What follows continues as an integrated chronological account culled mostly from the Wolfe Tone Society archive, the Sinn Fein minutes and the Greaves Diaries during the period, with some linking material as necessary. Additional sources include the United Irishman, interviews with Mick Ryan and Ruarai O Bradaigh, and my own papers. I have provided occasional hotlinks to the underlying material.

Enquiries or comments to rjtechne@iol.ie.

We take up the record with the Coiste Seasta (CS) meeting on 11/11/1968, which was attended by Tomas MacGiolla, Sean Garland, Tom Mitchell, Tony Ruane, Wally Lynch, Cathal Goulding and Mairin de Burca. 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.

Tom Mitchell reported that he had been unable to contact Kevin Agnew about the McEldowney case. There was a decision to issue a statement on Civil Rights in response to the remarks of Neil Blaney, the Donegal Fianna Fail TD. It will be recalled that 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.

MR was at this time Chairman of the Dublin Comhairle Ceanntair, of which Sean O Cionnaith was the Secretary.

CS 18/11/68 TMacG, Sean O Bradaigh, CG, WL, MdeB; 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. (This in the end happened; there emerged Citizens for Civil Liberties; we treat this in the Wolfe Tone Society thread.)

Ard Comhairle 23/11/68: TMacG*, Frank McGlade*, SO'B, CG*, RJ*, TR, Paddy Kilcullen* came in from Mayo, Monica Ryan*, Joe Clarke, WL, SG*, Seamus Costello*, Mick Ryan*, Bartley Madden*, Malachi McGurran* and MdeB*. The names marked with * were supportive of the Goulding politicisation trend. 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 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.

MR retrospectively: another example of Costello's impatience.

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 Right 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 Liathain 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 Tomáis 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 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. 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, of just at the first, when it was associated with the initiation of the 'steering committee' procedure.

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 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.

Let me return now to the first post-AF Ard Comhairle which took place on December 22 1968. It analyses into the following composition:

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; MR identifies him as right-wing from Cashel.

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.

There were then steps taken to set up the 'Commission of 16', whose task it was to deal with the Garland amendment. The following names are on record as having been proposed for it: Tomas Mac Giolla, Sean O Bradaigh, Eamonn Mac Tomais, Derry Kelleher, Paddy Callaghan, Dennis Cassin (identified by MR as 'ultra-left', now in the US), Tom O'Connor, Gabriel McLoughlin, Liam Cummins, Kevin Agnew, Seamus Costello, Brian Quinn, Malachy McGurran, Marcus Fogarty and Seamus Rhatigan. Here some uncertainty develops. There are only 15 on this list. The minutes go on to say the 'eight were to be elected and the following were successful'. What I suspect this means is that this was an Ard Comhairle panel, with the other 8 being nominated by the Army Council. An election took place, by secret ballot, and the following emerged as the Sinn Fein component: Tomas Mac Giolla, Seamus Costello, Sean O Bradaigh, Derry Kelleher, Liam Cummins, Paddy Callaghan, Dennis Cassin, Malachy McGurran. Of these all but 2 were IRA politicising activists, Goulding followers. Of the other two, one was a left-republican of long standing. The other was Sean O Bradaigh, and he resigned at the next meeting, being replaced by Seamus Rhatigan.

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.

The crucial year 1969 began for Desmond Greaves with news of Betty Sinclair, who has broken her wrist slipping on ice, but was expected over the following week. She made contact however on the phone on January 2 1969: '..the civil rights marchers were held up at Randalstown and would we try to do something about it. We got Brockway and people like that to send wires and phone calls. And in the evening we got 12 people on a poster parade along Oxford Street...'. He notes however a hint of 'trotskyism', about which ultra-leftist threat he has shown increasing concern.

There were however no further echoes in the journal of the rest of the PD's disastrous march on Derry, leading to the Burntollet episode. There was however a reference on January 14 to an encounter with MO'R who had been over for a CPGB meeting at which the Czech situation was discussed; they were going for R Palme Dutt and questioning the ownership of the Labour Monthly. There was also a reference to a meeting in Liverpool where there was a '..sprinkling of Trotskies and Potskies and Maos and Bow-wows, all calling for militant action to be taken by other people..'.

Note that when the Northern situation was warming up, and the threat of destabilisation by the PD adventurism increasing, the attention of the IWL, the CPNI and the CPGB were on events in the East.

UI January: RJ had a critical comment on the role of Conor Cruise O'Brien in the Labour Party; active branches are needed if socialist policies are to be developed; this is not helped by a cult of prominent individuals. Kevin Agnew is to stand in mid-Ulster, Currie is attacked as a spoiler. There is a 'Protestant view of Civil Rights'; there is a series on the 1939 IRA; Mac Giolla's speech remarks on the 'crisis of capital'; there is a note on the Goulding (fertiliser) empire; * there is a reference to the Garland Commission which arose out of the 1968 Ard Fheis. 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.

It is evident that the latter two perceived MR as being basically 'hard-core militarist', despite his energetic espousal of the politicisation process.

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 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.

MR retrospectively: 'Rhatigan would be an articulate and honest interviewee'.

On Mid-Ulster it was reported that the Cookstown meeting had decided to contest with Kevin Agnew as abstentionist candidate, with a view to using him as a lever to get the type of agreed candidate they wanted; he would resign in favour of a suitable person. Austin Currie had been seeking the nomination, and he was regarded as unacceptable. The SDLP was not yet in existence.

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 a key political blunder.

Eamonn Mac Tomais reported on a series of events (lectures, parades etc) planned for the commemoration of the First Dail in 1919.

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 MMcG while the latter was in jail.

In this context I have a cutting from the Daily Telegraph, which summarises correctly the objectives of the Civil Rights campaign, and the opportunities for political republicanism in a civil rights environment should such a campaign be successful, culled from a document attributed to the present writer. The spin given however is 'IRA infiltration'.

I have a copy of a letter which I wrote from the Pearse Cumann dated 9/01/69 to Tony Ruane, in reply to his attempt to get support for a 'Sinn Fein Dinner', for which I had only managed to get rid of 3 tickets. I mentioned that the younger crowd were tending to reject the whole idea of 'Dinners' as a means of political fund-raising. I undertook to raise the matter with the Wolfe Tone Society also. This episode I take as evidence of the ongoing social transformation of the movement, with rejection of such bourgeois practices. Tone Ruane went Provisional.

Also on that date I wrote on behalf of the Pearse Cumann to Breasail O Caollai, who was organising for SF in the West, complaining that the 'fish-ins' had all the appearance of an SF stunt, and that no-one involved had any serious standing as a fisherman. I went on '..history will record that when the whole of Ireland was re-awakening to the urgency of the civil rights issue the Dublin SF was out fishing... the essence of protest is that it must be genuine, from the actual people concerned, not from a group of activists who are always seen on every protest on every issue..'. Breasail replied somewhat defensively; there was in fact it seems some genuine local support.

There had been a Coiste Seasta meeting on Jan 12 but the minutes were reported lost at the Jan 19 one, which was fully attended; Tomas Mac Giolla presided, supported by both Vice-Presidents Cathal Goulding and Joe Clarke. The core-group of Tony Ruane, Sean Garland, Seamus Costello, the present writer, Sean Mac Stiofain and Mairin de Burca were there. A strong group had come down from the North which included Malachi McGurran, Liam Cummins (Derry), Oliver McCaul (Newry), Liam McMillan, Malachi McBirney (Belfast), Dennis Cassin: all the Civil Rights movement activists.

Joe Clarke, with some relish, as I recollect, agreed to participate in a 'Republic as the Holy Grail' stunt at the official commemoration of the First Dail to take place in the Mansion House.

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. Issues left for further discussion included the attitude to the new Derry Action Committee, Peoples Democracy and such; there was a perceived threat from the emerging student left, which 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. (MR: 'Yes, but we didn't')

Kevin Agnew had complained about 'being kept in the dark'; this was regretted and it was agreed to take steps to keep him informed.

SF CS 27/01/69: Attendance TMacG, SG, MR, CG, SMacS, JC, TR, RJ, SC, MdeB. The resignation of Mrs McGlynn, as Trustee and as a member of SF, was noted. She was another old-timer, who was out of tune with the developing politicising trend.

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. (MR attributes this view to Sean O Cionnaith.) 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(1) (MR: 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 cause 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 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.

There is in the WTS archive a document which is undated, but seems to be an outline by the present writer of the concept that later led to the Sheelin Shamrock School. This the makings of another high point in the process of convergence of the Left with the politicising left-republican movement. It took place in the spring of 1969, and was an attempt to strengthen the analysis of the politicisation problem in the context of the work of the 'Garland Commission'. It is noteworthy that the document was not strictly a WTS document, more a 'republican movement' one, but at this time we were working hard to develop the broad inclusive 'National Liberation Movement' concept, in which I would have seen the WTS embedded. I give below an outline of this document, for what it is worth:

Topics included 'Ireland and the World' (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 Fhaile, Costello, O'Riordain, Roche, 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 O Riordain, Asmal and de Courcy Ireland. Greaves around this time recorded receiving an invitation from the present writer, and was encouraged to accept by Micheal O Riordain, but declined.

UI February: 'Civil Rights or Civil War'; Uinsean Mac Eoin writes in objecting to the smear on Currie, but calls 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 continues. There is a further critical analysis by RJ of Labour Party policy; it ignores the North totally, except for a trivial remark about comparative Irish Sea transport costs. * There is a call from Derry Civil Rights for the campaign to become civil disobedience; marching is not enough. The 'who owns Ireland' series continues with a look at Guinness. Buying a house and the effects of land speculation. Ground rents.

The call to escalate the campaign from Derry 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. Tomas Mac Giolla presided and the attendance included the present writer, MMcG, Dennis Cassin, Mick Ryan, Caoimhin Campbell* (from Mayo), Larry Grogan*, SMacS*, Derry Kelleher, Joe Clarke*, Seamus Rhatigan, Paddy Callaghan, Tony Ruane*, Eamonn Mac Tomais*, Sean O Bradaigh*, MdeB, 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.

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.

At the CS 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.

I am reminded of a parallel. Joe Clarke as a living link with 1916 could do no wrong. In the European Left, to have been in the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War was a similar qualification. Micheal O Riordain, who led the Irish Communist Party into the political wilderness as a narrow sectarian Stalinist cult, was in the latter category. There is perhaps a 'law' which says that those who participate heroically in a good military cause in their youth tend to remain as a 'dead hand' on the development of the necessary politics which follows. (MR retrospectively: 'very true, even with accidental heroes'.)

They 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..'.

I have so far been unable to track this down; it remains on the agenda.

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 Tony 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 (nibble?) in that particular garden, and anyway I was not free at the proposed time..'.

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.

CS 17/02/69: TMacG, TR, SMacS, SC, JC, MdeB. Costello was unhappy about the stated support for the PD policy document; AC decisions were being ignored by members in the North. Organisers reports were requested. A CS meeting in the North was projected for Feb 28. (* where?). TMacG reported that the WTS was circulating a critique of the Criminal Justice Bill and would call a meeting of interested groups.

I have found among my own papers a copy of a press-release dated 19/02/1969 which arose from a routine meeting of the Pearse Cumann in the present writer's house. It reads as follows:

Second-Class Citizenship in the 26 Counties

Article 44 gave freedom of conscience subject to public order and morality; the latter cam 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 we had joined the Quakers, his comment was 'God moves in a mysterious way'!

Greaves diaries: in Belfast on February 26 1969 Greaves tried to contact Betty Sinclair and Hughie Moore; both were out. In the end he tracked down McAnerny who filled him in on how the students movement was being taken over by 'manipulators' who are no longer students themselves. '...A carefully packed meeting, poorly attended by the ordinary members, was called, and the candidates went up... The "manipulators" will not allow properly constituted committees of officers. The world and his wife can come in... these "scuts" as McAnerny calls them are trying to oust Betty Sinclair from the chairmanship of the NICRA. The Derry pair, Hume and Cooper, disaffiliated from the NICRA so as to be able to pursue their political ambitions..'. He then went into the origins of Hume and his role in ousting McAteer. CDG went on: '..McAnerny is not a republican. He is not even anti-partitionist. He wants to remain with the UK and continue to receive British subsidies. But he is a level-headed rational small businessman, very solid, sociable and broad-minded. He has no objection to the students preaching "Trotskyist communism" but objects to its being done under his banner...'. Later he saw Hughie Moore who predicted Betty was in for a tough time. He then went to Dublin on the Enterprise, and was met by AC, in whose house he stayed.

CDG then had an extended stay in Dublin, from February 27 up to March 9 1969, during which there were several noteworthy encounters, though most of his time was spent on the Mellows historical trail. The first encounter with the present writer was on February 27, and CDG had things to say about my then current marital breakdown situation. I am however said to: '...mean well... a very estimable character... lack the sense of humour that gives balance to political judgment.. intense, absorbed..'.

UI March: Civil Rights for the South? Dail repressive legislation etc. RJ continues critique of Labour policy. Tactics for stewards at demonstrations. Galway fish-in. The Independent Orange Order and Lindsay Crawford.

CS 03/03/69: TMacG, TR, MR, MMcG, LC, SGm SC, SMacS, MdeB; JC glowering.

It is a not unreasonable conjecture that because of the JC and SMacS presence, CG 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, though open democratic-Marxist politicisation was 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 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.

WTS March 4 1969: there are some notes in the archive by the present writer relating to the need to support the 'Citizens for Civil Liberty' group, in the context of the current farmers movement.

Greaves diaries: after some contacting of historical sources, on March 4 CDG arrived back at Cathal'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 adventurist 'abolition of Stormont via breakdown of law and order' policy. The republican vote was crucial, and indicated that the Republican Clubs where 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 have had it from a contemporary observer however, 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.

SF CS 11/03/69: TMacG, JC(!), CG, RJ, SMacS, SG, TR, MdeB. 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 diaries: back in London on March 19 1969 CDG had a phone-call from Noel Harris, over on union business; he gave him the Dublin news, which includes the discovery of a Special Branch notebook, received with much hilarity; everyone who was anyone was in it, including CDG; the UI is to publish extracts. He added however 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 the 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...'. This is a reference to Bernadette Devlin.

SF CS 24/03/69: TMacG, RJ, CG, SG. 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; this, 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.

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 looks like 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.

It is on the research agenda, for myself or others, to see if this can be confirmed from the NICRA record; I have made preliminary enquiries.

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.

I am on record as having attended the 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.

I have no current recollection of these meetings; maybe I will find something in my papers from the period; this remains on the agenda.

SF CS 31/03/69: TMacG, CG, SC, TR, RJ, MdeB. Costello wanted the AC to discuss the coming 26 County general election. It was agreed not to participate in the coming PD march on Dublin. TMacG had met with Bernadette Devlin who had '...explained her remarks about republicans at election conventions..'. The final selection was to take place on April 2; Agnew was to withdraw; TMacG and SG to attend. A Derry statement attacking BD was discussed, without decision.

UI April: 1000 Specials were called up arising from the Castlereagh explosion, which turns out to have been an RUC special branch job, a provocation to justify the existence of the Specials. The IRA claims a role in a Meath land dispute. * There is a critical analysis of how the PD works which exposes the fact that it has no consistent membership, election or policy development procedures; it is all done ad-hoc with whoever happens to be there. * Michael Farrell and Kevin Boyle are elected to the NICRA executive, and as a result some of the older leadership, who had been counselling caution, resign; these were Kevin McAnerny, Fred Heatley, Betty Sinclair and Ray Shearer. There is a survey of County Cavan; there is an article on policy regarding foreign fishing-boats; agriculture policy and small-farmer co-operation; the Poacher's Guide; in the 'Who Owns Ireland' series: the Building Societies.

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.

SF AC 12/04/69: TMacG, RJ, DK, GMacL, SR, SC, DL, EMacT, LC, DC, TR, JC, CG, CC, SmacS, LG, MdeB. Finbar Doherty in Derry sought re-admission; it seem I supported him; I had recently been to Derry. The Connolly Association wanted a speaker at a London conference; Tom Mitchell was to go.

Mid-Ulster: I am on record as having proposed, and SMacS seconded, that we take no action in the Bernadette Devlin campaign. Our motivations were from opposite ends of the spectrum. Costello dissented, but the motion was carried. People on the ground however would have given individual support.

NICRA: Costello proposed, and I seconded, that we co-operate with Belfast Trades Council in getting agreed nominations for the vacant seats on the executive, arising from the resignations.

The Sligo Cumann was disbanded and Norbert Ferguson, who had been Mayor, was called on to resign from the UDC.

We need to get some insight into this episode; was it simply the shedding of the old guard? I seem to remember him as Mayor however, presenting quite a positive image.

Costello wanted to stand in the election in Wicklow, and to bring forward the Commission and special Ard Fheis in order to be able to do so. CG and SMacS proposed that the Commission schedule stand, and that no elections be fought until it had reported.

WTS April 15 1969: a general meeting of the WTS in 24 Belgrave Road (Mac Liam's) had Kadar 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 an 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 leadership 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. MR is supportive of this assessment.

UI May: Wilson sends 500 extra troops to Northern Ireland. This was presumably a response to the Castlereagh deception. The Silent Valley event is covered, and identified as another loyalist provocation event. The 1939 story continues. Forestry. Fermanagh county is analysed, in the county series. There are reports of Easter statements; Derry Kelleher spoke in Dublin, Goulding at Burntollet, Sean Keenan in Derry. It turns out that the disbanding of the Sligo Cumann was because they had prevented the Connolly Youth from parading at the Easter event.

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.

CS 05/05/69: a sub-committee was to meet in my house at 10pm that night to issue a statement on O'Neill's resignation.

Greaves had the following comments on May 14: '...what is clear is that the petite-bourgeoisie, always plentiful in Irish circles in London, are moving in to make the Civil Rights issues their own. We decided we would make the Bill of Rights case. Miss Devlin is squatting with gypsies in Middlesex now. It seems likely to me that NICRA will end as a farce. The Trafalgar Square rally they had planned for June 22 (selecting the date Clann na hEireann are at Bodenstown, and the day we usually have the square) has got the Devlin woman, Hume and Cooper speaking. They are all ... opportunists. It will be a mad meeting. But after a time there may be no bandwagon to jump on. Eamonn McCann says that in order to win the Protestants the Civil Rights movement needs to "split horizontally". He thinks if they kick out the middle-class Catholics they will win the working-class Protestants. So all that may be left are the three Labour movement organisations, CA, CDU, MCF. What is useful is that there is a certain measure of agreement...'.

SF AC 24/05/69: mass UI sales in the North were planned for June.

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

Greaves visited Belfast on June 5 1969, and then went on down to Dublin, where he stayed with AC. 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 HM 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 in disagreement with burning down foreign landlords houses; I was however optimistic about changing electoral policy.

The foregoing would appear to support the contemporary evaluation of Betty Sinclair's condition, 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 (Ned Connolly), 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. 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..'.

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.

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. This is the capitulation of 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. CDG went back to Liverpool on June 24.

SF CS 16-23-30/06/69: there were increasing echoes of the Barnes McCormack funeral, which was emerging as a source of tension(2). There was on 30th talk of a 'civil rights split' emerging, in speeches in Strabane; sales of UI at CR events were taking place, strengthening the irrelevant and unwanted link between CR and the national question.

Meanwhile the Civil Rights movement in the North had got out an 'Ultimatum to Stormont' dated June 1969, in the form of a 4-page printed leaflet, listing the civil rights demand, and indicating the extent to which they had up to then in effect been blocked by Stormont. This was a well-reasoned and devastating indictment, and constituted a good basis for developing the campaign on a broad base, and was a powerful counter to all talk of 'civil rights splits', which probably originated from hostile sources.

I have among my papers an exchange of letters with Mercy Simms the wife of George Simms the Archbishop (and incidentally the sister of Neill Goold, whose role on the 1940s and 50s has been mentioned in earlier modules). I wrote to her seeking her support in the case of Cllr Francis Donaghue of Carrickmacross, who had broken into a disused cottage and made it available to the Mongan family to live in, with local support on the ground. He had been fined £60 and had opted to go to jail instead, according to the best traditions. The damage to the house was valued at 10 shillings, and the Mongans were still in occupation. I asked her to write to the Minister and seek a waiver, in view of the positive nature of the action, which had cut the red tape.

Mercy Simms along with Meryl Farrington (the latter a member of the Wolfe Tone Society) had been active locally in Milltown and Clonskea to help house Traveller families, and the Cumann had on occasion sent someone to the meetings which they organised. I asked her to keep the Secretary, Seamus O Brogain, informed of any such meetings, and gave his address.

MS replied showing awareness of the Mongan case; she had been at meetings of the government advisory committee and had sought to get legislation for the takeover of unused cottages; there was a meeting coming up soon and she would raise the matter.

UI July: there is a letter from Betty Sinclair critical of the June 'Civil Rights' article, though on minor points, like the use of the word 'reformist'. The 'Belfast Letter' notes that an attempt to run a cross-community Connolly Commemoration was ghettoised. Farrell, McCann and Toman oppose the flying of the tricolour as being 'bourgeois'. Kelleher on ideology writes about Teilhard de Chardin. O Caollai writes about the Connradh. A fish-in article is headed 'Reconquest'. The Zambia situation is analysed. Mac Giolla's Bodenstown speech is given. We get the Barnes McCormack background story; this is part of the 1939 series. There is a call for the Orange parades to assume the status of folk festivals; it is noted that we too object to Rome Rule and Article 44 of the Constitution.

There is no sense here of awareness of acute danger signals from Belfast; the present writer went to Belfast and observed the 1969 12th of July in Belfast at first hand; I enquired about the personalities depicted on the banners, and no-one knew who they were. I enquired 'why Finaghy' hoping to get some sense of history, but was told 'because the Orange Order owns the field'. I got talking afterwards to some who had walked, and they enthused about having gone to Dublin for the Horse Show, and met with Brendan Behan. There was no sense of impending pogrom, fuelled by any burning sense of political grievance at grass-roots. This reinforces my impression that the August pogrom was planned and engineered top-down by some ultra-'loyalist' core-group associated with the RUC and the B-Specials, continuing the momentum of the Silent Valley affair, with the objective of provoking the IRA into military confrontation.

SF CS 07/07/69 There was a Cork letter (according to MR from Jack Lynch, not the Taoiseach, but a Cork republican old-timer) objecting to red flags at Bodenstown. It was agreed to promote the Plough and the Stars as the labour symbol. Cathal Goulding proposed that Jimmy Steele, who had given the Barnes and McCormack oration in Mullingar, be removed from the panel of republican speakers. MMcG reported policy of getting republican club people to steward Civil Rights marches, and prevent sectarian clashes developing.

Mick Ryan recollects (2001) attending an HQ meeting in or about July 1969, with Goulding, Garland, Ruairi O Bradaigh, Mac Tomais; it was in Grogan's house(3). O Bradaigh asked Goulding had he a plan to defend the people in the event of a pogrom, of which he had picked up early warning signals. Goulding said 'yes' but not convincingly. Goulding's QM was one Pat Regan. On the day of the pogrom the latter was nowhere to be found, MR was appointed QM. Oliver McCaul was practically in tears for lack of weapons. Goulding had put total trust in the political process.

This poses important questions to historians. Who planned the pogrom, and at what level was it planned? It involved B-specials and armoured vehicles, and was implemented by agencies of the British state against defenceless people. O Bradaigh had advance warning of it. Was this a deliberate attempt on the part of the British State to provoke an armed response, so as to allow them use traditional repressive methods, internment etc? Was the leak to O Bradaigh and co deliberate? O Bradaigh in a recent (2001) conversation insists that there was no leak, they were just reading the signs.

The political response to the pogrom would have been let it run its course and turn all attention to getting the world media to report it, and thereby show up the nature of British rule; to get the democratic forces in Britain out on the streets; to get the Dublin government to get at the British and to complain to the UN, with US support. To go for guns was to do what the enemy wanted. We fell partially into the trap, falling between two stools; the Provisionals fell into it whole-heartedly, while we fell into it half-heartedly, but enough to divert our attention to issues like getting prisoners out, and rendering ourselves liable for internment when it came. Anthony Coughlan and I resolutely held out for a totally political response, but increasingly no-one was listening.

At this point I feel I should perhaps reiterate and expand on some earlier comments I have made on several funerals which took place during the 60s. The first was that of Roger Casement, which took place in 1966, as part of the 50th anniversary celebrations, with official State support. This had been a major national event.

Then, some time later, in Dean's Grange, there took place that of Dunne and O'Sullivan, who in 1922 had assassinated Sir Henry Wilson, in London, at the prior instigation of Michael Collins, though the Treaty was already in place and being implemented. This could arguably have been stood over by the State, given the role of Wilson in instigating the 'ethnic cleansing' then going on in Belfast, which stopped after his death. But they chose not to. The IRA handled the re-burial, and Sean Mac Stiofain gave the oration; there were shots fired over the grave, and all military ritual.

Then in June 1969 we had Barnes and McCormack, who had been executed for their part in Sean Russell's 1939 bombing campaign in Britain. Jimmy Steele gave the oration, and it was a rallying-point for all who had resisted the social-republican politicisation process of the 60s, and who were to go on the form the Provisionals. In fact, the framework of the Provisional organisation were set up via the Barnes McCormack Committees, and the politics was implicitly linked to the right-wing philosophy of the 40s. MR is supportive of the foregoing assessments.

I feel I should set an agenda for historians: it would be interesting to find out exactly how these events were organised, and how the timing was decided. The timing, and indeed the decision to release the bones, was clearly under the control of the British. Did the British have a strategic need actually to help the Provisionals come into existence, by giving them organisational foci? And what in this context was the role of Sean Mac Stiofain?

I have on several occasions conjectured, publicly, that there exists somewhere in the Home Office a strategic unit, with long continuity of experience, the objective of which is to maintain the historic policy of 'divide and rule' with regard to Ireland.

Such a unit would view with concern the emergence of cross-community politics in Northern Ireland, based on the common interests of working people. Political republicanism supportive of a broad-based Civil Rights movement constituted a real threat. What better way of dealing with this than by supporting the re-invention of the IRA in its reactionary militarist mode? What better way of doing this than timing the release of suitable 'martyred dead' remains, guaranteed to bring together people motivated by militaristic nostalgia?

On a couple of occasions, prior to the first cease-fire, I have made the case to Gerry Adams that the British need the IRA to fuel their live training-ground, and that they delight in it. Top Brass is firmly of the opinion that 'the war in the Falklands was won on the streets of Belfast', and has said so publicly on television.

The first attempt (Hume-Adams) to produce a cease-fire generated a neo-Provisional process, which initially surfaced under the name 'CAC', for 'Continuity Army Council'. Who first invented this and named it? Because CAC in Irish means 'shit'. No-one with Irish roots would think of a name with such initials. It must have been a British invention. I wrote a letter to the Irish Times, pointing this out, which they printed. Soon it became 'Continuity IRA'. Is the re-invention process still going on, at British instigation? And are the unfortunate Irish who aspire to the Holy Grail of the Republic too dumb to see that they are being used simply to keep the Irish people divided by religion, to prevent the Irish nation from emerging, and to keep Northern Ireland in existence as a British Army live training-ground?

All the foregoing arose as an aside from the CS meeting on July 7 1969. MR regards some of it as being 'far-fetched', but I suggest it is worth looking into. There are other equally 'far-fetched' hypotheses, like that surrounding the Mountbatten episode. Leading CND people in Britain told me they were convinced that the nuclear weapons lobby wanted Mountbatten out of the way, as he was resolutely anti-nuclear at the highest military level. The 'dirty tricks gang' in the Home Office would perhaps be quite capable, at the request of the military nuclear lobby, of leaking his movements to the IRA. The statement issued by the latter showed lack of research and exuded opportunism, for was Mountbatten not the architect of the partition of India? Yet they failed to pick this up.

I return now to the highlights of the 1969 record.

CS 14/07/69: an educational conference was planned for September to which Bernadette Devlin and Eamonn McCann would be invited.

I was not at this meeting. I think I would have agreed with making this effort to pull the forces together, but in the event I think this event fell victim to the post-August confusion.

SF AC 19/07/69: the first three recommendations of the Commission Report were considered. I have a copy of these minutes in full, and I will expand on them if and when I can resurrect the internal draft version of the Report; the version which is here accessible would have edited in the results of these discussions.

A version of the Commission Report has come to hand via an Ulster Unionist source: a historian Roy Garland who has been studying loyalist-republican political interactions. This is available in full, but I have yet to authenticate it against my own records. I suspect it may be the version as amended by the Ard Comhairle. It looks to me quite credible; I have corrected a few errors which were due to typing or the scanning process.

The first recommendation was passed for submission as an Ard Fheis resolution by 10 votes to 8; this projected the vision of a broad-based movement, involving many organisations, political, economic, social and cultural, with the politicised SF playing a leading role. It was agreed not to name names, simply to project the concept in principle. Amendments from the proto-Provisional people present, which projected 'loose associations' and the banning of association with any other political groups, were rejected.

This illustrates the difference between the proto-Provisional approach, which had more in common with Fianna Fail and, indeed, Stalinism, with their aspirations to a one-party State, and on the other hand the emergent democratic-Marxist approach of the Goulding vision, with its aspiration to a broad-based multi-party national movement.

It was agreed unanimously to drop recommendations 2 and 3. I don't as yet have on record what these were.

Recommendation 4 was considered subsequently on August 23; this contained the policy on parliamentary participation, and was passed by 11 votes to 8, the names being recorded. It was hoped to call an extraordinary Ard Fheis shortly, to which a motion would be put, enshrining the proposals of the report as amended at these meetings.

UI August: the main headline was 'The North Began'; this was ambiguous, as it referred back to the IRB welcoming the Larne guns as a signal to arm. There was a call from Derry for UN troops to defend them from the RUC and the B-Specials. McCann defends his attitude to the Tricolour. Dublin Housing Action. Ground Rent campaign. The Barnes McCormack funeral is reported: this was addressed by Jimmy Steele and amounted to a Provisional call to arms. The Devenny death in Derry, consequent on the April RUC attack on people's houses, increased the tension. More about Zambia. Kelleher on ideology. Neutrality and the EEC. Beach access at Brittas.

There was no sense of giving a lead to people, what they should do in the event of a pogrom, though the Derry call was the beginnings of what might have been a good policy. Goulding had had warnings of an impending pogrom from Ruairi O Bradaigh and Mac Stiofain; according to O Bradaigh he had told an all-Ireland meeting of OCs(4) that it was up to the British to impose reforms on Stormont, including the disbanding of the Specials and the disarming of the RUC, which they would be forced to do if a pogrom was visibly started by the local Crown 'forces of law and order' and it was exposed and known to the world; politically the Dublin Government should demand this, and call on the UN to intervene. This, if true, was an exact reflection of what Anthony Coughlan was saying at the time, as I recollect it. It was 'theoretically correct', but far from credible to the people on the ground who were at the receiving end of the pogrom, and needed guns to defend themselves and their houses.

Goulding had, apparently, bought (currently and in detail from Coughlan, and earlier in principle from the present writer and the Wolfe Tone Society) the essence of the Civil Rights political approach, but did not know how to motivate people to act upon it in the presence of a military-type threat from the 'loyalist' Establishment. It should have been possible to break through to the British Government, under Wilson who already was beginning to be aware of the RUC and B-Specials problem, in such a way as to pre-empt the pogrom. Why did this not happen?

SF CS 11/08/69: Bernadette was proving elusive; more organisers were appointed (this was rubber-stamping an 'army' decision process). TMacG reported on a Maghera meeting at which 70 or 80 had attended, but no-one from Derry. It was agreed that if there was trouble on the 12th, then hold a meeting on the 13th and demand that the State move in to defend the people.

There is ambiguity here: did they mean the British State? Or the Irish State? I seem to recollect that the former was intended, in accordance with the policy of separating out the civil rights issues from the national unity question. Haughey, Blaney and Boland later emerged as proponents of the latter course, and it is probable that this would have been the thinking of most republicans on the ground.

The next AC was fixed for August 30, and Tony Coughlan was to be invited to the next CS meeting to discuss the NI civil rights situation and also the looming EEC issue.

On August 16 1969 Greaves phoned Jack Bennett in Belfast to get a report on the situation: '..he expressed the opinion that the IRA was operating in such a way as to bring about a breakdown of "law and order" so that British troops would be brought in..'. He echoed Goulding as evidenced in the arguments of March 4 noted above. CDG went on: '..but you don't mean to say that they've risked raising this sectarian frenzy?..'. JB, somewhat irritated, supposed they had, but it would '..break the deadlock..'. CDG swore he would not go to see JB when next in Belfast.

This seems to support the hypothesis that the Northern IRA units had been re-organised as such, and were under the influence of Mac Stiofain, who wanted to provoke a military response, and that the trend into politicising via the Clubs had gone into reverse. On the other hand, JB could have been absorbing disinformation spread by those planning the pogrom. The lack of arms in Belfast seems to support the latter hypothesis.

On the same day August 16 1969 in King St, the CPGB HQ, there was a meeting between representatives of the 3 CPs; Micheal O Riordan for the IWP, Hughie Moore and Jimmy Stewart for the CPNI, John Gollan, George Matthews, Palme Dutt and others for the CPGB; CDG and SR were there as from the Irish Committee of the CPGB; they sat with MOR. JG opened by introducing a Soviet statement which had come in on the teleprinter, said to be 'erroneous'. CDG was worried in case they would concentrate on setting the USSR to rights, but his fears were groundless; Gollan led off with '...a serious and understanding statement which showed he was a man of considerable imagination. Naturally the Russians deserved an answer, but after some discussion they decided not to give it priority, but to concentrate on bringing out a tripartite statement, which they did, CDG doing the drafting. The IRA statement was mentioned in passing; MOR had studied it and concluded it was Goulding's; CDG had thought it might have been mine. It was indeed Goulding's, and a monumental blunder..

Without having the text of the CPGB statement to hand, it is possible to infer from CDG's notes that they wanted reform imposed on Stormont by legislation at Westminster under Article 75 of the GIA, rather than to support Lynch's call for UN intervention. Simply to withdraw the troops would be a recipe for extended pogroms.

On August 22 1969 CDG arrived in Belfast, and rang JB, who '...had his bellyful of "breaking the deadlock"..', but was helpful; they went to see Andy Barr: '..he was quite shaken. He is an extremely pleasant person, and was pleased when I told him we intended to pursue the encouragement of reconciliation between the two religions. He said that perhaps he had gone too far in trying to keep open relations of co-operation with Protestants. The trouble was now that men he had known all his life would no longer talk politics with him. The events of the past few weeks had converted the moderates into bigots..'.

Later he saw Gerry Fitt, who described the desperation on the Falls Road and the demand for arms. He had rung Callaghan and got a secretary; finally he got through to the man himself, and soon afterwards the troops came in. Presumably Callaghan had consulted Wilson. Subsequently Callaghan promised to disarm the B-men, and assured Fitt that the reason he was not doing it at one blow was that the arms would then mysteriously disappear. Fitt was on top of the world, and quite convinced that what had happened was a result of a 'plan' that CDG and he had hatched in the car on the road between Liverpool and Manchester. The next step was to get the B-Specials to fire on the British troops. '...Between you and me that's being fixed up now..'.

I have looked back at this diary entry, which was on May 26 1968, and I can see no evidence of a 'plan' as such, but some evidence that Fitt was in a position to influence Wilson to be critical of the RUC and B-Special situation.

The same day he toured the Falls area with Jimmy Stewart, observing the barricades, and how they had defended themselves against the pogrom. There were 75,000 people behind the barricades. CDG concluded that '..this was no spontaneous pogrom, but a highly organised and well prepared attempt to drive the Catholics out of the city and set up a Paisleyite dictatorship to forestall the introduction of democratic rights..'.

Coming down to Dublin he observed the 'Solidarity' meeting on O'Connell St, encountering CMacL, AC, RHWJ, Derry Kelleher, John de Courcy Ireland, Micheal O Loingsigh, Con Lehane, MOR '...indeed everybody..'. He mentioned to AC that he had missed his Democrat deadline. AC went off to a meeting in the UI office. The reason AC let CDG down over his deadline was that AC was producing a special issue of the UI. Noel Harris remarked to him that AC seemed to be following in RJ's footsteps. MOR remarked that "Tony thinks he's following Desmond, but he's not". It seems I tried to defend AC on grounds of the urgency of the situation. According to Cathal AC had produced a document for the WTS which they had had to throw out. CDG noted that Andy Barr had produced a document for a Belfast CPNI meeting which they also had to reject; he got this from Jimmy Stewart.

SF AC 23/08/69: This meeting was called early, due to pressure of events. There were only 13 people there; CG, SMacS and MR sent apologies; MMcG and DC were absent in jail. I don't seem to have been present either. EMacT wanted recorded the names of those who had voted on Section 4 of the Commission document recorded. The situation outside was in crisis and this was all the 'sea-green incorruptibles' could think of.

Those for recommending at the Ard Fheis the abandonment of the constitutional ban on electoral participation were: Tomas Mac Giolla, Kevin Agnew, Sean O Gormaile, Derry Kelleher, Mick Ryan, Seamus Rattigan, M Fogarty, Seamus Costello, Denis Cassin, Cathal Goulding and Liam Cummins. Those against were: C Campbell, S Mac Stiofain, Tony Ruane, Joe Clarke, Des Long, Oliver McCaul, Eamonn Mac Tomais and Mairin de Burca.

Those who rejected accessing the parliamentary process should be seen as unable in any parliamentary role to distinguish themselves from Fianna Fail. Those who accepted the parliamentary role were prepared to do so with a distinctive programme of legislation directed at democratising the ownership of productive property. The latter amounted to an emergent democratic-Marxist approach. The anomalous member of the second group is Mairin de Burca; she did not go 'Provisional'.

TMacG outlined the northern situation; we needed to maximise pressure on the Government; raise the issue at the UN; the Free State army was moving to the border. Our people were on the barricades, but we were not getting credit; we needed good TV and radio spokesmen. There had been no NICRA meetings since the 12th; conflicting statements were being issued.

In Dublin a 'Solidarity' committee had been set up, which included SF, LP, WTS, ITGWU, Dublin Trades Council and the GAA. It was important to keep the response political.

Yet in the background the response was being conceived in military terms; the old channels of influence and command structures were re-emerging.

SF CS 25/08/69: Present were TMacG, Seamus Rattigan, Seamus Costello, Joe Clarke and Mairin de Burca. Arrangements were made for full-time office presence, M de B and SR being available. Eddie Williams was appointed full-time organiser for Munster. Tony Coughlan was to be invited to attend a CS meeting, in the context of the emergent 'Federation' proposal and its perceived relationship to the Common Market.

The northern crisis was turning peoples' attention away from local political work all over. There was a civil administration emerging behind the barricades in Derry; this was real and effective; I had occasion to observe it in Derry the following weekend. I also met with Bernadette Devlin, and she had agreed to come to Dublin in the 13th.

UI September: the main headline is 'Blame Britain!' and the main political threat is seen as the Dublin government being maneuvered into a 'federal solution' in which in effect they whole of Ireland would come back into the UK. Dublin is called upon to take a hard line with Westminster. The need for leadership in the 'defence enclaves' is recognised, and the slogan is 'defend the enclaves until Civil Rights is imposed on Stormont. The Civil Rights demands are given as: one man one vote, end discrimination in jobs and houses, disarm and disband the Specials and disarm the RUC, abolish Special Powers, introduce Proportional Representation, and grant the right to secede and join the Republic should the people so decide. Note that this is more or less what currently exists under the Good Friday Agreement. The overall strategy is 'no direct rule, impose Civil Rights on Stormont, PR elections under UN supervision' and it looks as if the Coughlan influence is continuing. There is however an IRA statement published, signed by Goulding: the IRA has been mobilised and is at the service of the defence committees; the Dublin Government should be prepared to use the Free State Army, and should seek UN Security Council support; there should be 32-county elections under UN supervision.

Mac Stiofain attributes this statement to the influence of Coughlan, I think mistakenly, and certainly for the wrong reasons. More likely it was Goulding attempting to hold the Army together, and give it a political role, though it had the negative effect of apparently justifying the RUC's world-view in which the IRA existed as a military threat, which view they had been feeding the British, fortified by events like the Silent Valley deception. They could say to the British, 'now you see, I told you so'. The fact that Goulding signed the statement himself suggests political motivation; he wanted to reassure the defence committees that their immediate needs had not been forgotten, while keeping the overall thrust UN-oriented.

SF CS 1/09/69: TMcG, RJ, JC, SRR, MdeB, Tony Ruane present. Federation statement had been issued by the Republican Clubs. The Coughlan meeting was long-fingered. The weekly newsletter was initiated. Sean O Cionnaith reported from Connaught that the effect of the Northern crisis had been to cause all local work to be abandoned. Local meetings to explain the political position were needed. TMcG reported from Derry; civil administration existed; RJ was to go there the following weekend; feasibility of worker-co-op initiatives against unemployment would be examined.

During the next period the SF minutes become unreliable; most of what happened was as a result of ad-hoc decisions made in a confused situation. The Ard-Fheis date was repeatedly postponed. Nuacht Naisiunta becomes a useful source.

I am indebted to Derry Kelleher for supplying a reasonably complete file of Nuacht Naisiunta which was an internal newsletter produced by Sinn Fein in their Gardiner Place office from September 1969 up to 1976, when it tailed off. Its initiation was as a result of the August 1969 crisis in the North. I have made this available to those concerned with researching this period of republican politicisation via the existing Workers Party archive, where I returned it, on Derry Kelleher's decease.

The initiation of Nuacht Naisiumta was an indication of a realisation on the part of the leadership that they had a long way to go before the membership, all over Ireland, could be got to understand the unfolding events in the North in its complex political context, rather than in a simplistic irredentist military mode. It was, viewed in retrospect, a rearguard action against the Fianna Fail supported 'provisionalisation' process, which was aimed primarily against the role of political republicanism in exposing of the dependence of Fianna Fail on shady property deals and political corruption.

Nuacht Naisiunta (NN): The first issue is undated, but it was probably around September 1 1969, and its content was related to the Callaghan visit. It contains:

• a statement from Frank Gogarty backtracking from the misunderstood demand for 'direct rule from Westminster'; they wanted Westminster to intervene to clear up the mess and to impose reforms on Stormont;
• an admonition to the Irish Labour party to drop the 'direct rule' demand;
• a call to the Trade Unions in the North to distance their members from what was identified explicitly as a genocidal attack;
• a call for support from the Arab nations;
• the text of a letter written to Home Secretary Callaghan which re-iterated the demands for the disarming and disbanding of the B-Specials and the disarming of the RUC, an amnesty for those who had defended their homes and manned the barricades, release of political prisoners, an end to the Special Powers Act, and the implementation of the basic demands of the NICRA: one man one vote, outlawing religious discrimination, impartial electoral boundaries, proportional representation etc. The letter was signed by James Gallagher, provisional secretary of the Republican Clubs Northern Executive; it also contained the demand that their existence should be legalised.

I have on record an article from the September issue of Nusight headed 'whatever happened to the IRA?' which draws attention to the complete lack of armed defence of the Catholic people of Belfast and Derry. There was no pattern of IRA presence. In this context, the IRA statement signed by Goulding was totally lacking in military credibility, as well as being politically disastrous.

I also have on record a rather blurred copy of an M/S letter to Dr Noel Browne, dated 5/09/69, which I was prompted to write after encountering him socially and having a somewhat inconclusive discussion. In this I attempted to identify distinct traditions of Left and Right within both the Labour and Republican movements, and warned that '..in the present situation the latter (Right-Republican) trend is coming out of hiding. It threw down the gauntlet at the Barnes-McCormack funeral and is currently attempting to assume the leadership in the North. In this it is linked with the Blaney wing of Fianna Fail, and with a tradition of Catholic bigotry. Fortunately the Republican Left in the North is reasonably broadly based, thanks to its consistent organised support for the NICRA, but owing Io the political unsophistication of the leadership (the best man McGurran is in jail) this is fragile.

I went on: '..in this situation we need the maximum unity of the radical forces, around practical and positive demands... the precise natures (of which) are crucial.. one false step and we are lost.. no matter how bad Stormont rule has been, to demand its abolition and replacement by direct rule.. is retrograde...'. I went on to outline the implications: danger of a period of Tory rule, lack of an Irish-based political focus, the lessons of the Boundary Commission, the increased Westminster representation as a source of enhanced support for Tory rule. Direct rule from Dublin was not a current possibility. What we were demanding was the imposition by Westminster of a new reformed Stormont framework embodying Civil Rights safeguards, and additional political reforms including proportional representation and making it legal to work politically for national unity, with the right to secede should the people desire. The reformed Stormont should have the right to enter into trade agreements. I asked him to discuss these points with Conor Cruise O'Brien.

What we tried to convey to the Labour Party with the foregoing was a close approximation to what finally after decades of bloodshed emerged as the Good Friday Agreement. It is to the eternal discredit of the Labour Party that at this time they adopted the 'abolish Stormont' demand, and failed to pick up on the calls for help and the voices of reason which were emerging from the Republican Left in its hour of need.

I also have an M/S copy of what seems to have been a draft for an internal newsletter, though I can't trace it in Nuacht Naisiunta. It must have been intended for internal 'army' distribution, though I suspect i may not have seen the light of day. It is however a good summary of my then thinking.

The draft paper admits our being unprepared, but stresses that this puts us in a good political position; we were not part of a plot preparing an armed insurrection. The mobilisation order went out only after the people had turned to us in despair seeking physical defence. There was a huge response, but most had to be sent home, as it is impossible for people unfamiliar with the terrain to be militarily effective at short notice. Support now being given is under the control of local defence committees.

The main priority now is political: we need to make the case for an all-Ireland solution, not a Council of Ireland, or a repeat of the 1st Dail, but some sort of peoples consultative convention on the Constitution, not yet practical politics, but we must make it so. '..It could be constructed from representatives of peoples' organisations; this would have the advantage that the 6-county Protestant workers would be represented through their trade unions, rather than through the MPs they elect, the latter having in the face of the world forfeited their right to rule..'.

Recommendations from such a Convention might include abolition of the special role of the Catholic Church, and concessions to regional interests by decentralising government (the 'Eire Nua' concept). To lay the basis for such a Convention required that all Cumainn develop local links with the people organisations, initially via the organisation of a relief fund, setting up local Solidarity Committees. Demands on the Dublin Government should include getting the issue regarded internationally as all-Ireland and not internal UK, active support for local defence committees against B-Special-organised pogroms, no obstacles to be placed in the way of direct peoples' aid channels to defence committees. Demands to be pressed within the peoples' organisations should be to channel aid within their all-Ireland networks eg via the trade union movement, involving Protestant workers, and to seek north-south exploratory meetings to explore the constitutional needs.

'..The more joint all-Ireland meetings occur within the framework of the peoples' organisations, the more "direct rule from Westminster" will be seen for the retrograde step that it is, and the easier it will be to call an all-Ireland Convention..'.

SF CS 8/09/69: TMcG, JC, MdeB, SR, RJ present. There had been a statement issued on Article 44 of the Constitution; one was in preparation on the Federation proposals. RJ complained that Nuacht Naisiunta (NN) had no number, date or address on it. This would be remedied from now on. RJ and SR were to attend the Connolly Youth conference as observers. A Clann na h-Eireann recruiting leaflet was rejected as unsuitable.

It had been decided to produce a weekly newsletter NN for the Cumainn, to give an up-to-date leadership view of the crisis as it was evolving nationally. This is on record, and I have abstracted it from here on, for as long as it is relevant to the writer's narrative, as well as interspersing extracts from it chronologically here. The record is conserved in the Workers' Party archive.

NN: The second issue is dated September 9 1969 and begins with a call for financial support for the Bogside people, the contact being Mrs Dempsey at 44 Parnell Square.

This contact and location subsequently became 'Provisional'.

It was noted that the Defence Committee was in process of becoming a mini-government, and contacts were being established with similar bodies in Belfast; Malachi McBirney and Paddy Devlin had spoken to a Bogside meeting on behalf of the Belfast people.

Bernadette Devlin was admonished for going to the US without consultation, and for coming out with the 'direct rule' demand. The strategic options were discussed, 'direct rule' from either Dublin or London being dismissed, in favour of an 'interim arrangement in the national interest'.

The 'all-out war' concept with intervention by Jack Lynch's Army was dismissed as being at best liable to give a 29-county Free State, labelled the 'Fennell/Bunting Solution'. It was regarded as preferable to hold out with the 'mini-republics' until substantial political reforms were granted along the lines of the Civil Rights demands.

"In order to make Irish-oriented politics practical in the 6 Counties we would need (1) PR at all elections (2) the right to secede the whole 6 Counties from the UK should a majority wish it, and (3) the right to make trade agreements. Under such a system the days of Unionism would be numbered. They know it; that is why they oppose even ordinary civil rights. If secession were constitutional the whole 'disloyalty' element would be removed..."

The foregoing situation approximates what currently exists under the Good Friday Agreement, RJ May 2001.

The sale of the United Irishman was urged; Liam McMillan had been released but Malachy McGurran was still held, on a charge of possession of illegal documents. Yet UVF men were out on bail on arms charges.

There was a Sinn Fein Coiste Seasta statement calling for the removal of the Rome Rule threat implied by Article 44 of the Constitution. It was noted that this call was beginning to be broad-based. They also opposed talks of 'federation' of Britain and Ireland which were beginning to be voiced by Dublin and London politicians, with in effect re-opening of the Treaty talks.

Condolences were sent to Vietnam on the death of Ho Chi Minh.

The closure of the Seafield Gentex factory in Athlone was noted, and trade union action was called for; issues like factory closures and housing for the people were not to be forgotten due to Northern pressures.

There was no reference to the IRA statement signed by Goulding, which appeared in the September United Irishman, to which Mac Stiofain took such great exception. This statement seems to have been an attempt on the part of Goulding to give the IRA a political role, with his signing it openly. It placed the IRA at the service of the Defence Committees, called on the Government to make use of the Army of the State, and to get UN sanction for this, in association with other UN forces, leading to a 32-county election under UN supervision. The significance of this needed to be explained to the members, and it wasn't.

CS 15/09/69: attendance as above. Note the continuing presence of Joe Clarke and the absence of leading 'heavies' apart from Mac Giolla. This suggests that such action as there was took place via the reviving network of the 'other branch', and the people concerned were avoiding CS meetings because of Joe Clarke. RJ reported on a further Derry meeting; Liam Cummins was to attend the next meeting.

I have a copy of a letter which I wrote to Bernadette Devlin, dated 15/09/69, arising out of the Derry meeting; I attempted to make some sort of intellectual contact. In this, regrettably, I was unsuccessful. I tried to outline the nature of the problem of how to build up political experience across the generations; perhaps I tried to be too didactic, leaning on the negative experiences of the 1930s and 1940s. It seems that on the previous Saturday she had attended the seminar, given her speech in the public session along with other politicians, concentrating on rhetoric and emotion, and had avoided the opportunity for analysis in the subsequent closed session. It was not enough to demand 'Connolly's Socialism', we needed to specify the steps whereby it would be obtained, in a manner such that the people would understand them in terms of their short-term immediate interests.

NN: In the September 16 1969 issue there is a lengthy analysis of the 'Solidarity' ad-hoc group which originated from meetings at the GPO during the August crisis week. It is noted that the call for intervention by 'Jack's Army' has ceased to dominate. There is now an address, 94 St Stephen's Green, and a phone. There is a steering committee of republicans, trade unionists and other radical groups.

A meeting was held in Jury's on September 14, and a limited consensus was achieved, along the lines that

(a) it is still strictly a civil rights issue, though Britain is responsible and the national question underlies it, and

(b) the religious-sectarian aspect of the 1937 Constitution should be amended.

People named as being present included Rev Terence McCaughy of Citizens for Civil Liberty, Barry Desmond and Justin Keating (Labour TDs), Ivan Cooper and Bernadette Devlin MP, Tomas Mac Giolla, Seamus Costello and Micheal O Riordain. This was a broad-based centre-left grouping.

This was a challenge to the 'Direct Rule' demand which was now associated primarily with Conor Cruise O'Brien and Noel Browne. The Labour Party was thus not monolithic in support of the latter position.

On the North it was urged that the barricades must stay; Chichester Clarke was resisting the 'political demands', though promising reforms such as a points system for housing. The key demands, eg reform of the RUC, remained. There was a guarded welcome given to the Cameron Report, which had actually commended the role of the republican clubs in the Civil Rights movement. They objected to smearing of the young left agitators as 'international conspirators, and to the 'puffing up' of John Hume.

The issue concluded with references to the Dublin Housing Action Committee, Citizens Advice Bureaux, and the Ground Rents issue.

SF AC Sept 20 1969: Present were TMcG, C *Campbell, Tony *Ruane, RJ, Larry *Grogan, Joe *Clarke, Sean Mac *Stiofain, Eamonn Mac *Tomais, Denis Cassin, Des *Long, Seamus Rattigan, Liam Cummins, Paddy Callaghan, Sean O Gormaile, Derry Kelleher, Marcus Fogarty, Gabriel Mac Lochlainn, Mairin de Burca.

The *proto-Provisionals were all there, making no contribution, but observing the scene and preparing behind the scenes for the walk-out, no doubt noting our total rejection of any military option.

It was noted that the citizens defence committee was no longer under republican control; this was due to co-options (by its proto-Provisional and Blaneyite leadership, Sean Keenan, Paddy Doherty etc); the barricades were coming down; the NICRA however was again emerging; Dalton Kelly was PRO; the AGM was planned for January. A meeting was planned for the 26th at which the Republican Clubs would organise activities relating to the CR issue, including a civil disobedience campaign.

Paddy Callaghan reported that the Federation of Co-ops had met the Minister and the possibility existed that the Federation if developed could control the sea fishing industry.

The Ard Fheis was again postponed sine die, due to the 'unsettled state' and a perceived threat of violence; it had been arranged for October 19. This was proposed by Sean mac Stiofain.

No doubt because he needed time to organise and schedule his walk-out for maximum impact and harm to the politicisation process.

Greaves diaries: in London on September 20 1969 Sean Redmond picked up that one (Brendan) McGill was setting up a branch of 'Solidarity' in London, with the effect of undermining NICRA. CDG: '..it would place the fund-raising functions in the hands of the IRNVE ('Irish Republic Now Virtually Established').... The main consideration of Sinn Fein has always been to prevent or forestall any independent working-class initiative wherever it is. And of course RHWJ with his Fanonist 'socialism without the workers' was the very thing they wanted..'.

It was therefore a somewhat disillusioned CDG who went off cycling in Wales, filling his journal with interesting observations on everything but Ireland. He did not return to Liverpool until October 16, and then to London on October 20, when he records what he interprets as a snub from Gerry Fitt. Then on October 22 1969:

CDG found out about a court-case in Huddersfield, involving Eamonn Smullen and others, in an attempt to get arms. It was not clear what was involved; was the IRA re-organising as such? In fact it seems to have been a 'sting', a police trap, which some people fell for, in the then emotionally heated atmosphere. The republicans in Dublin got diverted into a 'release the prisoners campaign' as a result, to the detriment of the politicisation process, already strained by the NI events.

NN: There is a substantial change of emphasis in Issue #4 dated September 23 1969 with topics like the Galway fish-in and a new Cumann in Sligo on the front page. Dublin homeless were jailed. On the North it was noted that the barricades had mostly come down, due to the combination of the British Army and the Catholic clergy. The Citizens Press, which the NICRA publishes, was commended and support urged for its Covenant campaign. Open UI sales and political activity were called for.

The Solidarity group was seen as presenting scope for doing spade work towards a constitutional referendum on Article 44, contacting Protestant communities tactfully, bearing in mind the negative effect of the Ne Temere decree in generating ghetto-consciousness.

The indication here is that the Solidarity group is becoming evanescent; the foregoing looks somewhat aspirational.

The 'Federation' concept is decoupled from the 'British Isles' dimension and the concept floated at the level of devolution of Connaught away from total Dublin top-down control.

There were hints here at constitutional reforms of the 26 Counties such as to make a transition to an all-Ireland solution seem more acceptable and less threatening to Northern Protestants.

The Northern crisis took front-page priority again for #5 on September 30 1969: the Citizens Defence Committees had re-erected the barricades; the Republican Clubs were urged to meet and establish their own identities, and to help to make the Defence Committees truly representative of the community as a whole.

This good advice I suspect was largely ignored on the ground; Head Office was not enough in touch; republican activists tended to prefer their 'defence committee' type roles, and to ignore the need to stoke up their collective political consciousness. This led to the domination of the defence committees by the type of Fianna Fail-like people cultivated by Captain Kelly. Not enough social-republican spade-work had been done. I picked up this impression during the time on several occasions with trips North. RJ May 2001.

The remainder of the Nuacht was taken up with the Conradh, the Land League, Housing Action and fisheries; the Common Market began to make an appearance as an issue to think about.

The Dublin Wolfe Tone Society met on September 23, at Mac Liam's, to discuss the then disastrous current Northern situation. The secretary AC led off the discussion. There is however no record of what was said or decided.

On 24/09/69 I have on record a copy of a letter I wrote to Justin Keating, arising I think from a 'Solidarity' event at which he had spoken. I was attempting to develop a local basis in Rathmines for a 'Solidarity' event, on the neutral ground of the Connradh hall in Observatory Lane. We had links with local Connradh and local tenants organisations, but no links with Labour. Tony Coughlan was to address a meeting, which we wanted to be broad-based, and to accept a suitable message to try to convey to the Government indicating what they should be pressing on Westminster.

The key demand was '..to implement rapidly and with no nonsense the CR Charter; also to press that there be no backing down by Lynch into any Commonwealth-type pseudo-unity deal..'. I went on to suggest that 'PR plus CR plus the right to secede' in the North would transform the situation, with the UI legalised etc. I had tried to get Noel Browne to accept this, but he had refused to listen. I have however no record of any reply from Keating. There was later some contact with Brendan Halligan on the Solidarity network.

On the same day I wrote to Anthony Coughlan, stressing the importance of trying to develop local broad-based links around the 'solidarity' demands. I also declared the intention of pulling back from the 'front line' of the movement, in order to write stuff which might be useful in a broader-based 'liberation movement' context: '..Liberation Tracts that would give guidance to those people who were working in the mass-organisations... not specifically Sinn Fein policy... spell out the steps from here to national independence and socialism in the form of a sequence of concessions to fight for, such that the people can understand them..'.

I went on: '..I would like this to appear more or less as from your group (this was the Common Market Study Group), which seems to be the group which spans most effectively the radical spectrum. I would like on the whole to play down my identification with the republicans, except in the broadest sense. I feel there is now much work to be done in teaching the Left how to speak the language of national liberation (especially in the North), more than to teach the republicans the ideas and organisational principles of socialism.

I am inclined to accept Desmond's criticism that the former should have come first, and I want to back-track (or advance) myself into that position over a period without rocking the boat of radical unity. A transition period like this, in an environment accepted by both sides, would I feel do the trick; also I want to hedge myself against the possibility that the work on the Commission may have been a waste of time, due to the danger of the movement reverting to type in the possibly coming military situation (of which don't underestimate the danger). In this case the movement will collapse and split and we must establish as many national links of a positive character under the Solidarity banner so as to be able to pick up the bits and weld them into a genuine national movement without the mythology.

I concluded by mentioning that '..from Jan 1.. I will be trying to earn a living without benefit of a job... I will need a period with as little public activity a possible, until I get my existing reasonable reputation for professional competence a bit better known... I'm not out to make a lot of money, just enough to keep me and the family going, and perhaps give Mairin a little less to crib about..'.

SF CS 29/09/69: TMcG, TR, SmacS, SR, RJ, JC, MdeB; Dalton Kelly attended from the NICRA. Sean O Bradaigh's letter of resignation was accepted with regret. TMcG reported on the Galway salmon fishing issue. The existence of the Dun Laoire Cumann was accepted. (This was a proto-Provisional group which had not been paying its dues; Joe Nolan was involved.) The meeting of Republican Clubs had been poorly supported; the plan to get active clubs in every county, with a 6-county executive to handle publicity remained unfulfilled. Dalton Kelly reported on the Citizens Press; it was hoped to get the Defence Committees to adopt it, while keeping policy under control of the movement.

I have a copy of a duplicated leaflet issued by the NICRA in September 1969, which calls for civil and political rights to be legislated by Westminster, as the alternative to Direct Rule and the abolition of Stormont. It is labelled 'draft' in m/s, so I don't know if this ever became the official policy. It was clearly an attempt to defeat the PD direct rule demand politically. It refers to a Covenant for people to sign. The political rights were '..explicit recognition... of the right of the people of Northern Ireland to political self-determination..', and the right of Stormont to negotiate trade agreements with other countries. The civil rights were votes for all at 18 in all election, a boundary commission to define local government areas, Proportional Representation, freedom of assembly and expression, anti-discrimination legislation, and an impartial police force.

The relationship between the Defence Committees, the Republican Clubs, the NICRA and the Citizens Press during this period needs to be analysed, with the NICRA records as additional source. What I suspect is that the first were increasingly under Blaneyite / proto-Provisional control, and were subverting the membership of the second, and keeping the third and fourth at bay. The foregoing SF minute is ambiguous. RJ June 2001.)

UI October: Britain is seen as fomenting a civil war so as to be able to come in as the saviour, and impose an all-Ireland federal deal (a 'federation of these islands'). The UN approach is half-hearted. Faulkner's new local government proposals are denounced as a new gerrymander. There is a promotional review of Coughlan's pamphlet 'The Northern Crisis, Which Way Forward?' published by the Solidarity group against the 'abolition of Stormont' call. The main British objective is seen as federation of Ireland with Britain in the projected EEC context. The trail was blazed with the Free Trade Agreement. Economic resistance issues: ground rents and fishing. There is a mention of a dispute in Nusight involving Anne Harris and Vincent Browne, over a letter by the former on the role of the IRA.

SF CS 6/10/69: Mac Stiofain present, along with TMcG, SR, MdeB and JC. Also RJ. More trouble with Joe Nolan and Dun Laoire. Correspondence with S Tipp CC, re cumainn, referred to organiser. RJ reported on Housing Action Movement feedback from the Left: it was rumoured that SF was withdrawing from active participation due to a secret agreement with the FF government, relating to the Northern question. Mairin de Burca diverted the discussion into the question of payment of fines.

This would appear to be an echo of proto-Provisional intrigue, supporting the Justin O'Brien thesis in his Arms Trial. This also suggests that MdeB was at this time, consciously or unconsciously, supportive of the proto-Provisional position.

During this period the content of Nuacht Naisiunta would appear to be directly related to SC meetings, the link being MdeB.

NN: Issue #6 on October 7 1969 was almost totally dedicated to various issues in the 26 counties: tenants, fish-ins, the Land League in Meath, Dublin housing and the Vietnam war all figure. A meeting in Dungarvan on the North was addressed by Tomas Mac Giolla and others, which attempted to put the current Northern issue in the 'national liberation' context. The Oliver Craven club in Newry had successfully got someone reinstated in his job, after a period in Crumlin Road jail.

CS 13/10/69: TMacG, SMacS, SR, RJ, JC, MdeB. Joe Nolan and the Dun Laoire Cumann. DHAC fines to be paid. Election of regional AC representatives: clarification needed. Republican Clubs to meet again to form an Executive on Oct 19. Sale of the UI to be promoted.

The same is the case for NN issue #7 on October 14 1969; we have the Athlone factory closure, the rates campaign, the GAA, Anti-Apartheid, Irish language rights and wages issues; there was however a short reference to the Hunt Report, but the thrust was on the need for similar civilian police authority in the South.

One gets the impression here that the lines of communication with the Northern leadership people, and their contacts on the ground, were becoming eroded through the Defence Committee system, under increasingly proto-Provisional and Blaneyite influence.

I have a copy of the London 'Evening Standard' dated October 14 1969 which contains an article by Tom Pocock attempting to make sense of the Northern scene. I remember encountering him, and he did make an effort to report fairly the aspirations of the republican left, which he linked with my own name and those of Cathal Goulding, Sean Garland and Anthony Coughlan. '..Against the advice of the Left, the Right began a crash programme of re-armament and military training, with the active help, so I have been told, of three members of the Irish government and some factions within the Army... military-type camps... the Donegal Mafia... radio station beamed on Ulster... Indeed, my most alarming memory of this visit to Dublin is not of inflammatory talk over Guinness but of a charming member of the Irish Cabinet remarking over coffee in a luxurious restaurant that he has been in favour of ordering the Army to march into Ulster. Odd that the most rational and least bloodthirsty Irishman I met should have been a Marxist..'.

SF AC 18/10/69: TMacG, CC, SC, EMacT, TR, LG, JC, SMacS, GMacL, DC, RJ, DK, SR, DL, KA, OMacC. Republican Clubs to support Kevin McCorry or Dalton Kelly for the NICRA full-time organiser. Citizen Press to remain under republican control, but with Belfast CCDC represented on the management committee. Regional executive of RCs had been set up, and clubs re-activated. The Clubs legality case had been defeated in the Lords; people had been therefore convicted, but given conditional discharges. A Campaign to release Malachi McGurran and Frank Card was initiated. CS reported list of current active regional organisers. Ard Fheis date fixed for January 10-11. Mac Stiofain proposed that the 2 main resolutions be circulated in advance with information as to their timing on the agenda. This was accepted.

Mac Stiofain obviously had in mind the need to drum up maximal attendance at the crucial times. If his military plan was to be developed, the political plan needed to be stymied with maximal disruption.

NN: Issue #8 on October 21 1969 opens with the Hunt Report, using the text of a speech given by Tomas Mac Giolla in UCD. He was critical of the Report, which appeared to concede the NICRA demands, but in fact side-stepped them, with reforms which were nominal and cosmetic. McGurran and McArt were still imprisoned, despite the Special Powers being supposedly abolished.

The ban on the Republican Clubs had been upheld on appeal the the Lords. The local courts however were not willing the sentence those accused of membership.

Other activities featured were the inland fishing rights campaign, the ESB construction workers strike at Ringsend, and an appeal to cumainn to gather ground rent data; there had been little response to this. There was a feature based on student republican club publications.

Greaves diaries: on October 23 CDG noted an attempt to recruit Peter Mulligan, a CA stalwart, into the IRA. It was indicated that there apparently was an intention to resume military action in 1971. This must be an indication of Mac Stiofain's followers already active, prior to the split. It is basically confirmed in Mac Stiofain's memoirs, in principle, though not in detail. He was engaged in active military planning from 1967, either under the false impression that this was what Goulding actually wanted, or, alternatively, with the intention of actively restoring the military agenda, despite the then Army Council policy.

It seems I had been over in London on business, and had been staying with Sean Redmond. CDG recorded an encounter in the Lucas Arms on October 24. It seems I was somewhat self-critical, but was inclined to be dismissive of the 1971 resumption of hostilities, though aware of the possibility that I might be kept in the dark. The Kerry republicans had broken with Dublin, and now there was a meeting in Belfast; Jimmy Steele was involved. I was in two minds about going forward for the Ard Comhairle. The question of 'petite-bourgeois organisational pre-suppositions' came up; I had earlier been aware of this as a problem and had wanted to discuss it with CDG, but he had been dismissive. We concluded, good-humouredly, that I was, like JJ, before my time, too impulsive, too talkative, and too keen on print.

SF CS 27/10/69: TMacG, JC, TR, RJ, GMacL, MdeB. Note that the CS meetings during this period were basically being carried by RJ and TMacG on behalf of the leading politicisers. The role of Joe Clarke was to put a glowering negative presence on the process, backed by Tony Ruane, and fortified by SMacS from time to time. TMacG reported on the 6-Co Regional Executive: five areas were represented; people had in most cases been absorbed into CRA work and club work had been dropped. Billy McMillan was elected Chair, Liam Cummins secretary, Kevin McCorry press officer and Oliver Frawley treasurer. The first meeting was fixed for Belfast on November 2 and there was to be a motion proposed by J White and seconded by R MacKnight 'that a revolutionary front of all radical groups be set up for the purpose of organising the youth into a revolutionary movement and to press the social objectives of the movement now'.

It is far from clear what the philosophy of, or strategic thinking behind, this motion was; it seems to have come bottom-up from the people concerned and to have reflected ultra-left PD-type influence; it certainly was not a reflection of leadership thinking.

Thirteen regions were defined for elections to the incoming Ard Comhairle; these were realistically based on the known distribution of Cumainn and Clubs, and defined in terms of ease of access to a regional centre. It is not clear who drew up the list; it could have been from Goulding, who would have had a feel for the main foci of politicisation. They were 'all-Ireland' in structure, eg we had 'Donegal/Derry' and 'Fermanagh / West Cavan / Leitrim'.

NN: issue #9 on October 28 1969 opens with an accusation that the Fianna Fail leadership were actively engaged in colluding with the British in a scheme for a Federal Union of 'these islands'. The source of this was, it seems, statements by Terence O'Neill and Eddie McAteer, along the lines of 'a little United Nations in the British Isles'. There was an attempt to trace this back to the Lemass-O'Neill meeting. Fianna Fail were challenged to decouple themselves from this concept.

The Republican Trade Union Group was showing signs of concern with the effects of the Free Trade Agreement. The Housing Action Committee was attacking Kevin Boland, then Minister for Local Government, for failure to deliver affordable social housing. There was evidence of Land League activity in Galway, and the extension of the Housing Action agitation to Galway.

It was noted that the Northern Committee of the Irish TUC at its meeting on October 22 had demanded the reorganisation of the RUC and the abolition of the Special Powers Act. Republicans were urged to seek TU support for the release of McGurran and McArt.

UI November: We have here the exposure of the 'Haughey, Blaney and Boland' (HB&B) attempt to take over the Civil Rights movement; it is not clear whether it is Government or Fianna Fail; there is money involved. They plump for FF; Brady and Corrigan are involved; what is role of Lynch? O'Neill and McAteer issue jointly a statement calling for a federation of these islands, a re-invention of the old 'Home Rule All Round' concept from the 1900s, though with Partition. The role of the Republican Clubs in support of the Civil Rights is highlighted, in defence of the political role, and in answer to those who were saying 'where were they?' when the people needed defence from pogroms. Extensive quotes from Connolly and Pearse. Unemployment in the Falls Road. Feeny and Nusight.

SF CS 3/11/69: TMacG, SR, TR, Mick Ryan, Seamus Costello; Sean Dunne and Andy Smith attended as from the Dublin CC, and Joe Nolan from Dun Laoire. It seems I was not present at this one, unusually. This was to resolve the Dun Laoire question. The Dublin CC position was that the Tracey Cumann promoted by Joe Nolan was 'paper', and a new active Cumann had been set up in Sallynoggin; Joe Nolan could join this if he liked. Joe Nolan was challenged to produce the minute book.

Mick Ryan reported complaints that CS business had been discussed outside the CS; this was aimed at Joe Clarke but no names were mentioned.

I have among my papers a copy of 'Notes for Organisers Meeting' dated 3/11/69. This was aimed at organising the regional conferences, and ensuring that the Ard Fheis papers were distributed. Thirteen areas had been defined, each with some degree of geographical unity, each with 10-15 cumainn. The 'report on the work of the movement' which they were urged to deliver was summarised; it covered the role of the Civil Rights movement, public opinion in the world, the Belfast and Derry situations, local work going on with housing and trade union groups, the Fianna Fail attempt to take over Civil Rights and to isolate radicals, while working a deal with Wilson on the EEC, Free Trade and NATO; the role of Nuacht Naisiunta the weekly newsletter to cumainn.

This political message was however not well adapted to the state of political development of the movement at the grass-roots, which was rapidly lapsing into a militarist mind-set. There is also a 'draft note on the job of organiser', defining weekly and monthly cycles, based on the United Irishman, and a suggested daily routine.

There was then a session with the regional organisers, and some of the regions were re-defined on the basis of their local knowledge.

There was a WTS meeting on November 4, at which Manus Durkan spoke on 'The Power of the Insurance Companies'. There was also a poetry reading in Jury's Hotel, with Sean O Tuama, on November 15.

Manus Durkan was a Fianna Fail trade union activist who had helped the IWP activist Noel Harris organise the ASTMS in the insurance business. The poetry reading was part of a series organised by Meryl Farrington to make cultural links with Irish, Scottish and Welsh poets.

One gains the impression that WTS momentum was declining, and that it was unable to respond to the Northern crisis, given the way it had developed.

NN: issue #10 on November 5 1969 quoted a letter to Callaghan from the Strabane Committee of the NICRA regarding the imprisonment of 'Mr Francis Card and Mr Malachy McGurran'. It calls on the Clubs to campaign for the release of their members, and goes on '...it should not be taken as automatic that Republicans should be jailed and nothing can be done about it...'.

An explosion at Bodenstown was recognised as a crude provocation aimed at generating reprisals. A Donegal land agitation was reported. Support was sought for a Vietnam War march. A visit to NATO by General Mac Eoin was condemned.

There was a reference to the November issue of the United Irishman which showed up how there was a move on foot under Fianna Fail influence to take over the NICRA, with the aid of funds from wealthy businessmen, key actors being Seamus Brady and Hugh Kennedy.

SF CS 10/11/69: TMacG, SMacS, TR, JC, Seamus Costello and MdeB. It was considered that the report of the Republican Clubs meeting on Oct 27 was inadequate, and it was agreed to expand it. This report as noted above was an addendum. Joe Nolan and Dun Laoire still simmered. National collection was coming in slowly and so far was £326. Dublin cumainn called to action on the housing issue; statement to be issued on the Labour Party call for a housing emergency. Suspension to Special Powers to be tested by an indoor meeting in Newry to call for the release of the prisoners. SC proposed and RJ seconded a motion to the effect that leaks from the CS if source identified be punished by suspension. This was on foot of a letter from the 'other branch' to the effect that CS and AC business was being openly circulated. This was getting at Joe Clarke, who had obviously been feeding the proto-Provisional rumour and disinformation machine.

NN: issue #11 on November 11 1969 continued with the 'Fianna Fail attempt to take over the NICRA' saga. It seemed that Hugh Kennedy, described as a 'Fianna Fail plant in the Citizens Defence Committee in Belfast', was taking over the editorship of the Voice of the North from Seamus Brady. The perception was that £400 per week was being contributed by the Haughey-Blaney-Boland consortium '...to help in harnessing Civil Rights to the Fianna Fail star..'. Republicans were urged to sell the United Irishman to counter this subversive ploy by the 26-county Establishment.

Further political action was called for the release of McGurran and McArt, this being a focus for the Special Powers issue. The northern issues however were slipped to the back pages, the front page being given to the O'Briensbridge-Montpelier school closure issue. Members were warned against journalists seeking interviews on national issues; they were urged to stick to local issues.

The foregoing includes an indication that HQ was uneasy about the ability of local republicans to express national policies with any consistency, in a situation increasingly dominated by the Fianna Fail proto-Provisional position.

SF CS 17/11/69: TMacG, SC, JC, SMacS, RJ, SR, MdeB, Mick Ryan. Joe Nolan referenced Sean O Bradaigh. Bernadette Devlin had approached the Movement to organise meetings for her in the 26 Cos. It was agreed to seek a meeting in advance to agree policy positions: UDR, British interference, sectarian strife etc. Points for the 'special Bodenstown' were agreed, and Liam O Comain from Derry was to speak. TMacG reported on the Limerick regional meeting which had elected Des Long.

There are indications that 'heavies' were beginning to consider it important to come to CS meetings, to counterbalance SMacS and JC; we have Mick Ryan and Seamus Costello.

NN: issue #12 on November 18 led with a critical note on the Building Societies, and a note 'as Gaeilge' critical of the way they were handling the Irish-language programme 'Feach'. It reported on Republican participation in an anti-Vietnam War march, with Tomas Mac Giolla speaking. The Housing Action squatting in Waterloo Road was noted. A special pilgrimage to the grave of Wolfe Tone was projected for November 23. Regional conferences to elect regional members for the incoming Ard Comhairle, under the revised regionalised constitution, were announced. The full Ard Comhairle would be elected at the coming '1969' Ard Fheis, planned for January 1970. The regional meetings would double as educational conferences, to update members on the developing Northern situation. Tom Mitchell was reported as speaking at the Edentubber commemoration, to the effect that the UDR was simply a re-naming of the B-Specials and the Hunt reforms were a sham.

SF CS 24/11/69: TMacG, SMacS, MR, RJ, CHG, JC, MdeB. It was considered important to meet with BD before the projected Limerick meetings. Mac Stiofain to meet with a new Cumann in Ring. Regional meetings had taken place in Dublin, Waterford and Wicklow, electing respectively Sylvester Doolan, WJ Dunphy and Frank Wogan. RJ reported on the Waterford meeting; 8 cumainn had been represented. The 6-co executive was now meeting regularly and club members were being encouraged to affiliate with the NICRA.

This last point is ambiguous; it is not clear whether Clubs were being affiliated to the NICRA as 'affiliated organisations' or whether club members were simply being encouraged to join as individuals. There is perhaps a hint here of what could be regarded as an 'infiltration' process.

NN: the Wolfe Tone commemoration oration was reported in Issue #13 on November 24; the occasion was the 171st anniversary of his burial, and it was a response to the blowing up of the grave-stone, as reported earlier. Liam O Comain, secretary of the 6-county Republican Executive which united the Clubs, recalled the guiding principles of Presbyterianism, civil and religious liberty, the rights of the common man and true democracy. He reminded his audience of the simultaneous foundation of the Orange Order and Maynooth College, in response to the threat of non-sectarian democratic unity. There was however an explicit nod in the direction of the use of force to dislodge Britain, though in a projected context suggesting unity of Catholic and Protestant workers. [Presumably this was reprinted in full in the December United Irishman?]

Other matters treated include a Trade Union Group statement, the Galway fisheries protest, the Connemara 'Chearta Sibhialta' movement, a Strabane demonstration for the release of Card and McGurran, and a defence of the RTE programme exposing money-lenders, which had been attached by Minister for Justice Ó Moráin. It was suggested that the money-lending fraternity was extensive and influential in the local management of the Fianna Fail vote in working-class areas.

Thus not only was political left-republicanism exposing the top-level corruption fuelled by developers' land deals in local government, but also the mafia-type local control system for the urban Fiann Fail working-class vote. One can, in retrospect, understand the viciousness with which the Haughey group at the top moved to marginalise the influence of politicising republicans. Not only were they opening up the possibility of real reforms in the North such as to enable cross-community democratic politics to unite working people, but in the South they were exposing how democratic politics was being subverted by moneyed mafias. We had touched many raw Fianna Fail nerves.

Greaves diaries: the Connolly Association conference met on November 30 1969; CDG characterised it as a 'recall of the one wrecked by NICRA'. There were delegates from Birmingham, Coventry, Manchester, Oxford and London; the MCF was there, and a few LP and TU people. Hume it seemed was in favour of people joining the Ulster Defence Regiment. CDG regarded the formation of latter as an 'astute move' on the part of the British, going on to remark that '..the absence of theoretical clarity in Belfast left circles seems to prevent their extending influences on the nationalists, who are heavily divided... the IRA members of London NICRA were at the NICRA conference in Belfast..'. The latter would not have been 'IRA' as such, but proto-Provisional or Blaneyite supporters of the attempt to take over the NICRA in the Fianna Fail interest.

UI December: Special Powers is the target: McGurran and Card. Corrigan, Brady and FF gold. Civil Rights for small farms. Donegal survey. HB&B. There is a review by RJ of Bernadette Devlin's book; policies attributed to Farrell, McCann and Toman. The EEC threat. Building Societies. Land Leagues.

The year ends with a confused rearguard action, on the part of the paper, to re-assert, somewhat half-heartedly, the political republican agenda, in the context of the impending Ard Fheis.

SF CS 1/12/69: TMacG, RJ, CG, JC, MR, SMacS, MdeB. RJ reported on Limerick meetings with Bernadette Devlin. She had avoided a prior meeting by the expedient of flying to Shannon. She had however spoken well and been co-operative. Collections went for the Northern relief fund.

In retrospect, I must say I never fully understood how these meetings had come about, by whom or how they were initiated, what their objective was. I was inclined at the time to attribute them to the initiative of the Limerick politicisers, but from the CS record it seems the initiative came from Bernadette. Were they perhaps a diversion? Who was taking whom for a ride? It seems I did not voice my unease at the CS, though I remember distinctly being uneasy, and critical of their lack of political focus.

NN: issue #14 on December 2 1969 opened with a report of a series of Limerick Sinn Fein meetings organised in the region for Bernadette Devlin. There were meetings at Ennis, Nenagh, Tipperary, Cashel and Thurles. She then flew back from Shannon to prepare questions for the next weeks Westminster session, including the issue of the McGurran McArt imprisonment.

It is noteworthy that the only leading republicans to be imprisoned where those who were in the lead of the politicisation process; this supports the long-standing Greaves hypothesis that there was an influential back-room group in the Home Office which actively wanted to encourage the re-emergence of a sterile non-political military IRA. They arrest McGurran, but not Mac Stiofain.

"It is evident that the Irish people have adopted Bernadette as a figurehead, whether they agree with her or not. In her speeches she stressed, correctly, the Lynch-Wilson machinations and the danger of a Federal fraud. She also stressed the need to build an all-Ireland movement with social-revolutionary objectives, so as to help persuade the Northern people that national unity under Fianna Fail was not the issue..".

She was '...complimented on doing a good job of combining agitational work with the occasional use of the parliamentary machine so as to express its inadequacy....' (and was) '...developing her ideas away from the rather arid doctrinaire student socialism and towards a more national-rooted revolutionary tradition...'.

I attended the Thurles meeting. She drew a crowd. I remember thinking at the time the meeting lacked political focus. She concentrated on the conditions of the working people in the North, and the need for social reform. These meetings were a bottom-up Limerick initiative and I conjecture that they might have been part of the internal grass-roots Sinn Fein campaign against parliamentary abstention with a view to influencing the coming Ard Fheis. They had little relevance to the actual Northern situation.

Other items mentioned in this issue included reports of Cork meetings explaining the northern situation, Galway land agitations, plans for pickets on the British Embassy at the time of the McGurran/McArt trial on December 4, calls for cumainn to send in report of events, and a note on censorship.

SF AC 6/12/69: TMacG, SR, MR, EMacT, JC, LG, DL, TR, SC, RJ, CC, SMacS, DK, LC, DC, OMacC, MdeB. Voting record for July 18 was placed on record. Ard Fheis motions were adopted re Cumann affiliation procedures, a steering committee procedure for handling Ard Fheis agenda at the subsequent Ard Fheis, cumainn to meet at least 12 times per annum, duties of Cumann members, issue of membership cards; there was a call for more native-speaking Irish teachers in Gaeltacht schools. An integrated policy motion to be drafted and put to the AC before the AF. Statements re Frank Card to be issued by 6 Co Executive; McGurran had been released. Regional structure was ratified; attendance records of regional representatives to be on record at subsequent election-time.

Greaves diaries: meanwhile on December 6 1969 CDG received a letter from Micheal O Riordain, who wanted to meet with him urgently, to discuss the question of the republican/IWP school, which had been off, but was now on again. He mentioned that he had finished his life of Frank Ryan. This was the 'Sheelin Shamrock' school, which occurred subsequent to the split, and represented another high point in the left-republican convergence process. More on this later.

NN: issue 15 on December 9 was the last before the January Ard Fheis; its content is scrappy and marginally significant; work on preparing the Ard Fheis would have dominated the office, and people presumably had little time for Nuacht Naisiunta. There was however a response to a kite flown by Quentin Hogg, the British Shadow Home Secretary, in Trinity College, who proposed 'three-level dialogue (ministerial, parliamentary and executive) between Stormont, Dublin and Westminster, in the form of a 'dry run' for future European integration. This 'federal' concept was rejected with a call to '...clear up the mess... in the Six Counties by (a) imposing a Bill of Rights on Stormont (b) imposing PR in elections (c) granting explicitly the right of democratic secession, so as to make all-Ireland politics non-subversive, and then withdraw completely from any further interference in Irish affairs...'.

This indicates, the key influence being probably Coughlan, that strategic Head Office thinking was still in terms of the need to sustain the momentum of the NICRA, despite all the Fianna Fail machinations in the North and the increasing domination of local politics there by 'defence committees' and the like.

The release of McGurran was noted. An episode involving an encounter with the Donegal Mafia was reported; local SF members picketed a Fianna Fail dinner with slogans relating to housing and unemployment, and the Criminal Justice Bill, which had been introduced as a weapon against the Housing Action movement.

SF CS 15/12/69: TMacG, SC, MR, JC, TR, SR, MdeB. Queries about delegate status from Kildare and Tralee. Dun Laoire Cumann issue resolved by Sean O Bradaigh producing a minute book; its existence was accepted.

In Belfast on December 17 1969 CDG encountered Betty Sinclair, now 'rehabilitated'. She had heard of this 'National Liberation Front' between the republicans and communists; what did it mean? '...She thought the republicans complete amateurs and was hesitant about entering into formal arrangements with them, the more so since it would seem that they would take things their way...'. The Belfast Trades Council was losing affiliations due to amalgamations. When CDG told her Sean Redmond was leaving she said she would not mind the job herself. She would never have returned to Belfast had not McCullough persuaded her. Jimmy Stewart was taking on a full-time position in the Party, but Betty thought the position was not healthy, as a number of Protestant members were falling out. JS was now caught up like JB in the excitement of republicanism, and was now talking like the IRA.

Later in the Engineers Club with Betty and John McClelland CDG picked up that '..the Protestant community is sour and suspicious. Arms are coming in all the time. Everybody confidently predicts civil war and regards it as inevitable. Of NICRA he says they are all at sea. The McCluskeys helped "Peoples Democracy" oust Betty. Now they want to remove those who did the former service for them; above all they cannot grasp British responsibility. As for Edwina Menzies who was to replace Betty and set things straight again, she is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Not that I would have any sympathy for her, after the way she came over to London reporting that she had accepted the bogus London "NICRA" (another name for the IRA) because they could gather people "who would not work with the Connolly Association"..'.

Greaves at this time had not managed to identify who the London 'NICRA' were, nor indeed had Edwina, who accepted them at face value as a broadening of support. They were, in fact, part of the Blaneyite Fianna Fail irredentist attempt to take over NICRA and decouple it from such progressive, left-republican and labour support as it had.

In Dublin on December 18 1969 CDG met with Micheal O Riordain. The joint school was to be in a hotel in Cavan. There was a proposal to amalgamate the IWP and the CPNI into the CPI. CDG was uneasy about the name, and would have preferred if they had agreed on a joint programme and action first. He went on: '..I think that recent events have toppled them too far. They do not see that the anti-imperialist forces went into action ideologically unprepared and without their allies, or the allies they could have had later. The two qualities which so often go with Irish courage are precipitancy and intellectual arrogance. And these are about in plenty now. MOR thinks that if they combine forces they would have to think of a national policy. So he is set on speedy reunification and showed me a document. I said nothing, but I had it in my pocket. Betty Sinclair had given me it. It has its points. But it smacked of the "National Liberation Front", which they say is RHJ's invention.... Incidentally they tell me that the IRA has had schools and that they use the group system favoured by the British CP, and who introduced it to them? The same man, I do not doubt without acknowledgement...'.

I did indeed introduce the group system, with discussion of issues introduced in plenary session, and subsequent feedback to the plenary, and I probably did credit the CPGB with having pioneered it in the 1940s, though it had by then since become quite general, and could hardly have been regarded as CPGB property!

Greaves recorded on December 20 1969 an encounter with the present writer, on his home ground. It seems I assured him that Brendan McGill, who had been behind various London events, was not acting for the IRA, but was linked with Blaney and co who were influencing the Derry movement from Donegal, in the Fianna Fail interest. CDG found this incredible, as he did my assertion that the Dublin leadership was not behind the Smullen episode in Huddersfield. I told him I had pulled out from all leading bodies, and that the recent Convention had voted 31/8 in favour of political participation. The SF Ard Fheis of course was still to come, as indeed was the verdict of the electorate.

SF CS 22/12/69: two Limerick cumainn rejected on grounds on non-payment. Regional AC members from the North were Ivan Barr and Frank Patterson. Ard Fheis booked for the Intercontinental.

SF CS 29/12/69: TMacG, CG, SR, JC, TR, RJ, MdeB. SMacS's letter of resignation from CS was read; there was no comment. There had been a campaign of bogus press coverage relating to the coming Ard Fheis; it was agreed to issue a statement to the effect that policy would be decided, as always, at the Ard Fheis and not in the media. Regional delegates were noted: Peter Duffy and Ruairi O Bradaigh. Stewarding of the anti-apartheid event on Jan 10 had to be refused because of the Ard Fheis.

We continue with the 'integrated political chronology' into 1970. The intensity of relevant Greaves entries declines, but it remains of interest as background to the evolving RJ context

Notes and References (added post April 2007 RJ)

2. The Barnes McCormack event is introduced on p144 of RW White's biography of Ruairi O Bradaigh (Indiana 2006) with the statement that '...In July the British Government gave the traditionalists an opportunity publicly to challenge the IRA leadership..', going on to give a good description of the funeral, which I attended and observed at first hand. In fact the Barnes McCormack Committees were the cover under which the Provisional split was organised. One cannot help asking, was this intentional on the part of the British Government? Earlier, White instances a '...large IRA meeting in May 1969 that included the Army Council and members of Northern units..' at which Goulding advanced the idea that '..it is not our job to by Catholic defenders..'. I have no record of such a meeting; as far as we knew, the Northern activists were meeting primarily on the Republican Club network. If such a meeting took place, it suggests a degree of organisational confusion, arising from the differing positions of Goulding and Mac Stiofain, and an intention to keep me in the dark about it.

3. This event recalled by Mick Ryan has perhaps become conflated with the May event of the previous note. It confirms what Goulding's policy was: use the crisis to get the British to disarm the B-Specials. The policy of using the IRA as a Catholic defence force was identified as 'giving the enemy exactly what they wanted'. The success of the latter policy, and the abandonment of the former, led inevitably to the decades of sectarian war which took place.

4. This probably was the meeting in May referred to by White. The advance notice of the impending pogrom was conveyed via O Bradaigh and Mac Stiofain. O Bradaigh, on being asked (2001) by RJ how he knew, referred to 'reading the signs'. I regret not pressing him on this; it is important to know what signs would be used to tip off the IRA that a pogrom was in gestation, so as to provoke them into armed resistance. See also the relevant section at the end of my notes on the Mac Stiofain Memoirs.

Some navigational notes:

Copyright Dr Roy Johnston 1999