Enquiries to RJ at rjtechne@iol.ie; Anthony Coughlan is contactable at his home address at 24 Crawford Avenue, Dublin 9, phone 00-353-1-8305792.

Volume 13 (contd)

January 5 1961: '..According to Tony Coughlan, who (when back in Cork for Xmas) saw Jim O'Regan, there is a growing sentiment in Sinn Fein for a more political approach, and so perhaps the results of the mistakes of the past few years are going to be evident in new wisdom..'.

January 6: CDG records receiving a letter from Stockholm: '...from HB Eller who has disposed of his business and gone home. He must be about 75... a very likable old man. He is worried about the disposal of the library of the Peat Society, some 1000 key surveys, and specimens, and has been in touch with Bernal and Edgar Young about it. I therefore wrote to Bernal, and Young, and also to Frank Mitchell, now Provost of TCD, and to Justin Keating, finally writing to Eller telling him what I had done. He is a genuine enthusiast for turf development...'.

This indicates that CDG had kept alive his feel for the importance of scientific technology in the context of Irish economic development. He had been in contact with Mitchell in the late 1940s, in a consultant capacity, but because he had given up his work as a fuel technologist and industrial chemist, he had lost touch with the likes of Mitchell, who was not Provost of TCD; McConnell was, but Mitchell was influential as Registrar; he was working at the time with JJ on the Townley Hall agricultural research project. Mitchell was indeed a world-renowned peat expert, mostly from the angle of how to date it, for which work he subsequently became an FRS. It is a pity that in this domain CDG allowed himself totally to drop out. I will chase this hare if the opportunity arises; it would be interesting to find out what happened to the Peat Society Library, and where if anywhere it ended up. HMS 'Dusty' Miller, who then headed the Bord na Mona Research and Development group, might know.

In a further visit to Dublin from January 12 1961, staying with CMacL, CDG is mostly in the National Library on the Mellows trail. I arrived on the 13th; CDG records encountering me and Justin in Johnny Nolan's shop, and I went off with Justin. My visit was to bring the family over to Bardy Tyrrell's flat in Hammersmith. CDG encounters various people: LS Gogan on the Civil War trail, Maire Comerford, Bob Briscoe, Jim Collins and others. He returns to London on January 23.

Volume 13 ends on February 24 1961; there is an insert on ID notepaper with the words 'Sean Murray's death preceding', with an arrow; he obviously intended to continue but did not get round to it. I have overflowed slightly into the 60s decade, but the foregoing is basically 1950s aftermath, with the present writer in emigration mode.

Volume 14

CDG spends from November 1 to 9 1962 in Belfast. The context is his perceived need for an analysis of, and response to Barritt and Carter's book, The Northern Ireland Problem, to which CDG was writing a reply, which was published in due course as The Irish Crisis. He encounters Jack Bennett, Billy McCullagh, Betty Sinclair, Hugh Moore, Bill Graham; these initial contacts are all CPNI. There is a discussion in the Trades Council office: is NI subsidised? The nationalists say yes, the Unionists say no. He leans heavily on the evidence picked up earlier from Joe Johnston, to the effect that the agricultural subsidies are worth £30M. The Isles and Cuthbert Report casts no light on the issue.

He goes on to encounter Art McMillan, Billy Blease, Rev Megahy, Cahir Healy and others; he cycles to Coalisland to see May O'Donnell. Cal O'Herlihy has taken up a post in QUB as an economics lecturer, and he conveys this to Betty. He talks to Caughey who wants a 'National Liberation Council' composed of various organisations, but CDG counters with an NCCL-style proposal for a conference on the franchise; Caughey is not convinced.

Then up to December 9 we find him cycling in Scotland, with occasional phone-calls to Sean Redmond in London.

Back in London on December 11 1962 he finds the Connolly Association in a financial mess, with Pat Bond keeping the books in 'single entry' mode. There is in prospect a debate on the Barritt-Carter report; Carter refuses to debate in person, and puts up Norman Gibson instead. CDG: 'I said I had no desire to debate with Mr Gibson whom I had never heard of... Carter has left Barritt to face the music in Belfast... and he is getting a rough time, climbing down and apologising for all his mis-statements..'.

Gibson was then a rising young economist who was putting feelers out in the direction of the Republic; I had encountered him at a Tuairim conference in Greystones, in or about 1959 or 1960, which was considering the implications of the Whitaker Programme and the then innovatory orientation of industry in the Republic towards exports. CDG was, in my opinion, wrong to dismiss him as a nobody; I had certainly heard of him; I was in contact with the CA; CDG never thought to ask me. Any interest shown by economists in the North in the economics of Ireland as a whole should have been welcomed.

I pass over the entries between December 12 and January 10-17 1963, when he goes to Belfast and Dublin, except to mention that on Dec 20 he noted my intention of going back the following March. This was actually a false alarm; I had what looked like the makings of a job with the Sugar Co in Carlow, but it never came to anything.

He spent a day in Belfast (10/01/1963) seeing the 'usual suspects', Jack Bennett, Billy McCullagh, Betty Sinclair; also Jimmy Stewart who had taken over the drafting of the Party programme from the late Sean Murray who had died on 25/05/61; he wanted feedback on his 'wee book' (the response to B&C). This being initially positive, he went to Dublin by train, encountering by chance Austin Curry, then Secretary of the QUB Irish Society, who had come to the meeting organised by Caughey and Jack Bennett the previous September. He stayed with MacLiams in Finglas, and did some work on the Mellows trail. He found Nolan, Carmody and Jeffares affable; there was an encounter with Anthony Coughlan who had returned to Dublin two years before (living in the garden flat of the present writer's house in Rathmines). It seems he had tried to set up a non-socialist Democratic Club but the members faded away when one Bolton who was associated had appeared on an IWL platform. He went back via Belfast, receiving the necessary blessing of the content of his book.

Back in London February is spent on CA business; there is a mention on Feb 4 1963 of the present writer, in contrast to Cal O'Herlihy who is slipping visibly into bourgeois economics preparatory to taking up his post in QUB: '..it was quite interesting that RHWJ, not a professional economist, was much more at home in the economics of neo-colonialism...'.

Then on Feb 28 1963 there is an account of a meeting with Caughey who has come to London via Manchester, where he has seen Joe Deighan. There is talk of his starting a paper with Jack Bennett; CDG doubts the wisdom of this. 'He is still set on abstentionism, and envisages the prisoners committees converting into "Wolfe Tone Clubs" which could help political action but support Sinn Fein abstentionist candidates. Unfortunately JB here shows the romantic streak in his temperament and instead of opposing this inconsistency tolerates it...'.

It seems that on March 30 1963 I went with CDG on the Paddington paper round, and we discussed the intellectual blight which descends on sometime activists, the subjects being Eamonn McLaughlin and Des Logan, the latter it seems frequenting Tuairim..... CDG was currently working on his Wolfe Tone booklet. The CA is suffering from attacks from the ultra-left, as usual.

Work continues mostly in London, with an occasional visit to Liverpool, up to May 21 1963 when CDG went of to Wales on his bicycle, returning on May 31. Routine work in London continues; then on June 17 1963 CDG receives a letter from Cahir Healy '...thanking me for telling him what passed at the NCCL and concurring in my opinion that the NILP had been up to their tricks. He expressed himself very favourably on the subject of Betty Sinclair who had given him the agenda. He agreed that Labour is too near office for the NCCL to do anything! I wrote to ES and told her what he had said. Fitt told me yesterday that Healy is aging rapidly. A pity, he is a real character...'. The NCCL meeting had taken place on May 26, and the CA motion had been successful.

Here CDG is working quietly to get the nationalists and republicans to talk with the Belfast Trades Council on topics relating to the objectives of the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL). This is the embryo of the broad-based Civil Rights movement.

On June 20 1963 CDG gave the Wolfe Tone Memorial Lecture, at which his booklet was launched; later 80 copies were sold on Trafalgar Square. There is a mention of someone (MgP: Margot Parrish?) taking over what I had been doing; it seems I had replaced Pat Bond as treasurer (presumably on an acceptable double-entry basis!) and was now on the verge of returning to Dublin, with the Aer Lingus job. Then on June 26 there is discussion with Joe Deighan regarding a Wolfe Tone demonstration planned for Manchester; there are questions relating to the role of the London Corresponding Society, and the nature of the Republic. I resign finally as treasurer on July 4.

On July 5 1963 CDG goes to Dublin, mostly on the Mellows trail. He then tours the west on his bicycle, returning to Manchester on July 14 for the planned Wolfe Tone event. Then back to London on 15th, and Dublin again on July 17, where he pursues the Mellows trail until August 1.

The August 1 1963 has a revealing entry relating to the present writer: '..Roy goes back to Ireland on Tuesday to take up his post with Aer Lingus. He wants to talk to everybody about his "role" there. But he is incapable of pursuing single-mindedly a political course of action, let alone originating one. So I made no suggestions. And in any conflict between his duty and his interests or convenience, his interests or convenience are bound to win. Still he is not the worst...'.

The foregoing says something about CDG's judgment of people, and his confidence in their ability to grasp his strategies. The Civil Rights approach within the NI situation was in gestation, and he had already set up the contacts. Yet he chose not to tell me anything about it, in a farewell briefing, which I had asked for. Mac Stiofain's allegations, also noted in Justin O'Brien's book, were of course quite ludicrous. If however he had briefed me, it is quite possible that the Wolfe Tone Society in Dublin would have been earlier able to help this process along, with its Belfast contacts, which included Jack Bennett, and, later, people like Alec Foster, Michael Dolley and John D Stewart, and Kader Asmal in Dublin. But he seemed to be dismissive of the potential of all-Ireland democratic intellectual networking, preferring to remain in the undergrowth of the CPNI and the IWL. He expected all intellectuals to go the road taken by Cal O'Herlihy and Justin Keating, and he automatically wrote them off.

CDG then goes to Dublin on August 6 1963, on the Mellows primary-source trail. On August 15 we had lunch; a cycle trip in Wicklow was in prospect, but remained undecided. He returns to London on August 20, and finds the West London Branch in a state of collapse, which he attributes, surprisingly, to my absence. On September 27 he records his 50th birthday; Cathal MacLiam and Anthony Coughlan looked in, over from Dublin. There was a Connolly Association Jubilee Dance, which was not a success. The main CA concern is defending itself from attacks by the ultra-left 'Workers Forum'.

From now on I concentrate on entries having a direct Irish connection; during my period over there I felt it necessary to be more comprehensive in the coverage. After visiting his sister in Liverpool on October 24 he went to Belfast.

On October 26 1963 CDG visits Jack Bennett, whom he regards as identifying himself with the Republicans totally, and '...has no intention of working for any partial demands that will bring the two sides together..'. The next day he lunches with Betty Sinclair: '...she tells me Caughey came in to see her last week and told her he will act as election agent for Sinn Fein at the next election. JB confirms this but claims that the "Irish Union" thing was Caughey's own nonsense, and that he and Caughey were summoned to Dundalk to give an account of themselves, and that Caughey deliberately left him behind so that his disagreement would not be known. And that is the way they fool about. I also met Art McMillan...'. Then he goes to Dublin the next day, stays with CMacL. It seems he saw me '...as money-conscious as ever and subject to the same temporary enthusiasms..'. Back to London on November 3, to attend a meeting and collect some notes, then back to Dublin on November 4, where he encountered Anthony Coughlan; it seems Tadhg Egan (an ex CA stalwart from Kerry, with an IRA background, who had returned to Dublin) had picked up that the Sinn Fein Ard Fheis had passed a resolution sent by its Birmingham branch condemning the CA, against the advice of the Ard Comhairle. It seems the Democrat was quoted at length in the debate, with Jim O'Regan being approved of.

Anthony Coughlan (AC) went on to regale CDG with the fact that '...Roy has been up at Sean Cronin's house and that Cronin has got my two pamphlets..'. Later he encountered George Fairbrother in Johnny Nolan's shop; now a successful solicitor in Cavan, he had been with the TCD Promethean group in the 1940s.

Still in Dublin on November 11 1963 CDG lunches with AC who regales him with the latest RJ news: it seems that I had '...become somewhat disillusioned with political life in Dublin, which was to be so glorious when he first came here. And whereas then he was an uncritical admirer of the IWL, now he gives them less than their due and mixes mostly with Labour Party people...'.

AC got it wrong. For some time I had been anything but an 'uncritical admirer' of the IWL and had been since the 1950s seeking for a broader base while keeping to principle. My wife Mairin was however at this time taken up with the Labour Party; she helped to build the branch in the north city which got Michael O'Leary elected. I was an observer on the fringe of this process. This suggests caution when interpreting the Greaves record; CDG met people individually and tended to soak up gossip.

Back to Liverpool on November 17 1963 where he notes the first hints of what turned out to be his sister Phyllis's terminal illness; then in London from the 19th. In Hyde Park on Sunday November 24 they pass a resolution of sympathy with President Kennedy's widow, despite begrudgery from ultra-left elements. Then on December 6 there is some discussion on the question of a joint programme between the CPNI and the IWL, an issue which remained fraught with difficulties. On December 12 CDG recounts an episode in which an article of his, requested by Peace News, on 'Civil Liberties in Northern Ireland' had got suppressed, on the basis of 'expert advice' from some un-named Edinburgh academic; it seems he had not 'done the Unionists justice'. One can understand CDG's increasing distrust of academics.

The next interesting entry is on January 26 1964; it is based on the conference of the Movement for Colonial Freedom (MCF). The key issue was Fenner Brockway's Bill of Rights, aimed at bringing the Irish question back into British politics. This continues over several days; there is a delegation of nationalists staying at the Irish Club; this represented a historic link-up between the British Labour and Irish national movements. There are many pages on this, and it merits further elaboration. It seemed however that Wilson had refused to meet the delegation. CDG comments however that the CA was able to get the Nationalists to do what the Irish Embassy had been unable to do; the CA had shown itself to be a national power. He realises the weakness of the position, however: '..we have forced rather than forged unity and must not expect such an arrangement to endure..'.

Then from February 3 CDG goes off to Scotland on the train, with his bicycle, returning to London on March 3; he wanted to isolate himself for drafting Mellows chapters. Back in London there ensue various episodes involving encounters with ultra-left disruptive elements. This Volume 14 of the journal ends on March 31 with him preparing the CA Annual Report and resolutions for the Conference.

Volume 15

On April 19 in MacLiam's Helga has the news via Mairin that I am in hospital in the US with a staphylococcal infection. He meets with Peadar O'Donnell, Johnny Nolan in the bookshop (there is still the problem of the London IWL emigrants, their socials, and their relationship with the Connolly Association), Austin Clarke and others; on April 22 he attends an anti-apartheid meeting in the Mansion House, where he is impressed by the contribution of Barry Desmond (whom he notes as Anthony Coughlan's friend). He comments '...the Labour Party would never dream of holding a meeting to protest against apartheid in Northern Ireland...'. Others present included Micheal O Riordain, Justin and Loretta Keating and Justin's mother May, Johnny Nolan, Frank Edwards and Michael O'Leary. Anthony Coughlan (AC) must have been there because in the context of a post-meeting drink, in the company of Mairin and others (it seems I was due back on the following Saturday), he notes that '..AC told me an interesting thing told him in Dublin, namely that Martin Ennals came back from the six counties two years ago with material completely condemning the six-county government (as indeed we knew he did) but was prevented from publishing it on the intervention of Transport House as embarrassing to the Labour Party..'.

There are records of further visits on the Mellows trail: Moss Twomey, Ruairi Brugha, Ina Connolly, Sheila Humphries and others. Relations with the IWL people in Dublin show signs of thawing. There is a reference to an encounter with myself and AC on April 29; he discusses Sean Redmond's letter from London which outlines current CA problems, mostly with ultra-left mavericks.

Back to London on May 4 1964; notes on CA activity resume; of interest in this context is an encounter on May 23, in Mother Redcap's pub in Camden Town, with Andy and Pat O'Neill, Brendan Clifford, Jim Prendergast and some others, along with Kay Beauchamp who was a CBGB functionary. '..There was an atmosphere of frustration, arrogance and mutual suspicion..'. The next day it emerged that Prendergast had made an appeal for funds for the IWL which had brought in £36. O'Riordan, who had addressed the meeting, had been heckled by a lad in a red shirt, along the lines of 'where were you when my comrades were in the Crumlin Road Jail in 1942?'. It turns out later that the lad was Dessie O'Hagan, and the attack was on the NICP. On May 25 there is a meeting on CPGB ground, in the Daily Worker office, involving Betty Matthews, Idris Cox, CDG, O'Riordan and Kay Beauchamp. The issue appeared to be the relative policies and attitudes of the CPGB, the IWL in Dublin, the NICP and the Connolly Association to the organisation of the Irish in Britain. KB was embarrassed when CDG named the May 23 company. But further meetings were planned involving MO'R. The issues were unresolved, being muddied by the theoretical confusion of the international movement, with Trotskyite and Chinese factors emerging to undermine the high church of post-Stalinist CP orthodoxy.

In Belfast on June 6 1964 CDG delivered a paper on 'British Policy Towards Ireland' at a weekend school organised it seems jointly by the NICP and the IWL; there were 17 from the South and 25 from the North; it seems the present writer was there along with George Jeffares, Sam Nolan, Johnny Nolan, Paddy Carmody and others; Betty Sinclair and Billy McCullough were there from the North. He '...avoided (contemporary) policy like the plague..' knowing the current differences of view. He sat in on the session the following day, listening to Carmody, whose talk was based on the Labhras O Nuallain economic analysis, and ignored CDG's own subsequent work critical of Barritt and Carter. Andy Barr spoke on trade unionism without introducing any political dimension, displeasing Betty Sinclair. O'Riordan enthused about the breadth of the participation (North, South and Irish in Britain) but showed no awareness of the potential role of the Labour movement in Britain, CDG's chief target.

On June 8 he went to Dungannon and met Mrs McCluskey, whose house overlooked Dungannon on the site of the O'Neill castle. He urged her to get reliable distribution for their Social Justice publications in Britain. He welcomed Austin Currie's nomination for East Tyrone, identifying this as representative of a new wave of nationalist party energy, the old-timers all being moribund. Back then to London via Liverpool arriving June 10.

After a spell in Clarinbridge on the Mellows trail CDG ends up in Dublin with MacLiams on July 1 1964; the next day he gets to attend a meeting of Sceim na gCeardcumainn addressed by Micheal O'Leary ('..the dashing young Cork man who used to come to the West London CA with Cal O'Herlihy..'). There was much reportage and controversy, and they got bogged down in electoral procedures. Packy Early, Barry Desmond, Mairin Johnston, Donal Donnelly, Des Geraghty were there among others. He concluded '..my impression is however that this movement will not come to anything as no person of much consequence in the labour movement is in it..'. He attributes the origins and objective of the movement to '...Tony Coughlan, Packy Early and others for introducing the Gaelic language and "Irish Irelandism" into the trade union movement, and a very queer outfit it seemed. The chair was taken by the most incredible waffler I have ever seen...'.

On July 3 1964 after working in the National Library on the Mellows trail it seems Mairin and I went up to Finglas to MacLiam's and we spent the evening with CDG; we confirmed his negative assessment of the Sceim, and contributed an assessment of AC, who had it seems been writing speeches for O'Leary and Desmond, who were predicted to be making their way into the Dail. AC on the other hand had got his TCD job and was taking on the role of 'onlooking don... simultaneously most capable at politics and too honest for them..'. Back to London on July 7.

In Belfast on July 12 1964 CDG gets in touch with Jack Bennett, and gets to see Sean Caughey, who is in trouble with the police; there is a court case coming up; he wants CDG 'unofficially' to send an observer. SC introduces CDG to Tom Mitchell, who subsequently became the Sinn Fein Mid-Ulster candidate. It seemed, according to Jack Bennett, that the Republican Election Committee is like the Nationalist Convention: '..a gathering of individuals without party discipline, and not necessarily members of anything..'. JB had been on the committee himself, but Caughey had wanted him off it. CDG's assessment of JB shifts negatively. Back to London on July 20.

In London on July 31 1964 he had a call from Joy Rudd ('Miss Rudd') a member of Tuairim, to ask about catering workers. She '...revealed to (his) surprise that she is in the Labour party and is helping Lena Jaeger..'. CDG usually discounted the roles of women, likewise the role of Tuairim London, and never thought any good could come of the latter, despite its potential for enabling emigré intellectuals to preserve a sense of Irishness; whence his surprise at Joy Rudd, who subsequently returned to Ireland and was a stalwart supporter of the mid-60s politicising Sinn Fein and then later of the Labour Party.

The same entry has a pejorative reference to one Egan who '..came in representing some high-titled Northern Ireland Civil Rights Society... half a dozen... students wanting to make their names... and a few pounds for an article in the Observer..'. This must have been Bowes Egan, who subsequently with Michael Farrell was associated with the Peoples Democracy group in Queens. One has to ask, with hindsight, was CDG not unduly dismissive of the emergence of an interest in Civil Rights among Queens students? Could this trend not have been welcomed and cultivated, turning it in a positive direction?

On to September 17 1964 where there is a reference to Mike Cooley wanting to start up a CA branch in Slough, where Fenner Brockway has a very slender majority. Cooley, an engineer from Tuam, subsequently became a leading light in the movement to make science and technology serve the people, which was triggered in the context of the closure of the military aircraft factory where he worked. He later served as Technical Director of the Greater London Enterprise Board in the 1980s, a GLC initiative of Ken Livingstone's which survived the Thatcher demolitions.

Later on September 21 CDG records that the Labour agent had not contacted Cooley and that some Irish Labour councillors in Slough were afraid of the CA establishing itself there. This must have been basic anti-communist suspicion; the earlier close association between the CA and the CP, and the current overlapping membership among key people, had generated a legacy which CDG was doing his best to dissipate. For example, the CA had three years before got over half the Parliamentary Labour Party to sign telegrams re the Belfast internees,and there were two or three Labour MPs who were members of the CA, Col.Marcus Lipton from Brixton being the best known of them. Irish-born Labour Councillors in Slough would not be typical members of the British Labour Party, but would have had a load of Irish based anti-CA prejudices from the 1940s and 1950s.

We meet Clann na h-Eireann on October 5 1964; this was the London support group of the then Goulding-led Sinn Fein/IRA. One Fitzmaurice came in to the CA office, proposing a meeting in Hyde Park the following Sunday, followed by a march to Whitehall. CDG offered to cancel their routine Hyde Park meeting, and hold a joint meeting. He agreed, but had to report back to his committee, which however blocked the joint meeting idea; it had to be under Clann control; he came back with one Campbell, to whom CDG attributed an arrogant manner, while Fitzmaurice the original contact sat silent. The Clann meeting took place on October 11, in Hyde Park on the CA pitch. They marched off afterwards, after Sean Redmond was prevented from carrying the CA banner. The CA people felt decidedly done down by this piece of arrogant Clann hi-jacking.

There is a very long entry, all of eight pages, on October 13 1964 arising from encounters in Belfast; he goes over for the election. He meets with Jack Bennett, with whom he views the aftermath of the Divis St riots, Sean Caughey, Art McMillan and then with Cahir Healy in Stormont. Caughey's vision was between 1964 in the North and 1966 in the South to get the makings of an all-Ireland Dail which would legislate for the whole of Ireland. He later agrees with JB that Caughey is 'bonkers'. This could be an important entry for detailed study of the early stages of Sinn Fein politicisation, requiring further analysis by scholars.

On November 4 1964 CDG went to the Marx House exhibition on the First International; it seems that there had been material on Ireland but it had not been included. He picks up word of O'Riordan coming over again for a meeting and a social among the IWL emigrants, with CPGB blessing. The inconsistent policy on Ireland within the CPGB continues to put obstacles in the way of the CA's attempts to broaden its base and to make the Labour Movement in Britain aware of the importance of civil rights in Northern Ireland.

In Dublin on November 6 1964 it seems he had lunch with the present writer, whom he assesses as '...poking his head into everything, making contacts here there and everywhere, but as unsettled as ever, thinking of alternative jobs, and is his father's son every way possible... grandiose research schemes.. I told him he would never complete anything...'. Then after some Mellows contacts on November 7 CDG encounters an anti-apartheid poster parade, led by Kader Asmal, supported by AC, Barry Desmond and others. In the evening he meets the present writer, Asmal, AC and others, including Ethna MacManus, whom he assesses positively, as a '...likeable and intelligent woman ...a firm believer in the small farmer of the west and strongly allied with O'Donnell...'

Ethna at the time was one of my 'contacts' among whom were beginning to take shape strategies for the development of political left-republicanism; she had been associated with co-operative developments in Killala, and had standing with the republicans, having provided a 'safe house' during the 1950s. She was however far from being an ally of Peadar O'Donnell, whose work with Father McDyer in the 'defence of the west' she regarded as paternalistic and 'top-down'. She had been attempting to work 'bottom up', organising from the grass-roots, in association with politicising republicans, and had had modest success. So we should be wary of CDG's initial assessments of people he encounters.

After much time spent all over Ireland on the Mellows trail, CDG returns to Dublin, staying with MacLiams, on November 30 1964, where he picks up that the present writer is changing his job, leaving Aer Lingus and going to work in the Institute of Industrial Research and Standards (IIRS), which he identifies with where Grove White and Boyd Barrett, people on his earlier fuel technology network, had worked. Disparaging remarks on this occasion are absent. The news was correct as far as it went; I had applied and had been offered the job, but then later the offer was withdrawn. The Special Branch must have been active.

Then on December 6 1964 CDG gets wind of what happened at the Sinn Fein Ard Fheis, from Tadhg Egan, in the company of Denis Casey, who is a member of the Liam Mellows Cumann, and an ex-CA member. It seems that the present writer was invited to speak on a motion on joint action with other organisations, and was introduced as an 'honoured guest'. A delegate asked '..does this include co-operation with the Connolly Association?' to which there was no reply. Casey said he thought the motion would pass comfortably.

I have treated the Bricklayers Hall Ard Fheis in my analysis of theSinn Fein Ard Comhairle minutes but I have no recollection of this episode. It could well be true, as Tadhg Egan is a reliable witness. This suggests, by the lack of disparaging comment, that CDG was beginning to take the emergence of political republicanism of the left seriously.

WTS Encounter

The next day CDG had lunch with the present writer; the penultimate paragraph in the December 7 entry is worth quoting in full: '...(RHWJ) said Cathal Goulding has gone to London to investigate the dispute over the demonstration which happened during the election, and that having heard I was in Dublin expressed a desire to see me. He is Cathal (MacLiam)'s first cousin so I suggested to Cathal we might invite him up. Taking all in all, things are progressing here "as well as can be expected". The younger people with the Connolly Association experience are becoming personally acceptable to the Republicans, and after Monday's meeting RHWJ and Sean Cronin went off to AC's flat which the young Labour hero Michael O'Leary is sharing, and so all heads clarify each other by mutual interaction..'.

Then on December 10, after a day on the Mellows trail, in which he has a long session with Denis McCullough (this should be important for 1916 historians), Cathal Goulding arrives at MacLiams, and CDG has the pleasure of introducing him to the cousin he has never met. CG had been supportive of Fitzmaurice and the joint Clann-CA demonstration (see above); there was talk of 'pulling a fast one' on O'Sullivan (who presumably was in the Clann leadership); CDG warned that such 'fast ones' usually slowed down genuine political development. He wanted to keep the door to co-operation open. '...He said he and his colleagues were thinking in broader political terms than in the past. He struck me as a shrewd experienced revolutionary, but without much basic political knowledge... without a grasp of the laws of social evolution. The interesting thing is that he is prepared to support political action on matters of common concern. But like O'Riordan he appears to believe developments in Britain can be directed from Dublin...'.

Then again on December 12 there is recorded an encounter between CDG, Peadar O'Donnell, Ethna MacManus and myself '..Roy pushing ahead quicker than things can go, and Peadar obstructing and driving Roy wild. I kept out of it..'. Peadar it seems wanted Sceim na gCeardcumann to push his Defence of the West ideas in Dublin, but found it somewhat of an amorphous body... 'they don't know what their aims are... there's a fellow from Trinity College at the top of it, and he's rather academic..', referring to Anthony Coughlan. Peadar later got his way with the Sceim through Donal Donnelly.

The last germane entry of Volume 15 was on December 16 1964, when CDG and I had lunch in the Monument Cafe (this was near the Aer Lingus office as it was then). I agreed to do an article for the next issue. He filled me in on his session with CG. We discussed constituencies for O'Leary and Desmond. He wondered if AC would go in the same direction, but I indicated probably not; he would be better off in TCD. I expressed concern that Labour was choosing its representatives from 'small-minded people'.

Thus at the end of 1964, with the present writer back in Dublin for over a year, there are many positive signs of constructive political convergence, and CDG is coming round to regarding Cathal MacLiam and myself as his primary empathetic contacts when in Dublin, with the role of AC being peripheral. We shall see how this evolves as the situation develops.

Volume 16

The year begins with a meeting on January 5 1965 of the International Affairs Committee of the CPGB, chaired by R Palme Dutt. CDG is clearly not at ease with the nature of their lip-service to the 'broad movement', which they were in practice undermining by their support for leftist elements associated with the IWL who spent their time disrupting it.

Then in Dublin from January 20 1965: he had lunch with the present writer on January 22, and then it seems we met again in the evening, when I called up to MacLiam's to pick up a baby basket, Mairin's 3rd child Aileen being then expected. He had seen Sean Nolan and Micheal O'Riordan, picking up feedback on the Lemass-O'Neill encounter. O Riordain was very keen for CDG to go to the CPNI conference in Belfast, to which he had not been invited, due to an oversight, according to MOR. It seems the CPNI welcomed the talks, while the IWL regarded them as a 'total capitulation'. Later on January 29 he again lunches with RJ who has been talking with Sean Cronin; the latter is off the the US for 6 months, and CDG suspects for good, though RJ thought otherwise. CDG was right. In the evening he encounters AC, who had been considering returning to England to work with the Irish Democrat, though CDG thought the pull of the academic job would be too strong, despite AC's evident dissatisfaction with it.

I never cease to be amazed at the extent to which CDG makes long trips all over Ireland on his bicycle, and indeed Scotland and Wales, with some help from the railways, in the winter, in the Irish case at least making contacts on the Mellows trail. He does this all over Ireland for the next three weeks, returning to Dublin on February 17, where he phones RJ to make sure of his Democrat article. Then later in February he records RJ being 'cock-a-hoop' about the arrival of Aileen. Later on March 2 Cathal and CDG call to RJ's place to pay their respects to Mairin and Aileen; he puts on record acid comments on RJ's sense of economy. All this time he is on the Mellows trail in Dublin. He goes back to London where he arrives on March 12 1965 in time for the NCCL conference, after a few days of vacation cycling in Wales.

The NCCL conference, according the the March 13 1965 entry, had been planned for the small Conway Hall but they had to move the the larger one because UTV had become involved, as a result of the interest in NI civil rights. Sean Caughey, Betty Sinclair, Dr McCluskey and Austin Currie all contributed. There were however anti-communist undercurrents; Sean Redmond had earlier shown to CDG a letter from Caughey, in which he declined to meet them in the CA office 'because CDG, SR and Joe Deighan are active members of the CP...' and that he gave as his reason the objections of '...our people at home, Clann na hEireann in England and the Irish Hierarchy..'. CDG goes on: '...this was too much for the Presbyterian upbringing of Betty Sinclair..'. During the conference however Caughey softened his attitude when he observed the performance of those conference delegates who had CP affiliations.

The overall result was positive and a significant step in the direction of achieving a cross-community civil rights movement in NI, and of breaking down the barriers between the 'catholic nationalist' tradition and that of Marxist-democracy.

Again from March 22 1965 we find CDG in Ireland on the Mellows trail, then back to Cardiff on March 27 for the conference of the Movement for Colonial Freedom, which organisation was a long-standing attempt by some Labour Party MPs, including Fenner Brockway and others, to develop a broad-based anti-imperialist movement. Sean Redmond was involved and actively promoting the Irish interest. The conference CDG dismissed as 'very dull indeed'. He and SR went to see Bert Pierce the CP Wales organiser. Relations between the CP and the Welsh nationalists were inconsistent; some of the former thought the latter fascist. Pierce however was pleased that CDG and SR intended to see Plaid Cymri, which they did: '...they have all the inhibitions of Sinn Fein in Ireland, plus some peculiar Welsh ones...'. Then back to Ireland via Fishguard, where he remained on the Mellows trail until April 4.

CDG had lunch with RJ on April 2; here I quote: '...(RJ) is very flattered at the attention he is receiving in republican circles. He says AC intends setting up a Civil Rights organisation which will oppose the "Offences Against the State Act". Of course they are forever beating on the outer barricades, and if the working-class were not completely petit-bourgeois in outlook, and the left proper so lacking in self-confidence, these democratic issues would even be linked to the republican order of the day. I mentioned this to Cathal who said that CG had said they favoured it, and they would watch if they did anything, to be able to call for a replacement if need be. In other words, they tend to see it as confined to their requirements. From their point of view this is quite sensible, and since there is no other point of view expressed at all, that is that'.

Note that the situation here is conceived in 26-county terms; there is no visible NI dimension at this point of time, apart from what has been developing via the NCCL, as outlined above. Note also that there is no awareness of this at the level of the SF Ard Comhairle, but that at this time the 'conference of republicans' is in process of preparing a document for the June 1965 Special Ard Fheis, which will begin to put issues like this on the SF agenda. CDG is back in London on April 5.

On April 23 1965 the National Council for Civil Liberties conference begins, where Sean Redmond is pushing CA motions, with support from London Trades Council where Irish trade unionists had been active politically. The target is to get a public enquiry into the working of the Government of Ireland Act. The details of these entries would require analysis in greater depth in the context of a focused historical study of the work of the CA.

The next day in the evening the CA office had a visit from Scotland Yard; there had been a bomb at the Irish embassy, and they were looking for one John Read, whom they suspected, and whose name had been appended to an appeal to picket the Ulster Office, and who had give the address of the CA office. There had been some ultra-left or pseudo-left squatters in the building some days earlier. This would appear to suggest the work of the British dirty tricks department, seeking to discredit the CA with the Irish, even at this early stage of the development of a democratic political approach to the NI situation.

There took place what CDG described as a 'historic event' on May 8 1965 in the Belfast ATGWU hall: '...there were about a hundred present.... these included all political parties but Unionists and Nationalists. H(ughie) M(oore), Jim Stewart and Sean Morrissey were there. Caughey, Mulholland and a young, red-headed very Sinn-Fein-looking lad called Gardiner for the Republicans. Duffy... represented the "National Party", Cllr Allen the NILP, but Fitt and Hanna's people were absent. Very many Unions were there. It was interesting to hear the Catholic delegates of the ITGWU getting up explaining discrimination to Protestants who were listening for the first time. There was unfortunately no declaration against discrimination from a Protestant as such - though there were several speeches that assumed that attitude - and the strongest speeches came from people who described themselves as atheists, some from one side, others from the other. The republicans of course could not resist using the platform, and Sean Morrissey visibly squirmed, such is the duality of his position as an ex-republican. I had a talk with Andy Barr and HM afterwards, and all agree it was a historic event, the fact that there was here a meeting of Protestant and Catholic workers under the auspices of the Labour Movement directed to democratising the State.'

CDG subsequently held that this should have been the seed-bed for further developments, and that the NICRA as it emerged from the War Memorial Hall meeting in 1966 was doomed to disaster due to its failure to develop organic links with the labour movement, and, he used often say, due to the fact that two years were to pass before NICRA got going, during which Paisley got more wind behind his sails and the republicans had got more impatient. The initiative to set up the NICRA came via the Dublin Wolfe Tone Society basically from Anthony Coughlan. It did not follow organically from the above May 6 1965 meeting. We are here in the presence of one of history's fortuitous events, in that CDG in the following months became increasingly concerned with his sister Phyllis's fatal illness. Had he been pursuing his normal priorities he would undoubtedly have been cultivating the opportunities opened up by this meeting, so that the War Memorial Hall initiative, which came from AC via the WTS in Dublin, would have not seemed necessary. The NICRA or its equivalent would perhaps have emerged with a stronger trade union basis. The politicising republicans would have supported this, without being able to project a sense of 'ownership', as subsequently happened with the NICRA, to the detriment of the latter.

CDG then went to Dublin on May 9 and met with Nolan the next day; the issue of the role of the IWL emigres in London continued to smoulder unhealthily. He had lunch with RJ on May 11, picking up that JK was now Director of Agricultural Broadcasting and had abandoned all political contacts. He also met with Seamus O Tuathail, '..in Sceim na gCeardcumann... a language ultra-enthusiast... runs a stall in Parnell St where he sells books in the Irish language..'. He knew AC well and had gone swimming with him in Cork. SOT later became Editor of the United Irishman. On May 12 CDG and Cathal attend an IWL public meeting and are snubbed. All this time he is basically on Mellows business, working primarily in the National Library. Then on May 15 CDG spends time with AC and argues for trying to influence the Irish Labour Party towards the Civil Rights issue in the North.

Later CDG ends up in Hennessy's pub, in a private 'republicans only' room, with Tadhg Egan, Denis Casey and Tony Ruane, meeting the manager of the United Irishman '...a very Dublinish youngster of about 25-30... a bit of a stammer and with an artful face. He contrasted strongly with the editor who passed AC and (CDG) in the street this morning... Ruane tells me that he is not finding it plain sailing. A cartoon that he published last month aroused strong criticism, satirising the sacred cow of not entering Leinster House. According to TE, to AC and to Roy, there is shortly to be an extraordinary convention to decide this point over again, and Cathal speculates that this is what is keeping CG so busy that he has not a night free this week... I had a go at some recent nonsenses, such as Caughey's three reasons for not meeting us before the NCCL conference, and Kenny's 'communism is the enemy of Ireland' statement.

Caughey had 'felt there was something wrong' with the social and economic policy document (which RJ had drafted), suggesting '...it should be sent to the Catholic Church for approval. Ruane indicated that he disagreed with this (on the grounds that)..RHWJ... as a Protestant might object. But he showed evident satisfaction at the fact that after being studied for three solid weeks by an eminent North of Ireland Catholic philosopher, it was pronounced unobjectionable to the clergy, and politically "revolutionary". So Caughey was satisfied. There was much dissatisfaction with Caughey... who else had they in the North? When they went up for the election campaign they found a political desert. So they had to give Caughey a free hand..'.

We are now in May 16 1965, with CDG in Dublin, nominally on the Mellows trail but also actively engaged in meeting with and assessing the rising generation of politicising left-republicans. CDG notes an encounter with Cathal Goulding (CG) who thinks highly of Denis Foley the then United Irishman editor, and also of Tadhg Egan. He asked CDG not to hold Kenny's statement against him. The next day he encountered Tony Meade, who 'plunged into the difficulties facing republicans... at first he had been very opposed to the CA and communism until our campaign to release the prisoners...', then, later '...even going into Leinster House, let alone disbanding the IRA.. would strain the old faithfuls beyond breaking point...'. He was however thinking in terms of '..how much money could the CA send the IRA..'. CDG of course replied that they would not want to. They discussed 'political training abroad'; CDG didn't think much of this. TM felt he and his colleagues were prisoners of history, and the historic door has not yet opened to let them out.

Back in London on May 20 1965 CDG plunged into the usual chronic battles between the CA and the ultra-left, and with the CPGB orthodoxy. The CA conference took place on May 29-30; people were there from Plaid Cymru and from Tuairim. The evening social was picketed by ultra-leftist elements, some of whom flashed CP cards, wanting to get in, but were not let in, the social being private to the CA conference, this of course not being a CP event. CDG was attacked in the toilet, the intention being to create a disturbance, but despite this the conference was workmanlike and successful. Brian Farrington was elected to the executive. The latter CDG records later, on June 22, as delivering an excellent Yeats Centenary Lecture, which was attended by about 70 people, mostly strangers; CDG notes the fact that the event was also picketed by '...the hoodlums of the "Irish Communist Group" selling their rubbish...'.

We pass over the entries now until August 3 1965 in London, when Sean Redmond returns from Ireland: '..he was with RHJ at Murlough on Sunday, where they made the "oration". Roy thinks that he is leading and educating the republicans while in reality they are availing of his willing services. Still both are pleased.' (I count this as a perceptive remark.) Anthony Coughlan (AC) has arrived in London, imposing on CDG the need to find something for him to do. On August 4 '...AC spoke at the Central Branch meeting. He has become excessively academic, and more vague and impractical than ever I remember him. The work he is doing is calculated to specialise him into every groove he would like to be worn into. The early adventurousness is gone. Yet he comes over every year here for a month, which is more than most would do..'.

Then on August 11 in a further encounter with Sean Redmond we have: '...RHJ is deep in his republican propaganda, but apparently it does not affect his relations with Nolan who could be forgiven for thinking he could be doing more for the IWP. It seems to SR that the swing to the left is real, but like me he wondered what direction they will turn to in the end. They say "yes, yes, yes" but do the other...'.

The next day August 12 there is a Standing Committee meeting of the CA, with Sean Redmond, Joe Deighan and others, SR reporting back from his Dublin visit: '...the present editor of the UI, Foley, called him into his office when he was on the premises with CG and RHWJ, and showed him a letter written under the name of Madden, urging co-operation with the CA. He disclosed that there was no such person as Madden, and that he had written it himself. He then said that the republican rank and file did not know much about the CA and believed false things about it. He suggested that SR should write a letter to the UI based on Madden's thing, explaining what the CA was. There was much discussion on this. JD immediately inspirited by the prospect of unity... leaped up enthusiastically. I was for a more cautious approach. Once more the back door is being tried, an initiative which can be totally disowned. And to make matters worse this young lad Foley, who proposed that the republicans should enter Leinster House, has made himself so controversial a figure, that despite his success in increasing the circulation of the UI by 5000 or more, he is to be replaced as editor by Tony Meade. I am anxious not to move to a limited unity in which the CA takes the place of the British branches of Sinn Fein, and think that this present talk means the failure of C na hE has been realised.'

In Dublin on September 1 1965 CDG discussing RHWJ with CMacL remarks on the ambiguity of status: socialist or republican? Then on September 3 CDG and RJ had lunch: '...he is very active and enthusiastic about what he is doing... a convert's enthusiasm... he took fish - a few years ago he would have paraded his Protestantism by ordering a steak... He is going to the Bankers Association over the weekend. I suggested he try to find out what Lemass hopes to gain from the trade treaty, as that should not be considered an inevitable non-entity. He asked me what was behind the Irish peers' demand for their seats. The desire to be paid for sitting, I said, no doubt tried on when there was talk of closer relations...'.

Still in Dublin on September 7, on the way back from Pearse St library (on the Mellows trail) CDG encounters a Housing Action Committee meeting in O'Connell St. He gets talking to some of the young Sinn Fein activists, and remarks that '...the sectishness of the sea-green incorruptibles has to be seen to be believed..'. Then on September 14 CDG, on the Mellows trail in the south, learns of his sister's illness, and needs to get back to Dublin quickly. A train breakdown occurs; he hires a hackney to get to Dublin, has difficulty in contacting people (meetings are going on all over the place on the housing action issues), but in the end Michael O'Leary drives him to MacLiam's to pick up his stuff, and I was able to fix him up with a flight to Liverpool. In passing he comments on the Housing Action episode, with people camping in Mountjoy Square; according to CDG O'Leary, whose constituency it was, '...regards (it) as a type of stunt, and is concerned that Lawless is back in Dublin ready for more mischief...'. Gerry Lawless was CDG's ultra-leftist 'bete noir' at this time; he had been involved in attacks on the CA in London.

From September 1965 until the following May CDG's primary attention is on taking care of his sister; he does however manage to keep in touch with what is going on, from Liverpool, with occasional trips to London for the Democrat. He mentions on October 20 phoning Fergus Pyle the Irish Times features editor for permission to reprint an article. He identifies him as an ex-Tuairim member, and as knowing RHWJ and DL. (He gets Pyle's first name wrong, as 'Seamus Pyle'.) The rest of Volume 16 continues with the Phyllis saga.

Volume 17

He receives a letter on November 3 from Cathal MacLiam who '...had been out on one of the PO workers' parades and had a few blows of a truncheon on his arm. Tony Meade had asked why the CA had not issued a statement. Yet Cathal, who suggested it, gave ample evidence of the need for action. The trouble is that the republican element, like the Trotskyites who are also cashing in on this, believe that progress is made by the extreme activity of the faithful and the few. They are prepared to defy to the last, and are being carted off to jail in ones and twos. But the danger is that republicanism and the left may become suspect by the labour movement, and instead of unity we will build up permanent hostility. The whole thing has the flavour of the heroic but fruitless struggles of the thirties...'.

In Dublin on November 25 1965 CDG records a meeting with RHWJ over lunch; I was said to be in a state of enthusiasm '..over his co-operative pool and other activities, all of which will do some good... I was quite pleased, even if I do not have his expectations. Ethna MacManus and Viney, whom she married, are busy on Comhar Linn. The Minister for Agriculture is for it, the Minister for Finance is against it. Incidentally I guessed this, and was right, which means I am not too badly out of touch. McDyer is somewhat ostracised. But for all that co-operative ideas are taking on. At the Sinn Fein Ard Fheis a motion referring to penetration by mysterious left-wingers was withdrawn...'.

CDG was prepared to be supportive of my interest in this direction, regarding it as perhaps a good counter to the traditional republican 'stunt' culture, and a step in the direction of learning about the organisation of civil society. In hindsight, my perception at the time was indeed over-optimistic, and developments in this direction were rapidly overwhelmed by the developing Northern situation, as we shall see.

On December 2 CDG encounters Tony Meade who enthuses about Farrington's essay on Yeats, which the United Irishman is reviewing. He has a meal with Anthony Coughlan later, without comment. On December 4 there is a phone contact with Mairin to the effect that RHWJ is in the west on the co-operative trail. Then on December 7 CDG had lunch with RHWJ, picking up all the gossip arising from Kader Asmal's 'mad party', the comments are amusing but mostly unprintable.

The substantive news which apparently on this occasion I passed on to CDG was that Peadar O'Donnell's Mayo meeting had '..only 40 present.. bishops, priests and the Catholic quality (with General Costello prominent)... the ordinary people have grown quite cynical over these schemes... Viney who tried to work with him was asked to forward a list of republicans and the impression was given that Peadar would try to secure their election to the "Defence of the West" committees. Instead, Peadar blackballed them..'. I remember this episode well; in retrospect Peadar could perhaps be forgiven for being suspicious of republican credentials, given their elitist and stunt-oriented political culture, but the Mayo people concerned had actually successfully made the transition into good democratic procedures via the experience of the co-operative movement, and he was blackballing people who might actually have given Defence of the West an edge, and made it work. The generation gap between Peadar and the post-50s republican politicisers was alas too wide.

On December 9 1965 CDG '...went to the Wolfe Tone Society meeting in the dank cold Bricklayers Hall. Mac Giolla of Sinn Fein was speaking, with Michael O'Leary, and others who were also Republicans. On the whole the meeting was progressive but there were notes of defeatism. After it was over I went with Cathal (who had come from another meeting) for a drink with Sam Nolan, Packy Early and other IWP supporters. Roy was with the SFs in the other bar, but the "ewige student" whose name I have forgotten drifted between the two, announcing that the car containing the Special Branch men was now at this door, now at that. Sam Nolan said he never saw any IWL man who emigrated come to anything..'.

The next day December 10, after a visit to the opera, Don Giovani, '...Roy and Cathal were waiting for me... we drove up to Finglas. Mairin did not come and we had the feeling something had displeased her. She is perhaps a little touchy after Kader Asmal's mad party... Roy says that there is no truth in the six-county rumour that a further disturbance is to be expected. He says "if the IRA didn't exist, the six-county government would have to invent it".' These rumours originated with the RUC; they apparently were taken seriously by the British Government, according to Peter Rose.

Then on December 11 CDG met with Sean Nolan, who it seems had been at the CP Congress in London; he remarked on leftist speeches and Chinese influence, and admitted to similar trends in the IWP. CDG declined to speak for the IWP at Abbey St. He attended the meeting and went for a drink afterwards with Tadhg Egan, Anthony Coughlan, Cathal and a few others. There was an episode involving a tape recorder which Asmal and the anti-apartheid people thought was bugged; Cathal tested it and found it OK.

CDG went with Cathal to an IWP party in Pembroke Lane on December 18 1965 at which Micheal O Riordain said he regarded RHWJ's involvement with the republicans as 'a form of escapism' to get out of the IWP. It seems I had been scheduled to address a weekend school on the question of the free trade pact, but the republicans were said to have blocked me from doing so. This caused bad feeling. He goes on: '...the... Geraghty family was there, and an ex-republican G... whom Cathal suspects of no good intentions - and he is right, I smelled a political enemy even though we were not introduced - merely seeing his posing, and noting his attitude...'. I recollect several occasions when this G... intervened against the republican - left convergence process, and I wondered about his motivation.

In the final entry of 1965 on December 31 CDG records receiving a letter from RHWJ inviting him to address a meeting of the Wolfe Tone Society on 'Trade Unionism and the National Struggle'. He declines, perhaps giving priority to his sister's condition. Oscillating between London and Liverpool on January 9 1966 CDG notes the Sunday Independent being '..in full swing against communist infiltration of the IRA, which of course means RHWJ. But the Irish Times printed our protest to O'Neill very prominently...'.

On February 17 1966 SR informs CDG on the phone that Cathal Goulding has been jailed for possession of a gun: '...they are like children playing soldiers..'. Then on February Cathal MacLiam wrote to the effect that Tony Meade had been with him to Limerick and had indicated that they modelled the United Irishman on the Democrat '..though you mightn't think it..' added Cathal. On March 7 there is a saga about the Easter Special issue of the Democrat (it being 1966) which gets done mostly without CDG.

On March 21 1966 CDG spoke with SR on the phone: O'Riordan, Moore and Barr wanted to meet him the following Sunday, on their way to Moscow. He gets Joe Deighan to go along; he smells leftist interference, and the influence of Prendergast (who had served with O Riordain in the Spanish Civil War). Again on March 28, on the phone to SR, it turns out that O Riordan had talked to SR about a meeting, and a school in Ireland to which he wanted people to go, and a Joint Council (of the IPW and NICP). SR referred him to the 'proper authorities' after all the CA was not the same thing as the CPGB! The efforts of the CA to escape the dead hand of centralist Stalinist pseudo-Marxism were often made more difficult by this type of contact.

On April 10 he manages a brief mention of the CA conference, which they hold in Liverpool to facilitate CDG, but his attention is now almost totally on Phyllis. He does however manage to get to London for the Easter meeting on April 14 1966, at which Michael O Riordain, Betty Sinclair, Mike Cooley, Tom Leonard, Joe Deighan and Sean Redmond spoke; there were about 120 people present.

Phyllis died on May 10 1966; after making arrangements for the cremation he went to Dublin on the 14th, staying as usual with Cathal MacLiam. They went to the Connolly Day march on the 15th, meeting with O Riordain, Sam Nolan, Sean Nolan and the Mooneys (Mairin's brothers). '..Fitt was on the platform but the speeches were empty..'. They then met with TE and subsequently with AC by accident. CDG then had lunch with RHWJ on May 16: '...both he and Cathal stress the great success of the Wolfe Tone Society lectures... disclosure of a great republican "blueprint for revolution" in Saturday's Independent. MOR says "obviously RHJ's composition". RHJ says "a composite document lifted from RHJ's reports"...'. He goes on to give an assessment of Tony Meade the UI editor '...a somewhat intense young man... very serious in the dedication to his cause... a slightly cynical sense of humour... I would say that his outlook is entirely bounded by bourgeois horizons, though he can ask Cathal "what is the Marxist line on that?" as if it was only to be brought out of the right pillbox..'.

Before going back to Liverpool on May 18 CDG encounters Mairin who fills him in on the failure of the Comhar Linn episode, at which he is not surprised; she goes on to be critical of the Labour Party, which she had joined, but finds full of self-seeking individuals. He then encounters Tony Meade, who calls up to Cathal; TM leaves CDG down to the North Wall, '...discoursing on 1916 and saying that the insurgents made a mess of it and didn't know what they were doing... an example of an attempt at revolution when no revolutionary situation existed, so was his own little effort in 1956, for which he did five years. He said he was sick and tired of commemorations...'.

Back in London for the Connolly Association conference on May 21, after which he tours Scotland on his bicycle; Volume 17 ends at Craig on May 31 1966.

[More to come; see next module]

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