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

Volume 30 (contd)

There is no more that I can find in Volume 30 specifically related to the scene in Ireland; the volume concludes on August 31 1981. There is however an entry on August 5 which illustrates CDG's growing unease about the East European situation. He picks up insights from Noel Harris and Betty Sinclair, both of whom had spent time in Prague: '...a pretence is kept up... model of the glorious October revolution... because of this myth they cannot see straight.. substantial opposition to the governments.. even in Russia there must be some..'. He goes on to suggest that Noel Harris, being now in London, should join the CA and the Antrim Men's Association, presumably as an alternative to the now fragmenting CPGB.

Volume 31

Nov 2: letter from AC: Irene Brennan and a CP school on Ireland.

Nov 17: O'Riordan and the CPGB; Irish Committee and the 'imperialist economists'; IBr and the 'flying saucer'.

Dec 24: AC arrives on way to Scotland and London. News of Betty Sinclair's death.

Dec 30 1981 CDG goes with Dublin group to ESi's funeral. No mention of her diaries. He must have given up on them; according to a reliable source, who worked with her in Belfast in the NICRA context at the time, she was so alcoholic when she mentioned them to CDG that she could have passed off an intention as a reality. However we remain in hopes that they will turn up, perhaps via the CPI archive.

April 29 1982: encounter with Mike Cooley, generating some respect.

May 23 1982: goes to Dublin, met by Cathal and Eddie Cowman (EC). Signs copies of ITGWU history.

Sept 24 1982: he wrote to RHWJ as well as to AC and others. Doesn't say about what.

Oct 23: spoke to CP 'school'; CPI and WP issues.

Nov 20: Dublin visit; ISM meeting in the Shelbourne, neutrality; addressed by Peadar O'Donnell; RHWJ was there, about 80; we met afterwards in Muriel Saidleir's house in Drumcondra.

Volume 32

Feb 14 1983: with Plaid Cymru in Cardiff.

March 1-2: Stickies' review of ITGWU book; writes to RHWJ and others.

March 11: special meeting of CPGB on Ireland; I/C meeting beforehand. Hints of CDG being sidelined as Ireland expert.

April 13: appalling article in Jan Marxism Today; critique thereof; proposal involves 're-locating' Catholics.

April 14: RHWJ rang up; doesn't say about what. He wrote to Derry Kelleher.

April 29 1983: did a review of the RDS collection of essays on Tyndall; digresses into Dan Maloney.

May 7: he recollects that he was at the 1948 Cave Hill commemoration of 1798, discovering that Joe Deighan had been the secretary of the commemoration committee at the time.

May 11 1983: joint statement of CPI and CPGB, calling for a transitional arrangement not unlike GFA, dismissed as 'idiocy'.

June 2: visits Dublin for the launch of his poetry book Four Letter Verses and the Mountbatten Award, with Anthony Cronin to launch it.

June 13: it seems I wrote him to get him to comment on the abortion referendum, under the impression that AC was blocking comment on it in the Irish Democrat.

Aug 16: long entry on the CPGB and its Irish Committee. He wanted fresh blood, a list was drawn up, but it was blocked by the London District. So he closed it down.

Sept 4: 'euro-communist nonsense'.

Sept 13: I wrote to him regarding AC and Irish CND; it seems I wanted AC to take it up instead of me, as I was concerned with the ending of my contract. Like Kelleher and old Tweedy it seems I have a 'bee in my bonnet'.

Sept 14 1983: The reference to the Strasbourg divorce case is totally misleading. Janice and I allowed our case to go forward challenging the Constitution at the European Court of Human Rights, not the European Commission. We were selected from a panel of similar volunteers by the Divorce Action Group, on the grounds that we were considered the most likely to win. The idea that I was motivated to want my picture on the Democrat in the context is ludicrous, and AC in suggesting this shows how much out of touch with the then situation he was.

Justin Keating's approach to Brussels has absolutely no conceivable connection; CDG has mixed up the two agencies; the Court of Human Rights has nothing to do with the EEC.

What my religious convictions are are my own business, and he has no right to suggest that I had joined the Quakers for this purpose; Janice and I had in fact joined them some years earlier, being pleased that they accepted de facto the nature of our marital position.

I was never seriously involved in any abortion campaign; I had earlier written to CDG suggesting that he should give it a bit of notice, it being a hot issue at the time; that was the total of my concern, simply to keep the Democrat in touch where I felt it was losing touch.

As for the implication that my 'private interests' were dictating my public position, in the context of the ending of my TCD contract and the abortion campaign and the divorce issue, this is simply ludicrous, showing how little effort CDG was prepared to invest into finding out what I really thought or did, and how much he was dependent on malicious gossip, among some of his misinformed acolytes in Dublin, in his assessment of my position, and by implication the positions of others.

In fact at the time we allowed ourselves to go forward as the Divorce Action Group's test case, there was absolutely no question of any personal gain in the matter; it was purely a matter of civic responsibility. We only discovered subsequently that an advantage to us existed, in the form of avoidance of penal inheritance tax, and penal stamp duty in the matter of transfer of ownership of a share in the house. We did not benefit from this until the divorce referendum was in the end passed. There never was any connection whatever between the divorce referendum and the abortion referendum; CDG makes it look like there was. This entry is most malicious, and throws much light on the characters of those concerned, and some doubt on the validity of many of his comments on people with whom he is not in first-hand contact.

November 17 1983: it seems I sent him some stuff on the CND Congress, which I seem to remember attending at the time, in Sheffield. Then on 18th it seems I sent him some copy, along with a request that he should take an interest in the divorce question.

Dec 3: ludicrous comments on a visit to Jack Bennett

Dec 5: it seems I tried to get Paddy Farrington to help change Marxism Today editorial policy on Ireland, and referred him to CDG.

Volume 33

Jan 3 1984: it seems I tried to persuade him to accept Derry Kelleher as science correspondent, in place of me. He was, it seems, not sorry to lose me, but not happy to take up Derry.

March 18: It seems I had saved a factory in Carlow, organising a meeting of Trades Council, Chamber of Commerce, Oakpark people and the Regional College people, who did not otherwise know each other; Oliver Snoddy was supportive, and in fact had tipped me off about the problem. I remember it well. I would not have been able to call the meeting were it not for the extent I had established myself as the spokesman of the applied-science community, via the Irish Times Column.

April 20 1984: it seems I sent him a copy of Labour Left, with the news that Halligan had ratted on it, and it would not come out again.

May 31: there is talk of a 'new formation' to arise out of the ISM; MOR far from pleased; AC had said nothing to CDG. More on June 1.

June 9: CDG gives me credit for never failing to deliver copy on time.

July 30: the ID is in financial trouble, and CDG advises Paddy Bond to talk to RHWJ, who is alleged to be an expert on the pursuit of money. This indeed shows how much out of touch he was, in that at the time my TCD contract had come to an end, and I had zero income; between then and my current contract with IMS, which I picked up by sheer good luck in 1988, I worked on average about 2 months per annum, and even fell below the tax net.

Nov 1 1984: he refers to an evening spent in our house, with Alan Heussaff and others, including MOL, Cathal, Owen Bennett; the common ground was Carn, and it seems I drove him back to the home of Muriel Saidleir and Anthony Coughlan in Drumcondra. Nothing pejorative this time for a change.

Volumes 34 and 35

October 26 1985: There is a reference to Frank Ryan's name being left off the list on the Spanish Civil War monument, it being claimed by one Bill Alexander that he was a fascist.

February 19-21 1986: CDG is in Dublin; he visits Peadar O'Donnell in hospital, and addresses a meeting of the Irish Sovereignty Movement on 20th, chaired by Micheal O Loingsigh, in the ATGWU hall in Abbey St. There were about 200 present, and many new faces; the meeting had been announced on the radio, and was judged a great success. This would have been a contribution to, or perhaps the launch of, AC's campaign on the Single European Act.

April 18 1986: Sean Redmond in Dublin invites him to an 'international conference' in Dublin, without explaining what the conference is about, or why they want a CA speaker. '..For some reason SR has been nobbled by the LCI (Labour Committee on Ireland) and they have sent him a list of Trotskyite nonentities to invite. The whole thing has an air of amateurism that cannot derive from SR who is professional if anybody is..'. He went looking for the Irish-USSR Society's address to find out more, unsuccessfully. '...these cross-currents in Dublin would be plain to anybody living there, but are very obscure to me..'.

April 24-27 1986 CDG spends in Dublin. Meeting SR it turns out that '..his 'international conference' boils down to bringing a few TU people from Britain to discuss action in Britain, and I remarked afterwards that he has been diverted from his original aim of making the Irish Labour movement national to expanding across the channel. He is a member of the Administrative Council of the L/P and I suppose is beginning to feel the pressure of the machine..'.

On April 25 1986 he attends a meeting in St Enda's, opened by the Lord Mayor and chaired by Mary McAleese '...from Belfast who is a rising hope of Fianna Fail, a pleasant young woman not older than the mid-thirties. Brid Heussaff was there, O Glaisne, a good sprinkling of Fianna Fail, a handful of Republicans, but mostly Gaelic League people, including MOC (O Caollai). Raymond Crotty was there and had a drink with us afterwards. There were about 150 there... What I was most pleased with, apart from the fact that what I said was well received, was the contact with Fianna Fail. I threw in a suggestion that has exercised me for some time, viz that de Valera be "reinstated in the pantheon" and mentioned a statue. I told JD it would strengthen neutralism in FF while doing them good. There was some applause at the suggestion, especially when I compared de Valera to de Gaulle.'

This was organised by the Pearse Foundation and CDG was the keynote speaker. Janice was there; I was away in France at the time. She adds that where she was sitting the people were anything but supportive of pantheon status for de Valera; there were loud boos. In subsequent interactions Janice picked up the impression that there was no apparent recognition of her ongoing and respected role as a language teacher and in the language movement, networking with the Heussaffs, O Glaisne and others in 'broad left national-minded' cultural circles. There is evidence from this and other occasions that the present writer and Janice were, still at this time, both of the status of 'persona non grata' in the Dublin Greaves circle.

On May 13-14 1986 there is reference to Peadar O'Donnell's funeral, to which CDG would have gone, expecting a great occasion, but was frustrated by the fact that it was kept private. As indeed we all were!

On July 9-11 1986 CDG visits Dublin again; issues discussed include a threatened split in the ICTU with the formation of an 'Ulster' congress; also the coming 1789 bicentenary of the French Revolution, which he felt should be Europeanised. There was some contact with the CPI.

Volume 35 ends on September 30 1986.

Volume 36

'..I was listening to Radio Eireann yesterday when I heard a familiar voice. It was AC (Anthony Coughlan) giving out about the Single European Act... apparently Spring was there too... (AC) is anxious to get it around that a political crisis may be blowing up in Ireland..'.

The present writer was at this time in the Labour Party on the International Affairs Committee, with George Jeffares. There was the makings of a movement to get the Party to oppose the SEA at its Congress, planned for Cork later in the year. The conference was aborted because the municipal workers who ran the Cork City Hall were on strike. Spring gave his personal broadcast supporting the SEA. This was enough of the LP, as far as I was concerned. I got out, and shortly afterwards joined the Greens.

On November 25 1986 CDG goes to Dublin; there is a reference to a meeting in Liberty Hall, and an encounter with the present writer, who 'passed the time of day', at which CDG was relieved, given my supposed propensity to pour out my 'latest enthusiasms'. There is talk of TCD and academicism. He travels to Galway on the 26th and then to Waterford on the 27th, for meetings on the trade union network relating to the SEA. After some more contacts in Dublin, where there is talk of a legal action about the way referenda are handled by the Government, he returns on November 29. '..There is no doubt that AC and his colleagues have done a first-class job on the SEA and thoroughly embarrassed both the Government and the Labour Party..'.

On May 15 1987 CDG notes receiving a letter from the present writer seeking to make contact in the context of a projected 'Bernal Institute'; there is a Warwick connection and the Links Europa group are said to be associated. He decides to put me off, with the general election as an excuse.

At this time I was developing contact with the Bernal biographical project, and various ideas were emerging; the book was finally published by Verso in 1999, with my chapter in it. The Links Europa group was, and still is, a network among some members of European socialist parties, including the British Labour Party, seeking to develop some sort of European left-wing political consciousness. These were two quite distinct networks, and I must have mentioned them both as my reason for going to England on this occasion. I have retained copies of correspondence with the Links Europa secretary Rosemary Ross which indicates that my concern at the time was the Labour Party Single European Act debacle. This of course was an aspect of the campaign that AC was developing with CDG's support. He cannot have read my letter properly, dismissing it probably as 'RHWJ nonsense', and mixing up the content, after skimming it. I would have mentioned the Bernal network in passing, as he had earlier been helpful, though grudgingly, in enabling me to get in contact with it.

On May 18 1987 CDG refers to reading 'the Bernal book' which he found was in accordance with '..many things he had understood to be the case in the past..'. Later he notes that '..RHWJ rang. I said I would see him in London..'.

The Bernal reference is to Martin Bernal's 'Black Athena', in which he attributes much of classical Greek culture to African influence. He subsequently reviewed this positively in the Democrat, though apparently under the impression that the author was unrelated to JD Bernal, although in fact his son. I must have phoned to follow up on my letter, and he again put me off. There is no subsequent reference to any meeting in London.

On June 2 he has to admit that his Democrat review (which he is coy about, referring to it as 'an article', though admitting to its authorship implicitly!) says he '...is not of the Bernals of Tipperary. But he is. There is a dedication to the memory of his father JD Bernal which I had missed. I will have to send him a copy... and enclose a letter of explanation...'. He went into long explanations how he had got it wrong, and then recorded some reminiscences about his being introduced to JD Bernal at a student conference in 1935. He went on to refer to his encounters with Bord na Mona in 1947, and developments of peat technology in the USSR, in which context he had interacted with Bernal. The latter was always supportive of the Irish cause and donated money to the CA.

On June 11 1987 he admits to receiving a letter from the present writer about the Bernal error, and it seems I went on to lecture him '..on not taking up a line on divorce in Ireland. Why did I not say it was provided for in the Brehon laws? added to which he accused me of encouraging AC to bring in "TCG O'Mahony and the Holy Joe lobby" into the SEA campaign with the result that the "no" camp was split. I know Cathal was going on about AC, but I must say there was nothing I could see in the Irish Times that indicated such a split. Perhaps Roy himself wouldn't work with this group..'.

For once he had to give a substantive account of a message I had tried to convey. The trigger on my part was what I perceived as CDG's mental block about the nature of relations between men and women, Martin Bernal being JD's son 'out of wedlock'. This mental block I saw as extending to the Democrat's handling of the politics of the divorce issue. I made the effort to enlighten him, with my concern for the reputation of the Democrat in mind. I went on to warn of the dangers of identifying the SEA issue with the ideas of the hard-core Catholic Right, of which O'Mahony was an example. He admits implicitly that Cathal MacLiam had similar reservations.

Volume 36 comes to an end on June 30 1987.

Volume 37

CDG accepts an invitation from Declan Bree to speak at the Gralton seminar 'next year' (no date given). Later on November 26 there is a reference to the Gardai raiding the '..houses of respectable citizens connected with the anti-deportation movement, including that of Uinsean Mac Eoin..'. On January 20 1988 there is a reference to PC's funeral; this must have been Pat Clancy, who had led the CA in the 1940s. He was unable to go, though he wanted to.

February 2 1988: '..AC sent me a photocopy of a review by RHWJ of Mrs Metcher's book. I am always surprised at the sublime confidence with which RHWJ handles subjects he really doesn't know much about..'.

I had done a review, in some depth, of Priscilla Metcher's history of left-wing ideas in Ireland, at the request of the Saothar (the Labour History Society publication) editor, Francis Devine.

February 3 1988: there is a reference via Joe Deighan to a CPI event in support of the MacBride Principles. These relate to foreign investment conditions as a means of fostering non-discrimination in employment. It seems the ATGWU is sending a speaker to the USA against them. Regarding the Gralton school, there is a mix-up over dates with Declan Bree, and in the end CDG cries off and refers them to AC. But in the end he goes; see below.

On March 19 1988 he has a long entry reflecting on the splits in the CPGB and the role of the 'international movement': '...I regard all these groups - NCP, CCG, CPGB as schismatic, whereas the Trotskyites are heretics. I know, I think the cause of the split, or rather one cause. As I said to RB the socialist countries consistently behaved in a way the Western CPs could not endorse without isolating themselves..'.

This passage is complex, extending over a page, enshrining key aspects of the contradiction between the various national Marxist parties and the 'international movement'.

On April 12 1988 CDG reports an encounter with Merseyside Radio, in the context of the opening of the Connolly Exhibition in the Labour History Museum. There is apparently some fear of Orange backlash. There is also a reference to Professor Buckland and the Irish Studies Department in Liverpool, who was seeking CDG's participation, to which he agreed.

On May 13 in Dublin he encounters MOR and SN; there is talk of a Belfast seminar, and devolved government, of which CDG is critical. The next day May 14 Cathal MacLiam drives him up to Carrick on Shannon to the Gralton school, which in the end it seems he manages to address, on the history of the Labour Movement. He mentions RWH (Bobby Heatley), Sean Cronin, Peter O'Connor, Eoin O Murchu, John Meehan, Niall Farrell, Packy Early among others present. Heatley produced a new Civil Rights Manifesto.

This can perhaps be described as a somewhat nostalgic re-visiting of the type of left-republican convergence which we had tried to develop 20 years previously, assembled in memory of a similar convergence which had occurred in the early 1930s, around the Gralton episode. I could quite easily have been there, and was I think the following year.

Volume 37 ends on May 31 1988.

Volume 38

'...I gave them my broad summary of how things got to this pass. The western imperialisms rested on their robbery of the colonial world. They could consequently repair the damage of their two world wars and buy off their local populations. Lacking this the Soviets did marvels, but in a sense there had to be "primitive accumulation". This was achieved by Stalin, and people put up with him when the alternative was to join the third world themselves. Stalinism led to stagnation because everyone's aim was to keep his head down. The result was a series of mistakes in which the western CPs were alienated - whether what he did was wrong was another matter; I think not. But there was a mass perception in the West that socialism didn't work, capitalism did. Now if Gorbachov succeeds in the economic field the western public will see an alternative to capitalism. The differences on the left may be healed; the Labour Party will relax its anti-soviet stance. Though by then the financial feudalism of the SEA will have been clamped down on us and we may spend thirty years in an "Austro-Hungarian Monarchy"; reactions will be encouraged when this increasingly displays its contradictions and breaks up under the impact of revolt in the third world..'.

So it seems he had hopes of Gorbachov, as indeed we all did, or at least those of us who tried to build an independent Marxist movement based on bottom-up democracy. Most of the 'hard left' in Ireland rejected Gorbachov.

July 12: '...This morning's Independent had a story about the split between Adams and the IRA. If Adams goes into politics he will take IRA arrogance with him, make all sorts of blunders and end up like Garland..'.

His death was premature and tragic. Despite his latter-day coldness, I retained a high regard for him till the end, and I went to his funeral, which took place in Liverpool towards the end of August 1988.

Before concluding this series, there are a couple of entries which I recollect, but not the date. I did not note them at the time, because I was concerned with the priority of the political events and not with his perception of me. I note them now because I feel they may help historians to assess the reliability of CDG's perceptions of people seen occasionally and at a distance.

The first relates to the artist Roy Johnston's exhibition, which took place in Dublin during the 1970s. Gerry Curran told him of this, and sent him a copy of the review, which he noted disparagingly, under the impression that it must have been me, and it was a good review because of the Irish Times mafia. He never showed any sign that he understood that this was a case of mistaken identity, and it added to his false perception of me as being some sort of dilettante.

The second relates to my taking an interest in Bernal, and wanting to contribute to the biographical work, with a contribution on the Irish roots. He picked this up; I had sought contacts via him, but he attributed my motivation to a desire to make money out of authoring, given that my contract with TCD was coming to an end. Nothing was further from my mind; there never was any money in it anyway; it was a labour of love by people who respected Bernal. He allowed his perception of me being some sort of money-grubber to dominate every occasion, when I was simply trying to survive in a highly precarious niche applied-scientific market, without a permanent and pensionable job, like most of his acolytes had.

These and other references to RHWJ I suggest tell more about CDG than about RHWJ. He allowed himself to be led by malicious gossip by people who had no idea what I was at, or any understanding of my situation. And he never checked.

Some navigational notes: