Irish Association in 1960s

Century of Endeavour

The Irish Association in the 1960s

(c) Roy Johnston 1999

The 60s decade is one in which there could have been an overlap between my own interest in the North and my father's. He was on the Council, as a Past President, and I remember him drawing the Irish Association to my attention, and was prepared to explore its possibilities.

There is on record in Box 5 of the Irish Association archive in the Northern Ireland Public Record Office (PRONI) a dinner seating plan for the Wellington Park Hotel, January 17 1963. This was in Larmour's time as president, but he was not there. JF Dempsey, as vice-President, presides. JJ is labelled 'past President' and is seated at one end of the table, not close to people recognisable as having currently active leading roles. I find it difficult not to think that this is a reflection of his marginalisation, consistent with the absence of records relating to his Presidency.

There is a record in Box 6 of a Council meeting on 6/04/64, at which JJ was present (this is one of the rare references to his existence); he had kept up his interest after he had been succeeded by Sir Graham Larmour, for whom he had a high regard, as evidenced by the 1957 correspondence relating to JJ's pamphlet. Donal Barrington, Edmund Grace and T O'Gorman were there.

A meeting had been planned for November on 'science-based industry'; CO Stanley and Armin Frank had been approached to speak, but had declined. The matter was then dropped. This must have been my initiative, through JJ, because I was then acutely aware of Armin Frank, an engineer, who was the Chief Executive of Standard Pressed Steel in Shannon. He had been actively promoting among the engineering fraternity the need for Ireland to invest its intellectual capital, in the form of scientists and engineers, into high-technology industry. I had been cheering him on, and using his arguments in left-wing and republican political circles. JJ must have picked this up, or maybe I gave it to him.

At this time my own (basically Marxist) project to politicise the republican tradition, and to rescue its 'Democratic Enlightenment' core-philosophy from the subsequent overlays of 'Catholic Nationalism' and 'IRB elitism' with which it had been infested subsequent to its 1798 origins. It was in this spirit that in the 60s I had become associated with Cathal Goulding and the Dublin Wolfe Tone Society.

(I should mention in passing that the Marxist element in the project was in the spirit of Marx's own evaluation of the democratic republican form of government for the nation-state as the best political arena within which democratic control over the means of production might be achieved by organised working people. I had consciously decoupled myself from the elitist Stalinist tradition as embodied in the 'orthodox Left'. I was however then not aware of the extent to which the IRB tradition, which is basically similar to the Stalinist, was embedded in the culture of the republican movement. I was prepared to take its post-internment desire to politicise at its face value. I develop this elsewhere.)

When I heard of the projected 1965 Whit Conference of the Irish Association, I discussed it with Goulding, and we agreed that it would be an interesting indicator of the internal democratic reform potential of the Northern Ireland environment. So I went along.

The Derry Whit Meeting in 1965

There is on record in Box 7 of the IA archive some material relating to the Derry Whit weekend in 1965: there was a civic reception on Saturday June 5; tour of the cathedrals, one could choose A or B. The AGM took place, in which I introduced a resolution (see below); this was discussed and referred to Council.

Speakers to the main conference included Rev J Shiels, on the Swatragh co-operative movement, and Prof CF Carter, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Lancaster (he had been Economics professor in Queens, and had co-operated with JJ via the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society, and the Barrington Lectures). The topic of Carter's paper was 'Founding a New University', and the occasion was quite poignant, because all Derry had expected the New University of Ulster (NUU) to be based on Magee, and the IA meeting had been planned on this assumption.

Shortly before the IA meeting it had been announced that NUU was to be located on a green-field site near Coleraine. The frustration of the Derry people was palpable. John Hume was there, and this event undoubtedly was a trigger for the subsequent Civil Rights explosion. Steve McGonigal of the ITGWU had accepted an invitation to speak also, and was present. All the forces which subsequently became the NICRA were there in embryo, including the present writer, then active with the Dublin Wolfe Tone Society. Also present was John Garmany, the Magee economist, who had earlier interacted with my father in the context of the latter's efforts to keep alive an all-Ireland view via the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society.

There is on record in Box 6 of the IA archive in PRONI a copy of a resolution which was presented at the Derry meeting, which took place on June 5 1965. It is in my handwriting, but there is no mention of my name. It was referred to Council for consideration. The resolution welcomes the Lemass-O'Neill talks, and supports the policy of regional growth centres. It calls on the Dublin and Belfast Governments to nominate Londonderry as a growth centre for the Derry Donegal Region. I had clearly in mind the type of cross-border regional development body which has in the end emerged under the Good Friday Agreement.

A Council meeting was called for June 23 or 24 1965, in Ballymascanlon, and I was invited to attend. I remember that meeting; my motion was considered politely, and they decided to do nothing, it was not their role to attempt to influence governments.

I remember at that meeting how Sir Graham Larmour regaled the company, with glee, how he had observed a prime example of north-south co-operation, in the form of an episode in which Herdman in Sion Mills had sacked his Catholic workers, who had come across the border from Castlefin, Lifford and other places nearby, and then gone to the IDA to get grant funding to start a factory for them in the Republic.

This confirmed me in my opinion that Partition was a bourgeois conspiracy to use the two States pro-actively to keep the working-class divided, and that the Irish Association, despite the best efforts of my father, of which I had been aware, was, in effect, party to this conspiracy, in its then policies. I then therefore decided that it was not a relevant forum in which the 'politicisation of the republican movement' project could usefully be pursued.

On a subsequent occasion, in 1966, when in the North making contacts with politicising republicans and others, I attended the Rev Shiels's church service, and talked to him afterwards; I had encountered him at the earlier Derry IA meeting, and was aware of his interest in the co-operative movement. There was on the agenda the promotion of support for the co-operative movement, as a cross-community unifying process, in the common interest. I was attempting to sell this idea to republican activists as a mode of useful work, with possible long-term positive political effects. Some of them I believe may have bought the idea, but subsequent events made it difficult or impossible to develop.

Dermot MacManus

There are in JJ's papers some correspondence with Dermot McManus, and some papers by the latter on the co-operative movement and the literary revival, and on the history of his family estate at Killeaden Co Mayo.

I reference this here, though it has no direct links with the Irish Association as such. A reading of the MacManus papers however will suggest that the MacManus family was part of the 'patriotic landlord' tradition of which Lord Charlemont, Standish O'Grady, Hubert Butler and others belonged, including the likes of Yeats, Synge and Lady Gregory. These would have been in the lead in an 'all-Ireland Home Rule' socio-political scene. The Irish Association can perhaps be regarded as the surviving shreds of this tradition.

JJ's Papers

I found among JJ's papers some files of 1960s material. It includes evidence of an attempt made by JJ to get Northern Ireland support for the TCD School of Agriculture and its Townley Hall farm. There is correspondence with the Provost, and with Irene Calvert, and an attempt to interest the Ulster Farmers' Union; this took place in late 1963. There is a 2-page memorandum in which JJ outlines a scheme for an extension of the work of the Agricultural Institute North, on the basis of a TCD - QUB joint project based on Townley Hall, in the form of an 'all-Ireland Land Utilisation College'. He had, it seems, corresponded with the Taoiseach about this.

He produced a paper for the Irish Association Council to consider, in confidence, an outline plan for 1963-64. This is worth reproducing, as it foreshadows they type of developments which might have emerged out of the Lemass-O'Neill meeting, had the politics of that event been allowed to develop without forcing the pace. It also foreshadows what has come out of the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. In a letter dated September 24 1963 Irene Calvert indicated that she had sent a copy to Professor Carter, and had arranged to have it duplicated for circulation. She added 'I think your synopsis is brilliant. You should provoke some thoughtful discussion.'

There was a reception in honour of the incoming President, JF Dempsey, of Aer Lingus, followed by a 'discussion meeting' to which JJ's paper was contributed; the other main speakers were Professor CF Carter and Vincent Grogan. There is among JJ's papers a copy of the minutes of the Council meetings in March and July at which the foregoing discussion meeting was planned. The Council at this time consisted of JF Dempsey, Miss MA McNeill, Sir Graham Larmour, JJ, Edmond Grace, B NcK McGuigan, GF Dempsey, Irene Calvert and DR Reynolds (joint hon secs), Frank Benner, Capt Peter Montgomery and Tom O'Gorman.

There is a hiatus in JJ's record then until 1967, when there is a note from Sir Graham Larmour attached to a copy of a Belfast Telegraph article by Martin Wallace: "I think the enclosed article-copy will prove that our choice of President has been a wise one". The article attacks the Orange Order for their opposition to a proposed visit by the Bishop of Ripon: '...a few clergy are going to have to consider whether they should remain within the Order, whose devotion to civil and religious liberty is once more exposed as meaningless..'.

By this time JJ seems to have become disillusioned with the Irish Association, because there is among his papers a letter dated July 28 1967, in which he pays up his subscription, and bows out, to give priority to he Berkeley work; he castigates the Committee for not taking any interest in aspects of this work which he had offered them. There is however no record of this letter in the minutes of the September 1967 Council meeting, which he had kept, along with a copy of the printed version to Professor E Estyn Evans' paper on 'The Irishness of the Irish', delivered at the Armagh conference of the Irish Association on September 22, 1967.

[To 'Century' Contents Page] [1960s Overview]
[The Irish Association in the 1990s]

Some navigational notes:

A highlighted number brings up a footnote or a reference. A highlighted word hotlinks to another document (chapter, appendix, table of contents, whatever). In general, if you click on the 'Back' button it will bring to to the point of departure in the document from which you came.