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Left Archive/Irish Left Open History Project: ‘Miscellaneous Notes On Republicanism And Socialism In Cork City, 1954–69’ By Jim Lane (Cork, 2005) August 17, 2015

Posted by leftopenhistoryteam in Irish Left Open History Project.
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[Protest in Cork against the Vietnam War, 1967. From left to right: Gerry Higgins, Jim Savage, Jim Lane, Jim McCarthy, Derry McCarthy, Noel Lane, Jim Blake, George Sisk, Gerry Madden, Barty Madden, Tom McCarthy.]

What follows deals almost entirely with internal divisions within Cork republicanism and is not meant as a comprehensive outline of republican and left-wing activities in the city during the period covered. Moreover, these notes were put together following specific queries from historical researchers and, hence, the focus at times is on matters that they raised.’ (Miscellaneous Notes, p.1)

We’re reposting this – which was originally written by Conor McCabe, because the link to the document below was broken some while back. It is now fixed and will be added into the Archive. 

[Download Miscellaneous Notes on Republicanism and Socialism in Cork City, 1954-69.]

We will be covering the various aspects of Jim Lane’s activism as a Socialist and Republican at a later date, but for now here is a copy of his recollections of the period 1954 to 1969. It touches on his involvement with the IRA campaign of the late 1950s and early 1960s, as well as the Cork-based Irish Revolutionary Forces, and the publications An Phoblacht (Cork), and People’s Voice. The pamphlet ends with 1969 and the outbreak of the Troubles.

Last September (2009) I interviewed Jim in his home in Cork. We talked for about five hours. Below is a short eighteen-minute extract from that interview, where Jim talks about the Irish Revolutionary Forces (IRF), as well as the attraction which Maoism held for the IRF at that time.

Jim explained this a little further to me in a recent correspondence:

“Sean Daly (ex IRA at the time) and myself met Hardial Bains and the other leaders of the Internationalists in 1968. Sean Daly is the person mentioned several times in my Miscellaneous Notes……. We met with the intention of working together to build a Marxist-Leninist type party in Ireland. We certainly had a great issue with them about their methods of work in Ireland, among other matters. Suffice to say, we didn’t reach an agreement on the way forward. However, we did agree to remain in touch. Prominent in their group then and in the years that followed were; David Vipond, John Dowling, Arthur Allen and Carole Reekes. Hardial Bains of Indian birth was based in Canada.

As I may have said to you in our conversations last year, we were attracted to the line of the Chinese Communist Party, after we had studied the publication, The Polemic on the General Line of the International Communist Movement, (China, 1965). For us here in Ireland in the 1960’s, we saw Mao and his party as advocates of armed revolutionary struggle, whereas the Soviet Union favoured the ‘ peaceful road to Socialism, by Parliamentary means’ . Is it any wonder why Irish Socialist Republicans began to take an interest in the writings of Mao Tse-Tung back in the 1960’s. Mythology has led many students of republican development in the 60’s, to believe that all those who opposed ‘the left-wing drift’, were ‘right-wing red necks’. Not so, many who were conveniently referred to as ‘Maoists’ within and without the Republican fold, were in fact those who were struggling to uphold true socialist revolutionary concepts.”

[The MP3 file of the interview extract is below. Please keep in mind that it is only a short section, and that Jim spoke for almost five hours without notes. My own contributions are a little hazy to say the least. However, it gives a great sense of the man, I hope, as well as some interesting insights on the period.]

Jim Lane Sept 2009

For more click here.

Comments»

1. WorldbyStorm - June 9, 2010

Conor, can you thank Jim for this which is vital information in terms of the development of the Irish left, and indeed yourself for your work on these projects.

It’s like you say, this is central to understanding just how powerful and influential Maoism was on strands of the Irish left and why and how it remained a force. And also how it shaped individuals and formations.

By any reckoning Jim Lane is central to this and that he knows and has worked with many of these figures is great.

A fantastic contribution. Thanks to you both again.

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2. Mark P - June 10, 2010

Interesting stuff. Thanks Conor (and Jim of course).

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3. Mark P - June 10, 2010

By the way, what was the “Cork Socialist Party” which Mick O’Riordan is said to have played a leading role in?

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4. B - June 10, 2010

Mark, a bit of information from the CP website:

“He was released in December 1943. On returning to Cork he obtained work as a bus conductor and joined the ITGWU (now SIPTU), remaining a member for the rest of his life. With his friend Jim Savage, in 1944 he joined the Labour Party and with other friends and former fellow-internees established the Liam Mellows Branch and contested the city council election. He attacked members of the Labour Party in Cork for their anti-Semitism, which contributed to the decision by the Labour Party head office to dissolve the branch in 1945 and expel its members.

They thereupon established the Cork Socialist Party and put forward O’Riordan as a candidate, who was eliminated only at the last count. The following year he contested a by-election for Dáil Éireann and won 3,180 votes (ahead of Tom Barry, his former IRA commander, who had emulated Fianna Fáil in a red-scare campaign).

He moved to Dublin in 1947, continuing in his employment as a bus conductor, and the following year became a founder-member and secretary of the Irish Workers’ League (which in 1962 changed its name to Irish Workers’ Party and in 1970 merged with the Communist Party, Northern Ireland, to re-establish the all-Ireland CPI).”

Many thanks to Conor and Jim for this. Fantastic stuff. Some very telling remarks on the CP and the national question, ‘entryism’ and the split. I cant wait till I get it printed off for proper study (the anorak that I am).

Seems as ever that the split is one of/or even the defining moment(s) in the Irish left.

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5. Starkadder - June 10, 2010

Fascinating stuff. Some of the same territory about the Cork
Socialist Party, et. al, is covered in Derry Kelleher’s eccentric
autobiography “Buried Alive in Ireland”.

On the subject on the Lane family, there’s a letter in today’s
Irish Examiner from a Loretta Lane-Maloney , who is related to
Fintan Lane:

[i]But to me the supreme irony of the occasion in City Hall was that in paying tribute to my grandfather, I had just learned that morning that his great-grandson, Fintan Lane, was incarcerated in a detention camp in southern Israel. My grandfather died for a propaganda lie – “the freedom of small nations”. Almost 100 years later, his great-grandson was on a humanitarian journey on behalf of the Palestinian nation whose fate was determined by the First World War settlement at Versailles in 1919. [/i]

http://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/letters/great-war-to-gaza-a-family-story-122090.html

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6. Garibaldy - June 10, 2010

Yes, once again kudos to Conor. Very interesting to hear this version of events.

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7. Starkadder - June 10, 2010

“Carole Reekes (sp?)….would that be the Carole Reakes who stood
in the Hove By-Election in 1973 as the Maoist candidate?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hove_by-election,_1973

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Conor McCabe - June 10, 2010

The very same. There was a strong cross-over in personnel between the Irish-based and English-based CP M-Ls.

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Conor McCabe - June 10, 2010

Reakes was a medical student in TCD in the late 1960s / early 1970s. She was born in 1949 and originally from Bristol. She stared studying in TCD c.1966, married Alan Evans in Dublin in late 1970/early 1971, and passed her finals in 1971. She graduated in 1972, the same year as David Vipond. It seems she moved back to England some time that year. Alan Evans later stood in Fermanagh/South Tyrone in 1974 for the CPI (M-L) and ended up earning the ire of the UVF in 1975, after his name was linked to that of Michael Adamson, a Queen’s University student and IRSP member who was executed by the UVF in his Clifton Drive home while his three-yr-old daughter slept upstairs. The CPE M-L had been in correspondence with Adamson up to the time of his death.

In 1969 four O’Connell school students were suspended for being members of People’s Rights, a Maoist group linked with the Internationalists. According to one of the students who was suspended, Gerry Brady, the contact they had with the Internationalists was Koye Majekodunmi, who was mentioned briefly in the article we did on the Internationalists last month. However, Majekodunmi left in 1970 and Carole Reake took over. According to Brady, ‘she was not too effective.’

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8. Cl - June 10, 2010

Although his reputation is as a simple-minded, ‘Brits-out’ militarist, Sean MacStiophain writes in his autobiography that he took part in housing agitation in Cork in the 1960s.

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9. Drithleóg - June 11, 2010

I am reliably told that the above photograph made its way into the pages of the Hanoi Times shortly after the demonstration took place.

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10. Frank Rogers - June 11, 2010

The slogan about ‘Yankee Black and Tans’ provoked several angry letters to the United Irishman.

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Conor McCabe - June 11, 2010

Both Barty Hadden and Tom McCarthy, who are standing next to the Yankee..” placard, were members of Sinn Féin. It’s be interesting to know what Sinn Féin thought of their involvement in the protest.

The man holding the placard, George Sick, was a member of the Swanton Commemorative Committee, as was Gerry Higgins, Jim Lane, Derry McCarthy, Noel Lane, and Gerry Madden. Swanton refers to Desmond Swanton, who was killed in 1963 while attempting to blow up a monument to the First Cork Brigade.

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Enzo - August 17, 2015

ah nice. Tom McCarthy is my grandfather. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree! thanks for the pic.

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que - June 12, 2010

To blow a monument to the 1St Cork Brigade. Assuming thats an Irish Republican Army brigade?

Why would they pursue such a tactic? I am assuming that the Swanton committee was later supportive of at least the aims of such an action.

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Conor McCabe - June 12, 2010

It was to be unveiled by DeValera, so the protest was to prevent DeValera ‘from dedicating a monument to Republicans they felt he had later betrayed’ – first by leading Fianna Fáil into the Dáil, secondly by coming down hard on Republicans during Operation Harvest (or the Border Campaign). (See Swan, Official Irish Republicnism, 1962 to 1972, p.112)

Swanton had taken part in Operation Harvest, as had Jim Lane.

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que - June 13, 2010

ah okay that makes sense. I was thinking it was an existing one and didnt think about it in the context you stated above.
Thanks for the info.

I looked up The lost Rev. and found info about Swanton and the context.

Its one small incident in a big book but this type of article above fills out details and starts to really give a fine layer to what was/is a story with so many layers.

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11. CL - June 12, 2010

To believe that the thoughts of Chairman Mao are somehow relevant to the Irish situation and yet dismiss Guevarism is baffling.

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WorldbyStorm - June 13, 2010

Well there is that, and it’s not an insignificant point. But, I suspect in the late 60s the situation seemed less clear than it does now.

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12. PJ Callan - June 13, 2010

Guevarism or Debrayism or whatever you want to call it led to the death of Guevara himself. There is a world of difference between the theory of protracted people’s war as summarised by the Chinese from their own experiences and the theory of the guerilla ‘foco’. Guevara died and Debray ended up working for Mitterrand!

I never seen the book in Ireland but I have a copy of Zhu De’s Selected Works (link below)

Zhu De was in the First Top Command during the Long March and was the Commander in Chief of the 8th Route Army during the Sino-Japanese war and later of the PLA (People’s Liberation Army.)

Worth tracking down to contrast against Debrays flights of fancy.

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WorldbyStorm - June 13, 2010

I think the fact he died, and so unsuccessfully (so to speak) did put paid to Guevarism (although, I wonder if Cuba’s subsequent interventions in Africa were in the spirit of, albeit not to the letter, of his thoughts, and they were not without merit). So there, you’re absolutely right, the seeming better model in the late 1960s was Maoist.

On the other hand since Guevarism was itself more than partially drawn from the protracted people’s war, and could take as its model the successful Cuban campaign (at least in part) isn’t it also plausible that it too could point to a degree of credibility.

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Starkadder - June 13, 2010

On the subject of Guevarism in Ireland, I think An Solas
(the mag published by the Irish Communist Group ) reprinted
some articles by Che Guevara on guerilla warfare in the
mid-60s.

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Conor McCabe - June 13, 2010

I find it interesting that while the Maoist-influenced Cork group Saor Éire was producing People’s Voice and trying to raise class-consciousness, an unrelated Dublin-based group, which called itself the Saor Éire Action Group, was involved in Guevarist spectaculars such as robbing banks and buying rounds for the house on Dorset St.

There’s a copy of People’s Voice available on Cedarlounge, and hopefully all six issues will be up soon.

Click to access peoples-voice-3.pdf

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13. PJ Callan - June 13, 2010

It will be great to get the full set of People’s Voice. I often wondered who was responsible in Cork for the supply of books from the FLPH in Beijing to the Quay Co-Op in Cork. Now we know it was Saor Éire

Basically the Quay Co-Op stocked a rich selection of Marx, Engels Lenin, Stalin and Mao that was kept constantly stocked and sold for next to nothing. As such the Quay Co-Op had a better selection that the shambolic CPI Cork bookshop Well Red Books (with it’s sagging floor, peeling walls, crackly Radio Moscow and two week old Morning Star’s)

By that stage the WP no longer operated the Ashe hall bookshop, in fact there was a tree growing out of famous top floor. BTW is anyone going to tell us the great story about when the Cork stickies won a major prize in the ESB competition and then proceeded to squabble amongst themselves over the proceeds?

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Conor McCabe - June 13, 2010

PJ, you might be interested in these photos.

Jim Lane tells me that it was this a “Sinn Fein hall all the way back to the time of McSwiney and McCurtain. The tree [you] mentioned is sticking out the top left side window. This room was known as the ‘army room’ and was where the Cork No.1 Brigade IRA had their staff meetings and where all young volunteers back in the 50’s were given their induction course and explosive theory training. The big window at ground level is of the dance hall cum public meeting venue. The smaller window under the ‘army room’ is off the Sinn Fein office and the bigger window to the right was known as the library. The big window above it was the Fianna room. The Cork Volunteers’ Pipe Band and Cumann na mBan rooms were located at the rear of the building.”

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harp0 - December 7, 2012

Hello Conor,would it be possible to use the images and text?
thanks

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WorldbyStorm - June 14, 2010

Conor, perhaps they could go up in a separate post? They’re brilliant.

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Conor McCabe - June 14, 2010

yeah. I’ll do it up tonight?

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14. CL - June 13, 2010

The issue I raised was not whether the Guevarist model was superior to the Mao model, but whether either one was applicable in Irish circumstances, especially since the Irish peasant struggle for the land preceded Mao’s peasant revolution by more than 60 years.
Where Jim Lane’s two man army incursion to the North,-where they failed to find the enemy-fits in is left unclear.

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Conor McCabe - June 13, 2010

The 1950s Operation Harvest wasn’t a Maoist campaign, CL, but I could be wrong there. Maybe Sean South was a red after all.

Not sure either about the Irish peasant struggle for the land ending in the 1880s, as you seem to suggest. It’s very much a bourgeois view of Irish history that Ireland’s social revolution took place under the land league, and one that has been consistently challenged by researchers since the 1970s, and most recently by Fergus Campbell. The assumption still exists, though.

Also, I don’t think the Cork-based Saor Eire were calling for a peasant revolution (outside of the call for a workers and small farmers republic), although it was something that the CPI M-L had as part of their analysis.

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CL - June 16, 2010

Jim Lane attacks Guevarism on the grounds that circumstances in Ireland were different from the grounds that gave rise to Guevarism. Yet he accepts Maoism, so presumably he believes (or believed) that Irish circumstances were somehow similar to those in China.
I mentioned the Land War merely because it was a peasant struggle and perhaps therefore akin to the Mao-led peasant struggle in China.
Jim Lane’s contribution to the failed, futile Operation Harvest was to head North in a lorry with a group that included the Limerick fascist Sean South. Lane does not explain why he and Charlie Ronayne failed to engage the enemy on this occasion, and why they were withdrawn from the arena of combat. Lane then began to criticize the leadership of the Cork IRA because they would not send him back up North. He suggests they were opposed to the operation. Yet other volunteers were sent North; Lane mentions a few of them in the narrative. Lane’s two man army then headed North, only to return because they could not find the enemy. Laughable.
As for the ‘Irish Revolutionary Forces’, composed of Lane and 3 or 4 friends,-such grandiosity has more to do with Lane’s inflated ego than it has with Guevarism or Maoism.
What lessons are to be drawn from Jim Lane’s narrative? Perhaps that crackpot, militaristic posturing has nothing to do with Irish social revolution.

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Conor McCabe - June 16, 2010

“so presumably he believes (or believed) that Irish circumstances were somehow similar to those in China.”

Your presumption, not his. And it is wrong. Jim Lane makes it quite clear what it was about Maoism in the 1960s that appealed to him. and it wasn’t that circumstances were “somehow similar”. Again, that’s the CPI M-L.

“I mentioned the Land War merely because it was a peasant struggle and perhaps therefore akin to the Mao-led peasant struggle in China.”

what? do you really believe this?

Any historical evidence to support this contention of yours? Because it is, historically, a laughable contention.

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Budapestkick - July 1, 2010

CL: The IRF / Saor Eire grouping were not Maoist in the sense that you’re thinking of. In fact, Jim criticised Seán Cronin for applying elements of Maoist strategy in the border campaign. Rather, they were Maoist in the sense that they were attracted to the apparent support that Mao and China were giving towards ‘armed struggles’ across Africa and Asia in comparison to the Soviet line, which was seen as being soft. It’s understandable how that could appeal to a grouping like the IRF.

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15. PJ Callan - June 14, 2010

Conor,

Those pictures remind of the place as it was in the late 80’s – it was a shame to see what had been the centre of the republican mov’t in Cork reduced to such a derelict state. Loking at those pictures puts all the Stickies talk of building the socialist republic in to some perspective – they couldn’t even maintain a single building.

The big window at ground level was also the bookshop at one stage – until the local sticks bundled the lot in to a rubbish skip on the pavement around 1992.

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WorldbyStorm - June 14, 2010

That reminded me a bit of parts of Dublin along the Liffey in the 80s too.

Mind you I wouldn’t be too hard on them. It’s not like they weren’t able to maintain other buildings, or even as if building maintenance was the yardstick by which we can measure political activity.

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16. Old Joe - June 14, 2010

There was a Maoist bookshop at Cattle Market Street on the Northside of Cork in the early 1970s – apparently it was surrounded by a rosary carrying mob and the Maoists had to be rescued – by the local Stickies.

The IRA had a number of halls in the City in the 1920s – in the late 40s or 1950s the MacCurtain Hall at the foot of Shandon Street was sold off – apparently by 2 members who pocketed the money. The Thomas Ashe Hall was bombed and burnt on the same night in 1920 that the City Hall and much of the city centre was torched by a mixture of RIC and Auxilliaries.

Around the time of the 1969/70 split a few Provos poured petrol through the roof of the Ashe Hall and tried to burn it but were spotted by local Officials who managed to put the fire out.

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17. CL - June 16, 2010

CMcC-
If Jim Lane rejects Guevarism on the grounds that Irish circumstances were different-well maybe he should reject Maoism on the same grounds.
The Land War was a peasant struggle, and in this has similarities with other peasant struggles including China’s, all of them being grounded in the material reality of the people. The achievement of peasant proprietorship through the various land acts pretty much ended the Irish peasant struggle, although it would of course linger on in the annuities campaign and various small farmer struggles. Maoism, in China, reflected material reality. Maoism in Ireland has no material basis, which is why the little red book was mostly popular with Trinity college sons and daughters of the English bourgeoisie.
Jim Lane’s picaresque pseudo-military antics are firmly grounded in his own ego; such narcissistic posturing should be rejected by those who believe that Ireland badly needs a social revolution.

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WorldbyStorm - June 16, 2010

Interestingly I have an excellent donation to the Archive which I’ll put up this next week from CPI(M-L) around the time they renounced Mao Zedong Thought. And I suspect their rationale wouldn’t be a million miles away from what you’re saying about Maoism in an Irish context, even though they might have put it rather differently.

That said Jim Lane has been good enough to put up his own thoughts and explanations which are of considerable interest to all of us who focus on the left and perhaps it would be good to treat them in the spirit they’ve been offered.

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Conor McCabe - June 16, 2010

“If Jim Lane rejects Guevarism on the grounds that Irish circumstances were different-well maybe he should reject Maoism on the same grounds.”

Again these are YOUR assumptions. You haven’t given me anything from Jim Lane to back up these conclusions of yours. All you’ve told me is:

1. Operation Harvest was a Maoist campaign (up to three days ago, anyway. Now it’s a fascist campaign because Sean South was involved. I suppose it’ll be a Trotskyist campaign in three days’ time once you find out that Gery Lawless was involved.)

2. The Land war and the Communist campaign under Mao are comparable because both have the word “peasant” associated with them. (this is simply laughable. So cattle farmers with 100+ acres are “peasants”? The class war which was taking place as part of the Land war, it all involved peasants? Very strange. Actually, it’s very bourgeois. It’s only strange for someone of the left to make such a bourgeois argument.

This, though, is hilarious:

“The achievement of peasant proprietorship through the various land acts pretty much ended the Irish peasant struggle”

I mean, this is just Christian Brothers stuff. goes against all that we now know about not only the period, but the 60 or so years after the period. You might as well tell me that the First World War was about the freedom of small nations.

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Bartholomew - June 17, 2010

Conor, at no.14: ‘It’s very much a bourgeois view of Irish history that Ireland’s social revolution took place under the land league’

Do you mean that there was a bourgeois social revolution or that there was no social revolution at all?

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Conor McCabe - June 17, 2010

Bart, @ just above this one.

Neither.

An either/or analysis of history. Isn’t it kinda like a rhetorical question?

you know, don’t you find that its kinda like one of those “I don’t know what the fuck I am talking about but if I ask an either/or question it makes it look like I know what I am talking about, which I don’t, kinda like the way Pat Kenny asks questions on Frontline” type of questions, no?

Don’t you think it’s kinda like that, huh?

I suppose what I am saying Bart, is that if you think that what I mean when I talk about a bourgeois view of history is that the actual events were bourgeois, the forces and outcome were bourgeois, then you need not only to look up the word “view” while keeping in mind the way it is used in my sentence, you probably need to stop going to wikipedia as well.

Maybe you write for wikipedia? your cognitive skills seem to be about right.

Sorry. Let me rephrase that. Am I saying that either your cognitive skills are about right for Wikipedia, or that you don’t even have the cognitive skills for a Wikipedia contribution?

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Conor McCabe - June 17, 2010

@ Bart, above the @ Bart above.

I’ve got to go off to bed now Bart, so in case my last comment is too cerebral for you, let me put it another way:

What is the difference between…

a bourgeois revolution

and

a bourgeois view of revolution?

Anything after that and you’ll have to ring the “where’s the Any Key” guys. Maybe they can help you?

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Bartholomew - June 18, 2010

Conor, you’re right, it was far too cerebral. I’ve never even heard of the ‘Any Key’ guys, and I’ve never seen Frontline.

It wasn’t an either/or question for the sake of it, or for the sake of appearing clever, as you’re suggesting. I was asking what you meant by the original statement, and those were the two possibilities that occurred to me. Let me rephrase the question in turn. Do you think the Land War was a social revolution of any kind?

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18. Blanqui - June 17, 2010

THE REVOLUTION THAT NEVER WAS (IN CORK!)

In the interests of historical record concerning the fractured Republican situation in Cork in the late Sixties and early Seventies, and of the efforts of Jim Lane, Gerry Higgins and Sean Daly to create an alternative Marxist republican/revolutionary movement, the tuppence-worth role played by UCC students should also be taken into consideration.

The Vietnam conflict politicised a cohort of students in 1967. At the time political parties in UCC were not given official approval and after the first anti-American march that Cork ever witnessed even less so. The outrage in the local press at the possibility that ‘commies’ were lurking in the Unee is still remembered with some amusement, as is the fact that the Students Union (CTM) demanded their big drum back as soon as they heard it was to be used ‘in a military procession’!

Although the ‘radicals’ -among whom figured Jim Blake, Jack Lane and Dermot Quish- eventually found a kind of political home in the Labour Party, their involvement with that party did not last long. Brendan Corish’s ‘The Seventies will be Socialist’ slogan may have been the bait that attracted them, or perhaps the emerging ‘liberal’ profile of ‘characters’ such as Michael O’Leary, Barry Desmond and Pat Magner did the trick.

Nevertheless, within a year the engagement with Labour collapsed amid accusations that the party had ‘betrayed the interests of the working class’. The break-up was in the main due to the influence of the Internationalists in Trinity and to the relationship the Cork group had with them.

A glance at ‘Spectre’, the UCC Labour branch magazine, (November 1967, No 3) helps explain Cork student disillusionment with Labour. In an interview with Brendan Corish, the then Labour leader and secret member of the Knights of Columbanus makes clear that under a Labour government workers would fully participate ‘with those responsible for the promotion of industry’.

That was bad enough, but permanent damage was done when he declared he found absurd the idea that James Connolly might have been a Marxist Revolutionary.

Somewhat chastened, the students then sought the views of the IRA and Sinn Fein. According to the magazine, an IRA representative told them in blunt terms that Sinn Fein was the political wing of the Republican Movement, which was the IRA.

Despite their naivety, the students knew that Sinn Fein was a joke in Cork city, having been heavily infiltrated by Moscow orientated CPs. They even had trouble convincing themselves that the IRA actually existed in Cork, so politically insignificant was it. (Someone who still kept the flag flying, however, was that champion of the turncoat technique, Eoghan Harris, who was going through his republican phase, strutting through the College in trench coat and black beret. Even then, no one took him seriously.)

To make matters worse, Sinn Fein’s idea of Socialism was the ‘cooperative ownership of the means of production’. No one had a clue what that meant, so it was inevitable that the politically aware people gravitated towards Lane and comrades, and towards the uninhibited revolutionary socialist republicanism that they promoted.

At the beginning of the Seventies, the pernicious B&ICO began to appear on the scene with their mad Two Nation theories. It hoovered up what remained of the exponents of fleeting radicalism in UCC -and that was that!

ENDS

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WorldbyStorm - June 17, 2010

Thanks Blanqui. Very useful information in there.

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Starkadder - June 17, 2010

I second WBS. Thanks for that, Blanqui.

Jim Blake later joined joined the I.T.G.W.U. in the seventies.
He organised a protest against unemployment in the 80s,
and I think he was also campaigning against the Second
Gulf War. It would be interesting to hear an interview with him
about his career.

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19. NollaigO - June 18, 2010

Ill fares the land, to hast’ning ill a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay;
Princes and Lords may flourish, or may fade:
A breath can make them, as a breath has made;
but a bold peasantry, their country’s pride,
When once destroyed can never be supplied.

Lines from The Deserted Village by Oliver Goldsmith

Was Goldsmith Ireland’s first Maoist?

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20. Budapestkick - June 18, 2010

Do you have a copy of Spectre? It would make a welcome addition to the archive.

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WorldbyStorm - June 19, 2010

I do not. It’d be great to have one.

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21. Drithleóg - July 6, 2010

Readers might like to know that Willie Gough, an old Cork republican, who was one of those arrested at Torr Head during the Border Campaign and interned, passed away last weekend. His removal takes place tonight from O’Connor’s funeral home, North Gate Bridge to the North Cathedral. Burial tomorrow at Kilcully after mass at 2pm in the cathedral.

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22. Left Archive: The Republican Movement and Socialism, 1950-70, Jim Lane, originally published in the Starry Plough (IRSP), 1987 « The Cedar Lounge Revolution - September 27, 2010

[…] from the British Labour Party Young Socialists. But this week we return to Jim Lane who as noted here and here has been involved in Socialist and Republican politics from the […]

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23. ‘Rethinking the Republic’ – redux… « The Cedar Lounge Revolution - July 30, 2011

[…] read it here’s an additional resource with which to contextualise it, Jim Lane’s useful Miscellaneous Notes on Republicanism and Socialism in Cork City, 1954 to 1969. The accompanying article was written by Conor McCabe and provides an excellent […]

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24. RS - May 10, 2013

 Ether you are a follower and chue the cud of the Core Commune (socialist, and communist ) or you are within the core. I know your game and your committees, Gyges, pen and deed of propaganda. My family has a long history starting with the Norman innovation, as revolutionaries around the world and another 100 yrs within the socialist movement in America. George Sisk was one of many family mislead and not very bright. My uncle in America murdered and trained for the party from 1936 to 1981. My grandfather was recruited by Trotsky 1909 and murdered for the party until his murder in 1940. My G grandfather and grandmother also worked with Trotsky, Linen and Hitler. My GG grandfather described Trotsky as a small man with woman’s hands, spoiled by those slaving for his every whim. You that wave his banner either ignorant or missing the fact Hitler was also a recruit of Trotsky at broken glass in Vienna 1909. Our world stride for international socialism will only accomplish death for half the planet. Most followers of the flute and their loved ones will also find themselves in the gallows by the very people they looked up too. The members of the IRA have been mislead from the start… Irishmen will never have freedom in their own country following socialism and a collectivism scam. Don’t believe? Who was J Edger Hoovers top agent? Who was Millderd Gillers Sisk to Hitler? Who was Vincent Sisk as it pertains to McKenley death? Why did Roosevelt close out Broken Glass? Ireland was robbed of its history just as America was… Ireland WHO WAS Robert Fitz Sisk? Who was David Fitz Sisk? Who was Captain William Sisk? This man and his crew freed more Irish and African slaves then any other men and also helped the American revolution possible. I am an American that seems to love Ireland and its people more than the men who live there.
 American conservatives just as Irishmen don’t understand the true nature of the enemy and it’s agenda. Collectivism is used to produce a class society whereas those at the core can become leaders, the ruling class! and the rest the working class, anyone who disagrees dies or become a slave of the prison. When American conservatives place a picture in their mind of the enemy, it is an islamic terrorist.
When a Irishman thinks of terrorist he thinks IRA…WHY? BROTHERHOOD? Where are your critical thinking skills? In truth terrorism can be carried out by an islamic person or an Irishman, both used by leaders of the future ruling class SOCIALIST. Deed of propaganda is a method to carry out political change, way more politically  effective when taken out between mutual enemies. I pose a question,,  Why is it that most countries in the middle east or across the world have REPUBLIC as their nomenclature and also a socialist ruling party, a constitution and articles of socialism? …. Most citizens of those countries have no idea either.  Most Americans or Irishmen have no idea what is basic to freedom …… INDIVIDUALISM’s RIGHTS…Unalienable  individual rights…… this is the blockade and target of the Commune and international socialist.  In Trotsky’s own words he tells us the best way to kill and extinguish the enemy is by owning their medical care…. Ireland will never be free with socialism….

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25. Cork Republican Mick Buckley died on 20 February 2015. | irishrepublicanmarxisthistoryproject - March 1, 2015

[…] For more on this, link to “Miscellaneous Notes on Republicanism and Socialism in Cork City, 1954-69″https://cedarlounge.wordpress.com/2010/06/09/irish-left-open-history-project-miscellaneous-notes-on-… […]

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26. Mick - August 17, 2015

The link for Jim Lane Sept 2009, at the bottom of the page links you to an add.

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WorldbyStorm - August 17, 2015

Sorry about that Mick, we’re hoping to find the audio somewhere and relink.

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27. ‘Miscellaneous Notes On Republicanism And Socialism In Cork City, 1954–69’ By Jim Lane. | irishrepublicanmarxisthistoryproject - August 23, 2015
28. 11-12th December 1956 Operation Harvest launched- the 1st Night. | irishrepublicanmarxisthistoryproject - December 12, 2015

[…] Below is the link to (Cedar Lounge Revolution) Miscellaneous Notes by Jim Lane.https://cedarlounge.wordpress.com/2015/08/17/irish-left-open-history-project-miscellaneous-notes-on-… […]

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29. The Republican Movement and Socialism 1950-70, by Jim Lane. | irishrepublicanmarxisthistoryproject - May 20, 2016

[…] Miscellaneous Notes on Republicanism and Socialism in Cork City 1954- 69 . (Thanks to Cedar Lounge Revolution)https://cedarlounge.wordpress.com/2015/08/17/irish-left-open-history-project-miscellaneous-notes-on-… […]

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30. IRSP Speeches and Writings by Jim Lane, 1983-1987. | irishrepublicanmarxisthistoryproject - December 14, 2016
31. Brendan O’Neill, Jim Lane and Donal Donnolly Visit to West Tyrone 12th, and 13th, October 2007. By Brendan O’Neill. | irishrepublicanmarxisthistoryproject - May 21, 2019

[…] Miscellaneous Notes on Republicanism and Socialism in Cork City 1954- 69 . (Thanks to Cedar Lounge Revolution)https://cedarlounge.wordpress.com/2015/08/17/irish-left-open-history-project-miscellaneous-notes-on-… […]

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