Ireland

A typed statement appeared on 26 February on a wall in Derry, claiming the 22 February attempted murder of police officer John Caldwell in Omagh on behalf of the “New IRA”. Caldwell, who has led high-profile investigations into republican groups, was shot several times in front of his son and other children while teaching an under-15s football class at a leisure centre. Six arrests have now been made in County Tyrone. The “New IRA” was formed in 2012 from a merger of the Real IRA (a 1997 split from the Provisionals), Republican Action Against Drugs, and smaller groups in east Tyrone and...

The Tories are in turmoil, as rumours emerge that a “deal” on the Northern Ireland Protocol is close to being agreed between the UK Government and the EU. The main lines of any deal have been known for weeks. They are likely to involve a system of “red lanes” and “green lanes” at Northern Ireland ports, which would reduce checks on cargo bound only for Northern Ireland, with risks of non-compliance mitigated by the sharing of data and by penalties for breaches of the rules. One Brexiteer and DUP bugbear, however, is the continuing jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice over Northern...

The centre of Cork after being burnt by British Black and Tans paramilitaries, 1920 On 21 January 1919, Irish Volunteers from the 3rd Tipperary Brigade lay in wait for a Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) patrol, guarding explosives on the move from a nearby quarry. As the horse-drawn cart, carrying 160lb of gelignite, approached the position of the ambush party, the Volunteers, led by Sean Treacy and Dan Breen, called for the RIC men to surrender and then opened fire. Both RIC officers, James McDonnell and Patrick O’Connell, were killed. The Soloheadbeg ambush was the first engagement in what...

In 2012 an amateur historian in the small town of Tuam in Galway (in the west of Ireland) published an article in a local journal about the deaths of children at the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home. Catherine Corless, then in her late 50s, had quite recently gained an interest in local history through attending an evening course. She was in the process of becoming what Irish Taoiseach (prime minister) Micheál Martin would call a “tireless crusader for dignity and truth”. The home had been run by by the Bon Secours (“Good Help”) Sisters order of Catholic nuns, who also operated a hospital in...

From The Irish Worker, 29 November 1913 During the many cross-currents affecting the dispute at present on in Dublin, none are more perplexing than those caused by the attempt to use the national traditions against the workers on strike. One would imagine that as the great majority of the employers are Unionists (and of the very small Nationalist minority the leaders are of a political faith outclassed in the Dublin Press), and as the workers belong to the only militantly national organisation of labour in Ireland, the logical place for all true Nationalists would be the side of the locked-out...

Forward, 22 August 1914

From the Irish Worker, 8 August 1914

Cartoon in Punch (27 May 1914) shows Home Rule party leader Redmond as owner of the "Home Rule" horse, but Liberal leader Asquith as actually riding the horse and telling Redmond that an "objection" has thwarted victory Part of a series of articles on Connolly: workersliberty.org/connolly James Connolly at first dismissed the Ulster Unionist resistance to Home Rule as a matter of "wooden guns". He ended in 1914 by saying that the defeat or withdrawal of the Home Rule Bill would be better than it being passed with any form of partition. In this article he suggested a third alternative: pressure...

In July 1911, when the British king George V visited Ireland, Irish socialist James Connolly wrote the following. Much more on and by James Connolly here. As we face pressure to suspend working-class struggle following the death of Elizabeth II, and many in the labour movement are all to eager to comply - and to join in with celebrations of the monarchy - we would highlight the following in particular: "Let the capitalist and landlord class flock to exalt [the King]; he is theirs; in him they see embodied the idea of caste and class; they glorify him and exalt his importance that they might...

Part of a series of articles on Connolly: workersliberty.org/connolly This is part five of the subsection on “Connolly and the Protestant workers” in our series on “Connolly, politically unexpurgated”. See the list of articles at the link above for all the parts. A Dublin Comrade once remarked to the writer of these notes that as two things cannot occupy the same space at the same time, so the mind of the working class cannot take up two items at the same time. Meaning thereby that when that working class is obsessed with visions of glory, patriotism, war, loyalty or political or religious...