Irish Labour and Working Class History

[Not to be confused with the 1960s Irish Workers Group.]

The Irish Workers Group (IWG) was formed sometime around the end of 1975 following a series of expulsions that year from the Socialist Workers Movement (SWM). In 1977 the IWG produced Class Struggle, a theoretical journal of which twenty issues were produced over the next ten years.

In the first issue of Class Struggle (June 1977) [links to copies of Class Struggle are at the end of this post], the IWG said that there were two issues which led its current members to break from the SWM

1. The North
2. Women

It claimed that the SWM ‘held positions which effectively reduced the national question to a subordinate role in the programme and strategy for the Irish working class socialist revolution [and reduced] the emancipation of women from both exploitation and oppression to a side issue better left to pressure groups and liberals.’ (p.5)

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[This is a repost from Cedarlounge, 15 October 2009]

Of the other elements involved perhaps it is worth mentioning the Irish Workers Group, which is a revolutionary Socialist group which aims to mobilise the Irish section of the international working class to overthrow the existing Irish bourgeois states, destroy all remaining imperialist organs of political and economic control and establish an all-Ireland Socialist Workers Republic. The leader is Gerard Richard Lawless of 22 Duncan Street, London, a former member of the I.R.A who was interned by the Government of the Irish Republic in 1957. Eamon McCann of 10 Gaston Square, Londonderry, a prominent participant in the unlawful procession, is chairman of the Irish Workers Group in Northern Ireland. The Northern Ireland membership includes Mr. Rory McShane of 14 Upper Crescent, Belfast, who was prominent in the formation of the so-called Queen’s University Republican Club.” (William Craig, 16 October 1968, Stormont Papers, Vol.70 (1968), p.1022)

Copy of Irish Militant, May 1966, here. (5MB)

Copy of Workers’ Republic, May-June 1967, here (note:38MB)

The Irish Workers Group (IWG) was formed in London in 1966, out of the divisions within the Irish Communist Group. It is argued by D.R. O’Connor Lysaght that the IWG was the first active Trotskyist group to establish itself in Ireland since the Revolutionary Socialist Party of the 1940s. This does not mean that the origins of modern Irish Trotskyism lie within the IWG – the SWM/SWP and Militant/Socialist Party, who arrived in the 1970s, are both outside its borders, while the Socialist Labour League had activists in Ireland contemporaneous to the IWP – merely that it is pivotal to any understanding of the Trotskyist movement on the island. Indeed, in terms of personnel, if not quite ideology, it is possible to trace the IWG in 1967 to the present-day Workers Unemployed Action Group in Clonmel, as well as Socialist Democracy.

The IWG may not have been the only Trotskyist group in Ireland, but what made it a step apart from the others was the fact that it had been set up by Irish émigrés in London and brought back to Ireland by Irish people. Almost all other groups I have come across so far were essentially branches of already-established British movements. Whether this lessens or strengthens the authority of the IWG in Irish Trotskyism, I don’t know. However, it is a fact, and needs to be acknowledged.

In 1967 the IWG published its Manifesto, available here.

As regards the story of the IWG, there are two main written accounts. One is by Seán Matgamna, who was a member of the group for a short time, and D.R. O´Connor Lysaght, who wrote an article sometime in the 1980s on the history of Irish Trotskyism.

Matgamna’s account is available on Workers’ Liberty, here. He takes issue with a lot of what O’Connor Lysaght says, particularly with regard to Gery Lawless, for whom Matgamna seems to carry a personal disregard.

Matgamna makes a few claims about Gery Lawless regarding the time Lawless was interned in the Curragh – claims that are unfounded as this article by John McGuire of the University of Limerick makes clear. Matgamna also makes claims about Lawless’ case against Ireland in the European Court of Human Rights. However, a reading of the actual case shows that Matgamna, on this point, is again somewhat less than accurate.

O’Connor Lysaght’s account is not freely available, and so I’ve taken the liberty of reproducing an extract from his article where he deals with the IWG.

Similarly, ‘The Origins of Trotskyism in Ireland’ by Ciaran Crossey and James Monaghan,although available, is hard to find. The last six paragraphs which deal with the re-emergence of Trotskyism in Ireland after 1958 is reproduced after O’Connor’s article below.

I believe, but I am not certain, that membership of the IWG included the following: Gery Lawless, Eamonn McCann, Liam Daltun, Michael Farrell, Joseph McAnna, Bairbre McCluskey, James Lynch, Anne Murphy, and Paddy Healy.

By the way, both extracts claim that Gery Lawless was instrumental in establishing the Irish Workers Union. From conversations with one person who was in the Irish Workers Union at the time, and with another who knew some of the people involved, this does not appear to be the case. However, Lawless was certainly a member of the Irish Workers Union, and an active one at that.

Here’s what O’Connor Lysaght has to say on the IWG. As always with this series, all comments and clarifications gratefully received.

[From 'Early History of Irish Trotskyism' by D.R. O'Connor Lysaght.]

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Tonight saw the second talk in the Irish Labour History Society’s Autumn lecture series. It was given by David Lynch, journalist and historian, and author of Radical Politics in Modern Ireland: The History of the Irish Socialist Republican Party 1896-1904, and Divided Paradise: An Irishman in the Holy Land.

On Saturday week (31 October 2009), Liberty Hall will be the venue for a one-day seminar to commemorate the centenary of the foundation of the ITGWU. It will run from 10am to 5pm, with an overview of the union’s history by Padraig Yeates, followed by contributions from Manus O’Riordan, Rayner Lysaght, Emmet O’Connor, and Brendan Byrne. Other speakers include Theresa Moriarty, Mags O’Brien, Mary Clancy, Barry Desmond, Niamh Puirséil, John Dwan, Brendan O’Neill, George Hunter, Denis Carr, Jimmy Cullen, and Diarmaid Ferriter.

I wasn’t able to record all of David’s talk, as the bloody battery in my recorder went flat. However, I did get around 42 minutes, which was most of the lecture, so I’ve embedded what I got.

The talk deals not only with the Socialist Party of Ireland, but also the ISRP and Connolly’s time in America.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Here’s the fourth and final programme in the Looking Left series, and the topic is the newspaper of the Communist Party of Ireland, the Irish Socialist. Cedarlounge has a great post on the paper here.

The panel is made up of Dr. Ann Matthews, Tom Redmond, Mick O’Reilly, and myself, and is presented by Daniel Finn.

The programme is about 30 minutes long, and touches on issues such as the Dublin Housing Action Committee, the North, the Irish economy, and Europe, as well as the CPI’s reaction to the 1968 ‘Prague Spring’, and the life and work of Betty Sinclair.

Incidentally, cedarlounge also has a great post on ‘The Squatter,’ a publication associated with the Dublin Housing Action Committee,

Looking Left Ep004 from DCTV on Vimeo.

Below is a reproduction of the entry on Irish Trotskyism in Robert Jackson Alexander’s book, International Trotskyism, 1929-1985: A Documented Analysis of the Movement (Durham: Duke University Press, 1991). An edited version of the book, including an edited version of the entry on Ireland, is available on Google Books, here.

So, for what it’s worth, here’s the edited version of Alexander’s article, from Google books preview.

TROTSKYISM IN IRELAND

Ireland has never figured as a major centre of strength for international Trotskyism. The movement really did not get a foothold at all there until World War II and even then there were false starts. Its various factions and tendencies have been more than usually plagued with the problem of relations with other political currents on the Left. The partition of Ireland has meant that the Trotskyists have not only had to find a “political space” for themselves with regard to relations with the Social Democrats and Stalinists, but also with regard to the nationalists of various hues and policies.

THE ORIGINS OF IRISH TROTSKYISM

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Below are links to a list of 222 left-wing newspapers and periodicals published by Irish social, political and trade union organisations It is an incomplete list, as these lists tend to be, but hopefully a useful one nonetheless. Its weakest point at the moment, I would say, is that there are very few community-based periodicals on the list: left-wing community activism is noticeable by its absence. Hopefully, that will be rectified next time around.

The list has been sorted in four ways:

By name of publication

By date of start of issue

By ideological affiliation

By name of organisation

The main sources for this file were John Goodwillie, ‘Lesser Marxist Movements in Ireland : A Bibliography 1934-1984′, Saothar, No. 11, 1986, p 116-123; Mike Millotte, Communism in Modern Ireland: The Pursuit of the Workers Republic Since 1916, Gill and Macmillan, Dublin, 1984; Emmet O’Connor, Reds and the Green: Ireland, Russia and the Communist Internationals, 1919-43, UCD Press, Dublin, 2004; as well as my own research over the years.

(The following is taken from an article by John Goodwillie which appeared in issue 9 of Gralton, Aug/Sep 1983. It was a supplement to a family tree of the Left which John created , and which I posted a couple of weeks ago here. Apologies in advance to John Goodwillie for copying and posting his article.)

These notes attempt to record the leftwing organisation which have existed in Ireland since 1960. No attempt has been made to record purely local organisations outside Dublin and Belfast, or microscopic groups which have never reached double figures. The larger organisations have been presented in more detail. This should be regarded as something of a working document: any corrections or clarifications will be welcome and printed in a future issue.

Anarchist Bookshop Collective – short-lived group in the 1980s who can be regarded as successors to Dublin anarchist Group and predecessors of Dublin Anarchist Collective.

Anarchist Workers Alliance – formed 1978. A libertarian Marxist organisation formed by ex-members of the Dublin and Belfast anarchist groups. Ceased to function in 1982.

Belfast Anarchist Collective – formed 1978. Disbanded as an organisation in 1983. (Link to copy of their publication, Anarchist Worker, on Cedarlounge here.

British and Irish Communist Organisation – changed name from Irish Communist Organisation in 1971. Initially made an impact with its “two nations theory”, but support declined after it adopted other uncommon positions. Members participated in Campaign for Labour Representation in the North and Democratic Socialist Party in the Republic.

Campaign for Labour Representation – formed c.1978 with the participation of members of the British and Irish Communist Organisation to campaign for the extension of the British Labour Party to northern Ireland.

Communist Party of Ireland – reformed 1970 with the amalgamation of the Communist Party of Northern Ireland and the Irish Workers’ Party. Although it failed miserably in every election contested, it did have some influence within the trade union movement. Ideologically it remained friendly to Moscow.

Communist Party of Ireland (Marxist-Leninist) – Maoist organisation which changed name from Irish Communist Movement (Marxist-Leninist) in 1972. (Link to copy of publication, Red Patriot, on Cedarlounge here.)

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This is the second progamme in the four-part series, Looking Left, which is being made for DCTV. The topic here is the Ripening of Time, the political journal of the Ripening of Time Collective, thirteen issues of which were published between 1976 and 1980. On the panel are Ursula Barry, UCD Women’s Education, Research and Resource Centre (WERRC); Michael Youlton of the Irish Anti-War Movement; and myself. The programme is hosted by Seán O’Siorchu.

You can download issues by right-clicking on each of the numbers here: no.7, no.9, no.11 (part of), no.13.

Alternatively, you can read them online, below the video file.

Enjoy.

Looking Left 2 : The Ripening of Time from DCTV on Vimeo.

Below is the first of four programmes on various left-wing publications in Ireland in the 1960s to 1980s. This one discusses the Irish People, which was the newspaper of Official Sinn Féin, later Sinn Féin the Workers Party, later The Workers Party.

On the panel are Dr. Brian Hanley, Queens University, Padraig Yeates, former editor of the Irish People, and myself.

It is hosted by Daniel Finn.

Copies of the Irish People are available here and here.

Enjoy.

Looking Left from DCTV on Vimeo.