The Cedar Lounge Revolution

Left Archive: United Irishman – An t-Eireannach Aontaithe, Lunasa (August) 1975, Official Sinn Féin August 24, 2015

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This edition of the United Irishman from Official Sinn Féin is one of a series of United Irishman and Starry Ploughs that date from the feud between the INLA and the OIRA in Spring/Summer 1975.

The cover article – Energy Programme needed not A-Bombs – references proposals to have a nuclear reactor in Wexford operational in 1980. The tone is deeply antagonistic to the proposal arguing that ‘the plan threatens the livers of our people of this and future generations’. By way of contrast a piece on the back page examines, quite favourably, proposals for an oil refinery sister in Dublin Bay. It argues that:

There is only one way in which Ireland can solve the joint problems of unemployment and emigration. this is by developing her international trade. Over 99 per cent of this trade by volume is carried by sea and more than 60 percent of the general cargo, the most valuable constituent, passes through the Port of Dublin.

Other notable aspects of this edition are a number of stories about activities and statements from various sections of the OIRA, including one on how “D” Company of Belfast Command prevented the kidnapping of a former internee and discovered a haul of undercover British Army weapons. The editorial suggests that ‘Recent killings, claims and counter claims are evince that he enemies of the working class are preparing for their kind of ‘solution’.

There’s a piece on Mother Jones, another on Portugal and a two page spread on the need for ‘Human rights must be fully guaranteed’ along with a four point outline of what OSF demands in that regard.

There is only oblique mention of the OIRA/IRSP(PLA) conflict of earlier in the Summer. This is most notable in the Sinn Féin Platform column which carries the text of a speech by Tomas Mac Giolla addressing a conference on Sectarianism in Derry. This includes the statement that:

We know that a purely military campaign would destroy the unity which the Civil Rights struggle was developing, that it would strengthen bigotry and sectarianism and eventually solidify once again the Orange Unionist structure. Our purpose was to eliminate sectarianism completely.

Left Archive: Ground Rent is Robbery, REPSOL No. 13, Official Sinn Féin, c. 1974. July 27, 2015

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Many thanks to Peter Mooney for donating this document to the Archive – one of many from his collection that will be reproduced here in coming months.

This leaflet published in late 1973 or early 1974 outlines its objectives in the Preface:

The aim of this pamphlet is to show that ground rent is not only ‘faintly ridiculous’ but that it is immoral and that its abolition is long overdue.

A campaign against ground rent is a logical corollary to the fight for peasant proprietary or the demand for the public ownership of inland waters. It is the smashing of a link with the conquest; ground rent is unknown outside Ireland and England, its home of origin.

And the leaflet in the space of 56 pages forensically examines the history of ground rents in 9 chapters, offering both an overview, an an analysis and a course of action to abolish them for good. It also positions this within the contemporary and notes the Association of Combined Residents Associations campaign to abolish ground rent which commenced in June 1973.

The announcement of the campaign, made by ACRA’s PRO Andy Conlon, at a public meeting organised by the Sinn Féin party in Ennis created much speculation among ground rent tenants throughout Ireland.

And:

The Irish democracy in the shape of ACRA, NATO and other groups joining in, are beginning to catch up on this relic of feudal times. May they succeed.

Left Archive: United Irishman – An t-Eireannach Aontaithe, Bealtaine (May) 1975, Official Sinn Féin May 25, 2015

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This edition of the United Irishman from Official Sinn Féin is of a piece with the issue of the Starry Plough posted up in the Archive last week. The headline is ‘Tribute to Liam Mac Maolain (Billy McMillen) who was commander of the Belfast Brigade of the Official IRA at the time and was killed by the INLA during the feud following the establishment of that organisation.

This edition, published at the height of the feud includes reports on the murder of OSF member Paul Crawford and a centre spread that offers an overview of the life of McMillen as well as excerpts from the oration at his funeral. It contains the following taken from a statement issued by the Ard Comhairle of Official Sinn Féin:

Mr. Liam McMillen was a lifelong Republican, a member of the Ard Comhairle of Sinn Fein for the past ten years, he was one of the architects of the present policy of the Republican Movement. He was totally committed to the anti-sectarian struggle and one of the foremost in promoting dialogue between the Northern Roman Catholic and Protestant communities and people’s organisation on a wide range of issues form housing conditions to saving individual lives. He opposed with all his ability both the attacks of the British Army and the efforts of the Provisional o involved the Republican movement in the mildness anti-civilian bombing campaign for the Provisionals. He stood above all others in the Six Counties as a bulwark against the Republican Movement being drawn into a situation which would ultimately end in the destruction of the Movement and postpone for years the chance of genuine national political and economic emancipation.

This statement also contains the following:

With regard to [an IRSP] statement, the IRSP claim that there were developments in the ‘dispute’ between the RISP and the IRA. The truth is that Jim McCorry contacted a member off the Alliancd Paryt in Turf Lodge asking for talks with the IRA an date PLA. In fact, the PLA is the IRSP. The statement by the IRSP that their members were not involved simply means that the killing was done under the name PLA. The attacks on our membership over the past few months have been carried out by full-time paid killers, mercenaries, whose purpose is to smash our organisation.

The oration by Cathal Goulding includes this:

[Liam McMillen] recognised that the first and greatest enemy was British imperialism and he fought for separation. But he also saw the failure of blind nationalism and he struggled for civil rights. He felt the need of the people of the Six Counties for peace and maintained a ceasefire. He heard the demand for political action and he died on his way from election headquarters. He recognised the dangers of sectarian civil war and he was murdered by those who would, as coldly and cynically as they shot him, start the sectarian conflict that would consume the working class.

It is worth noting the tone of the oration is particularly heated in relation to Seamus Costello and Bernadette McAliskey (who was involved in the IRSP for a relatively brief period of time).

Notable in the document is the focus on other issues including a report on the Ard Fheis of Chonradh na Gaeilge, a piece calling on people to ‘Oppose the Collaboration’ between the Dublin Government and the British Government on security matters on an all-island basis. There’s mention of a ‘police attack on Cork Sinn Féin HQ’ and in international affairs an article on the then Czechoslovakia which takes a very positive view of ‘the intervention in the country of the armies of the Warsaw Pact countries’ where it suggests that ‘the intervention only lasted for a very short time. There was no mass repression, no exceptions, no bombing, no internment, no attempt to take over Czech industry and natural resources, no attempt to break up or divide Czechoslovakia and no attempt to destroy the culture or language of the Czech people’ and concludes that ‘Despite the troubles of the past, Czechs have a bright future ahead of the them’. Another piece examines the conflict in Angola.

The last page contains a number of pieces on unemployment and the right to work and an application form to ‘Join the Republican Movement’.

Left Archive: Bray Comment, No. 1, May 1975, Official Sinn Féin May 26, 2014

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This short one page document from Official Sinn Féin in Bray covers both local issues – Playgroups and Nurseries – and the broader issue of unemployment. It notes the number of unemployed in Bray and the 26 counties.

It notes that Sinn Féin stands for…

A socialist society in Ireland, a society that puts the needs of the people before the profits of the rich. We have a consistent record of struggle for such a society in the trade unions, tenants association and small farmers defence association. We are fighting for your interests and need your support.

It concludes with an exhortation to ‘Join Sinn Féin – 30 Gardiner Place’.

Left Archive: Culture and Revolution in Ireland, Eoin Ó Murchú, Official Sinn Féin, 1971 March 10, 2014

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CULREVMURCHFULL

This document issued in 1971 by Official Sinn Féin and written by Eoin Ó Murchú, engages with the issue of Culture and Revolution in Ireland. In the course of 24 pages it examines ‘What is Culture’, discusses ‘Native Irish Culture’, considers ‘Imperialism and Culture’ and ‘Socialism and Culture’ and then ‘Language and Culture’ and proposes a ‘Manifesto of the Cultural Revolution in Ireland’.

It is too long a document to give more than a brief overview but the Introduction will serve to offer some insight into its overall approach.

As noted in the Reamhra:

Culture is av dry wide term that embraces many meanings. Some associate culture with the individuals who talk about art and drama, the arty-set; others associate it with literature, art, music, etc., which people have produced; for us, revolutionaries, it has a wider and yet more specific, meaning – a meaning which places culture in its political context. Culture is the response of a people to the environment they live in. As such, the culture of a people includes every aspect of their lives – the way they work, eat, cohabit, play – and it is not confided to the artistic means which different civilisations have developed. What we as revolutionaries are concerned about in in this question of culture and art is the way people’s ideas and attitudes are formed, about the development of revolutionary consciousness.

Ó Murchú quotes Mao Tse Tung’s definition:

‘A given culture is the ideological reflection of the politics and economics of a given society’.

Ó Murchú argues that:

We will always find in our efforts to win the people over to support of our political and economic programme that what is clear to us is often vague and confusing to them. The culture of our present society is not one that encourages revolution, for the dominant economic and political ideas are those of the dominant class in Irish society, and that class obviously is opposed to the social revolution to which we are committed. The whole aim of the cultural apparatus of the state is to condition the people, through its educational system, the mass media of radio and newspapers, and through the general promotion of mythology and superstition.

Quoting Pearse he continues…

Pearse described the educational system that the English imperial government foisted on the Irish people as the ‘murder machine’. ‘The system has aimed at the substation for men and women of mere Things…but these Things have no allegiance. Like other Things they are for sale’.

He notes the ‘immediacy of the cultural question [which] can be seen from the fact of the economic and social existence of the Gaeltacht is so tenuous at the moment.

And he concludes:

…this paper does not pretend to be definitive on this matter of culture. It is not holy writ or dogma and the production of the lecture as a pamphlet is an attempt to widen the scope of our internal education programme.

If the subject is properly discussed and criticised we ail be able to make a programme of policy, perhaps on the lines indicated in the final section, which is called ‘The Manifesto of the Cultural Revolution in Ireland’.

Briefly in relation to the Manifesto, it is notable that he argues that:

Socialism needs artists and intellectuals who will [present the socialist view of humanity and of world progress]… and because only socialism in the modern, because only socialism is responsive to humanity, because only socialism can enrich humanity socialists therefore have the right to demand of artists and intellectuals that they champion the cause of the people in their writings and in their art. If they do not then the socialist movement will expose them for the defenders of imperialism that they must be.

He also suggests that:

The revival of Irish is an integral part of any cultural revolution in Ireland. This does not mean that every person will bee forced by some miraculous compulsion to speak Irish. What it means is that it just be the conscious policy of Irish revolutionaries to call for those measures that will assist the revival of the language: More time and programmes in Irish on television on radio, the bias of a revival programme must be towards the Gaeltacht, for the Culture of the Gaeltacht is a living and vital thing while that of the Galltacht in Irish is either an imitation of Imperialist culture or a weaker version of a pure original.

We must demand of all mass media, in the North as importantly as in the South, that else mass media be used to develop the living culture of working people. The Orangemen think that the Six County state is theirs, but there is as much time devoted to Orange culture on Northern television as there is to any other aspect of Irish culture.