Irish Labour and Working Class History

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The Sound is a monthly current affairs programme, made by members of DCTV, Dublin’s public access station. Below is the first edition of The Sound, along with its contents. The programme is 73 minutes long, and is broadcast on DCTV (NTL Channel 802) on Mondays @ 12.30pm and Tuesdays @ 7pm. It is also available here.

1. Paula Geraghty on NATO’s 60th anniversary and its role in the world today. She is joined by Seamus Rattigan of the Peace and Neutrality Alliance, and Michael Youlton of the Irish Anti-War Movement.

2. Mick O’Reilly talks to Mick Berney of ICTU about Congress and its role today, follwed by Mick giving his thoughts on the role it should be undertaking at this time.

3. Donnacha O’Briain talks to Nessa Ni Chasaide of Debt and Development Coalition Ireland about the G20 Meeting held last month (April 2009) in London, followed by a general discussion involving Fleachta Phelan of Comhlamh, and Molly Walsh of Climate Camp.

4. Seán Ó Siochru interviews Michael Taft, research officer with UNITE, about the economic crisis. This is followed by a general discussion involving Michael Taft, Mick O’Reilly and Jim Stewart, Trinity College Dublin. Jim also writes for www.progressive-economy.ie

The Sound from DCTV on Vimeo.

The pamphlet, embedded below, dates from 1933 and the relaunch of the Communist Party of Ireland (CPI), which took place at 5 Leinster Street, Dublin, on 3-4 June 1933. (The first Irish Communist Party was launched in October 1921, but dissolved on 26 January 1924.) It was held under the cover-name of the Dublin total Abstinence Association. The city had recently seen a series of violent anti-communist demonstrations – hence the need for secrecy. The meeting was hailed a success by all, and resulted in the election of Sean Murray as general secretary, and Jim Larkin Jnr as chairman. Forty-five delegates attended, representing 250 members.

The party was the direct result of the ‘bolshevising’ of the various revolutionary workers groups in Ireland – in simple terms, the creation of a single, disciplined, revolutionary party organised around factory cells rather than territorial branches. Along with the manifesto, the party also passed a number of resolutions, including a declared affiliation to the Comintern.

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(This is the final post in a six-part series of articles originally written as part of the North West Spanish Civil War Memorial Project, and which appeared in the Derry newspaper, Sunday Journal, in April-May 2006. They are reproduced here with kind permission of the author. All photos courtesy of Ciaran Crossey)

The record in Spain
As with the Irish generally, the north west volunteers reached and departed Spain at different times and, as timing dictated, fought on different fronts, in various sections of the XV International Brigade. The XV was treated as the brigade for English-speakers, though it was not exclusively anglophone. In January 1937 it comprised the (mainly Slav) Dimitrov battalion, the (Franco-Belgian) 6 February battalion, the (American) Abraham Lincoln battalion, and the 16th battalion. In deference to the Irish within it, the 16th was sometimes called the ‘Anglo-Irish’ or ‘English-speaking’ battalion at first, until everyone settled on the shorter title ‘British’, except the continentals, to whom ‘British’ was invariably ‘English’. In November 1937, when new numbers were allocated, the XV Brigade was made up of the 57th (British), the 58th (Lincoln-Washington), the 59th (Spanish), and the Canadian 60th (Mackenzie-Papineau) battalions. Initially it was assumed that the Irish would form part of the British battalion, until in January 1937, in a controversial decision, a number opted to join the Lincolns. The bulk of the Connolly Column would serve with the Lincoln or British battalions, while a few were with the Canadian ‘Mac-Paps’. There is a popular perception that all International Brigaders were heroes of the ‘good fight’. Of course, reality was not as kind or as simple.

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(This is the fifth post in a six-part series of articles originally written as part of the North West Spanish Civil War Memorial Project, and which appeared in the Derry newspaper, Sunday Journal, in April-May 2006. They are reproduced here with kind permission of the author. All photos courtesy of Ciaran Crossey)

Why did they go?
Why would anyone want to join a war in a faraway country, of which he knows little, with no guarantees about conditions of service, or securities in the event of death or disability? We can answer this question at two levels, the personal and the political.

Most International Brigaders were single, working class men in their 20s and 30s from urban, industrial backgrounds. Incomplete evidence on the Connolly Column suggests that volunteers were more likely to come from unskilled rather than skilled occupations. Despite claims in the right wing press that the communists were happy to use anyone as ‘Stalin’s cannon-fodder’, the Brigades would not accept married men. The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) introduced an age limit of 18 years, later raised to 21. There are many examples of men with health problems, or those considered too old, being rejected, or sent home from Spain.

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(This is the fourth post in a six-part series of articles originally written as part of the North West Spanish Civil War Memorial Project, and which appeared in the Derry newspaper, Sunday Journal, in April-May 2006. They are reproduced here with kind permission of the author. All photos courtesy of Ciaran Crossey)

Below is a list of men from Donegal and Tyrone who served in defence of the Spanish Republic. The information is drawn from the same sources cited in part 3 of this series. Again, all additional information and corrections from readers will be gratefully received and acknowledged. I am obliged to Conal Houston for details on Hugh Bonner, and to Brian Curragh for details on his great-uncle, Ben Murray.

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Three issues of the Irish Marxist theoretical magazine, the Ripening of Time. I’ll update this post as soon as I find out more about the magazine itself, the people involved, etc.

Issue 7, May-July 1977.

Issue 9, Dec 1977 to March 1978.

Issue 13, January to October 1980

(This is the third post in a six-part series of articles originally written as part of the North West Spanish Civil War Memorial Project, and which appeared in the Derry newspaper, Sunday Journal, in April-May 2006. They are reproduced here with kind permission of the author. All photos courtesy of Ciaran Crossey.)

Below is a list of biographies of the nine volunteers from Derry. The information is drawn mainly from the International Brigades Memorial Archive, Marx Memorial Library, London (which holds the papers of the British battalion); the records of the International Brigades in the Spanish Republican Army, Russian State Archive for Social and Political History (RGASPI), Moscow; Michael O’Riordan, Connolly Column: The Story of the Irishmen who Fought for the Spanish Republic, 1936-1939 (Warren & Pell edition, 2005); Raymond John Quinn, Irish Volunteers for Spain (Belfast, 2004), No Pasaran! International Brigade Commemoration Committee Newssheet (Belfast), and Ciarán Crossey’s website, which has recently been revamped and is now at http://www.geocities.com/irelandscw, an excellent site on Ireland and the Spanish Civil War, and well worth a visit.

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