Irish Democrat January 1990

Founded 1939 Organ of the Connolly Association IrVio 557 January 1990 

1990: THE YEAR FOR EN 

I! 

| 

AT least five people have 

died on British building 

sites since a lobby of the 

House of Commons eight 

weeks ago organised by the 

Construction Safety Campaign, 

its chair told a 

meeting of the Connolly 

Association in London 

recently. 

One hundred and sixty 

people, an average of over 3 

a week, were killed in the 

construction industry in 

1988. Most of them were 

Irish and almost all of the 

deaths could have been 

avoided if proper safety 

standards were imposed on 

the industry according to 

Tommy Finn, the campaign's 

chair. No employer 

SLAIMTER BN THE 

has ever been imprisoned for 

causing the death of a 

building worker. 

The Construction Safety 

campaign was set up three 

years ago to highlight the 

growing number of deaths 

on building sites. It lobbies 

inquests on almost a weekly 

basis, leaflets and pickets 

unsafe sites and organises 

demonstrations. On 19th 

October it held a huge lobby 

of Parliament attended bv 

over 1,000 workers. Its 

demands, which' include 

mandatory prison'sentences 

for employers where proven 

negligence has caused a 

death, have been backed by 

240 MPs. 

1989 was the year when Michael Meacher, shadow Minister for Employment pledged a future 

Labour Government would end the "kid glove" treatment for greedy and careless employers 

in the construction industry. It was at the Construction Safety Conference in May. No jail 

sentences have yet been imposed for criminal negligence which has caused many deaths 

among building workers. 

The construction industry has 

boomed in recent years and with 

profits running into the billions the 

average fine of just over £1,000, for 

negligent employers is clearly no 

deterrent. The goverrfment's inspectorate 

estimates that at least a quarter 

of all sites are currently unsafe but 

with only 90 inspectors to cover the 

whole country it is a woefully 

inadequate policing body. Employers 

hide behind the system of sub 

contracting and lump labour to avoid 

responsibility for safety and use 

blacklists and the threat of instant 

dismissal to force men to work unsafe 

sites. Major construction companies 

donated about half a million pounds' 

to the Conservative Party last year 

and have put pressure on the media, 

through advertising contracts, to 

ensure a conspiracy of silence on the 

issue. 

According to Mr Finn, only 

nationalisation of the building 

industry can really stop the slaughter 

on the sites but in the meantime there 

was a need for registration. Unionisation 

and proper training fdr all 

building workers. Local authorities 

should refuse to employ contractors 

with bad safety records and the 

Labour and trade union movement 

should make the demands of the 

campaign a major political issue, he 

said... /..;,.: 

CONOR FOLEY 

Members' 

[ Meeting ! 

Wednesday, 8th Jan. 

' — 8.00 pm — 

• , • 

COMMUNITY CENTRE 

Marchmont Street, 

( London WC1 

-4— 

Irish Glasgow meeting warns of 

erosion of civil liberties 

A SEMINAR organised by th. 

Glasgow Branckof the ConnOfly 

Association heard speakers call for a 

campaign for civil liberties in Britain 

and Ireland. The seminar entitled 

'The Erosion of Civil Liberties in 

Britain and Ireland' held on 2 

December in the TGWU Halls, 

Glasgow, was attended, by Trade 

Unionists from MSF, Nalgo, TGWU, 

members of the Labour party and 

iiish community, along with local CA 

members. 

It was chaired by Donald Mcintosh 

fiom Nalgo Scottish Region and the 

main speakers were Allan Millarfrom 

the Scottish Council for Civil 

Liberties, Martin Moriarty from the 

C'A secretariat and Keviti McCorry 

from the Campaign For Democracy. 

Each of the speakers took up a 

1 

different theme. 

Allan Millar outlined the SCCI's 

opposition to the PTA on the basis of 

it being anti-democratic and anti- 

Irish. It was used he said to exclude 

people from travelling between 

Ireland and the mainland land allowed 

Write to Home Secretary urges Paddy Mdlkenny 

A CONCERNED audience attended 

a Birmingham 6 public meeting in 

Sheffield Memorial Hall on 

December 14, 1989. 

The meeting, chaired by Eddie 

Keane of the Sheffield Birmingham 6 

Campaign heard first from Conor 

Foley of the Guildford 4 Campaign 

who outlined its background in 

relation to the Birmingham 6, 

warning people against complacency 

and leaving the campaign to 

politicians. 

The second sp ^ker, Bob 

Woffinden, author of 'Miscarriages of 

Justice', concentrated on some of the 

legal procedures which have kep the 

Birmingham 6 wrongly imprisoned 

for 14 years; the police jumping to 

wrong conclusions initially then 

covering-up; the top-heavy security at 

the 1975 trial to intimate guilt to the 

turv; the refusal to grant leave to 

appeal in 1976 despite unreliable 

forensic evidence; the stopping of the 

Birmingham 6's civil action for their 

injuries against the police; the Home 

Office's delaying tactics and the selfregulating 

Appeal Court system 

whereby it is deemed better to 

imprison the innocent than show how 

fallible the law can be. „ 

Woffinden described the 

Birmingham 6 Appeal in 1987 as 'a 

fraudulent exercise' and said 'dealing 

with Whitehall was like dealing in an 

ethical vacuum'. 

He thought there was more public 

awareness and support after the two 

World In Action programmes and 

Chris Mullins' book and saw the 

present situation as a conflict between 

"an" executive facing an increasingly 

incredulous public and an unelected 

judiciary whose credibility would 

wane even more by the release of the 

six. However 'with just a little huffing, 

we'll blow this house down and get the 

release of the six' he stated. 

Paddy McDkenny, brother of 

Richard, one oftthe six, spoke of the 

recent de-grading — wnich means 

they are not now considered IRA 

members. It meant that pressure does 

work and should be ma&ttained. He 

wanted the six released fas innocent 

men, not as pardoned men; the tetter 

would carry a stigma of guilt, and the 

guilt, he continued, belonged to the 

police — the West Midlands Serious 

Crime Squad in particular — and the 

judiciary. Lords Bridge, Denning and 

Lane especially. 

He urged individuals and groups to 

write to the Home Secretary at SO 

Queen Anne's Gate, Ldodon SW1H 

9AT expressing their disgust at the 

continued and unjust imprisonment 

of the six. 

A collection was heldaad questions 

answered by the speakers. 

i\>plice to arrest anyone on any 

| grounds with no right to know of any 

evidence and Without access to 

lawyers or families-He-went onto say 

that the PTA had nothing to do with 

combating terrorism but was a means 

of harassment and intelligence 

gathering. This was backed up by 

Home Office statistics which showed 

that 90% of those arrested were 

released without charge and most of 

the rest either having charged 

dropped or being aquitted. He called 

for greater vigilance when people are 

arrested and charged with terrorist 

offences and all basic rights fly out the 

window. 

Martin Moriarty dealt with 

censorship and the media. He pointed 

out the legal constraints being put on 

access to news and information on 

Ireland — contempt of court being 

widely abused to silence any media 

criticism — the PTA being used to 

' prevent journalists from protecting 

their sources and he warned of them 

being used as -an information 

gathering service, forced to handover 

film and photographs — the use of the 

Official Secrets Act to prevent the 

reporting of Army activities. He said 

that all of these amount to the most 

senous suspension of civil liberties in 

peacetime. 

Kevin McCorry outlined the 

situation in the North of Ireland. He 

said that a fundamental area of 

" I ' M 70ST MAKMFR A LIST OF OOR. 

. MEW YEAR'S *ESOU>TIOHS;&6A«»> 

m 

strtiggle for .progressives should 

centre round the question of civil 

liberties, which he claimed were a 

barometer of the health of the state 

and society. 

He gave an account of the extent of 

the role of the security forces in the 

North and its extensive intelligence 

gathering operations, saying that 

75,000 arrests had been made between 

1971-86, mostly young working-class 

youths. Sweeping house searches were 

made, causing extensive damage to 

peoples' homes. 

Kevin concluded by saying that the 

North was a sick society in-terms of civil 

liberties and that it was a democratic cause 

to fight the repression which exists there. 

The seminar split into 3 workshops, 

discussing in more detail, the PTA, 

censorship and the media and also one 

introduced by Pat McAteer on the IrisW 

Community in Scotland. 

This was followed by a final plenary 

session in which there were reports from 

the workshops and general discussion. 

There was broad agreement of the points 

raised by the speakers with the main 

concern being the reluctance of Trade 

Unions to become involved on the Irish 

question, but there were signs that they 

were more willing to take up the issue of 

civil liberties. 

Both Kevin McCorry and Martin 

Mc.iarty in their replies highlighted the 

need to build a broad struggle around 

achie-'able demands such as civil liberties 

and the PTA, while not losing sight of the 

long term aim of British withdrawal from 

Ireland. 

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Page Two 

LONDON SCENE 

innisfee AGM 

I HE dynamic growth of the Londonbased 

Innisfree Housing Association 

from its small beginnings some years 

ago is history in the making and is 

going to be something big, its annual 

meeting at Brent Town Hall was told 

Chairman and NALGO member 

T im Hartnett told how Innisfree was 

formed in 1985 by a small group ol 

Irish trade unionists in north west 

London who wished to provide 

housing for the many single homeless 

and badly-housed Irish people in the 

a rea 

He said that the association nou 

manages forty properties throughout 

north west London, providing 

accommodation for over I00 people, 

and a shared housing scheme in 

C'ricklewood for single homeless 

people aged over 35. 

"When Innisfree, the first Irish 

housing association in Britain, 

attained registration with the Housing 

Corporation in January 1989 it 

signified an historic, official 

recognition of the needs of Irish 

homeless people", he said. 

"The door is now open for other 

Irish housing associations to follow, 

as there is a great need. Innisfree is 

particularly concerned with the older 

single homeless with a history of 

living in hostels, lodgings or sleeping 

rough". 

"Our efforts in the year ahead will 

be concentrated on the plight of 

young Irish emigrants, whose housing 

difficulties present them with severe 

problems and who do not qualify for 

local authority housing". 

The meeting was addressed by guest 

speakers. Labour Councillor Mike 

Nlagloire, chairman of Brent's 

housing committee; David Page of the 

National Federation of Housing 

Associations; and NALGO member 

Mars Connolly of Haringey council's 

Irish unit. 

Brent Housing Committee 

chairman, Cllr. Mike Ma_ ire 

thanked Innisfree for the work it does 

in the community and for housing in 

general. He said he had been around 

to see its beginning and had since 

followed its progress. 

"I remember the early days when 

the Council was approached and 

decided that it would fund a worker. It 

took some persuasion it was not easy, 

but at the end of the day the Council 

g.ive way and that worker was 

employed. 

"I remember the subsequent battles 

Innisfree had to get registratfon with 

the Housing Corporation. The 

Council fullv supported this initiative 

and l am now pleased to come here 

and see that registration is a matter of 

the past 

"In a situation where the 

government is funding the Housing 

C orporation more and more, rather 

than local authorities, it is quite right 

that the Irish community should have 

a general needs housing association 

which can look after the interests and 

the particular housing needs of Irish 

people. 

"I hiive always wondered and I 

have always said, how this didn't 

happen years and years ago; in m> 

view it's come years too late, but never 

mind; I know that Innisfree fs going to' 

do a good job with the resources if is 

going to be given. 

"Brent Council is determined that 

ethnic housing associations like 

THE IRISH DEMOCRAT 

Mm 

Irish Trade Unionists 

victims of 

Innisfree should survive, and support 

and help should be given to them. We 

have a formal agreement with the 

major housing associations that they 

must work with smaller ones. 

"I am pleased to see that work is 

being developed by Innisfret together 

with these big associations and I know 

that the latest proposals to secure 

additional accommodation is very 

much appreciated by the Council 

"I hope that Innisfree will continue 

to grow stronger and stronger as a 

viable housing association which can 

provide decent housing for Irish 

people in particular and for the 

community in general. 

"I believe that we have seen history 

in the making. We have seen 

something started a few years ago 

which is going to continue well into 

the future and which is going to be 

something big" 

Employ more Irish 

housing departments 

told 

LOCAL authority housing" 

departments cannot claim to be' 

concerned about racial equality unless 

they make ethnic record keeping' a 

priority and employ Irish staff to 

reflect the local community, 

according to an Irish housing adviser 

in London. 

Monaghan-born NALGO trade 

union activist Mary Connolly, who 

formerly worked for Brent housing 

service, is now Haringey's Irish 

housing policy officer — the first post 

of its kind — and a founder member 

of the Innisfree Housing Association. 

She told the association's recent 

annual general meeting at Brent Town 

Hall that there is now more than 

enough evidence to show that the Irish 

in London are severely disadvantaged, 

especially in the housing 

field. , 

"Innisfree is struggling, despite all 

the constraints of limited resources, to 

try and meet some of the needs within 

our community. It has come a long 

way in the last few years and is still 

growing 

"At the same time that this is 

happening the demand for housing 

from the Irish community is growing 

Emigration from Ireland is now on 

parallel with what it was in the I950's 

but this is still largely ignored by the 

major institutions 

"Innisfree is a small organisation 

trying to meet some of the needs but it 

cannot and should not be seen as 

making up in any way for the 

shortcomings and th£ failures of local 

authorities and the housing 

associations movement. 

"Although there is enormous 

pressure on local authority housing 

departments, there is continuing 

unwillingness to monitor the situation 

of Irish people and to tackle 

discrimination in this area, and I think 

that is unacceptable 

"A recent report from the London 

Research Centre highlights the dismal 

record of local authorities in keeping 

ethnic records. If councils are still not 

monitoring the needs in their areas, 

thfen ho*' can they claim to be 

concerned 1 abour equality of 

trtfitmenf 

"HoW can local, authorities 

overcome disicnrriitlation if they are 

not even carrying out this basic 

DONAL Mc CRAITH 

activity? I would like to say to local 

authorities that ethnic record keeping 

has to be a priority. ' 

"Housing departments should be 

employing Irish staff and recruiting 

from the local Irislrcdmmunity. Most 

councils claim to be equal 

opportunit\ employers but some 

housing offices have no Irish staff, 

and that is not acceptable. 

"Local authorities should be 

profiling Irish housing needs with 

government sponsored bodies like the 

Housing Corporation and the 

Commission for Racial Equality. 

"Housing associations must 

monitor the housing needs of the Irish 

community. The National Federation 

should include an, Irish dimension 

within its structure and ensure access 

to underspent funds for emerging 

ethnic housing associations." 

Innisfree Housing Association 

made histor\ when Jt started work on 

converting a house in Kilburn into 

three flats — the first development by 

an Irish housing association to be 

funded by the Housing Corporation. 

The association is' based at 296 

Willesden Lane, London NW2 5HW 

(01-541 5199). 

EC directive on 

PARENTS and teachers within the 

Irish community are getting together 

to demand that local education 

authorities throughout Britain 

include the Irish language and culture 

(including music, dance and history) 

on the curriculum. 

For decades classes in Irish dance 

and music for children have been 

' organised in the major Irish areas in 

the evenings and weekends by 

teachers and parents. And in recent 

years there has been a growth in Irish 

language classes. 

Irish community groups claim that 

a 1977 directive from the European 

Community on "the education of the 

children of migrant workers" 

requiring schools to provide tuition in 

the language and culture of the 

country of origin (Ireland) has been 

ignored by Britain. 

Dance group 

showered 

with awards 

LONDON'S Irish Drama and Folk 

Dance Company is delighted with a 

recent cash boost to its coffers. It beat 

30 other entrants to win a £500 award 

through the Greater London Arts 

youth dance awards scheme. 

The company, which works in a 

number of London boroughs, is also 

to receive £5,000 from the London 

Boroughs Grants Scheme. The 

additional funds have been welcomed 

by its director Rosemary Kennedy, a 

native of Athenry, Qo. Galway 

The awards are a recognition of the 

dedication and hard work by 

Rosemary and her choreographer 

colleague Lillian Massey from Dun 

Laoghaire, Co Dublin over the past 

few years to create one of the few 

professional groups of its kind 

The group, has already received 

awards from the Iq$h Post, Celtic 

Drama Festival and Waltham Forest 

Drama FestiV&l and last morttfi 

appeared in the^prestigious Greater 

London Arts Showcase at the 

Bloomsbury Theatre. 

Members of the company 

represented Ireland at the recent 

World Travel fair with Bord Failte 

(Irish Tourist Board)and will perform 

with the Adzido Pan African Dance 

Ensemble at the Festival of Brent in 

Willesden next month (February). 

The Irish Drama and Folk Dance 

Company have built up quite a local 

reputation with their folk ballet 

adaptations of some of Synge's 

classics performed to great acclaim to 

Irish community audiences 

throughout Britain in recent years. 

The company was recently offered 

facilities at the Irish cultural centre in 

Salusbury Road, Kilburn to run 

regular classes in dance, drama and 

technical arrangement. New members 

are welcome and may contact 

Rosemary on 01-361 0678. 

Kerry history 

on video 

KERR Y exiles will want to see the new 

video documentary, Ballyduff: A 

Place in the Kingdom of Ciar, 

produced by the Rattoo Heritage 

Society in Ballyduff, a north Kerry 

village rich in cultural and sporting 

traditions. 

In compiling the documentary, 

members of the society have put 

together a living history of north 

Kerry dating from the pre-Celtic 

settlements to the present day. The 

Ciar in the title was a local king and 

gave Kerry its Gaelic name, Ciarra'i. 

From 'Irish Democrat' 

40 years ago 

September 1949 

Churchill snubs Ireland 

THE British representatives, Churchill 

and Morrison, were conspicuous by their 

absence when the European bankrupts' 

"pass the buck" conference (of the Council 

of Europe) at Strasbourg was rudely 

disturbed by an Irish proposal that 

"United Europe" might include "United 

Ireland"... 

This was refused by eleven of the twelve 

ministers on the Council, Mr MacBride 

being the odd man out. 

Motions forfurtherdiscussion were then 

tabled by Mr MacBride, after lunching 

with Mr Bevin and Mr Norton TD. 

When conference resumed they were 

told of the existence of a previously 

unknown rule that only motions with ten 

signatures could be discussed. This means 

Ireland could never be sure of having 

anything discussed. 

Mr Norton then raised the question of 

Partition in the Consultative Assembly — 

which has no seal power — and declared: 

"I, together with other members of the 

Irish delegation deny the legal and moral 

right of Bntain to control one single inch of 

Insh territory. It belongs as it has for 1,500 

years to the Irish people, and not to other 

people. We shall never yield one single 

blade of grass of it to .any other people." 

Mr Norton made an appeal to Mr 

Churchill and Mr Morrison to end 

partition — neither of these two courteous 

gentlemen had even troubled to remain in 

the chamber 

Ground had already been cut under Mr 

Norton's speech by a speech by to Dillon 

at Raphoe the previous day, in which he 

disclosed the true basis of Inter-party 

Government foreign policy 

"The supreme interest of Ireland is to 

ensure that Anglo-American collaboration 

may be preserved " 

January 1990 

Political target 

1990 Labour Party 

"WE are the only party in Great Britain 

explicitly advocating a united Ireland. We 

are passionately committed to working 

towards that end." 

So says Mr Kevin McNamara, British 

Labour's Northern spokesman, when 

opposing a motion at Brighton in September 

calling for the withdrawal of British raleand 

troops within the lifetime of one Parliament. 

People should take Mr McNamara at his 

word. Between now and next year's 

Conference — possibly the last before a 

general election — they should seek to pin 

him down on the steps Labour could actually 

take in office to win the consent of a majority 

in the North to Irish reunification. For that 

consent can undoubtedly be won. 

No democrat can agree that Six County 

Unionists should have a right to veto a 

British Government from making the ending 

of Partition the objective of its Irish policy. 

There is no such thing as a unilateral right to 

union, though Northern Unionists like to 

speak as if there is. There are only rightsof 

separation. Thus the British Government 

and people have a perfect right to say to the 

Unionists: "We want to divorce you, but we 

want to get your agreement on the alimony 

terms!" That would be Vor Britain to do 

justice to the democratic rights of the Irish 

nationalist majority for the first time, which 

it has flouted since 1920. 

But while Britain should make Irish 

reunification its policy end, it is a matter of 

expediency, not of principle, to seek to win 

the consent of a majority in the North to the 

means of obtaining that end — that is, 

majority consent should be sought to the 

constitutional, financial and political stejwf 

which would be needed to achieve the end of 

abolishing the Border. And there is no doubt 

that the consent of a Northern majority — 

the Nationalist population plus considerable 

numbers of the present Unionist-Protestant 

community, could be won for that — if the 

British- and Irish Governments planned oat 

and took the necessary steps together. 

This therefore is the kM of resolution 

which delegates to next year's Labour 

Conference shiWld be urged to support: that 

the next Labour Government SMMH 

withdrawal from 

remMicationthec 

and should open discussions with the Irish 

Government, representing the majority of 

the Irish people, and the representatives of 

the Unionist and Nationalist communities fat 

the North of Ireland, on the political, 1 

constitutional and financial steps which 

would be needed to secure the consent of a 

majority there for that end. 

A Labour Conference resolution on these 

lines would open the way for real discussion 

on the practicalities of British 

disengagement. It would bring about real 

.political movement. It would get support id 

the Labour Centre as well as the Left. It 

would prevent discussion on the Northern 

problem from being sidetracked, like at 

Brighton this September, into details about 

dates and time-tables and troops and 

precipitate withdrawals and hypothetical 

comparisons between Belfast and Beirut. 

For those who want nothing to be done are 

only too happy to dwell on such scenarios, it 

prevents the mass of sensible Labour 

delegates from considering a policy which 

has a chance of working. 

As for the advocates of a rapid British 

withdrawal, Irish people naturally waat 

their country reunited as soon as possible. It 

must be said though that it Is wrong in 

principle for any anti-Partitionist to concede 

that Britain has a right unilaterally to set a 

date for getting out of Ireland, whether la 

one Parliament or ten of them. When Britain 

leaves Ireland-sovereignty and its meaas of 

enforcement have to be handed over to 

someone. It must be accepted by Irish 

Government simultaneously with Britain 

surrendering it. So dates and all the other 

details must be mutually agreed. 

The last time Britain \ 

set a 

date for withdrawing from one of her 

colonies - India in 1947 - there were 

short êrM 1 of time. The Indlaita were nbt 

consulted. The Irish rightly reject any such 

reactionary perspective* 

/ 


Anonn Is Anal 

THE start of another year! What will 

ft bring? Well, I'm not a betting man 

but I'll lay strong odds that it certainly 

won't bring any realistic movement 

on the part of the Westminster 

Government towards the establishment 

of a just and lasting peace in the 

North of Ireland. 

However, there is the old adage that 

a week is a long time in politics and 

you mustn't be surprised by the speed 

by which changes can be brought 

back. Just look at Eastern Europe for 

an example. Situations that have been 

thought to be as immobile as granite 

can suddenly be as pliable as 

plasticine. 

This year, for example, is the fiftieth 

anniversary of the time when the 

, British Government were quite 

prepared to allow Irish reunification. 

But De Valera felt the price was too 

high. 

It was during the summer of I940, a 

lime when Britain was in danger from 

invasion by the forces ol the Third 

iHelch, when the Low Countries had 

fallen, when Norway had been 

invaded and the Battle ol Britain was 

about to be fought. It was a time ol 

alarms and excursions' 

As the Third Reich had demonstrated 

itsell no respector ol 

neutrality, it was felt (by the Irish 

, Government ot De Valera as well as 

..by the British) that the Germanscould 

Well be preparing an invasion ol 

Ireland. Joe Walshe, Head ol the 

Department lor External Aflairs, 

along with Colonel Liam Archer, 

Director ol Irish Military Intelligence, 

were dispatched to London to discuss 

Eamon De Vatera 

matters with their British 

counterparts. Numerous secret 

meetings took place at which plans to 

counter any invasion (north or south) 

were discussed. 

The new British Prime Minister 

Winston Churchill was all for De 

Valera making an immediate request 

lor British military assistance but De 

Valera was firm on one point — he 

would not call upon British military 

assistance until after an invasion had 

begun. To do so before, would, he felt, 

split the Irish people and be 

provocative. 

Discussions continued from May 

into June. They centred around a 

Council of Defence for the whole of 

Ireland. At this stage the British were 

getting paranoiac and the Secretary of 

State for War, Anthony Eden, 

reported to the Cabinet that the IRA 

were strong enough to over-run all the 

Irish defence forces. On June 3, he 

informed the Cabinet that German 

forces were assembling at Cadiz (in 

neutral Spain) to invade Ireland! 

Chamberlain, thf former Prinje 

Minister, who still held a post in tile 

Cabinet, believed Ireland was ingrave 

peril from Germany and suggested 

that he have a personal meeting with 

De Val6ra. 

However, Malcolm MacDonald 

,(son of the Labour Prime Minister 

Ramsey MacDonald) was ordered to 

Dublin. He was then Minister of 

(Hfealth, and had been Dominions 

Secretary at the time of De Valira's 

THE IRISH 

— 

De Vaira wanted unity 

This year is the fiftieth anniversary of the time when the 

British Government was quite prepared to allow Irish 

reunification. But De Valera felt the price was too high. 

'dictionary republic' constitution. He 

knew De Valera and got on well with 

him 

At the same time as piving his 

approval lor MacDonald's visit, 

Churchill asked him to convey to De 

Valfcra thai Britain would not hesitate 

to seizc^control ol the Irish ports b\ 

lorce In tact, Churchill did hesitate 

because he did not want to 

compromise his position with the 

USA He had even asked President 

Roosevelt to send a US naval 

Squadron on a prolonged visit to the 

Irish ports as a deterrent to an\ 

German invasion Roosevelt refused, 

Miying a squadron could not be 

,spared. It later emerged that the real 

reason was his leai of being accused 

b\ Irish-Americans during that 

taction veai ol trving to force Ireland 

'to abandon its neutrality 

Urged to abandon 

neutrality 

On Monday, June 17, MacDonald 

llew to Dublin, and had a three-and-ahall 

hour meeting with De Val6ra. On 

June 20, MacDonald reported to the 

British Cabinet showing that De 

"Vetera was in no mood to give 

concessions to the British. While 

MacDonald urged that the wisest 

course lor Ireland was to abandon 

neutrality and co-operate with Britain 

in resisting the Third Reich, De Valera 

leplied that 'the whole force of public 

opinion was against any abandonment 

ol neutrality a moment before it 

Was inevitable' 

When MacDonald asked De Valera 

ll he would allow British warships to 

use the Irish ports, De Valera replied: 

the national unity which had been 

achieved between the various parties 

in the country was based on the 

continued maintenance of the policy 

of neutrality and on the firm 

resistances to 

belligerent 

aggressor.' 

the forces of either 

who became the 

MacDonald now came to the 

British Cabinet's ultimate carrot! He 

suggested that a step might be taken 

towards a united Ireland by the 

establishment of a council for the 

defence of the whole of Ireland. De 

Valera rejected this as a breach of 

neutrality. 

The British Cabinet were now in a 

quandary. They had an aide-memoire 

from their Joint Chiefs of Staff which 

stated clearly that there would be 'no 

security for Ireland or the United 

Kingdom unless British or Dominion 

troops and ships were in Ireland.' It 

was therefore proposed by 

Chamberlain that the Minister of 

Health be sent back to Dublin to 

make a clear and unambiguous 

reauest 

De Valera was asked to allow 

Britain the use of the Irish ports, allow 

British troops and the RAF to enter 

Ireland as allies before any German 

invasion, and to immediately intern 

all IR A leaders still at large as well as 

suspicious Germans and Italians. In 

return London would issue 'a 

declaration stating that .His Majesty's 

Government were, in principle, in 

favour of the establishment of a United 

Ireland.' The British Cabinet smuglv 

agreed that if De Vattra refused they 

would be on stronger ground in 

justifying their actions to the USA if 

they were later compelled to use force. 

However, Churchill wavnot sold on 

the idea ol making the decision 

without » e reference to Lord 

CraigaVon, the Prime Minister of 

Northern Ireland, but he agreed that 

MacDonald should return to continue 

'exploring to what extent any advance 

towards a United Ireland would help 

Mr De Valera in dealing with Irish 

opinion on this matter.' 

De Valera's reply was flexible. He 

knew that the return of British troops, 

and the use ol Irish ports by British 

naval and military personnel, was no 

option at all. However, he suggested 

that the 26 Counties and the 6 

Counties 'should be merged into a 

United Ireland which would at once 

become neutral; its neutrality to be 

guaranteed by Great Prita in and the 

United States; since Britain was a 

belligerent, its military and naval 

forces should not take any active part 

in guaranteeing that neutrality, but 

American ships could come into the 

Irish ports, and perhaps American 

troops into Ireland, to effect this 

guarantee' 

MacDonald reported back to the 

British Cabinet. The Cabinet 

prepared a memorandum of six points 

which MacDonald was then to take 

back to Dublin. The points were I) 

that Britain would make a declaration 

supporting a united Ireland in 

principle, 2) a joint body including 

representatives ofthe 26 Counties and 

Six Counties would be set up at once 

to work out the constitutional and 

other practical details of the reunification; 

3) a joint Defence Council 

would beset up immediately; 4) the 26 

Counties would declare war on behalf 

ol Great Britain, allowing its ports to 

be used by the Royal Navy and 

allowing British troops and the RAF 

to have bases on its territory; 5) the 26 

Counties Government would intern 

all. enemy aliens in the country and 

take any steps necessary to suppress 

any filth column (IRA) activities; 

lastly is) the British Government 

undertook to provide war supplies to 

Ireland. 

For the third time in ten days 

MacDonald flew to Dublin and saw 

De-Valera, Frank Aiken, Minister ol 

Delence, and Sean Lemass, Minister 

lor Supplies. The sticking point was 

that no assurances could be given by 

the British Government that Lord 

Craigavon and the Unionists would 

abide by the plan. De Valera pointed 

Out how Craigavon (as Sir James 

Tory propaganda asserts thai there is and always has been < 

Counties from the rest of Ireland. Mr Llowi C 

was. In a fctterto Sir'James Craig, in lfll, 

neither upon natural features nor broad geographical considerations." This fabricated 

frontier cpts through streets, tanas, towniands and even houses. The house in the picture is 

that of the MorrayfaMly of Gortiaeadaa, Co. Fermanah. The door at which Mrs Murray and 

her daughter are Standing is in the Six Connties. Behind Mrs Murray's left shoulder is the door 

leading to the Twenty-Six Counties. The dog is baif-in balf-oA both areas. "Partition on these 

Hues, wrote Mr Uovd Georee, "(he majority «f dte Irish people will never accept nor could 

we conckmsly attempt to enforce M." But enforce h the'British did and are still doing. 

Source: The Invisible Island. Frank Gallagher. 

US trOODS DrODOSal C r a , # J5W* bcen the stumbling block 

W " 

rejected 

K 

- 

inthe 1921 negotiations. 

lodwd, w|ien the British Cabinet 

This was rejected by Britain. Bui a mel on June 28 a vitriolic letter from 

compromise formula was worked out Ojigay^n was read. He had been 

between De Valera and MacDonald 'jfeocked to learn that negotiations 

There would be a declaration of the were bewg carried on behind Ulster's 

United Ireland in principle, the taaefct'(Nevertheless, on June 29, De 

constitutional and practical details of Vat

Page Eight THE IRISH DEMOCRAT January 1990 

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 

How can we reach wider audiences? 

asks Ellen Mitchell, Glasgow 

Dear Editor 

! AM writing in praise of a semin.tr 

organised by (he office-bearers of the 

Glasgow Branch of the Connolly 

Association and Sister Jean McWait. 

Hie subject of the seminar was me 

"Erosion of Civil L iberties in Britain 

and Ireland". 

Hie main speakers were A >n 

Miller. Ke\in McCorv and Marin 

Moriarty whilst Pat McAteer t -k 

part in chairing one of the workshop 

Alan Miller, chairperson, Scot'^h 

Council of..Civil Liberties, gave an 

'iifornied and sympathetic talk ma U 

based on the Prevention of Terrorism 

Act and its far-reaching consequent 

and implications. His integrity when 

he spoke of the Guildford Four case 

was impressive. Kevin McCory, 

Campaign for Democracy, spoke 

wryly of the consequences of the Act 

for many thousands of young people 

in Northern Ireland. This was a wellbalanced 

platform presenting a wellinformed 

and factual summary of 

current problems. Martin Moriarty, 

Connolly Association and NUJ 

contributed greatly to the 

understanding of unwrii ten rules and 

regulations governing the availability 

of information; one would perhaps be 

more accurate in saying the 

unavailability and manipulation of 

information. 

Although the turn-out was smaller 

than hoped (15 people) the event itself 

was uplifting. It is always beneficial to 

spend time with sincere and 

thoughtful people. Our problem as a 

branch is to tackle the job of reviewing 

certain issues like, for example, how 

people were informed about the 

THE CASE FOR FREEING 

MARTIN FORAN 

Dear Friends, 

I HAVE been active for over two uars 

now in the campaign to release Martin 

Koran, an Irish prisoner who is 

currently an inmate of Erankland lail, 

outside Durham. 

Martin is originally from Limerick 

hul settled in the Birmingham area in 

the early '70s. In 1977, he was arrested 

hy local police and charged with a series 

of robberies which he had taken no part 

in. He was sentenced to ten years 

imprisonment, and protested his 

innocence during that time. Once 

released in 1984 he was harassed 

regularly by the police who kept 

stopping him in the street, calling round 

to his house and making life difficult for 

him and his family. In September 1984 

Martin was again charged with a 

robbery he had taken no part in. He is 

now very ill, and has had a further si\ 

years added on to his initial sentence for 

attempting to take a prison warder 

hostage. 

The current West Yorkshire Police 

investigation into his case is proving to 

be quite thorough and there seems to be 

new evidence which is emerging which 

could prove Martin's innocence on both 

sets of charges. The latest news is that 

supporters now have evidence of the 

systematic denial of medical treatment 

to Martin. A memo dated from June 

1986 with a Walton Gaol title was 

sent anonimously to Martin's wife, 

Valerie. It is part of a 'Continuous 

Medical Report' and lists Martin's 

name and number, and mentions that he 

once took a member of staff hostage, 

and adds candidly 'nothing should be 

done to aid and comfort this individual'. 

Of course it does not mention how 

Martin must have felt after being twice 

IMo change in the leopard's spots 

I >eai Editoi. 

CONOR l-uley writes "Why not 

recognise that it's up to the people of 

Ireland. North and South, Catholic 

and Protestant, to sort out their 

differences, and in consultation with 

the Government in Dublin, embark 

on a programme of withdrawal", (of 

Britain from N Ireland). 

Why does Conor Foley refuse to 

recognise that this is not what the Irish 

people. North and South, want. 

Flection results and opinion polls 

testily to that. Nor does the 

Government in Dublin. In the Scots 

Independent of August this year 

Ireland's Prime Minister Charles 

llaughev made the position of the 

Irish Government crystal clear, ' IRA 

violence has destroyed the illusion of 

national enthusiasm for re-unification 

in a foreseeable future. Most people in 

EDITORIAL NOTE 

Conoi Foley will no doubt make 

an appropriate reply to Bert 

Watd next month In the meantime 

I would make the comment 

that Mr Ward has misunderstood the 

purpose behind Mr Haughey's article. 

I"he Taoiseach is in effect saying to the 

Unionists: The British say they are 

neutral and have no strategic aims in 

Ireland. If that is true they are no 

longer prepared to "hold your 

hands", in which case they (the 

British) have got to take some action 

about the connection between the 

UDR and th> protestant paramilitaries. 

This action has come 

somewhat belatedly. 

Haughey's aim which has been 

clearly stated many times is to get 

the Republic certainly retain an 

aspiration to eventual political unity 

in some form, but in many cases that 

form is distinctly Augustintan — unite 

us, O Lord, but not yet. Gradually 

and unconsciously the objective of 

political unity has in fact come to be 

displaced by a different medium term 

objective — the restoration of peace in 

Northern Ireland. Moreover this 

process has been accompanied by a 

growing realisation that whatever 

may in the past have been the 

objective of British policy in Northern 

Ireland the continued British presence 

in that part of Ireland is today no 

longer motivated either by geopolitical 

strategic considerations or by 

an emotional tie with the unionist 

population there. Rather ' is its 

motivation seen increasingly to be a 

sense of responsibility for the 

talks going with the Unionists even if it 

is outside the Anglo-Irish Agreement. 

He is also saying to them "if we 

approach the EC together we have 

much more clout and we can use a 

much bigger begging bowl." Of course 

Irish people in the 26 Counties do not 

want to join with the six counties if the 

latter is in a state of anarchy. Pritain 

must clean up the mess after 800 years 

of misrule. Haughey is also trying to 

persuade the Unionists to talk about 

co-operation on non-controversial 

questions like energy, postal services 

and transport. 

But all of this does not affect the 

underlying responsibility of Britain 

for the situation in Northern Ireland. 

It would be very naive to believe that a 

accused of crimes he had not 

committed, and how he began the 

second sentence whilst suffering from a 

bowel illness. It also does not detail how 

Martin was moved from jail to jail, and 

how any appointments he had made 

with specialists were disrupted by this 

continual moving. 

A press statement with a copy of the 

memo is being sent to sympathetic 

media contacts in Britain and Ireland. 

In Ireland, Desmond O'Malley has 

been very helpful. He first met Martin 

in Limerick when he was a lawyer. He 

believes that the British authorities 

should now release Martin. 

Best wishes, 

Mike Shankland 

Note: An article on the Martin Foran 

case will appear in the next issue of the 

Democrat. 

restoration of peace to the area 

combined with an understandable 

concern about the possible 

consequences for these islands as a 

whole if a power vacuum were left in a 

region so deeply divided and infested 

with armed bands of paramilitaries 

who seem prepared to turn it into 

another 'Lebanon.... That Irish reunification 

can and should come 

about only with the freely-given 

consent of a majority in Northern 

Ireland, and that the best form of 

government in the area would be a 

devolved administration comprising 

elected representatives from both sections 

of the community are propositions 

that also form common ground 

between Ireland and Britain today." 

Yours sincerely, 

Bert Ward 

Middlesbrough 

country which was prepared to write 

off eight million Cambodians to help 

the United States destabilise Vietnam 

had suddenly given up its strategic 

interest in Ireland. The proof of that 

interest is well documented in British 

cabinet papers, debates in the Sixties 

in the House of Lords and 

correspondence in the Guardian of 

that period. Mr Ward should try not 

to be like the British politician who 

was compared to "a weather vane on 

skates". It does not do to respond to 

every political straw that the wind 

blows. Mr Haughey's article is not a 

new "kiddies, guide to the Irish 

Question". The points in it will have 

no effect on the policy of Time To Go 

or the Connolly Association 

seminar, with the positive and 

constructive aim of attracting a wider 

audience. 

The Irish in Glasgow were, as one 

workshop participiant put it, 

"conspicious by their absence". It is a 

situation we must face and try to 

overcome. The problems of the Irish 

population in Scotland were discussed 

in a workshop led by Pat McAteer 

but, since time is pressing at present, 

these must be the subject for another 

letter 

Ellen Mitchell 

Stand on 

Merrell Dow 

vindicated 

Dear Editor, 

WE have been vindicated in our stand 

against Merrell Dow's construction of 

a plant at Killeagh in Cork. The 

whole history of this kind of 

pharmaceutical development has 

been chequered with mishaps and 

its products in many instances have 

resulted in illness and deaths. 

Merrell Dow Chemical is currently 

in the centre ol a major 

pollution scandal. Its plant in. 

Delfzijl in the north of the 

Netherlands has been dumping 

strongly contaminated waste directly 

into the River Eems for the past ten 

years. 

The waste contained concentrations 

of monochlorobenzene which 

were ten thousand times higher than 

the maximum limits agreed with local 

authorities. Monochlorobenzene is a 

carcinogenic substance which affects 

the liver and kidneys in particular. Per 

litre of waste water the concentration 

of MGB was between 100 and 200 

milligrams. Provincial authorities had 

set the limit at 0.81 MG/I, but have 

failed to carry out any checks since 

1978, because of the company's 

guarantees. The new facts were 

revealed by one of the company's 

employees who had knowledge of test 

results carried out by Dow's own 

laboratory. 

But the company failed to inform 

local authorities of the alarming 

analysis results, contrary to earlier 

arrangements. It is now involved in a 

bitter wrangle with the province of 

Croningen over the exact nature of 

these arrangements which were not 

put down in writing. Political parties 

in the region have accused provincial 

and city authorities of negligence in 

allowing Dow Chemicals to do its 

own monitoring. Dow Chemicals 

employs 125 people in one of 

Holland's worst unemployment black 

spots. 

it is now established that Merrell 

Dow intended to employ seventy 

people in Killeagh, twenty specialists 

and fifty factory workers at its £40m 

pharmaceutical centre. Compare this 

with the distribution of the tourist 

area of Youghal. The pollution of the 

river, Womanagh would wipe out the 

Youghal fishing industry, including 

the growing mussel industry which 

would result in the closure of 

Youghal's fishing industry co-operative 

as no-one would buy fish caught 

in polluted waters. Up to a hundred 

jobs in fishing and related industries 

such as processing would be lost. 

•lim 

Savage 

' . 

Correspondence 

on the 

Guildford Four 

Dear Editor 

WE enclose tor your readers' information, 

copies of letters sent 

to the Home Secretary and to the 

Chairman of the Surrey Council 

Police Authority. 

Yours fraternally 

Maurice Crighton, 

Chairman, Surrey District 

Committee, The Communist 

Party of Great Britain. 

Dear Sir 

I AM writing on behalf of all my 

Party's members in Surrey to express 

our sense of outrage at the crimes 

which have been committed by the 

Surrey police and by the legal 

authorities in their determination to 

secure the conviction of the Guildford 

Four. 

Clearly, five junior policemen could 

not have acted in this way without the 

connivance of senior police officers, 

especially in a case of such national 

importance. 

Further, the suppression of vital 

evidence for the defence by the 

Director of Public Prosecutions 

makes it clear that the malpractices 

involved in this case extend beyond 

that of the most senior police officers 

into the ranks of the judiciary and the 

government itself. 

Apart from the highly-placed 

individuals involved, our system of 

criminal justice itself must also be 

called into question. History shows 

that innocent people are most likely to 

be convicted when public outrage 

at a crime combines with political, 

nationalist or racial prejudice against 

the accused to produce intense 

pressure to secure a conviction. 

A system of criminal justice must be 

judged by its ability to resist such 

pressure. Evidently, our own has been 

found sadly wanting in the case of the 

Guildford Four. There are very good 

reasons for thinking it has similarly 

failed us with Anne Maguire, with the 

Birmingham Six, and also in the case 

of Winston Silcott, sentenced for the 

murder of PC Blakelock after the 

Broadwater Farm riot. In-these cases 

also the same heady mixture of public 

outrage and prejudice produced 

convictions which must be regarded 

as highly suspect in view of the flimsy 

and dubious evidence on which they 

were based. 

We consider that you should 

initiate an enquiry without further 

delay into each of these cases and 

beyond that, into the weaknesses of 

the criminal justice system itself to try 

to ensure that cases of this kind do not 

recur. 

In particular, the Prevention of 

Terrorism Act still makes it possible 

for suspects charged with terrorist 

offences to be detained by the police 

for seven days without any ck. the 

safeguards against police malpra&ice 

which now apply in other cases after 

the passage of the Police and Criminal 

Evidence Act of 1985. The Prevention 

of Terrorism Act contravenes the 

Human Rights legislation of the 

European Community^, is counterproductive 

in the battle against 

sectarian violence in Northern Ireland 

and should be repealed forthwith. 

A further reform urgently needed is 

to make the police much more 

accountable to democratic bodies 

than they are at present. Any 

organisation which is not accountable 

in this way and which is not open to 

outside enquiry into complaints of 

malpractice is liable to become 

corrupted. 

Public alarm at the increasing 

evidence of police malpractice can 

only be corrected by addressing this 

problem of accountability. 

Every resident in Surrey has a direct 

personal stake in the integrity of their 

police service. Bold steps must be 

taken now to restore public 

confidence, and we trust you will 

display the courage and integrity 

needed to take them. 

Maurice Crighton 

(Continued on Page Eight} 

January 1990 THE IRISH DEMOCRAT Page Five ——* 

AS East European States assert 

their independent ways and as the 

Transnational Corporations and 

the various national elites which 

serve them try to push the peoples 

of Western Europe towards a new 

EEC Superpower Imperialism, it 

is obvious that current events call 

for the creative application of the 

classical principles of internationalism, 

national democracy 

and socialism. 

Internationalism and nationalism, 

correctly understood, are 

complementary, not opposites. In 

Latin the word "inter" means 

"between". As the roots of the 

word indicate, an internationalist 

stands for the independence and 

self-determination of all national 

communities desiring to be free — 

that is, desiring to make their own 

laws and determine their own 

policies. For friendship and 

cooperation to exist between 

nations requires each one to 

champion and respect the 

independence and differences of 

the others, despite whatever 

inequalities in size, power and 

other endowments may prevail 

between them. Thus internationalism 

among nations is 

analogous to the principle of 

respect for people's independence 

if there is to be friendship and 

co-operation between differently 

endowed human beings. 

Internationalism 

comes first 

Internationalism, not nationalism, 

is thus the primary category. 

It is internationalism which makes 

true socialists into champions of 

other peoples' nationalisms. For 

the socialist seeks that the 

working-class of each country in 

effect become the nation, that is, 

decide policy for its own nation, in 

order to „ ensure optimum cooperation 

in the international 

community. As Frederick Engels 

put it in 1882. "I therefore hold 

the view that two nations in 

Europe have not only the right but 

even the duty to be nationalistic 

before they become internationalistic 

— the Irish and the 

Poles. They are most internationalistic 

when they are genuinely 

nationalistic." As James Connolly 

taught: The socialist must be the 

World Comment 

by 

Politicus 

best Republican. In other words, 

the socialists must be the foremost 

fighters in the struggle for 

national democracy, for there can 

be no international democracy 

without it. 

In 1914 the World War between 

the imperialist capitalist powers 

split the Socialist Second 

International down the middle. 

The Right-wing socialists lined up 

behind their respective national 

capitalist Governments in helping 

them in their task of slaughtering 

the workers on the other side. The 

Left-socialists, from whom, after 

the Russian Revolution, came the 

communists, sought like Connolly 

and Lenin to turn the imperialist 

war into a civil war and use the 

crisis to overthrow their own 

capitalist governments. 

Big business 

'liberated' by EC 

Today Transnational Big 

Business has in many ways 

outgrown the Nation State and 

finds its constraints inconvenient. 

The West Europeans, the 

Japanese and the Americans seek 

to organise against one another in 

huge transnational capitalist 

blocs, each with its hierarchy of 

dependent, client States. Only an 

independent national State, either 

on its own or in co-operation with 

other States, can impose social 

controls on capital in ordinary 

peoples' interests. That is why in 

Western Europe these days the 

giant Transnational Monopolies 

are straining might and main to 

take away law-making power 

from national parliaments and 

replace it with supranational rule 

from Brussels — in effect to 

replace national democracy by a 

Eurodictatorship based on the 

classical capitalist principles of 

laissez-faire, all-out competition 

and the devil-take-the-hindmost 

— the ideal environment for the 

Multinationals. 

REPORT TO THE 1989 

CONVENTION 

THE AFL-CIO reaffirms its 

solidarity with the Irish Congress of 

Trade Unions (ICTU), one of the few 

all-Ireland institutions that provides 

an organisational framework for the 

people of Northern Ireland to work 

together with their fellow workers in 

the Republic of Ireland in the pursuit 

of social justice and human rights. 

The A FL-CIO notes thaf 1989 

marks the 20th anniversary bf the 

introduction of British troops into the 

north of Ireland. That part Of Ireland 

continues to suffer from paramilitary 

violence, sectarian discrimination, 

repression and economic crisis. We 

note with sorrow and deep regret that 

in the last two years sectarian violence 

has risen once again to the levels of the 

early 1980s, with 93 such killings in 

1988 alone. We join with the ICTU in 

calling for the elimination of 

sectarianism and applaud ICTU's 

campaign against "Violence, Intimidation, 

Sectarianism, and Discriminatiort." 

Yet, there has been some progress 

in creating pressure on the authorities 

to address the issue of sectarian job 

Kinnock abandons 

anti EC policy 

Again, as in 1914, the socialists 

divide. This time Right-wing 

social democracy, mirrored as 

usual by the ultra-left, lines up 

behind Big Business. In Britain 

Neil Kinnock abandons Labour's 

policy of withdrawing from the 

EEC and increasingly sounds as 

Europhiliac as Roy Jenkins, Ted 

Heath or the Confederation of 

British industry. For the real Left 

everywhere an opportunity 

therefore begins to open up: To 

champion national independence 

against the anti-nationalism of 

Big Business. To advocate real 

internationalism against the 

supranationalism of the EEC. To 

seek to make Labour and the 

working-class the foremost 

representatives of the nation and 

everything which is progressively 

national. To make national 

democracy, in politics and in 

industry, the essential element of a 

new "third way" for socialists as 

they organise against the 

collective imperialism of modern 

Transnational Capital. 

Gregor Gysi, the radical Jewish 

lawyer who has become the 

reforming communist leader of 

East Germany, spoke of the 

relevance of such a "third way", 

East as well as the West. He said 

when taking up his new job: "The 

expanding capitalist world market 

system may, to many who are used 

to a bureaucratic system with its 

shortages, seem attractive at first 

glance. But in fact it sharpens 

existing global problems of 

environment, peace and socioeconomic 

rifts. The GDR must go 

a third way, beyond Stalinist 

Socialism and the tyranny of 

Transnational Monopolies." 

For all genuine internationalists 

and socialists in the 

West the fight for national 

democracy and national 

independence against the 

Common Market and its moves to 

European Union is an essential 

part of this new "third way" 

which is now emerging out of 

current dramatic events as the 

necessary path forward for all 

progressive mankind. 

From the AFL - CIO Executive 

Council — 18th Constitutional 

Convention, Washington D.C. — 

Irish Section 

discrimination against the Catholic 

minority. Thanks to widespread 

support for the MacBride- Principles, 

setting forth a fair employment code 

lor US firms operating in Northern 

Ireland, laws have been passed in 

twelve states requiring public pension 

tunds to invest only in those US firms 

adhering to nondiscriminatory 

practices. In response to the problems 

of discrimination in Northern Ireland 

and partly in respond to this United 

States campaign — which the AFL- 

CIO and its state central bodies have 

supported — the British government 

has now passed a new Fair 

Employment Act. While it falls short 

ol the aspirations of Irish trade 

unionists, we believe our continued 

support for US corporate compliance 

with the MacBride code can help to 

ensure that the law is properly 

enforced. The ICTU has noted its 

substantial concerns about the 

shortcomings of the fair employment 

legislation and about its enforcement 

and has called for effective remedies 

against recalcitrant public sector 

employers and for a number of other 

improvements in the law's 

administration and enforcement. 

LAGAN LIGHTS 

THE British government's 

expenditure plans for northern 

Ireland this year have now been 

published. Housing takes a cut, down 

from £254m to £248m — a figure 

which needs a. further downward 

adjustment because of inflation. West 

Belfast, the Catholic ghetto especially, 

still contains examples of the most 

dilapidated slum-dwellings in Europe. 

However, sections of the Protestant 

working class suffer equally acute 

problems regarding the availability of 

good quality housing. 

Obviously the appropriate thing to 

do, from a Tory point of view, is to cut 

back on housing. 

Law, order, protective and 

miscellaneous services, often 

misleadingly referred to as 'Defence', 

gets £684m, up from £627m and these 

figures do not include the cost of 

operating the British Army in the 

part-province. They refer mainly to 

Police and Prisons. 

The total adult population of 

gerrymandered northern Ireland is 

under one million. About one-third of 

this could be broadly categorised as 

Nationalist... the main threat to 

'security'. But only a small percentage 

of the nationalists are physical force 

Republicans. A 'Defence' figure 

creeping up towards £lbn is a very 

large sum of money foregone by the 

British tax-payers because of their 

government's failure to settle its 'Irish 

Question' politically. 

When the government of Lloyd 

George, in 1922, imposed partition on 

Ireland against the expressed 

democratic will of the Irish people, it 

was said to be for the better 

government of the country. Whether 

or not the old hypocrite and liar ever 

believed that expression of pious 

sentiment, the fact is that for northern 

Ireland emphatically — to say 

nothing of the rest of the country — 

partition has transpired to be a 

disaster. 

Even some 'liberal' Unionists are 

beginning to tentatively admit this 

fact. Economics professor, Norman 

Gibson, pro vice-chancellor of the 

University of Ulster, expressing a 

personal opinion, has recently opined: 

'Dependence on the British economy 

is a central feature of the northern 

Ireland economy. A critical question 

is whether or not the extent and scale 

of this dependence is conducive to 

achieving faster growth and fullemployment 

in northern Ireland.' 

Vast sums of 

money wasted 

He then went on: i feel it is long 

overdue to ask why it is that the 

northern Ireland economy never quite 

seems to get going despite the millions 

of pounds which are pumped into it. 

We remain in the same position — 

right at the bottom. It is time for a 

basic re-think.' 

The question is not, of course, 

overdue. It has been asked many times 

— by nationalists, socialists and 

republicans. The BASIC re-thinking 

has also been done by these same 

people and even by one or two 

intrepid trade-union leaders who have 

been prepared to brave their 

Orange/Tory membership whom the 

ultras can always activate. 

The kind of dependency about 

which professor Gibson speaks can be 

ended only in an all-Ireland Republic 

which would possess the sovereign 

political powers necessary to regulate 

the economy. 

Meanwhile the British tax-payers 

will have to keep on forking out 

£ l.6bn per year, up-dated for inflation 

and other contingencies, TO NO 

GOOD EFFECT WHATSOEVER 

This is the subvention which is 

required to meet the budget deficit 

arising in northern Ireland. 

This situation brings neither peace 

nor prosperity to northern Ireland nor 

does it enhance the welfare of the 

British working people. British 

pensioners, War Widows and schoolteachers 

etc could be doing with a bit 

more money at present, not that the 

Tories require northern Ireland's 

money to be able to pay. They are 

currently running a huge budget 

surplus. Nevertheless the ending, 

eventually, of northern Ireland's 

dependency would be beneficial to 

everyone concerned. 

"Poverty in northern Ireland has 

reached crises levels". This was a 

pronouncement coming from the 

Society of Saint Vincent de Paul 

which then went on to say that 

changes in welfare legislation were 

forcing it to act as a safety net for the 

(poor on both sides of the community, 

land that it could not... 'handle all the 

weight'. In September, 1989, there 

was a 20-fold increase in requests for 

help compared with the same month 

in the year before. SVP national 

development officer, Mr Jack 

M'Mahon, said: ... 'many families 

who applied for a social security loan » 

were first asked if they had sought 

assistance from a charity.' He accused 

the government of 'simply 

attempting to save money.' At the 

expense of the poor (numbering 

around 400,000) it should be 

reiterated. Particularly in the sphere 

of poverty, the sectarian nature o( 

John Bull's statelet is evidenced as the 

means by which this part of Ireland 

has been retained inside the UK with 

Protestant compliance or support: 

One in five Protestant families depend 

on Supplementary Benefit and over a 

quarter are in receipt of housing 

benefit. Of Catholic families MORE 

than one in three depend on 

Supplementary Benefit and over two 

in five receive housing benefit.. 

'British Rule in Ireland: the social, 

economic and human cost.' 

' Characteristically enough it is in the 

poor Protestant districts that 

'Loyalist' para-militarism is imposed 

(even if it originates elsewhere) and 

the divisions are cultivated AND 

ENFORCED that keep both 

Protestant and Catholic workingpeople 

in then present condition. 

In the government spending plans 

Health and Personal Social Services is 

quoted as being up from £95lm to 

£ 1,035m. But already the tradeunions 

have analysed these figures 

and assessed them as a REAL cut. The 

allocation for Health, taking into 

account inflation and growing built-in 

requirements (maintenance etc), to 

say nothing of li' ely increased 

demand, means that the standard of 

provision will continue to fall in the 

year 1990. 

It ought to be very clear th£.t ending 

northern Ireland's dependency, so 

that its own democratically 'iected 

government (albeit on an all-Ireland 

basis) can get control of its own 

spending plans and budget, is 

consequential upon the extirpation of 

religious bigotry and the sectarianism 

that flows from it. And so 

sectarianism is a POLITICAL 

question. 

For many trade unionists in 

northern Ireland, politics, because it 

raises the 'Constitutional Issue", 

are nuisances that ought to be avoided 

like the plague. Thus they are 

rendered impotent in dealing with 

such matters as sectarianism which is, 

as they quite rightly understand, the 

major impediment to social and 

economic progress. This is a quandary 

out of which only the British trade „ , 

union movement can help them. 

Nevertheless the Northern Ireland 

Public Service Alliance held a Special 

Delegate Conference in November to 

discuss 'Sectarian Threats' in the 

workplace which, adjudging by the 

hand-outs, its leadership appears to 

see as a matter of... 'community 

relations.' I hope to be able to discuss 

this matter next month. 

Bobbie Heatlet 

1

Page Eight THE IRISH DEMOCRAT January 1990 

THE SECRET OF KERRY 

WHAT is the secret of Kerry? Lightly the question comes. 

Up for a new All-Ireland, timing the pipes and drums; 

Marching shoulder to shoulder, others as gallantly go - 

But the secret of Kerry is older than anyone here may know. 

Out from their high hills luring, fifteen men and a dream, 

Wo\en in the colours they're wearing, inherited team by team; 

Heirs to the great Laune rangers, seared in a sterner code - 

For the columns that harried the stranger were fashioned in Jones' Road. 

Then the boots and the ball were mildewed and the goalposts weathered 

away. 

For the game of war was rougher by far for any who dared to play. 

*nd that is the secret of Kerry, though glamoured or grim the game 

M home or away it is theirs to play, and the reason is just the same. 

I he Kerrymen came to Dublin, once in the year of years, 

Keeping their tryst with Freedom, Stack and his Volunteers; 

Blank files and no replacements. Keeping dead in the Laune, 

Banna lonely for Casement, shackled in London Town. 

Ashe and his weary Fingallians, fire and flame in their eyes, 

Meeting the broken battalions as the brave O'Rahilly dies. 

The dead men homing to Kerry, shrouded men on the piers, 

Sprinkled with wild saltwater, mingled with exiles' tears. 

The women praying to heaven for the kindly Kerryman's soul, 

As Fingallians fire at Glasnevin a volley for Ashe of Lispole; 

\nd the football fields were empty where the Rangers' ghosts are seen, 

For the graves were hallowed for those who followed the coffins to 

C'ahirciveen. 

The banshee wail that quivers, shrieking across the moor 

Is the cry of a blackshawled woman for the slaughter at Knockamore, 

And the cry is echoed by mothers, filled with the new despair 

As the Kerrymen gaze at their brothers, coming to kill them there. 

I he lorries leap through Duhallow , the foe at the Shannon's mouth, 

Moylan broken at Mallow, Barry crushed in the South; 

The cries of the stabbed Republic echo around Tralee, 

Keening for Ballyscedy, moaning for Monaree. 

White-limbed bodies aquiver 011 the mountain barricades, 

Till the black reeds shake and shiver for the shock of three brigades 

Who count their litanied losses, when the terrible deeds have done, 

By the pitiful roadside crosses flashing their fame to the sun. 

And the Kerrynftn came to Dublin prisoned within the ships, 

While their women walked to the gravesides with rosaries to their lips. 

Somebody up in Iintown fashions a ragged ball 

And somebody scrawls Up Kerry! on Mountjoy's prison wall. 

Then the gates of Ballymullen open wide on Tralee - 

Faded and old is the green and gold, but the Kerrymen are free. 

Out from (heir high hills faring, fifteen men and a dream, 

Woven in the colours they're wearing, inherited team by team; 

Marching shoulder to shoulder with the stalwart men of the Pale, 

For the secret of Kerry is older than the glory of Granuaile. 

For be it the goal of a nation's soul, or a goal in the grand old game 

They both are a part of a Kerrymnn's heart, and the reason . . . 

The reason is just the same! 

M. A. GRANVILLE 

JIMMY MO MHILE STOR 

BI.IAIN an taca seo d'imigh uaitn run mo chleibh. 

Ni thiocfaidh se abhaile go dtabhafraigh se cursa an tsaoil. 

Nuair a chifead e rithfead le fuinneamh ro-ard ina chomhair 

agus chludod le mil e, is e Jimmy mo mhile stor. 

Bionn mo mhathair is m athair ag bearradh is ag bruion liom fein. 

Taim giobaithe, piocaithe, ciapaithe, craite dem shaol. 

Thugas taitneamh don duine ud dob 'fhinne is dob aille sno 

agus chuaigh se ar bord loinge, is e Jimmy mo mhile stor. 

Rachadsa chun coille agus caithfead ann an chuid eile dem shaol 

san ait na beidh einne, ag eisteaeht le ceol na n-ean, 

ag bun an chrainn chaorthainn mar a bhfasann ann fear go leor 

ag tabhairt taitnimh don duine ud, is e Jimmy mo mhile stor. 

IRISH 

SONGS 

Edited by 

PATRICK BOND 

THE IRISH 

SOLDIER BOY 

AT a cottage bright on wintry night, 

As the snow lay on the ground, 

Stood a youthful Irish soldier boy, 

To the mountains he was bound. 

His mother stood beside him saying 

"You'll win, my boy, don't fear" 

And with loving arms around his waist, 

She tied his bandolier. 

"Goodbye, God bless you, mother dear, 

I hope your heart wont pain, 

But pray to God you soon will see 

Your soldier boy again. 

And when I'm out in the firing line, 

It will be a source of joy 

To know that you're remembering still 

Your Irish soldier boy." 

When the fighting it was over 

And the flag of truce was raised; 

The leaders ordered fire to cease, 

Old Ireland stood amazed. 

His comrades came to the cottage door 

With a note from her pride and joy, 

And an aching heart cried, "God be 

good 

To my Irish soldier boy." 

"Goodbye, God bless you, mother dear 

I'm dying a death so grand 

From wounds received in action 

Trying to fee my native land, 

But I hope we'll meet in Heaven above, 

In the land beyond the sky, 

Where you'll always be in company 

with 

Your Irish soldier boy." 

THE OLD 

FENIAN GUN 

IT hung above the kitchen fire 

It's barrel long and brown, 

And one day with a boy's desire, 

I climbed and took it down. 

My father's eyes with anger flashed 

He cried: "What have you done? 

I wish you'd left it where it was - 

That's my old Fenian gun." 

I fondled it with love and pride, 

And looked it o'er and o'er; 

I placed it on my shoulder 

And I marched across the floor. 

My father's anguish softened, 

And he shared my boyish fun - 

"Ah well," he said, "'tis in your breed 

Like that old Fenian gun." 

"1 remember '67 well," 

He said, "when lads like me 

All thought we'd strike another blow 

To set old Ireland free. 

But broken were our golden hopes, 

I was long months on the run, 

But it did good work for Ireland then, 

Did that old Fenian gun. 

"I was down then in Killmallock - 

Twas the hottest fight of all, 

And you see (he raised his arm) 

There's the mark still of the ball. 

I hope the young lads growing now 

Will hold the ground we won 

And not disgrace the cause in which 

1 held that Fenian gun." 

TURSE MO CHROl 

• * * r. ' ' 

TUIRSE mo chroi ar a ph6sadh's ar bhuachailB oige an tsaoil 

NAr bhfearr daoife cailin deas leofa na bean a mbeadh puntai ler 

Oiche mhor fhada bheith diisc ai nSr dheas a bheith ag stigradh ler 

B'faras a chailleach bhios srannfa'i is ag tarraingi an phlainclad ler. 

My heart is now tired of marriage, and young men of the world 

Would be much better off with a pretty young lass than a woman with pounds to hoard 

Awake by her side till the dawning, 'twould be nice to have courtship and play 

Instead of a hag that keeps snoring and pulling the blankets away. 

Nuair a lheim go ti faire na torraimh 'se d'fiafras an oig bhean diom 

'Chormaic a bhfuil tu do ph6sadh no nach n'aithnionn tu an oig ftiear groi 

'Se duirt se 'gus deirim fein leofa go minic go m6r faraor 

S an mherd acu 'la gan posadh gur acu 'tS sp6irt a' tsaoil. 

When 1 go to a wakehouse or funeral the young girls all ask pf, me: 

Cormac, are you getting married, or don't you recognise the tipe young man 

His reply was and 1 also tell there, '"Tis sad, but much better by far 

For those not yel married have the joys of the world and no care." 

O rachaidh me scilleadh's a chaitheadh go Baile na hlarr fhad siar 

'S bhearfaidh me 'n ruaig sin go hArainn's ar an ainnir a chrîdh ipo chroi 

Dar a leoga mar rinneadh mo ph6sadh ni m6 ni gur cealgadh mo fbroi 

'S rachaidh me aris na Roimhe go bhfaigh me cead posta aris. 

Now I go on a binge and a spending lo "Baile An iarr" tn^he west 

And I go on a visit to Aran to the dear girl I love the best. 

/Indeed when 1 had got married my heart was not pleasd or ease 

So J'II go back to Rome for permission to marry again, if 1 please. 

EILEEN OGE 

EILEEN OGE! an' that the darlin's name,is, 

Through the Barony of her features they were famous 

If we loved her who is there to blame us, 

For wasn't she the Pride of Petravore? 

But her beauty made us all so shy, 

Not a man could look her in the eye, 

Boys, O boys! sure that's the reason why 

We're mournin' for the Pride of Petravore. 

CHORUS: 

Eileen Oge! me heart is growin' grey 

Ever since the day you wandered far away; 

Eileen Oge! there's good fish in the sea, 

But there's no-one like the Pride of Petravore. 

Friday at the fair of Ballintubber, 

Eileen met McGrath the Cattle jobber, 

I'd like to set me mark upon the robber, 

For he stole away the Pride of Petravore 

He never seemed to see the girl at all, 

Even when she ogled him underneath her shawl, 

Looking big and masterful when she was looking small, 

Most provoking for the Pride of Petravore. 

Boys, O boys! with fate 'tis hard to grapple, 

Of my eye 'tis Eileen was the apple, 

And now to see her walkin' to the Chapel 

Wid the hardest featured man in Petravore. 

Now boys this is all I have to say; 

When you do your courtin' make no display, 

If you want them to run after you just walk the other way, 

For they're mostly like the Pride of Petravore. 

PERCY FRENCH 

I'LL WALK BESIDE YOU 

I'LL walk beside you through the world today, 

While dreams and songs and flowers bless your way 

I'll look into your eyes and hold your hand, 

I'll walk beside you through the golden land. 

I'll walk beside you through the world tonight, 

Beneath the starry skies ablaze with light; 

And in your heart, love's tender words I'll hide, 

{I'll walk beside you through the eventide. 

I'll walk beside you through the passing years, 

Through days of cloud and sunshine, joy and. tears. 

And when the great Call comes - the sunset gleams 

I'll walk beside you through the land of dreams* E » 


NEW INSIGHTS 

W. E. fVyiie And The Irish 

Revolution 1916-1921. By 

Leon O'Broin. Gill and Conn McCluskey, Off Our 

MacMSllan Ltd., Goldenbridge, 

Dublin 8. 1989. 

SECOND Lieutenant W. E. Wylie, was 

* i n 1911 but fighting on the "wrong" 

sldi. His personatKtfMbcMces, given to us 

by Leon O'Broih, provide a fascinating 

picture of the Easter Rebellion from the 

other side of the barricades. 

William Evelyn Wylie, a Oubliner, son of 

a Presbyterian minister, was at the time of 

the rising a Barrister, also a member of the 

Officers Training Corps at Trinity 

College." He was on holiday in Kerry when 

the Rebellion cdliri it anything 

else" — which ( can personally confirm) 

commenced, but he made his way to Dublin 

white he was assigned for duty with the 

Inriiskillen Fusiliers, who had been badly 

matiled at the battle of Mount Street Bridge, 

losing 300 men. On the Thursday and Friday 

of Easter week, shells were falling on the 

G.P.O., and the inner city was ablaze. To 

save civilian lives, and halt further 

destruction, Pearse surrendered to 

Brigadier-General (*we on the Saturday at 

2.30pm. Thomas MiicDonagh, de Valera, 

and' Ceannt, were still holding out. 

MdcDonagh doubted the validity of the 

surrender order, until Lowe grants him a 

three hour truce, and placed a motor car at 

his disposal to enaMe him to visit the 

commanders at scattered outposts. 

There is a hundred years embargo on the 

publicaion of tike records of the courts 

martial of the toaftra, which-nt not expire 

until 2016, so that we cannot discover what 

happed at tfceii 1 triafe. However, the 

memoirs of Wylie, who acted as Crown 

Prosecutor against Peafte, MacDonagh, 

CWMte, McBride, CeaniH, W.T. Cosgrave, 

and" Countess ;*farkieviez, present a 

spellbinding, if hfkiFj pitttre of the grim 

proceedings, and firaian defiance. 

Having disposed of these cases, General 

Maxwell asked "Who is next on the list for 

prosecution?" 

"Somebody called de Valera, sir," replied 

Wylie; 

"Who is he? I never heard of him." 

"He was in command of Boland's Bakery, 

and the Ringsend area."' 

"I wonder would he be likely to make 

trouble in the future?" 

"I wouldn't think so, sir. I don't think he is 

important enough." 

We must leave the Rebellion, and press on 

into the troubled years that followed,guided 

by Judge Wylie, now Law Adviser to the • 

Government of Ireland. 

The first contingent of Black and Tans 

arrived in March 192ft, tobefollowed in July 

by the Auxiliaries. "These two forces," said 

Wylie, "were the deciding factor in 

England's defeat in Ireland. No civilised 

government can authorise murder and hope 

to succeed." Front the beginning of 192f all 

Munster was under martial law. The centre 

of Cork city was burned, Mallow, 

Balbriggan, and other towns, creameries, 

and factories, were laid waste. Brigadier 

General Ormonde Winter, Chief of 

Combined Intelligence Services, was so 

enraged by IRA successes, despite the fact 

that the country was full of soldiers and 

police, that he proposed having the entire 

popiriation photographed, back and front, as 

a means of identifying, and intimidating 

likely rebels. 

Judge Wylie's account of the activities 

leading up to the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 

December 1921, add a new perspective to the 

history of that epoch. On 12 January 1921, 

Father Michael O'Flanagan met the Prime 

Minister, Lloyd George in London, who 

talked to him "as One Celt to another." He 

said that if Southern Ireland co-operated in 

working the Government of Ireland (Home 

Rule) Act 192ft, they would in the end get 

Northern Ireland to agree to anything. He 

considered O'Flanagan to be "a good fellow, 

" a fine speaker" (true - I was his 

basfed on Domini 

•trfagly supported by "lie Hsh Times." in 

September Arthur Griffith net Lloyd 

Gebrge seeking a truce pending discussions 

on fa settlement, when de Valera returned 

i the United States. 

) that de Valera 

(Continued OR Page 8, Col. 5) 

Knees, A Commentary on 

the Northern Ireland CM 

Rights Movement, Mc- 

Cluskey and Associates, 

Belfast £6.50. 

THIS is the first book by a leading 

participant to describe with broad 

accuracy the origin and course of thle 

Six County civil rights movement of 

the 1960s. Together with C. D. 

Greaves's The Irish Crisis, which deals 

more thoroughly with the British side 

of things, it will be indispensabte 

reading for anyone who wants to 

understand the political revolt by 

Northern Catholics against the 

injustices of Stormont Unionist rule at 

that time. * 

Conn McCtuskey was the 

Dungannon general practitioner who, 

together with his dynamic wife 

Patricia, founded the Campaign for 

Social Justice in January 1964. This 

development expressed a new mood 

of assertiveness among the Northern 

Catholic middle-class at the time, who 

were fed up with the sluggishness of 

Eddie McAteer's Nationalist Party. 

They saw that a campaign for civil 

liberties and against anti-Catholic 

discrimination, which did not seek to 

raise the "constitutional issue" 

directly, was more likely to get results 

than a direct assault on the injustice of 

Partition itself. They saw also that for 

such a campaign to succeed it needed 

to secure the intervention of a 

sympathetic British public opinion on 

the Catholic side. Apart from Sean 

Caughey's short-lived civil rights 

group in Belfast a couple of years 

before, the Campaign for Social 

Justice was the first organisation in 

the North which sought to appeal 

systematically to British Labour and 

Liberal opinion. This brought 

invaluable reinforcement to the anit- 

Unionist campaign in Britain itself, 

which the Connolly Association had 

initiated in 1958 and which was taken 

up from 1965 by the Westminster 

Labour Party-based Campaign for 

Democracy in Ulster and others. 

Livingstone's Labour: A 

Programme for the 

Nineties. Ken Livingstone. 

310pp, Unwin Hyman, 

£12.95 hbk. 

DURING a debate on strategies for 

British disengagement from the Six 

Counties staged during this summer's 

Time To Go Show, Ken Livingstone 

questioned the necessity of phasing 

withdrawal over even the lifetime of a 

British parliament on the grounds 

that he could not imagine what a 

British government would find for itself 

to do over such a vast stretch of time. 

It is a common failure of the political 

imagination. Livingstone is not alone in 

wanting Britain out without it being 

forced to own up to its responsibilities 

for the present sorry state of affairs in 

the Six Counties. Indeed, his scenario 

would enable a British government 

by 

HI* remarks at the Time To Go event 

re-echo towards tie end of his chapter 

on die subject In Livingstone's Labour. 

It begins well enough with documented 

links between loyalist 


Page Seven 

's civil rights story 

In 1963 Mrs Patricia McCluskey set 

up the Homeless Citizens League in 

Dungannon. That town was a prime 

example of the political abuses of 

Unionism. Its wards were 

gerrymandered. Council housing was 

openly allocated on the basis of 

religious — political allegiance. The 

Unionist majority on the Council 

refused to introduce a points system. 

In the previous twenty years only 34 

Catholic families had been 

rehoused 

in the town as against 264 Protestant 

ones. 

The Campaign for Social Justice 

demonstrated the power of welldocumented 

facts, persistently 

presented, to change people's minds. 

Their booklet Northern Ireland - 7Tie 

Plain Facts, which is reproduced as an 

appendix to this volume, sold 100,000 

copies. It made a big impression in the 

House of Commons and In the British 

media, especially when backed up by 

the always courteous and patient 

explanations of the McCluskeys 

themselves and their fellow-workers. 

A few twinges of 

conscience 

Dr McCluskey kept notes of all 

those committee meetings and 

demonstrations he attended during 

the 1960s. I suspect that his reminders 

of past events will cause 

embarrassment and perhaps twinges 

of conscience among quite a few. The 

most discredited person to emerge is 

surely British Labour Prime Minister 

Harold Wilson. Wilson won the 1964 

general election by a hairbreadth. A 

swing of a few hundred votes the other 

way in a few constituencies and he 

would not have got in. The Irish 

people in Britain won him the election 

by turning out ina big wayfor Labour 

because of the support given by some 

Labour MPs for the anti-Unionist 

campaign. Wilson had promised the 

McCluskeys and others that he would 

introduce civil liberties reforms. But 

once elected he did nothing for years, 

until it was too late and the whole 

situation blew up in his face. 

Conn McCluskey does not claim 

back to I,000BC only to tear forward 

again to the present day in what must be 

a record-breaking 13-page sprint 

through almost 3,000 years of Irish 

history. It's a valiant attempt to restore 

Ireland to its rightful place in the 

chronicle of the world, but it leaves him 

with only three sentences in which to 

deal with the central question for today: 

how England might leave its oldest 

colony. 

In the first sentence, the government 

negotiates a ceasefire with the IRA and 

guarantees withdrawal in no more than 

five years; in the second, the 

government invites Irish political 

partiesto discuss together proposals for 

re-unification; and in the third, it offers 

"continuing" financial assistance from 

the British treasury to the new state — 

he doesn't specify a time period here — 

but only on condition of guaranteed 

freedoms for the Protestant minority. 

As a scenario for peace, it's 

unconvincing No British government 

should be allowed to spHt the movement 

for national democracy by negotiating 

withdrawal with the armed republican 

element alone. Democracy demands 

Britain negotiate with the 

maz as&s&SSs SSfSEF 

"Al 

autumn press campaign revealed the 

of collusion between members of 

forces and sectarian 

But he then feels forced til 

which gain greater significance every 

day wfth events in the East - dictate 

that the course of re4nlffc*tMtis 

formulated bj} representatives of the 

Irish people by themselves, and not at 

that his book is a definitive account of 

the Civil Rights Movement. The 

whole story of that stili awaits the 

telling. When it comes it will need to 

give proper weight to the 

developments in Britain which 

ensured that there was political and 

popular sympathy for the Northern 

Catholic side when eventually they 

did assert themselves. But the role of 

the Campaign for Social Justice is an 

important and previously much 

downplayed part of the larger story. 

The book is what it says it is — an 

insider's "commentary" on the civil 

rights movement. There are sections 

on the NICRA, the PDs, Bernadette 

Devlin, Paisley, the Nationalists, the 

SDLP and so on, in which Dr 

McCluskey gives his reminiscences 

and judgements. He is a true radical at 

heart. He refers, for instance, to the 

present-day SDLP as "the old 

Nationalists with a crease in their 

trousers." He draws attention to the 

influential role of Mr Kevin Boyle — 

now a Law Professor — in running the 

People's Democracy, advising 

Michael Farrell and urging 

confrontational courses on the Civil 

Rights Association. He shows the 

Republicans — not yet split between 

Official and Provisionals —caught up 

in events they had neither the political 

judgement nor the experienced 

personnel to stay on top of. 

Understandably, the author is not 

familiar with the details of the period 

on the British side of the Irish Sea. He 

mentions the Connolly Association 

once — in connection with the 

conference on the North which was 

called by the National Council for 

Civil Liberties in March 1965. He 

accepts that this event was important 

in extending the scope of the 

campaign in Britain but does not seem 

to know that the NCCL took this 

initiative at the instigation of the 

Association, which had for years been 

pushing the anti-Unionist cause inside 

the NCCL. He refers several times to 

the demand for a Commission of 

Enquiry being widely taken up in 

Britain, without making clear that 

what was being sought was an enquiry 

the invitation of the occupying power in 

the north-east. And non-interference 

means that the state has the right to 

some form of continued British 

subvention without needing to explain 

itself to the very power whose presence 

has fomented sectarian strife: the 

builders of the new nation should be 

trusted to guarantee the rights of 

Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter 

without having to make an account of 

themselves to imperial Britain. 

Despite all his research, Livingstone 

comes up with a solution which lacks 

analytical rigour. It is a criticism which 

could be made of other parts of the book, as 

well. While the inclusion of so much factual 

material is welcome in a political discourse 

after some of the more impressionistic 

analyses popr'ar in parts of the British left, 

there are blind spots in the argumentation. 

An uncomtructlve strategy for British 

disengagement from Ireland is one such. 

Another is the assessment of the Greater 

London Council. It was the GLC which 

"profoundly invluenced" the glossy 

packaging of the Labour Party in the 1987 

election. 

It was the GLC which 

demonstrated how Labour could "excite aad 

liberate the British people". It was the GLC 

which Mind the trail in local authority 

women's committees. No doubt all this is 

positive. But Livingstone fails to Include the 

other rideof the story: that It was tfc* GLC 

which developed a metropolitan culture of 

political patroaaga which proaiotad reHaact 

on subsidy not ulf-nfficUncy - which left 

wake of its abotition. 

packs of cards in the 

into the working of the Government 

of Ireland Act, a demand first put 

forward by the Association. 

Connolly Association 

discovers Section 75 

It was the CA also which first drew 

attention to the relevance of Section 

75 of the Government of Ireland Act 

which asserted the supreme authority 

of the Westminster Parliament — 

rather than the Government directly 

— for "every matter, person and 

thing" in the Six Counties. Desmond 

Greaves describes the background to 

this in his Reminiscences of the 

Connolly Association. Section 75 

established that Westminster clearly 

could reform the situation in the 

North if it could be got to legislate. 

That was the basis of the demand for a 

Bill of Rights to be voted through 

Westminster — also first advanced by 

the CA — which Harold Wilson went 

out of office without legislating for, 

giving way to the Tories under Heath. 

The consequence of this failure to 

secure a Bill of Rights from Wilson — 

which would have clamped the 

Unionists in a legislative straitjacket, 

preventing them from abusing power, 

encouraging them to take progressive 

steps and splitting them between 

liberals and extremists in the process 

— was that things thereafter careered 

downhill like an express train out of 

control. Paisleyites, PDs and 

Provisionals played into one 

another's hands as they piled the 

sectarian tinder even higher. 

Meanwhile Britain pondered new 

ways of perpetuating its rule, now that 

the firm Unionist prop they had so 

long relied on had broken. Their 

answer was "direct rule", just as it had 

been their answer when they 

abolished the College Green 

Parliament in 1800. 

The book makes some minor 

errors. At one point Dr McCluskey 

suggests that the "People's 

Democracy" and the Young Socialist 

Alliance were counterposed to one 

another. In fact it was the ultra-left 

Young Socialist Alliance and its , 

leaders who took the initiative in 

establishing the People's Democracy 

in the first place and who decided its 

policy throughout. He implies that 

Betty Sinclair went back on the 

NICRA executive after her 

resignation, thoiugh she did not. And 

I was surprised to see that he has 

Professor Michael Dolley, the 

Queen's historian who was on the first 

NICRA Executive, listed as a member 

of the Communist Party. Is this true? 

My own memory of Dolley, who used 

to be in the Belfast Wolfe Tone 

Society in those days, suggests it is 

improbable. 

All in all this is a most interesting 

book. It is a fine tribute by a great civil 

rights fighter and his wife to the many 

fine people who followed them and 

helped them. 

A.C. 

Given that the book sets out "a 

programme for the nineties" — an 

alternative to the policy review — it was 

perhaps ill-luck that it was published only a 

few weeks before Livingstone was voted off 

Labour's national executive as it turned out. 

Some of Its useful material, most notably tike 

plea for a coherent socialist economic 

policy, may well receive less attention than it 

deserves. However, anyone interested in an 

alternative approach to the policy review's 

should buy and read the book Livingstone 

himself has declared to be the most 

important to be published on the left in 28 

years, Beyond the Casino Economy. 

Extensively-researched and luchfly-arguel, 

the hook denoUshts the arguments of the 

die case for a ' 

'recovery in the 

i 111 hill . »-• . i . t * J 

r Dram wianrawai 

• wmiM 

SflUnfe.' Milne 

poMfahed by Vereo 

and the paperback cost* £l.tS.

Page Eight 


That was the slump; now when 

CORK LETTER 

TRADITIONALLY the end of the 

ea'.r and the beginning of another is a 

time lor looking forward as well 

rack. Perhaps it is above all a time for 

attempting to see into the future and 

lining what the pear ahead ma\ 

nold. 

TTie economic trends of the last tew 

tar- have made it at best a rather 

gloomy exercise and in general there is 

.ittle reason to believe that the 

predictions for 1990 will be much 

different to the realitv of the year just 

ended. It would be pleasant to 

suppose that we have seen the last of 

'.he cutbacks, and there may be some 

improvements in the employment 

situation, and that the country 

generally may begin to regenerate 

itself after years of severe recession. 

The reality is otherwise. Both 

is the boom coming? 

as 

the 

Government and the main opposition 

parties hold the view that the present 

tconomic stringency must continue 

into 1990, and even to years ahead. 

This points to the fact that we cannot 

TC verse the slide towards total 

tconomic disaster. Naturally it is a 

point of view that will not be popular 

Aith a population which feels that it 

has taken enough, with cuts in services 

of every description and what that 

effectively amounts to, is a near- 

Marvation standard of living for 

many. 

The main revenue spinners like the 

construction industry and agriculture 

;emain stagnant and lacing further 

problems at the dawning of the NCw 

Year. But perhaps the most significant 

indicator of what is happening to the 

economy is the constant drain of our 

voung and talented people by way of 

enforced emigration. 

Economic restraint is one thing if it 

>s also directed to the wealthy sections 

ff our country, but the way it now 

-.operates can only lead to the 

decimation of the fundamental 

structure of this country as we 

are 

approaching another year of great 

difficulty in every aspect of national 

jife. We are now thinking up 

stupid 

wildcat schemes which will only result 

n putting the country further into 

hock to the international money 

moguls. 

There is a prevailing opinion tn 

Cork that the government is not 

coming clean on issues in relation 

many decisions which are made 

behind the backs of both people and 

politicians. For instance, take 

Veroime Dockyard, which has 

reached five years since closure, 

without any iterest to anybody 

tiutside Ireland. Suddenly the 

tecame interested, and the Cobh 

to 

USSR 

and 

Harbour Chamber of Commerce and 

other interested parties met and 

welcomed Soviet officials with a view 

to leasing or buying it. They want to 

.in- the y.ird which is in the hands of a 

Receiver, as a repair yard and 

changeover post for the crews of the 

deep sea trawlers fishing out of 

Murmansk. It is also well known that 

Bering Sea is the worst in the 

world in wintertime:, The Russian 

involvement in Cobh, however, has 

been alarming the US Embassy. 

Efforts to work out a deal with 

the 

Soviet Government which would 

allow their trawler fleet to dock at 

Veroime have been blocked at the 

.nsistance of the Americans. 

Printed by Ripley Printers Ltd (TU), 

Nottingham Road, Ripley, Derbys and 

published by Connolly Publications 

Lid, 244 Grays Inn Road, London, 

"vVCl Telephone 01-833-3022 

The US embassy officials have 

: cpeatedly voiced their concern to the 

Irish Government about such a 

concession and may have been 

instrumental in forcing the 

cancellation of an Irish Ministerial 

delegation visiting Moscow. An 

example of how seriously the US 

viewed a Soviet involvement in Cork 

can be gleaned from the comments of 

I mbassy Officials to some 

of the Cobh 

members 

Urban Council early in 

1989 when they were told that 

America did not look favourably on 

such a development. 

While the sceptical might think it 

far-fetched that the US would bother 

itself about what was happening in 

Cobh, only last August a former 

Coalition Minister, Barry Desmond 

was claiming that the Americans 

approached the Government of which 

he was a member with a request that 

the Veroime Dockyard be used as a 

base for the Atlantic Naval 

Fleet. It 

would have been a great help to Cobh, 

which has a high unemployment rate 

if such an agreement came to pass. 

After a visit to Veroime by Finance 

Minister, Albert Reynolds, the Cork 

TD, Michael Ahem, confidentially 

predicted that the yard would be "up 

and running in early 

1990 with jobs 

initially for between 200 and 300 people. 

SPete*/ 

Mulli^cuvy 

REWARD — The Queen has now 

approved Mr Justice Murray as a 

Privy Councillor following his recent 

promotion to Lord Justice of Appeal 

in Northern Ireland. His security 

status will accordingly be raised. He 

will receive a revolver and a personal 

bodyguard. 

* * * 

FULL C IRCLE 2 — T om King has 

I el t Northern Ireland. Like his seven 

predecessors he left behind a fag end 

of empire divided by injustice and 

15,000 armed personnel. King 

replaced by Peter Brooke, a relative of 

Sir Basil Brooke, who later became 

Lord Brookeborough, who claimed, 

in typical colonial fashion, that 

Northern Ireland was a Protestant 

state for a Protestant people. Many 

believe it is still a colony. 

* * * 

CAPITALISM - The Allied Irish 

Bank has turned in profits of lr£l 10 

million (£ 100.9m) for six months up to 

September. This represents a rise of 39 

per cent. Like the British big four 

banks the A1B has invested heavily in 

South America and has reserved £17.2 

million in anticipation of bad debts 

* * * 

CAPITALISM 2 It has been 

announced that Members of 

Savage, right, enjoying a drink with, left to right, Kadai 

Asmal, Gerard Curran and Joe Deighan, Dublin, August 1989 

Then the crunch came while the talks 

were continuing. The Taoiseach, Mr 

Haughey said that there were other 

"international interests" looking at 

the possibility of reopening Veroime 

for shipbuilding purposes. He was, 

however, not in a position to 

elaborate further on this. 

As expected also the Thatcher 

Parliament are to receive a 10 percent 

rise from Januarv raising their salary 

rom £24,107 to £26,701. 

* * * 

BIG EARNER? — "The fact is, ojr 

earnings"iri ftfrstountry areioahigb.," 

Norman Fowler MP, on £52,672 a 

year plus a recent 10 per cent rise. 

* * * 

ON THE NEXT GENERAL 

ELECTION — "Frankly the future of 

Britain as a capitalist nation will be at 

stake." Michael Heseltine. 

* * * 

REGINE v THE MAZE, ex parte 

Hone and McCartan — Six Law 

I ords have concluded that prisoners 

in Northern Ireland are not entitled as 

ol right to legal representation when 

charged with disciplinary offences 

before a board of visitors. The boards 

have the power to pass severe 

punishment and extend sentences by 

denying parole. This judgement 

means that prisoners will have less 

legal rights than non prisoners. It is 

assumed that this precedent (like 

others) will also be applied to English 

prisoners. 

» * * 

STATE TRAINED — A former 

Detective Chief Inspector in the 

Metropolitan Police who set up his 

own private detective agency is 

offering telephone tapping services 

according to the Observer. 

* * * 

BRITISH COURTS — The Rt Rev 

Samual Poyntz, Church of Ireland, 

Bishop of Connor, speaking in 

Glasgow "The quashing of the 

sentences of the Guildford Four will 

go a long way towards proving to the 

Nationalist community that justice is 

possible for Irish people in British 

C ourts." DAI1Y TEI EGRAPH 

13.11. K9 

* * * 

HIE POOR — 1 he poor will pay up 

to four times as much of their income 

as better off people in the community 

charge or poll tax, the Low Pay Unit 

says in a recent report published Mr 

Christopher Pond, director of the unit 

Mid: "The poll tax works like Robin 

Hood in reverse. Money is being taken 

from the poor to give to the rich." 

Low Pay Review, Low Pay llnjt, 9 

Upper Berkley St. Wl. £2.50p; 

Government indicated they would not 

favour the yard in the hands of the 

USSR Government in what was 

termed their "backyard". Then, out 

of the blue, came a Norwegian buyer 

identified as the Kristian Sands Yard 

in south Norway, to buy a yard which 

had been neglected since its closure in 

the early eighties. 

J.S. 

Abanti & seanfhocal 

le Seamus O Cionnfh 

O Cionnfhaidh 

Phrases and p?ov0Bf ~ r * 

1. Baite, Taim baite i mblianta — Stricken 

with age. 

2. Baite i mbron — Overwhelmed with 

grief. 

3. Baint, Ag baint siaras — To cause a setback. 

4. Bainim caint as — 1 get him to talk. 

5. Bainim sasmh de — I call to account, 

extract satisfaction from. 

6. Ag deanamh branair — Turning up the 

surface of land. 

7. Goirtin branair — A little fallow field. 

8. Ni bheinn ag brath ort — I would not 

depend on you. 

9. Do bhrath se tri nithe ar fein san 

tsaothar seo — He revealed three things 

about himself in this work, 

10. Ta se ag deanamh aithrisarachaint — 

He is mimicking his manner of talking. 

11. Theip orainn teacht suas leo — We 

failed to overtake them. 

12. An feidir leat an chaint do thuigsint — 

Can you understand the conversation. 

13. Mair a chapail is gheoir fear — Live 

like a horse and you will be fed. Said by one 

who has waited for something too long. 

14. Isgiorra cabhair na andoras — Help is 

nearer than the door. 

15. Is fusa gno a dheanamh le duine gan 

naire — It is easy to make business with 

one without shame. 

16. Is dana muc na gabhar ach sharaig 

bean an Diabhal — A pig is bolder than a 

goat, but a woman beats the Devil. 

17 Is beag an rud is buaine na duine — 

Only a few things last longer than man. 

18 Is fearr a bheidh id aonar na i ndroch 

chuideachta — It is better being alone than 

in bad company. 

18 Is treise duchas na oiliuiant — Nature 

is stronger than education. 


From the Irish Democrat 

twenty years ago 

- October 1969 

A 

BOUT a hundred members of the 

London branch of NICRA, 

members of the Connolly Association 

and others, left Runnymede, in Surrey, 

on Saturday, September 6th to march 

to Hyde Park. 

Runnymede was the place where the 

English King John was forced against 

his w ill to sign the 'Magna Carta' which 

is the basis of English civil liberties 

today. 

' 

They were demanding equality of 

civil rights for the occupied part of 

Ireland. 

Belfast Unionists, echoed by 

Westminster Tories, are yammering for 

the "resumption of normal life in 

Northern Ireland." 

The Catholics and Democrats of the 

six counties decline to resume the life 

that was "normal" under Unionism 

these past 50 years. 

They want life that is "normal" in 

democracies where citizens have equal 

rights and opportunities. 

Erecting tangles of barbed wire, 

lining the streets with British troops 

will be of no value as long as the Fascist 

bands are allowed to organise and keep 

their arms. 

New insights 

- Continued from Page 7, Col 1 

The coining of the Free State did not 

affect Judge Wylie's status. He remained a 

High Court Judge, and a Judicial 

Commissioner of the Land Commission 

until 1936. A keen sportsman, and lover of 

horses, he acted as Chairman of the Irish 

Racing Board, sat on the Executive of the > 

Royal Dublin Society, and was a Steward Of 

the Turf Club. 

MMj' 

This book, inspired by Judge WyllS'S 

daughter, Marion (Biddy), and undertaken 

with consumate skill by Leon CKBroin, 

provides a new insight into a dark period

Irish Democrat January 1990

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