Showing posts with label BRITISH IMPERIALISM. Show all posts
Showing posts with label BRITISH IMPERIALISM. Show all posts

Thursday, April 23, 2020

*Those Who Fought For Our Communist Future Are Kindred Spirits- Honor Easter I916 Irish Citizens Army Commandant James Connolly

Click on the title to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for Easter 1916 leader, James Connolly

This is a repost of a January 2009 entry honoring Irish Citizens Army Commandant James Connolly as a labor militant and here as a fighter for Irish independence as well on the anniversary of the Easter Uprising of 1916.

Every January, as readers of this blog are now, hopefully, familiar with the international communist movement honors the 3 Ls-Lenin, Luxemburg and Leibknecht, fallen leaders of the early 20th century communist movement who died in this month (and whose untimely deaths left a huge, irreplaceable gap in the international leadership of that time). January is thus a time for us to reflect on the roots of our movement and those who brought us along this far. In order to give a fuller measure of honor to our fallen forbears this January, and in future Januarys, this space will honor others who have contributed in some way to the struggle for our communist future. That future classless society, however, will be the true memorial to their sacrifices.

Note on inclusion: As in other series on this site (“Labor’s Untold Story”, “Leaders Of The Bolshevik Revolution”, etc.) this year’s honorees do not exhaust the list of every possible communist worthy of the name. Nor, in fact, is the list limited to Bolshevik-style communists. There will be names included from other traditions (like anarchism, social democracy, the Diggers, Levellers, Jacobins, etc.) whose efforts contributed to the international struggle. Also, as was true of previous series this year’s efforts are no more than an introduction to these heroes of the class struggle. Future years will see more detailed information on each entry, particularly about many of the lesser known figures. Better yet, the reader can pick up the ball and run with it if he or she has more knowledge about the particular exploits of some communist militant, or to include a missing one.

Markin comment:

James Connolly's name is a familiar in this space and we honor his memory every year on the anniversary of the Easter, 1916 Irish uprising against in the British in the middle of their World War I slaughter. Our day will come.

Wednesday, April 22, 2020

*Those Who Fought For Our Communist Future Are Kindred Spirits- Honor Easter I916 Irish Citizen Army Commandant James Connolly

Click on the title to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for Easter 1916 leader, James Connolly

Every January, as readers of this blog are now, hopefully, familiar with the international communist movement honors the 3 Ls-Lenin, Luxemburg and Leibknecht, fallen leaders of the early 20th century communist movement who died in this month (and whose untimely deaths left a huge, irreplaceable gap in the international leadership of that time). January is thus a time for us to reflect on the roots of our movement and those who brought us along this far. In order to give a fuller measure of honor to our fallen forbears this January, and in future Januarys, this space will honor others who have contributed in some way to the struggle for our communist future. That future classless society, however, will be the true memorial to their sacrifices.

Note on inclusion: As in other series on this site (“Labor’s Untold Story”, “Leaders Of The Bolshevik Revolution”, etc.) this year’s honorees do not exhaust the list of every possible communist worthy of the name. Nor, in fact, is the list limited to Bolshevik-style communists. There will be names included from other traditions (like anarchism, social democracy, the Diggers, Levellers, Jacobins, etc.) whose efforts contributed to the international struggle. Also, as was true of previous series this year’s efforts are no more than an introduction to these heroes of the class struggle. Future years will see more detailed information on each entry, particularly about many of the lesser known figures. Better yet, the reader can pick up the ball and run with it if he or she has more knowledge about the particular exploits of some communist militant, or to include a missing one.

Markin comment:

James Connolly's name is a familiar in this space and we honor his memory every year on the anniversary of the Easter, 1916 Irish uprising against in the British in the middle of their World War I slaughter. Our day will come.

Monday, April 06, 2020

*HONOR JAMES CONNOLLY-IRISH REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALIST

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of The Wolftones Performing The Song In Honor Of "James Connolly". There are also some very good photographs of the destruction of Dublin after the British shelled the downtown area of "their province" to kingdom come.

COMMENTARY


ALL HONOR TO THE MEMORY OF JAMES CONNOLLY, COMMANDANT- IRISH CITIZEN ARMY- EXECUTED BY THE BLOODY BRITISH IMPERIALISTS MAY, 1916. ALL HONOR TO THE MEMORY OF BOBBY SANDS, MP AND THE 10 MARTYRED LONG KESH HUNGER STRIKERS. ALL HONOR TO THE MEMORY OF THE 90th ANNIVERSARY OF THE EASTER UPRISING, 1916. BRITISH TROOPS OUT OF IRELAND TODAY (AND WHILE WE ARE AT IT OUT OF IRAQ).


A word. They tell a story about James Connolly that just before the start of action on Easter Monday, 1916 he told the members of the Irish Citizen’s Army (almost exclusively workers, by the way) that if the uprising was successful to keep their guns handy. More work with them might be necessary against the nationalist allies of the moment organized as the Irish Volunteers. The Volunteers were mainly a petty bourgeois formation and had no intention of fighting for Connolly's vision of a Socialist Republic. True story or not, I think that gives a pretty good example of the strategy and tactics to be used in colonial and third world struggles by the working class. Would that the Chinese Communists in the 1920’s and other colonial and third world liberation fighters since then had paid heed to that strategic concept. Here is sketch of the life of this Irish freedom fighter

James Connolly, June 5, 1868-May 12, 1916, was of Scottish Irish stock. He was born in Edinburgh of immigrant parents. The explicit English colonial policy of driving the Irish out of Ireland which thus created the Irish diaspora produced many such immigrants from benighted Ireland to England, America, Australia and the far flung parts of the world. Many of these immigrants left Ireland under compulsion of banishment. Deportation and execution was a standard English response in the history of the various “Troubles’ from Cromwell’s time on.

Connolly, like many another Irish lad left school for a working life at age 11. The international working class has produced many such self-taught and motivated leaders. Despite the lack of formal education he became one of the preeminent left-wing theorists of his day in the pre- World War I international labor movement. In the class struggle we do not ask for diplomas, although they help, but commitment to the cause of the laboring masses. Again, like many an Irish lad Connolly joined the British Army, at the age of 14. In those days the British Army provided one of the few ways of advancement for an Irishman who had some abilities. As fate would have it Connolly was stationed in Dublin. I believe the English must rue the day they let Brother Connolly near weapons and near Dublin. As the old Irish song goes- ‘ Won’t Old Mother England be Surprised’.

By 1892 Connolly was an important figure in the Scottish Socialist Federation which, by the way, tended to be more militant and more Celtic and less enamored of parliamentarianism than its English counterpart. Later, the failure to gather in the radical Celtic elements was a contributing factor to the early British Communist Party’s inability to break militants from the British Labor Party. Most of the great labor struggles of the period cam from the leadership in Scotland and Ireland. Connolly became the secretary of the Federation in 1895. In 1896 he left the army and established the Irish Socialist Republican Party. The name itself tells the program. Ireland at that time was essentially a classic English colony so to take the honored name Republican was to spit in the eye of the English. Even today the English have not been able to rise to the political level of a republic. Despite Cromwell’s valiant attempt in the 1600's and no thanks to the British Labor Party’s policies this is sadly the case today. All militants everywhere can and must support this call- Abolish the monarchy, House of Lords and the state Church of England.
In England Connolly was active in the Socialist Labor Party that split from the moribund, above-mentioned Social Democratic Federation in 1903. During the period before the Easter uprising he was heavily involved in the Irish labor movement and acted as the right hand man to James Larkin in the Irish Transport and General Workers Union. In 1913 when Larkin led a huge strike in Dublin but was forced to leave due to English reprisals Connolly took over. It was at that time that Connolly founded the Irish Citizens Army as a defense organization of armed and trained laboring men against the brutality of the dreaded Dublin Metropolitan Police. Although only numbering about 250 men at the time their political goal was to establish an independent and socialist Ireland.

Connolly stood aloof from the leadership of the Irish Volunteers, the nationalist formation based on the middle classes. He considered them too bourgeois and unconcerned with Ireland's economic independence. In 1916 thinking they were merely posturing, and unwilling to take decisive action against England, he attempted to goad them into action by threatening to send his Irish Citizens Army against the British Empire alone, if necessary. This alarmed the members of the more militant faction- Irish Republican Brotherhood, who had already infiltrated the Volunteers and had plans for an insurrection as well. In order to talk Connolly out of any such action, the IRB leaders, including Tom Clarke and Patrick Pearse, met with Connolly to see if an agreement could be reached. During the meeting the IRB and the ICA agreed to act together at Eastertime of that year.

When the Easter Rising occurred on April 24, 1916, Connolly was Commandant of the Dublin Brigade, and as the Dublin brigade had the most substantial role in the rising, he was de facto Commander in Chief. Following the surrender he was executed by the British for his role in the uprising. Although he was so badly injured in the fighting that he was unable to stand for his execution he was shot sitting in a chair. The Western labor movement, to its detriment no longer produces enough such militants as Connolly (and Larkin, for that matter). Learn more about this important socialist thinker and fighter. ALL HONOR TO THE MEMORY OF JAMES CONNOLLY. Chocky Ar La (Our Day Will Come).

THIS ARTICLE WAS WRITTEN FROM MEMORY SO SOME OF THE DATES AND ORGANIZATIONS NAMES MAY BE INCORRECT. THE WRITER WOULD APPRECIATE ANY SUCH CORRECTIONS. NEEDLESS TO SAY, THE WRITER STANDS BY HIS POLITICAL CONCLUSIONS.

Sunday, May 05, 2019

In Honor Of The 100th Anniversary Of The Founding of The Communist International-From The Archives- The 'Woes' of The British Labor Party

Click on the headline to link to a Leon Trotsky Internet Archives online copy of his Leon Trotsky’s Writings on Britain-Volume 1-The Labour Movement
1906-1924
to give a little historical perspective to this post.


Commentary

Regular readers of this space have long been aware that this writer fights his propaganda war under the banner of struggling in America for a workers party that fights for a workers government. In the course of that propaganda war I have had occasion to use the British Labor Party (today, New Labor) as the whipping boy (oops, person) for all that the slogan does not mean. Over the past few days news has filtered out that in the recent local municipal elections in Britain the Labor Party has taken something of a political beating by the Conservative Party AND, hold onto your hat, the Liberal Party. These are desperate times in Labor Party circles, especially for the party bureaucracy and their remaining toadies in the Trades Union Congress. I will, however, not wake up screaming in the night over this development. I cry no tears that ‘radical’ Ken Livingstone has fallen as Mayor of London. Nevertheless a few remarks about how militants in Britain (and elsewhere) can take advantage of the situation seem in order.

One of the great truisms of British left wing politics for the last century or so (since the split with the above-mentioned seemingly previously moribund liberals and the formation of an independent working class party) is the need to have a strategic orientation toward the Labor Party. Most famously, Lenin in his nice little polemical of 1920 against the ‘wild boys and girls’ of anarcho-communism in Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder noted that, at times, militants are forced to support the Labor Party like “a rope supports a dying man”. And on occasion that little advice might be true in the future. But not today.

Every British militant, as an individual, should be a member of the Labor Party, or one of its organizations. The truth of the matter is that the bulk of the working class still owes at least formal allegiance to that party. The problem historically has been, and continues today including by militants who know better, that one needs to know as an organization how to file for divorce. That, my friends, is the fundamental problem with long term entry into a larger labor organization that I have discussed elsewhere in this space. I would argue that this is an excellent time to think about a regroupment of left forces outside the Labor Party. The particular contours of that regroupment are contingent on local conditions and particular prospects. Of course none of that makes sense unless there is programmatic agreement, to my mind that is a given. But it is something to think about.

These recent British elections, and the defeat of Mr. Livingstone as mayor, have also brought in focus a question that has been raised by the International Communist League on the question of revolutionaries running for executive offices in the bourgeois state. The ICL’s argument is that, unlike in the past, including in their own past, where revolutionaries ran with the understanding that they would not take office, it is a matter of principle not to even run for such offices and that we confine ourselves to parliamentary races. I had in the past, not without a few qualms, continued to favor the old policy. I believe that I am now ready to change my position on this question; however, I wish to write on that question separately. So, perhaps, old Ken Livingstone’s defeat serves a purpose after all.

Tuesday, April 30, 2019

*In Honor Of James Connolly-Commandant Irish Citizens Army-Easter 1916

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of The Wolftones Performing The Song In Honor Of "James Connolly". There are also some very good photographs of the destruction of Dublin after the British shelled the downtown area of "their province" to kingdom come.

Guest Commentary

In this song James Connolly is memorised as leader of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union (ITGWU) and founder of the Irish Citizen Army (ICA).

Another song tells the circumstances in which he was executed for his participation at the Easter Rising.

JAMES CONNOLLY

Where oh where is our James Connolly,
Where oh where can that brave man be,
He has gone to organise the Union,
That working men might yet be free.
Where oh where is the citizen army,
Where oh where can that brave band be,
They have gone to join the great rebellion,
And break the bonds of slavery.
And who will be there to lead the van,
Who will there be to lead the van,
Oh who should there be but our James Connolly,
The hero of each working man.
Who carries high our burning flag,
Who carries high our burning flag,
Oh who but James Connolly all pale and wounded,
Carries high our burning flag.
They carried him up to the jail,
They carried him up to the jail,
And 'twas there that they shot him one bright May morning,
And quickly laid him in his grave.
Who mourns now for our James Connolly,
Who mourns now for that fighting man,
Oh lay me down in yon green garden,
And make my bearers Union men.
We laid him down in yon green garden,
With Union men on every side,
And we swore that we'd make one mighty Union,
And fill that gallant man with pride.
So come all you noble young Irishmen,
Come join with me for liberty,
And we will forge a mighty weapon,
And break the bonds of Slavery.


James Connolly

A great crowd had gathered outside of Kilmainhem
With their heads all uncovered they knelt on the ground
For inside that grim prison lay a brave Irish soldier
His life for his country about to lay down.


He went to his death like a true son of Ireland,
The fireing party he bravely did face.
Then the order rang out: "Present arms, Fire!";
James Connolly fell into a ready made grave.


The black flag they hoisted, the cruel deed was over,
Gone was the man who loved Ireland so well,
There was many a sad heart in Ireland that morning,
When they murdered James Connolly, the Irish rebel.


God`s curse on you, England, you cruel hearted monster,
Your deeds would shame all the devils in Hell,
There were no flowers blooming but the Shamrock is growing
On the grave of James Connolly, the Irish rebel.


Many years have rolled by since the Irish rebellion,
When the guns of Brittania they loudly did speak,
The bold I.R.A. battled shoulder to shoulder,
as the blood of their bodies flowed down Sackville Street.


The Four Courts of Dublin, the English bombarded,
The spirit of freedom, they tried hard to quell
But above all the din rose the cry "No Surrender!"
`Twas the voice of James Connolly, the Irish Rebel.

Sunday, April 28, 2019

*The Music Of The Celtic Fringe- The Chieftains- An Encore

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Sinead O'Connor And The Chieftains Performing "The Foggy Dew".

CD Review

Fire In The Kitchen, The Chieftains and various artists, BMC, 1999


If you want to hear good old-fashioned Celtic music then The Chieftains is one place where you will have to visit to get a taste of that music done to more modern sensibilities. The lads have gone to Nova Scotia here to grab another aspect of the Celtic diaspora. Moreover, as here and on a number of their albums they have gotten virtual who’s who of top-notch musicians from many genres to play along with them. That is always a sure sign of respect. What else can you ask for? Well here how about Laura Smith on “My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean” or The Ennis Sisters doing “Red Is The Rose” (also known by many other names but the result remains the same, a deep longing for a lover). If you want to go to tradition how about The Rankins and “An Innis Aigh or “A Mhairi Bhoidheach” done by Mary Jane Lamond. My favorite on this one is “Come By The Hills” done by Rita MacNeil. Nice.

Long Black Veil lyrics

Ten years ago on a cold dark night
Someone was killed 'neath the town hall light
Just a few at the scene, and they all did agree
That the man who ran looked a lot like me

The judge said "Son, what's your alibi?
If you were somewheres else, then you won't have to die"
But I spoke not a word, tho' it meant my life
For I'd been in the arms of my best friend's wife

Chorus:
She walks these hills in a long black veil
Visits my grave when the night winds wail
Nobody knows, nobody sees
Nobody knows, but me

The scaffold is high, eternity near
She stands in the crowd, she sheds not a tear
But sometimes at night when the cold winds moan
In a long black veil, she cries o'er my bones

Chorus

The Chieftains

Mo Ghile Mear lyrics


Chorus:

'Se/ mo laoch, mo Ghile Mear
'Se/ mo Chaesar Gile Mear
Suan na/ se/an ni/ bhfuaireas fe/in
O/ chuaigh i gce/in mo Ghile Mear

Grief and pain are all I know
My heart is sore
My tears a'flow
We saw him go ....
No word we know of him...
Chorus

A proud and gallant cavalier
A high man's scion of gentle mien
A fiery blade engaged to reap
He'd break the bravest in the field
Chorus

Come sing his praise as sweet harps play
And proudly toast his noble frame
With spirit and with mind aflame
So wish him strength and length of day
Chorus


"The Foggy Dew"

As down the glen one Easter morn
To a city fair rode I.
There armed lines of marching men
In squadrons passed me by.
No pipe did hum, no battle drum
Did sound its loud tattoo,
But the Angelus Bells o'er the Liffey swells
Rang out in the foggy dew.

Right proudly high in Dublin town
Hung they out a flag of war.
T'was better to die 'neath an Irish sky
Than at Sulva or Sud el Bar.
And from the plains of Royal Meath
Strong men came hurrying through
While Brittania's huns with their long-range guns
Sailed in through the foggy dew.

The bravest fell and the requiem bell
Rang mournfully and clear
For those who died that Eastertide
In the springing of the year.
While the world did gaze with deep amaze
At those fearless men but few
Who bore the fight that freedom's light
Might shine through the foggy dew.

And back through the glen I rode again
And my heart with grief was sore
For I parted then with valient men
Whom I never shall see more.
But to and fro in my dreams I go
And I kneel and pray for you,
For slavery fled the glorious dead
When you fell in the foggy dew.

"The Rocky Road To Dublin"

In the merry month of may, from me home I started left the girls of
Tuam,
sad and broken hearted, salute me father dear,
and kissed me darlin' mother, drank a pint of beer,
me tears and grief to smother, off to reap the corn,
leave where I was born, I cut a stoat black thorn to banish ghosts and
goblins,
in a pair of brand new of brogues, I rattled over the bogs, frightened
all the dogs,
on the rocky road to Dublin, 1,2,3,4,5
hunt the hare and turn her down the rocky road,
and all the way to Dublin, whacks fer al de da!
In Dublin next arrived, and thought it such a pity to be so soon
deprived,
a view of that fair city, then I took a stroll,
all amongst the quality, me bundle it was stole,
in that neat locality, something crossed me mind, when I looked behind,
no bundle I could find, upon me stick a wobblin. Enquiring after the
rogue,
said me Connaught brogue, was not much in vogue,
on the rocky road to Dublin, 1,2,3,4,5
hunt the hare and turn her down the rocky road,
and all the way to Dublin, whacks fer al de da!
The boys of Liverpool, when we safely landed, called meself a fool,
I could no longer stand it, me blood began to boil,
me temper I was losing, for old Erin's isle,
they began abusing, horah say I, me Shelelagh I let fly,
some Galway boys were by, they saw I was a hobblin',
with a loud hurray, they joined in the afray,
we quickly cleared the way,
for the rocky road to Dublin, 1,2,3,4,5
hunt the hare and turn her down the rocky road,
nd all the way to Dublin, whacks fer al de da!

Friday, April 26, 2019

*The Music Of The Keltic Fringe- The Chieftains

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of The Chieftains and Sinead O'Connor Performing the Easter 1916 Classic "The Foggy Dew".

CD REVIEW

The Chieftains, The Chieftains and various artists, BMC, 1995

If you want to hear good old-fashioned Celtic music then The Chieftains is one place where you will have to visit to get a taste of that music done to more modern sensibilities. Moreover, as here and on a number of their albums they have gotten virtual who’s who of top-notch musicians from many genres to play along with them. That is always a sure sign of respect. What else can you ask for? Well here how about Mick and the boys doing “Long Black Veil” or Marianne Faithful doing “Love Is Teasin’” (also known by many other names but the result remains the same, a love affair gone bad). If you want to go to tradition how about Sting and “Mo Ghile Mear” or “He Moved Through The Fair” (also known by other names) by Sinead O’Connor. My favorite is Ry Cooder (yes, that Ry Cooder of "Buena Vista Social Club" fame, among other excellent work) doing “Coast Of Malabar”. His grandmother used to sing it to him back in the days. My grandmother did the same. Nice.


Long Black Veil lyrics

Ten years ago on a cold dark night
Someone was killed 'neath the town hall light
Just a few at the scene, and they all did agree
That the man who ran looked a lot like me

The judge said "Son, what's your alibi?
If you were somewheres else, then you won't have to die"
But I spoke not a word, tho' it meant my life
For I'd been in the arms of my best friend's wife

Chorus:
She walks these hills in a long black veil
Visits my grave when the night winds wail
Nobody knows, nobody sees
Nobody knows, but me

The scaffold is high, eternity near
She stands in the crowd, she sheds not a tear
But sometimes at night when the cold winds moan
In a long black veil, she cries o'er my bones

Chorus

The Chieftains

Mo Ghile Mear lyrics


Chorus:

'Se/ mo laoch, mo Ghile Mear
'Se/ mo Chaesar Gile Mear
Suan na/ se/an ni/ bhfuaireas fe/in
O/ chuaigh i gce/in mo Ghile Mear

Grief and pain are all I know
My heart is sore
My tears a'flow
We saw him go ....
No word we know of him...
Chorus

A proud and gallant cavalier
A high man's scion of gentle mien
A fiery blade engaged to reap
He'd break the bravest in the field
Chorus

Come sing his praise as sweet harps play
And proudly toast his noble frame
With spirit and with mind aflame
So wish him strength and length of day
Chorus


"The Foggy Dew"

As down the glen one Easter morn
To a city fair rode I.
There armed lines of marching men
In squadrons passed me by.
No pipe did hum, no battle drum
Did sound its loud tattoo,
But the Angelus Bells o'er the Liffey swells
Rang out in the foggy dew.

Right proudly high in Dublin town
Hung they out a flag of war.
T'was better to die 'neath an Irish sky
Than at Sulva or Sud el Bar.
And from the plains of Royal Meath
Strong men came hurrying through
While Brittania's huns with their long-range guns
Sailed in through the foggy dew.

The bravest fell and the requiem bell
Rang mournfully and clear
For those who died that Eastertide
In the springing of the year.
While the world did gaze with deep amaze
At those fearless men but few
Who bore the fight that freedom's light
Might shine through the foggy dew.

And back through the glen I rode again
And my heart with grief was sore
For I parted then with valient men
Whom I never shall see more.
But to and fro in my dreams I go
And I kneel and pray for you,
For slavery fled the glorious dead
When you fell in the foggy dew.

"The Rocky Road To Dublin"

In the merry month of may, from me home I started left the girls of
Tuam,
sad and broken hearted, salute me father dear,
and kissed me darlin' mother, drank a pint of beer,
me tears and grief to smother, off to reap the corn,
leave where I was born, I cut a stoat black thorn to banish ghosts and
goblins,
in a pair of brand new of brogues, I rattled over the bogs, frightened
all the dogs,
on the rocky road to Dublin, 1,2,3,4,5
hunt the hare and turn her down the rocky road,
and all the way to Dublin, whacks fer al de da!
In Dublin next arrived, and thought it such a pity to be so soon
deprived,
a view of that fair city, then I took a stroll,
all amongst the quality, me bundle it was stole,
in that neat locality, something crossed me mind, when I looked behind,
no bundle I could find, upon me stick a wobblin. Enquiring after the
rogue,
said me Connaught brogue, was not much in vogue,
on the rocky road to Dublin, 1,2,3,4,5
hunt the hare and turn her down the rocky road,
and all the way to Dublin, whacks fer al de da!
The boys of Liverpool, when we safely landed, called meself a fool,
I could no longer stand it, me blood began to boil,
me temper I was losing, for old Erin's isle,
they began abusing, horah say I, me Shelelagh I let fly,
some Galway boys were by, they saw I was a hobblin',
with a loud hurray, they joined in the afray,
we quickly cleared the way,
for the rocky road to Dublin, 1,2,3,4,5
hunt the hare and turn her down the rocky road,
nd all the way to Dublin, whacks fer al de da!

*The Music Of Irish Rebellion- The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of The Clancy Brothers Performing The Irish Revolutionary Fight Song From Wolfe Tone's 1798 Uprising "Rising Of The Moon".

CD REVIEWS

The Rising Of the Moon: Irish Songs Of Rebellion, The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, Tradition, 1998

I have mentioned in this space more times than one is reasonably allowed that in my youth in the early 1960’s I listened to a local folk music radio program on Sunday nights. That program played, along with highlighting the then current up and coming folk revivalists like Bob Dylan and Dave Van Ronk, much American traditional music including things like the “Child Ballads”. In short, music derived from parts of the “British” homeland. What I have not previously mentioned is that directly after that program I used to listen on that same radio station to the “Irish National Hour”, a show devoted to all the old more traditional and unknown Irish ballads and songs. And, by the way, attempted to instill a respect for Irish culture, Irish heritage and the Irish struggle against the “bloody” British. (That struggle continues in one form or another today but that is a subject for another time.) Of course, today when every other ‘progressive’ radio station (or other technological format) has its obligatory “Keltic Twilight” programs we are inundated with music from the old country this is no big deal but then it was another question.

All of this is by way of reviewing the music of the Irish Diaspora. Our Irish forebears had the ‘distinct’ opportunity of following the British flag wherever it went, under one set of terms or another. And in those days the sun never set on the British Empire. So there are plenty of far flung traditions to talk about. But, first comes the old country and hence this review of The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem. Chocky Ar La (roughly translated- “Our Day Will Come”)

I have mentioned elsewhere that every devotee of the modern Irish folk tradition owes a debt of gratitude for the work of the likes of Tommy Makem and The Clancy Brothers for keeping the tradition alive and for making it popular with the young on both sides of the Atlantic. The obvious musical skills, talent and commitment to craftsmanship of this group during its history need no comment by me. Nor does their commitment to keeping alive the Irish folk tradition need further comment. Here the boyos produce a veritable what’s what of music of the Irish Rebellions from the early days through Wolfe Tone’s United Irishmen in 1798 to Easter, 1916 and beyond to the Civil War period. Let’s sort it out a little.

A word about the songs presented here. The liner notes included with the CD are helpful. The songs range in subject from “The Rising of the Moon” at the time of Wolfe Tone and the United Irishman, probably the last time that a united, independent, non-sectarian single Irish state was possible, to “Foggy Dew “which outlines the Easter struggle to “Kevin Barry' and `Sean Treacy' just before the partition in 1921, creating the mess that still confronts us politically today. That said, as these lines are being written we are approaching the 93rd Anniversary of the Easter Uprising of 1916. The vision that James Connolly and others of a Social Republic proclaimed at the General Post Office still waits. In short, there is still work to be done, North and South, united or as independent states. Listen to these songs to understand where we have come from and why we still need to fight.

Here are some songs of the Irish Rebellions

By the Rising of the Moon

words by J.K. Casey, music Turlough O'Carolan


And come tell me Sean O'Farrell tell me why you hurry so
Husha buachaill hush and listen and his cheeks were all a glow
I bare orders from the captain get you ready quick and soon
For the pikes must be together by the rising of the moon

By the rising of the moon, by the rising of the moon
For the pikes must be together by the rising of the moon

And come tell me Sean O'Farrell where the gath'rin is to be
At the old spot by the river quite well known to you and me
One more word for signal token whistle out the marchin' tune
With your pike upon your shoulder by the rising of the moon

By the rising of the moon, by the rising of the moon
With your pike upon your shoulder by the rising of the moon

Out from many a mud wall cabin eyes were watching through the night
Many a manly heart was beating for the blessed warning light
Murmurs rang along the valleys to the banshees lonely croon
And a thousand pikes were flashing by the rising of the moon

By the rising of the moon, by the rising of the moon
And a thousand pikes were flashing by the rising of the moon

All along that singing river that black mass of men was seen
High above their shining weapons flew their own beloved green
Death to every foe and traitor! Whistle out the marching tune
And hurrah, me boys, for freedom, 'tis the rising of the moon

'Tis the rising of the moon, 'tis the rising of the moon
And hurrah, me boys, for freedom, 'tis the rising of the moon

The Croppy Boy

It was early, early in the spring
The birds did whistle and sweetly sing
Changing their notes from tree to tree
And the song they sang was Old Ireland free.
It was early early in the night,
The yeoman cavalry gave me a fright
The yeoman cavalry was my downfall
And I was taken by Lord Cornwall.

'Twas in the guard-house where I was laid,
And in a parlour where I was tried
My sentence passed and my courage low
When to Dungannon I was forced to go.

As I was passing my father's door
My brother William stood at the door
My aged father stood at the door
And my tender mother her hair she tore.

As I was going up Wexford Street
My own first cousin I chanced to meet;
My own first cousin did me betray
And for one bare guinea swore my life away.

As I was walking up Wexford Hill
Who could blame me to cry my fill?
I looked behind, and I looked before
But my aged mother I shall see no more.

And as I mounted the platform high
My aged father was standing by;
My aged father did me deny
And the name he gave me was the Croppy Boy.

It was in Dungannon this young man died
And in Dungannon his body lies.
And you good people that do pass by
Oh shed a tear for the Croppy Boy.

"The Foggy Dew"

As down the glen one Easter morn to a city fair rode I
There Armed lines of marching men in squadrons passed me by
No fife did hum nor battle drum did sound it's dread tatoo
But the Angelus bell o'er the Liffey swell rang out through the foggy dew

Right proudly high over Dublin Town they hung out the flag of war
'Twas better to die 'neath an Irish sky than at Sulva or Sud El Bar
And from the plains of Royal Meath strong men came hurrying through
While Britannia's Huns, with their long range guns sailed in through the foggy dew

'Twas Britannia bade our Wild Geese go that small nations might be free
But their lonely graves are by Sulva's waves or the shore of the Great North Sea
Oh, had they died by Pearse's side or fought with Cathal Brugha
Their names we will keep where the fenians sleep 'neath the shroud of the foggy dew

But the bravest fell, and the requiem bell rang mournfully and clear
For those who died that Eastertide in the springing of the year
And the world did gaze, in deep amaze, at those fearless men, but few
Who bore the fight that freedom's light might shine through the foggy dew

Ah, back through the glen I rode again and my heart with grief was sore
For I parted then with valiant men whom I never shall see more
But to and fro in my dreams I go and I'd kneel and pray for you,
For slavery fled, O glorious dead, When you fell in the foggy dew.

"Kevin Barry"

In Mountjoy jail one Monday morning
High upon the gallows tree,
Kevin Barry gave his young life
For the cause of liberty.

But a lad of eighteen summers,
Still there's no one can deny,
As he walked to death that morning,
He proudly held his head on high.


2. Just before he faced the hangman,
In his dreary prison cell,
The Black and Tans tortured Barry,
Just because he wouldn't tell.

The names of his brave comrades,
And other things they wished to know.
"Turn informer and we'll free you"
Kevin Barry answered, "no".


3. "Shoot me like a soldier.
Do not hang me like a dog,
For I fought to free old Ireland
On that still September morn.

"All around the little bakery
Where we fought them hand to hand,
Shoot me like a brave soldier,
For I fought for Ireland."


4. "Kevin Barry, do not leave us,
On the scaffold you must die!"
Cried his broken-hearted mother
As she bade her son good-bye.

Kevin turned to her in silence
Saying, "Mother, do not weep,
For it's all for dear old Ireland
And it's all for freedom's sake."


5. Calmly standing to attention
While he bade his last farewell
To his broken hearted mother
Whose grief no one can tell.

For the cause he proudly cherished
This sad parting had to be
Then to death walked softly smiling
That old Ireland might be free.


6. Another martyr for old Ireland;
Another murder for the crown,
Whose brutal laws to crush the Irish,
Could not keep their spirit down.

Lads like Barry are no cowards.
From the foe they will not fly.
Lads like Barry will free Ireland,
For her sake they'll live and die.

Wednesday, April 24, 2019

*Still The Order Of The Day - From The Pages Of “Workers Vanguard”-British Troops Out of Northern Ireland Now!

Markin comment:

As almost always these historical articles and polemics are purposefully helpful to clarify the issues in the struggle against world imperialism, particularly the “monster” here in America.



Workers Vanguard No. 935
24 April 2009

British Troops Out of Northern Ireland Now!

Defend Irish Republicans Against State Repression!


The following article is reprinted from Workers Hammer No. 206 (Spring 2009), newspaper of the Spartacist League/Britain, section of the International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist).

The Orange state in Northern Ireland has unleashed a wave of repression against Republicans in the aftermath of the Real IRA’s killing in March of two British soldiers in Massereene British Army base in Antrim and the killing of a police officer in Craigavon by the Continuity IRA. These attacks by IRA [Irish Republican Army] dissidents on state forces came in the midst of a public row in which police chief Sir Hugh Orde was forced to admit that the British Army’s “Special Reconnaissance Regiment” (SRR) had been deployed to crack down on IRA dissidents.

Even prior to these killings there had been a massive increase in state repression against Republicans, which targets the whole Catholic population: the last quarter of 2008 saw a 245 per cent increase in the number of people stopped and searched by police. Now the police are conducting sweeping raids and roundups in Catholic areas, which have led to riots in Craigavon and Belfast. A Catholic bar in North Belfast was attacked with a pipe bomb and a Catholic primary school in the same area was daubed with Loyalist graffiti. According to the Derry Journal (16 March), Irish nationalist dissidents fear for their lives. One said: “It is only a matter of time before one of us is taken out by the Brits or some branch of their so-called security agencies. It is always a possibility but it seems more likely now.” Among those arrested are prominent Republicans Declan and Dominic McGlinchey (Junior) as well as Colin Duffy who has now joined others on hunger strike. Release the detainees! Down with Orange state repression!

The killings of two British soldiers and a cop were met with obscenely hypocritical declarations against “terrorism,” not least from the British Labour government which is part of the world’s biggest force for terrorism as seen in the brutal occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. British imperialism’s murderous record in Northern Ireland includes the killing of 13 Catholic demonstrators on Bloody Sunday in 1972 and countless deaths in collusion with the Loyalist death squads.

Obscenely Sinn Féin, which for many years was subject to repression by British armed forces and those of the Orange state, joined the denunciations of the IRA dissidents. Gerry Adams condemned the shootings as an attack on the “peace process.” In fact the aftermath of the shootings shows that the only significant change brought about by the “peace process” is the disarmament of the IRA—something decades of state repression by the British military failed to do—in exchange for “power sharing” between Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionists in Stormont, the historic seat of Orange-supremacist government in the province. This imperialist-brokered “peace” deal is premised on the continued oppression of the Catholic minority under the heel of the sectarian Orange state. The fundamental nature of that state as created by the British at the time of partition remains unchanged. It is today what it always has been: a heavily militarised, anti-Catholic, police state. Although the British Army no longer patrols the streets, having reduced their presence in August 2007, some 5,000 British troops remain there as backup for the heavily armed Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI, the renamed RUC [Royal Ulster Constabulary]), while the Loyalist paramilitaries have not disarmed. In May 2007, Sinn Féin agreed that its representatives would sit on the new Policing Board, absurdly claiming that they would ensure “the PSNI are publicly held to account” (An Phoblacht, 17 May 2007). Police accountability is a myth also frequently peddled by reformists. In Northern Ireland as elsewhere, the capitalist state is the executive arm of the ruling class and cannot be made accountable to the working class and oppressed. It must be shattered in the course of workers revolution, led by a revolutionary workers party, and replaced with a new state power of the working class. Coming from the petty-bourgeois nationalists of Sinn Féin, the pledge to hold the PSNI “to account” is a whitewash of the anti-Catholic nature of the Orange statelet. To underline the fact that little has changed, when Orde called in the SRR as part of a major crackdown on Irish nationalists, he didn’t bother to inform the Policing Board.

From the point of view of the working class, the killings of these British military personnel and a Northern Ireland cop are not criminal acts. However, in most such terrorist acts, innocent civilians are among those killed or maimed. Among those injured in the shooting were two workers delivering pizza to the army barracks, one of whom was a Polish immigrant. The obscene claim by the Real IRA that both workers were “collaborators” with the British shows the reactionary (and racist) logic of nationalism, which purports to represent its “own” people and writes off all “other” people as the enemy. This outlook frequently leads to acts of indiscriminate violence against the working people.

We stand for the military defence of the Irish nationalist organisations in their conflicts with the British Army, the Northern Ireland state forces and Loyalist paramilitary groups. At the same time, we oppose and condemn communalist attacks by the Irish nationalist forces on the Protestant population as well as indiscriminate attacks on civilian targets in Britain and in Northern Ireland, such as the Omagh bombing in 1998. These indiscriminate actions are indeed crimes against the working class of these islands. Politically our programme is counterposed to the terrorism that is carried out in the service of the nationalist programme which cuts across the class unity of the workers in the struggle against their common enemy: the capitalist class.

Our perspective requires the internationalist unity of the working class throughout the British Isles in a struggle against British imperialism, the Irish clericalist state and the Orange state. We fight to eliminate all forms of national oppression, from a proletarian, revolutionary and internationalist perspective. Thus we call for British troops out of Northern Ireland as an integral part of our programme for an Irish workers republic within a federation of workers republics in the British Isles.

The Dead End of Nationalism

Today, disillusionment among Irish nationalists with the disbandment of the IRA in favour of power-sharing in [Northern Ireland Assembly] Stormont is running high. The Sunday Times quotes Richard O’Rawe, a former IRA member imprisoned with Bobby Sands (who died on hunger strike in 1981) saying he would “not have joined the IRA in the first place” if he had been told that power-sharing with the Unionists would be the outcome. “Who in their right minds would do a minute in jail for this?” Rawe pointedly asks (Sunday Times, 15 March). Such disillusionment has led some hardline nationalists to seek a solution by trying to re-ignite the military campaign that the IRA abandoned. Prior to the recent shootings, a 300 lb. bomb produced by IRA dissidents supposedly intended for another British Army base was found in Castlewellan, Co. Down in January.

Irish nationalist movements have always combined, in the words of the IRA, “the armalite and the ballot box,” wielding armed struggle along with diplomatic manoeuvres and appeals to the “democratic” pretensions of the imperialists as pressure tactics. In the changed political landscape resulting from the collapse of the Soviet Union, which had acted as a counterweight to the imperialist powers, petty-bourgeois nationalist formations no longer have the diplomatic, military and financial means they once had and have been compelled to accept “negotiated solutions”: the Oslo Accords in the case of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, the Good Friday Agreement in the case of the IRA.

When Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness, former IRA leader who is now deputy first minister in Stormont, stood shoulder to shoulder with Orde and condemned dissident Republicans as “traitors to the island of Ireland,” it was aptly described as McGuinness’s “Michael Collins moment.” Collins led the military struggle against the British and signed the Treaty with Britain that led to the partition of Ireland. Upon taking over the administration of an independent capitalist Ireland in 1922, Collins ruthlessly suppressed the IRA dissidents of the time, executing many of those who continued the struggle against the Treaty and the new Irish “Free State.” From Collins to McGuinness to the IRA dissidents of today, Irish nationalism has inevitably proven to be a dead end for the oppressed whose interests it claims to represent.

The partition of Ireland by British imperialism created the Northern Irish statelet as a reactionary move against the consolidation of an Irish bourgeois national state encompassing the entire island. Since then, the Protestant majority dominates over the Irish Catholic minority. However, the Irish nationalist programme—upheld today by Sinn Féin and the dissidents, and previously by the “anti-Treaty” forces that went on to form the Fianna Fail party—calls for reunifying, necessarily by force in the case of the Protestants, the six counties of Northern Ireland with the southern Catholic clericalist Irish bourgeois state. If achieved, this would simply be a reversal of the terms of oppression, leading to communalist slaughter and forced population transfers.

All nationalism has a genocidal logic, which is particularly acute when two different peoples interpenetrate on the same territory as is the case in Northern Ireland. In such situations, there is no democratic solution under capitalism to the contending democratic rights of national self-determination. While opposing all aspects of national oppression of the Catholic minority, we recognise that the conflicting claims can only be equitably resolved within the political framework of proletarian class rule, in which the capitalist drive for divide-and-rule of the working class in the service of profit has been eliminated.

We have consistently called for immediate, unconditional withdrawal of the British troops and we opposed the imperialist “peace” deal. In 1993 we stated: “Any imperialist ‘deal’ will be bloody and brutal and will necessarily be at the expense of the oppressed Catholic minority. And it would not do any good for working-class Protestants either.” Our article stated:

“The essential assumption, explicit or implicit, in all the ‘peace’ proposals being touted about is that the British Army, with its shoot-to-kill policy, will remain to police capitalist order, backed up by the bloodthirsty Loyalist thugs. The British imperialists played divide and rule in colonies like India and Palestine, and then on their way out sought to wreck these places by whipping up communalism. Today they adopt a racist and arrogant pretence that they are just trying to stop the tit for tat barbarities of the ‘uncivilised Irish’ of all hues. All of [then-leader of the Catholic SDLP] John Hume’s initiatives, including the talks and proposals with Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams, are based on the premise that British imperialism is somehow ‘neutral.’ All history and the graves of many Irish Catholics say otherwise.”

— Workers Hammer No. 138, November/December 1993 [reprinted in WV No. 589,
3 December 1993]

Socialist Party: Union Jack “Socialists”

While the Taaffeite Socialist Party in England was up to its neck in a reactionary crusade for “British jobs for British workers,” its sister group the Socialist Party in Northern Ireland played an equally reactionary role, lining up behind British imperialism and the Orange state in whipping up a chauvinist frenzy against the “terrorism” of the Irish nationalists. On 11 March the Northern Ireland Committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions called a pro-imperialist, anti-“terrorism” rally in which Loyalists, clergy and trade-union bureaucrats united in condemning the Republican attacks on the army and PSNI. The Socialist Party was highly visible and distributed a leaflet titled “No More Killings!” (dated 11 March), which said: “The killings by the Real IRA and the Continuity IRA of two soldiers and a policeman should be roundly condemned by every section of the working class movement,” adding that: “The killings in Antrim and Lurgan are a reactionary attempt to divert the attention of workers away from the class issues that bring people together by stirring up sectarian division.”

This chauvinist organisation’s idea of “bringing people together” is unity under the Union Jack—whether leading chauvinist anti-immigrant strikes in England or pandering to Loyalists in Northern Ireland, such as former paramilitary killer Billy Hutchinson whom they hosted in their meetings in the 1990s. The leaflet said not one word against the British Army, either for its butchery in Iraq and Afghanistan or in Northern Ireland, which is hardly surprising given that the Socialist Party refuses to call for the withdrawal of British troops from Northern Ireland. Rather they view British imperialism as a force for “democracy.”

The Socialist Workers Party (SWP) also supported the pro-imperialist, anti-Republican rallies on 11 March. Addressing the Derry rally, the SWP’s Eamonn McCann said:

“It’s worth recalling that it was protests by ordinary people that gave the spur for the peace process that ended 30 years of armed conflict between the mainly Catholic Republicans, who want a united Ireland, and Protestant Unionists backed by the British state. Time and time again people took to the streets to push the process forward when establishment politicians were blocking it.”

—Socialist Worker, 21 March

Indeed the likes of McCann and the trade-union bureaucracy did mobilise the unions in Northern Ireland and peddled massive illusions in the imperialist “peace deal” because, like the Taaffeites, promoting British imperialism as a force for “democracy” is what their programme boils down to. Thus the SWP welcomed the British troops being sent to Ireland by a Labour government in 1969, obscenely declaring that: “The breathing space provided by the presence of British troops is short but vital. Those who call for the immediate withdrawal of the troops before the men behind the barricades can defend themselves are inviting a pogrom which will hit first and hardest at socialists” (Socialist Worker, 11 September 1969).

Britain’s vaunted parliamentary “democracy” is the velvet glove to disguise the mailed fist of the capitalist state—the army, police, courts and prisons whose purpose is to maintain the rule of capital. The capitalist rulers have long used Northern Ireland as the testing ground for domestic repression in Britain: Irish Catholics were indiscriminately targeted as “terrorist suspects” and subjected to the same treatment as Britain’s Muslims today. Shoot-to-kill has been brought to the streets of London as seen in the brutal police execution of Brazilian immigrant Jean Charles de Menezes in July 2005.

The Orange state in Northern Ireland has always been a police state, obsessed with repression against Irish nationalists. From the horse’s mouth, this is described by Sean Rayment, a former commander of the Close Observation Platoon (C.O.P.) of the Parachute Regiment—the regiment responsible for the slaying of innocent Catholics on Bloody Sunday—who says that in the 1990s:

“Around 13,000 soldiers, and an equivalent number of RUC officers, patrolled Ulster’s cities, towns and villages, while a bewildering array of covert agencies secretly monitored the IRA. These covert agencies were collectively known as ‘The Group’ and consisted of the SAS [Special Air Services]; 14 Intelligence Company, a covert organisation which conducted close surveillance of senior IRA members; and the Force Research Unit, which ran a network of IRA informers. The military agencies also worked closely with the Special Branch’s SAS-trained E4A teams. The Special Branch also ran their network of informers, as did MI5 which had a sizeable presence in the Province.”

—Telegraph.co.uk, 14 March

Little has changed today. The covert forces described above have been replaced by the SRR, a sinister outfit that was involved in the operation that led to the execution of de Menezes and has been active in covert operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Today Britain’s MI5 devotes a whopping 15 per cent of its resources to Northern Ireland, against Republicans. The notorious collusion between state forces and the Loyalist killers remains untouched: no police officer will be prosecuted for the murder of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane who was gunned down in his home in 1989 by Loyalists, working with state forces. Such collusion is not some aberration, but par for the course for “democratic” imperialism. One year after the Good Friday Agreement was signed Rosemary Nelson, a prominent Catholic lawyer who reported to the UN that she received death threats from the RUC, was murdered by a Loyalist bomb in 1999.

More than a decade after the ballyhoo about the “peace deal” Northern Ireland society is more segregated than it was before the army was sent there four decades ago and is riven by over 40 “peace” walls. Catholics remain oppressed, and the SWP reports that: “Some 60 percent of applicants for social housing in Northern Ireland are Catholic and 40 percent Protestant. Yet 60 percent of allocations go to Protestants and only 40 percent to Catholics” (Socialist Worker, 21 March).

The task of revolutionaries is to seek opportunities for a proletarian perspective in Ireland and to transcend the religious divide that has been fostered by the bourgeoisie in its efforts to increase capitalist exploitation. This means mobilising the whole working class—Protestant and Catholic—to fight for an end to discrimination against the oppressed Catholics, in jobs, housing and education. We advance a programme of transitional demands based on what workers need, not what capitalism can afford. We fight for jobs for all; work-sharing on full pay and a sliding scale of wages and hours. In Northern Ireland, as elsewhere, these demands point to the need to transcend the framework of capitalist rule, to break out of the problem of scarcity which inevitably pits workers against each other. A planned economy, organised under working-class rule, exercised through soviets (workers councils), would regenerate the former industrial areas throughout the British Isles that have been turned into an economic wasteland by capitalism. To resolve the centuries-long oppression of Ireland and come to a voluntary arrangement with all, including the Protestant community, our goal is a workers republic in Ireland within a voluntary federation of socialist republics in the British Isles, led by a Leninist party.

On The Anniversary Of The Irish Easter Uprising 1916- All Honor To James Connolly And Bobby Sands- A Word

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entyr for the Irish Easter Uprising of 1916.


ALL HONOR TO THE MEMORY OF JAMES CONNOLLY, COMMANDANT- IRISH CITIZEN ARMY- EXECUTED BY THE BLOODY BRITISH IMPERIALISTS MAY, 1916. ALL HONOR TO THE MEMORY OF BOBBY SANDS, MP, AND THE 10 MARTYRED LONG KESH HUNGER STRIKERS. ALL HONOR TO THE MEMORY OF THE 96th ANNIVERSARY OF THE EASTER UPRISING, 1916. BRITISH TROOPS OUT OF IRELAND TODAY (AND WHILE WE ARE AT IT OUT OF AFGHANISTAN).


A word on James Connolly. They tell a story about James Connolly that just before the start of action in Easter, 1916 he told the members of the Irish Citizen Army (almost exclusively workers, by the way) that if the uprising was successful to keep their guns handy. More work with them might be necessary against the nationalist allies of the moment organized as the Irish Volunteers. The Volunteers were mainly a petty bourgeois formation and had no intention of fighting for a Socialist Republic. True story or not, I think that gives a pretty good example of the strategy and tactics to be used in colonial and third world struggles by the working class. Would that the Chinese Communists in the 1920’s and other colonial and third world liberation fighters since then have paid heed to that strategic concept.

James Connolly, June 5, 1868-May 12, 1916, was of Scottish Irish stock. He was born in Edinburgh of immigrant parents. The explicit English colonial policy which created the Irish diaspora produced many such immigrants from benighted Ireland to England, America, Australia and the far flung parts of the world. Many of these immigrants left Ireland under compulsion of banishment. Deportation was a standard English response in the history of the various “Troubles" from Cromwell’s time on.

Connolly, like many another Irish lad left school for a working life at age 11. The international working class has produced many such self-taught and motivated leaders. Despite the lack of formal education he became one of the preeminent left-wing theorists of his day in the pre- World War I international labor movement. In the class struggle we do not ask for diplomas, although they help, but commitment to the cause of the laboring masses. Again, like many an Irish lad Connolly joined the British Army, at the age of 14. In those days the British Army provided one of the few ways of advancement for an Irishman who had some abilities. As fate would have it he was stationed in Dublin. I believe the English must ruse the day they let Brother Connolly near weapons and near Dublin. As a phrase in an old Irish song goes- " Won’t Old Mother England be Surprised."

By 1892 Connolly was an important figure in the Scottish Socialist Federation which, by the way, tended to be more militant and more Celtic and less enamored of parliamentarianism than its English counterpart. The failure to gather in the radical Celtic elements was a contributing factor to the early British Communist Party’s sterility. Most of the great labor struggles of the period came from the leadership in Scotland and Ireland. Connolly became the secretary of the Federation in 1895. In 1896 he left the army and established the Irish Socialist Republican Party. The name itself tells the program. Ireland at that time was essentially a classic English colony so to take the name Republican was to spit in the eye of the English. Even today the English have not been able to rise to the political level of a republic. Despite Cromwell’s valiant attempt and no thanks to today's British Labor Party’s policies this is still sadly the case. All militants can and must support this call- Abolish the monarchy, House of Lords and the state Church of England.

In England Connolly was active in the Socialist Labor Party that split from the moribund, above-mentioned Social Democratic Federation in 1903. During the period before the Easter uprising he was heavily involved in the Irish labor movement and acted as the right hand man to James Larkin in the Irish Transport and General Workers Union. In 1913 when Larkin led a huge strike in Dublin but was forced to leave due to English reprisals Connolly took over. It was at that time that Connolly founded the Irish Citizens Army as a defense organization of armed and trained laboring men against the brutality of the dreaded Dublin Metropolitan Police. Although only numbering about 250 men at the time their political goal also became to establish an independent and socialist Ireland.
Connolly stood aloof from the leadership of the Irish Volunteers, the nationalist formation based on the middle classes. He considered them too bourgeois and unconcerned with Ireland's economic independence. In 1916 thinking they "were merely posturing," and unwilling to take decisive action against England, he attempted to goad them into action by threatening to send his Irish Citizens Army against the British Empire alone, if necessary. This alarmed the members of the more militant Irish Republican Brotherhood, who had already infiltrated the Volunteers and had plans for an insurrection as well. In order to talk Connolly out of any such action, the IRB leaders, including Tom Clarke and Patrick Pearse, met with Connolly to see if an agreement could be reached. During the meeting the IRB and the ICA agreed to act together at Easter of that year.

When the Easter Rising occurred on April 24, 1916, Connolly was Commandant of the Dublin Brigade, and as the Dublin brigade had the most substantial role in the rising, he was dc facto Commander in Chief. Following the surrender he was executed by the British for his role in the uprising. Although he was so badly injured in the fighting that he was unable to stand for his execution he was shot sitting in a chair. The Western labor movement, to its detriment no longer produces enough such militants as Connolly (and Larkin, for that matter). Learn more about this important socialist thinker and fighter. ALL HONOR TO HIS MEMORY.

Tuesday, April 23, 2019

*In Honor Of James Connolly-Commandant Irish Citizens Army-Easter 1916- A Guest Commentary

Click On Title To Link To International Communist League/Spartacist Britain Article In Honor Of The Memory Of James Connolly.

Guest Commentary

In this song James Connolly is memorised as leader of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union (ITGWU) and founder of the Irish Citizen Army (ICA).

Another song tells the circumstances in which he was executed for his participation at the Easter Rising.

JAMES CONNOLLY

Where oh where is our James Connolly,
Where oh where can that brave man be,
He has gone to organise the Union,
That working men might yet be free.
Where oh where is the citizen army,
Where oh where can that brave band be,
They have gone to join the great rebellion,
And break the bonds of slavery.
And who will be there to lead the van,
Who will there be to lead the van,
Oh who should there be but our James Connolly,
The hero of each working man.
Who carries high our burning flag,
Who carries high our burning flag,
Oh who but James Connolly all pale and wounded,
Carries high our burning flag.
They carried him up to the jail,
They carried him up to the jail,
And 'twas there that they shot him one bright May morning,
And quickly laid him in his grave.
Who mourns now for our James Connolly,
Who mourns now for that fighting man,
Oh lay me down in yon green garden,
And make my bearers Union men.
We laid him down in yon green garden,
With Union men on every side,
And we swore that we'd make one mighty Union,
And fill that gallant man with pride.
So come all you noble young Irishmen,
Come join with me for liberty,
And we will forge a mighty weapon,
And break the bonds of Slavery.


James Connolly

A great crowd had gathered outside of Kilmainhem
With their heads all uncovered they knelt on the ground
For inside that grim prison lay a brave Irish soldier
His life for his country about to lay down.


He went to his death like a true son of Ireland,
The fireing party he bravely did face.
Then the order rang out: "Present arms, Fire!";
James Connolly fell into a ready made grave.


The black flag they hoisted, the cruel deed was over,
Gone was the man who loved Ireland so well,
There was many a sad heart in Ireland that morning,
When they murdered James Connolly, the Irish rebel.


God`s curse on you, England, you cruel hearted monster,
Your deeds would shame all the devils in Hell,
There were no flowers blooming but the Shamrock is growing
On the grave of James Connolly, the Irish rebel.


Many years have rolled by since the Irish rebellion,
When the guns of Brittania they loudly did speak,
The bold I.R.A. battled shoulder to shoulder,
as the blood of their bodies flowed down Sackville Street.


The Four Courts of Dublin, the English bombarded,
The spirit of freedom, they tried hard to quell
But above all the din rose the cry "No Surrender!"
`Twas the voice of James Connolly, the Irish Rebel.

*The Keltic Homeland Front And Center- The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem,

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem Performing The Irish Revolutionary Fight Song From Wolfe Tone's 1798 Uprising "Rising Of The Moon".

DVD Review

The Story Of The Clancy Brother and Tommy Makem, Tom, Pat and Liam Clancy, Tommy Makem, Shanachie Productions, 2003


The main points of this DVD review were used to review to review some of the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem CDs previously. I think the main points of appreciation apply here in this one hour film documentary that traces their steps, fittingly, before and during a 1984 New York City reunion concert. In addition to the points below about the key role they played in bringing back the Irish musical tradition there are some very good interviews with each member about their takes on their earlier success in this country. Also included are interviews with musicians like Bob Dylan, Tom Paxton and Dave Van Ronk who were influenced by the group (and perhaps later, in turn, influenced them). And of course it goes without saying that this presentation is filled with the "boyos" doing rousing versions of many old standards like “Finnegan’s Wake”, “The Rising Of The Moon”, ad “Brendan On The Moor”. Here are those other points:


“I have mentioned in this space more times than one is reasonably allowed that in my youth in the early 1960’s I listened to a local folk music radio program on Sunday nights. That program played, along with highlighting the then current up and coming folk revivalists like Bob Dylan and Dave Van Ronk, much American traditional music including things like the “Child Ballads”. In short, music derived from parts of the “British” homeland. What I have not previously mentioned is that directly after that program I used to listen on that same radio station to the “Irish National Hour”, a show devoted to all the old more traditional and unknown Irish ballads and songs. And, by the way, attempted to instill a respect for Irish culture, Irish heritage and the Irish struggle against the “bloody” British. (That struggle continues in one form or another today but that is a subject for another time.) Of course, today when every other ‘progressive’ radio station (or other technological format) has its obligatory “Keltic Twilight” programs we are inundated with music from the old country this is no big deal but then it was another question.

All of this is by way of reviewing the music of the Irish Diaspora. Our Irish forebears had the ‘distinct’ opportunity of following the British flag wherever it went, under one set of terms or another. And in those days the sun never set on the British Empire. So there are plenty of far flung traditions to talk about. But, first comes the old country and hence this review of The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem. Chocky Ar La (roughly translated- “Our Day Will Come”)

I have mentioned elsewhere that every devotee of the modern Irish folk tradition owes a debt of gratitude for the work of the likes of Tommy Makem and The Clancy Brothers for keeping the tradition alive and for making it popular with the young on both sides of the Atlantic. The obvious musical skills, talent and commitment to craftsmanship of this group during its history need no comment by me. Nor does their commitment to keeping alive the Irish folk tradition need further comment. Here the "boyos" produce a veritable what’s what of music of the Irish Rebellions from the early days through Wolfe Tone’s United Irishmen in 1798 to Easter, 1916 and beyond to the Civil War period. “



Here are some songs of the Irish Rebellions

By the Rising of the Moon

words by J.K. Casey, music Turlough O'Carolan


And come tell me Sean O'Farrell tell me why you hurry so
Husha buachaill hush and listen and his cheeks were all a glow
I bare orders from the captain get you ready quick and soon
For the pikes must be together by the rising of the moon

By the rising of the moon, by the rising of the moon
For the pikes must be together by the rising of the moon

And come tell me Sean O'Farrell where the gath'rin is to be
At the old spot by the river quite well known to you and me
One more word for signal token whistle out the marchin' tune
With your pike upon your shoulder by the rising of the moon

By the rising of the moon, by the rising of the moon
With your pike upon your shoulder by the rising of the moon

Out from many a mud wall cabin eyes were watching through the night
Many a manly heart was beating for the blessed warning light
Murmurs rang along the valleys to the banshees lonely croon
And a thousand pikes were flashing by the rising of the moon

By the rising of the moon, by the rising of the moon
And a thousand pikes were flashing by the rising of the moon

All along that singing river that black mass of men was seen
High above their shining weapons flew their own beloved green
Death to every foe and traitor! Whistle out the marching tune
And hurrah, me boys, for freedom, 'tis the rising of the moon

'Tis the rising of the moon, 'tis the rising of the moon
And hurrah, me boys, for freedom, 'tis the rising of the moon

The Croppy Boy

It was early, early in the spring
The birds did whistle and sweetly sing
Changing their notes from tree to tree
And the song they sang was Old Ireland free.
It was early early in the night,
The yeoman cavalry gave me a fright
The yeoman cavalry was my downfall
And I was taken by Lord Cornwall.

'Twas in the guard-house where I was laid,
And in a parlour where I was tried
My sentence passed and my courage low
When to Dungannon I was forced to go.

As I was passing my father's door
My brother William stood at the door
My aged father stood at the door
And my tender mother her hair she tore.

As I was going up Wexford Street
My own first cousin I chanced to meet;
My own first cousin did me betray
And for one bare guinea swore my life away.

As I was walking up Wexford Hill
Who could blame me to cry my fill?
I looked behind, and I looked before
But my aged mother I shall see no more.

And as I mounted the platform high
My aged father was standing by;
My aged father did me deny
And the name he gave me was the Croppy Boy.

It was in Dungannon this young man died
And in Dungannon his body lies.
And you good people that do pass by
Oh shed a tear for the Croppy Boy.

"The Foggy Dew"

As down the glen one Easter morn to a city fair rode I
There Armed lines of marching men in squadrons passed me by
No fife did hum nor battle drum did sound it's dread tatoo
But the Angelus bell o'er the Liffey swell rang out through the foggy dew

Right proudly high over Dublin Town they hung out the flag of war
'Twas better to die 'neath an Irish sky than at Sulva or Sud El Bar
And from the plains of Royal Meath strong men came hurrying through
While Britannia's Huns, with their long range guns sailed in through the foggy dew

'Twas Britannia bade our Wild Geese go that small nations might be free
But their lonely graves are by Sulva's waves or the shore of the Great North Sea
Oh, had they died by Pearse's side or fought with Cathal Brugha
Their names we will keep where the fenians sleep 'neath the shroud of the foggy dew

But the bravest fell, and the requiem bell rang mournfully and clear
For those who died that Eastertide in the springing of the year
And the world did gaze, in deep amaze, at those fearless men, but few
Who bore the fight that freedom's light might shine through the foggy dew

Ah, back through the glen I rode again and my heart with grief was sore
For I parted then with valiant men whom I never shall see more
But to and fro in my dreams I go and I'd kneel and pray for you,
For slavery fled, O glorious dead, When you fell in the foggy dew.

"Kevin Barry"

In Mountjoy jail one Monday morning
High upon the gallows tree,
Kevin Barry gave his young life
For the cause of liberty.

But a lad of eighteen summers,
Still there's no one can deny,
As he walked to death that morning,
He proudly held his head on high.


2. Just before he faced the hangman,
In his dreary prison cell,
The Black and Tans tortured Barry,
Just because he wouldn't tell.

The names of his brave comrades,
And other things they wished to know.
"Turn informer and we'll free you"
Kevin Barry answered, "no".


3. "Shoot me like a soldier.
Do not hang me like a dog,
For I fought to free old Ireland
On that still September morn.

"All around the little bakery
Where we fought them hand to hand,
Shoot me like a brave soldier,
For I fought for Ireland."


4. "Kevin Barry, do not leave us,
On the scaffold you must die!"
Cried his broken-hearted mother
As she bade her son good-bye.

Kevin turned to her in silence
Saying, "Mother, do not weep,
For it's all for dear old Ireland
And it's all for freedom's sake."


5. Calmly standing to attention
While he bade his last farewell
To his broken hearted mother
Whose grief no one can tell.

For the cause he proudly cherished
This sad parting had to be
Then to death walked softly smiling
That old Ireland might be free.


6. Another martyr for old Ireland;
Another murder for the crown,
Whose brutal laws to crush the Irish,
Could not keep their spirit down.

Lads like Barry are no cowards.
From the foe they will not fly.
Lads like Barry will free Ireland,
For her sake they'll live and die.

From The "Communist International" (1920)-Thomas Darragh-Revolutionary Ireland and Communism-In Honor Of James Connolly And The Easter Uprising Of 1916

Thomas Darragh

Revolutionary Ireland and Communism

Source: The Communist International, No. 11-12, June-July 1920, pp. 2281-2294, (4,901 words)
Transcription: Ted Crawford
HTML Markup: Brian Reid
Public Domain: Marxists Internet Archive (2007). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.

“Thomas Darragh” is believed to be a pseudonym for Roddy Connolly, James Connolly’s son, who was a founder member of the first Communist Party of Ireland. Roddy Connolly and Eamonn MacAlpine (an Irish-American and friend of Larkin) were the two official Irish delegates. Their visit to Russia was financed by Jack White. See Arguments for a Workers’ Republic for details of MacAalpine’s speech.—Note by transcriber.


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Ireland is of primary importance to international communism primarily for the following two reasons, viz: 1) its strategic position with regard to England, the seat of British imperialism; 2) the influence of Ireland’s political development on the broad masses of its nationals scattered throughout the British Empire and the United States of America.

For the purpose of this report it is necessary to give a brief survey of the Irish labour and socialist movements, and the personalities who played and are playing a part in their development. The recent history of the Irish labour movement may be said to start from the coming of Jim Larkin to Ireland in 1907. Up to this time very few of the Irish workers were organized in trades unions, and of these about 75 per cent were in Irish branches of English unions. They were mere dues-paying members who exercised little or no effect upon the policy of these unions, whose executive offices were in England.

Larkin, who was identified with the Independent Labour Party of England from its inception, came over as organizer of the English Dockers’ Union, and within a short time of his arrival the first big strike in Ireland took place in Belfast. This strike is noteworthy in as much as, along with the dock and transport workers of the city, the police came out on strike. It was marked by much rioting and military activity. Within a few months of the settlement of the Belfast dispute the dockers in Cork went on strike. As a result of the treatment meted out to the Belfast strikers by the executive of the union in England, and a continuation of the same policy with regard to the Cork workers, Larkin broke away from the English Dockers’ Union and organized the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union on the lines of industrial unionism. After a series of fiercely fought strikes the Transport Workers’ Union got a permanent foothold in the bigger ports and industrial centres. Connolly returned from America in 1910 and immediately went to see Larkin, who was in Mountjoy prison in Dublin. As a result of this meeting Connolly took over the management of the union during Larkin’s imprisonment, and on his release they joined forces. From this onwards they worked together until Larkin went to America to raise funds for the union treasury, which had been completely exhausted by the great Dublin strike of 1913-1914.

Connolly spent his early life in the Social Democratic movement in Britain, particularly in Scotland. He was one of the few intrepid young Marxists who in the early days of the Social Democratic Federation split from the first manifestations of Hyndman’s social-patriotism and reformism to form the Socialist Labour Party, of which he was the first chairman and organizer. Up to the last he was in constant touch with it and his influence is still felt in this organization, which is one of the few fighting socialist bodies in Britain. In 1896 he returned to Ireland and founded the Irish Socialist Republican Party, the first socialist party in Ireland. He was editor of its official organ, The Workers’ Republic, by means of which the revolutionary doctrines of the party began to make themselves felt on the Irish working masses. It is noteworthy to record that alone of all other parties, no matter how extreme in nationalism, the ISRP was the first to openly advocate the establishment of an Irish Republic. The party was small though active, and contested some few municipal elections without success.

In 1902 Connolly went to America to raise funds for the party by a lecture tour. The tour completed he stayed on and was identified with the foundation of the IWW, and was for a time an organizer of the American Socialist Labour Party. In 1908 he founded the Irish Socialist Federation in America and was editor of its official organ, The Harp, which was later transferred to Ireland. In 1910, on his return to Ireland, he published Labour in Irish History, the only Marxian interpretation of the history of the development of the Irish proletariat and peasantry.

From 1910, Larkin and Connolly dominated the Irish labour and socialist situation. Their work consisted in organizing the Irish Transport and General Workers Union, educating the masses in the use of the mass strike and the sympathetic strike, and in the transformation of the Irish Trade Union Congress into an Irish Labour Party. So powerful did the Transport Union become, with its revolutionary cry for the abolition of the wage system, that in 1913 the Irish bourgeoisie and English capitalist interests in Ireland combined to crush it. This resulted in the Dublin strike and lock-out, which lasted for over ten months and was the first great proletarian upheaval in Ireland. The radical section of the British workers rallied to the aid of their Irish comrades, sending money and food into Dublin; but the British labour leaders, true to their position as henchmen of the capitalist class and saboteurs of every revolutionary act of the workers, killed the demand for sympathetic action in Britain, and the Irish workers were forced back to the shops. This proved a pyrrhic victory for the bourgeoisie, the Transport Union emerging from the struggle depleted in membership and in funds, but still with its organization intact, and with a bitterness in the minds of the workers which flared into action in 1916.

The outbreak of the world war found the Transport Union sufficiently recovered to make vigorous protest against the social-traitors of British Labourism, who, rallying to the defence of the British Imperial state, assisted in the already beginning double brutal coercion of Ireland as a small nationality and the Irish workers as a class. Larkin and Connolly held meetings throughout the country, baring the capitalist-imperialist nature of the conflict; urging the workers to use the crisis by every means in their power; ruthlessly criticizing British Labourism; revealing the essentially bourgeois-imperialist content of the Irish Parliamentary Party, which had hitherto masqueraded as the party of democratic opposition to British imperialism, and now supported the war, and the equally bourgeois reaction of Sinn Féin, which declared Ireland to be neutral. Realizing that the difficulties of British imperialism must necessarily be the opportunity of the Irish proletariat, they set about the development of the Irish Citizen Army, extending its scope, arming its members and intensifying the military nature of its organization. In order to raise funds Larkin went to America, being exiled immediately the British government found he was out of the country, Connolly taking full charge of both the union and the Citizen Army, and carrying on the work alone. From now until Easter 1916, the Irish Citizen Army dominated Irish Labour politics.

The Irish Citizen Army
The Irish Citizen Army was founded in Cork in 1908. Its purpose was to protect the strikers from the brutality of the police, but beyond this it was little heard of and of no particular importance until the latter end of 1913, when it figured in several riots arising out of the Dublin strike. With the outbreak of the world war serious attention was paid to its organization, military instructors were obtained (the first instructor being Captain White, son of British Field Marshal Sir George White. He was identified with the Dublin strike and subsequently, in 1916, was arrested in South Wales for attempting to bring the miners out on strike to prevent Connolly’s execution) and the systematic arming of its members was begun. Connolly as Commandant surrounded himself with a socialist staff, the chief of whom was Michael Mallon, a silk weaver subsequently executed by the British in 1916. National revolutionary ferment developing rapidly all over the country was met by British military suppression, which resulted in the establishment of military staff co-operation between the Irish Volunteers (the Nationalist Republican armed forces) and the ICA, upon the initiative of the latter, which dominated the alliance until the 1916 rebellion. British activity in suppressing all revolutionary papers resulted in Connolly’s paper, The Workers’ Republic, being published under an armed guard of the Citizen Army, which also provided a guard for Liberty Hall, the headquarters of the Transport Union. This condition of affairs lasted for about three months, the last number of The Workers’ Republic being issued two days before the rebellion.

The Army was designed upon a proletarian basis, with the Commandant, staff officers and ordinary officers elected by the soldiers, and in addition, a governing committee consisting of equal representatives of the officers and the men. Its activities were confined to the neighbourhood of Dublin city. It was of first rate efficiency, outmatching in many competitions the rival Irish Volunteers, holding on several occasions demonstrations of actual street fighting, and its well-trained officers, especially the Commandant, lecturing and instructing the Irish Volunteers, particularly in street fighting. The ICA being drawn from the proletariat had within its ranks many men who through economic necessity had served in the British Army.

It was the ICA which set the pace in the months preceding the rebellion, and despite the usual wavering of the middle class leaders of the IV, when faced with the actual crisis the iron determination of the ICA and its leader forced the participation of the IV in the uprising. The immediate causes of the failure of the revolutionary forces was the countermanding at the eleventh hour of the mobilization order of the Irish Republican troops throughout the country by the timid right-wing bourgeois leaders, who had always opposed Connolly and the co-operation of the IV with the ICA. Despite this, 1,000 raw Republican troops defended the captured capital against 47,000 disciplined and modernly equipped British soldiers, a victorious onslaught on Dublin from the north county took place, and there were several attempts at uprisings in the West of Ireland.

In the rising the Citizen Army, as a unit of the Republican forces, attacked and seized Dublin Castle, the executive headquarters of the British government in Ireland, as well as holding several strategic positions throughout the city. Connolly was Commander-in-Chief of all the fighting forces of the Republic during the rising. After the surrender Connolly, who had been severely wounded during the fighting, and Michael Mallon, Chief of Staff of the ICA, were executed along with several of the left-wing nationalist leaders, while the majority of the remainder of the prominent proletarian leaders were killed during or after the fighting. An overwhelmingly greater percentage of the ICA than of the IV participated in the fighting, and as a result during the arrests that followed the ICA was practically destroyed as an organization, while the IV was able to preserve its organization intact throughout the greater portion of the country, where no fighting had occurred.

On its reorganization after the release of all prisoners in December 1917, the ICA retained its proletarian basis, but as the situation was now dominated by the IV and all the leaders of the ICA were killed, it steadily weakened, and is not now an effective influence on Irish political life. It must be remembered that it is not a Communist organization, although it is hostile to the present social democratic tendencies of the Socialist Party of Ireland, having co-operated with it only once, when it forced the holding of a meeting, despite the military, in favour of the Russian Bolshevik Revolution.

The ICA programme is the establishment by force of arms of a Workers’ Republic in Ireland, though the form and structure of such a republic are not consciously understood by the majority of its members.

Sinn Féin and the Irish Volunteers
In order properly to understand Sinn Féin it is necessary to deal with its political predecessor, the Irish Parliamentary Party. This party dominated Irish national politics for well over 40 years. Its aim was to secure Home Rule for Ireland within the British Empire, by constitutional means. Out of a total of 104 Irish members in the British Parliament the Irish Parliamentary Party numbered about 80, the remainder being mostly Unionists returned from the Protestant constituencies of North-East Ulster, who stand on the anti-Home Rule platform and are a wing of the English Tory Party.

Under the leadership of Parnell the Irish Parliamentary Party pursued a policy of obstruction in the British Parliament, and maintained its independence by refusing to ally itself with any British party, throwing its weight now to this side and now to that. This policy led to its gradually compromising, until finally it became the tail end of the English Liberal Party. Though still protesting its independence in Ireland, this attachment to the Liberal Party caused it to become identified with English Imperial politics, thus relinquishing its so-called democratic opposition to English imperialism. Its final act in this role was its opposition to the Boer War, 1899-1901.

Whilst this party was losing its hold on the national revolutionary mind of the people a new national policy in the form of Sinn Féin made its first appearance. A pamphlet called The Resurrection of Hungary. A Parallel for Ireland began to attract attention. In this work Arthur Griffith, an independent bourgeois journalist, traced Hungary’s fight for political independence against Austria, and advocated the adoption in Ireland of the tactics employed by the Hungarian nationalists. He sketched a programme, subsequently amplified with the attainment of his party to power after 1916, the most salient points being (a) the election of members by the English electoral system pledged to abstention from the British Parliament; (b) the actual setting up of an Irish Parliament or General Council; (c) refusal to pay taxes to the English imperial exchequer; (d) establishment of a policy of protection, especially against England; (e) the encouragement of Irish industries; (f) the building up of an Irish Consular service; (g) and the general encouragement of all Irish national movements, such as the Gaelic League, the organization of the Irish language-revival movement, the Gaelic Athletic Association for the revival of old Irish sports and games, the Irish literary and dramatic renaissance and the Irish Boy Scouts (Fianna), organized in opposition to the English military Baden-Powell Boy Scouts.

Sinn Féin was a party designed to use political and extra-parliamentary action, but did not advocate the use of arms for the accomplishment of its object, nor did it aim at the establishment of an Irish Republic. It remained true to the Hungarian parallel and urged the establishment of an Irish Parliament which should be united to the British Parliament only in the person of a British monarch, who would also be king of Ireland, thus ratifying the decrees of both Parliaments. In fact in the first decade of the twentieth century no party except the Irish Socialist Republican Party openly advocated an Irish Republic.

For many years, even up to the rebellion, despite the waning popularity and political bankruptcy of the Irish Parliamentary Party, Sinn Féin made little headway, existing rather as a critic of the Irish Parliamentary Party than as a definite political party. In its economic doctrine it followed the obsolete bourgeois economist Friedrich List, and its pronunciamentos on economic questions were reactionary in the extreme. In 1913 it assumed an attitude of hostility to the Dublin strike.

From the outbreak of the war to the rebellion Sinn Féin assumed a more revolutionary role, being largely influenced by the Irish Volunteer movement, which rather than Sinn Féin itself was the dominant National force in Irish politics. After the rebellion, though Sinn Féin played no actual active part in the struggle, by shedding the more reactionary portions of its doctrines aid harmonizing its programme with the now popular demand for an Irish Republic, it assumed the position of the political leader of the Irish people. It leaped from success to success until in the 1918 parliamentary general elections it swept the country, following which it set up its own Parliament, Dáil éireann, and attempted to form ministries and assume the government of the country. It was immediately declared illegal; since then it functions whenever possible, though most if its members and prominent officials are being continually imprisoned in English jails, from which they escape by hunger-striking, jail deliveries and other means. With the increasing oppression of English militarism Sinn Féin is coming more and more under the dominance of the Irish Volunteers. In the recent elections Sinn Féin captured the majority of the municipalities and rural councils, its nearest competitor being the Irish Labour Party, which co-operates with it in the local government of the country. The whole policy of Sinn Féin is to make British government impossible in Ireland, and at the same time to establish as many of its own institutions as possible, so that it may step in and function as the government of the country.

The Irish Volunteers in form is a purely military organization with a General Staff and officers elected by the rank and file. Its programme originally consisted in the establishment of an Irish Republic by force of arms, and now the Republic has crystallized into the form which is in the process of establishment by the united efforts of themselves and Sinn Féin. Its membership consists mostly of proletarians and the peasantry, though on the average mostly officered by the younger members of the petty bourgeoisie and farmers. The majority of the rank and file look upon the establishment of the Irish Republic as of the first importance, and are inclined to defer the solution of social problems to the successful accomplishment of this aim. The allegiance of the country members to this ideology is being somewhat under-mined by their being now mostly organized in the IT&GWU, the consequent spark of class consciousness derived from this, and the increasing economic difficulties which force them into opposition to the farmer-class members of the IV. On the whole there are but few socialists within their ranks, but many sympathizers and admirers of Connolly and the idea of a Workers’ Republic.

Owing to the constant national revolutionary ferment that dominates the activity of all classes of the population, and the almost universal opposition to England, which throws otherwise antagonistic classes into spasmodic co-operation, it is difficult actually to determine of what classes the various organizations are the Political expression. Roughly speaking Sinn Féin is controlled in the rural districts by the small farmers and petty peasantry or tenant farmers, in the towns by the small shopkeepers and middle men, and in he cities by the smaller manufacturers, merchants and bourgeois intellectuals. There are practically no big landowners or even moderately big capitalists in this movement; this class in Ireland being economically dependent upon English capitalism and having as its Political expression the English Liberal parties. The conglomeration of classes comprising Sinn Féin necessarily causes antagonism to develop within the Party and results, as long as endures the co-operation of these classes and the working masses, necessary to achieve political independence, in its being unable to formulate any definite socio-economic programme. Its aim being political independence, it finds it necessary to draw all classes of the population to it to accomplish this object, and, to preserve the co-operation of the classes, it dare not issue any definite political and economic programme. Instead it has issued a so-called democratic programme, breathing all the false glittering generalities of bourgeois democracy—the will of the sovereign people, the ownership of the land and resources of the country by and in the interests of the whole people, the equality of all citizens, etc., etc.; but it reveals its essential class content by promising international regulation of the conditions under which the working class will live. The ideology of the two allied movements, Sinn Féin and the Irish Volunteers, is similar to that of any small nationality. Finally the hope of Sinn Féin is the development of the already existing antagonism between America and England, and the tendency is to rely more and more on American capitalism and to become subservient to its interests.

The Irish Labour Movement
The Irish labour movement is composed of the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union, local or national craft unions, and branches of the big English trades unions, such as the National Union of Railwaymen and the Amalgamated Society of Engineers. It functions nationally through the Irish Trade Union Congress and Labour Party, and locally through Trades Councils, composed of representatives of the various unions in the district. By far the most powerful body is the IT&GWU, which now numbers 120,000 members. It was originally organized on the lines of industrial unionism, and though small in numbers and restricted to the larger towns, it wielded with tremendous efficiency and success the weapons of the mass and the sympathetic strike, at the same time carrying on an almost incessant revolutionary propaganda campaign. Since the rebellion, with the loss to the union of its two leading figures and the indiscriminate increase of its membership, its revolutionary outlook has deteriorated, until now it has become a federation of unskilled workers with a large sprinkling of craft unions and with bureaucratic and strong centralization tendencies. It is not a craft union, but neither has it kept abreast of the later developments of industrial unionism, consequently tending to become an unwieldy and ineffective weapon for the proletariat either against alien imperialism or native capitalism.

The larger portion of its membership at the present time consists of the poorer peasantry and agricultural labourers, who are not in close sympathy and whose activities are not in co-ordination with those of the industrial proletariat. It should not be forgotten, however, that the organization of the rural proletariat has been a tremendous accomplishment, and has imbued them with a certain amount of class consciousness. On account of the form of the organization and the failure of the IT&GWU sufficiently to educate these rural workers as to their class position, it has been demonstrated that this is not the organization to bridge the gulf between the agricultural and industrial proletariat.

The general condition of Irish life being nationalistically revolutionary, the IT&GWU, in common with the craft unions, has a much stronger fighting spirit than its English prototypes. In alliance with the Nationalists the Irish labour movement defeated conscription in 1918; on May 1, 1919, it stopped industry throughout the greater portion of the country; and only recently, again in alliance with the Nationalists, by a two day general strike it forced the British government to release over 100 political prisoners who were on hunger strike. In the majority of these cases, however, the general sentiment of the people practically forces the labour movement to take action, and the strike is carried out by unionists and non-unionists alike.

It is only comparatively recently that the IT&GWU has entered the political arena as a dominant force, and its successes in the late municipal elections have only strengthened its tendency toward reaction. The Irish Labour Party and Trade Union Congress, acting through its local Trades Councils, emerged from the municipal elections as the second party in numerical strength, and of the labour members elected the IT&GWU secured an overwhelming majority. This solidifies the domination of the Irish Labour Party and Trade Union Congress by the IT&GWU, which gave to it its present form and programme. Despite the insistence of the Labour Party that this programme was constructed by Connolly and must therefore be revolutionary, it refuses to understand that such a programme was designed for use by the proletariat in a pre-world-revolutionary period.

The attempt of the IT&GWU, under the slogan of the One Big Union, to absorb the craft unions, has led to the development of antagonisms within the Labour Party. The craft unions object to such absorption primarily because of their craft ideology, and also because they claim that the transport union does not represent industrial unionism, but the growth of a federation which is tending to bring the whole labour movement under a bureaucracy. The craft unions in Ireland are small and constantly dwindling. They are of little political importance with the exception of one or two big branches of English unions, the tendency of which is to break away from the parent bodies and form national unions. A large section of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers has already done so recently.

The transport union publishes the only labour paper in Ireland, The Watchword of Labour a weekly with a circulation of about 10,000 and which shares the common fate of all nationalist and rebel papers in Ireland—continual suppression by the government. This paper, while claiming to be the successor of Connolly’s revolutionary Workers’ Republic, in fact constantly emasculates his application of revolutionary Marxism to Ireland in much the same manner as Kautsky emasculates the general principles of Marxism. It voices or represents the views of the dominant section of the IT&GWU, the Irish Labour Party and the Socialist Party of Ireland.

Internationally the Irish labour movement is affiliated to the Yellow International. Cathal O’Shannon, the editor of The Watchword of Labour, executive member of the Irish Labour Party and at present President of the Socialist Party of Ireland; Thomas Johnston, treasurer of the Irish Labour Party; William O’Brien, secretary of the Irish Labour Party, treasurer of the IT&GWU, and one of the biggest forces in the Irish labour movement, and another Irish Labour Party executive member, together with Hughes, assistant secretary of the IT&GWU, who represented the Socialist Party of Ireland, being the delegates from Ireland. O’Shannon and Johnston, who were equipped with supplementary mandates from the SPI, were the only two to reach Berne. They signed the Adler-Longuet resolution and generally adopted the policy of that wing of the conference.

The Socialist Party of Ireland, which was founded in 1896, underwent many changes of programme and name, until now it is a very small and ineffective party with no bearing upon national politics. The same personalities who dominate the Irish Labour Party and the IT&GWU influence and direct its policy and tactics. For one brief spell it was captured by the left wing, which during its brief term of power, against the violent opposition of the rest of the Party, succeeded in introducing a few revolutionary conceptions into its long established programme, ordered the revocation of the affiliation to Berne and secured a majority vote in favour of the Third International, and held a meeting in Dublin on the last anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. Before it had time to consolidate its forces it lost power, consequently its orders regarding the internationals were never put into force. It is now a party numbering scarce 150 members in Dublin, about 30 of whom may be considered effective members, and a few hundred members throughout the country, badly organized and having no direct connection with each other or the Dublin headquarters. It is very inactive, has no paper and but a few pamphlets by its own members, none of which deal with the problems facing the Irish proletariat.

A force which will undoubtedly play an important part in the revolutionary development of Ireland is the Co-operative movement led by George Russell (A.E.) There are several well organized branches of this movement, which now form a considerable part of the economy of the country, and may readily be utilized by the proletarian state for the solution of the immediate problems of food distribution, etc. during the first period of the proletarian dictatorship. It is in the co-operative production on the land by the poor peasantry that the Communists will be chiefly interested. This movement, which tends to destroy, even now, the ideology of small private property ownership among the land-hungering poorer peasantry, is of paramount importance to the Communists. For it actively tends to the solution of one of the most important and difficult problems of the proletarian state, by initiating the organization of the poorer peasantry on the basis of large-scale co-operative production, thus mentally harmonizing the two sections of the working class and making certain the unity of the industrial proletariat and peasantry under the dictator-ship of the proletariat.

Ulster, or more properly the north-east corner of Ireland, is the big manufacturing and industrial centre. Industrially it bears a greater resemblance than any other part of the country to the highly industrialized portions of England and Scotland. It is dominated by the only big capitalists in the country, who are closely allied with the British bourgeoisie. Economically the workers are organized in branches of English Trades unions, and politically the vast majority adheres to the Unionist Party, the party of extreme opposition to Sinn Féin and any form of Irish nationalism. One of the main factors, though steadily declining of late years, is its religious antagonism to the rest of the country. In many respects the problems of the Communists are here much easier, it being possible to rally the proletariat to their banner on the straight issue of the capitalist state versus the proletarian state. The lack of any nationalist republican feeling on the part of the majority of the proletariat renders them hostile to the establishment of an Irish bourgeois republic. With the exception of the anti-Nationalist feeling, which is partly the outcome of religious bigotry, Ulster presents a problem similar to that presented by any large industrial centre, and for this reason may become one of the chief centres of the proletarian struggle against an Irish bourgeois state.