist 

extremism 

or whether, having conciliated 

some of them — as they hoped — 

and helped Brian Faulkner by scuppering 

the Council of Ireland, they 

should now enforce the law and get 

things back to "normality", throwing 

some passing political bones to 

conciliate the S.D.L.P. 

DOES IT MATTER ? 

Not really, except for those who 

were under the illusion that 

the 

(Continued on Page Eight) 

So it cannot be the 

outstanding 

success of the S.D.L.P. that 

has upset the Orangemen. The 

real reason for their upset is the 

British policy of force feeding 

them with Hume, Currie, Fitt 

and 

Devlin. 

fHE events since the Ulster 

Workers' Council called for 

strike action have again demonstrated 

the monster Britain 

created and the urgent need for 

a complete reversal of British 

policy towards Ireland. It cannot 

be denied that there is a 

large majority of Unionists in 

the six counties—the recent 

Westminster elections confirmed 

this, but it is a majority 

artificially manufactured to suit 

British needs over 50 years ago. 

While it lasts it will always be 

easy to whip up sectarian 

hatred 

as the U.W.C. and their 

military 

wing have been doing during 

the past few 

weeks. 

Doing, it must be said, under 

the guidance of Craig, Paisley, 

West and Co. with permission 

from the authorities and the 

passive help of the British 

Army. The first day of the strike 

met with a poor response. In 

one small engineering firm in 

Castlereagh employing 60 men, 

only four voted to go out. This 

firm is now closed, fust as many 

of the much larger companies 

are closed. Given time to operate, 

the bully boys of the U.D.A. 

and other militant groups soon 

intimidated practically the 

whole Protestant working class 

in 

Belfast. 

Shops were told to close or 

else, pubs were shut, petrol 

stations were taken 6Ver dfiii 

schools were said to be thredtened. 

And all the time 40,000 

members of the forces of law 

and order were standing by. 

The official trade union 

leaders called for a march back 

to work, but the poor response 

could hardly have surprised 

anyone 

under the circumstances. 

Workers who do not agree with 

the fascist style of the U.W.C. 

but who have not been prepared 

politically could not be expected 

to choose a week's wages and 

the risk of a hole in the head 

against staying at home. Previous 

experience has proved that 

the army is unlikely to provide 

adequate protection against the 

thug. 

DETERMINED action by the 

British authorities at an 

early stage would have encouraged 

ordinary people to take a 

stand and assisted the official 

trade union leaders in their 

efforts to lead the people back to 

work. Instead the ultra right 

were given enough confidence to 

order the directors of Courtaulds 

to close their premises even 

after the machinery was stopped 

and the premises emptied of all 

but a few 

staff. 

Would the velvet glove have 

been used on the Provisional 

l.R.A. if they had used similar 

tactics in a Nationalist area ? So 

why the soft approach to the 

Loyalists ? 

Could it be that, having 

worked the S.D.L.P. into an impossible 

position the British 

Government is now prepared to 

ditch them with the Sunningdale 

Agreement and prepare a compromise 

with the Loyalists ? Is 

Mr Wilson prepared to use 

Orange thuggery rather than 

take the bull by the horns and 

produce a democratic solution 

for Northern Ireland, thus opening 

up a path to real reconciliation 

between all the people of 

Ireland ? 

These are questions which 

are troubling the rank and file 

of the S.D.L.P. and if recent 

reports are accurate then some 

of the leadership are also rethinking 

the role they were persuaded 

to accept. 

STATEMENT ON THE CRISIS 

T H E 

following statement was issued by the Standing 

Committee of the Connolly Association on May 28th, 

1974. 

THE confrontation between 

the so-called Ulster Workers' 

Council and the Labour 

Government is a challenge 

to 

democracy and socialism by 

some of the most reactionary 

forces in these islands. 

It has 

nothing in common with a genuine 

workers' struggle. The presence 

at meetings of the Council, 

of Unionist backwoodsmen 

like Messrs Craig and West, together 

with the massive middle 

class support, shows an alignment 

of forces reminiscent 

of 

the social composition of Fascism. 

The purpose is counter-revolution. 

An attempt is being made 

to put the clock back and deprive 

the anti-Unionist forces of 

the miserable gains they have 

managed to achieve through six 

years of arduous and bitter 

struggle. 

The British people are being 

invited to restore the Unionist 

dictatorship over a section of 

the Irish people forcibly cut off 

from the main body of the Irish 

nation, and there is a danger of 

a repetition of the tragedy of 

1914, when the Liberal Party 

capitulated to these identical 

forces and stepped off the stage 

of history. 

IF 

Labour stands firm against 

these forces, Unionism will 

be smashed. If Labour gives in, 

there is a danger that 

Labour 

will be smashed. The reactionaries 

will start tearing at the 

structure of democracy in Britain, 

and the cause of socialism 

will be seriously set back. 

What Is, therefore, needed is 

that letters, 

telegrams, 'phone 

calls, resolutions should be 

poured In to Mr Merlyn Rees, 

and other members of 

Parliament, 

promising support for 

a 

firm stand against the Unionist 

reactionaries. It is they, not the 

Labour Government, who are destroying 

eoonomio life and creating 

social anarchy. If Labour 

had acted firmly when the intimidators 

first started driving 

the workers out of factories and 

workshops, the dangerous position 

that now exists would not 

have arisen. 

But it is not too 

late to stand firm now. 

Meanwhile, the entire Labour 

movement should be alerted to 

the fact that the trade unions of 

Ireland are opposed to this enforced 

stoppage, which is aimed 

at the permanent division of the 

working class and not the unity 

to which trade unionism is dedicated. 

British trade unionists 

should send messages of solidarity 

to the Irish Congress of 

Trade Unions promising their 

full support against the biggest 

offensive of reaction in these 

islands for many years. 

STANDING 

COMMITTEE 

June 1974 

THE IRISH 

DEMOCRAT 

POLITICAL 

FORUM 

HOW TO GET OUT OF IRELAND 

j i OW England ever got together a big empire seems a 

l 1 mystery these days. The sheer blithering idiocy of 

uccessive Governments leaves one stunned at each fresh 

• bsurdity. And the sight of Mr Wilson on television abusing 

nen he was letting away with murder would make a cat 

TV. 

What's the explanation of it? is it that modem 

capitalist societies don't have Governments in the old sense 

any more. 

All essential decisions are made in the boardrooms 

of monopolies and international firms 

These decisions 

are automatically catered for by the civil service 

What are required in Governments are at best pill-sugarers 

md public relations men, at worsv blatant confidence 

tricksters. 

But the aims of the big financial and industrial interests 

are self-contradictory as well as destructive of local 

interests from one level to another. 

So everywhere there 

is crisis, and pundits utter plaintive moans that countries 

ire "ungovernable". 

In reality they are governed by a 

.,ecret junta, for purposes which are never admitted and 

bear no relation to the words of politicians 

T\^E warned Mr Orme against the dangers of direct rule. 

We warned Mr Wilson of the built-in instability of 

Sunningdale. We told both of them that the Irish problem 

could only be solved on the basis of Ireland for the Irish. 

All might have been well if the aim had been to solve the 

Irish problem. 

But this was not the purpose of Tory 

policy. 

Labour took over the Tory policy, started to work 

it, and it blew up in their faces. 

It must be grasped, as the beginning of all wisdom, 

that the real purposes of English Government policy are 

those of the great monopolies and international firms. This 

is the hard core of non-negotiable'or only slightly negotiable 

matter, the kernel of class interest. It would be 

convenient to have a single economic field from the Atlantic 

to the Oder, all thoroughly 

"harmonised", scientifically 

cropped for maximum profit. That is what the E.E.C. is 

about. 

But it is not possible to create a,.tabula rasa, to 

merge all national and local communities in one homogeneous 

mass. 

You can re-write history, or cease teaching 

it, but you can't make millions of people lose their memories 

overnight. 

If local interests cannot be instantly abolished 

they can be played off one against the other, and thus 

made useful in ensuring that all of them are subordinate 

to the interests of monopoly capital. 

OO Sunningdale was written within the- context of the 

Common Market. 

A Council of Ireland was to carry 

out the work of "harmonising" the two parts of Ireland, 

which would have been done by Brussels anyway, and the 

majority of the people of Ireland, living in the south and 

the nationalist areas of the six counties, were to accept 

this as an "Irish dimension", and tolerate the ruthless 

suppression of republicanism in the interests of the secret 

junta. 

Unfortunately however north of the" border things had 

to be represented in another way. There the eternal links 

with England had to be trumpeted, although -again, under 

the plan for European Union, the special English 

sovereignty in the six counties was due for the chopper 

anyway. That is all of a piece with modern technique. The 

same bottle, two alternative labels, neither of them 

accurately describing the contents. 

The six county Unionists thought they were being 

cheated. Even without Sunningdale things looked distinctly 

shaky . 

The Northern Ireland Constitution Act reserved 

control to London absolutely. But if England was to retain 

the six counties as an absolute property what would she 

do with them? 

Hand them over in stages to Dublin as 

part of the grand plan of universal integration? 

The feeling 

grew that Ulstermen's sovereignty might be safeguarded 

better if in the hands of Ulstermen. 

What people misleadingly 

call "Ulster nationalism" emerged. 

TIT HAT had they to lose? 

The partition of Ireland in 

1921 created a complex consequential system, a 

distorted 

economy, which was nevertheless not without 

beneficiaries. 

From the point of view of monopoly capital 

the arrangement was excellent. 

English finance made a 

colony of the weakened twentysix counties. 

In the north 

the British taxpayer, and ultimately the worker, poured 

sufficient money into the north to keep one section of the 

population, the Protestants, content, but on condition it 

was not wasted on Catholics. 

Hence Mr Wilson's attack 

on the spongers. 

After all £468,000,000 of public funds is 

quite nn item. 

What is never disclosed however is the 

enormous sum (in normal times greater than the subsidy 

going ini that comes OUT, in income from investments, 

siphoning off of savings, rent and profits, which goes into 

private hands. 

The British taxpayer hands over cash, 

•soldiers lose their lives, in order that wealthy monopolies 

may continue to draw 

revenues from the six counties. 

The Unionist population is bribed to sabotage the unity 

and independence of Ireland. 

But bribes are meaningless 

when everybody gets them. 

Civil Rights was the dynamic 

thing it was precisely because in striking at the root of 

the bribery, it made possible the deployment of the united 

forces of 

the whole people against the whole imperial 

system. Hence every effort of the recipients of bribes was 

directed to ensuring that the others did not get them. 

British policy was therefore not just the blind hanging 

on to sovereignty in the six counties. 

It was a policy oi 

maintaining an economic system, and of permitting it to 

develop in its direction of expanding integration. The 

BY 

FEICREANACH 

hobnobbing with papists so shocking to the Orangemen had 

the effect of weakening the capacity of Unionists to hinder 

the general process of economic integration. 

There were 

understandable grounds for uneasiness. 

For one thing is 

certain. 

You can't trust Her Majesty's Government, in 

anything, at any time! How to pick up the south without 

dropping the north was exercising these gentlemen, and a 

little legerdemain could be excused. 

rrHE ink was scarcely dry on the Sunningdale agreement, 

which was a very good agreement from the English 

point of view, when attempts to revise it in favour of the 

Unionists began. 

The way the Council of Ireland was 

wrecked is known. 

Then the attack turned to the very 

principle of administrative links with the Republic. Finally 

power-sharing itself came under attack. 

In the course of the in-fighting two new catchcries appeared, 

one in England, the other in the six counties. The 

first was "immediate withdrawal of troops", the other was 

"an independent Ulster." It will not be argued that 

these were always intended seriously, or that those who 

mouthed them meant what they said. 

But in effect they 

both amount to an attempt to put pressure on the Catholic 

community. 

Take the second first, "an independent Ulster." 

An 

Ulster of how many counties? Six is the answer. What 

kind of Government would it have? A "democratically 

elected" Government; in other words Government by the 

majority, like Stormont. Would thgre be a pogrom against 

the Catholics? It was interesting to hear the backwoodsmen 

answering this question. They had nothing against 

Catholics, said Mr West, but they "would not sit down with 

the enemies of this country," who were (bless us) Mr Hume 

and Mr Fitt who were "republicans." 

So what emerges 

from this is that if the Catholics "are prepared to go back 

to 1967 they will be left alone. 

But they must not only 

accept the position of permanent 

minority, they must 

relinquish the rights they should possess in virtue of being 

part of the majority of the people of all Ireland. 

The greatest source of confusion among even quite 

friendly English people is the belief that the six counties 

is a "country". It is not a country. It is part of a 

country. 

Its politics are utteify 'meaningless except in 

relation to the rest of Ireland. 

A majority Government 

in six counties is only a majority Government because the 

people of twenty six other counties have been denied their 

position as majority. 

The "independent Ulster" men play 

on the ignorance of the British people. 

Ill | R WELLBELOVED, since his conversion, has been the 

best known advocate of the "withdraw the troops" 

policy. Mr Tam Dalyell improved upon it by adding, 

"within days rather than weeks." 

And a huge lobby of 

ultra-leftists has been busy for some time. 

That sections of the British .people should seriously 

begin to consider a withdrawal from Ireland is a welcome 

thing. 

That England should get out of Ireland, lock stock 

and barrel, is questioned by no Irish nationalist or 

republican. But there is more to this. The usual objection 

to immediate withdrawal of troops is that there would "be 

a bloodbath". 

Judging by the fact that Mr West will not 

sit down with Mr Fitt, and for all we know he may not 

represent the extreme of bigotry, there are serious grounds 

for alarm. When the proposal was first mooted in the 

House of Commons Mr Fitt flew to London at once. 

So it 

is a proposal which does not seem to alarm Mr West, but 

does alarm Mr Fitt, and is thus but one more means of 

intimidating the Catholic minority, who are as we said, 

part of the majority of the people of Ireland. 

One trouble is that many people have been conditioned 

to think of imperialism merely as a military thing, as if the 

only thing English in Ireland was the armed forces. 

Connolly dealt with this confusion in many a striking passage. 

It is necessary to ask a simple question. When 

English troops are withdrawn who then controls security? 

It is presumably not seriously contended that there should 

be no security forces at all. 

And again, when English 

troops are withdrawn whom do the.six counties belong to? 

The exact parellel between "independent Ulster" and 

"withdraw the troops immediately" is well illustrated. 

If 

the troops are withdrawn and the six counties still form 

part of" the United Kingdom, then in essence we are back 

to 1967. People may talk about agreements between 

extremists on both sides. 

But even so the majority would 

carry most weight, and the people of the rest of Ireland 

would still be denied then- rights as a majority in a part 

of their own country. 

It is impossible to escape the issue 

of partition, because it is the fundamental cause of all 

the trouble. 

UUPI'OSING there was a "bloodbath", could it be confined 

1 

to the six counties? 

Would public opinion not force 

the Republic to be embroiled? 

Then we might have a 

situation where the United Nations had to intervene. 

And 

what would they do? Probably insist on shifting the 

frontier to where they could effectively man it and thus 

we would have a fresh partition. 

In the foregoing paragraphs some of the maladies and 

nostrums currently under discussion have been touched 

upon. Now we return to the core. Let us suppose that 

England wants to get out of Ireland. 

Thanks not to their 

own fault but to the actions of past English Governments, 

the Irish cannot agree as to how their island should be 

governed. Whom does England hand over to? How do 

you know the section that is entitled to speak for the 

whole? The answer is extremely simple, so babyishly 

simple that people can't see it. That section is the 

majority. 

In the first place then England should inform 

the representatives of the majority of the Irish people, 

namely the Dublin Government, thaj, she proposes to 

withdraw. 

Withdrawal in this sense does not mean the 

late Mr Crossman's policy of bringing out the troops while 

the powder barrel is smoking, but continuing the 

English 

claim to the territory and hoping to go on governing the 

Irish when they've got tired of knocking each other 

about. 

It means the total, final and absolute renunciation' 

of all claim to one inch of Irish soil. It means recognising 

that the Government of Ireland is a matter for the Irish 

alone. It is not doing a Katanga, or "Ulsterising" England's 

war against Ireland. 

Almost certainly the Dublin Government would be 

willing to work out with the Westminster Government the 

ways and means by which the return of the six counties 

to Irish sovereignty could be worked out. 

Dublin would 

want England to get out of the six counties in such a way 

as not to set them alight. 

If the process would have to 

be gradual, no matter,: so long as it was sure. 

The 

position would be that having renounced control of the six 

counties, England would be requested by Dublin to hold 

them on trust for a temporary period while the Irish people 

sorted out the complex and inevitable problems of how 

to reintegrate their territory. 

The manner of England's 

withdrawal is not a unilateral question to be solved 

on 

purely English considerations. 

The Irish have rights in 

the matter. 

It is not satisfactory if a burglar goes into 

your house, sets the furniture on fire in your best room, 

and then walks calmly out with the key in his pocket leaving 

it for you to break in and put the fire out. 

'THE key to getting out of Ireland, and retaining good 

relations between the two countries thereafter. 

Is 

the renunciation before the world of the claim to 

Irish 

soil. 

This could in political terms take the form of a 

declaration of intent. 

But at a certain point Parliament 

would have to pass an Act of Renunciation similar to that 

passed in the days of Grattan and Flood, or some other 

appropriate instrument. 

Withdraw the troops without renouncing 

the claim to Irish soil and handing it back to its 

rightful owners, and you have chaos. 

Renounce the claim 

to Irish soil and enter discussions on giving it back, and 

the troops can remain temporarily on an agreed basis 

without injuring the course of progress. 

The important 

question is "whose country - 

is it," not "what armed forces 

are there in it". 

It may be argued that a declaration of intent of this 

kind would drive the Orangemen totally up the wall. 

There is a very important new feature however which this 

policy possesses and no other ever possessed. 

The Ireland 

Act of 1949 guaranteed the Unionists that England would 

always enable them to veto the wish of the majority of the 

people of Ireland for national unity. 

All the rioting, the 

intimidating, the shooting, the industrial action has been 

directed towards activating that veto. 

While England's 

guarantee holds, blackmail is permanently possible. Remove 

the guarantee and there 

is nothing to activate. . The 

guarantee to maintain partition is a monstrous one. 

Why 

should England guarantee one section of the Irish people . 

rather than another? 

She has in the past guaranteed the 

territorial integrity of other countries. 

Why does she not 

guarantee the territorial integrity of Ireland? 

That would 

be worth guaranteeing, not its dismemberment. 

For those who want political questions solved in five 

minutes this may not seem an attractive policy. But they 

should look back into history and they would then conclude 

that instant solutions never happened in the past and are 

unlikely to happen in the present. 

That there would of 

necessity be a transitional 

period, the length of which 

cannot be foreseen, in which the forces of democracy and 

the Labour movement could work for the reconciliation 

of the divided communities in the six counties, and work 

constructively across the temporarily surviving border, is in 

line with historical developments throughout the world. 

But the time would be very short in comparison with the 

long centuries of English oppression in Ireland. 

On this view the weakness of Sunningdale was not 

that it went too far in pleasing the Republic. 

Its weakness 

was that it did not go far enough. 

This talk about an 

Irish dimension is all very well. In our view as far as the 

future of Ireland is concerned no other dimension than an 

Irish dimension is required. The only dimension there 

should be an Irish one. 

What is wanted is that England 

should now decide to offer ..the six counties to Ireland, and 

Ireland should then decide how she takes them. 

In the 

meantime during the interim period England should follow 

Irish advice on how she governs them. 

We willingly grant that this policy would be fraught 

with difficulties. We have only made clear the principles on 

which it would be founded. 

But we have no right to offer 

solutions to matters of detail. 

These would have to be 

thrashed out by the Irish people. 

Give them the power 

to do it


THE IRISH DEMOCRAT 7 

QH, 

DANNY 

BOY 

Danny boy. the pipes, the pipes are calling, 

From glen to glen and down the mountainside. 

The summer's gone, and all the roses falling - 

'tis you, 'tis you must go and I must bide. 

But come you back when summer's in the meadow, 

Or when the fields are hushed and white with snow, 

It's I'll be here in sunshine or in shadow, 

Oh Danny boy, oh Danny boy, I love you so. 

But if you come, and all the flowers are dying, 

If I am dead, and dead I well may be, 

You'll come and find the place where I am lying, 

And kneel and say an Ave there for me ; 

And I shall hear, though soft your tread above me, 

And all my grave will warmer, sweeter be, 

And you will bend and tell me that you love me 

And I shall rest in peace until you come to me. 

tf I should live, and you should die for Ireland 

Let not your dying prayer be all for me, 

But say a prayer to God for our dear sireland 

And He will hear, and surely set her free ; 

And I will take your pike and place, my dearest, 

I'll strike a blow, though weak that blow may be 

To aid the cause which to our hearts is nearest 

And I shall sleep in peace when Ireland's free. 

THE STAR OF DONEGAL 

QNE evening fair to take the air along I chanced to stray 

Down by the lovely silvery streams that flowed along the way ; 

II beard two lovers talking down by a ruined hall 

And the fair one's name was Mary Jane, the Star of Donegal. 

"My lovely maid," the youth, he said, "I'm going across the foam, 

Unto the land of stars and stripes where peace and plenty flow ; 

IHwant your faithful promise that you'll wed none at all 

ItUitil I do return to you, the Star of Donegal." 

She blushed and sighed and then replied, "It grieves my heart fuM 

sore 

To know that you're compelled to go and leave your Shamrock 

Shore; 

Mere is my faittiful promise that I'll wed none at all 

BUt-stay at home and never roam from the land of Donegal." 

"My. lovaty maid," the youth, he said, "at home I cannot stay 

For California's fertile fields I bound to cross the sea, 

To.accumulate a fortune great to build a splendid hall 

To decorate and cultivate the land'of Donegal." 

"My lovely maid," the youth then said, "my darling well you know 

Hove you very dearly and loath I am to go, 

Let


MICHAEL O'RIORDAN 

SPEAKS IN LONDON 

THE 1974 James Connolly Mvmo- 

' rial lecture organised by Central 

London Connolly Association 

was delivered by Mr Michael 

ORiordan at the Euston Hall. Enston 

Road, London, on Sunday 

afternoon. May 12th. 1974. The hall, 

which holds 100, was completely 

filled. 

Mr O'Riordan's subject was the 

application of the teachings of 

James Connolly to Ireland today, 

and the lecturer gave many 

examples of progressive changes 

which are taking place in the 

country. 

He stressed the importance of a 

united struggle of the Irish people 

and the British working class, and 

called on those present to urge a 

complete change in the present 

British Government's bipartisan 

policy. 

A resolution was passed which 

called on the democratically-minded 

sections of the British public to 

send messages to their MPs demanding 

the repeal not the amendment 

of the Emergency Powers Act. 

The amendment was carried out on 

May 14th but not before many 

telegrams and messages of protest 

had been sent. 

TELEGRAMS 

URGE REPEAL 

S a result of the appeal made 

-t*- V at the Connolly Association 

meeting addressed last Sunday by 

General Secretary of the Communist 

Party of Ireland, Michael 

O'Riordan, a number of telegrams 

demanding the repeal of the Emergency 

Provisions Act were sent to 

the Home Secretary and Members 

of Parliament. These included one 

from eight shop stewards of the 

E.M.I. Electronic Works in Hayes, 

Middlesex, representing five trade 

unions. 

SHORT LIF& 

EARLY DEATH 

(Continued from Pag« Four) 

Sunningdale Council of Ireland 

could lead to the end of Partition; 

for it did not disturb Britain's 

sovereignty in Ireland in the 

slightest, as William Whitelaw 

noted as its pale shade passed into 

history. 

What should matter, though, to 

every democrat in these islands is 

the manner of its passing — the 

lawlessness beyond belief permitted 

by the British Government until 

the Council of Ireland was got rid 

of, the continued British tolerance 

of the Orange private armies, whose 

emergence and expansion was permitted 

by Heath and the Tories and 

the repeated willingness to pay the 

price of Loyalist blackmail. 

And beneath all the surface 

vacillations of British policy was 

the common current of Labour and 

Tory bipartisanship, united in engulfing 

all obstacles which impeded 

the continued exercise of Britain's 

sovereignty in Ireland. 

At Westminster the wearisome 

false-formula was tossed back and 

forth from the Labour to the Tory 

benches: "There will be no change 

in the status of Northern Ireland 

without the consent of the people 

of the area." They baulked at 

making clear that the British 

people and the Government are 

wholly within their rights in seeking 

to end the Union. They hesitated 

to make the declaration of 

intent on disengagement which 

would cut the political ground from 

under the Orangemen, while at the 

same time, paradoxically, opening a 

constructive path forward for them, 

in negotiating the arrangements for 

a new, united Ireland. 

And daily the cost, in lives and 

misery and unhappiness in Ireland, 

of Labour and Tory bipartisanship 

grew higher. 

Printed by Ripley Printers Ltd. 

(T.U.), Nottingham Road, Ripley, 

Derbyshire, and published by 

Connolly Pobjications Ltd., ait 

283 Grays Inn Rd., London, W.C.I. 

J 1 HAT summer was one of the 

finest 1 can remember and 

during the long dinne- breaks 

when we were working away 

out in the country I would often 

go exploring the little village 

graveyards, reading the faded 

inscriptions on the slanting 

tombstones and inspecting the 

centuries - old brown stone 

churches. In rural Ireland apart 

from the very ancient buildings 

that remain there seems to be 

precious little of the architechtural 

heritage of the last few 

hundred years left to us and 

even the thatched cottages 

which could truly be called an 

example of native Irish architecture 

have all but gone, giving 

way in many cases to dwellings 

of the starkest ugliness— 

though I am happy to say that 

the trend now seems to be towards 

nicely-facaded individualistic 

homes far ahead of most of 

what we see going up on the 

outskirts of most British towns 

and cities today. 

One country church which I 

took some notes on had the following 

intriguing inscription 

fust inside the porch of the 

main door : 

V ORTHAMPTON people are now 

availing themselves of the services 

of the Connolly Association 

in the area. Speaking to the local 

Communist Party Peter Mulligan 

said that if the Labour Party did 

not abandon their bi-partisanship 

on the Irish Question, the combined 

forces of the Conservative 

and Unionist Party could destroy it 

like it destroyed the Liberal Party. 

Alternatively, H it took the initiative 

and declared its intentions of 

leaving Ireland it could strengthen 

the Labour Movement and free 

Britain from the reactionary Unionist 

Party. 

Later speaking to the Co-op 

Women's Guild he discovered strdng 

feelings against the way the Government 

were usinjj the troops as 

political pawns in their endeavour 

to win a military victory. Concern 

: 

Brother, this door doth open 

stand for thee that thou 

may enter 

Rest think and pray 

Remember whence thou art 

And what shall be thine end 

Remember us then go thy way 

And God be with thee. 

This was in the Parish Church 

of St. Botolph in Chapel 

Brampton, Northamptonshire, 

and there is, too, a long list of 

the rectors of the parish dating 

back to the 13th "Century.AS in 

St. Mary's Cathedral, Kilkenny, 

where there is a similar list of 

the Bishops of Ossory, the Norman 

names predominate at the 

beginning to give way to the 

native English (and in Kilkenny, 

Irish, ones); but in St. Bototph's 

two of them for some reason or 

another are referred to as "intruders." 

These are 1644 Richard Trewman 

AM and 1655 John Ventris. 

The terrible mortality rate of 

those times can be judged from 

' the many families recorded as 

' dying within a short period— 

one household of 12 perished 

from some disease the name of 

which 1 do not remember now 

within days of each other. 

Most of the other members of 

the gang were sublimely indifferent 

to the old rural churchyards 

and indeed to almost any- 

IBS ISII l \ B R I T A I N 

mmm 

SERIAL STORY 

by 

DONALL 

MacAMHLAIGH 

thing not directly connected 

with the work, the pools or the 

public house, but one day we 

got around to the subject of religion 

and a belief or otherwise 

in a life after death. One man, a 

cable-jointer of fixed agnostic 

views, declared that nobody 

could know whether there was 

or was not a God in it, that it 

was idle to speculate and that 

even if there was, He obviously 

had nothing to do with humankind 

good bad or indifferent. 

"You make your own hell 

or heaven on Earth up to a 

point," my man said, "and 

other people have a hand in it, 

too. Now my old woman's 

only reason for living is to 

make my life a misery, so 

even if there WAS an after 

life it couldn't be any worse 

than this * ! * / But there is 

no after life, of course: when 

you die you go down in a hole 

and that's the end of it." 

"Oh hold on, mate," this 

young lad catted, "I ain't a- 

havin§ that. Sttuff that for a 

tale!" 

jyOBODY demurred at this except 

a young chap, who to 

put it bluntly, was almost 

completely illiterate, had 

scarcely ever gone to school, 

never read a newspaper or 

tried to inform himself much 

about anythingJt&tjefrhq nevertheless 

had tfTyeiy Intelligence 

and a great sense of humour. 

"What do ou mean you 

bloody ij , 'Stuff that 

for a ta e jointer demanded, 

nei "Vm just 

stating a p bloofnin' fact: 

when you it they put 

you down 

bleeding 

hole and t yqu—a feast 

for the woi Fini, kaput, 

write-off!" 

3 

"No, no, 1 parft 'ave that," 

the other persisted. "It fust 

don't seem tight: I mean, if 

there ain't nothing—if there 

ain't nothing at the end of all 

this but toJRa feast for the 

blinkin' worms as you say— 

well, there ain't no bloomin' 

point, is there ?" 

was expressed oyftr the rising level 

of acceptable a violence which 

would in time taken up by ordinary 

criminal ^elements in this 

country and eventually Britain 

could become |oe America. 

Some mothw* In the audience 

had relatives Sajhe Army who told 

them that Britain could never solve 

an Irish probleni that was up to the 

Irish people themselves, and the 

sooner that Britain declared its intention 

to withdraw, the sooner the 

Irish people would form an alternative 

to that foisted on them by the 

Wilson Government. 

All present expressed concern at 

the cost of maintaining Britain's 

presence when it was obvious that 

in time she wojild have to take the 

same path that w a s taken in Aden, 

Cyprus, Africa, etc.—withdrawal. 

Perhaps the saying in cost might 

reduce the rates one woman said. 

"What point do you want ?" 

the jointer asked him. "What 

do you mean?" 

"I mean there's got to be a 

point, ain't there ?" 

"You tell me—has there ? 

Why has there got to be a 

point ?" 

"Well, because there HAS. I 

mean, we wouldn't go through 

all this, getting born, and 

working and living and rearing 

kids and all the rest of it 

if there wasn't summat else at 

the end of it all. Not just 

going down into an 'ole and 

being ate up by- creepycrawlies. 

Naw, I won't 'ave 

that!" 

"You won't, because you're 

just an ignorant, superstitious 

Christian." 

"Him a Christian? Paddy 

From Towcester put in, outraged. 

Paddy From Towcester 

might not be a very exemplary 

Christian himself but he had 

very definite ideas as to what 

made a Christian, and an 

ordinary non-Catholic English 

working lad did not come into 

his category. "I don't see how 

you can call HIM a Christian, 

Jointer. The bleddy man has 

never been to Church in his 

life." 

"No, Pat, I ain't saying I'm 

a Christian, I ain't never read 

the Bible or owt like that but 

I-can't believe that when you 

die there ain't nothing at all. 

oafy -t^ be-butted tike d> cofi*^ 

or a sheep. Bugger that for c 

tale, I'm not 'aving that!" 

/ 1 have often thought about 

that and how there must be 

many and many a clergyman 

who would envy that kind of unquestioning 

faith. I have thought 

of it, too, in relation to Socialism 

for it seems to me that 

many socialists cannot reconcile 

certain things like a belief in 

some religion or disapproval of 

abortion with their socialistic 

beliefs. It does not seem to me 

to follow that if you wish to 

see the dreams of say, Marx or 

Connolly realised, that you automatically 

approve of measures 

like wholesale legalised abortion. 

Things like this are a 

sticking point for many of us 

who desire a world run on sane, 

socialistic lines. 

(More next month) 

Northampton Cooperators hear Peter Mulligan 

A good audience attended the 

showing of "Mise Eire" at the 

Guildhall, Northampton, on May 

30th. Anyone interested in helping 

the Connolly Association in Northampton 

should contact Peter Mulligan, 

37 Great Holme Court, Northampton, 

NN31YD. 

\ BOUT 25 people attended the 

- first ever Connolly Association 

indoor meeting in Huddersfleld, 

Yorkshire. The meeting was opened 

by Mr Sean Meehan, who criticised 

the Press for misrepresenting the 

position in Ireland. 

He referred to the evils of internment, 

the sectarian murders 

that go unchecked, and the alleged 

C.A. Conference 

THE long sentence in a resolution 

deploring proposals fc 

withdrawing British troops ane 

handing over the six counties tc 

the Unionist extremists, passed at 

the Connolly Association Conference 

ran: "If England now nc 

longer wants the six counties she 

tore from the Irish Republic she 

should give them back to those they 

belong to, the Irish people as a 

whole.'' This means a declaration 

of intent and its implementation in 

consultation with Dublin. 

"P LECTED to the Executive 

^ Council were: Pat Bond, Toni 

Curran, Gerard Curran, Mark 

Clinton, Desmond Greaves, Tony 

Donaghy,. Lennie Draper, Sean 

Kenny, Jane Tate, Alf Ward, 

Michael Crowe, Charlie Cunningham, 

Pat ODonohoe and Pete- 

Mulligan. 

SHEET METAL 

RESOLUTION 

THE folowing resolution was sucmitted 

to the Biennial Conference 

of the Sheetmetal Workers' 

Union held at the Winter Gardens, 

Eastbourne, during the first week of 

June, 1974: 

"This conference expresses concern 

at the difficulties imposed on 

the trade union organisation by 

the continuance of military rule 

in Northern Ireland. 

It urges all sections of the 

Labour Movement to dissociate 

themselves from Conservative 

policy and trusts that when a 

Labour Government is returned 

every effort will be made to fir.c; 

a solution. 

This necessitates the end of internment 

and the granting of fit;; 

civil rights to all, the withdraw..! 

Of the armed forces from security 

duties and a constant effort to 

encourage the reconciliation ol 

^ the divided comunities based cn 

the principle of allowing th€ 

Irish people to solve the problems 

of Ireland." 

LEICESTER 

CITY COUNCIL 

BANS IRISH 

MEETING 

TIT HEN the Connolly Association 

' * Executive Council met in the 

City of Leicester on Sunday, April 

28th, it was intended to hold an 

outdoor public meeting in the Town 

Hall Square. 

Great indignation was expressed 

in progressive circles when the 

Council banned the meeting, and 

refused to permit the Square to be 

used. 

The local Connolly group are 

determined to fight this ban. and a 

further meeting is toeing planned 

for Sunday, July 7th. 

Leicester is an exceptionally 

backward city. Public open air meetings 

used to be held in the Market 

Place, but when organisations of 

the Left recently tried to revive the 

practice police swooped on the 

speakers and arrested the lot of 

them lor "obstruction." 

Like Manchester, Leicester r.C"v 

has no "Speakers' Corner." 

Connolly meeting in Huddersfield 

involvement of the Special Air fcvices. 

He also attacked efforts '< 

stir up anti-Irish feeling in Brita:!". 

A speaker from the local Comm - 

nist Party also said a few won - 

and drew a parallel between N( 

thern Ireland and Chile, when 

reactionary junta had seized po - ' • 

and were systematically perse< 

ing the progressive population

Irish Democrat June 1974

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