As in the first part, I have kept the RJ and JJ stuff interspersed. The mainstream of the RJ material is abstracted from the 'political' stream of the hypertext. I intersperse material from other streams chronologically where appropriate. This section runs up to the period of tension leading up to the August 1969 crisis. I begin with some further 1966 JJ episodes, and then take up with RJ in 1967.

JJ and the Theory of Credit

The core idea of the essay is that producers should be credit-worthy if there is a demand among consumers for what they can produce, and this '..requires a determined effort by the public authorities to strengthen the bargaining power of useful producers whose bargaining power is weak.... Credit in the true sense is intimately bound up with the social and economic welfare of consumers as a whole. Since this also depends on specialisation of production and freedom of exchange we must regard freedom of commerce and flexibility of price relations, in conditions of social justice, as necessary conditions for the soundness of the credit structure...'.

Also in 1966 he published, with Aisti Eirennacha, a pamphlet Irish Economic Headaches: a Diagnosis. This represented a radicalisation of company, in that the publisher was Rayner O'Connor Lysaght, and the pamphlet was the second in a series of which the first was Mairtin O Cadhain's 'Mr Hill: Mr Tara', a language-movement polemic. It was also JJ's last attempt, at the age of 76, to popularise his ideas with a lay readership. In it he tried, not very successfully, to link his Berkeleyan ideas of credit with the development of small-scale high-value-added production systems of a type relevant to the needs of survival of the Gaeltacht(2).

JJ and the TCD-UCD Merger Debate

The issue of the TCD-UCD merger became important in 1967, as did the issue of Catholic participation in TCD, with the increasing opposition to the policy of Archbishop McQuaid. On February 22 with JJ present they discussed a submission from the Laurentian Society (this was the College society serving the needs of TCD Catholics) regarding the position of Catholic students. David Thornley, who later became a Labour TD, was involved. There was also a resolution from the UCG students expressing regret at McQuaid's statement. The TCD Board issued a statement on March 2, and there was an open discussion on TV as a result.

On April 26 1967, again with JJ present, the Board welcomed the Government's statement that there was to be one Dublin University with constituent Colleges. The 'merger debate' became intense, and this kept JJ's interest in Board meetings alive. There were resolutions from the Junior Fellows (May 10); the question of Irish being essential for Matriculation was a problem for the many Northern students in TCD (June 21). The sale of the Kells Ingram Farm involved the need to consult with Mitchell (who lived there), the Department of Agriculture, the Veterinary College, the Agricultural Institute and the users of the radioactive source (ie for experiments in plant genetics). Mitchell did not object to the sale of the farm, but in view of the merger politics the decision needed to be deferred (May 22). They had difficulty in meeting with UCD. The Board was addressed by the Minister on June 7(3).

By the end of the year the issue was moribund, but it had prompted many people to look at how closer relations could be developed, and contacts opened up, which continued. It encouraged TCD to think that even it they sold the farm, they could still have a role in agriculture.

RJ and the 1967 Irish Times Science articles

The series began with a tentative outline of how science had influenced the course of history and how science in Ireland had been of a provincial rather than a national character, though on occasions it had achieved world stature.

It continued with an examination of some of the growing points of post-war science and technology, suggesting that the policy decisions which allocated resources to the various growth areas were dominated by factors which needed critical examination, especially by a small nation with limited resources.

A further article examined the role of pure research and its interactions with applied research and economic development, in particular dealing with the potential role of pure research as a training ground for people who would afterwards become highly productive assets to the economy.

The last two articles examined the contemporary Irish scientific scene, searching for any hint of a 'science policy' emerging from the existing structure, and making recommendations how a viable small-nation science policy might be evolved.

I have a feeling that these January 1967 Irish Times articles may have been influential. Derry Kelleher and I, in the Wolfe Tone Society, started a 'science and technology sub-committee'; it was just us, but it was useful when writing letters to have the WTS standing. We had the idea of perhaps coming up with ideas which might be implemented via the Council for Science and Technology in Ireland (CSTI), despite its cumbersome federal structure with affiliated bodies, some of which increasingly looked at it askance. In the event, the CSTI folded its tent when the National Science Council was set up in 1970, and Derry and I went on later to set up the Kane-Bernal Society.

RJ and the Dublin Wolfe Tone Society

The following is from the Annual Report:

"The first step (towards the formation of the NICRA) was implemented in Belfast on November 28 when a symposium was held in the War Memorial Hall. The audience represented all shades of anti-unionist opinion, including nationalist, NILP, Social Justice, trade unionist, socialist and republican. The symposium was organised by an ad-hoc group consisting of Belfast WTS and trade union representatives. No elected committee was set up, but the ad-hoc committee was extended by calling for voluntary support for the purpose of organising the next meeting, which would be addressed by an NCCL speaker from London... It was considered unwise to establish a Civil Rights Convention under circumstances in which it would be rapidly torn asunder by political rivalry; the goal was a strictly non-political Convention. This could clearly not have been achieved at the first meeting..."

The formation of the Cork WTS had begun with an informal encounter between RJ and a group of UCC graduates '..known to a member of the Dublin society of Cork origin..' this of course was Eoghan Harris. A meeting subsequently held in June 1966 was aimed at making a link in Cork with the republican movement, but this proved abortive due to internal problems in the Cork movement. These relate to the anti-political militaristic mind-sets of Mac Stiofain and Mac Carthaigh who then dominated the Cork scene. "..a preparatory committee was set up which held a number of meetings, expanding the membership to include individuals prominent in the trade union movement, in Dóchas, in the West Cork small-farm co-operative movement and in amateur drama. The Chairman was Dave O'Connell and the secretary Brian Titley. The inaugural public meeting was held on December 3rd and featured a review by Anthony Coughlan of Ireland since the Treaty, as well as shorter talks by Uinsean O Murchú (Cork WTS) on the language movement and by Uinsean Mac Eoin on the situation in the North. The second public meeting was held on Friday December 16 and was addressed by Jim Fitzgerald of Dublin on the National Theatre..."

Specialist reports to the Dublin WTS AGM covered Housing and Town Planning (UMacE), restoring the Tailors Hall (Maire Comerford), Micheal Mac Aonghusa on the Irish Language, Derry Kelleher on science and technology (unrecognised by the Government as a factor in economic development), Anthony Coughlan on Civil Liberty. Mairin de Burca reported on the changes occurring within Sinn Fein, and Fred Heatley reported on the Belfast WTS. Eoin O Murchú spoke on the development of the TCD students republican club, and Paul Gillespie spoke on behalf of Labour students. Dave O'Connell outlined the development of the work of the WTS in Cork. Sean O Cionnaith on behalf of the Sinn Fein leadership appealed for support in the coming local government elections.

Cathal Mac Liam was elected Chairman, Roy Johnston vice-chairman, Noel Kavanagh secretary, assisted by John Tozer, the treasurer remained Uinsean mac Eoin.

This clearly represented a milestone in the development of political left-republicanism, with signs of growing influence and acceptance, and increasing friendly links with the labour movement. It was reported at length in the February United Irishman. In the coming period, we must try to establish 'what went wrong' such as to neutralise this promising renaissance.

At the February 28 1967 WTS meeting it was agreed to attend an Irish Socialist seminar in the Moira Hotel on March 11-12(6). Kelleher reported on the Connolly Association conference, which had been attended by young liberals, labour and trade union groups; Gerry Fitt had addressed it. A 'Protestant patriots' booklet was being promoted by Uinsean MacEoin. Micheal O Loingsigh reported back from a Cork WTS meeting, and urged starting a society in Tralee. A Limerick society was also proposed by Noel Kavanagh. UMacE reported in a meeting of the TCD Republican Club which he had addressed, noting the absence of any SF participation. There was a proposal to meet with the SF Ard Comhairle. Noel Kavanagh reported on setting up a Folk Council (Dúchas I think it was called).

At this meeting also Anthony Coughlan reported on his Common Market document and called for a special meeting on March 7, with on the agenda the document to be published in a special issue of Tuarisc, number 8 in the series. This is on record in the WTS archive: it consists of a 16-page document covering all aspects of the EEC, and promoting the 'Association' process as an alternative to full membership. It got full treatment on the April 21 issue of 'Business and Finance' and can be regarded as constituting the founding document of what later emerged as the Common Market Study Group, the CM Defence Campaign, and eventually the Irish Sovereignty Movement, in all of which the leading light was Anthony Coughlan.

The Irish Socialist seminar on March 11-12 1967 included some Dublin Trades Council people as well as republicans, and indicated that the left-republican convergence was very much still alive, at the level of mutual recognition and willingness to exchange ideas. But in practical terms the choice of dates for events was unco-ordinated, so that mutual participation was subject to constraints. I had been able to attend only partially, due to attending an Ard Comhairle meeting.

Left and Republican Politics in the North

'...in other words an illegal organisation had asked police permission to hold a meeting of its entire membership, and had obtained it.... Kelleher was in the office at the time and told us that AC was going. But he entirely agreed that we would be wise not to do so, as we would hardly be classed as disinterested observers, and would be fulfilling the purpose the republicans wanted us to fulfil rather than the one decided at our own conference...'.

Then later JB rang from Belfast to the effect that Craig had announced on the radio that the convention was after all banned, whereupon the republicans announced that they would hold it in a 'secret place'. JB was left with the problem of how to get the observers there, which presumably was resolved; in his March 20 entry CDG noted that there were 80-100 people present, including Betty Sinclair and Anthony Coughlan. Six resolutions were passed. The preamble had involved the Trades Council, to which Betty Sinclair objected, as they had not been consulted in advance. '..They cannot involve organisations through individuals..'. In the aftermath Tom Mitchell was arrested; people went to enquire about him were told he was not there, though they could see him. Greaves: '..The second in command, who is to take over shortly, showed visible embarrassment - and spoke with an impeccable Oxford accent..'.(8).

The culture-gap between the Belfast Left and the politicising republicans was encountered by Desmond Greaves, when he went on April 20 1967 to Belfast from Glasgow, meeting with with Betty Sinclair in her Trades Council office: '...She told me that she discovered that when she (had been) prevented from speaking at Casement Park it was not the fault of the GAA but that the republicans had cold feet at the last minute. How she found this out was that on the way to Murlough last year Sean Steenson (not to be confused with Mac Stiofain) drove her up in his car. "I believe you objected to my speaking last year" she remarked. "Not a bit of it". The republicans had told her they would be delighted to have her but they had been threatened that if she spoke they would never get the Park again. Even when she got to Murlough she was left off the agenda and the chairman was closing the meeting after S(ean) R(edmond) spoke. But one of the officials ran to the chairman. Betty wondered if a fight would ensue. Then the chairman, a local man, said "Miss Sinclair wished to say a few words". Such is the fear of Communism...'.

Later the same day Greaves got to talk to Liam McMillan, Art's brother (and at that time O/C of Belfast): '...he showed me an exercise book in which he was endeavouring to get to grips with political ideas. He said "the Army would like to co-operate with everybody, including Communists, but there is a strong group of old-fashioned Sinn Fein in the way". He asked if I thought Betty Sinclair would co-operate in a campaign against unemployment. I said I was sure she would provided they did not attempt to usurp the functions of the Labour Movement. For that is the danger. She thinks they are all very suspicious of Protestants, and that the Protestants feel lost, not knowing what nationality they belong to, or having any history or culture. But he did not show signs of this. He is probably the most thoughtful and broadminded though the brother is more forceful...'.

Here Greaves was getting to grips with the width of the culture-gap between the left-politicising Belfast IRA and the Protestant radical tradition which was expressed in the CP. I was of course aware of this, and was similarly feeling my way towards bridging it. He went back across the water on April 21, after a brief encounter with Sean Caughey, who expressed a high opinion of Gerry Fitt, and was optimistic about the way things were going...'.

The EEC and Politics in the Republic

On May 26 1967 Greaves(9) remarked that '..Cathal (MacLiam) and I... walked in the protest march against the Common Market sell-out. Sinn Fein had organised it, but if they had not invited the Irish Workers' Party they would have had nobody..'. Derry Kelleher was there and I understand spoke.. after some comments on wage levels etc CDG concluded: '...so this movement is in a rather confused state.'

Viewed in retrospect it may seem strange that the EEC issue should have been so high on the agenda so early, while the Northern situation was developing so rapidly. The UK application however had just been renewed, and it was just before de Gaulle's second veto. So at the time the EEC was beginning to assume the status of a threatening 'Greater Act of Union'.

There is a letter in the WTS archive dated June 3 1967 from Fred Heatley regarding Belfast participation in the proposed conference; this expresses some unease at the emphasis on the Common Market issue, and seeks more information. It was followed by one dated June 7 seeking to co-ordinate Belfast WTS participation in the Bodenstown commemoration.

Then on June 9 1967 CDG lunched with AC and Alan Heusaff the Breton; they discussed the Common Market and the various fringe national questions, Heusaff being despondent. Heusaff wanted AC to speak on the EEC at a meeting organised presumably by the Celtic League, with which Heusaff was associated.

On a subsequent visit to Dublin on June 25 1967 CDG arrived at CMacL's house, where there was a gathering of Wolfe Tone society representatives from Dublin and Belfast, the objective of which was to persuade the Belfast people to oppose the Common Market, and not to be embarrassed by the fact that Paisley was doing the same.

There is in the archive considerable correspondence relating to this meeting of Dublin, Belfast and Cork Wolfe Tone Societies which took place on June 24-25, on the fringe of the Bodenstown Wolfe Tone commemoration event(10). There was student republican club participation, and the booklet on Ulster Protestant patriots was on the agenda. The agenda is on record, which included a proposal to set up a 'central committee' of the 3 societies, meeting regularly. A document from the Dublin WTS analysed the roles of a range of organisations in Ireland, classified on the basis of:

(a) degree of opposition to the 'neo-unionist drift',
(b) whether political, economic or socio-cultural, and
(c) degree of involvement of their members in decision-making.

It is not clear whose document this was, but I recognise some of it has having been mine, and some of it could have been Anthony Coughlan's; it would have been amended in the light of discussions at a Dublin WTS meeting.

It was agreed that a liaison committee for the 3 societies be set up to meet quarterly, the first meeting to be before the end of August. There was a distinct difference in attitude to the EEC as between Belfast and Dublin, and the complexities of the relationship between the EEC and the national question began to be probed.

On the Sunday the Civil Liberties question was discussed, again bringing out the differences between North and South; an all-Ireland movement would not be appropriate. It was the priority issue in the North, rather than the EEC. The assessment of the Left, in the 'analysis of organisations' document introduced by RJ, is worth quoting: "Both CPNI and IWP remain in relative isolation due (a) to the negative tradition of Stalinism and consequent foreign orientation, and (b) to failure to come to grips with the existence of the national question and the rule of British imperialism in Ireland, which led to their condemnation of the '50s campaign on the Border. The CPNI and the IWP have not succeeded in working out an agreed joint national strategy and remain organisationally distinct. Both groups have, however, a wealth of trade union experience and a number of members with considerable influence in the trade union movement. Theoretically speaking, the CPNI, half-heartedly, and the IWP, in full, accept the republican classics as an essential part of our revolutionary heritage..".

On June 28 1967 I wrote to Betty Sinclair seeking feedback on how the NICRA was functioning; I must have picked up some indications of feedback from the Republican Clubs which suggested that Civil Rights issues were occurring locally which were not being dealt with; I noted that Fred Heatley had been 'chafing at the delays' and warned of the danger of '..a return to the mental ghetto on the part of the dispossessed..'. Betty relied pleading that she had been in Hungary (!) and was trying to catch up. She felt that the NICRA '..had not been able to attract the right kind of people.. too much in the way of groups and not consolidated enough to do its job properly..'. We planned to meet at the end of July.

The foregoing I think must have been on behalf of the Sinn Fein Standing Committee, of which at this time the record is missing. Note how the East European connection of the CPNI was in practice impeding the development of common experience and procedures, at a time when there were crucially necessary.

A document 'The Case Against the Common Market: Why Ireland Should Not Join' was produced by Anthony Coughlan subsequent to the foregoing conference, and it was circulated on June 29 1967 to all TDs and Senators with a covering letter. A handful acknowledged. This was basically the conference document as discussed; it marks effectively the beginning of the anti-EEC campaign.

Marxism, Science and Society

At about this time, mid 1967, I was also actively involved in trying to analyse the nature of the information flows throughout the Aer Lingus management system, and I participated with others in one of the 'innovation groups' which they set up, as a sort of brain-storming process. During this I worked up the makings of a theoretical model for the role of the computer in the management process, defining the role of a manager as a 'reducer of entropy'(12) and attempting to define 'entropy' as a generalised measure of the the type of multi-dimensional uncertainty with which a typical manager had to deal. This pointed in the direction of what could become a theory of management costs, provided a 'temperature' could be defined for the management process. This I felt would be useful, because in classical thermodynamics, whence the concept of 'entropy' as generalised uncertainty had emerged, the product of the measures of temperature and entropy has the dimensions of energy, which of course can be directly related to cost. I felt we were on to something.

I discussed this with Desmond Greaves in June of 1967; we had set out on our bikes towards the north Dublin countryside; I recollect this occasion, and I remember distinctly trying to interest him in the above theoretical ideas on how a State firm should be managed, keeping track of the management costs. I had in mind the problem of how to manage a State firm under socialism, bearing in mind the (by then increasingly negative) experience of the USSR. I had hoped to get a discussion going with Greaves around this concept, with which he as a combustion technologist would have been familiar. He was however totally dismissive, along the doctrinaire lines that 'there is no basis for a theory of management overhead costs in Marxism'. I felt the existence of an intellectual gulf; we were not on the same theoretical wavelength. This I think was a turning-point in our relationship; I had tended to regard him as a mentor. From then on I became critical.

I began around this time to reflect on the nature of the problem of how to relate intellectuals in left-wing movements with working people in a meaningful way. The scientist-technician relationship is a possible model; I had observed this very positively earlier in France, and in my Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies epoch. I felt however that we were a long way from having a good model for the development of a consistent political party based on Marxist principles, within which a creative scientist-technician (thinker-doer) interaction might be actively encouraged.

Round about this time the PhD thesis work of Rex Cathcart on Berkeley(13) came to the attention of Desmond Greaves, who referred in his diaries to Cathcart's '..valuable thesis on Marx and Berkeley...'. Rex Cathcart was a historian, one of the 1940s Promethean stalwarts; he had been introduced to Marxist history by John de Courcy Ireland in St Patrick's Grammar School. After periods teaching in Sandford Park and later in Raphoe Grammar School, he later headed the educational programmes in BBC(NI). I chased this Berkeley hare, in case it interfaced with what JJ had done. Regrettably it is purely Marxist-philosophical, and has no interface with Berkeley as pioneer development economist, in which role he was of interest to JJ.

Politics and the North

This indeed corresponded to my then view; it had motivated me away from dependence on Marxist orthodoxy and the Irish Workers' Party (which the Irish Workers League had by now become). I don't think Greaves ever appreciated the basic weakness of the Irish working class as a source of Marxist organisation, let alone Marxist theoretical analysis. As for the 'hare-brained schemes', this suggests the conflict between simplistic centralist ideology-driven organisations and the need for working analytical groups to explore in depth various aspects with a view to uncovering opportunities, and I was pursuing the latter course. If UMacE regarded this as 'hare-brained' and CDG as 'mechanical', well then, those were their opinions, let the reader judge.

On July 31 1967 a meeting of Dublin WTS members with the SF Standing Committee took place; there is alas no record of this in the WTS archive.

Nor is there in the SF archive, as the Standing Committee was not then keeping proper records. It is highly probable that the question of how the WTS 'liaison committee' would relate to existing SF structures was discussed. There was an undercurrent in the 'army' (expressed among others by Tony Meade) which wanted the WTS network to leapfrog Sinn Fein, making a new political start without negative baggage, so this was a sensitive issue.

The question of the editorship of the United Irishman came up; according to Greaves in or about August 1967 an approach was made to Anthony Coughlan, who however declined. This indicates however that Goulding was keen to improve the political content of the paper, and saw Coughlan as the person to do this. Tony Meade had resigned, on the grounds that (according to Greaves via MacLiam, who was close to Meade) '..the paper is not taken seriously. There is talk of O'Toole doing it. He is not a member of Sinn Fein...'. MacLiam went on to suggest that the present writer was '..preparing his own exit..'.

I certainly was not in 1967 'preparing my own exit', as the republican politicisation process was going well, the NICRA was in existence, and the Clubs were supporting it. Mac Stiofain was intriguing against this process; I was aware of this in general terms, but seriously underestimated his specific influence, as Director of Intelligence, with the Northern IRA units, which we were trying to transform into political clubs.

Around this time I wrote to the NICRA on behalf of the SF Standing Committee, of which at this time the record is missing. I have however a copy of a letter written by me to Derek Peters dated 4 Sept 1967, in response to receiving a copy of the NICRA newsletter, in which procedures were proposed for dealing with 'arrest without charge' situations. We were aware of how this procedure was used to harass those trying to develop the Republican Clubs politically. I was seeking to establish procedures to convey to Club members for use in such situations, involving contact with the NICRA: '..what to do so as to get the maximum embarrassment for the authorities out of it.. it will mean that we will be able to build a self-maintaining federation of Clubs with a life and communication system of its own; in fact a forum in which political ideas can evolve. They are of course doing their best to stop this; they want to keep the rebels in their ghettos and without influence..'.

Derek Peters was a CPNI member and was the NICRA Secretary. He replied by return on Sept 9 1967; they undertook to get an authoritative legal opinion; in the meantime we were warned that the Act does not require the police to invoke it when arresting, but unless they do they could be charged with illegal arrest. Their experience was that they went to extremes of provocation before invoking the Act.

The 'Three Wolfe Tone Societies' meeting, agreed on June 24-25, took place on October 15 1967. The Dublin agenda prioritised economics and the EEC (the Wilfred Beckermann lecture, and the development of the Defence of the Nation League), but was also active on language, history, theatre (Jim Fitzgerald and TP McKenna addressed a meeting in the Moira Hotel) and trade union history (Joe Deasy). Belfast had published a Life of Henry Joy McCracken, and was developing a Connolly centenary programme for 1968; a lecture series was projected for January on a range of topics: Irish music, the EEC, the Protestants and the nation, theatre in Ireland, the Anglo-Irish literary tradition etc. The Cork society was into urban preservation, trade union law, the EEC (a lecture by Coughlan was planned) and the need to promote discussion in Irish of things other than Irish itself.

This indicated that the lobby within the 'army' which wanted the WTS network to leapfrog Sinn Fein had been sidelined; Sinn Fein was the political organisation, and the WTS network remained an outreach body, for ideas development.

There are hints from this period of positive action to re-invent the IRA in its military mode. Greaves on November 24 1967 reported an encounter with one Ben Owens in Central Books, London, who reported contacts with the police and alleged IRA bomb threats.

This story needs further elucidation, but it suggests to me that the British dirty tricks department were prepared to re-invent the IRA for their own purposes, just as the B-Specials were with the Silent Valley incident, in order to try to prevent the development of progressive Irish political republicanism allied to the Labour Movement in Britain. Could this have been connected with the work of Mac Stiofain, who in his memoirs claims at this time to have been active in military mode? I leave this as a challenge to future historians.

The next day, November 25, Greaves recorded a Manchester meeting commemorating the Martyrs, at which Jimmy Steele spoke, attacking the 'New Departure' of Davitt and Devoy; then '..someone plucked the chairman by the sleeve and he called Mr Fitzmorris to speak. That gentleman then announced that the Manchester Martyrs Committee had no connection with another committee purporting to commemorate Allen Larkin and O'Brien. "We are Catholics first and Irishmen afterwards" said he "and we do not want our freedom given us by Moscow"..'.

Here we have evidence of a conscious attempt by elements who subsequently helped engineer the emergence of the Provisionals to subvert the republican politicisation process, from the angle of the Catholic Right, using the alleged 'Moscow threat' as a weapon to undermine the work of the Connolly Association, then concentrating on drawing the NI Civil Rights issue to the attention of the Labour movement in Britain.

The 1967 Sinn Fein Ard Fheis

The idea was to get the motions into a logical order, so as to encourage a sensible discussion of the issues, and to do compounding where appropriate, in accordance with democratic conference practice. SC however took it as a 'licence to rig or railroad'; he issued voting instructions on bits of paper to trusties who were in the 'other branch', thus trying to use what remained of the military command structure(14).

At the Ard Comhairle on 18/11/67 the report of the steering committee was adopted, after a long and heated discussion, centred round Costello's motion on abandonment of 'abstentionism as a principle'.

This Ard Fheis took place at the end of November in the basement room of Liberty Hall. Unfortunately the agenda is not readily accessible, though I do have two key composited motions, and a long amended version of one of them, proposed by the Ard Comhairle. The key one, Group 2, was a call for principled participation in assemblies, to be decided on tactical grounds by the Ard Comhairle. It concluded:

* to examine and analyse the most suitable basis for convening such a 32 county national assembly and of bringing about the appropriate conditions for revolutionary parliamentary action referred to,

* to evaluate in so doing the experience of national revolutionary movements in other countries, and

* to report back on this matter to the next annual Ard Fheis or to a special Ard Fheis, whichever is considered suitable.

This compromise motion did not attempt to amend the Constitution, but set up procedures for the incoming Ard Comhairle to take a hard look at the whole philosophical basis of abstentionism.

If Costello had got his way, the Provisional split would have taken place at this 1967 Ard Fheis, or perhaps at the next one, in the O Liatháin Hall, when the Garland Commission was set up, in a further split-avoiding procrastination. It could be argued plausibly that the split, had it occurred in 1967 or in 1968, would not have given the Provisionals the initial momentum generated subsequently by the 1969 events in Belfast, and would have enabled the politicising movement successfully to contest and build on the mid-Ulster by-election, thus keeping at bay the Queens ultra-left which generated Bernadette Devlin. This is one of the crucial historical 'might have beens'.

It is evident, in retrospect, that this repeatedly postponed sanctioning of the politicisation process had been initiated too late, and was too indecisive and uncertain, to enable a strong, principled and united movement to be developed, fit to face with political weapons the armed B-Special counter-attack of August 1969.

Sean O Bradaigh's Publicity Report is on record; 18 statements were issued, on matters which included the Belfast shipyard dismissals, the EEC, the farmers agitation, the Potez closure, factory closures in the North, the Dundalk shoe factory, etc. The Defence of the Nation League was commended for its anti-EEC work. Support from Cumainn for the sale and distribution of printed material however had been minimal; notes on SF Cumainn activity fit to report in the United Irishman remained scanty.

On the whole we get the impression that a lethargic membership was reluctantly following, with heavy hearts, a basically modernising leadership. The 'socio-economic programme' mentioned in 1966 seems however to have sunk without trace(15).

The post-Ard Fheis AC met on 9-10/12/67; present were the President TMacG*, Vice-Presidents Larry Grogan and Joe Clarke; Tony Ruane, Mairin de Burca*, Walter Lynch, Tom Mitchell*, RJ*, Monica Ui Riain*, Mick Ryan*, Seamus Costello*, Eamonn Mac Thomáis; S O Bradaigh had sent apologies.

In this situation the VPs both were representatives of 'SF3' as defined by Laffan. If we define the emergent politicising Sinn Fein as 'SF4', I have marked the proto-SF4 Cathal-Goulding-supporting group with asterisks. It was somewhat uneasily divided at this point. Monica Ui Riain was Mick Ryan's mother; she lived in the East Wall area, and had good local standing.

Specialisations were agreed for AC members: Tony Ruane Finance, Sean O Bradaigh Publicity, RJ Education. On the proposal of SC seconded by RJ the post of Director of Industrial Activity was created, with a view to cultivating relations with the Trade Union movement. This was taken up by SC. Goulding proposed Sean Garland as National Organiser, with terms of reference to act '...on behalf of the Army and the UI...assist with the educational programme...and the director of industrial disputes... to sit in on CS meetings and be co-opted to the AC. This was proposed by CG, seconded by EMacT and passed unanimously.

Note the explicit reference to the Army, rather than the 'other branch'. This suggests that its priority politicising role was recognised, and its military role increasingly regarded as evanescent. There were however differing perceptions as to its role. The old military / IRB tradition would have seen it in terms of 'infiltrating' trade unions and 'assisting' industrial disputes with various kinds of quasi-military direct action. The politicising people would have seen it in terms of participating in the democratic organisations of the working people, and giving a lead where appropriate. The divisions between these perceptions however were somewhat fuzzy.

Sean Garland was then co-opted; also the regional representation was ensured by co-opting Eddie Williams from Cork and Paddy Kilcullen from Mayo, both of these being Goulding supporters. It was also agreed from then on to record the minutes in English, recognising the de facto situation regarding the need for accurate and transparent record-keeping. The Coiste Seasta was then elected: it consisted of Walter Lynch, Mairin de Burca, Tomas MacGiolla, RJ, Cathal Goulding, Tony Ruane, Sean Garland and Sean O Bradaigh.

The motions from the AF which had not been discussed there were dealt with. All those leading to actions in favour of working people and their organisations were adopted. They also adopted the aim of Sinn Fein as being a Socialist Workers Republic, with the intention of taking up appropriate international affiliations. This motion was from Bray, and originated with Costello. Motions to do with taking seats or otherwise were referred to the next Ard Fheis. There was a discussion on the Mid-Ulster question and it was decided to hold meetings in the constituency with the Clubs as a matter of urgency, and to delegate this to the Coiste Seasta.

The voting for the Ard Comhairle in the 1967 Ard Fheis is on record. Goulding topped the poll at 95, Sean O Bradaigh came next at 71, and then the present writer, at 70, followed by Costello at 67, Eamonn Mac Thomais at 64, Tom Mitchell at 51, Frank McGlade 44, Mick Ryan 41 and so on.

I feel the relatively high vote for the present writer needs explanation. I was not all that well known, and did not have any track-record of having 'gone to jail for Ireland', military service or other conventional popularity qualification. It could simply be that Goulding, as the leading politicising moderniser in the movement, ordered the 'army' people to vote for me, and they obeyed. On the other hand it could be that there was a genuine perceived need on the part of the rank and file to support the sort of approach I had been advocating via the United Irishman and via the various educational seminars which had taken place in the previous year or two. Or it could have been a bit of both. MR tends to agree with the latter; it was a combination of the two factors.

Some Theoretical Issues: Socialism and Republicanism

I recollect this weekend; there were other non-political priorities and the contacting of the Clann was somewhat peripheral. There was I believe something on, but if I had been there it would have been informally as an observer. I must have phoned CDG in the hopes of an encounter with him, to tease out the theoretical implications of the way things were evolving. But he was, I think, putting up the barriers; he had written me off as some sort of apostate.

In retrospect what must have been on my mind was the nature of the distinction between 'labour movement' and 'petty-bourgeois' modes of organisation, and whether the distinction was as black and white as he seemed to want to make out. Scratch a Dublin 'proletarian' and you find a 'petty-bourgeois' not very far below the surface. The Irish Workers' League in the early days had used Party funds to buy equipment for one of its EC members, to set him up in business, as an alternative to chronic unemployment. Most bricklayers were 'on the lump'. I was critical of Marxist orthodoxy, and anxious to explore how 'workers, working managers, working owner-managers and self-employed' could be brought into the developing movement for all-Ireland national democracy, and brought around to accept something approximating to a co-operative or democratic socialist vision as the follow-through.

The Belfast WTS in February 1968 ran a symposium on the Irish language, which was organised jointly with the New Ireland Society, and took place in Queens University. Micheal O Loingsigh from the Dublin WTS spoke at short notice, replacing a speaker who had let them down. He made the case that the language revival must be accompanied by 'the spirit of social revolution'. Flann O Riain and one Tomas O Muimhneachain also spoke, accusing the Dublin government of insincerity. Gogarty mentioned that 12 bodies in NI political and cultural fields had notified the Belfast WTS of their willingness to attend 'Connolly co-ordinating committee in the Presbyterian hostel on Monday next'.

The 1968 AGM of the Dublin WTS(16) took place on Saturday March 15, being convened by the Secretary Anthony Coughlan in a letter dated March 6. Cork and Belfast representatives were expected and would report.

Returning to practical politics to keep the sequence, at the SF Ard Comhairle on 23/03/68(17) Frank McGlade was now included, co-opted to represent the NI Republican Clubs, which were the legalising SF Cumainn under a new politicising banner.

Costello felt let down over the lack of support he got in the Wicklow by-election. Clearly the movement was voting with its feet on the matter of contesting elections under abstentionism. Mick Ryan was appointed organiser for the whole of Leinster, including Wicklow, Costello's weakness having been exposed. Malachi McGurran was appointed organiser for Ulster, and an educational conference was arranged for Belfast.

Stormont Intervenes

The NI authorities however acted first. They had their spies, and knew our movements, which in any case were quite open. In the context of a visit to the Belfast Wolfe Tone Society prior to the planned conference, I encountered a gentleman who subsequently turned out to have been a 'plant'. He said he wanted to join Sinn Fein, and proffered a membership application form, which I accepted, not smelling a rat, though with hindsight I should have done. I did not take seriously enough the actual illegal status of SF in NI.

Subsequently I was picked up by the RUC and held in the Falls Road police station. They went through nearly every bit of paper I had on me, but by sheer good luck failed to pick up the SF application form. Betty Sinclair, the secretary of the Belfast Trades Council, and a leading member of the CP, got wind of my predicament, via Fred Heatley, of the Belfast Wolfe Tone Society, with whom I had been when picked up. She came with her NICRA and Trade Union auras, and argued forcefully that they had no reason to be using their Special Powers in my case. So in the end I was released, but the Belfast meeting was aborted, and the understanding of the opportunities presented by the opening up of Civil Rights, in the case of the Belfast Republican Clubs, was delayed.

Definition of Socialism

There was a draft article on the 'Sinn Fein Definition of Socialism' which had been asked for by the Irish Democrat. Costello insisted that this be circulated to Cumainn rather than sent to the Democrat.

This brings us back to the theoretical issues, as they arose in practice. I have a copy of this draft document(18), which amounts to over two pages of foolscap, duplicated, impossible to scan in. I will try to summarise its essentials:

It begins by referring back to the 1967 Ard Fheis amendment which refers to a 'Democratic Socialist Republic in accordance with the 1916 proclamation', and the key concept is 'cherishing all the children equally', this being inconsistent with large-scale inheritable private property. Connolly's formulation is suggested: 'the application to the ownership of the means of production of the democratic principle of the Republican ideal'. What follows expands on this.

The 'democratic socialism' as defined in the context of the British Labour Party is rejected as a phony facade. We need to make our own definition, in terms of how to democratise the production process, seen as comprising 4 elements, supply, production, distribution and management, the latter being an essential part. There is a fifth element, ownership, which is in a different category. When this is under capitalist rules, ownership has over-riding rights, and sets management against the rest with orders to maximise profits, under criteria which ignore the social investment in the skills of the work-force.

Socialism rejects private ownership of the means of production, counter-posing social ownership. This can be municipal or co-operative in form, with decisions taken by elected management committees, from groups of those directly concerned. Examples are given. Large firms would function under policies decided by delegate conferences. Small family retail outlets would own collectively their wholesale supply systems. Managers would implement policies defined by management committees, in the interests of the people co-operatively owning the firm: workers, consumers and suppliers, in due proportion, depending on the nature of the business and its environment.

The State as known today would no longer exist; it would be replaced by federations of peoples' organisation. Parties would exist, uniting common-interest groups; three such groupings were suggested, with an 'activist group' catalysing the interaction between the other two, but without a dominant role.

Anthony Coughlan in May 1968, in a letter to Máire Bean Mhic Giolla, suggested a definition of socialism in terms of social ownership of the means of production and distribution by the central state, local government, regional organisations or co-operatives. He distinguished it from communism by the latter implying State support for an atheistic philosophy. He also wrote to me outlining the principles governing a revolutionary movement such as to enable it to survive exposure to parliament, and suggested that he considered that the republican movement was not yet in fact ripe to be able to take this step, and that I should not be trying to rush the process. The key issue was the quality of the candidates, and the nature of their relationship with the organised political decision process.

I was of course aware of these arguments and had been propagating them internally through the educational conferences. In retrospect however I think he was perhaps right to warn me that the process would be slower to ripen than I was at the time expecting. Some feedback came in during June on the 'definition of socialism', and this is on record with the present writer(19). People preferred co-operative rather than municipal ownership, and were uneasy about the potential for evolution into a 'one-party State'; a 'no-party state' was preferred, with elections to management committees of individual citizens known to electors. I have however no record of an integrated amended document having been prepared or agreed. I think we regarded it as an educational or consciousness-raising procedure, rather than a decision-making procedure.

The April 1968 WTS Plan

[A] The New Republic: this was an outline of the social and economic structure of a model 32 county Republic, based on the ideas of Connolly's socialism, under the headings the State, Culture, Social Services, Production, Trade, Finance , Defence and External Affairs. Tuairisc went on to outline this: it was in fact basically the Eire Nua document, subsequently hijacked by the Provisionals after the split. It was strong on the 'Regional Government' concept, with the Capital moved to Athlone, cutting the link with Dublin perceived as the legacy of the Pale, the imperial focus, the centre of British influence.

[B] The Movement and the People: this was aimed at people '..who are actively concerned with building a conscious united revolutionary movement for a Socialist Republic in Ireland today..'. This covered definitions of political terms, evaluation and classification of various existing organisations, enumeration of the main issues, an outline of methods of awakening people's understanding of the issues, analysis of the special conditions in the Six Counties, and an outline of the structure of the movement. NB there was absolutely no military dimension in this context; this was the blueprint for the movement to 'go political' definitively.

[C] The Technology of Independence: the United Irishman from September 1967 and January 1968 had published a series of articles on this theme, from Derry Kelleher and myself; it called for being printed in a more permanent form, '..for use in propagating the idea that there is no need for basing our industrialisation plans on the employment of the foreign expert and that Ireland is technologically quite capable of developing an advanced economy, provided we use correctly our assets of talented manpower..'.

[D] Ireland and Europe, the Historical Links: This was the material presented at the Wynn's Hotel meeting in November 1967. '..It shows that there are two Europes: the Europe of the monarchists and monopolists and that of the ordinary working people. The main Irish historical links are with the latter, and the modern neo-Unionist trend, centred round the EEC and free trade with Britain, is a reversal of this tradition and an attempt to put us under the hegemony of the former.'

I don't think this publication project got off the ground. If it had, it would have constituted a valid theoretical basis for the development of an all-Ireland democratic revolution with social-revolutionary content, along the lines to which we had aspired in 1964. Its publication was pre-empted by the pace at which events developed, and the diversion of the attention of the movement towards the sterile issues of abstentionism, and its associated threat of re-emergent militarism.

Left-wing Undercurrents

On May 12 1968 he recorded further that Micheál Ó Riordáin had been lobbying various East European embassies seeking to get goods for his fund-raising sales of work, with the support of Jim Prendergast, whom CDG labelled '..something of an embassy-fly..'. CDG noted with disapproval that '...they still have the conception of a subsidised movement, with a low-priced paper and literature...'.

Prendergast and O Riordain were of course both International Brigade veterans, and as such they had status of sanctity with the 'international movement' of post-Stalinist orthodoxy. It could credibly be argued that a military background is incompatible with good Marxist democratic politics in peacetime, and Greaves, and indeed the present writer, were up against this on the one hand with Prendergast and co, and on the other with Goulding and co. Prendergast, it seems, according to Betty Sinclair, had been influential in getting an 'English-type' public house set up in Moscow, which he frequented when there.

There is on May 14 a reference by Greaves to a meeting in Nottingham, with its Fergus O'Connor connection, at which the question of a Joint Council between the IWP and the CPNI was discussed. Greaves attended in his capacity as the Irish expert on their international affairs committee. John Gollan, the CPGB chief, very sensibly did not want the CPGB represented. The question arose of CDG or J(oe) D(eighan) going in their individual capacities, as neutral observers.

There are complex issues here, arising from the delicacy of the relationship between the CPGB and the movement in Ireland. The CPGB would undoubtedly have wanted discreetly to catalyse the process of formation of an all-Ireland 'official' Marxist party as part of the 'international movement'. Greaves with his Connolly Association and Irish Democrat roles would have wanted to maximise support for Civil Rights in the North from the organised labour movement. The CPNI - IWP joint meeting could perhaps be helpful in this context. This was of course a distinct process from the present writer's aspiration to develop the republican movement into an all-Ireland democratic Marxist party having broad-based support from 'workers, working management, working owner-managers and self-employed'.

Politicisation and the North

It was reported that sales of the United Irishman were on the increase. This was a consequence of secret meeting of 'army' unit OCs, which had taken place earlier in a 'safe house' north of Nenagh, at which this task was accepted as part of the 'army' politicisation process(20). Increasingly it was the accepted duty of 'army' people to give priority to activating SF Cumainn, and making things happen at the political level. There were however those who accepted this role grudgingly, or simply withdrew, to come out of the woodwork later when the Provisionals emerged.

I was present at this meeting, which took place under conditions of the usual 'military' discomfort, people sleeping on the floor and suchlike macho cultural procedures. There was however no evidence of any actual military plan in the background; this aspect at this time was confined to the thinking of Mac Stiofain, who I don't think was present on this occasion.

Connolly Commemoration

Subsequent to this it emerged that Greaves had been under false impressions(21) regarding the membership status of myself and Anthony Coughlan; he seemed to think that dual memberships were involved, whereas in fact while I was a member of the republican movement I had long since ceased to be a member of the IWL, and Coughlan had never in fact been a member of either, preferring to act as an independent source of political ideas.

Republican Movement Integration

At the SF CS on 08/07/68 TMacG reported on the Scottish Nationalists' Convention. Copies of the Republican Clubs constitution were to be printed and distributed in the North. Then on 15/07/68 it was noted that the status of the Republican Clubs Constitution was that it was a facade for public consumption in the North, given the legal situation there; the real Constitution was that of Sinn Fein. A meeting was to be called of all SF Councillors to prepare resolutions for the General Council of County Councils (GCCC).

The Ard Comhairle meeting on 20/07/68 decided to go for Liberty Hall for the Ard Fheis; Sean O Cionnaith was to be Organiser for Connaught. There was support for Austin Currie and civil disobedience in the North. There was a report of an Educational Conference held in June. There was concern about local councillors. It was agreed to write to local Cumainn urging that they write to TDs about local issues. The question of how to commemorate the First Dail (1919-1969) was referred to the CS.

At the SF CS on 29/07/68 progress on the PR referendum was reported; also on the campaign on the Potez closure. Sean Garland reported on a Belfast meeting at which it was stated that Betty Sinclair had disagreed with 'holding it under NICRA'.

I suspect this was a reflection of a situation where Garland had planned to meet with BS as a contact between the Republican Movement and the Communist Party, but somehow the wires had got crossed, and it had ended up as an NICRA event. Such contacts were going on fairly regularly, with a view to trying to ensure that the NICRA was kept 'cross-community', in the sense of having a Protestant trade-unionist component. This was regarded as important, the CP being seen as a useful window into Protestant radical activism.

A committee for the 1919 First Dail commemoration was set up; this included Greta Ryan (Mick Ryan's sister, now Ui Murchú) and Eamonn Mac Thomáis; it also brought in Cathal Mac Liam, who by then was Chairman of the Dublin Wolfe Tone Society, and Seamus Mac Riocaird. The latter was a 30s stalwart, who had become politicised post-Curragh via the co-operative movement; he ran the Howth Fishermens's Co-op, and had been an active supporter of attempts to develop a new wave of co-operative organisation in the West, as part of the process of development of the social concerns of the Movement.

At the SF CS on 12/08/68 it was noted that the Proportional Representation (PR) campaign was in progress; there was mention of PR Society literature via May Hayes, who was their contact in Dublin. May Hayes had been a Connolly Association stalwart in London; she had retired on pension to live in Dublin (She had been secretary to Captain Harrison, who had been secretary to Parnell, a sort of apostolic succession on the constitutional side.) She was however not active and proved elusive.

The Mid-1968 WTS Programme

I mentioned also in the letter about our move to collect signatures of notables for publication, in support of a campaign against the Criminal Justice Bill, then a Civil Rights issue in the Republic. I later sent out a circular convening a WTS meeting for August 13; this is annotated from the meeting itself, of which however I do not have minutes. It was proposed to re-examine the 'specialist group structure' of the Society with a view to reconstructing it.

The circular outlined an approach to specialist group project procedure: define the scope, allocate research to people, draw together the results and draft a paper, discuss this before the Society as a whole, revise the draft in the light of feedback, publish the revised draft, in Tuairisc or elsewhere, in preliminary mode, publish finally in referencable print, and then implement to the extent of getting it adopted as policy by a national organisation. '..This represented a steady systematic development of theory into practice, involving ever widening circles of people..'.

The circular then went on to list some current issues lending themselves to the above 'project group' approach:

A: To develop the Criminal Justice Bill critique into an effective Civil Rights organisation;
B: To develop the current discussions about the TCD-UCD merger into a consistent national higher education policy covering various regional and specialist aspects;
C: To come up with a unified comprehensive education policy for second level which would be acceptable to teachers and parents;
D: To examine the question of State finance for the Arts;
E: To initiate some regular cultural event having a 'national cultural consciousness' aspect;
F: To address the question of birth control and divorce in the context of the requirements of a projected 32-county Constitution;
G: To address the question of a national health service taking on board the problems which had arisen in Britain in that context;
H: To produce a history of the First Dail and its Democratic Programme in time for the 50th anniversary.

Of the above aspirations: A became the Citizens for Civil Liberties, later the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL); B contributed via press-controversy to the emergent 3rd-level politics of the 1970s, C later generated the 'Association for Democracy in Education' which campaigned, unsuccessfully, for comprehensive schools to be under the VECs rather than under the religious denominations, D was stillborn, E generated some poetry readings between Ireland, Wales and Scotland which have persisted, being eventually taken over (I think) by Comhdhail Naisiunta na Gaeilge, F laid the basis for the Divorce Action Group, G was stillborn, and H helped to produce Maire Comerford's book on the First Dail.

This broad-based approach remained the present writer's aspiration for the development of a theoretical basis for a projected democratic movement for national unity, some time in the future, and I was pushing it on the eve of the Coalisland-Dungannon march, which attacked the Achilles heel of Unionism, and triggered the subsequent rapid and increasingly chaotic developments. There was thus a clear mismatch between the present writer's strategic vision of a broad-based radical democratic movement capable of picking up some Protestant political support in the North, and the Greaves-Coughlan tactic of going for the Unionist underbelly via the Civil Rights demands.

It is quite clear from the above that we had not put these together. We were not acting in concert; we each did what we thought it best to do at the time, in our respective areas of influence. The consequence was that when the NICRA demands began to be realised, and the situation opened up politically in the North, there was not in existence enough of a broad-based non-violent democratic movement, with an all-Ireland structure, to take advantage of it. Fianna Fail irredentism took over, with a strong Catholic-nationalist flavour, and the basis for the armed B-Special pogroms of August 1969, and the subsequent emergence of the Provisionals, was laid.

Filed with my 1968 WTS material is the last 4 pages of a 5-page letter, probably from Tom O'Connor of Coalisland, a leading member of the Dungannon Republican Club. In it he outlined the view from below of the various organisation in Dungannon concerned with the housing issue: the Homeless Citizens League, the Campaign for Social Justice and the Dungannon Housing Association. This was in the lead-up to the famous incident where a Council house was allocated to a single Protestant woman, while families were in the queue, triggering the Coalisland to Dungannon march led by the NICRA. This letter supports our contention that the Clubs were active in the grassroots, and were in a position to give local support to the march, ensuring it went off peacefully.

The Dungannon NICRA March

I feel I should intersperse here a recollection, as I was there, and so was Anthony Coughlan. The latter, working via the Wolfe Tone Society, was much more actively committed than I was to the specific NI Civil Rights situation. He had produced a written statement for the occasion, and I remember someone, I thought AC himself (though he does not recollect it), trying to get it 'read off the platform', or into a situation where it could be read, if there were to be a meeting, with a platform, and words said. The approach was via Fred Heatley, who was an NICRA activist, and a member of the Belfast Wolfe Tone Society. Fred objected strongly, as it had not been discussed in advance. He later claimed, and to the best of my recollection published, that the paper was a 'statement from the Army Council', and that he was right to block it for this reason. I feel I need to go further into this episode.

The paper was Coughlan's own, and he intended it as a genuine attempt to capture the sense of the occasion. It has turned up in my own papers, and I am certain that Fred Heatley was mistaken in his attribution. The Army Council at this time was politicising as hard as it could, and would have had no interest in issuing public statements in such an environment, realising full well their potential for damage if claimed by the Army Council as source.

The copy I have is not fit to scan, but I summarise it here. It is entitled 'Declaration.... Dungannon August 24 1968', and begins: 'To our fellow-countrymen, to the people of Britain and to all democrats and democratic governments everywhere..' continuing with a lengthy introduction listing the grievances, which concludes with reference to Section 75 of the Government of Ireland Act under which Westminster has the right to legislate to give equal civil rights in Northern Ireland as in the United Kingdom. It then goes on to list the items which should be in a Bill of Rights, including the lifting of the ban on the Republican Clubs and the repeal of the Special Powers. It calls on the Parliament in Westminster to act, and on that in Dublin to press the former to act, and to raise the matter at the UN. It is an exemplary document as regards content, though unimpressive in presentation, being duplicated in rather small typescript on two sides of a foolscap sheet, so many copies must have been produced and some distributed. It was however not read off the platform, at the meeting which took place at the road-block near the hospital, which was addressed by Betty Sinclair on behalf of the NICRA.

The foregoing shows how the leadership of the NICRA, and those actively promoting the process and supporting the demonstration, were relatively unorganised and unprepared, because if this document had gone through the appropriate channels, it undoubtedly would have been adopted by the demonstration with acclamation. It may perhaps count as one of history's 'near misses'.

Dungannon Impact on the SF Leadership

Note that there is a continuing clear acceptance of Anthony Coughlan as a source of advice to the Northern Republicans about how they should relate to the developing Civil Rights campaign. There was an acceptance of him as being virtually 'part of the movement' via the Wolfe Tone Society, with Cathal Goulding, Malachi McGurran and Liam McMillan as the personal links.

Regarding 1919 it was noted that Maire Comerford was writing a history. There was some contact with the Basques. Then however at the CS on 26/08/68 they decided to take no action on the Basques, due to splits. The PR referendum question continued. There was finally, after some delay, a report on the NICRA Dungannon meeting. This had ended with the march being blocked, where the Coalisland road came in, near the hospital; they had a token sit-down; there was some speechifying; it all ended peacefully.

The Irish Left and the Czechoslovak Crisis

In CDG's August 29 entry we have an account of the CPGB meeting at which the Czechoslovak crisis is discussed. It is beyond our scope to analyse this. It is possible to make out that he prefers the Irish to the narrow parochialism of the English. He remarked that apart from Des Logan all the Irish tended to be pro-Russian. The overall impression is that CDG took up a position of defence of Soviet intervention, regarding it as politically necessary.

Then on September 5 1968 it seems I was in London; I phoned CDG and then looked in. While I was there MOR phoned, congratulating CDG on his stand on the issue; there had however been complications in Dublin, and a statement critical of Russia had gone out, despite MOR, who now wants to get CDG to '..knock sense into people's heads..'.

A leading group of IWP activists, including George Jeffares, Sam Nolan, Joe Deasy, Paddy Carmody and a few others, later broke with the IWP on the Czechoslovak issue, mostly ending up in the Labour Party. The attention of the IWP leadership was concentrated on this issue for many months, extending to years, while the Northern situation developed its positive potential. My evaluation of their minimal utility in the developing Irish situation, as outlined above, was on the whole confirmed.

In the same entry CDG went on to record a long conversation with the present writer, whom he regarded as being '..largely at sea... wondering if he had been wasting his time with SF... he had opposed the burning of the ship at Galway... he was not.. persuaded that the Russians might have a case in Czechoslovakia.. AC had drawn the conclusion that the Russians must be mad... Cathal thought that they could do no wrong... others filled into other parts of the spectrum...'. Joe Deighan turned up, he also was seen as '..very confused..'. He went on: '...he told me the republican clubs were about to launch a grand civil disobedience campaign in the North. Now that in itself would not worry one. But I asked him if they had consulted the Trade Unions or the Labour Movement. Of course they had not. So they learn nothing and forget nothing, and are liable to go off on any tangent..'.

Greaves overestimated the practical possibility of the republican clubs engaging in consultations with the Trade Unions or the Labour Movement. The channels did not exist, except very marginally via Betty Sinclair and Derek Peters in the NICRA leadership. The latter however were out on a limb, acting as individuals, without having their Party behind them.

In the Sinn Fein leaderhip the Czechoslovak crisis barely caused a ripple; at the CS on 09/09/68 there was no word from the 1919 committee; the Proportional Representation campaign was still going on; the projected meeting on Sept 15 was taking shape (Maghera, not Monaghan); 80 delegates were expected; TMacG, CG, TM and Anthony Coughlan were to go. This was for the purpose of ensuring that the Clubs understood their role in relation to the broad-based NICRA movement, and the need to keep to restricted CR objectives (no nationalist sloganising or flag-waving etc)

There is an entry by Greaves on September 11 which fills in some detail on the IWP meeting which decided about Czechoslovakia, O Riordain being voted down 18 to 13, Nolan being away. There was also a second-hand description of the present writer's behaviour on the day of the invasion, indicating the extent of my upset.

Post-Dungannon Sinn Fein and the Left

Cathal Goulding laid down an ordinance to the effect that Cumann na mBan was no longer part of the Movement(22). This had resulted from the development of feminist equality all round, and a sense that there was no need for a special group reflecting traditional female roles. The shell of the organisation at the time was occupied by a traditional apolitical group, regarded by CG as a source of right-wing intrigue.

Note that this was CG acting as the 'Government of the Republic', as embodied in the Army Council, rather than making a contribution to a Sinn Fein leadership decision. Political integration of the movement was far from complete, and the old procedures persisted.

CG then went on to give an account of a meeting of Republican Club activists which had taken place the previous week at Maghera. The activists had objected to the failure at Dungannon to break the police barrier; military-type thinking was still the norm. It was agreed that the Republican Club representatives on the NICRA Committee should put their views, but then accept and implement majority decision. A Regional Council was set up, chaired by Malachi McGurran.

At the CS on 30/09/68 the Proportional Representation campaign was discussed. The Irish Congress of Trade Unions had produced a leaflet; this was to be distributed by the Cumainn. Attempts by the Pearse Cumann in Rathmines to contact local Fianna Fail, with a view to public debate, had been blocked by FF HQ. External Cumann contacts in this context were to be encouraged. There was a call by Seamus O Brogain the Cumann secretary for a more comprehensive registration, so as to identify hidden talents.

Greaves on October 9 1968 discovered that Anthony Coughlan had been drenched by water-cannon in Derry, at the October 5 civil rights march there. He asked Tony '..if they stood for socialism why didn't they join the working-class movement? AC: The unions and Labour party would never do anything. CDG: so you have a short cut? They said they had. It is to be hoped it proves shorter than their cut to the United Irish Republic...'. Cathal Goulding it seems had been on the way to Derry but his car broke down. CDG: '..I said I thought they should all keep away. But you might as well talk to the table. CG then yanked AC off to an editorial meeting of the United Irishman(!).

Anthony Coughlan was advising the republican movement how to relate to the civil rights movement through personal contacts with key people. In the context, 'joining the working-class movement' was irrelevant. The disastrous nature of the USSR's action was indeed showing up across the board. What chance was there of getting any sensible approach to developing a broad-based politicised left-republican convergence in this situation? At least the republicans were not allowing themselves to be diverted by it, but the Left, such as it was, was effectively neutered.

The next day October 10 Greaves went to Belfast, failed to find Betty Sinclair, and went on to Derry, where he met with Ivan Cooper, picking up the impression that they were all under the influence of McCann and the Trotskyite element, though Cooper told him of the new committee from which McCann had walked out. He had no contact addresses in Derry and was depending on contacts made via the Derry Journal.

Meanwhile at the Sinn Fein Standing Committee (CS) on 14/10/68 the final rally of the PR campaign was supported, though it was in effect run by Fine Gael. The verdict of the Irish electorate in this case was masterly: they elected de Valera to be President, but rejected his party's attempt to copper-fasten its rule on the Irish people, by retaining proportional representation for the electoral system.

On the Civil Rights question: it was noted that there was a new group in Derry.... This must have been the middle-ground committee from which McCann had walked out.

There had been a march in Dublin on the British Embassy and it was agreed that this had been a mistake. It was agreed to write to the 'other branch' to ask for an explanation, to see what thinking had motivated the idea. Yet Cathal Goulding was on record as having been at this meeting. Why did he not explain there and then? Probably because due to his recent spell in prison he was no longer actually in the leadership. It was felt that the Wolfe Tone Society should be in a position to initiate the setting up of some sort of Civil Rights group relevant to the situation in the 26 Counties, which included the Criminal Justice Bill issue. It was agreed to combine meetings of Regional Executives with educational conferences on the same weekend.

The pressure to link NICRA with the national question, even among the vanguard of left-republican politicisers, was very strong. Janice Williams, who participated in the Embassy demonstration, recollects it has having been quite small. She had no idea it was 'disapproved of'. She went in the company of Seamus O Brogain and other members of the Pearse Cumann, of which she was a member.

Later on October 19 1968 Greaves recorded encountering Betty Sinclair, who regaled him with the '..sharp internal differences within the Civil Rights Committee.. the anti-communism of Heatley.... the refusal of the CP to participate effectively. At the Political Committee when she raised the question the Chairman Andy Barr looked at his watch. She said that both he and Graham wanted TU jobs, and Barr particularly will fight strenuously any line of policy that would lose him ground in the trade union. Thus Party policy is made subordinate to the Sheet Metal Union - the old old story, the unholy alliance I have been battering my head against for twenty and more years... Of McCann she says if he was on the platform she would walk off... she has high praise for McAteer who... stood by her side through the meeting. We discussed the republicans who she says are very difficult to work with. They invited her to one of their committee meetings, secret no doubt, but she did not go. I said I thought she was right..'.

A proposal had arisen, initiated by Heatley, to the effect that those who had participated in the 'illegal march' at Derry should sign a paper saying they had done so. Betty agreed initially to this at the meeting, then went home and had second thoughts, conveying these to McAnerny the secretary, who also began to have doubts. Together they went to a third, who felt the same. Heatley was indignant. Some compromise formula was agreed.

Betty, whose heart was in the right place, was thus being left out on a limb by her Party. Her wavering on the signing issue must have been influenced by her relative exposure. The inability of the most advanced sections of the Northern Labour Movement to take up the issues, in the manner that CDG had hoped, must have been increasingly obvious.

At the Sinn Fein CS on 21/10/68 Tom Mitchell reported on the Derry events(23); some 3000 had participated. It was agreed to leave discussion of their significance until the next AC meeting scheduled for 26th. There was a march on US embassy planned for Nov 2, organised by Irish Voice on Vietnam (this was an informal group involving Peadar O'Donnell and George Jeffares; the latter at this time was the Irish Workers Party foreign affairs expert, and he had successfully focused broad-based public opinion, including many religious groups, against the Vietnam war). Mick Ryan was to organise the stewarding of the march. A statement on the government defeat in the PR referendum was to be issued. The Republican Club in UCD had requested Goulding and Costello to speak. At this time both in TCD and UCD student republican clubs were flourishing, fruits of the politicisation process.

The Ard Comhairle meeting on 26/10/68, despite the decision of the previous CS, was concerned mainly with consideration of the draft constitution which was to come before the coming Ard Fheis. It paid no attention to the opening up of the NI situation arising from the Derry Civil Rights events. Various amendments to the draft were considered, the key one being to make participation in Assemblies (ie Stormont or the Dail) an AC decision on tactical grounds, rather than a 'principle' enshrined in the Constitution.

Representatives of the Connolly Youth, the Workers Party and Connradh na Gaeilge were to be invited to the Ard Fheis.

There was an extended meeting of the Sinn Fein CS on 28/10/68 at which CG's regional organisers reported. This was part of the process of CG's 'HQ Staff' being subsumed into the political shell of the reforming Sinn Fein. The core-CS group was all there and consisted of Tomas MacGiolla, RJ, Tom Mitchell, Sean Garland, Sean O Bradaigh, Wally Lynch and Mairin de Burca. Mick Ryan, Bartley Madden(24) and Malachi McGurran were brought in in their capacities as regional organisers for Leinster, Munster and NI (nominally 'Ulster' but NI de facto) respectively.

MMcG's report is recorded in most detail: a regional executive was to be held in Maghera; TM or WL to attend. There were 5 clubs in Belfast, 6 in Armagh, 5 in Tyrone, 7 in Derry. The next NICRA march had been fixed for November 16 in Armagh.

Then at the CS on 04/11/68, with TMacG CG WL TR SG RJ SO'B TM MdeB present, TMacG and WL reported on the Maghera meeting; all areas had been represented; they wanted to push for a CR march in Derry on November 16 and Armagh November 23 or 30. There were 22 clubs and 4 regional executives. An educational conference was planned for Armagh on December 1. The commemoration at Edentubber on November 10 was to be used as a means of handing over Ard Fheis papers.

This sort of arrangement was still considered necessary, given the illegality of Sinn Fein in NI. Edentubber was considered a convenient near-border location to which people came annually to commemorate a 1950s tragedy. There is however an implied contradiction here. People attending an event linked to 1950s militarism would tend not to be in tune with 1960s politicisation.

There was a court-case involving one McEldowney in the North; this was innovative in that the movement up to now had not defended itself in court, refusing to recognise its legality. They decided to ask Geoffrey Byng QC to defend; this was a significant nod in the direction of linking with the Left in Britain, and cultivating pro-Irish elements with it. Byng had written extensively on Ireland, Partition and the Special Powers.

It was agreed that MMcG would instruct the Clubs not to support in NICRA any move to dislodge Betty Sinclair from the chair. The link with the Belfast Trades Council, and Protestant radical activism, as expressed via the CP, was to be maintained. The NICRA must not be allowed to become simply a protest organisation of the Catholic ghettos.

Mick Ryan has commented retrospectively to the effect that McGurran felt that the movement went too far into embedding itself in the NICRA and lost its own political identity. My own impression is that from here onwards the IWP and the CPNI, and the 'international movement' generally, were in effect so shattered and divided by the events in Czechoslovakia that they increasingly became irrelevant in the developing Irish situation. Their original relevance was as a window into the thinking of the Belfast Protestant working-class; this window became closed off in proportion as the NICRA was forced into the Catholic ghettos.

In London on November 9 1968 Greaves recorded receiving a letter from the present writer indicating that I was '..mending some of my ways..'. He also receives one from MO'R to the effect that I had been to see him. He thought it might be to renew my membership. He also recorded that C(harlie) C(unningham) has noticed '...an improvement in morale; since 1962 we have not had a victory; now at last..'.

I recollect this episode. I was indeed uneasy about the way the republican movement was going, and had made an informal approach to O'Riordain to seek his views. But no way could I at that stage have re-joined his party. I felt that the politicisation process among the republicans had been started, had momentum, and needed to be completed as far as possible. I had no inkling of the impending Provisional threat. Mac Stiofain was playing his cards close. Although critical of Greaves, especially his hard-line Czech attitude, in line with that of O'Riordain, I felt I needed to keep up the contact. There were signs of internal reform within the 'international movement'; I had not totally written it off. Maybe if the politicised left-republican project succeeded, there would be a place for it in a reconstructed international movement, without the heavy centralist hand of Moscow, then dominated by the so-called 'Brezhnev doctrine' which justified intervention.

We may have on December 10 in the Greaves Diaries the beginnings of doubts about the integrity of the USSR-dominated 'international movement'; he recorded a conversation in CPGB circles about a 'spontaneous' meeting in Moscow in support of some proposal, with the result appearing in print within a few hours: obviously a 'put-up job'. He went on to note the opinion of a Hungarian, to the effect that differences between 'socialist' countries arose from competition for the West German market. The Czechs with their reforms would have been well positioned to improve their market share. CDG concludes '..I did not feel that this was an adequate explanation for the gigantic sledgehammer taken to this nut..'.

In Dublin on December 13 1968 Greaves recorded seeing Sean Nolan and lunching with Anthony Coughlan, without comment. The next day he showed up at the IWP Christmas bazaar, where he discussed the Czech situation with Carmody: '..there is nothing for us in an anti-Soviet campaign..'. Carmody agreed. CDG also encountered the remains of the IWL group who had been so destructive of the CA a decade previously (see Note 35, Chapter 6). Carmody wanted to talk with them, expressing sympathy with Pat O'Neill who had been 'crucified' while in the Electrical Trades Union. CDG: '..the "crucifixion" consisted of touring England in a motor-car posting bogus election papers for Haxell. It would be impossible to have the slightest sympathy for anybody involved in that discreditable operation..'.

The evidence of the deep-rooted corruption of the USSR-dominated 'international movement', extending right down to the membership and practice of its component member-parties, as observed at first hand by CDG, was visibly accumulating. Carmody was apparently prepared to defend O'Neill's actions even in 1968. The role of Greaves in the Irish context was consistently to focus on 'civil rights in Northern Ireland' as the essential next step, and to try with fact-based Marxist rationality to reduce the impact of ideology-driven ignorance, whether from the Stalinism of the international movement or from the Fenian adventurism of the republican political culture.

Greaves also recorded a meeting on December 16: '..some kind of Wolfe Tone Society caucus.. which had not been properly convened... this was the plot, revealed by O Loingsigh after complaints that the IRA took every major policy decision themselves without consulting the Wolfe Tone. Mac Eoin added that he did not think anything of Sinn Fein either. The decision in question related to Mid-Ulster..'. It emerged that Tom Mitchell resigning from Sinn Fein to take his seat, and inviting Conor Cruise O'Brien, were considered as options preferable to Austin Currie. Greaves disapproved of both.

I recollect various discussions along these lines. I was never happy with the antagonism to Currie, which was based on traditional republican distrust of the nationalist Party. In the end we were usurped by Bernadette Devlin, who succeeded, and fuelled the anarchist fringe. The incubus was of course abstentionism. We were still stuck with this, though we were working on it via the 'Garland Commission'. The frustration was palpable.

At the Coiste Seasta (CS) meeting on 11/11/1968 there was a complaint from Donegal that they had had no contact with the Ulster organiser. This was an indication of residual grassroots opposition to the leadership's de facto recognition of the anomalous political position in the 6 Counties. The Ulster organiser was concentrating on Northern Ireland where the problem was. There was a decision to issue a statement on Civil Rights in response to the remarks of Neil Blaney, the Donegal Fianna Fail TD. The first explicit linking of Civil Rights to the national question came from Blaney, and this was rightly regarded as counter-productive, an assertion of Catholic-nationalist irredentism. The Dublin Housing Action Committee was seeking for SF to affiliate and it was agreed to do so. The DHAC was a broad-based group. Earlier references seemed to indicate that SF members outside Dublin thought it was a SF-owned body. Sinn Fein was going through a process of learning how to deal with bodies which it did not own, the NICRA being a key contributor to this learning process.

At the CS on 18/11/68 the idea of civil disobedience in the North was discussed. It was agreed to urge the Wolfe Tone Society to look into how best to set up some sort of civil rights movement in the 26 Counties(25). The Ard Comhairle meeting followed on 23/11/68. On the face of it, the leadership group seemed strong enough to have recommended constitutional change to the Ard Fheis, but for some over-cautious reason at the previous meeting on October 26 they had hesitated. Costello, on the Minutes, objected to the record of the final resolution on October 26, claiming it had been put to the meeting and passed. He was over-ruled, and Costello wanted his objection recorded. The resolution had been passed for submission to the Ard Fheis, but not with the AC recommending it, which Costello had wanted.

Malachi McGurran, reporting from the North, was critical of the proposed O'Neill reforms; one man one vote and repeal of Special Powers not yet in sight. The central NICRA body was regarded as lacking in initiative. It would be necessary for the Republican Clubs to get PROs and make contact with local press, radio and TV. A march was planned for Armagh on November 30, and this was on Republican Clubs' initiative. It would be necessary to get the clubs to set up local broad-based CR committees.

Costello wanted the Wolfe Tone Society to press for a Civil Rights conference in the 26 Counties, to focus on the Offences against the State Act, and the Criminal Justice Bill. The perception here, from the 'militarist wing' as embodied in Costello, is of the WTS as a tool, to be told what to do. In fact it was not like this; the WTS took its own initiatives, but tended to defer to Goulding's suggestions when these occurred. Costello, in fact, was a contradictory character, who wanted to get rapidly into front-line politics, from his local power-base in Bray, and was prepared to use the military command-structure to help him do so. This became evident at the next Ard Fheis. MR is supportive of this assessment.

There were organisers' reports from Mick Ryan (Leinster) and Bartley Madden (Munster), no details given. Paddy Kilcullen reported that there were now 5 Cumainn in Mayo and 4 in Sligo. The Ard Fheis was confirmed for December 8; the Workers Party, Connolly Youth, Gaelic League and Misneach were to be invited to send observers. Misneach was a radical language movement, associated with Mairtin O Cadhain. There was a clear perception of an emerging broad left, with a cultural dimension.

The 1968 Ard Fheis (O Liatháin Hall)

The voting analysis sheet for the 1968 Ard Fheis, and most of the relevant records, have become available, and my name is not on it. Yet I am on record as having attended subsequent meetings. So I must have been, in effect, co-opted. There were press reports to the effect that I had been 'defeated', and I have a copy of a letter I wrote dated 9/12/68 to the effect that for personal reasons I did not stand for elections, despite considerable pressure. I was consciously trying to pull back from a leading position, although in the event, in effect, I was not allowed to do so. The results in order of preference were Goulding 109, Costello 94, Sean Garland 78, Mairin de Burca 70, Sean Mac Stiofain 67, Larry Grogan 61, Derry Kelleher 61, Eamonn Mac Thomáis 60, Tony Ruane 58, Joe Clarke 58, Sean O Bradaigh 55, Frank McGlade 53, Parry Kilcullen 53, Mick Ryan 49, Sean White 49, Des Cox 46, Malachy McGurran 45, Marcus Fogarty 45... etc. This gives a good measure of how a vote on a serious constitutional amendment would have gone. They would have been just short of their 2/3 majority. Someone must have done a head-count, and the Garland Commission fall-back procedure was adopted.

In the 1968 Ard Fheis the general political flavour was positive and forward-looking; most if not all of the politically progressive motions were carried, and the 'sea-green incorruptible' ones rejected. Tomas Mac Giolla's presidential speech exuded optimism as a result of the Civil Rights events at Derry and Armagh which had exposed the ugly face of Orange hegemony embedded in the State machine; he went on to refer to the east-west economic partition of the country, and to invoke James Connolly, drawing attention to the fact that the year was the centenary of his birth.

The Constitutional motions were however referred to the Commission. The key one which they had hoped to pass was No 17: '...to contest all elections, and allow its elected members to take their seats in Leinster House...'. This was proposed jointly by 5 Cumainn, including Pearse (Rathmines), Connolly (Arklow), and the Belfast and Donegal Comhairle Ceanntair. Similar motions were tabled from Galway, Limerick and Glencolumcille. None however addressed the question of Westminster, despite the looming by-election in Mid-Ulster.

I have the impression that perhaps again Costello fouled things up(26) by trying too hard, issuing voting instructions on bits of paper to the 'army' people who were present. This was again picked up and queried, poisoning the atmosphere. In the end the motion was not put, due to fear of it being defeated in the aftermath of the Costello attempt to rig it.

Instead Sean Garland proposed an amendment that a Commission be set up to go into the question in detail, holding meetings all over the country, and report to a special Ard Fheis. This was the origin of the 'Garland Commission'; it was an attempt to rescue the movement from the day's failed attempt to legalise political participation.

The failure to reform Sinn Fein in the direction of acceptance of political participation in the Dáil and Westminster, at the 1968 Ard Fheis, had disastrous consequences. The incoming Ard Comhairle had a substantial majority of politicisers, on my reckoning 16 to 7. It was immediately faced with the mid-Ulster by-election, which was winnable, and had in the past been won by Tom Mitchell. However its hands were tied, and it had to resort to all sorts of devices and intrigues to find an 'agreed candidate' who could pull Republican support.

In the end Bernadette Devlin won the seat, enhancing the adventurous and inexperienced ultra-leftist trend which had emerged via the Peoples Democracy (PD) movement among the Queens students. This tended to look to Paris; they thought the socialist revolution was round the corner. They did not defer to the broad-based NICRA, which in December 1968 called off all marches, to allow time for O'Neill to deliver, and a breathing-space to organise properly on a regional basis, preserving the cross-community focus on civil rights issues, with trade union, tenant association and other community group links where feasible.

Instead the PD marched from Belfast to Derry, through a series of small Protestant Antrim towns, leading eventually to the ambush at Burntollet, where they were clobbered by the Orange heavies. This coat-trailing exercise was disastrously counter-productive. It certainly exposed the true face of Orange thuggery, but were we not already well aware of this? It helped reduce Civil Rights to a Catholic ghetto movement, and made it difficult for Protestant trade-unionists to rally in support of local government electoral rights ('one man one vote'). After Burntollet, Civil Rights became a crypto-Nationalist issue.

1968 Ard Fheis Aftermath

Left-republican politicising core: Cathal Goulding, Tomas Mac Giolla, the present writer, Sean Garland, Seamus Costello, Tom Mitchell...

In what capacity was I there? I must have been co-opted, and agreed to serve, given the stresses of the developing situation, despite my desire to pull back, and my precarious employment situation.

Active followers of this trend, who had been engaging in socio-political actions in various parts of the country: Seamus Rhatigan, Mairin de Burca and Gabriel McLoughlin in Dublin; Paddy Callaghan in Kerry, Derry Kelleher in Wicklow...

A strong Northern contingent associated with the emerging Civil Rights politicisation: Tom O'Connor, Dennis Cassin, Liam Cummins, Des Long, Malachi McGurran, Kevin Agnew..

Marcus Fogarty: at present I can't place him. Mick Ryan suggests he may have been a subsequent Provisional supporter from Cashel, though his subsequent voting record does not support this.

A group who subsequently supported the provisional split: Tony Ruane, Sean Mac Stiofain, Joe Clarke, Sean O Bradaigh, Larry Grogan and Eamonn Mac Tomais.

Joe Clarke, the old-timer who had defended Mount St Bridge in 1916, from this time on felt he had to use his Vice-President status to attend not only the Ard Comhairle meeting but also the Coiste Seasta meetings. He was resolutely opposed to any practical politics and a dedicated worshipper of the Holy Grail of the abstract Republic 'as by law established'. His role was an additional and unwelcome brake on the politicisation process.

Kevin Agnew was a solicitor in Maghera; many of the key meetings had taken place in his house. He had been Tom Mitchell's election agent.

Larry Grogan was another old-timer, who had been active in the 30s; also judged by MR to be very conservative. Mac Stiofain was primarily a military man; he had been invoked in the Sinn Fein context earlier by Gerry McCarthy, as a conscious right-wing militarist counter to the Goulding left-wing political trend. He subsequently became Chief of Staff of the Provisionals. His English accent and background was rendered acceptable in some quarters by doctrinaire insistence on the use of Irish on all possible occasions.

This was the AC which had to steer the Movement through its most difficult period. The minority which subsequently became the core of the Provisionals was vocal and influential. Its first task was to address the Mid-Ulster election question. There had been planned a Convention in Cookstown on the next day (Dec 23) to select a candidate. The northern consensus was that if an abstentionist candidate was selected, there would be no Movement within a month. Names of possible 'agreed candidates' came up: Fred Heatley and Frank Gogarty, both of whom had NICRA public standing.

Eamonn Mac Tomais, true to form, wanted Tom Mitchell to stand as an abstentionist candidate. The Dublin 'sea-green incorruptible' had learned nothing from the NICRA and Republican Club experience.

Seamus Costello proposed a special Ard Fheis to decide on abstention, thus pre-empting the Garland Commission. Derry Kelleher and Paddy Callaghan supported this. Both were active in local politics, the former in Greystones and the latter involved in Killorglin where he had pioneered a shell-fish production and marketing co-operative.

After a long discussion, it was proposed by Sean Garland and seconded by the present writer that 'after the Convention in Cookstown we issue a press statement to the effect that Convention had been held and election machinery set up, but that we were anxious to preserve the unity of anti-Unionist forces which had been demonstrated in the Civil Rights Campaign, and that we were prepared to meet other interested parties before announcing the name of the candidate and policy..'. A sub-committee was set up to negotiate an agreed candidate with other groups. This consisted of Tom Mitchell, Cathal Goulding, Malachi McGurran, Liam McMillan, Tomas Mac Giolla, Francie Donnelly (South Derry) and Pat Coyle, plus the right to elect two others at Cookstown.

This was basically a Goulding IRA politicising group, with a nod in the direction of the Cookstown meeting. Billy McMillan was O/C Belfast.

This was put to the meeting. EMacT's amendment was defeated 5 to 13. The original proposal was carried 12 to 5. Costello then had another go at undoing his recent Ard Fheis blunder that had lost him his anti-abstentionist motion and led to the Garland Commission; seconded by Paddy Callaghan he proposed that if the Cookstown meeting asked for an extraordinary Ard Fheis to disown abstentionism, that this be done as soon as possible. This was lost by 7 to 12.

Implementing the Garland Commission Procedure

I have not yet tracked down who were the other 8 to make the 16; perhaps this will emerge in due course. The present writer must have been among them, as he undertook to prepare an agenda for the first meeting of the Commission scheduled for 05/01/69. It is appalling to contemplate in retrospect how the movement had 'shot itself in the foot', the consequence of Costello having tried to railroad the December 1967 Ard Fheis.

Here we had the Northern scene exploding politically, with a chance of an early election win, and an emerging Republican Club political machine, supportive of a mass civil rights movement which crossed sectarian barriers, involving Belfast trade unionist support. In this context we had had to dedicate our leading people to a laborious internal reform of the Sinn Fein Constitution, when they should have been steering the movement to hold the NICRA middle ground and prevent it being hijacked by ultra-leftist adventurism and Catholic ghetto-nationalism. The 1968 Ard Fheis was indeed the key turning-point where things began to go badly wrong.

In the January 1969 United Irishman I had a critical comment on the role of Conor Cruise O'Brien in the Labour Party: active branches were needed if socialist policies are to be developed; this was not helped by a cult of prominent individuals. Kevin Agnew was to stand in mid-Ulster, Currie was attacked as a spoiler. There was a 'Protestant view of Civil Rights'; there was a series on the 1939 IRA; Mac Giolla's Ard Fheis remarks on the 'crisis of capital' were reported; there was a note on the Goulding (fertiliser) empire. There was a reference to the Garland Commission which arose out of the 1968 Ard Fheis. Issues treated included Criminal Justice, Taca, Galway fisheries, Eoin Harris in RTE.

The SF Ard Comhairle met again on January 4 1969, primarily to elect officers. Vice-Presidents were Joe Clarke and Cathal Goulding. Secretaries were Mick Ryan and Mairin de Burca. Treasurers were Tony Ruane and Eamonn Mac Tomais. Organiser was Sean Garland. Publicity was offered to Sean O Bradaigh but he declined. Finance was with Sean Mac Stiofain. Education remained with the present writer. Local Government (linked with the labels 'agitation and economic resistance') was with Seamus Costello. Mick Ryan had to be co-opted, and this was done on the proposal of Joe Clarke seconded by Tony Ruane. On the Commission it was noted that Sean O Bradaigh had declined to act, and he was replaced by Seamus Rhatigan, so that the Ard Comhairle component of the Commission was totally composed Goulding-supporters.

It is evident that his proposers perceived Mick Ryan as being basically 'hard-core militarist', despite his energetic espousal of the politicisation process. It is perhaps worth noting that those who subsequently were associated with the Provisional split had homed in on the financial roles. Sean O Bradaigh was clearly distancing himself from the politicising process.

The Mid-Ulster Election and the NICRA AGM

Currie's credentials were based on his role in the Dungannon local authority housing scandal. The hostility of the Republican Clubs to his candidature was based on what to my mind was a mistaken identification of Currie with traditional sectarian Nationalist politics. He subsequently was an effective SDLP politician for many years, but in the end came south, and became a Fine Gael TD. He would have been a more effective and principled MP for Mid-Ulster than was Bernadette Devlin. So this rejection of Currie must be seen, in retrospect, as another key political blunder.

I have a copy of a paper from the NICRA dated January 5 1969 entitled 'Explanatory Memorandum on Proposed New Constitution'. A copy of the original Constitution is associated with this. I must have received this in my capacity as a paid-up member. The main purport was to introduce the idea of a broad-based mass local membership, with a regional structure, represented on the central executive. Criticism of the earlier unrepresentative character of the latter body was being taken on board. The memo was signed by the outgoing executive members Kevin Agnew, John MaAnerney, Liam McMillan, Aidan Corrigan, John D Stewart, Malachi McGurran, Peter Cosgrove and Kevin Boyle. There is a note to the effect that LMcM was replacing Malachi McGurran, while the latter was in jail under the Special Powers Act for political work in support of the Republican Clubs. During this time, it is noteworthy that Sean Mac Stiofain was left at large. Did the Special Branch perhaps know his role as Director of Military Intelligence, and tacitly approve of it, as the key to their 're-invent the IRA' strategy?

At the Jan 19 meeting of the Sinn Fein Standing Committee it was agreed to work for a full attendance at the AGM of the NICRA on February 15, and to get 'good radical people' elected to the Executive. This suggests that there was pressure from the republican activists to get rid of the broad-based moderates who had given the original Committee its strength: a drift into ultra-leftist. Issues left for further discussion included the attitude to the new Derry Action Committee, Peoples Democracy and such; the emerging student left was perceived as being inexperienced and undisciplined. The general Civil Rights development strategy needed to be worked out; we needed more marches, and to keep them peaceful. In the background to all this we needed to establish a distinct Republican Club identity. (Mick Ryan in 2001: 'Yes, but we didn't')

Then on 27/01/69 a proposal for a march from Dundalk to Belfast was rejected, as being not in accordance with NICRA policy, this being to keep the issues related to civil rights in the North and to keep clear of any all-Ireland nationalist-looking dimension.

This tactically impeccable policy was viewed with total incomprehension by the 'sea-green incorruptibles', who felt themselves increasingly isolated, in a process with which they were politically at total variance. Catholic-nationalist irredentism, of the type pioneered in the current context by Blaney from Donegal, was closer to their way of thinking than was that of the current Ard Comhairle majority. The possibility of winning some middle-ground Protestant support for democratic reforms within Stormont, such as have now at last begun to be achieved under the Good Friday Agreement, and which were within reach in 1969 thanks to the NICRA, never occurred to them.

There was a letter from Limerick looking for a speaker from the Dublin Housing Action Committee to help set up a similar body in Limerick. No action was taken.

This again shows the then local 26-county republican grass-roots mind-set: the perception of the DHAC, and other such broad-based bodies, as being somehow Sinn Fein property, had continually to be countered. This was one of the roles of the 'educational conferences' which we organised from time to time; these promoted a vision of a bottom-up association of peoples' organisations, for which the Movement would help focus a political lead, helping them to formulate demands on Government for legislative change.

On Mid-Ulster: one Frank Morris (according to MR he was from Convoy, Donegal; an ultra-right nationalist) was seeking the nomination as the 'agreed candidate'. This did not meet with support. Seamus Costello and Malachi McGurran were to meet a potential 'agreed candidate', who was not named, but referred to as 'she'. Kevin Agnew was to hold an initial meeting. This was the first time Bernadette Devlin entered the arena. She was perceived, correctly, as being associated with the Peoples Democracy group, and therefore somewhat unpredictable.

The target was to ensure that the NICRA after its AGM would remain under republican 'control' (this word was used, and it reflected the perceived need) and would take initiatives.

Sean O Cionnaith, who now was organiser for Connaught, was to call a meeting to explain the meaning of the developing process of 'co-operation with radicals'. Mairin de Burca had urged the need for a 'labour-republican alliance' in a public statement and this had caused unease among some purists.

This would have been one of the series of educational conferences which were organised in the context of the Garland Commission. Regrettably I don't have a record of these in detail, though references crop up peripherally in various sources.

There is no record of the 1969 AGM of the Dublin WTS which apparently took place on January 24-26. There is however in the archive a record of some comments on the documentation by Uinsean Mac Eoin. There seems to have been a fairly comprehensive national development plan, covering housing, physical planning, the building industry, accommodation (ie rented flats etc), rents and purchase, land, finance, rural services, and regionalisation. It would seem that the document on which he was commenting was strongly regionalist, with a 9-region map.

The Wolfe Tone Society and the Sheelin Shamrock School

Topics included 'Ireland and the World' (Kader Asmal), 'The Irish revolutionary tradition and the lessons of history' (de Courcy Ireland); the class structure of Ireland today, the way forward and the 'radical alliance' concept, parliamentarism and the lessons of local government, trade unions and industrial democracy, democracy in a disciplined movement, civil disobedience, a critique of the Labour programme, the experience of the Stormont elections. A library of supportive documentation was specified, including the 'Commission documents'. Projected speakers included Coughlan, Asmal, Mac an Aili, Costello, Ó Riordáin, Roche, Noel Harris, O Tuathail, Mac Giolla, Goulding, Greaves as well as RJ. This list looks aspirational, but in fact good coverage of the radical spectrum was obtained in the event, including Ó Riordáin, Asmal and de Courcy Ireland. Greaves around this time recorded receiving an invitation from the present writer, and was encouraged to accept by Micheál Ó Riordáin, but declined.

The February United Irishman led with 'Civil Rights or Civil War'. Uinsean Mac Eoin wrote in objecting to the smear on Currie, but calling for the seat to be contested by a 'good Protestant to show the republican flag at Westminster' (this would be representative of the progressive inclusivist views being promoted by the Dublin Wolfe Tone Society, of which UMacE was a stalwart supporter). The 1939 IRA historical series continued. There was a further critical analysis by RJ of Labour Party policy; the latter ignored the North totally, except for a trivial remark about comparative Irish Sea transport costs. There was a call from Derry Civil Rights for the campaign to become civil disobedience; marching was not enough. The 'who owns Ireland' series continued with a look at Guinness. Topics included buying a house and the effects of land speculation, ground rents.

The call from Derry to escalate the campaign would perhaps be an indication of the influence of McCann and the PD, arising from the Burntollet events. The NICRA leadership at this time were increasingly concerned not to raise the pressure too rapidly, for fear of Orange backlash. There were increasing indications that this, if and when it occurred, would be spearheaded by the RUC and the B-Specials, as indeed it was in August.

There was a full meeting of the new Ard Comhairle, with its regional representatives under the revised Constitution, on Feb 10(27). Tomas Mac Giolla presided and the attendance included the present writer, Malachi McGurran, Dennis Cassin, Mick Ryan, Caoimhin Campbell* (from Mayo), Larry Grogan*, Sean Mac Stiofain*, Derry Kelleher, Joe Clarke*, Seamus Rhatigan, Paddy Callaghan, Tony Ruane*, Eamonn Mac Tomais*, Sean O Bradaigh*, Mairin de Burca, Sean Gormley, Des Long*, Marcus Fogarty(?), CG, Gabriel McLoughlin, SG and SC. Of this group of 28 the 8 marked with * subsequently 'went Provisional'.

It is necessary to comment here that the 'Holy Grail' purist attitude to the abstract Republic could sometime be combined with a progressive attitude to local community development work, on co-operative principles. Caoimhin Campbell was representative of this trend; he and the Mayo republicans in the 50s had helped re-develop the co-operative movement among the farmers, in association with Seamus O Mongain, Cathal Quinn and Ethna MacManus (who later married Michael Viney). I had used the experience of this group, with their philosophy which they had developed under the name 'Comhar na gGomharsan' (community of neighbours), in spreading the social-republican message elsewhere, in 'educational conference' mode. It came as a surprise to me that, despite their grass-roots practicality, the Mayo social-republican activists mostly supported the Provisionals. This basically contradictory position to my mind needs analysis and explanation.

At the Coiste Seasta meeting on 10/02/69 TMacG as usual presided; SMacS, TR, CG, MR, SC, SG and MdeB were there, as well as the present writer; Joe Clarke glowered at the proceedings, exuding disapproval, having painfully come up the stairs on his crutches. It was agreed to ask Mrs Dempsey to be Trustee. The editor of the United Irishman should sit in on meetings. SC and MMcG were still on the trail of the elusive Bernadette Devlin. A Tyrone meeting had shown little support for Tom O'Connor and some support for Austin Currie. Regarding the Peoples Democracy programme it was agreed to issue a statement of support '...with qualification on their outlook on Partition..'. The United Irishman was urged to take up the question of the ESB maintenance strike, and TMacG agreed to put to the Wolfe Tone Society the idea of a 'joint committee'. This latter point was a reflection of an acceptance that Anthony Coughlan and the WTS were a key source of insight into the Civil Rights situation in the North.

Greaves on February 13 received a letter from the present writer wanting him to '...address a school for the republicans. They are on to prepare the way for taking seats in the Dail. He said MOR was in favour of my going. But I told him that I thought it unwise to (work) in that particular garden, and anyway I was not free at the proposed time..'.

This was the Sheelin Shamrock School, one of the series of educational conferences which were organised in the context of the Garland Commission. It took shape along the lines suggested in my earlier memorandum, quoted above.

Local Work in Rathmines

Second-Class Citizenship in the 26 Counties

Article 44 gave freedom of conscience subject to public order and morality; the latter came in effect under the jurisdiction of the RC Church due to the 'special position' of the latter.

Rev Watson criticised segregated education on the grounds that in applying for a job this provided a basis for discrimination. If he were living in the Six Counties today he would not with clear conscience advocate Irish unity subject to the 1937 Constitution.

Arising from Rev Watson's remarks, Mr George Gilmore stated that when de Valera drafted the 1937 Constitution it was worse, but it was improved on by some of the more republican elements of the Fianna Fail cabinet. Dorothy MacArdle, the historian of the Republic and till then an admirer of de Valera, broke with him on that issue. Mr Gilmore expressed surprise that there had been no response from the C of I leaders to the opportunity presented by the All-Party Commission, and at the cold response of the latter to the letter in the press from Professors Johnston and Luce. He suspected that the Church leadership was essentially conservative and realised that the present sectarian set-up was a good defence of property against radical thought.

Dr Roy Johnston, Chairman of the Cumann, presided.

The foregoing constitutes additional evidence of my attempt to re-assert the traditional inclusive non-sectarian republican political position, in the developing situation. I knew Ned Watson, though I did not attend his Church, having dropped out in the 1940s. He had been the scout-master in 1939 in Avoca School Blackrock, on the occasion when Erskine B Childers and I staged our protest against the use of 'God Save the King'. He had, I think, addressed the Cumann on an earlier occasion, at my request, and on this occasion took up the opportunity for an encounter with George Gilmore. A decade later, when he heard that Janice and I had joined the Quakers, his comment was 'God moves in a mysterious way'!

The NICRA, the PD and Republican Politics

The March United Irishman focused on Civil Rights for the South, Dail repressive legislation etc. RJ continued his critique of Labour policy. Tactics were outlined for stewards at demonstrations. The Galway fish-in was reported. There was a feature on the Independent Orange Order and Lindsay Crawford.

It is a not unreasonable conjecture that because of the Joe Clark and Sean MacStiofain presence, Cathal Goulding tended to absent himself, and take key decisions elsewhere, reviving the old 'HQ staff' procedure. This if true reflected another negative consequence of the 1968 Ard Fheis indecision, and the 'Garland Commission' fudge. If the constitutional amendment had gone through, and the core Provisional group had walked out in December 1968, they would not have had the August 1969 events initially to fuel their renascent militarism. With a unified political-republican leadership, the NICRA would have held the middle ground, and perhaps August 1969 would have passed off without an armed Orange pogrom. Mid-Ulster could have been won by a politicising left-republican, holding out a hand of friendship to the Protestant working-class, in the Wolfe Tone tradition, and the anarchist ultra-left would have been contained. This was the vision we had been playing for, and we were close to achieving it.

The perpetrator of the debacle, Seamus Costello, in a subsequent split founded the 'Irish Republican Socialist Party' (IRSP) and the 'Irish National Liberation Army' (INLA) which had a destructive record of splinter-group activity over the years, including the Airy Neave assassination in the House of Commons. Bernadette Devlin was associated with the IRSP. Costello himself was assassinated, under circumstances as yet unexplained. The 'INLA' has since descended into drug-dealing and criminal-fringe activities.

On the whole the 1969 leadership of the movement was not in a healthy state, and our failure was inevitable. I hope this record will help people to learn something of the futility of military structures in politics, and of the difficulty of getting rid of them once they become embedded in the culture. I must admit that at the time I had totally underestimated the cultural strength of the IRB military conspiratorial tradition, although open democratic-Marxist politicisation was nominally on top of the agenda.

Returning now to the March 3 1969 SF CS meeting: there was trouble at the Dun Laoire Cumann (Joe Nolan); this was an indication of proto-Provisional rumblings. The meeting planned for Feb 28 had been postponed perhaps to Derry on March 16, or (preferably) in Monaghan on 23rd. Breasail O Caollai was appointed organiser for West Ulster (to keep the Donegal activists happy and in the picture; BOC was the brother of Maolseachlainn O Caollai who headed the Gaelic League; BOC subsequently became an influential journalist and special-interest magazine entrepreneur).TMacG reported that the first meeting of 'Citizens for Civil Liberty' had taken place, consequent on the WTS initiative.

Greaves in his diary noted that, after some contacting of historical sources, on March 4 he arrived back at Cathal MacLiam's to find '...C(athal) G(oulding), S(eamus) C(ostello) and another republican drinking with Tony... there was a great argument. I find them personally very modest but politically very arrogant. I was trying to head them off this move that is being planned for creating a breakdown of law and order that will compel England to abolish Stormont. "But that would be no harm" says CG "it would show it is Britain's responsibility". I had great difficulty in persuading him that this was now admitted (and) we must move on to the next stage - working out a policy. I don't know whether much was agreed, but they will think over what has been said, and, what I forgot to say at the start, they had come up so as to find out my views on matters in general..'.

On March 6 Greaves recorded Anthony Coughlan's opinion that CG was no longer Chief, and that younger men in their thirties, SC and Mick Ryan '...are prepared to depart even further from traditional practices..'. Later he saw Asmal and Ron Lindsay; the latter had been writing for the United Irishman, opposing the 'breakdown of law and order to invoke British intervention' theory, and AC had been composing draft editorials to this effect, but O Tuathail had cut it. '...This is just what annoys me about the position where AC and RHJ work for the UI instead of the Irish Socialist, providing the republicans with a socialist screen which they discard when it suits them... one never gets thanks for helping people like this..'.

If AC and RJ had confined themselves to 'working for the Irish Socialist' there would never have been a Wolfe Tone Society or a Civil Rights movement in the North. However CDG had a point; there was indeed a cultural gap between the socialist and republican traditions, and in some situations this could be destructive.

In New Books later on March 8 CDG picked up from Sean Nolan that '...the development in Belfast is about as bad as could be.. Betty Sinclair had gone up for the chairmanship of NICRA and received only two votes. One of the PD people got it (Frank Gogarty) and the vice-chairman is Vincent McDowell, who doesn't even live in the six counties, but in Dublin! The republicans voted against Betty. I was talking to MOR about this....' It seems that MOR had been on to CG and had been reassured that the republicans would support Betty; in fact it had the status of an "order", but they disobeyed...'.

This was the crunch issue; Betty would have helped keep the NICRA on a constitutional path avoiding adventurism; the new leadership represented a move towards the 'abolition of Stormont via breakdown of law and order' policy. The republican vote was crucial, and indicated that the Republican Clubs where perhaps increasingly following the policies being promoted by Mac Stiofain, with armed insurrection in mind. The chain of command emanating from the Dublin politicisers no longer worked.

I picked up however from a first-hand contact, retrospectively in January 2002, that Betty being voted down was in response to her actual performance; she had been increasingly unreliable due to the influence of drink. He went on to suggest that she had probably been over-optimistic in her earlier conversations with Greaves regarding the existence of her diaries, perhaps with the intent of keeping records, but never getting round to it. So the influence of Mac Stiofain, while real, might not at this point have been decisive. The failure of the CPNI to give consistent support to Betty in her NICRA situation would have increased the stress on her situation, and made the drink problem more acute.

At the SF CS 11/03/69 the Pearse Cumann (of which the present writer was a member) was calling for the Dublin Comhairle Ceanntar to meet monthly instead of quarterly, thus increasing the political awareness of the Dublin movement as such. A national consultation conference on Civil Rights in Northern Ireland was called for London on March 23. This was the Connolly Association taking the initiative in support of the developing situation. Mick Ryan and the present writer were to go, and Clann na h-Eireann in London were to send 2 delegates. The barriers between the left labour movement activists in Britain and Sinn Fein were by now nearly completely broken down. On Mid-Ulster: TMacG reported that Bernadette Devlin had again declined to stand as a 'republican agreed candidate'; a meeting was planned for Carrickmore. Republican Club members were to attend in their personal capacities, and a statement was to be issued to the effect that 'we had not been invited and were not taking part'.

Thus BD got nominated, basically with PD activist support, filling the vacuum left by persistent Republican abstentionism. Her subsequent success pumped up the anarchist ultra-left beyond their capacity to deliver.

Greaves, back in London on March 19 1969, recorded a phone-call from Noel Harris, a leading NICRA member at the time, over on union business, who confirmed that the Belfast situation was due to the failure of Andy Barr and the others in the Party to back up Betty Sinclair, with which CDG agreed. On March 23 the CA conference took place; it seems I attended it, in the company of Pat O Suilleabhain from the Clann. I gave out that I was coming as the latter's guest, but according to CDG he picked up from other sources that I had sought out POS and brought him along. There was a 'dissident United Ireland Association (UIA)' presence. Afterwards Joe Deighan, who had been to Belfast, filled in CDG about the NICRA scene: Gogarty on amphetamines, and various 'Peoples Democracy' lunacies. Also '...this woman the republicans are trying to push instead of Currie is somewhat unstable to put it mildly...'.

I am on record as having attended the above London meeting; there had been 130 present, from 61 organisations, and a committee was to be formed. The Clann people attended, and I had attended a Clann meeting afterwards; there had been about 15 present; organisation was poor, and they had a lack of sense of direction.

At the Sinn Fein Coisde Seasta on 24/03/69 for once we did not have the glowering presence of Joe Clarke, who no doubt reported every move to the proto-Provisional core-group waiting in the wings. A meeting was planned for March 14 for the organisers, to deal with the expanding of the United Irishman circulation(28).

Regarding the NICRA, a meeting was planned with 'interested parties' to discuss the resignations from the NICRA Executive. The AGM had taken place, and it looked as if a railroading job had been done, somewhat heavy-handedly, with the result that some middle-ground, and perhaps Protestant, leading members had felt squeezed out.

The 'interested parties' would undoubtedly have been the Communist Party trade union activists, on whom we depended for the preservation of the fragile cross-community composition of the NICRA executive.

On Mid-Ulster it was agreed to withdraw from the election and say nothing. Republican activists on the ground would have supported BD with heavy heart and a sense of frustration; a classic opportunity missed.

In the April United Irishman it was noted that 1000 B-Specials were called up arising from the Castlereagh explosion, which turned out to have been an RUC special branch job, a provocation to justify the existence of the B-Specials. The IRA claimed a role in a Meath land dispute. There was a critical analysis of how the PD worked which exposed the fact that it had no consistent membership, election or policy development procedures; it was all done ad-hoc with whoever happened to be there. Michael Farrell and Kevin Boyle were elected to the NICRA executive, and as a result some of the older leadership, who had been counselling caution, resigned; these were Kevin McAnerney, Fred Heatley, Betty Sinclair and Ray Shearer. There was a survey of County Cavan; there was an article on policy regarding foreign fishing-boats; notes on agriculture policy and small-farmer co-operation; the Poacher's Guide; in the 'Who Owns Ireland' series the Building Societies were treated.

Note the tendency for the IRA to give itself a quasi-political role; this was a source of tension between the present writer and Goulding; it interfered with the programme of subsuming all political activity into an activated and disciplined Sinn Fein. But Goulding, feeling the pressure from Mac Stiofain and co, felt he had to 'keep the lads happy' with quasi-military activity having a political flavour; this was an ongoing and increasingly intense internal contradiction in the republican politicisation process.

A general meeting of the Dublin WTS in 24 Belgrave Road (Mac Liam's) on April 15 1969 had Kader Asmal speaking on Trade Union Law. Sean Cronin's pamphlet on 'The Rights of Man in Ireland' had been published by the United Irishman. Associated with Anthony Coughlan's circular for this is an m/s letter from me to AC as input to the WTS meeting; I would be late, due to a Trades Council meeting. At this time I represented the Aviation Branch of the Workers Union of Ireland on the Dublin Trades Council. The 'RTE affair' was on the agenda. This had to do with the resignation of Lelia Doolan, Jack Dowling and Bob Quinn, as outlined in their book 'Sit Down and be Counted'. I urged attempting to get together a group of radical media people to tease out the implications of this, perhaps via a symposium on 'Democracy and the Mass Media'. I included Jim Fitzgerald and Eoghan Harris in the list of target people. I also urged that a 'witty' article on the 'Twelfth of July' be developed, for suitably timed publication, leaning on the Brendan Behan angle, 'to torpedo the Dungiven events'. Call for the parades to be welcomed, and supported with fiddlers and pipers. We need also a civil rights demo in Sandy Row. (This was a last-ditch attempt to de-fuse the threatening sectarian explosion).

In connection with the 1969 elections in the South the WTS ran some meetings arranged by a 'voters advisory group' in various shopping centres in Dublin. Not much came of this; it was a gesture in the direction of broadening the experience of the movement in the context of the Garland Commission process.

With hindsight, and in overview, I am inclined to think that the Commission episode was a disastrous diversion, which prevented the attention of the politicising leaderhip from concentrating on the developing Northern situation, where it belonged. I recollect Anthony Coughlan remarking to this effect at the time, and being unable to escape from what was a procedural straitjacket. Mick Ryan is supportive of this assessment.

In the May United Irishman it was noted that Wilson had sent 500 extra troops to Northern Ireland. This was presumably a response to the Castlereagh deception; the British had no intelligence of their own and depended on the Stormont Special Branch. The Silent Valley event was covered, and identified as another loyalist provocation event (the B-Specials had blown up the Belfast water supply, and blamed it on a mythical IRA). The 1939 story continued. Fermanagh county was analysed, in the county series. There were reports of Easter statements: Derry Kelleher spoke in Dublin, Goulding at Burntollet, Sean Keenan in Derry.

Greaves on May 8 1969 noted a meeting of the 'NICRA' at the Irish Club, with the '...embassy-controlled United Ireland Association very much in evidence... the republicans are completely untrustworthy and cannot keep out of intrigue. Their connection with the Embassy is quite noticeable over a period...'.

This merits further investigation. I suspect this may have been an early indication of what later became a concerted Fianna Fail intrigue to take over the NICRA, rather than actually a republican initiative. I am surprised that CDG does not pick this up. A republican initiative involving the embassy in London is somewhat incredible.

The June UI was to be sold in the North, flouting the ban. It contained a Galway IRA claim of a land war action. The Palestine situation was analysed. There was an article 'Civil Rights: What Next?' (from internal evidence this was probably from Anthony Coughlan; it talked of 'putting Westminster on the spot' and called for Westminster to legislate, under pressure from the Irish in Britain). Kelleher began a series on ideologies. This appeared subsequently as his 'Republicanism, Marxism and Christianity' pamphlet. The Citizens for Civil Liberties was founded in Dublin. A new EEC threat was noted. RJ reviewed the Dorothy Robbie play about Constance Markiewicz, produced in Greystones. Housing Action demonstrations were reported.

Greaves visited Belfast on June 5 1969, and then went on down to Dublin. In Belfast he had met Betty Sinclair, who had been near a nervous breakdown: '...she felt naturally displeasure at Moore and Barr who showed no interest in her work, and they listened to ... McGlade's chatter passed through CG and MOR back to Belfast. She was surprised to have annoyed some of the republicans... she was also upset that MOR had not come to her first, and rightly so. She says she has kept a full diary of all the events in the past few months and it should be an interesting record. She criticises H(ughie) M(oore) and Stewart. They cut out of one of her articles a derogatory reference to Chinese policy because it might offend the young people who are pro-Chinese. They are boosting Peoples Democracy in their paper because it has certain support..'.

Talking to O Riordain on June 7 1969 Greaves picked up the Dublin version of the Betty Sinclair story; it seems she got drunk at a CPNI party and insulted some republicans who blew in. The Party dismissed her from the executive, and banned her from the paper. MOR disagreed with this. CDG: '...time we all grew up..'. After some days, mostly in the national library, he encountered the present writer on June 14, it seems I told him of my 'impossible position'.... I was however optimistic about changing electoral policy.

The foregoing would appear to support the earlier evaluation of Betty Sinclair's condition by a contemporary contact, as reported earlier. It also indicates that cross-links between republicans and CPNI in Belfast were somewhat undeveloped. I had earlier tried to set these up, but apparently without success.

On June 18 1969, travelling to make contacts on the historical trail, CDG encountered one EC, who it seems was on the Limerick Comhairle Ceanntar of Sinn Fein, and was currently engaged in discussing '..RHJ's long document on revolution without the working class(29). Their whole conception is that of "taking over" the labour movement. No doubt it is with that in mind that CG and others consulted the CPNI on how to "work in the Trade Unions"..'. CDG went on with what I suspect could be an admission of his own doubts: '..in these days when masses of people fear the irrevocability of communism, there are strange phenomena of attraction and recoil..'.

At Bodenstown on June 22 1969 CDG encountered all the leading elements of the 'republican-left convergence', but couldn't refrain from commenting: '..Tom Gill made the "oration". It was full of socialism, but nowhere did the workers emancipate themselves... RHJ - socialism through the petite-bourgeoisie, and of course it is not socialism, at all..'. Later he encountered Tom Redmond who was then in the process of setting up a branch of the IWP in Bray; Costello was trying to persuade them to "stand for physical force". This would imply acceptance of IRA hegemony.

Costello I had counted among the leaders of the politicisation process, yet according to this, of which I was unaware at the time, he was even then still steeped in the 'physical force as principle' culture, so derided by Connolly. I had hoped in the 'Garland Commission' process to replace this pathology with some sort of democratic political culture, based on class alliances and common interests.

This is a good break-point; in the next section I take up the narrative where pre-August tensions begin to emerge, and the situation then becomes dominated by the August 1969 crisis.

Notes and References

2. This I have also abstracted in the hypertext; it is accessible via the 1960s Barrington module. JJ's attitude to EEC accession had been initially in favour of it, publishing a book Why Ireland Needs the Common Market (Mercier Press, Cork, 1962) and then later, in his final years, he was critical with articles and letters to the newspapers.

3. The details of this proposal, in which lurked the proverbial devil, are outlined in Donal McCartney's UCD a National Idea (Gill & Macmillan 1999) p314ff).

4. The Irish Times series Science in Ireland which ran on January 9-13 1967 arose as a result of the earlier CSTI experience. I have put it into context in the 1960s module of the 'science and society' thread of the hypertext.

5. I overview the 60s political process in such depth as I am able to do, primarily from my own papers of the time, and from the Wolfe Tone Society minutes which are, at least partially, in the Coughlan archive.

6. Correspondence about this Irish Socialist conference is in the WTS archive; a note from RJ mentioned that the Editor of the United Irishman was going, and that it was by invitation only; the emphasis was on Anglo-Irish relations and the EEC, and speakers were Desmond Greaves (representing the CPGB), Joe Deasy (IWP) and Andy Barr(CPNI).

7. This episode is described with great detail and humour in the Greaves diaries, which I have abstracted in one of the 1960s political modules of the hypertext.

8. Greaves Diaries 20/03/67. Regrettably the record of this episode from the SF side is missing, but it gets a mention in the Wolfe Tone record; Sinn Fein had after the 1966 Ard Fheis set up a Standing Committee to work between Ard Comhairle meetings, and did not get round to minuting it properly until the following June. It was clearly a seminal event. Yet its impact was already being undermined by Mac Stiofain, who claimed in his memoirs to have been organising the Northern IRA units from the angle of military intelligence, in a role given him by Goulding, at this time. The process was riven with contradictions.

9. Greaves Diaries 26/05/67. I have expanded on the detail of the Greaves visit in the integrated chronology module of the hypertext.

10. There are extensive notes in the WTS archive on this conference of the three Wolfe Tone Societies, by Noel Kavanagh the Dublin Secretary, and a list of the participants. I have abstracted these in the 'integrated chronology' module.

11. The Computer in Society, Brian Murphy, published at 12/6d in the Great Society series by Anthony Blond, 50 Doughty Street, London WCl. In the script I sent in I tried to put computing into the overall context of the history of technology, but the editor cut this introduction. In the hypertext version here I restore it.

12. I have discussed this substantively in a subsequent paper in Physics Today. I also made use of the experience for a seminar in the Irish Management Institute in 1968, and this is on record in the 1960s module of the socio-technical stream.

13. I have summarised the Cathcart thesis in the 1960s module of the academic stream of the hypertext.

14. According to Mick Ryan, Costello was court-marshaled and suspended for this. MR was O/C of Dublin at the time, and the Dublin Comhairle Ceanntar was actively political. Costello's voting instructions for elections to the AC it seems were Goulding and Costello plus about 10 straw men supporters of Costello. MR was not on Costello's list. For more detail on this Ard Fheis see the 1967 political module in the hypertext.

15. Mick Ryan, interviewed by the present writer in 2001, is inclined to agree with this. Given that a split was imminent, whoever controlled the timing of it has the advantage. This advantage was left to the Provisionals, who waited to vote at the 1969/70 Ard Fheis in Jury's Hotel, and then walked out, leaving the movement crippled politically for another year. Costello on this occasion wanted to force a walk-out before the vote, by suitably amending the standing orders, tactically a good move. The development of such a tactic in 1967 or 1968 however was prevented by mutual distrust between the key actors (Goulding, Garland, McGurran, Ryan and Costello). Mick Ryan around this time became organiser (IRA/SF) for Dublin and Leinster except Wicklow, the latter being left to Costello. In his memoir, published in 1998 in a commemorative United Irishman' issue produced in Belfast, he recounts how he had to struggle to get Cathal Goulding to understand the extent to which the organisation was moribund.

16. I was not present, but had submitted a memorandum to Anthony Coughlan. I was obviously attempting to develop a broad-based radical-democratic intellectual leadership of a national-democratic movement, at a time when the students were occupying, or were about to occupy, UCD.

17. It was noted that the Coiste Seasta had handled the correspondence, and there was a CS report, but we will have to await archive access for this, if it exists.

18. I have been able to identify a full version of this document, or perhaps a later adaptation of it, as published in Nuacht Naisiunta, the Sinn Fein internal newsletter, on April 27 1970. It is accessible in the integrated chronology in the hypertext.

19. It is in a folder containing a limited amount of 1967-68 Sinn Fein-related material, including correspondence with Derek Peters and Betty Sinclair about the NICRA and how to improve its relationship with the Republican Clubs, primarily regarding arrest without trial etc. It also includes letters from Anthony Coughlan on the abstention question, 'Definition of Socialism' material, draft recruiting leaflet material for the 26 and 6 counties, and miscellaneous correspondence relating to educational conferences etc. Box RJ5, RJ collection, Linen Hall Library, Belfast.

20. Mick Ryan has filled in that this meeting was in Andy McDonnell's house near Pallas; he agrees it was a turning point, being a recognition of the key role of the United Irishman as an organiser and purveyor of political ideas, on the Leninist principle. He expanded on this in his 1998 published memoir.

21. This misunderstanding on the part of Greaves is treated in more depth in the 1967 political module of the hypertext. Greaves had not grasped the extent to which the Irish Workers Party vision and mode of operation, rooted as it was in the by then totally corrupted and Moscow-dominated 'international movement', was a political cul-de-sac in the Irish context.

22. Mick Ryan adds some background to this. He had been chief marshal at Bodenstown. The CP had been there, and had wanted to carry a banner. This was a political decision, and MR referred it to CG, who was indecisive and referred it back to MR, who said OK carry it, whereupon Cumann na mBan refused to march.

23. I had been in Princeton at an AGIFORS meeting when the Derry events took place. I remember seeing the Derry events on TV in the US. The result was that I was not in on the 21/10/68 meeting. I get the impression from the record that the SF leadership was too obsessed with its internal reconstruction problem to appreciate the full significance of the developing Northern situation. I was at the 26/10/68 meeting, and had to go along with its priorities, as I had been in on the drafting process of the constitution.

24. Mick Ryan retrospectively regards choice of Bartley Madden for Munster as having been a disaster; he was quite unsuitable for the job, leaving Munster full of Provisional raw material, through lack of political impact.

25. This in the end happened; there emerged Citizens for Civil Liberties; we treat its foundation in the Wolfe Tone Society theme of the hypertext. Also, the possibility of inviting Conor Cruise O'Brien as a possible successor to Tom Mitchell as mid-Ulster candidate, which was discussed around this time, is confirmed in CCO'B's Memoir: my Life and Themes, Poolbeg, 1998.

26. Mick Ryan is uncertain whether this episode happened twice, or just once, with him wrongly attributing it to an earlier Ard Fheis. It could have happened at both 1967 and 1968 Ard Fheiseanna, or just at the first, when it was associated with the initiation of the 'steering committee' procedure.

27. This meeting dealt with the Ard Fheis resolutions, which in the minutes are referenced by number. We must await the archive access process before analysing this, but for the record I note that numbers 7, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 23, 35, 36, 37, 73 were referred to the 'Commission of 16'. Although I am on record as having attended, I have no recollection of this meeting. When I see the texts of the resolutions perhaps my memory will be stimulated.

28. The UI circulation, under O Tuathail's brilliant editorship and later under Mick Ryan's management, was becoming a significant success-story, and the movement needed to adapt to the increased demand for its ideas as expressed in the paper.

29. CDG's idea that somehow the vision which we projected 'excluded' the working class is difficult to explain, unless he was going on indications from the republican political culture seen in practice, in which case he undoubtedly had a point. The 'Commission Report' embodied the vision, but the implementation of the vision would have had to pass through the filter of the republican political culture, which we had set out to change, but had grossly underestimated the size of the problem.

Some navigational notes:

Copyright Dr Roy Johnston 1999