January 5 1971 general meeting: negative report from Belfast; Common Market Study Group report from AC.

It seems Tim Pat Coogan was libelling the present writer at this time, and I wrote on January 16 1971 seeking scripts, with a view to legal action. This was subsequent to the Ann Harris profile in the Irish Press, with which I said I had no quarrel. Nothing seems to have come of this.

January 19 committee: statement of aims; Connradh and Gaeltacht, co-ops, Belfast negative.

There is draft material on the 'statement of aims' in the archive; no drastic changes in main objectives; more open membership; no party political affiliation; current areas of interest declared to be civil rights and constitutional reform, N and S; Irish language and culture; the co-operative movement; science and technology; educational reform.

February 2 general: Connradh and Gaeltacht; open-Nessa question; Antoin Mac Umfraigh etc; town and country; Caitlin O Luain; urban gaelgeoiri

Feb 16 committee: Cian O h-Eigeartaigh letter (on record in achive; relates to Mac Umfraigh); education group - denominational control; Belfast; Resources Study Group.

March 2 general: Joy Rudd on Community Schools etc. The paper is on record in the archive. There is also a copy of a memorandum and resolution attacking the undermining of the concept of the 'community school' by handing over ownership and control to religious denominations, and for dealing only with the Catholic Hierarchy. This was on the agenda on April 6.

March 27 1971 committee: McCorry on the North.

April 4 1971: there is in the archive a paper partly in the writing of RJ relating to the siting and ownership of the projected smelter. This I think surfaced in the context of RJ's Irish Times 'Science and Technology' column, but the critique originated in the WTS, and Derry Kelleher was involved.

April 6 general: Resolution on Community Schools (Joy Rudd); Kevin McCorry, Organiser for the NICRA, on the current situation in the North. There is an Irish Times cutting dated 22/5?/71 containing the WTS condemnation of the Department's defining 'community schools' in religious lines.

April 20 committee: statement of aims; Gaeltacht radio; collection of Tone's writings (Dick Roche?). Derry Kelleher resigned as joint secretary; RJ succeeded him.

May 4 1971 general: supposed to be 'as gaeilge', but 'gan cainteoiri', flop. It was projected to relate to the need for a radio in the Gaeltacht, and speakers were to include Eoghan Harris and Breandan O h-Eithir; there is a notice to this effect.

Around this time, or perhaps earlier in 1970, I attended an Oireachtas event centred in Rosmuc, organised by Cearta Sibhialta na Gaeltachta, and a pirate radio was run for the duration, using equipment lent by the 'official' republican movement. This created political pressure for the setting up of Radio na Gaeltachta. The above projected meeting would have been in this context.

May 18 committee: language meeting problem; fo-coiste; Tailors Hall; Community Schools; Planning Acts; Liberties; Dodder; SF leadership.

SF and WTS

June 1 1971 general: UMacE's paper 'Watchdog on Developers' (copy available in the archive). Larry Dillon (Liberties), Wilfred Raftery (Dodder Valley). Resolution called for meeting between Liberties people, admin of city, and dept of local govt. All-Dublin federation of amenity groups?

July 6 general: Tomas Mac Giolla on SF; DK on CMSG.

There is in the archive an m/s paper by Uinsean Mac Eoin, dated 'Sept 6' annotated 'discussed 14/7/71'. It is concerned about the politics of a federal agreement thought to be on the agenda between Heath and Lynch. It is not clear what its standing is. From the date September 6 it would appear to have been produced prior to the October 1970 Newry meeting of 'radical groups'.

July 20 committee: August extended committee; Sept and Dec to be 'as gaeilge', fed by sub-committee work; North sub-committee; memo on North for August event; every 3rd meeting to be in Irish slipped by declaring August to be a non-meeting.

July 23 1971: there is a letter from Anthony Coughlan seeking to get a Citizens for Civil Liberty speaker for a WTS meeting, in the context of public protests about the Forcible Entry Bill. There is a copy of a CCL leaflet.

July 25 1971: there is in the WTS archive a document written by RJ entitled 'Notes on the Northern Situation'; it is worth reproducing in full, as it summarises the present writers then perceptions. It would have served as input to the August 3 meeting.

Notes on the Northern Situation / RJ 25/07/71

There are signs that the form of the political solution is taking shape. The 'two-nation' idea of O'Brien is more than a theory. It is fast becoming a reality, thanks to the worsening sectarian situation in Belfast.

Consider the following steps from the point of view of Britain:

1. Draw out the republicans into an insurrectionary position in Belfast and Derry. In Belfast, this has the effect of causing pogroms, splitting finally the trade unions, rendering any idea of working-class unity impossible. In Derry this has the effect of putting pressure on Lynch to intervene militarily.

2. Arrange with Lynch that this military intervention when it takes place will look like a withdrawal in the face of a Provisional campaign, and that Lynch will recover more national credibility, thus gaining support for his EEC referendum.

3. Arrange a political leadership for the 'liberated area': this is the group which has withdrawn from Stormont. The factors involved in the setting up of this group were (a) the external affairs people in the Arts Club meeting (b) O'Leary. In other words, the civil service and the Labour Party channels of influence.

The form of the political solution is therefore a 29 county Free State, with movements of populations out of Belfast, and a split in the Trade Unions. This will look sufficiently like a step towards the Republic to gain Lynch some kudos, or maybe the alternative leadership which is waiting in the wings, if Lynch is not the man to do the job.

This at the time was our perception of what was going on behind the scenes, in the background of the 'arms crisis', with Haughey in the wings. We were convinced that the over-riding issue was membership of the EEC, that there was a Lynch-Heath understanding, and that re-partition was the goal. This perception has been dismissed as fantasy. But there was a plan to arm the Provisionals, and to do military training in Donegal. We were aware of numerous intrigues which were going on, all over. Who connived? Do we yet have the full story? The paper went on:

How is this strategy to be countered?

[A] Preserve working-class unity in Belfast. This is a tall oder, but may possibly be approached by the Belfast Executive (of the official republican movement) approaching the Trades Council, in writing, backed up by leaflets, press statements etc, repudiating the deeds of unknown arsonists, probable agents provocateurs, and bombers, on Protestant shops, especially co-ops which are the property of the workers. This repudiation should be accompanied by an offer to support local vigilante groups, set up under Trade Union control, to defend initially co-op property, ultimately peoples property from arson by these unknowns. Also to urge that the Trades Council, once these Peace Corps were set up, should press the military to confine their attention to protecting public property and to leave over patrolling of streets where the workers live, law and order being taken over by the Trade Union Peace Corps. Make it known that the official movement will give unconditional support to a Workers Peace Corps organised under TU control.

[B] Take the initiative in pressing the MPs, who have withdrawn, into a new position, different from the 'Catholic liberated area provisional government' position that they have got themselves into. Press them to bid to form an alternative government in Stormont on the common programme of opposition to the EEC with the anti-EEC elements in the Unionist Party. Try to convert the withdrawal into something different from a link in the Lynch-Westminster chain. The exact nature of this bid has yet to be worked out, but it must be such as to split the Unionists, and it must come with pressure from below, from trade unionists worried about EEC effects. And it should not look like a 'challenge to the Constitution', or the alliance with the anti-EEC Unionists is a non-starter. Again, a tall order, but it should at least be called for, so that some people in retrospect may see we were right.

There is no record of the status of this document; it probably is analogous to that of Uinsean MacEoin, though from a more left-wing perspective. The Provisionals were seen, correctly, as a totally destructive influence on the embryonic working-class unity we had tried vainly to nurture. It was of course hopelessly unrealistic, grasping a straws, in a disastrous situation. The starting-point, the 'Heath-Lynch collusion' in an EEC-oriented strategy, deserves the attention of critical historians. How much substance did it have? How important was strategy relating to the EEC in the minds of the Government, in the context of the Northern crisis?

August 3 1971 (should have been 'general' but in fact 'extended committee'): draft memo to Jack Lynch, sub-committee RJ, Snoddy, Durcan. Sept meeting 'as gaeilge' to be on the North. Kelleher on the Guinness run-down.

August 8 sub-committee; statement to Press. This is also worth reproducing:

Open Letter to Jack Lynch - August 9 1971

Our claim to be listened to in this respect rests on the fact that the first practicable ideas for the formation of a Civil Rights Movement in the North were published in our Newsletter Tuairisc in August 1966; similar ideas had begun to develop some years earlier at conferences organised by the Belfast Trades Council but had not assumed organisational form. In the following November our sister Society in Belfast called a representative and public meeting in the War Memorial Hall from which emerged a working committee to draft a Constitution for the NICRA; this was subsequently adopted at the inaugural meeting the following February.

The rate at which the mass movement for Civil Rights developed was governed by the internal stresses in the Six Counties; our thesis of 1966 that Civil Rights was the 'Achilles heel' of English rule in Ireland was however proved right in no uncertain manner.

The subsequent development of the Civil Rights movement however was not helped by nationalistic sabre-rattling by members of your party; this served only to alienate potential Protestant and trade unionist support. It was clear by November 1968 that none of the members of your Government had the faintest idea what was going on or what to do in the national interest.

We therefore suggest that you might consider the views of our Society before going to speak to Mr Heath inadequately briefed by civil servants and others whose interest in, and knowledge of, the Six Counties is a matter for dispute.

You might be so good as to condemn the use of force by the British Army against people who have been openly engaged in political work for constitutional reforms. You might remind Mr Heath that the first blows were struck not by the IRA but by the B-Specials at Burntollet and by the armed Orange mob at Bombay St, and that the consequent desire of the anti-unionist minority to defend itself is therefore not to be interpreted as an armed sectarian insurrectionary plot, as it appears in the mythology of the English press.

We ask that Mr Heath be made fully aware that the harassment of the anti-unionist minority by the British Army in its one-sided search for arms is compounding the existing problems; the continued failure to disarm the Unionist-Orange factions can only be interpreted as a deliberate attempt to disunite the people of Ireland further. It must be made clear that the vast store of arms in private hands in the Six Counties constitutes an immediate threat to the stability of the whole of Ireland and that should a civil war situation develop the full blame can only be laid on him and his government.

You might also press Heath to recognise what is obvious to every student of history: that the introduction of violence into the politics of Irish secession is the responsibility of the English Tories who instigated the Carsonite revolt of 1913-14 against the democratic decision of the UK electorate, and that it is therefore up to England to do its best to undo the harm done in Ireland by this and consequential events, along the following lines:

1. To disarm the UVF, crypto-B-Special 'gun clubs' and other armed Orange groups, and to reduce the number of 'licenced' guns to a level consistent with legitimate sportsmanship.

2. To impose constitutional reforms on Stormont, including a Bill of Rights outlawing discrimination, reforming the electoral laws with the introduction of PR, and giving explicit legitimacy to the politics of secession

3. To grant to the reformed Stormont a greater degree of independence, to the extent that it have the right to make its own decision regarding the EEC and to make trade agreements.

While you should urge that they renounce all claim to Irish soil and agree to a policy of withdrawal, we suggest that you make it quite clear to Heath that any unilateral withdrawal by Britain (as is now canvassed by both the New Statesman and by wives and mothers of British soldiers) should not be carried out without disarming the Orangemen. We welcome the current of English, Scottish and Welsh public opinion in favour of withdrawal; this is long overdue. We urge however that it be pressed home very firmly to Heath that the armed Orangemen are the historic mess left by the Tory Party as a legacy to successive Westminster Governments; they should clean up this mess before they go.

We urge you not to accept any 'settlement' involving the transfer of some 'Catholic' areas to Dublin jurisdiction, subsidised population movements from Belfast, or any such deal that suggests that Protestants are not Irish. In this we speak for significant numbers of Irish Protestants who would feel utterly alienated were the 'Catholic State' concept to emerge strengthened.

Nor should you be taken in by any talk of a Council of Ireland, the structure and the agenda of which would be controlled by Westminster. Above all you should not allow yourself to be pressed by Heath into any internment measures, or any conference or council of which the main purpose is the co-ordination of repressive activity. This has to date taken the form of repression of those who sought constitutional reforms by legitimate political expression, rather than those who live under the illusion that there is a quick military solution. If you do take the course of internment, you will be blocking the last glimmer of hope for a peaceful re-unification of Ireland and paving the way for the completion of the job commenced by Pitt in 1800.

We suggest, instead, that a reformed, democratic, semi-independent Stormont, with the right to decide about the EEC and to make trade agreements, would be prepared after a cooling-off period to consider secession from the UK and to federate with Dublin on an Irish basis. Before this would be possible, however, it would be necessary to introduce certain reforms into the 1937 Constitution (a) to remove all mention of the special position of the Catholic Church (b) to allow the Irish Federation principle to be generalised to other areas of the country, at the level perhaps of the present health or planning regions. If a regional sub-government or super-local-authority for the North-east is considered to be able to look after its people and their problems more effectively than a remote body in Dublin or Westminster, then surely the same holds for the North-Western, Western Regions etc.

We summarise: 1. The claim that civil rights for the Six Counties within the UK constitutes the 'Achilles heel' of Unionism stands vindicated.

2. Crude nationalistic statements from 26-county political ends by spokesmen close to the Government have helped identify undeservedly the civil rights movement with the Partition question and to drive it into the ghettos, giving rise to the present danger of civil war in which the prime sufferers would be the divided working people.

3. The onus is in Westminster to undo the damage done by the Carsonite rebellion. This is possible if it (a)abandons all claim to rule Ireland (b)announces a programmed disengagement (c)disarms the Orangemen and bans the Orange parades (d)imposes a Bill of Rights on Stormont and concedes enough independence to Stormont to enable it to take its own EEC decision and to deal with Dublin as it wishes.

4. The onus is on Dublin to secularise the Constitution and to provide for an Irish federal regional structure.

5. Any talks between a reformed Stormont and Dublin to be entirely a matter for the Irish and without interference by Westminster.

6. No internment, whether as part of a package deal or otherwise.

7. No political settlement involving re-drawing the Border, movements of populations, 'Catholic areas' or any principle which questions the Irishness of Protestants.

The foregoing was published, and some congratulatory letters came in. I wrote also to Paul Johnson in the New Statesman, thanking him for the coverage of the issue in terms of the need for a phased withdrawal, and enclosing a letter for publication; I also enclosed a copy of the foregoing 'Open Letter to Jack Lynch', giving it the status of a draft yet to be agreed, but published as a discussion document; also a copy Anthony Coughlan's EEC document. The letter for publication covered much of the ground of the 'Letter to Jack Lynch', and added in also the following:

"The 32-county Irish Congress of Trade Unions is already waking up to the EEC implications. The first significant resolution, calling on the Congress Executive to meet the Dublin Government to discuss the implications and to examine alternatives, came at the 1970 Congress from the largely Belfast-based Sheet-metal Workers and Coppersmiths.

"There are apocryphal stories about, of anti-EEC meetings organised by republicans in Protestant areas of County Down, where after being duly jeered by the Paisleyites a special EEC edition of the United Irishman was nonetheless bought and read.

"If any shock treatment exists capable of making the Northern Protestants realise that they must face the world as Irishmen, this is it...".

The ICTU opposed EEC entry in 1972, but to no avail; the referendum was carried by a massive 73% majority. Our attempt to use the EEC as a unifier for perceived working-class interests across the sectarian divide was, on the whole, wishful thinking.

August 16: I as WTS Secretary wrote to the New Scientist congratulating them on their 'riot control' article which had emphasising the political rather than the technical aspect. I followed up with an outline of our current position, summarising past history.

August 17 1971 extended committee on the North: new draft from AC.

August 23: revised Coughlan draft; Daltun O Ceallaigh formulation 'reformed Stormont'; 'imposition of democratic constitution from Westminster'. Irish translation - McCaughey - dialogue with Provos.

The revised and expanded Coughlan draft was in the end issued as from the Society, and is on record. It covers 3 foolscap pages of single-spacing small type, covering much the same ground as the foregoing, in more depth. It drew a response from Garrett Fitzgerald, who '..found much to agree with in it, although there are some points on which I would put a slightly different emphasis. I should like to congratulate you on having prepared a rational policy statement at a time when so many people are reacting irrationally..'. He supported our opposition to 'direct rule'.

August 26: There is a letter from JJH Miller in the TCD Dept of Economics seeking to organise a quarter-page ad in the London Times signed by members of TCD staff.

August 31 1971: Desirée Shortt for the Tailors Hall Directors wrote confirming our letting of the musicians gallery room above the main hall, and naming it the 'Wolfe Tone Room'. The Society occupied this for a time, and held its meetings there regularly on the first Tuesday of the month, starting September 7 1971.

September 7 general meeting as gaeilge: O Caollai, O Glaisne, Aug 23rd statement; confession from Mac Eoin; Cristoir O Floinn.

A copy of the invitation to this meeting is on record; it was in support of the Civil Rights demands in the North; projected speakers also included Janice Williams from the South, while from the North there were listed Jack Bennett, Joe Deighan, Bernadette Devlin and Frank MacManus. In the event, Padraig O Snodaigh, O Caollai and O Glaisne spoke, and a letter from the North was read by Joe Deighan (the Northern list of names seems to have been somewhat aspirational). The 'August 23 Statement' was supported by a resolution. A statement by Maolsheachlainn O Caollai on behalf of Connradh na Gaeilge was issued to the press, in English, giving some historical background on the use of Irish by Scottish Presbyterian settlers in the 18th century.

September 10 1971: Mellows/Greaves/Comerford event. This was a book-launch for Greaves to promote his Mellows book, and to present Maire Comerford with a copy.

It seems we tried to get people to sign the letter to Jack Lynch; George Gilmore wrote in declining, and David Thornley, then in controversy with Cruise O'Brien, felt it would be impolitic, while agreeing with the letter privately. There is a Hibernia cutting dated September 24 on Thornley's political position. September 14 committee: finance committee set up; paper on tax reform and social services (RJ).

September 28 committee: RJ's draft discussed. McCaughey and Unionist?

October 5 general: attempt to get Irish group working for September (ie we explained the lack of a September meeting by the failure of the Irish Language group to deliver). Successive North memoranda. Tax and social reform group set up.

October 19 1971 committee: AGM resolution; UMacE Dail Uladh; need to loosen up the Irish language constraint. Belfast November 21?.

There was an attendance analysis; the consistent supporters were RJ, CMacL, DK, AH and JR. Occasional were DO'D, SmacG, MOL. RR had dropped out.

There is a hiatus in the record after this; meetings in the Wolfe Tone Room of the Tailors Hall continued for a time, and then later the Society started meeting in the basement of a house owned by Uinsean Mac Eoin in Mountjoy Square. We were there for some years, and various events took place, but the role of the Society became increasingly marginalised. The location was against it; once a visitor from the North spoke at a meeting, and his car was stolen. There are however a few relevant documents on record, and with luck more may turn up:

There is on record in the Greaves diaries a conference organised by the Dublin WTS in the Nuremore Hotel, Carrickmacross, in November 1972. This was a significant attempt to focus on Northern issues, and some of the papers were subsequently published. Anthony Coughlan was not present, being then pre-occupied with the post-Referendum development of the Common Market Defence Campaign and the Irish Sovereignty Movement. When he got sight of Jack Bennett's paper however he took steps to publish it, and there was some dispute over how the proceedings of the conference were to be published. In the end some of the papers appeared in various separate publications, and I don't think the conference was ever published as an integrated proceedings, under the WTS imprint, which is a pity, because in my recollection it was a significant event.

May 1974: there is on record issue #2 of the new series of Tuairisc, bound, with a cover, in a handy size, priced at 20p. Issue #1 in the new series had appeared in March 1973 and had been entitled 'Democracy and Local Government', but alas this is not on record. Issue #2 contains an article based on a paper which my sister Dr Maureen Carmody read to the Society, entitled 'Protestants in the Republic', from the perspective of a medical doctor who had raised her family in the Protestant community of Nenagh, where her late husband Dermot Carmody had been the Vicar. It also contains a critical paper on the educational system, presumably by Joy Rudd, which focuses on the question of denominational control. These papers are candidates for scanning in, and I hope to do this later.

There is a gap then until 1978, when on January 12 a press statement was issued supporting a recent statement by Taoiseach Jack Lynch reaffirming national unity as the aim, and calling for practical initiatives directed at breaking down partition mentality on the South, and developing areas of north-south co-operations. This was Sunningdale-time. The statement included the following: '..in the area of cross-border co-operation it should never again happen that a body like the EEC Commission would have to show us the way..'.

There is on record a Programme for 1978 which has the following items: Jan 24: AGM; Feb 14: 'British Attitudes to Irish Unity' (C Desmond Greaves); March 14: 'Attitudes to Irish Unity' (Fr McGreil); May 9 'EEC - a Step towards Irish Unity? (Micheal O Loinsigh); it then goes on suggesting titles without speakers, implying aspirations to cover areas like 'citizens rights', 'Labour and Irish Unity', control of education as an obstacle to unity, the political impact of religious differences, cultural diversity in a united Ireland.

There is no mention of this WTS meeting in Greaves' diary, though he was in Dublin for some time around this date; this suggests he did not set store by it.

During the 1970s I seem to recollect that the membership of the Society became extended and somewhat diluted; the meeting-place in Mountjoy Square contributed to its negative image; it attempted to provide opportunities the 'left alternative' network which included the Labour Left, the CPI and the 'official republicans', who evolved into the Workers Party via a period as 'Sinn Fein the Workers Party'. This trail was mostly sterile and I am not going to pursue it. The brief renaissance in 1978 was, I think, initiated by Anthony Coughlan, who tried to develop something around the opportunities presented by the Sunningdale Agreement, such as it was. I don't recollect any event at which the WTS was formally wound up, but the records remain with Anthony Coughlan, and we are indebted to him for their preservation.

Some navigational notes:

Copyright Dr Roy Johnston 2002