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.

As before, what follows is an overview; the detail is in decade or period modules, referenced from here and from the decade political modules. Italics usually are my own added comment. The detail from which this is abstracted is available in the third 1960s module.

1969

In Belfast on February 26 1969 CDG tracked down McAnerny the NICRA Secretary who filled him in on how the student 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...'. 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...'.

On March 8 1969 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...'.

Had the republicans remained firm, with the support of Betty Sinclair and the moderates they would have kept the NICRA on a sensible path avoiding the type of adventurist policies being promoted by Kevin Boyle and Michael Farrell, the 'Peoples Democracy' representatives on the NICRA Executive. As an example of the type of adventurist policies being urged, Betty Sinclair, Fred Heatley and the secretary, McInerney, were forced to resign because of the Executive's adoption of the Boyle/Farrell proposal that NICRA sponsor an unstewarded march up the Newtownards Road to Stormont - a provocative coat-trailing exercise through a Loyalist area. Support for this provocative march was in the end revoked, and good sense prevailed, but the ploy had succeeded in forcing the resignations, weakening the Committee. The republican vote was crucial, and indicated by its weakening that the Republican Clubs were increasingly in some confusion, with some Club members perhaps following the policies being promoted by Mac Stiofain, with armed insurrection in mind. Resisting this in the Clubs would have absorbed the efforts of Malachi McGurran and left him with less time in the NICRA itself to counter fully the adventurist PD influence, though the call to 'abolish Stormont' was successfully resisted. Influence from the CP was minimal. The 'chain of command' emanating from the Dublin republican politicisers was seriously weakened.

The foregoing summarises the present writer's impression, from various sources, picked up at the time and retrospectively. This particular episode was crucial in the history of the NICRA and needs further analysis, some of the participants being still accessible.

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 goes 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 I 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.

Seamus 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.

On August 16 1969 CDG phoned Jack Bennett in Belfast to get a report on the situation (dominated as it was by the Bombay st and Falls Road attempted pogroms): '..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 1969 noted earlier. 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..'.

This supports 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 supports the latter hypothesis.

There was a meeting on August 16 1969 in King St, the CPGB HQ, 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.

Without having the text of the 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 Government of Ireland Act, 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"..'; they went to see Andy Barr: '..he was quite shaken. He 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 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..'. AC went off to a meeting in the UI office; he was helping to produce 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."

Volume 21

The next day 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.

In Dublin on December 18 1969 CDG met with Micheal O'Riordan. There was to be a joint school between the IWP and the Republicans, 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 smacks 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! Is this perhaps a slightly 'petite-bourgeous' attitude on the part of CDG?

There is a record on December 20 1969 of 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 the Blaney group 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.

1970

Despite the best politicising efforts of RJ and others, the movement on both sides of the split, one way or another reverted to traditional mode, under the pressure of the Northern events.

Then on January 31 CDG called on the present writer, who seemed '..perfectly sanguine.. there was no-one of any ability among the breakaways..'. I was under the impression that the 'official' politicising structures were holding, and that the Northern Executive of the Republican Clubs had replaced the 'Northern Command' structure. CDG however picked up the impression that I was not told everything; I was not aware, for example, that Costello had been in London. I was it seems unable to give a satisfactory account of Belfast, and was under the impression that Jimmy Steele had no influence. Kevin McCorry was taking over the NICRA as a full-time operation. CDG sums up the situation as one of '...complacent sectishness..'.

He was of course quite right. We had totally underestimated the extent to which Mac Stiofain had been actively building the Northern Command structure, outside of the political process. CDG then went back to Liverpool via Belfast, where he picked up some angles on the scene from an Orange taxi-driver.

In Belfast again on March 15 CDG attended the conference which marked the unification of the CPNI and the IWP into the CPI. There were over 100 people there; the proceedings was opened by Andy Barr, who reminded people that there never was an actual decision to divide the two parties, it was 'brought about by objective circumstances'. It took place during the war, on the entry of the USSR. Jimmy Stewart and Micheal O'Riordan spoke, followed by Edwina (nee Menzies) Stewart who called for a 'Civil Rights Charter' to be added to the Constitution of NI by the Westminster Government. There were greetings from some 20 CPs in various countries. When it was over Sean Nolan asked him if he had any misgivings. He said he had: '..but it is done. The problems you haven't solved before reunification you will have to solve after it..'. Sean Nolan put this in his final speech, and also another thing CDG told him, that they would have to make the working class republican.

Then he went down to Dublin, in the company of AC, who it seems had been present as an observer, presumably in his capacity as the Dublin correspondent of the Irish Democrat. The next day, March 16 1970, he spent some time with Cathal Goulding, who called in to MacLiam's house. '..Some of the bounce had gone out of him. He was more inclined to be self-critical... too busy in his business to get around to see people..'. The Belfast events did them terrible harm, specifically '..having no guns..'. CG tended to blame the lack of guns on the Belfast people themselves: '...the test of a man when the movement is broke is how deep he'll dig into his own pocket..'.

Note the apparent assumption that lack of Falls Road guns was the problem, rather than the existence of the armed Protestant B-Specials as a component of the Crown forces. Thus the pogrom succeeded in its objective, of making everyone think in terms of guns for 'defence'.

CDG went on to remark that the difference between the UI and the Poblacht did not warrant a major split. Goulding responded: '..Stephenson wanted the abstention issue discussed so as to kill it quickly. When we proposed delay as there was no election in sight, Costello challenged him "are you afraid to fight it out?" So it was discussed, and the result was the split..'.

CG went on to discuss Costello, the North, British policy, Federation. There was a mention of RHJ in this context. CG '..thought the British policy was to weaken and confuse the Unionists in the hopes of imposing a federal settlement..'. As regards NICRA, whereas Betty Sinclair said she would have striven to keep the McCluskeys, CG thought they were better out of the way. They either had to be rid of them, or have NICRA dominated by Fianna Fail. He claims that FF leaders are always wining and dining at Dungannon Castle. He says Curry is as bad. He likes good living and to have the price of a bottle of brandy. He mixes socially with the Unionists, despite his political opposition to them. They are quite convinced he would fall for federation.

CDG concluded '..one gets the impression of a very imperfectly centralised organisation..'. CG had been invited as a 'fraternal delegate to the CPNI conference. He asked CDG had he misgivings about this CP reunification; he said he had, but asked CG for his: '..I saw the CPNI as a door to the Protestant workers, if they become anti-partition they may close it..'. CDG replied that he thought that in that case they would have to make the trade union movement the door.

Then, on the question of the 'Irish Republic Now Virtually Established' CG was dismissive: '..revolutionaries must work from things as they are. For my part I cannot see any broad basis of politics being evolved from anybody but dedicated Marxists. They will show the way to the future...'. CDG goes on: '..it struck me that CG is now in a transitional phase. Joe O'Connor in London expressed the opinion that the Goulding IRA will go CPI and the other become the recognised IRA. It would be a pity in ways. But I think this might be true of Goulding. That he has enormously matured is certain...'.

Later: '..I saw RHJ again for a few minutes. It struck me that he was conscious of having lost influence. CG goes to MOR now not to him. As I left the house he said "I want to talk with you - about philosophy". It was because I had accused him of following Fanon...'.

There is a lengthy entry on April 12 which goes into the question of 'abolition of Stormont', the London NICRA, and 'Stephenson's IRA' which '..has come out for it..'. There is a move on foot to get 'direct rule' into the MCF. '..The "provisional IRA" of course think that any sacrifice is worth getting a direct line-up of Ireland versus England. They cannot see the projected sequel of a federal union, or indeed how they could pursue the struggle from the south..'. This entry requires further analysis.

There is a reference to the Connolly Association conference on April 18 1970; some people nominated for the EC did not show up; CDG had to draft the main resolution himself. AC was there. Volume 21 of the Journal continues up to the end of May, with long entries, but little or nothing which is germane to developments in Ireland.

Volume 22

The 'NLF' canard has assumed, to my mind, an undue importance in people's minds. It was never intended as a slogan or a name of a confederating body, or a real movement involving any formal amalgamation. It was used by Mac Stiofain and others to imply the existence of a 'communist threat'. Insofar as I ever used it, it was to connote a process of expansion of the movement to soak up a broader range of progressive forces than Sinn Fein itself, and the embedded politicising IRA who were activating Sinn Fein. The 'Freedom Manifesto' as published in the February 1970 United Irishman is an outline of what we then had in mind for a broader movement.

We were never very specific about this process, but the feeling I had was that the IWP-CPNI amalgamating into the CPI was politically a non-starter, and would be moribund due to the dead hand of Stalinism. People disillusioned with this might be able to think their way into joining an expanded, integrated and politicised republican movement which, as well as the primary objective of national unity through democratic reform in the North, had the core democratic Marxist objective of attaining democratic control over the capital investment process, and creating a friendly environment to co-operative enterprise. The 'NLF' was, for a time, a convenient in-house label for this concept, which we used during internal discussions. We never managed to think of a good name for the concept, although viewed retrospectively it was perfectly valid, taking on board as it did a recognition of the developing crisis in post-Stalinist Marxist orthodoxy, which came to a head subsequently in 1989.

1971

CDG was in Liverpool on January 12 1971 when he got a phone-call from Sean Redmond to the effect that '..the invitation to Belfast has come..'. It was not clear if it was for him personally or for the CA. It related to the NICRA conference. Also it seemed John Hume has drafted a Bill of Rights of his own. CDG conjectured that pressure has been put on Hume to '...get something prepared as an alternative to the thing those Reds have prepared..'.

This theme extended in the January 18 1971 entry; the Belfast NICRA wanted CDG at their conference as the CA's representative, as '..the only organisation doing anything in Britain..'. It seemed however that the 'London NICRA' was in a position to claim that it was acting at the express request of the Belfast NICRA. There was evidence of some confusion. On January 22 CDG arrived in Belfast and as usual went to see Betty Sinclair, who had been at a meeting of West European CPs, and had '..expected to see me there..'. She gave her impressions: '..the old camaraderie of pre-war years has gone... the Dutch will not sign anything... the Italians did not seem to care about anybody but themselves..'. She went on to tell him '..that whereas the Republicans for all their faults would be glad to have Joe Deighan and John McClelland on the Civil Rights executive, the Party (which means the Stewarts) has vetoed it. I was unable to get any closer to the problem..'.

It seems we are increasingly up against the problem of limited political understanding within the CPNI of the nature of the civil rights question, and the role of the republicans, in the NI political context. The Stewarts were unwilling to have the former ca activists Joe Deighan and John McClelland, who had years of civil rights type activity behind them, on the NICRA Executive.

The next day January 23 1971 CDG decided to go to Derry and see Hume, which he did, successfully; Hume made him welcome, and showed him round the place. It turned out that Hume's 'Bill' was not a Bill at all, but a copy of his submission to the Crowther Commission.

He described the Belfast meeting in some detail on January 24; he formed the opinion that it was the result of an 'orange-communist' cabal, analogous to the NILP. Speakers were Kader Asmal, CDG, then Hume. CDG spoke with a 'strong republican bias' given the situation. He suggested that 'they were at their old trick, to demand something and then object to it when they got it, to pose as great reformers before the republicans, but by doing nothing decisive, to hold the Orangemen and the NILP. Hume had been brought in in an effort to confuse the issue..'.

CDG here was attempting to develop a critique of the CPNI, whose role in the development of the NICRA had been ambiguous. In fact the conference seems to have been a genuine though somewhat confused attempt to develop public support for the Bill of Rights approach, which they were trying to extend to economic questions. There was however an undercurrent of anti-communism against which they had to try to swim.

In Liverpool on April 11 1971 CDG received a visit from AC who regaled him with the '..carve-up..' of the NICRA executive positions between the '..IRA and the CP..'. he meant the CP and the Republican Club representatives, some of whom may residually have considered themselves as the 'official IRA' but whose motivations were still political; the leading person in this context was Malachi McGurran. The 'primarily IRA' element had by now gone 'provisional', and would end up suppressing NICRA meetings. Joe Deighan and John McClelland, who were ex-CA stalwarts with long experience of democratic lobbying in the London environment, were sidelined. This reflected a 'Left-Republican convergence' in the worst sense; and it persisted later with organisations like the Resources Protection Campaign in the south: the heavy-handed Stalinist top-down tradition and the Fenian conspiratorial top-down tradition were the key converging philosophies, both being pathological, in a context where a broad movement was needed. In such a situation there was no room for ordinary civil rights activists.

CDG paid a quick visit to Dublin and Belfast on April 24-26 1971; people in Dublin were increasingly concerned with the EEC. CDG '...suggested that the EEC opposition send a delegation to London to get big money off the sugar planters. They are thinking of employing a man at £10 a week to work in Cathal's spare room. I told them I would advise him not to consider it. A £10 man would make no impression. Crotty has been at it full time for six months, living on his savings, but must soon stop..'.

There was an echo here of JJ; protected sugar from beet in France was a relic of the Napoleonic wars, defended by vested interests ('les bettraviers'); it was economic nonsense where tropical producers of cane sugar could produce under favourable conditions at low cost and needed to export to develop their economies. CDG, like JJ, had in mind the overall iniquity of European protected agriculture, seen in global terms. The 'sugar planters' were of course the British sugar giants, like Tait and Lyle, who depended on tropical sugar. These would have been strongly anti-EEC.

On July 3 1971 CDG devoted an entry to Bernadette Devlin: '..I thought her statement dignified enough, and of a piece with her rigid Trotskyist position..'. It never occurred to CDG to question why people became Trotskyist; with him it was a dismissive label. The pathologies arising from the Soviet revolution had bedevilled all attempts to develop a consistent Marxist position in Western Europe. This problem is still with us.

On July 7 CDG came up with the idea of making the CA conference educational, and moving in the direction of an 'Irish Democrat Supporters League' to strengthen the paper, and to get Trade Unions to join. This was a resurrection of his earlier idea, from 1946; he felt the need again to broaden the movement. The entry continued however as follows: '..today the devil Heath announced his EEC plan. The shadow of a West European Fascist Empire hovers over us, and I wonder how well the Celtic peoples, leave alone the working class of England, fare..'. Hostility to the EEC was evidently becoming an increasing factor in CDG's thinking, expressed in somewhat exaggerated wording.

Later on July 11 he had an acid comment: '...Edwina Stewart is in Bulgaria, Madge Davidson is in North Korea while the crisis breaks!..'. In other words he was scathing about how the CPI, the Irish section of the 'international movement' of aspirant post-Stalinist Marxism, had abandoned any attempt actually to give a sensible lead in the deteriorating situation in Ireland..

On July 27 1971 CDG got a letter from CMacL; RHJ was now secretary of the WTS. He went on to mention how he has heard from some Provisionals in Liverpool that AC was to be 'bumped off', as the 'Marxist brain' behind the Goulding faction. The effects of the split go from bad to worse, but this indicates that AC was by this time higher in their perception than RJ! Thus ends Volume 22 of the Greaves Journal.

Volume 23

On January 7 1972 in London CDG had a visit from Brian Farrington, on his way from Paris to Aberdeen, who informed him how the PCF has been recruiting many of the students who fell into the 'trotsky-fascist trap in 1968', and went on to make shrewd comments on the 'international socialists': '..some of them are active in a most dedicated way but there is always a core of cynicism. He told me that RHWJ was not doing much in politics. I said I considered that a mercy..'.

It seems I was totally in the doghouse as far as CDG is concerned! The question at this point begins to arise whether the CDG journals are still a relevant source. I think they remain so for as long as CDG is the main independent external Marxist influence on Ireland. He became increasingly decoupled from the CPGB, as the latter floundered in post-Stalinist confusion, along with the 'international movement'. His primary contact in Ireland increasingly was AC. Insofar as I was active in the 1970s it was in loose association with campaigns initiated by AC, sometimes in critical mode.

My own resignation from the movement came in for comment on January 18 1972: '..a phone call from AC: apparently RHWJ is basking in the publicity that has followed his resignation from the republican movement and has never felt so good in his life. He is like "Toad of Toad Hall"..'.

This I think was an exaggeration. I was in demand for interviews mostly from British papers, who were looking for sensation. I didn't give them any, and they soon tired of it. I stressed that the military dimension had been introduced by the RUC and the B-Specials in August 1969, that it was basically a civil rights issue, and that the republican response was a consequence of this provocation being successful, with reversion to the culture which we had tried to reform. I made no impact on the British journalists' military mind-set.

On February 26 CDG in conversation with SR '... touched on the reasons behind the Aldershot explosion. He said he had no doubt it was rivalry with the 'Provisionals'. His brother Tom Redmond had telephoned on some family matter, and had said in passing that whereas formerly the provisional wing was based on the countryside, now its largest group was in Ballyfermot, a Dublin working-class suburb. So the 'officials' need martyrs. And clearly RHWJ is not going to be one of them..... possibly Cathal Goulding was over-ruled, since the latest policy was contrary to his pronouncements... the deep dread of communism which affects the petite-bourgeoisie..'.

Here CDG seems to be hanging on to his earlier positive opinion of CG, in what is a difficult and perhaps misleading entry. In fact the Aldershot bomb was Goulding's, and it represented on his part a monumental blunder, showing up his basic lack of political clout, despite the earlier glimmerings. The fact that he mentions me in passing in this context suggests a grudging admission that I had for once done the right thing. I had in fact gone to Goulding after Bloody Sunday, and attempted to warn him against any counter-productive response, but to no avail.

On the suspension of Stormont CDG on March 24 1972: '...the vast commemorative chorus, with orchestra, praising Mr Heath's courage, wisdom, skillful daring, ingenuity and common sense. Obviously this is the end of an era. The Unionist monopoly is broken, but not by the forces of democracy, but by the forces of the EEC. I imagine the fools will run in all directions now.. the great thing is to keep up the pressure for civil rights..'. The side-swipe at the EEC in this context was comprehensible in terms of the perception of the EEC as the Act of Greater Union, Heath being of course engaged in bringing Britain in.

There was however only a small comment in passing on the Irish EEC referendum on May 12 1972: '..It seems that AC's efforts have not borne the fruit he would have wished; very much the reverse..'. CDG goes on then about problems on the railways in the north-east of England; one gets a sense that he is temporarily decoupling from immediate Irish concerns. On June 12 we get a reflective entry on what he should write next. There has been little direct contact with Ireland in this Volume 23 which ends on June 30 1972, with comments on his work in his Liverpool garden.

Volume 24

This was pure begrudgery. If I had not written something others would have invented it. The amount paid was buttons. I had resigned quietly, on a friendly basis with CG and TMacG; the press got hold of it some weeks later and hyped it. 'Desertion' indeed! I had resigned on principle when it became clear that CG had broken the contract on the basis of which he had recruited me, and reverted to militarist mode. This was the Greaves Dublin gossip network at its worst. (According to AC, however, in retrospect, he and the group concerned were unaware that I had any such political understanding with Goulding. If they had been, there would have been less gossip and criticism.)

There was a follow-up on July 7 with CDG in Dublin; CMacL regaled CDG with the present writer's '..quarrel with AC... It seems that RHJ thought that the Wolfe Tone Society (of which he is the secretary) was being substituted by the EEC defence committee for the greater glory of AC..'.

There certainly was a difference of opinion, but I think Cathal exaggerated it. I was concerned to keep the all-Ireland aspect alive, with an eye on the North, seeking a political alternative to the then acute provisional campaign. AC was keen to keep the priority actions pointed at the problem of minimising EEC influence post-referendum. The 'Defence Campaign' was later to become the Sovereignty Movement, which was led by AC, who some time later quite suddenly turned it in the direction of the Northern question, to the mystification of the many anti-EEC supporters who had remained with it; some of these as a result were lost. This difference of opinion reflected a real dilemma, but in retrospect, after the referendum defeat, was not the North in fact the key issue? The Sovereignty Movement achieved little by way of rearguard actions against the EEC, and indeed much of the Brussels legislation was perceived as benign. The EEC battle proved at the time to be unwinnable, but we had the seeds of the Good Friday Agreement in the Bill of Rights. So, in retrospect, who was right?

The entries continue mostly on internal CA business until October 21 1972 when there was a mention of CDG not being able to find a letter from the present writer about the WTS meeting in Monaghan. This had invited him to contribute a paper to a conference and AGM, in the Nuramore Hotel, near Carrickmacross, and constituted an olive branch.

It seems that the present writer was trying to pull together the agenda for the WTS conference. In the end CDG must have got the letter, because the conference took place, and he contributed a paper, which was subsequently published.

The WTS conference took place on November 4 1972 and CDG recorded his presence. Maire Comerford, Jack Bennett, Kader Asmal, Derry Kelleher and the present writer were there, as well as Liam de Paor from UCD. He did not record anything about the conference, except that he got insights into Conor Cruise O'Brien ("a calculating businessman") and Peregrine Worsthorne ("I and my friends are High Tories. We care nothing for public opinion") from de Paor. He gave his paper, and I drove him to Dundalk to get a train; he had to go to Newcastle. It seems there was trouble getting people to go on the WTS committee, and talk of winding it up; also that I felt I was being listened to more since I had resigned than before, which needless to say did not impress.

My own recollection of that conversation was that he was affable, and talked at length about his O'Casey project. The fact that he left no record of the content of the conferences however suggests that he discounted it, and had written off the WTS and its possible role on Northern issues. (MacLiam however does not agree with this evaluation; in his experience as Chairman CDG remained encouraging; the pressure to run down the WTS he says came from AC.) Yet he went, and delivered his paper, which I subsequently persuaded him to publish in Atlantis, #5, April 1973, in a focused issue ('the New Ireland'), along with papers from myself, Jack Bennett, Matt Merrigan, John Horgan and others, including Desmond Fennell. Atlantis was edited by Seamus Deane; the co-editor for this issue was John Dillon; the editorial board had Michael Gill, Derek Mahon, Augustine Martin and Hugh Maxton. My own paper was entitled 'The New Ireland: Utopian or Scientific?' and CDG's was entitled 'England's Responsibility for the Crisis in Ireland'.

1973

This was indeed a gross episode of intellectual hi-jacking of the proceedings of the conference of one organisation by another. It provided the stimulus for the switch of attention of the Irish Sovereignty Movement from the EEC to the North, which occurred subsequently, over which the ISM lost many members.

CDG had an entry on January 27 1973 based on a visit from John McClelland: the NICRA executive had not met for months, and Edwina Stewart '..pleases herself..'. There was no real policy, though Joe Deighan still thought it is the Bill of Rights. AC was said to have washed his hands of the North, referring to "bumbling incompetence". Secret meetings between the CPI and the Officials had included the PD, and it was from this that the "assembly of peoples' organisations" concept had been derived. '..As for the Republicans, the officials exist, but the Provisionals rule the roost. No political work or explanation is undertaken..'. A further entry on February 18 recorded Betty Sinclair's opinion that at the coming weekend's conference the republicans would swamp the committee. Their journal however had nothing on civil rights.

There was a sequel on March 9 1973 when AC visited CDG in Liverpool: the republicans had indeed packed the NICRA committee. They also wanted to oust Madge Davidson from her full-time position, and to replace Anne Hope as treasurer. Micheal O'Riordan was to see Cathal Goulding about it, and try to get "orders" through to reverse it. The NICRA was said to have money.

We have here again the spectacle of two top-down centralist organisations, the CPI and the Official Republicans, fighting for control of a supposedly broad-based body, though at the top they were supposedly collaborating.

Volume 24 of the CDG Journal ends on May 31 1973 with a basically unimportant episode which however illustrated further the pathology and decline of the integrity of the 'international movement' of post-Stalin Marxism.

Volume 25

In this volume (25) the entries tend to get longer, suggesting that the worsening situation in Ireland has reduced the opportunities for political action, and CDG has more time to reflect. Entries of direct interest to the current project are quite rare.

There was a brief encounter on October 20 with JS (Jimmy Stewart) who was over from Belfast addressing a meeting; he was apparently unable to answer the question 'what do you want us to do?'...

1974

Note the pervasive nature of the USSR model for the transformation of an empire into a 'socialist state!.

He noted briefly that the present writer looked in for a while on the evening of January 16, without comment. At this time I was developing the techno-economic consultancy in TCD on the fringe of the Statistics Department, and was not active politically, though nominally with the CPI. I was actually scratching around at the problem of making an all-Ireland economic model, at some suitable level of simplified abstraction, using the TCD computer.

On January 17 CDG discovered that Daisy McMacken had taught Dalton Kelly his Russian; she was still alive and living in Grafton St. So he looked in on her; he had last seen her in circa 1949 when in Dublin with Jimmy Shields addressing an IWL school. She had married one Breslin who had started a Young Communist League in the early 1920s, and then settled in Russia, losing touch. CDG was uncertain what had happened to Breslin.

Later their daughter went to Russia, post-USSR, to try to track down her father's disappearance, and came up with a tragic saga of Stalinist oppression. I always marvelled at how Daisy remained loyal to the movement, despite her suspicions of what went on.

On March 22 1974 CDG had a chance encounter on the train from Liverpool to London with Madge Davidson, a Belfast CPI activist, dedicated to support of the NICRA and to making the effort to develop links with the official republicans, whose arrogance however she was finding offensive. Her role model was Betty Sinclair. She was interested in literature and archaeology, and regretted that her Protestant education had deprived her of Irish history, which she had discovered late in life.

Volume 25 ends on March 31 1974. Clearly the Provisional campaign was putting a damper on most areas of creative political activity. Volume 26 takes up from April 1 1974 and remains concerned with goings on in Britain, until a quick visit to Dublin and Belfast on April 28 to May 2:

Volume 26

On November 11 1974 CDG recorded that Andy Barr had declined to speak at a meeting on 'somewhat flimsy grounds'. CDG spoke '...to Betty Sinclair about the possibility of getting Micheal O'Riordan to persuade him. She thought it the best plan, though in Liverpool she had told me that there is antagonism to MOR in Dublin, centred on Carmody and Sam Nolan. They are still crying over Czechoslovakia.... another thing ESi told me while we were travelling is that she is anxious to give up the secretaryship of the BTC in order to write a book about Civil Rights. Seemingly she has a voluminous diary..'.

This if true is most important because the Linen Hall Library NICRA archive is totally deficient about the early days of NICRA, and her diary if it can be found would be a significant source. The CPI archive, if it is any good, should have it, and we await access to this with interest. At the time of writing it is in process of being catalogued by a Maynooth postgraduate student of modern history.

CDG visited Dublin on December 15-18 1974 for a meeting between the CPI and CPGB, held in the office of Noel Harris, then an ASTMS union official. The meeting considered issuing a joint statement between the CPI and the CPGB calling for the 'declaration of intent to withdraw', but John Gollan refused to support it, thus stabbing Greaves in the back, as he had been telling his Dublin support group that they would. He had been arguing that Section 6 of the Bill of Rights should become part of the Constitution of the Six Counties, thus providing for the possibility of merger of government services in certain sectors (for example, an all-Ireland Department of Agriculture, to control animal diseases)..

This is a prescient preview, on the part of CDG, of what has in the end emerged under the Good Friday Agreement, showing a recognition of the possibility of a transitional procedure with the Six Counties still in existence, though with a nascent all-Ireland interface. The notion of a North-South link was in the original Bill of Rights that CDG drafted and which was introduced to the House of Common in May 1971. It totally prefigures the GFA.

This diary entry, over two pages, supports my increasing perception that CDG was closer to the CPI than to the CPGB, and the relevance of the 'international movement' in the context was increasingly being called into question. Gollan's opposition was based on not wanting to make any stipulation for a six county government, because they did not believe there should be any such thing, a basically ultra-leftist doctrinaire position in the context. Anthony Coughlan, in the context of this passage, has commented that the dominant motivation of the CPGB was to get Party people elected to Trade Union positions, and in this they were dependent on the 'Orange socialist' element in Scotland, where Gollan and several other CPGB leaders had originated.

1975

The above false dawn came and went. On March 9 1975 CDG recorded an encounter with Betty Sinclair in which she updates him on the growing tension between George Jeffares, Sam Nolan and Paddy Carmody on the one hand, and Micheal O'Riordan on the other, still on the issue of Czechoslovakia, which has become like a personal feud.

In Britain there was tension between the NCCL and the CA, which CDG described on March 13; the NCCL had been cultivating the Loyalists, and there was talk of setting up an NCCL office in Belfast, it being increasingly understood that the NICRA was regarded as a republican front. Betty Sinclair to her credit resisted this: '..we don't want a Protestant and a Catholic Civil Rights movement..'. CDG: '...the NCCL is trying to manoeuvre into the typical English position, of trying to balance between two camps. No wonder they applied for a subsidy from the Home Office last year..'.

CDG visited Dublin on March 22 1975 to attend the CPI congress, which took place in Liberty Hall. He exuded approval of Micheal O'Riordan's keynote speech, which reiterated his hard-line pro-USSR position on Czechoslovakia, and noted 'impassioned speeches' against this by Jeffares and Carmody. Support for the 'declaration of intent' was on the resolution. There were some 120 people there. He noted that '..they had a number of resolutions and adopted the somewhat unusual procedure of debating them one after the other and voting on the whole lot tomorrow..'.

I too had noted this, being present, and marked it down as another piece of Stalinist procedural pathology. Voting after the debate has been forgotten encourages machine-like voting in support of the leadership's position on each issue.

CDG seemed optimistic about the prospects: '...many new recruits and promising young people... new branches springing up all over the country, thanks to their having the right policy..'. MOR in the closing session paid a warm tribute to CDG for his '..40 years stand for Irish independence in Britain..'.

Volume 27

There is an entry on June 2 which recorded receiving a phone-call from Janice Williams, then Secretary of the Wolfe Tone Society, asking him to speak at a meeting. It seems they had sought permission to reprint his Marx House pamphlet on the national question, but now wanted to print an edited version of a tape recording of the talk which he was invited to give. This he declined to have anything to do with, writing to CMacL to that effect.

Here was the WTS trying to rescue Connolly from the discrediting process which he has identified in his visit a couple of weeks previously, offering him a platform to do so, and he dismissed it. This supports my earlier suggestion that CDG's policy was to support the build up of the Irish Sovereignty Movement and to reduce the influence of the Wolfe Tone Society. The concept of a broad-based all-Ireland national movement rooted in the Connolly vision was being sacrificed in favour of a narrow defence of 26-county sovereignty in face of the perceived threat from the EEC.

On a subsequent visit to Dublin on July 6 1975 CDG it emerged that Anthony Coughlan was talking about writing the history of the CA, and CDG urged getting academic sponsorship.

CDG had in the end come around to seeing the importance of utilising the research potential of the academic system, a new departure for him; hitherto he had always disparaged it and discounted the utility of any of the people likely to be involved.

On November 17 1975 CDG noted that he heard the Irish debate at the Party Congress: '...the important thing was that it took place at all..' and the things he had advised were put in. The Czechoslovak issue is still smouldering and absorbing energy. Then on November 27 he visited Dublin, saw Maire Comerford, who hinted at the possibility of arbitration in the North. Then he saw Tomas Mac Giolla; he had met him earlier at an ISM meeting, and arranged to meet later; CDG remarked critically about Trotskyite influence, and Fanon, with the 'IRA as the vanguard of the revolutionary proletariat', which concept he attributed to the present writer. He picked up later from Sean Nolan that their current policy was to '..sweep away small firms and small businesses in order to increase the numbers of the proletariat..', which of course he identified as the nonsense it was.

Never at any stage was I identifying the IRA with the 'vanguard of the proletariat'; my vision was to transform the movement into one which would be primarily political, and represent the common interest of workers, working managers, owner-managers and self-employed, conceived consciously as a class alliance around common class interests in a national liberation context, and in that sense being basically Marxist. CDG always dismissed this as 'making the revolution without the workers' and as 'petty-bourgeois', the latter being a dismissive label. CDG was of course himself petty-bourgeois, and most of the working class has petty-bourgeois aspirations, aspiring to own its own business. His dismissal of his own roots, and his failure to recognise the unrealistic nature of the aspiration to working-class purity, was a barrier to his understanding of the Irish situation. Yet he had positive insights, like (on November 29) '...the Irish proletariat is not revolutionary at all, and does not recognise any such vanguard..'! Of course! This was precisely the reason that I had attempted to develop the broad-based class alliance concept, on rational grounds, avoiding jargon labels like 'revolutionary vanguard', or indeed 'proletariat'. This sort of language however crept into the 'official Sinn Fein' after I had resigned, under the influence of ultra-leftist elements who joined, filling the intellectual vacuum. My resignation had been caused by the re-assertion of the militarist culture in the movement, perceived as being the way to compete with the 'Provisionals'.

1976

Volume 27

He visited Dublin again on February 10 1976 primarily for a meeting with the ITGWU executive about his projected history, which seemed likely to proceed. He lunched with AC who filled him in on the way official SF had infiltrated and taken over the Resources Protection Campaign Committee, as they had done with the NICRA. Smullen in the lead, with the glamour of his having 'done jail for Ireland', was said to be increasingly influential, and aspiring to replace Tomas Mac Giolla. He concluded the entry with a revealing passage: '..I notice on all sides the same impatience with SF that I feel myself. This claim to national decision-making without popular mandate is objectionable, and I think that there is an element of it inherent in the idea of a Communist Party with a special status in a socialist state, which requires serious examination, though it is not a subject I have ever given much thought to..'.

SF at this time, under the influence of Eoghan Harris supported by Eamonn Smullen, was attempting to upstage the CPI and become the recognised Irish embodiment of the 'international movement'. It is interesting that this is the trigger for CDG's implied questioning of the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' principle, the article of faith on which the 'international movement' placed so much weight.

In Dublin again on February 21 1976 CDG encountered Tomas Mac Giolla to whom he conveyed their decision not to print in the Irish Democrat Sean O Cionnaith's letter attacking the Provisionals. The next day he attended an ISM seminar in the Shelbourne, attended by Sean Redmond, Tom Redmond, Sean Nolan, Joy Rudd, Daltun O Ceallaigh, Micheal O Loingsigh and others. He considered it useful, but does not record what it was about. He recorded an encounter with the present writer, for once not disparagingly; it seems I was active on an education committee of the CPI and had suggested that CDG be invited to address a school; the opposition however was positively vicious, on the grounds the CDG was 'virtually a Provisional'. The running was said to be made by 'two Englishmen' but Jimmy Stewart backed them up. He also noted the presence of George Jeffares and Sam Nolan; the latter he regarded as 'extinct' but he felt that Jeffares' work in the past for peace might be harnessed in the direction of the six counties.

Then on February 23 he met with O Cionnaith and Smullen, who argued that the CPI would never appeal to the masses, but they (ie SFWP Sinn Fein the Workers Party, as they had by then become) could with effectively the same policy. The Provisionals were a counter-revolutionary force. They wanted a devolved assembly in Northern Ireland with a Bill of Rights and majority government; Des Geraghty, one of their leading members, had disavowed 'power-sharing'. ISM was a useless organisation. They threatened that if CDG did not publish their attack on the Provisionals, they would take the matter up with organisations connected with the CA in England (meaning the CPGB). They parted hoping for better relations; CDG went to Sean Nolan who agreed with CDG's position. They were trying to sweep the CPI aside and overall being 'terribly sectarian'.

Note also that they still seemed to be under the persistent illusion that the CPGB was in a position to 'tell the CA what to do'. However pathological the situation is where there is one highly centralised Stalinist top-down organisational claiming 'revolutionary vanguard' status, the existence of two such is indeed a recipe for disaster, with each claiming to control broad-based bodies by the exercise of disciplined infiltrating voting machines. This was a long way from the situation envisioned in the 1970 'Freedom Manifesto' as published in the United Irishman, which, though flawed in its ambiguity regarding the IRA, enshrined the pinnacle of the present writer's influence.

On May 27 1976 CDG attended a WTS meeting; it was to have been addressed by Sean Hughes, but he was ill, and it seems the present writer filled in for him. I have no recollection of this meeting, or what was said, nor does CDG record anything, but his presence can be taken as an indication that he considered the WTS, as it had evolved in the Provisional-dominated epoch, was perhaps worth a visit, supporting MacLiam's position. By this time however it was in terminal decline.

The next day, after visiting May Hayes and lunching with AC, he met with MO'R and the ensuing discussion is reported over two pages. The issues relate to the relationship between the CPI and the 'Officials'. There was on the agenda a feeler to the Provisionals via Micheal O Loingsigh regarding a ceasefire, in the context of which CDG would have possible compromise arrangements raised in Westminster via Labour MP contacts. There is also the question of the 'officials' emerging as a sort of 'rival CP', and it seems that the CPGB is nibbling at the idea. An emissary 'IBr' (Irene Brennan) was involved, who it seems had stayed with SFWP activist Des O'Hagan in Dublin. There was a projected political jamboree in August which the CPI were refusing to attend. It seems the CPGB had not yet decided. The meeting continued with discussion of international affairs and the aftermath of the Czech events; according to CDG '...the developments in Italy illustrated the complexities of the transition to socialism in countries of even moderately developed capitalism..'.

Then on May 29 CDG gave a lecture in the morning, with MM (Michael Mullen the ITGWU General Secretary) in the chair; this was in the context of his work on the history of the ITGWU. There were about 35 people present, mostly 'wee sects', few if any from the CPI, though he recorded Michael Farrell of PD fame, and Eoin O Murchu's wife Helena Sheehan, who felt that Connolly was not severe enough on religion. On the 'wee sects', he recorded some of them favourably, adding the comment '..I don't think the Irish make typical Trotskies unless they come from the Orange side. There is some redeeming feature even in the ultra-right among the nationalists..'.

CDG then encountered Miriam Daly, who it seems was instrumental in having CDG invited to this event (Could it therefore have been the Labour History Society?), and who urged him to go and see George Gilmore in hospital (where he was with a broken leg). Miriam Daly subsequently took a job in Queens University, where she was assassinated, under circumstances which have never been adequately explained. She was, I believe, supportive of the IRSP and Seamus Costello. She had been friendly with Joy Rudd and knew CDG on the CA network.

Volume 28

Later, in the July 15 1976 entry, there is a reference to a complaint by SFWP against the present writer, calling on MOR to discipline him for exposing, to key leading people in the Resources Protection Campaign, that the Left were at war within it, fighting for take-over.

This indeed contained an element of truth; I had attended a broad-based meeting in Athlone, attended by ASTMS and other trade union people with strong technological skills, with standing and influence, some of whom I knew personally thanks to the Irish Times 'Science and Technology' column. It looked like the RPC was beginning to attract technological heavyweights. I was appalled by the way the meeting descended into a slanging match between rival voting machines on some motion, the purport of which I forget. I attempted to generate a knowledge-based compromise consensual amendment, but was shouted down by both sides. This was, if anything, evidence of an ignorant petty-bourgeois struggle between two so-called 'working-class' voting machines, in a contest for the ownership of an organisation which neither of them understood.

1977

The occasion was a small reception held for the launch of a directory I had compiled of scientific and engineering contacts in TCD who were available for applied-scientific work on contract, this being the objective in setting up the 'industrial liaison office' which I then occupied. Justin Keating was at that time the relevant Minister, and he obliged me by coming along in support. Applied-research consultancy, industrial problem-solving, and sponsored masters degree programmes related to to the needs of the emerging Irish-based high-technology sector, were services increasingly provided by the College. Some purists objected to this, but it has increasingly been seen as a useful service, and I was a pioneer in the field. The fact that CDG chose to sneer at this activity underlines the extent to which he had managed to decouple himself from his own applied-scientific roots, where he had once worked reputably.

On a subsequent visit in August 30 CDG came in to town on the Howth train in the company of Helena Sheehan; among other various intrigues in the CPI she complained about RHWJ in TCD: '..apparently science is his province and she is organising a conference that he wants to organise..'.

I have placed on record in my memoirs the following, in the 1970s module of the 'Science and Society' thread:

In or about 1977 an episode occurred which is worth recording. Helena Sheehan, now on the academic staff of Dublin City University, was then doing her PhD in the philosophy of science in TCD, and I was in the TCD industrial liaison office, at the science-technology interface, acting on behalf of the College. I made an effort to build bridges.

Helena was associated with the TCD Communist Society, which ran occasional political events of student interest. I attended one at which she spoke on the 'scientific revolution'. While much of the discussion was somewhat 'up in the air', I felt it no harm to encourage the idea that mastery of science was an important aspect of social change. So when Helena came up with the idea of an invited speaker from the USSR with a science background, I was prepared to make an effort to ensure that the event was supported by at least some members of the College science community, and I made this known. This however turned out not to be welcome; I was accused of 'wanting to take over' the meeting. So I did little, but I did turn up to hear what the USSR speaker had to say. She had presumably got him to come over via the Party network.

The meeting was not very well attended; she had apparently made it an event to which outside political people came in, rather than as a promotional event relating Marxism to the student and College environment. The USSR guest speaker (I forget his name) turned out to be a tired hack, for whom this presumably was a trip to the West as reward for loyal service. However I took him as a possible source of insight into current USSR developments, and I asked a question about the Lysenko episode, which had earlier been a crunch issue at the interface between science and politics. The speaker however brushed aside the question, on the grounds that Lysenko, being by then discredited, was not a fit subject for study in a science context.

In other words, the problem of the dialectics of the interaction between science and society, including the analysis of historic pathologies, had not been identified in the USSR, and was being simply ignored. We had here an example of the atrophy of critical thinking under Brezhnev. However I did not get the impression that any of the Irish Marxists of the 'high church' picked up on this.

On September 5 1977 CDG noted that he had heard via AC that I had become secretary of the Irish Peace Group, which he claimed was '..now undertaking initiatives first thought of by the ISM..'. So CDG called in to Sean Nolan in the bookshop and asks if he '...approves of RHWJ's new position.. "the difficulty is lack of personnel" said SN..'. Well they have been caught once..'.

The Irish Peace Group emerged out of an attempt to set up a broad-based peace lobby based on a group of politicals and journalists who went to a World Peace Council conference in Moscow in 1973, at one of the high points in CPI-republican convergence. It included Tomas Mac Giolla, Micheal O'Riordan, Betty Sinclair, Robin Joseph (then Secretary of the ASTMS Scientific Staffs Branch), Cristoir Mac Aonghusa and his son Proinnsias, Donal Foley of the Irish Times, and a few others, including Irish CND people. It had a tenuous existence for a while, but lacked cohesion. It seems I took it on the nominal secretaryship, and I must have attempted to make some things happen, but without much success. It was basically a postal address for receiving masses of World Peace Council published material, which was of questionable value. Here was CDG intriguing against my attempting to develop any sort of positive role for myself on the fringe of 'high-church left orthodoxy'. I subsequently discovered that MOR had been leaking the highly libellous internal character-assassination document he had prepared in support of my expulsion to journalist members of the Peace Group. I am not surprised nothing came of it.

On December 1 1977 CDG went to Dublin, basically to work in the National Library on his Sean O'Casey book, but the timing was coincidental with a reception at the Soviet ambassador's house on December 2, where Micheal O'Riordan was to be invested with the Order of the October Revolution, and MOR had secured an invitation for him. He heard this at the last minute via Betty Sinclair. It was an event for the Party leadership and their friends, and a few other key people, like Sean MacBride. Neither AC nor CMacL were there, nor needless to say was the present writer. A copy of CDG's Connolly book was presented to the ambassador, which he autographed. But Con Lehane and Cathal Goulding were present, it seems.

This would appear to have been an 'international movement' event intended to assert CPI priority on that network, in front of some other observers. No-one from England was there, apart from himself. He had no comment on the event, except to express unease that MOR was to be succeeded by Tom Redmond, whom he regarded as lightweight.

There is a reference on December 11 1977 to the present writer's expulsion from the CPI which managed to avoid any serious explanation of the issues involved, and to add in the usual character-assassination spin features. I had had negative experience of Eoin O Murchu when we were both in the republican movement. He stayed on after I resigned on the militarist issue, and wanted to issue a damning statement, but was prevented by the leadership from doing so. It seems they wanted to retain ongoing good relations with me, and to accept my reasons for resignation in good faith. Later O Murchu took up with the Eoghan Harris group who were then acting as the Goulding 'think-tank', initiating the policy move away from republican objectives and towards support for international capital, welcomed as a 'generator of an Irish proletariat'. When O Murchu later made the transition to the CPI, under unexplained circumstances, he was made welcome and lionised, rapidly becoming a guru of the centralist political culture which still remained in fashion in the CPI.

In this capacity O Murchu spoke at a meeting on cultural issues, as part of the 60th anniversary celebrations of the October Revolution. He defended the repressive Zhdanov cultural policies of the USSR, which had led to the isolation and persecution of numerous globally-famous Russian literary and scientific figures, and had stifled critical comment. I quite rightly attacked him for this, pointing out that if the Party was ever to have any influence it would have to decouple itself from this sort of carry-on, and learn to apply Marxism creatively to specifically Irish problems. For this I was expelled, with a libellous character-assassination document being circulated by MOR. This event showed up the total political bankruptcy of the CPI, and its inability to read the signs of the coming disasters, which were then increasingly apparent.

1978 - 1980

Volume 29

There is an entry on March 22 1979 which indicates CDG's increasing distance from the 'international movement' and from the CPGB; he described the situation behind the impending split, and had nothing only abuse for those he regards as the problem, like 'horrid little revisionist' and 'cocky conceited little jackanapes'. He concludes '..I am afraid the demoralisation has gone a long way, and many of the younger people have not the categories to think with..'.

Then on July 1 1979 there is an entry in which CDG was critical of the way the Communist University was treating the Irish question, with no input from the CPI or from the CA of London in the associated literature, though there was a CPI speaker, balanced however by an SFWP speaker. The battle between the CPI and SFWP for international recognition continued.

I am beginning to see this as a classic petite-bourgeois struggle between competitive small businesses for a niche market, or mafiosi families battling for control of their patch. Both bodies are top-down centralist in organisational form, actuated by similar political philosophies, Fenian and Stalinist. The idea of a co-operative bottom-up system to merge and develop broad-based democratic politics creatively is anathema to both.

Volume 29 comes to an end on August 31 1979 and Volume 30 takes up immediately, extending to August 31 1981.

Volume 30

There was a reference on March 25 1980 which gave some insight into how SFWP raised their finances, their spokeswoman being quite flippant about it, on an occasion when she was interacting with some CPI trade union people, who were somewhat shocked.

CDG again visited Ireland on June 17-20 1980 to give a lecture on O'Casey under CPI auspices. There were problems about the ownership of the work he has already done for the ITGWU. Then on July 28 it emerged that the reference committee for the ITGWU history included Joe Lee and Paul Bew, who had 'nit-picked' the first-volume material; he had attempted to write a popular history, and they had it seems found it insufficiently academic. The publication strategy remained unresolved.

There was a reference to the present writer in the entry on August 14 1980. I had,it seems, been sending a science column to the Irish Democrat (a peace offering on my part), and for the September issue I had done a critical review of the Goldsmith life of JD Bernal, with which the family had not co-operated, withholding the Bernal papers. I had read it and it was indeed rubbish, giving a totally false picture of the Irish war of independence, which Bernal had observed. I expressed interest in how to get at the Bernal papers, with a view to perhaps writing a refutation.

This in fact did eventually develop into my participation in the Bernal biographical team, along with several others, including Eric Hobsbawm, Ritchie Calder and Earl Mountbatten(!), which in the end produced an omnibus biography published in 1999 by Verso, edited by Brenda Swann and Francis Aprahamian. I contributed the 'Irish roots' chapter.

1981...

Continuing with Volume 30 in 1981, he recorded on June 5 a visit by AC, with DOC and CMacL coming the next day. It turns out that Volumes 2 and 3 of the ITGWU history have been given to Sean Cronin to do, apparently under SFWP influence.

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

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 Betty's funeral. No mention of her diaries. He must have given up on them; if in the end they do turn up they will give additional insights. They may easily have got lost or destroyed.

Nov 20 1982: Dublin visit; ISM meeting in the Shelbourne, neutrality; addressed by Peadar O'Donnell; RHWJ was there, about 80; we met afterwards in Muriel Saidlear's house in Drumcondra.

Volume 32

March 11: special meeting of CPGB on Ireland; Irish Committee meeting beforehand. Hints of CDG being sidelined as Ireland expert.

April 13: appalling article in January issue of Marxism Today the CPGB monthly; critique thereof; proposal involves 're-locating' Catholics.

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

May 7: CDG 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 the Good Friday Agreement; CDG dismissed it as 'idiocy'.

June 2: visits Dublin for the launch of his Four Letter Verses and the Mountbatten Award poetry book, with Anthony Cronin making a public introduction.

Aug 16: there is a 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: CDG's reference to the Strasbourg divorce case is totally misleading. Janice and I allowed our case to go forward challenging the Irish 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 had 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 had 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 anomalous 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.

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 Irish Democrat 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 research 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 this episode 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.

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 March 1988, I worked on paid contracts on average about two 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 Micheal O Loingsigh, Cathal Mac Liam, Owen Bennett; the common ground was Carn (the Celtic League periodical), and it seems I drove him back to the home of Muriel Saidlear and Anthony Coughlan in Drumcondra. Nothing pejorative this time for a change.

Volumes 34 and 35

February 19-21 1986: CDG was in Dublin; he visited Peadar O'Donnell in hospital, and addressed 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.

On April 25 1986 he attended 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 is alas not clear who this is; usually JD is Joe Deighan; Janice thinks this quite possible, as he could easily have been there via the Pearse Foundation network, being a language enthusiast) 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, each 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!

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 May 15 1987 CDG noted receiving a letter from the present writer seeking to make contact in the context of a projected 'Bernal Institute'; there was a Warwick connection and the Links Europa group were said to be associated. He decided 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 referred 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 was to Martin Bernal's 'Black Athena', in which the author attributed much of classical Greek culture to African influence. CDG 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 had to admit that his Democrat review (which he was 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 admitted 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 admitted implicitly that Cathal MacLiam had similar reservations.

Volume 37

November 10: CDG accepted an invitation from Declan Bree to speak at the Gralton seminar 'next year' (no date given). Later on November 26 there was 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 was 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 Irish Labour History Society publication's editor, Pat Devine.

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

On March 19 1988 he had 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 reported an encounter with Merseyside Radio, in the context of the opening of the Connolly Exhibition in the Labour History Museum. There was apparently some fear of Orange backlash. There was 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 encountered Michael O'Riordan and Sean Nolan; there was talk of a Belfast seminar, and devolved government, of which CDG was critical. The next day May 14 Cathal MacLiam drove him up to Carrick on Shannon to the Gralton Summer School, which in the end he managed to address, on the history of the Labour Movement. He mentioned 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. This was CDG's last Irish visit.

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 S(ingle) E(uropean) A(ct) 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 on August 25 1988 was premature and tragic. Despite his latter-day coldness towards the present writer, 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.

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