Left Archive: An Phoblacht/Republican News, October 20th 1979, Provisional Sinn Féin

To download the above please click on the following link:

aprn-sat-oct-20th-1979-1-uimhir-38-1Download

To go to the Archive please click here.

This copy of An Phoblacht/Republican News joins other editions in the Archive. This one from 1979 bridges the gap between the mid-1970s and the mid-1980s.

The front page article argues that:

‘SURPRISING’, ‘SHOCK­ING’ and ‘EMBARRASS­ING’ is how most of the Irish newspapers and pol­itical commentators des­cribed a survey which shows that 72% of people in the Free State are in favour of a unilateral British withdrawal, that 21% of the people are in support of I RA activities and ’42°/o sympathise with their motives! The slavish mentality of  the establishment was ex­ pressed best by the Irish  Press which was worried  about the consternation  it would cause loyalists  and that it would pre­judice British opinion! 

Another piece states:

 

THE IRA’s ambush of two British soldiers in plain-clothes at the bottom of Belfast’s Whiterock Road a week last Monday was a double success. Not only was it a technical military success in undoubtedly curbing the activities of Brit under­cover men – one was killed and one seriously wounded – but also brought immediate political and propaganda pay-offs in encouraging ‘troops out’ sentiment in England.

There are many interesting pieces but of particular interest is one on the Left Press which looks at ‘Irish Socialist’, ‘Starry Plough’, ‘Socialist Republic’, ‘Militant’ and ‘United Irishman’. It also looks at ‘Comment’ from the British and Irish Communist Organisation. Of this latter it says.

COMMENT is the fort­nightly magazine of th British and Irish Comm­unist Organisation (BICO) who are the main prop­onents of the two-nations theory. As the BICO support the British occu­pation of the north • a basis for the advance of  Socialism, they have  earned themselves the  same sort of respect that  is due to the Flat Earth Society.