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Review of The Lost Revolution at An Phoblacht… September 26, 2009

Posted by WorldbyStorm in History, Irish History, Irish Politics, The Left.
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I’d be interested in peoples thoughts on this…

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1. Jim Monaghan - September 26, 2009

“Yet IRA Chief of Staff Cathal Goulding believed that his political project had such potential ”
This is implied a lot in other posts, that Goulding and co had a worked out idea. I think they had some ideas but these changed over time as they reacted for good or bad to events.Iam sceptclof master palns either in business, sport or politics.The Swan book I believe bears this out.Ieel the momentum drove Goulding. I imagine the laughs you would have got in 1969, 1972 or even 1975 if you predicted what ideology they would end up with.

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WorldbyStorm - September 26, 2009

I know others will differ ( ;) ) but I’m entirely in agreement with you. I think there was a nebulous idea about shifting the movement towards a much more political base, but it’s hard to believe that in 1968 or 9 the vision was what ultimately was generated, and indeed if we look at Garland’s trajectory where it’s quite quite clear he was close to Trotskyist modes in the early 1970s (as Gerry Foley would attest) who could have predicted his ultimate destination?

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2. Mark P - September 26, 2009

Jesus that’s a pathetic review. It barely engages with the book at all except to whine about it undermining Provisional mythology about 1969.

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3. sonofstan - September 26, 2009

LOL at “secretive and conspiratorial political party” and at the general criticism of top down leadership from the official organ of SF.

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Mark P - September 26, 2009

Self-awareness evidently isn’t a much prized trait on Parnell Square these days.

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4. Starkadder - September 26, 2009

There isn’t any mention that elements in FF had an interest in
splitting SF/IRA either.

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5. WorldbyStorm - September 26, 2009

A number of thoughts strike me.

There’s an acknowledgement that good people went with both sides. That’s a step forward, definitely.

The idea that the IRA ‘had been allowed to deteriorate’ in Belfast doesn’t appear borne out by the book. Indeed what does seem more likely is that people had left, entirely naturally at the end of the Border campaign and after and the IRA despite the best efforts of those still involved moved to much more dormant phase (and btw, what of R ÓB and S MacS et al who remained with the movement but later went with PIRA… are they too to blame for the supposed deterioration?).

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pangur bán - September 26, 2009

Given where the review is being published, I think it is quite a good one. This book allows members of the provisional movement to engage with their own past, as most of the 1969 leadership of the IRA went Official.

The most remarkable thing is the wide welcome the book got from such a broad range of people, many of whom wouldn’t have two civilised words for each other!!

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6. Garibaldy - September 26, 2009

Yeah the fact it said that the I Ran Away myth was disproved was an interesting thing for definite. I was also somewhat amused at the argument that the real revolution was to be found elsewhere. Meanwhile in the paper, reports of Gerry A’s close relationship with current and former US presidents :)

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7. Eamonn Grimes - September 26, 2009

Agree with Pangur, that given that this is a review in AP/RN it is significant that the split in 1969 is described as a ‘disaster’ for republicanism. Similarly the concession that there were ‘sincere revolutionaries’ in the Stickies. This would not have been the line some years ago. There are dozens of books that give more or less Ruairi O Bradaigh’s view on the split, Joe Cahill’s view on the split, Gerry Adams view etc (and all those books are valid). Most of the conventional histories also tend to give that view, if only by default. So I don’t see how the authors in a book on the Sticks could not give largely the other view of 1969, especially as most of the big names stayed with Goulding. It’s a step forward that there can be some discussion on these matters. I’m a bit surprised that some of the more sensational allegations in the book haven’t been aired though.

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8. Phil - September 26, 2009

Interesting comment on the WP/DL split – “Both sides remained vehemently anti-republican”. Anti-republican as in…?

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9. Garibaldy - September 26, 2009

Anti-provisional and anti-nationalist is what they mean Phil. Though of course The WP is of the opinion that groups that do not have the unity of Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter as central to their politics cannot be operating within the revolutionary republican tradition founded by Tone. For The WP, republicanism is democratic, secular, socialist and internationalist.

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pangur bán - September 26, 2009

One of the most illuminating contributions to this debate was at the greaves school, after the Hanley paper an IRA volunteer who was around in 1969 described west Belfast as not a republican stronghold but as a Hibernian stronghold. he described subsequent events as a process whereby Republicans lost control of the republican movement in Belfast to Hibernians. Conor has put a sound file of the debate on Dublin opinion

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splinteredsunrise - September 26, 2009

Anti-provisional would be correct. It’s striking that the current WP is much happier using the term republicanism, with that definition, which wouldn’t have been out of place in the old OSF. I take that as a result of having shed the two-nationists, another point lost on AP.

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Garibaldy - September 26, 2009

Just to be precise. The WP’s aim as stated by the constitution is for a democratic, secular, socialist unitary state on the island of Ireland – a Republic. I can’t remember the exact date, but this formulation goes back to at least the mid-1980s.

This is why I get annoyed when people go on (as Kent did in his review) at The WP adopting two-nationism or unionism.

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WorldbyStorm - September 26, 2009

I’d agree entirely. I think that too is progress.

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10. ogoshi - September 26, 2009

Having read some of the reviews particularly the most recent one above. (We could spend the next twenty years asking for ‘clarification’ on many of the points made).

I want to add some personal thoughts on ‘The Lost Revolution’ of which I have more than a passing interest, given my youth in ‘The Planet of Irps’. Strangely I have always had a ‘sneaking regard’ for the Stickies. Due in the main to my mother, always the Stick in the family, who never gave up support for the officials. She was once thrown out of a local club for denouncing the ‘Darkley massacre’ and for facing up to her challengers. Another reason was a teacher I had in St Comgalls school in the Lower Falls, he had us stuffing electoral material into envelopes in early seventies. Mr O’Hagan, who we all liked, was a member of the Republican Clubs, informed us as boy’s that ‘it’s was the people of Ireland’ and not Ireland you would live or die for. One of us was actually asked this by a BBC journalist and gave the correct reply.

I decided to visit a local Sticky club for few pints after picking up my copy. I noticed some excitement and a definite sense of vindication. This is only the second time I have been in a sticky club. To be frank given the ‘tussles’ of youth and local geography it wouldn’t have been safe. I have no interest in armchair strategising suffice it to say that ‘militarism’ has had a profound impact on my life and tragically on a lot of my friends and acquaintances. From my reading of this book, I now have some admiration for this group of ‘republicans’, who at the very least didn’t lose their heads, whilst all around were losing theirs. So I think we own Brian and Scott a huge debt for producing this extensive history.

As many people have already said this is not an analytical text. The detailing of events and the history of individuals is fascinating and some of the vignettes speak volumes. There is definitely a sense of the putting the record straight. Both the Provisional’s ‘out the fire of sixty nine thesis’ and its ‘I ran away’ subtext is dealt with. Brian Feeny’s ‘canard’ that Fianna Fail had no role to play in the formation of the Provisional’s is well contested. I have heard other attempts to address the Provisional’s mytho-mania but this is definitely by far the most convincing.

Some of the details are presented quite deftly the ‘Ted the red… the Sticky-Provie’ made me laugh. If the Ted Howell referred to, is the same one who Maloney describes as a sort of Micky-avellie of the Good Friday Agreement. The story of the life and death of Jim Flynn is very poignant, and definitely more morally ambiguous given the new details provided about Group B and all that. Was it principle or pragmatism not to respond. I suspect that in Belfast that would have been viewed as highly symbolic. Seamus Lynch’s comments on the assassination of Trevor McNulty, should be an epitaph to para-militarism and could equally be applied to Billy McMillan or Seamus Costello.

I was struck by the Neil Cassidy look of Joe McCann. There is an age of innocence you feel about the Official IRA, given the sheer number of efficient gunmen that other organisations have produced. The strange journey of Eoghan Harris and Eamonn Smullen (the first blanket man) from Irish Industrial Revolution and beyond is fascinating. The march of the tax payers and the early exposures of planning and corruption is somewhat a vindication of that analysis. How do the sticks feel about that analysis now? Harris’s impersonation of Brunet (the chair is to comfortable) from Sartre’s Age of Reason was hilarious.

To end this purely personal response, the idea of RUC men stumbling drunk out of working men’s clubs at the height of collusion is arresting. But then again, so are the numbers of sectarian assassinations, thrown in to remind us of what is actually happening on the streets of Belfast in the early seventies, when these men were struggling to provide alternatives. But all said and done, this group of committed individuals certainly did more than there fair share, paraphrasing Marx, to change the world! So many unanswered questions and slanders have been addressed and I will have to re-read the book. That will not be a chore. Well done the lads!

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Garibaldy - September 26, 2009

Thanks for this ogoshi. Up there with Conor Mc Cabe’s review as the best response to the book I think.

Certainly The WP feels vindicated by the exposure of corruption in the south. And NAMA and the rest demonstrates that there is still a determination to make the ordinary taxpayer suffer for the follies of Fianna Fáil’s friends. As for the IIR. Some people I know consider it to be nonsense, some consider it to be broadly right. I think it’s true that it took international capital to transform the Irish economy but by the time it came about the prospects for socialists to benefit were much bleaker. The same could be said for local democracy in NI.

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ogoshi - September 26, 2009

Garibaldy You’re to kind!

I hope this doesn’t sound silly, but is the Robin Wilson mentioned in TLR (as a previous editor of Northern People) the same RW who edited fortnight magazine.

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Garibaldy - September 26, 2009

It is indeed. Who I see in the Irish Times today is part of a group of 15 people from the community sector calling for a yes vote on Lisbon with some nonsense about the risk to the south’s EU membership. He basically took The WP Democratic Convention idea and made a career in the quango sector out of it in my view.

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11. CL - September 26, 2009

The foolishness of a purely militaristic approach to Irish self-determination as espoused by such as Sean MacStiophain in now as clear as daylight.
The foolishness of deterministic Moscovite marxism as advocated by such as Roy Johnston, and attempting to apply it to the Irish situation, was evident long before Johnston returned to Ireland and joined the republican movement.
Both sides were, and are, politically untenable.

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12. Jim Monaghan - September 26, 2009

“Jesus that’s a pathetic review.”
Maybe he at some level does not want to look at their own trajectory.
There is also a parallel that the Provos when they went beyond mass action and took up electoralism also became apologists for the USSR while still trying to keep in with American elements, some trick.
Adding to my previous point I would say the path of both Provos and Sticks was more akin to stumbling in the dark. I remember one leading HO employee in the officials laughing when I said I saw no huge problem in taking seats in assemblies whatever while keeping out of electoralism and governments.I regard Dails etc as platforms for tribunes of the workingclass provided they do not get sucked into solving the problems of Capitalism in the interest of the system
I gather that McGiolla rtegards McCann as on eth of their great heroes. Afaik his milieu went fairly totally IRSP.
Didn’t some ex Provo stand for the WP in Dublin? strange world.
On the uniting Protestant and Catholic.
The big banned Provo march of 1977 to welcome the release of Daithi O’Conaill made a point of having at least one person of a Protestant background on the platform.Geoffrey Coulter, former editor of An Phoblacht in the 30s and who was a leftist.
It also had a relatives of 1916 leaders to emphasis the “holy” succession. To me it represented the effective victory of the Provos as the Republican movement.
The group I was in went on the march and leafletted. We were slagged for not having a banner ( the Provos banned banners at this stage).
Our rationale is that the leaflet represented our independence and that marching on a banned march was in defence of the besieged minority.
I had been on the Mayday march earlier. To me the 1000s of Provo supporter were poorer in garb and in nourishment. For what it is worth a more deprived workingclass than that formally organised by the unions.
The Republicans and Marxists and why not the Anarchists as well have to be radical or will be nothing.

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13. Garibaldy - September 26, 2009

Jim,

Joe McCann continues to be well-regarded by the entire WP. As do all those who lost their lives in the struggle for the socialist republic. There was an ex-member of PSF stood for The WP in Cork. She is not the first nor the last to make the same switch. Partly this is due to people believing they had originally joined a genuinely socialist party and then feeling this was not the case.

The WP would see parliaments as only one aspect of broader political activity, as do for example the Greeks and Portugese CPs. Of course the desire of some to concentrate decision-making and focus on the parlialentary party that was a major factor in the DL split.

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no? - September 26, 2009

Annette Spillane who entered the wrong constituency when registering for the elections and thereby ensured a 10/12 finish.
Thats not a thing to highlight.

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Garibaldy - September 26, 2009

Are you sure you aren’t mixing her up with Jackie Connolly?

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no? - September 27, 2009

yup, made that mistake. Jackie C is who I was thinking of.

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14. Ramzi Nohra - September 26, 2009

Its not really a review as such. As others have mentioned its a re-stating of a lot of the Provos views of the Sticks.

Having said that, the language is a bit more conciliatory than I feared.. and it is a positive sign he can accept there are individuals of quality in the WP/ official movement.

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ogoshi - September 26, 2009

It would hard to disagree with that.

Garibaldy.

Re RW. Thanks! thats a shocker!

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15. Scott Millar - September 26, 2009

Jim,
My understanding would be that the majority of Joe McCann’s comrades stayed with the Official movement during the IRSP split, however a large number of those recruited into the Markets unit by McCann, particularly student members from Queens (which was in McCann’s command area), would have went IRSP. The IRSP split I think to some extent was political and generational with many former Fianna going to the INLA – much of this would be down to friendship patterns as anything else with McCann’s generation of volunteers how joined the Belfast IRA in the mid 60s in the main staying OIRA.
Certainly I and Brian would be interested in helping your friends writing a history of the IRSP as much as we can, which should be a fair bit.

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16. Garibaldy - September 26, 2009

Bloody students!

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17. Mark - September 26, 2009

Haven’t read the comments yet but here is my review of that ‘review’:

Well, it’s a bad book review because it is based on political agenda mixed with informed comment and just pure bias.

It has the usual PRM mopery over not having their view included : However, at key points, the absence of other perspectives is glaring. when the book is mainly about providing an insight based around accounts from those involved.

Mícheál wants a discussion on the legitimacy of the stickies not documentation of their existence and beliefs:

We need a detailed history of the build-up to the split during the ‘60s and how it happened and hopefully one will appear in due course.

This sectional criticism of them is ludicrous given the fact the PRM forged a decades long and brutal armed struggle that was clearly opposed by the majority of all people in Ireland:

They disregarded both the widespread internal opposition to their direction and the events which were changing Northern politics fundamentally. Ironically, while the Provos were castigated as militarists, it was Goulding and Garland who used the military structure, discipline and conspiratorial tradition of the IRA to force through profound ideological changes that made a split inevitable.
.

This as a criticism? While they oppose dissenting republicans challenging them on the same issue?

the Goulding leadership’s Northern policy was based on the belief that working-class Catholics and Protestants could be united on social and economic issues while pretending not to see the elephant in the room – the question of partition and British rule.

And excuse me?

the ‘Official IRA’ and Workers Party in the Six Counties were collaborating with the RUC, acting as informers within the nationalist community,

And it continues

They were now deeply partitionist and strident in opposition to even the mildest forms of Irish nationalism. But the further they went in their denunciations of Sinn Féin and IRA ‘terrorism’ and in support of British repression, the more glaring became the contradictions in their own position.

This ‘review’ while trying to be a dig at the sticks just becomes more and more a finger pointing back at the author and SF.

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Garibaldy - September 26, 2009

He knows all too well that a lot of the criticisms they made can now be hurled at them. Which means essentially a certain amount of acknowledging that they were wrong about things like the irreformable nature of the state. I guess this is the reason for a lot of the vitriol. To try and put some distance between the two, but like you say it only highlights their own changes.

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18. shea - September 29, 2009

thaught the most interesting piece is the last line in that lessons can be learned from the stick experiences.

i agree with him on the need to do a pre history on the lead up to the split. if it dosent happen soon it may never be done.

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WorldbyStorm - September 29, 2009

I’m sure Millar and Hanley would argue they’ve already done it.

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