Ireland

"Ireland occupies a position among the nations of the earth unique - in the possession of what is known as a 'physical force party' - a party, that is to say, whose members are united upon no one point, and agree upon no single principle, except upon the use of physical force - [A party that] exalts into a principle that which the revolutionists of other countries have looked upon as a weapon - men as the only means of attaining it." — James Connolly, 1899 The special Sinn Fein Ard Fheis in Dublin, on January 27, 2007 decided, in principle, to recognise the reorganised Royal Ulster...

(Whole dialogue as a single posting) The scene is Belfast in July 1983, on a Saturday, about 10 am. A 'Troops Out' delegation has been in Belfast, where it has talked to Republicans on the Falls Road, been to look close up at soldiers on patrol, examined plastic bullets and photos of their victims, and talked to Catholics in Andersonstown. Two men and a woman have detached themselves from the delegation and crossed the short distance from the Catholic Falls Road through part of the city centre to where the Shankhill begins. Nervously, they make their way up the Protestant Shankhill Road, which...

Discussing events and issues 1968-2006. Saturday 10 June , 11:00 to 13:30, Marchmont St Community Centre, 62 Marchmont St, London WC1. Notes and discussion points.

The events of 1912-22, and their consequences for Ireland today. 1912 April: Third Home Rule Bill introduced into Parliament by Liberal Government. The House of Lords veto has been abolished in 1911, so the Bill seems sure to pass. September: 447,000 people sign Ulster Solemn League and Covenant, pledging to resist the Bill. 1913 January: Ulster Volunteer Force formed and begins drilling. November: Irish Citizen Army and Irish National Volunteers formed. 1914 March: Army officers at the Curragh camp in Ireland declare they will resign rather than coerce Ulster. Government backs down and gives...

Introduction From the mid-1960s a sizeable minority of the people of the USA turned against the war their government was waging in Vietnam. They marched, demonstrated and lobbied to force their government to stop the war. This active opposition of a section of their own people was a major factor in making the Indochina war unwinnable for the mighty US government. Since about 1972 opinion polls have more or less consistently shown that half or more than half the people of Britain do not want Britain to continue to rule Northern Ireland, do not want the British troops there, and therefore do...

Socialist Organiser [the publication at the time of the tendency now represented by Workers’ Liberty and Solidarity] traces its attitude on Ireland back to the small group of socialists who produced the journal An Solas/Workers Republic in 1966-7, under the umbrella of the Irish Workers Group. We believed that traditional Republicanism was not and could not be a consistently anti-imperialist force; that it was, by its ideas, goals and methods a petty - bourgeois movement; that its petty-bourgeois nationalism was a barrier to working-class unity, that its 'little Irelandism' cut in the opposite...

This article deals with the views argued on Ireland in the 1970s and 80s by Militant, forerunner of the Socialist Party and Socialist Appeal. The Militant tendency argues that bread-and-butter trade union unity and a drive to for a Labour Party in Northern Ireland show the way to a socialist united Ireland. Why are they wrong? From a working class point of view the basic problem about the Six County state is that in that state framework, working class unity, developed on a trade union level, has always shattered at any political test. So long as the 'constitutional question' remains at the...

Saturday 3 June , 2-6pm, Sebbon St Community Centre, Sebbon St, London N1 (behind Islington Town Hall). Notes and discussion points.