Ireland

Geoff Bell : There is nothing wrong in reassessing Marxist interpretations, but where this has led Socialist Organiser as far as this particular exercise is concerned is to the other side of the class divide. This is illustrated in the January edition of the magazine Workers' Liberty and an article therein by Sean Matgamna. This is entitled "Ireland: lies the left tells itself". A more fitting headline would have been "Ireland: examples of the lies the right tells itself". For what has now emerged from what at first was a sloppy and impressionistic analysis is the one which stands four square...

An analogy may help to explain the issues - the case of Ceylon/ Sri Lanka. I assume Geoff Bell and Socialist Outlook are in favour of the right of the Tamils to secede from the Sinhalese-dominated Sri Lankan state and set up their own state. But how did things in Ceylon/ Sri Lanka turn out like this? Look at the history. Some of the Tamils were a favoured minority under British rule. Does that not morally condemn them and deprive them of minority rights, like the Protestants? Why shouldn't the Tamils submit to the "Sri Lankan majority", as you say the Irish minority must submit to the Irish...

This series: The Northern Ireland crisis of 1968-9 and the left Part 13 Part 1: Why Northern Ireland Broke Down Part 2: The Irish Workers' Group, IS and the "Trotskyist Tendency" Part 3: Why Northern Ireland Split on Communal, Not Class, Lines Part 4: When militant sloganeering meant promoting communal war Part 5: When socialists looked to "Catholic Power" ; and Part 5 Section 2 Part 6: SWP (IS) and Northern Ireland in 1968-9: Advocating civil war — until it starts! ; and Section 2 Part 7: The end of the old order in Northern Ireland ; Section 2 ; Section 3 Part 8: IS/SWP conference, September...

I have read with interest — and some amusement — Sean Matgamna’s history of the “Irish debate” in IS and elsewhere on the left in the period from the late 1950s to (presumably) the early 1970s. I will not comment on the series as a whole until it is completed. However I would like to comment on the most recent in the series dealing with the Irish Workers’ Group and — more specifically — its predecessor, the Irish Workers Union. Sean’s account is broadly correct. But it is ludicrous to assert that the IWU enjoyed sympathy from from Irish Catholic clergy or some “unidentified” part of the Irish...

This series: The Northern Ireland crisis of 1968-9 and the left Part 11 Part 1: Why Northern Ireland Broke Down Part 2: The Irish Workers' Group, IS and the "Trotskyist Tendency" Part 3: Why Northern Ireland Split on Communal, Not Class, Lines Part 4: When militant sloganeering meant promoting communal war Part 5: When socialists looked to "Catholic Power" ; and Part 5 Section 2 Part 6: SWP (IS) and Northern Ireland in 1968-9: Advocating civil war — until it starts! ; and Section 2 Part 7: The end of the old order in Northern Ireland ; Section 2 ; Section 3 Part 8: IS/SWP conference, September...

Ian Paisley did not jump out of the position of First Minister of Northern Ireland. He was pushed. Nudged, anyway. He came under strong pressure from the leading circles of the Democratic Unionist Party to go, and go now. It may be for Northern Ireland politics as if President De Gaulle of France had been assassinated early in 1962, at the time of the Evian agreement that gave Algeria independence after an eight year war. It depends on whether the power-sharing arrangement in Northern Ireland, which has gone on very successfully in the last year, really is as "bedded down" as it seemed with...

In August 1969 the major group on the far left in Britain, panicked by the pogroms in Belfast and Derry, were so relieved to see the British troops go into action that for nearly a whole year they dropped the slogan 'British Troops Out'. For months before August when the British troops had no role in Northern Ireland affairs, they had made Troops Out one of their main slogans. It was a front page headline in Socialist Worker in April 1969! In August, when the troops moved centre stage, it was eloquently dropped. On August 17th 1969, a hastily convened special meeting of members of the two...

This series: The Northern Ireland crisis of 1968-9 and the left Part 10 Click here for the introduction to this article: the "hard Trotskyists" of 1969 Next article in this series: Part 11: AWL's record on Ireland — Part A Part 1: Why Northern Ireland Broke Down Part 2: The Irish Workers' Group, IS and the "Trotskyist Tendency" Part 3: Why Northern Ireland Split on Communal, Not Class, Lines Part 4: When militant sloganeering meant promoting communal war Part 5: When socialists looked to "Catholic Power" ; and Part 5 Section 2 Part 6: SWP (IS) and Northern Ireland in 1968-9: Advocating civil...

This series: The Northern Ireland crisis of 1968-9 and the left Part 10, intro This is an introduction to the main article: The SLL on Ireland Part 1: Why Northern Ireland Broke Down Part 2: The Irish Workers' Group, IS and the "Trotskyist Tendency" Part 3: Why Northern Ireland Split on Communal, Not Class, Lines Part 4: When militant sloganeering meant promoting communal war Part 5: When socialists looked to "Catholic Power" ; and Part 5 Section 2 Part 6: SWP (IS) and Northern Ireland in 1968-9: Advocating civil war — until it starts! ; and Section 2 Part 7: The end of the old order in...

An 81 year old retired Irish cardinal, Desmond Connell, has gone to the High Court in Dublin for a writ to stop his successor as Archbishop of Dublin from handing over church files on paedophile priests to a state-organised inquiry into clerical abuse of children. He has called on the court to prevent the head of the Catholic Church in the Dublin diocese from handing over information about criminal priests to the government-appointed investigation. He has got an interim writ, freezing proceedings until there can be a full court hearing. He claims that some of the files contain solicitors’...