HOC ft A (Incorporating "Irish Freedom")

New Series No. 1 9 JULY, 1946 Price 3d.

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Unity Is Key Issue At Irish Workers1 Congress

D E L E G A T E S T O

W O R L D T . U . C .

I X L O N D O N

By FLANN CAMPBELL y N I T Y of the Labour movement will be

Trade Union Congress when it meets in the key issue before Dublin this month.

the Irish

• MR. GILBERT LYNCH, Vice-President, and Mr. Michael Keyes, T.D., National Executive, Irish Trades Union Congress, who are here seen chatting with Mr. Pa t Dooley (centre), Chairman, Connolly Association, at a meeting in London last year, will be among the delegates to the Irish T.U.C. when it meets a t Four Provinces House, Dublin on July 9 th- l l th .

Teachers Say 'No Surrender'

| DUBLIN national teachers are standing firm in their str ike for higher wages.

Despite a barrage of p ropaganda from the Government they are refus ing to re-turn to work until their demands for in-creased wages are conceded.

As the Government re fuses to negotiate, or even submit the teachers ' claims to in-dependent arbitrat ion, the position re-mains one of deadlock. Bi t terness grows among the ranks of the teachers while 70,000 Dublin schoolchildren run wild in the streets.

Meetings in support of the strike have been held throughout the Provinces, and the I.N.T.O. Executive is conducting a nation-wide campaign to pu t its case be-fore the public.

A welcome fea ture of the dispute has been the creation of paren ts ' committees in different par ts of Dublin, which, in co-operation with local branches of the Labour Party, have called meetings to urge the Government to arbi trate. Mr. Sean O'Grady, c h a i r m a n of the

strike committee, speaking a t a meeting in Mullingar. said t h a t the teachers had been forced to use the only weapon left to their disposal -strike action.

MORAL VICTORY Mrs. K. M. Clarke, ex-president, I.N.T.O.,

said the teachers had a l ready won a moral victory as enlightened public opinion hod swung over to their side.

At Newbridge, Mr. E. McEnanev, C.E.C., said that , drunk with power, the Govern-ment desired to ride roughshod over the liberties of the teachers ; but they knew that r ight was on the i r side and they ap-

pealed to all men of goodwill to suppor t them in their fight for justice.

Point ing out tha t if they wished to abo-lish the Border they mus t first put their own house in order, Mr. D. Kelleher, pre-sident , I.N.T.O., speaking a t Thurles, said they must improve their social services, in part icular , education.

T h e average salary for 13,100 pr imary teachers in Eire was £245 per year, which was only equivalent to £142 in 1938 values, according to Mr. J. Mansfield, I.N.T.O. exe-cutive, speaking in Ennis.

JOBS IN FRANCE / C A R P E N T E R S , cement workers, f i t ters ^ ' and lumbermen are the classes of workers sought by the French Govern-men t in Ireland, said, Mr. de Valera in reply to a question by Mr. Norton (Lab ), T D . in the Dail last month .

Mr. de Valera said t ha t no a r range-m e n t s had yet been made with the French Government to recruit these workers.

Asked by Mr. O. F l anagan (Ind.) about repor ts in the British Press tha t 250.000 I r i sh workers in Bri tain were to be sent home, Mr. de Valera said he understood t h a t the reports were incorrect.

Replying to questions about deportat ions of I r ish workers from the Channel Islands, Mr. de Valera said they were making en-quiries aljout these cases, but so far only one person deported had been in touch with the Department.

G.B.S. is 90 This Month

M R G E O R G E BERNARD SHAW, most famous of modern Irish writers, was

born 90 years ago this month. His b i r th-place was 3 Upper Synge Street, now 33 Upper Synge Street, Dublin.

Ir ishmen all over the world will wish him many happy re turns of the day.

No I r i shman has so often aroused the ire of his fellow countrymen as Shaw h a s done and yet no I r i shman loves I re land more. The City of Dublin did itself proud when it bestowed its freedom upon h im.

People, who ei ther misunderstood Shaw or are af ra id to accept the conclusions of his arguments , seek to absolve themselves by saying tha t Shaw is just a j es te r—the usual funny I r i shman. Shaw described his at t i tude in a letter to Florence F a r r , on January 28th, 1892, in which he s t a t ed : "It is by j ingling the bell of a jes ter ' s cap tha t I, like Heine, have made people listen to me."

When the men of 1916 were executed, Shaw dipped his pen in acid and casti-gated those responsible, just as in 1913 he came out in the support of the Dub-lin workers when they were locked out by the Employers' Federation. Wherever there has been human injust ice, the voice of Bernard Shaw has been heard .

BACK TO METHUSELAH When people sought to discredit I r e l and

during the war. it was Bernard Shaw, in his letter to "The Times," who defended the policy of Mr. de Valera. Though pro-foundly disagreeing with the polit ics of Mr. de Valera, Bernard Shaw has a grea t affection for him. The best b i r thday pre-sent any reader could make to Shaw would be to buy for themselves a volume of Shaw and read, mark and inwardedly digest what is wri t ten therein.

To those who have yet to make the i r acquaintance with Shaw, we recommend tha t final speech by Lilith in "Back to Methuselah."

It will serve as an appetiser for the grea t feast t ha t awaits them.

Confronting delegates wi l l be the related problems of how best to heat the breach between the Irish T.U.C. and the Congress of Irish Unions and at the same time drastically to reform trade union structure so as to enable the united movement to go forward effectively in its campaign to raise the living standards of the people.

Critical of the Congress leadership for its failure to report progress in the nego-tiations which have taken place this year with both the C.I.U. and the Br i t i sh T.U.C., the rank-and-fi le is likely to de-mand tha t s t rong action be taken t o amend the new Labour Court Bill which has just been presented to the Dail.

Under th is Bil l a t is proposed to s e t u p a Labour Cour t which would "regis ter" agreements between workers and employ-ers. Once these agreements have been made then str ike action would become il-legal.

STRIKE WEAPON Delegates, with memories of how t h e

infamous Wages Standsti l l Order—de-scribed as the most pernicious piece of anti-trade union legislation passed since the Treaty—effectively held down wages while allowing prices and profits to soar, are not likely to abandon their s h a r p e s t weapon, the str ike weapon, wi thout a fight.

From Northern Ireland will come a strong demand for the abolition of th» Trades Disputes Act, a measure which has been repealed in Britain but not in the Six Counties. No one sugges ts t h a t there is an easy

solution to the m a n y problems with which the Congress is confronted but it is hoped tha t the Executive will give a vigorous lead to the country once its policy h a s been adopted. Nothing could do more harm than the present tendency to d r i f t and gloss over difficulties.

RIVAL UNIONS Despite years of intensive effort by t h e

Left-Wing to s implify organisat ion a n d policy with a view to making the move-ment into a more effective fighting machine, the t r ade union s i tuat ion in Ireland remains extremely complicated.

At present th ree types of unions ex is t : the old - established "ama lgama ted ' ' unions ' such as the A.S.W.) with m e m b e r s

• Continued on Page Five

LABOUR'S BIG VOTE

/ G O V E R N M E N T candidates were ' elected in both Down and Cork

by-elections. Results: —

DOWN Mr. McMullan (Un ion i s t ) . . 50,699 Mr. Little a n d . Un ion i s t ) . . 16.895 Fly. Offr. D Donnelly (Lab.) 28.846 Mr. J . Brown (Farmer) 2,125

Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr.

CORK P. M c G r a t h (F.F.) .

M. O Driscoll (F.Gj) M. O'Rloi dan (Soc.) T. Bar ry (Ind.)

14.230 9,707 3.184 2,574

J: J >

I •" i £ |

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Postbag

THE IRISH DEMOCRAT July, 1946

NEW CONNOLLY ASSOCIATION ORGANISER

WHY MO TRAVEL

M I i . \ ! V

[ ..ntii.ii, W.I 1.

y-icoH snmuj t so Iri-'it "<'ikn> durm".

liiv r-v.ep';r:i • .eia're a o" vorker is mi lehmT -.••purcrt • '• em-

ployer and. i: :>i'i i . - t i i r r i r t l • .'.»»• Ministry of Iju-. ' ii ) ' : • " • la -ment. then i; is ' In m . -li';!::' !

mploycr to pay iv; ••"• i! - - '

i reland

Omission I l O W did Peadar OTKiniU'!! iiiau.r.a • •> I 1 v ;•!;:• :;!•'•••• I r • ' Pn S. ar ieies on

, ; o m : . ;; m , . it.o . nly or-:un.-.'.-:un tha v. irks t<> pron ct us the C ••*-

nolly A' ociarioii? Surcl he liasn'l kow-towed lo Irish

Press < mspiracy of deliberately r»fu«mtr .o mention the name ot I In ConnoH; A.~ -ociation in iis columns?

!'. MOYI.A.V Birmingham.

* * *

/-, F U L L - T I M E Nat ional Organiser has been appo in ted by the Conno l l y

^ A s s o c i a t i o n w i t h the a im of develop ing the Associat ion and spread ing

Conno l l y ' s teachings in every Ir ish centre in B r i t a i n . He is Mr . S. M a i t l a n d j

w h o was fo rmer l y p rominen t in the work ing-c lass movement in N o r t h e r n

A vapid ISO in menr •.-ship, im-;i"ovl".1 iinr-ndtil posiiion. am! showing poiuica! iniiuence among the I r i sh wor-kers in Br i ta in by the Connolly Associa-tion. was repot ted by Mr. Patrick Clancy, nat ional secretary, addressing the Associa-tion's Executive Committee, in London las; month. I\irt of !ho large crowd which

1 in .ii-d .Mr. S. Maitland. Na-liy.ia! Organiser. C o n n o l l y Association, speak in ilie Hull

ing, Birmingham, last month.

T^VERY week many enquiries come into the C-onnuily Association

and "Irish Democrat, seeking ad-vice about travel permits, subsist-ence, billets, identity cards, Ministry of Labour regulat ions and so forth,

We wish to remind cur readers that individual enquiries can only be answered if the coupon on this page is sent and a postal order for 1 -enclosed. This small charge is made to cover our expenses.

Gaelic Games i 'AN you tell me how lo get in touch V with the G.A.A.? I am anxious to plav our national games while in London.

P. O'BRIEN. London. Write to the Secretary, London County

Board, G.A.A.. Mr. P. O'Donoghue. 21 Warrendor Road. London, N.19.

The Other Side / tREDIT is due to you for your defence ' of hostel workers—but a word about the other side. At Little Heath Camp since the disbandment of the Welfare Committee through internal differences, pilfering has increased and apart from a raid on Hut 57 when most of its residents lost their clothing, some slick guy stole all cold water taps from the bathrooms and many of the bulbs too.

The effect of the last two actions ef-fects all Camp personnel.

SEAN MULLIGAN. Little Heath Camp,

Romford.

Nightmare r p H E "Friends of Ireland" should get 1 cracking to improve travel facilities

between Britain and Ireland. Holyhead it> still a nightmare for mothers with chil-dren.

MAY MFEHAN. Manchester.

Citizenship

HOW do I become a British citizen?

I 'm fed up with passports, permits and reporting to the police. Wolverhampton. H.M. ;Editor's Note: British Government still

regards all Irishmen as British subjects and therefore naturalisation is con-ferred on them at birth. You can apply for unconditional permission to reside in Britain at vour local Police Station].

Parnell

PAINT me warts and all," Cromwell told the man who came to do his |>or-

traft . It is a pity that T. A. Jackson did not remember this when giving us a pic-ture of Parnell in last month's "Demo-crat." It will come as a surprise to many-readers to see Parnell presented as a great revolutionary figure. The "uncrowned king" was In some ways a rank Conser-vative. He was. for example, strongly op-posed to the formation of trade unions, which he described in a polemic with Davltt as "landlordism from below,"(!i Parnell believed in extra-Parltamentary-action; .to does the British Labour Party, if we are lo .ludge by Attlee's word. But who would describe that party as revolu-tionary?

MALACHY BOYLE. Manchester.

ITS U P TO YOU r p H E appointment of a full-time nat ional

organiser will enable the Connolly Association to increase its membership a n d build up its organisat ion in every I r i s h centre in Britain.

I t will assist small provincial branches of t he Association, and will improve the dis t r ibut ion of the "Irish Democrat ."

I t will enable us to increase our support to t he Labour Movement in Ireland, and ex t end the campaign which we are carry-ing on in defence of the r ights of the I r ish workers in Britain—for payment of lodg-ing allowance to men with families to sup-por t a t home; for utilisation of skilled men a t their proper c ra f t s ; for p a y m e n t of unemployment and workmen's compen-sa t ion benefit to Eire workers who re tu rn home. It will enable us fu r the r to pub-lish a pamphle t on the political s i tuat ion in I re land.

Money is the Key But al! these th ings need money—

m o n e y for rent, printing, wages, s t amps a n d a thousand and one other necessities. We need at least another £150 by our a n n u a l conference in October if we are to m a i n t a i n our organiser and carry th rough t h e great political campaign proposed a t t h e last meeting of the Connolly Associa-t ion Executive.

I t is up to YOU to help. If you agree wi th our policy then support us financially. R e a d and sell the "Ir ish Democrat ," at-t e n d our socials and dances, write for a collect ing card, contr ibute to our F ight ing F u n d , join the Connolly Association and p lay your part in spreading the teachings of Connolly. S E N D THAT CONTRIBUTION TO-DAY

* * *

Our most sincere thanks to: Mrs. Alberry, 6s.; J . Shannon, 2s. 6d.; C. Mufphy , Is.; P. Soully, 2s.6d.; S.E.M., 2s. 6d.; Capt, T. Fforde, 7S. 6d.; E. Finlay, 10s.; P. Early, 4s.; J. Horan, 6s.; J.C., £2 ; P. Kally, £1 ; W. Barr, 5s.; P. Thomas, 2s.; Ben Owens, £1; W. London Branch, Con-nolly Astociation, £2; National Executive, Connolly Association, £15; Nora Gallagher , 10s.; Collection, Camden Town meeting, 10s. 5d.; Collection, Woolwich meeting, 24S. 6d. t o t a l , £27 17S. 5d.

All contributions to the Manager, "Irish Democrat ," 150 Southampton Row, Lon-don, W.C.I.

i "We are reaping the harvest of the sec-ds sown dur ing the war." said Mr. Clancy.

"Our policy of defending the rights of the Irish workers in Britain, of encour- I aging them to enrol in trade unions, and ; of fostering friendly relations between ! the peoples of Britain and Ireland has proved correct," he said.

Describing how the expanding political situation and the growth of Socialist ideas among the Irish in Bri tain was favourable to the development of their organisation. Mr. Clancy said they had already launched a big campaign of con-ferences, meetings, leaflet dis tr ibut ions and "Irish Democra t" sales, wi th the in-tention of reach ing every Irish cent re in , Britain.

"The ' I r ish Democrat ' is sold in every : important town in Britain—let . s see tha t we have b ranches in those towns also," he i added.

Six New Branches In May over 90 new members had been !

recruited to the Association, nearly £40 collected a n d large meetings held in Dagenham. London, Manchester. Birming-ham and Wolverhampton. In J u n e meet-ings were a r r anged in Dagenham. Wool-wich, B i rmingham and Oldbury, and fur-, ther meetings were planned for Ju ly and August in Manchester . Bi rmingham, Liverpool. Glasgow, Plymouth, Coventry and Redditch.

The Association's target for its annual conference in October was 250 new mem-bers, six new branches and £150 in the Fighting Fund.

The Executive Committee approved a decision to ma in t a in closest possible links with the t rade unions, the "Fr iends of Ireland" group of Labour M.P.s, t he Irish Prisoners' Aid Society, the Ir ish Thea t r e Group in London, the Hostels Campaign Committee and other Irish organisat ions.

It was unanimously decided tha t , owing to the expanding political s i tuat ion and the greatly increased amount of organisa-tional work necessary to carry t h rough their summer campaign, tha t Mr. S. Mait-land should be appointed ful l- t ime national organiser .

§ § jal^l ^ - VjT! <c

K MEET YOUR IRISH FRIENDS £ S

at §

THE TARA CLUB § k; 0>

Aims of Association Aims of Connolly Association a re : —

To spread Socialist teachings of J ames Connolly.

To defend r igh t s of Irish workers in Bri tain.

To foster good relations between Irish and Bri t ish peoples.

To oppose Fascism and all forms of re-action in Ireland.

To help build the Labour Movement in Ireland.

390 4 Brixton Road, I.ondon, SAY'.

CEILIDHE EVERY WEDNESDAY, 5 SATURDAY and SUNDAY. §

Irish and Modern Dances to Frank K Lee and his Radio and Recording jt

Tara Ceilidhe Band. §

South London's Irish Social Centre ^ "1 V v^l V "'. 'e^i C^) ^

IF YOU WANT TO CONSULT THE

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ADVISORY SERVICE CUT OUT THIS COUPON

and post to the Connolly Association, 6th Floor, Premier House, 150 South-ampton Row, London, W.C.I, together

with Postal Order for 1 /-

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Make out P.O. to Connolly Association and cross

JOBS V A C A N T rRISH DEMOCRAT" wants sellers in all

parts of Britain and Ireland. If you can contact IrLsh workers in factories, hos-tels, building sites, hospitals or transport depots you should be selling our paper.

You can easily sell 100 copies on a Samr-dav evening round the dance halls, pubs, or outside the chapel on Sunday mornings.

Write to the Manager, "Irish Democrat.' 150 Southampton Row, London, W.C.I for supplies.

Send y o u r copy of the IRISH DEMOCRAT home

when you've read it.

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Post this to: Secretary, Connolly Association, 150 ^Southampton Row, London, Yj.C.l.

• PAST AND PRESENT

Studies in the history of Civilization

THE GROWTH OF

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Roy Pascal Professor Pascal has written n thoughtful study of modern Germany which provides the essential knowledge f o r a proper understanding of the relation of German thought

to Society.

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July, 1946 THE IRISH DEMOCRAT 3

IRISH DEMOCRAT ROOM 117. I'KFMH K -HOI Si;,

150 SOUTHAMPTON KOW, I.ONDON, W ( 1

All <omniunicatious to lie addressed (.i the Editor, Flann Campbell.

telephone Nr..; Tir. 3[|fiti

KATE—-Twelve MOMIH 4 -S i \ Months - -

AT CROS, An iewspapers a n a • tilers who .tile I. hour Oovi I r i shmen to I: '1 i rm a: it ale.

"Daily Expre- -m« 'o s 'amped-

DOW!* & CORK | RISH Labou r need not feel down-

hearted at the resul i of the D o w n

and Coik by-e lect ions last mon th .

Fighting in a backward rural con-stituency wi th hastily improvised i forces against the experienced and j

well-organised political machine of I Ulster Unionism, Desmond Donnelly i polled over 28,000 votes, whi le in Cork the Socialist candidate consider-ably increased the Labour vote as compared wi th the last election.

But certain political weaknesses were very evident in the campaigns of both candidates, and if Labour is ever going to win power in Ireland it must take seriously to heart the lessons of its election defeats.

Donnelly was not the ideal candi-date for Down. Gallant flyer and sportsman though he may be, yet he suffered f rom the obvious disadvan-tages of being neither a local man nor closely acquainted with the ex-tremely complex political and eco-nomic problems of Northern Ireland.

Clearly if the Friends of Ireland, who were responsible for the choice of Donnelly as candidate, are to carry through their declared a im of contesting every constituency in the Six Counties held by a Tory then one of their first tasks must be to to con-sult with the N.I . Labour Party on the vital questions of policy and or-ganisation.

At present the Labour Party has no full-time organiser and lacks a clear policy on the most important political issue of the day—Partit ion.

The "Friends" can do useful work in helping Labour to reorganise its scattered forces and build up an effec-tive machine, particularly in t h e rural areas. Pressure could also be brought on the various "splinter" groups, Jack Beattie, M.P., Common-wealth Labour, Socialist-Republicans and Communists, to get some sort of united front against the Tories.

In Cork, O'Riodan's campaign was also hampered by disunity. So long as three separate groups exist in that city, each claiming to speak for the organised workers, so long w i l l Labour remain in the political wi lder-ness.

Outstanding as a working-class leader in the South of Ireland, wi th a magnificent Republican, anti-Fascist and trade union record, O'Riodan is an obvious choice to >;arry Labour's standard at the next election. He should be invited to rejoin the Labour Party along wi th the group of active trade unionists and intellectuals he has built round him.

j ^ H E Fi r s t \Ym kl W a r e n d e d a t t h e i e l e v e n t h h o u r of t i le e l e v e n t h

d a y oi t i le e l e v e n t h m o n t h of t h e y e a r 1918. and on J u n e 28 th . 1919. t h e P e a e e T r e a t i e s w e r e s i g n e d .

T h e S e c o n d W o r l d W a r e n d e d m o r e t h a n n i n e m o n t h s ago a n d t h e r e is no s ign , a s y e t , of a n y P e a c e T r e a t i e s . It is foo l i sh , a s s o m e d ip lo-m a t i c o b s e r v e r s c o n t e n d , t o b e l i e v e t h a t t h i s s t a t e of a f f a i r s is d u e e i t h e r to t h e . obs t i nacy of M o l o t o v or t h e p u g n a c i t y of B e v i n . B e v i n , B y r n e s a n d M o l o t o v a r e b u t t h e t h r e e l e a d i n g a c t o r s w h o d e t e r m i n e t h e w h o l e ac-t ion of t h e d r a m a . O t h e r f i gu re s m a k e t h e i r e n t r a n c e s a n d exi t s , bu t s e r v e m e r e l y as f o i l s t o se t off t h e t h r e e m a i n c h a r a c t e r s .

The meetings of the Foreign Ministers in Par i s and their deputies cannot be pro-ductive of satisfactory peace treaties be-cause they but reflect, in their divergent views on economic and political issues, the chaos which is man i fe s t throughout the world. I t is, therefore, with pleasure | I welcome the article by "Br ian Boru." in | the J u n e issue, in which he stresses the I growing importance of I re land in an eco-nomic sense.

EMIGRANTS' REMITTANCES The policy of neutra l i ty which Ireland

adhered to during the war was in a real sense an Irish policy, i na smuch as every political party in the Dail subscribed to it and insisted upon its main tenance . Yet in any discussion of the neut ra l role tha t Ire-land played during the war, there are one or two facts which need to be recorded: there are contained in a recent White Paper, issued by the Minis t ry of Finance in Dublin.

Emigrants ' remit tances received in Dublin during the year 1938 amounted to £3 millions; in the f inancial year of 1944 they had risen to £13,500,000. Dur-ing the first five years of the war these remittances totalled approximately £45 millions.

English newspapers, also ni.oi, :,!.•'... in. eluding the notorious political mounte-bank. Professor Savory, oi Queen s Univer-sity. Belfast, with their superficial under-s tand ing of simple economics, believe tha t I re land is richer by these €45 millions, when the t ruth is that I re land subsidised the Bri t ish war effort to the tune of this amount ,

Irish workers in Br i ta in sent postal and money orders to their relat ives 111 Ireland. These were I.O.U.s on the Bri t ish Treasury which the Irish Government redeemed,

By ti DIPLOMATICS pseudonym of a well-known diplo-

matic correspondent, who has spent many years in diplomatic circles. The "Irish Democrat" welcomes this new contributor to its columns.

and in re turn for these I.O.U.s gave the relatives of Irish workers in Ireland food, clothing, housing, etc. If the Irish Gov-e rnmen t had not redeemed these postal and money orders the I r i sh workers in Bri ta in would have had to re turn home and find other means of main ta in ing their relatives. So the less we hear of Irish workers in Britain sending money out of the country, the 1; tter it will be.

HELPED WAR E F F O R T There is another in teres t ing item in

the Whi te Paper. During the first five years of the war, the n u m b e r of persons travelling f rom Ireland to Br i ta in to work was 195.710. This number does not in-clude those who went to Br i ta in via Bel-fas t and joined the Bri t ish Forces. So in the first five years of the war, this parti-tioned p a r t of Ireland, known as the Twenty-Six Counties, contr ibuted more t han 200,000 men and women to the Bri t ish war effort, and the I r i sh Govern-men t subsidised the Bri t ish war effort by £4") millions.

S 1 it is t h a t Irishmen and women have noth ing to apologise for when people ques-tion the role of Ireland dur ing the war.

It is no exaggeration to say that Ire-land's contribution to the British war effort, though of an indirect character , played an important part in turning the tide in 1940. Shades of Paddy Finu-cane! I hope when the representatives of the 1 Daily Express" saw Richard! Kelliher, the Australian V.C. frotn County Kerry, in the Victory Day Parade, they remembered he was an I r i shman.

RELEASE PRISONERS It is an essential t ha t this story of Ire-

j land's contribution to the war effort should be made known within the La boy:

j Movement. It would be a happy gesture I of 11s recognition, if Mr. Chuter Ede. one ' of the kindliest of Brit ish Home Secre-

taries. would release all the members of the I.R.A. held in gaol for over sever years.

Bruised, but not crushed, they have paid in ful l for any crimes they may have com-

: mit ted in Britain. Mistakenly, these men thought they were helping their country's cause, and while the position in Ireland makes it impossible for the Irish Govern-ment to make official overtures to the British Government, surely the members

j of the Brit ish Labour Government are j sufficiently conscious of their human re-; sponsibilities to speak up on behalf 0;

these members of the I.R.A.

PORTUGUESE FASCISM Ireland enters a new era of world poh-

j tics. There has been a tendency to regard Dr. Salazar. Prime Minister of Portugal , as the model along whose lines the f u t u r e of Ireland should be pat terned.

Before next spring Dr. Salazar will be a discredited poli^cian.

Ireland can make a real gesture to-wards Portugal by expressing, sympathy with the aims and aspirations of the Portuguese people who hate their pre-sent dictatorship.

All hope of Spain and Portugal being a base to which Ireland can adhere must be abandoned. Ireland would be well ad-vised to line herself alongside the demo-cracies.

Highlights by ' Red Hugh' LABOUR SENATOR EXPOSES

PRISON SCANDALS

H U S H T H E A T R E

G R O U P rile cast of Sean O'Casey's "Red Roses

For Me." now playing at W y n d h a m ' s Theatre. London, were prominent a t a

.successful dan • organised by the I r i sh Theatre Group . t Victory House. Leicester Square, London, last month. Those in-terested in Joining th is Group should write to Miss M. O'Leary, c/o the " I r i sh Democrat." 150 Sou thampton Row, Lon-don, W.C.I.

Y ' B A R R A G E of p r o p a g a n d a " is x r e s p o n s i b l e , a m o n g s t o t h e r t h i n g s , f o r t h e E i r e G o v e r n m e n t ' s d e l a y in s e t t i n g u p a c o m m i t t e e to e n q u i r e i n t o t h e l a w s a n d r e g u l a -t i ons g o v e r n i n g t h e t r e a t m e n t of po l i t i ca l p r i s o n e r s . A t l e a s t t h a t w a s t h e e x c u s e — o r j u s t i f i c a t i o n — ad-v a n c e d by Mr . B o l a n d , M i n i s t e r of J u s t i c e , w h e n " r e p l y i n g " to a de-b a t e in t h e S e n a t e in w h i c h h o r r i f y -ing d e t a i l s w e r e g i v e n b y a L a b o u r s e n a t o r of t h e t r e a t m e n t of pr is-o n e r s in M a r y b o r o u g h P r i s o n .

The senator was Luke Duffy and his ievela Lions came as a shock to many Government sunpor'er:,.

S ta t ing he had vis ted Maryborough recently with anothpi Labour man. he said solitary confinement, as carried out there, involved locking up a prisoner, in his cell lor 24 hours, deriving linn con-tact of any kind except with prison officials. 110 exercise outside his ce.i, de-privation of newspapers and refusal ol the right to send or receive li tters.

He referred to a p i h o n c r . convicted ol murder and whose sentence of death was remitted to one ot life imprison-ment. and said from July 14th. 1940. un-til J u n e 2nd. 1943. or for a period of two years eleven months and four days this man was exposed to the full rigours of solitary confinement.

No Exercise SEVEN prisoners In Maryborough were

living in ext raordinary conditions. They were HQL allowed to exercise in the open air and not allowed to see visitors or receive lettere and were under spe-cial observations, which m e a n ' th: a prison warder switched on ti c e l c r -.light in their.oells every-f i f teen minuv-"

When the light was switched on, if the prisoner went on sleeping there was knocking and kicking a t the door, and it we still did not respond the cell door was opened and he was very quickly made turn over.

"When we ask why these prisoners are not allowed Lo exercise in the op-n air. we will." said Mr. Duffy, "be told tha t they were not properly drtssed. They may not be as v. ell dressed as a man walking down G r a f t o n Street, but the.' are more effectively dr°ssed than. Mr. G a n d h i with his loin cloth wiien he met Bri t ish Ministers recently, or the :: en who go around Dublin 111 kilts playing in a band on Sunday mornings.

Mr. Boland said the pa r t i cu la r prison-ers referred to were not < rchnary people. They \vr>e out 10 wreck t h a t State and

were not a bit repentant. He was deter mined not to let a small group of people drag down the prison system and make it impossible for the Governor to run the prison.

Chinese Tortures r | 1 H E lalk about solitary conf inement J was giossly exaggerated, he said.

It was c o m e t that m the case of seven pri>oneis mentioned wardois had lo look In every fifteen minutes to see tha t they were not doing someth ing t h e should not be doing. But the warders did not en te r the cells because the keys were in the Governor's office.

Until this barrage of p ropaganda was over, he added, he could no t agree to set up the Commission suggested.

Mr. Boland cannot have it both ways. If only a handfu l of men a re concerned surely he or his advisers could think up a method which would enable the Governor to run the prison wi thout dis-

raclng the rules of civilised society. It all s tr ikes me as reminiscent of ancient methods of torture In China irisWnd or

what one might expect in a civilised state.

One wondeis if similar tragedies are being enacted in Northern Irish and Bn-tish prisons.

Antrim Idyll I AST week I went hoi.daying in a

l ' t l le seaside village in the Countv Antrim'—a pretty, peaceful spot where kindly i n h a b i t a n t s - m o s t l y small fa rm-ers call out a friend!V greeting as YOU pass them by. There wasn' t even a cinema in the village to cuidle the blood wiili films of gangsteis . lends and the usual hellsapoppin Hollywood stuff.

Offshore the local fishermen garnered their harvest and 011 the little fa rms-whole famil ies were at work in the potato fields.

I d y l l i c - b j : !<;••• the fact tna t up and down the couple of vil'age s t iee ts a imed men .>.orc •.•cn!iivui»i.v patroll ing: and •he s a ' \ e went .'or the reads and lanes.

Du' •!:- 'hv 1:: ;n;. nationali t ies we:e billeted in t ins .l.s; • ict—Yanks. Canad ' an - . V01 ".e^ians. Belgians and British, and one and ail were welcome in the village and farmhouses.

Now the war is over but tile Northern Ireland poi.ee are s h " there, and still armed with Webley revolvers. The local people no doubt arc u.ed to the sight, but to the visitor from B n t a i n it, looks positively b a r b a r i c - a s if, indeed, the farmers were In a sort, of Hollvwood Wild West with rust lers and badmen galore, and the au then t i c "gunmen" were imported to protect the cows, in-stead of anachronist ical lv cow the cow-owncrs!

Two Labour views on the Co. Down election.

A Newtonwards m a n : "A terrible disappoint™ " t " ;

A Belfast : i n : "A moral victorv for the W b 6 u H > a r l y "

4 THE IRISH DEMOCRAT July, 1946

A Great UNIONS FORCE WAGE RISE FOR FARM

WORKERS Irishwoman

"J T was almost an irony (hat tile ftews ' of Mrs. Skeffington's d.-ath slici'.'.c.

Ji. e come to the London-Irish ;:rs: p-;OBgh an English Sunday newspaper, i . m an official English point of view. J.3. S. Skeffington's life h a d been nearly i everything it should not have been 1 to h t r t h a t would have seemed a high com-p' i .ment): from an I r ish and from a pro- ! tc rss ive English point of view, it had been ! a shining inspiration to all who struggled | f t l iberty and for justice. Over here we j b a d a regard for her all our own, because when she spoke, as she so often did. at i r ee t ings organised by advanced British g: :aips, she always contrived, no mat ter w h a t the subject, to p u t I reland on the s i t n d a .

And a t those many meet ings she ad-dressed. how generous she was with her t ime, and with her knowledge! Unfor-get table are those grand, long, talks, with the i r racy phrases and the mischievous v.v. which sent her auditences, English as U'TJI a s Irish, into peal ing laughter. She ec ;ild of course speak fiercely too about th ings t h a t stirred he r deeply, but the g j e a t na tu ra l kindness of her personality, he r r ega rd for individuals as well as gioups, brought warmth to those gather-ings, whatever their subject .

WOMEN WRITERS T h e Minerva Club in Brunswick Square,

where she often stayed, was the scene of m a n y of those s t imulat ing meetings, and the last t ime I met Mrs. Skeffington there, she was recalling with her old friend Mrs. Pethick Lawrence, their days together on the feminist f ront .

One of the most interest ing meetings addressed by Mrs. Skeffington in London —again a t the Minerva Club—was on the subject of modern Iris® women writers, a n d it was Kate O'Brien who tha t n igh t described -the speaker as "a woman of brilliance, courage, and intellectual pene-t ra t ion ," and Miss O'Brien said tha t for all of us. Mrs. Skeffington spoke t h a t evening of anomalies which still existed in the position of women workers as com-pared with men, and it was surely charac-ter is t ic of her tha t only a little while be-fore her dea th a letter f rom her should have appeared in "The Irish Press," pleading the cause of women teachers.

GREAT FEMINIST The National University of Ireland Club

was ano ther place of ten visited by Mrs. Skeffington when she came to London. T h e first t ime I met her there she was giving an account of days at the Old Rcya l University, telling of the efforts made by women to sgcure equal privileges wi th men, and she stressed the immense advances women had now made into real Universi ty life in Dublin compared with t he days when her husband had worked tor the admission of women, on his ap-po in tment as first Regis t rar of University College, Dublin.

Most of the advanced political and ser ia l groups in London knew the cha rm of her voice and also the forcefulness of her a rgumen t s when she spoke on causes unpopula r in official circles, for though Mrs. Skeffington was accustomed to ad-dressing mass meetings in hal ls all over London, she had also contacts less well known.

To them too, sufferers for the causes they h a d espoused, unf l inching fighters for liberty, the news of the passing of the i r comrade will have been a profound 6 C I T O W .

SPOKE AT HYDE PARK T h o u g h the English, no less than the

I r ish climate, fixed most of her meetings indoors, there were many occasions when she addressed open air ones. Easter, 1936 spr ings to mind; just t en years ago, and a big crowd were gathered around a plat-form in Hyde Park, l istening to Mrs. Skef-fington addressing an I r i sh Commemora-t ion meeting. Much of what she said t hen was prophetic in the light of fu ture events, for only three mon ths af terwards a s torm was sweeping Spain tha t was soon to shake the world.

As I write these memories of the woman we all loved and admired, a. let-t e r has come from Desmond Ryan, telling me a little of the last months of her brave, eventful life. And I know how she would have smiled in appreciat ion of his words: "You will unders tand what I mean when I say I think he r depar t ing lust r o w is the least defensible action of her life.'i- ' Yes. tha t is jus t wha t we all do feel : she fought our batt les, courageously, etlflessly, and her loss to the London-I r i sh is a s great as to those a t home.

MAIRIN MITCHELL

ARM workers' wages in Eire have been forced up as a result of the big organising drive which has been

made in recent months by trade unions. The increases range from a minimum of 4 / - to a maximum of 8 / 6 according to the district.

• This smiling: f a rm labourer is but one of many who have benefited from the rise in wages resulting from trade union activity in Dublin, Wicklow and other counties in Leinster.

Tips - But No Wages By NORA GALLAGHER

CONDITIONS of catering workers in ^ London's hotels and res taurants— many of the workers are Irish—have long been a scandal. Indeed, hostility to trade union efforts to improve condit ions be-came so marked t h a t Mr. G. Isaacs, Min-ister of Labour, was forced to protest in Par l iament .

Main grievances of the waiters, wait-resses, chefs, chambermaids, por te rs and o thers employed in hotels, res taurants , clubs and cafes a re the long hours, bad welfare condi t ions and the so-called " tronc system." Th i s is an a r r a n g e m e n t by which all t ips are pooled and then distributed by the headwaiter, who, of course, takes a f a t share of the pool.

T h e t ipping system has become so widespread t h a t m a n y employers now ex-pect the tips to pay the workers' wages. In some of t h e luxury hotels and clubs it has become the custom for the porters to pay the employer instead of vice versa for the privilege of working.

Usually the post hotels and clubs are the worst employers. Small, pr ivate hotels do not treat the i r employees too badly.

PROTECT MEMBERS A big drive is now being made by the

National Union of General and Municipal Workers to organise all catering workers in London. Union membership h a s been growing in Lyons and the A.B.C. cafes and a fight is being made to break down the fear of t he "sack" which has pre-vented many workers from joining.

One example of how the unions protect their members was in my own case when I got a septic finger and was dismissed f rom my job. Subsequently the Union fought my case, and I got substant ial compensation a f t e r six months.

I strongly u rge all Irish cater ing wor-kers to join their Union at once. I t is their best guarantee of higher wages, improved conditions and protection against victimi-sation.

IRISH IN AMERICA I ^ R O M New York comes news t h a t many ' of the I r i sh in America are "going

Lef t " like their fellow-exiles in Bri tain.

T h e .Connolly Commemoration organised last May in New York by Gerald O'Reilly and other I r i sh s ta lwar ts in the Transpor t Workers of America was an outs tanding success. Highl igh ts of this event, which was at tended by 600 people, were an ad-dress by Councillor Michael Quill, presi-dent , T ranspor t Workers' Union of America, and the unveiling of a Connolly memorial plaque designed by the Irish-American sculptor, Seumas O'Brien.

Austin Hogan presided at the Com-memoration, which unanimously passed resolutions cal l ing for abolition of the Border and the release of Irish political prisoners.

This victory f o r the t r a d e unions is l ikely to encourage organisat ion in o ther areas of I re land. U p to recently, organisa-t ional efforts had been

mainly confined to Co. Dublin but now the un ions are extending the i r agitat ion to t h e Midlands and East of Ireland.

A recent b ig s t r ike at St. Pa t r i ck ' s College, M a y n o o t h has been won, states Sean Dunne, agr icu l tu ra l workers ' o rgan ise r of the Workers ' Union of I re land .

Describing the great advances made by this Union, Dunne describes how at May-nooth an increase of 8/6 was secured while at Celbridge the figure was 9/-.

"In the Mageney-Castledermott-Bally-tore district of Sou th Kildare a large-scale offensive agains t starvation wages and harsh working conditions is about to be launched," he says.

In South County Dublin and at Bray, Enniskerry, Delgany and Newtown big union meet ings have been held. F a r m , road, bog and fores t ry workers f rom New-castle to Shil lelagh, Co. Wicklow a n d a t Clonsast in Leix have sent in so m a n y requests for organisers tha t the union can-not cope with t h e demand.

MILKERS ' STRIKE Milkers a n d forestry workers are also

flocking into un ions in order to raise the i r deplorably low s t andards of wages.

Hundreds of milkers in the Nat ional Union of Agricul tural Workers have secured great ly improved conditions of work as follows:— (1) One week's holiday every six months . (2) Maximum number of cows per m a n

during May and June to be 17. (3) Wage to be increased by 4 - for every

cow over max imum. (4) Suitable living - in accommodation,

beds, bed - clothing, lighting, and water-proof clothing.

(5) A week's notice by both parties. (6) Last man engaged to be first m a n dis-

missed. This union is also taking steps to do

away with n igh t work and at close of pre-sent grazing season will issue instruct ions forbidding any milker to commence work before 6 a.m. or work later than 6 p.m.

This will be a revolutionary step for-ward as up to now milkers have not known what it is to get a proper n igh t ' s sleep.

Mr. T. J . Langan, Secretary of the National Union of Agricultural Workers, points out in a le t ter to the "Ir ish Demo-cra t" tha t t he Fores t ry Depar tment and some county counci ls are among the worst offenders in pay ing low wages.

S»

| British Militarism f As I Have Known It

By H a n n a SheehV Skeffington A FACTUAL account by the late

Mrs. Sheehy Skeffington of the murder of Francis Sheehy Skeffing-ton in Dublin in 1916, and the sub-sequent ef for ts of British mili tary and political machines to protect the culprits and suppress the facts.

An inoident in Britain's "Black Record."

Included are a full-page portrai t and, as an appendix, a contem-porary let ter f rom the late Major Sir Francis Vane.

The Ker ryman - - 6d. Order th rough your bookseller or

, from Eason's, Dublin, at 7d. post

-i froa"

WORK IN MOUNTAINS Dur ing a recent strike of council work-

ers it was revealed t h a t the County Com-missioner was employing men a t Tal laght quarries, Co. Dublin where there was nei ther lavatory accommodation, shelter nor cooking facilities.

Fores t ry workers, he says, whose job often lies in the hear t of the mounta ins have to travel long dis tances to work and are allowed little or no travelling time. They are denied water-proof clothing or boots t h o u g h they of ten work in swampy ground, drenched by mist and rain. On Church holidays they cannot get to early Mass and yet be on time for work so they are s topped one-quarter day's pay even though they may be only 15 minutes late. The average pay for this princely job is 39 10 less wet time, and in the mounta ins wet t ime is f requent . Those men W'ho do Sunday work, fire patrolling, etc. are paid only 1 a n hour which is lower than the legal m i n i m u m .

FLAG D A Y F O R P R I S O N E R S

A G R E A T gather ing of the I r ish clans took place a t Mi tcham Stadium last

month when Cork played Cavan for the Owen W a r d Cup.

Flags in aid of the I r ish Prisoners ' Aid Society were sold and by half- t ime nine out of ten spectators were wearing the famil iar green-white-and-orange tricolour.

On Friday, 14th June, a very successful ceilidhe was held in the Holborn Hall, Lon-don. in aid of the Committee 's funds . The music was by Frank Lee's T a r a Ceilidhe Band.

CONNOLLY ASSOCIATION

MEETINGS will be held in

W O O L W I C H BERESFORD SQUARE, 7.30 p.m., JULY 21st.

CAMDEN T O W N ARLINGTON ROAD, 12.30 p.m., JULY 21st.

DAGENHAM 12 NEW ROAD 8 p.m., JULY 8th.

LONDON CONNAUGHT PLACE, HYDE PARK, 5 p.m., JULY 7th.

ST. STEPHEN'S CLOSE HOSTEL, 8 p.m., J U N E 26th.

Prominent Irish Speakers

SEE THAT THE ' IRISH DEMOCRAT" IS IN YOUR HOSTEL !

July, 194? THE IRISH DEMOCRAT

• 3 V

W

DEMOCRATS DIARY

Brainstorm at Heath Row

- I I T A S N T it t h a t brilliant satirist. Qkcar > ' Wilde, who said; "Never resist temptat ion"? Perhaps mis takenly I followed his advice when I accepted an invita;.on to part ic ipate in a general knowledge quiz organised by the welfare authori t ies a t Heath Row aerodrome— now called London Airport. $ ^

HUNDREDS of I r ishmen employed there thought it would be a good

thing :o have an Ir ish Democrat team battling wi th the site team—which in-cluded Messrs . Wright , Palmer , Hill. Ralph. Balbin a n d Miss Ward. Our team included Elsie Timbey (Mrs. Sean 0 Do'.vding), F lann . Campbell, Des-mond Greaves, Paddy Clancy, H. Mc-Corrr.ack a n d myself.

* * * r i i H E t h o u g h t of having our bra ins bared -L m public a la rmed us all. Jus t ano the r

plot of the English to embar rass the Irish. I thought , a s I was wafted down the moving staircase to the Under-ground.

"O tumbri l carrying its victims to the guillotine ever rat t led more loudly

than the t r a i n which carried us re-morselessly forward to Hounslow West, where, appropriately, a yellow cab f rom Wimpey's wai ted to take us to the air-port.

* * * ' R. CRACKNELL, the N.S.O. I believe,

was t he question-master. Now I have r.o doubt tha t in private life Mr. Crackiiell is probably a model f a t h e r and a generous spouse, but when com-piling the formidable list of questions with which he confronted both teams, 1 feel sure he was temporarily under the influence of the devil. How would you like to have 30 seconds in which to an-swer one of the following:—Who wrote "Pendennis" ; the Warsaw Concerto? Given an a n a g r a m on the word "scalp," or tell the meaning of the word "cabal"? * * *

r p H E H ^ a t h Row side, playing on their J . own "pi tch," s ta r ted off well—a very

good team. Good humouredly increas-ing h:s pace, the quest ion-master swooped upon us, asking: "How was the length of a metre determined?" Mr. Cracknell looked benignly and somewhat expectantly a t me—who could never make two and two come to four, and who always approaches a decimal point with greater reverence t h a n I'd give to a bishop.

* * * q V O N C H A N T L Y I crossed my legs, -LN polished my glasses and assumed an

air of p ro fund i ty for which there was not the s l ightest justification. Privately I prayed t h a t I might glimpse even one of those encyclopaedias from which De Valera ex t rac ted his definition of a Re-public.

* * *

MR. McCORMACK was ruminat ively scratching h is chin, and F lann Camp-

bell, our dis t inguished editor, t r ied ha rd to pretend t h a t he—with his Tr in i ty education—really had nothing to do with we Irish du l la rds with whom he had tem-porarily been shanghaied. A sidelong g l a n c e ' a t Paddy Clancy's set jaw re-vealed a t once tha t Paddy was men-tally r tsolving to go through with the business for the honour of the ould country, but, by God, if ever he got out of the room alive . . . . !

* * * 1 )ATIENTLY Mr. Cracknell waited. T h e n J his eve focussed on Desmond Greaves,

who chn-acterist ically, was vigorously rubbing h is head with the tips of his fingers and t ry ing to hide a t r i u m p h a n t gleam in h i s eye. "Determine the length of a metre." exclaimed Desmond. "Certainly, i t ' s one ten millioneth pa r t of the circumference of the world." * * *

I RELAXED visibly and once again be-came aware of the world! The answer

wasn't quite r igh t apparently (it is a tenth million p a r t of a line draw^n f rom the Pole to t he Equator, the exper ts tell me, but Desmond was near enough to get good m a r k s for us.

* * * A FTER th is bri l l iant display f rom Des-

mond, t he r e was ~a t r ans fo rmat ion from quan t i ty to quality hi our replies and the quiz ended with Heath Row win-ning bv only half-a-point—37 to our 36;,, which ' wasn ' t so bad considering the int imate knowledge we were called upon to display regard ing the bir thplace and monarchia l antecedents of members of the .Br i t i sh Royal Family.

* * *

UNDAUNTED, F lann Campbell and Paddy Clancv will visit the a i rpor t

again on Ju ly 1st. to address a public meeting, called by the T. and G.W.U.

LABOUR POLLS BIG VOTE IN D O W N By Our Belfast

j j Correspondent R E S P I T E a big pol l of over 28,000 votes, F ly ing-Of f icer D e s m o n d

Donne l ly , the Labou r candidate, fa i led to w i n the Co. D o w n by-elect ion last month .

MR. M. QITLL, who is here seen with Mr. W. O'Dwyer, Mayor of New York, addressed an audience of 600 at a Connolly Commem

oration meeting in New York last May.

"Northern Ireland &id not go Socialist a t the General Election and judging by the Co. Down result still sees no reason why it should." Thus wise does the "Bel-fas t Telegraph," chief Unionist newspaper, hail the result of the Down election.

The Unionists claim the result as a de-feat for the British Labour Movement and

Historic Links Bind North and South

(Continued from Page One)

fV

in Eire, Nor thern I re land a n d Britain; unions wi th membership solely confined to Eire (such as Larkin 's Workers ' Union of I re land) ; and unions wi th members in Eire and N.I. but none in Br i ta in (such as the Bakers ' Union).

To complicate ma t t e r s still fur ther , the Irish T.U.C. and the Congress of Irish Unions—both of which claim a membership of about 70,000—speak with rival, and often conflicting, voices, while a special sub-committee of the T.U.C. has been set up in Nor thern Ireland.

In Dublin and Cork there a r e two trades councils in each city, bo th claiming to speak on behalf of the organised workers.

Government policy towards t rade union-ism, as expressed by Mr. Lemass, Minister of Indus t ry and Commerce, suggests that what the Government wan t s is not the destruction of trade unionism (any at-tempt to do this would, of course, be violently resisted) but the creation of a docile, non-political t r ade unionism, which would be prepared a t all times to act as "junior par tner" to I r i sh capitalism.

Recollecting similar exper iments in Germany and Italy to "abolish the class struggle," Ir ish workers will be on their guard against any a t t e m p t to force them along the road once t rodden, with such disastrous results for human i ty , by Hitler and Mussolini.

PATRIOTS Two conflicting t rends in the movement

which add to the difficulties with which Congress will be faced will be the deep-rooted loyalty of thousands of workers to their old-established ama lgama ted unions as contrasted with t he exaggerated nationalism of some of t he unions affili-ated to the C.I.U.

The lat ter claim, with some justice, tha t in the past when nat ional political issues were at stake the ama lgama ted unions tended to be pro-British r a t h e r than pro-Irish. But what the super-patr iots of the C.I.U. fail to see is tha t 1946 is not 1916.

Nowadays the influence of progressive views from Britain can only be benefi-cial to Irish Labour. Nei ther the T.U.C. nor the C.I.U. has

a monopoly of patriots in i ts ranks. Mr. Gilbert Lynch, Vice-President of the T.U.C. fought alongside Connolly in 1916.

FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES

At this difficult moment in Ireland's trade union history when old feuds are rekindled, personalities become rife and many red herr ings dragged across the trail, it is essential t h a t Labour keeps clearly before its eyes the great, funda-mental principles upon which the move-ment h a s been built:

(1) Unity is s t rength . T h e classic slogan of the Tolpuddle Mar tyrs is still valid to-day. An end m u s t be made to the present dangerous position in which two great organisat ions waste their energy fighting each o the r instead of combining to beat the bosses. "The m o v e m r i t before sec t 'o^a l interests.

policies before people"—such is the de-m a n d of the organised workers who cry out for a strong, vigorous lead from Labour.

(2) Political partition mus t not be fol-lowed by trade union part i t ion. It would be tragic if at a t ime when the Labour Part ies of both pa r t s of the country are coming ever closer together tha t the historic links between the wor-kers of the North and South should be snapped. Co-operation between Dublin and Belfast must be main ta ined at all costs.

LINKS WITH ABROAD (3) Autonomy for the executives of

Br i t i sh unions is a question which must not be considered in the abstract . Any proposal to make an organisat ional break must be considered in the light of what it will mean in the way of widening the gulf between Belfast and Dublin and affronting the Bri t ish La-bour Government—an a f f ron t which would come just a t a t ime when rela-t ions between the two count r ies are im-proving.

I t should not be forgot ten tha t Mr. Bevin, Britain 's Foreign Minister, was formerly Secretary of the Amalgamated and General Workers' Union, one of the unions most deeply involved in the present crisis.

(4) Affiliation to the World T.U.C. must continue. Never was it more im-por tan t for Irish Labour to maintain its links with the great democratic movement abroad.

(5) Drastic s t ructural reorganisation must take place if the organised wor-kers in Ireland are to have their living s t anda rds raised. In i ts present state of d i sun i ty the Irish Labour movement canno t hope to be successful in its bat t les with the well-organised, deeply-ent renched and wealthy forces of capi-talism.

Debt to Irish War Workers

\ / " R I T I N G to the "Times" on unem-' ' ployment benefits for Eire volun

teers, Capt. Henry Harr ison points ' out t h a t while the British Lord Chancellor has admit ted a "debt of honour" to Irish vol-unteers. he has refused to admi t a similar debt to civilian war workers.

"He (the Lord Chancellor) appears totally to ignore the fact t h a t since 1940-41 Irish volunteer labour h a s been ad-mitted to this country on a system of short- term police permits," writes Capt. Harrison. "Thus for the last five years these voluntary war workers have been (compulsorily) paying for insurance from which they would receive no benefit. And the Exchequer has been receiving the workers' and employers' contr ibut ions without incurring liability to pay anything

-a pure gain of over £ 2 millions per 100.000 insured Eire volunteer workeis."

a manda te for private enterprise aga ins t "annoying state controls and nat .onal i -sation."

They hail it as a defeat for the Fr iends of Ireland Labour Group in London a n d justification for their policy of "Separa-t ism" from Ireland and Britain alike.

The results, however, show tha t nearly half the voters—47,856 against 50,709—• cast their votes in opposition to the nominee of the British-Ulster Tory-Unionist coalition. - T a k i n g all the cir-cumstances into account the result is not so impressive for Ulster Toryism as its Press organs would make out.

True, the bulk of Labour's support was nationalist . But it must be borne in mind tha t the Independent Unionist, Little, came out in support of the Labour Gov-e rnment and at tacked the Unionists for support ing Toryism against tha t Govern-ment. Little was subjected to the charge of splitting the "loyalist" votes and en-dangering the very existence of Nor thern Ireland as a separate State.

PARACHUTE CANDIDATE The fact, however, remains, and it is n o

use of burking it, t ha t an anti-Labour ant i nationalist s tandard bearer held Down in opposition to the combined forces of British and Northern Ireland Labour with the nat ional is ts as a co-belligerent factor.

The reasons for this are to be found within the Labour camp. Flying Officer

FLAG-SELLERS and members of the Irish Prisoners' Aid Committee are here seen at the Mitcham Stadium, London. They collected over £110 at the Cork-

Cavan match.

Donnelly, though an excellent candidate , just parachuted into the constituency as if he had dropped out of his bomber plane.

No a t tempt was made by Labour to collect its local supporters and take council together on questions of policy, how to present the policy, counter t he Tory propaganda and win the ear of the farmers and labourers from the fields. Nothing but a powerful campaign on a .

positive policy of how to rescue the l inen industry f rom its impasse, raise wages and social s t andards to British levels, con-tinue the guarantees to the f a rmers f o r cattle, eggs, milk and other products (in contrast to the danger of a reversion t o "Free Enterpr ise" with fabulous prices when the fa rmer has nothing to sell a n d no buyers when there is an abundance) could hope to rouse such an electorate t o the cause of its vital social interests. I t is only true to say t h a t Labour's cam-paign in Down did not run on such lines.

ELECTION LESSONS The fight can have good results pro-

vided Brit ish and Northern Ireland La-bour jointly get down to the job of orga-nising the adheren ts of the movement in Down and other counties. The Friends of Ireland Group are credited with the de-clared policy of a iming to get Labour t o challenge every one of the half-score Tory scats held in Northern Ireland by the Unionists at Westminster .

The Down lesson is tha t these words can only be made J lesh by popularis ing Labour 's policy f rom now on and welding together the forces in the towns and vil-lages who can put in into effect.

L E C T U R E S Mr. E. Maitland, Connolly Associ-

ation, will lecture cn "The Ideals of James Connolly," at Onslow Sq. Hostel, London, at 8 p.m. on Mon-day, 1st July.

Mr. P. Clancy, Connolly Associ-ation, and Mr. Flann Campbell, "Irish Democrat," have been invited to address the Heathrow Branch of the T.G.W.U. at 8 p.m. on 1st July.

t

6 THE IRISH DEMOCRAT July, 1946

A VAN! Popular

C a v a n , 1

IS D O Y L E

Cork , 2 goals, 6 pts. T " E N thousand Gaeiic sports fans f rom a l l parts of B r j t a in assembled at

ihe M l t c l i a m S tad ium, London, to watch the A l l - I re land Final is ts , Cavan a n d Cor!. , p l ay for the Owen W a r d Footba l l Challenge Cup.

- — : — - — — • i The Irish Tricolour flying over the | g r ands t and and the playing of an Irish

pipers ' band gave a real Croke Pa rk atmo-sphere to Mitcham Stadium. Mr. John Dulanty. Eire High Commissioner, threw in the ball.

Ea men Young. Cork centre-forward, played a wonderful game, as did Tubridy until he was forced to retire in ju red just before half-time. Mick Higgins, S. Deig-nan and "Big Tom" O'Reilly were Cavan's best players.

Cavan opened the scoring wi th in two minutes when Higgins scored a point. Cork drew level immediately a f t e rwards with a point from Eamon Young. Tubridy 'Corki and Higgins (Cavan) t h e n had a point each. T. Crawley drove a Cork '50' into the Cavan goalmouth for H. O'Neill to fist into the net. Jack L y n c h added ano ther goal for Cork and E. Young a point. O'Donovan and Young pu t Cork fu r the r ahead with a point each.

E X C I T I N G F I N I S H At this stage Tubridy went off injured

Louis Beats Conn

r r H E Ir ishman, Billy Conn. his second at tempt to

J o e L o u i s . Work! II Champion, when Yankee Stadium,

led m ) u n c r o w n a w w e i u h t

thev New-

met in York.

the l a s t

Conn was knocked out by a terrific left-hook in the eighth round.

Champion Beaten T J I N T Y MONAGHAN (Belfast i dc-J ^ feated Jackie Paterson (Glasgow), the world's fly-weight champion, at Bel-fast . Paterson retiring at the end of the seventh round with a badly cut eye.

Paterson opened the fight with a hard left, the only th ing worthy of note for the first three rounds of a ra ther t ame fight.

In the four th round. Monaghan, more aggressive of the two. caught the cham-pion v it'h some lefts and r ights to the head. In the sixth round Paterson put Rinty down for a short count with a very strong r ight cross, but Monaghan a t tack-ing strongly again in the seventh round, connected with a terrific r ight swing and opened a cut over Paterson's eye, and con-tinued to play on it till the end of the round. During the interval. Pa te rson ' s seconds announced his ret i rement .

On the same bill. Theo Medina; F rench fly and bantam-weight champion, al-though well ahead on points, was beaten by Bunty Doran (Belfast). T h e referee stopped the fight at the end of the sixth round owing to Medina's badly damaged eye.

% * *

Heavyweight Mr. Jack Solomons, the boxing promoter,

offered Mr. Maurice Mirrelson. the well-known turf accountant and boxing pro-moter, the Bombardier Billy Wells Lons-dale Belt on condition t ha t he located a good Irish heavyweight. "If I could find a good Irish heavyweight he would be worth his weight in diamonds in America. I believe there is plenty of ta lent in Ire-land if sufficient fights were promoted, stated Mr. Solomons.

A team of Ir ish boxers were narrow';, beaten six bouts to five at the Liverpool Stadium. Results were: Tom Hyde 'Corki beat J . -Stainhi lbur (English Middle Coun-ties Champion i : Tony Mart in (Tram-way) k.o. W. J. Roberts (Northern Coun-ties Flyweight Champion) ; Jack Pasney (Northern Counties Welter Champion) beat M. Connolly (Dublin > on points; Stan Parnell (Northern Counties Feather-weight Champion) outpointed Paddy Con-nolly: Nat Gilfoyle (Liverpool) beat r t e . O'Biien. the fight being stopped in round four.

and was replaced by D. Beckett. Mick Hig-gins ended the first half with a point for. Cavan.

Half- t ime scores: Cork 2—5. Cavan 0 -3. T. O'Reilly opened up the second-half

with a point for Cavan and E. Young scored one for Cork. Then came a row of Cavan scores by Mick Higgins (1 point). S. Deignan '2 points), Donoghue (1 goali. Deignan H point). Tighe (1 point) , T. O'Reilly (1 point), O'Donoghue (1 point). Higgins finally scored again for Cavan.

J. J. O'Reilly received a great ovation when he received the cup f rom t h e Rev Fr. T. J. Oremin.

Other results were: Brian Boru 7—3, Naomh Mhuire 1—6.

A Fine Record r |" 'HE success of the Whit-Monday * games at Mitcham was largely

due to the energetic London County Board, Gaelic Athletic Association who are to be congratulated on the efficient manner in which the events were conducted.

An interesting account of how the Board overcame war difficulties is given by Mr. M. Walsh, Chai rman of the 194G organis ing committee.

Between 1939 and 1941 the num-ber of teams affiliated to the London G.A.A. dwindled from 27 to seven," says Mr. Walsh. "This process con-tinued until 1943 when, through the influx of emigrants , we were able to revert almost back to normal. Now we are in the happy position of hav-ing 22 teams affiliated to the Lon-don County Board."

These include the Bros. Pearse, Brian Borus, Tara, . Cu-Chullains , Naoimh Mhuire, Young Irelands, St. Paul's, Wolfe Tones, and St. Vin-cent 's hurl ing teams, and St. Patrick's, Shamrocks, Round Toweres, Tara, Cu-Chullains, Naoim Mhuire, Young Irelands, Eire Oge, Brian Borus, Wolfe Tones, St. Paul's, Austin Stacks, and Fintan Lalors football teams.

Players willing to join these clubs should write to the Secretary, Lon-don County Board, G.A.A., Mr. P. O'Donoghue, 21 Warrender Road, London, N.19.

Member ^ )NE c: the ;n

popu'.ir Gacli, sports petsonalitic-of the Mi-lands is Mr. Frank Shor:. who was presider." of the G.A.A. Pro-vincial Council in Britain curing the difficult j cars 1943-44-45.

A native of Cross-maglen. Co. A r -magh, hs was edu-cated a; Si. Pat-rick's College, Ar-magh. a college w h i c h recently

F. Short made G.A.A. his-t o r y I: < winning

the llr.st all-Ireland college footba.: final. Deeply intersted in Irish naticnai affairs,

Frank Short dates his concern for politics from the time when his mother read him news of the 1913 strikes in Dubli... He is an ardent trade unionist and ha.- i.isc been elected the 1947 president of tit - Birming-ham Schoolmasters' Association.

He was first joint-secretary cf the Bir-mingham branch of the A:. .-Partition League. B.B.

SPOTLIGHT ON SPORT By J.A.D.

Kerry On Warpath

v CYCLING

BAIRD (Harp) won the five-mile point-to-point cycling championship

of I re land at the O Duffy Memorial Trophy Fun Sports, held in Cork last month .

His Clubmate, T. McGovern was second with 37 points. In the track events Joe Kelly had a double, winning the 100 yds. and quarter-mile events. The quar ter -mile championship of Co. Cork was won by K. McCarthy (Blarney), 2nd was Leahy (Ballymore). 1,000 metres, Mun-ster Championship: 1st T. J. Murphy (Donoughmore), 2nd J. Kellegher <Don-r r H E 1946 Championships have surely

opened en a sensational note with All-Ireland title holders, National League winners and Divisional League winners crashing all on their first 1946 champion-ship outing, writes "Gael OG."

Pride of plaee in this a rm- length list of | their match plaved a t Sefhurs t Park° Lon-sensat tonal i .•suits must go to Ker ry ' s de- ' don.

ottghmorei. BICYCLE POLO

The Irish Bicycle Polo team defeated the English team by 11 goals to e ight in

^ HOSTEL SECRETARIES » PLEASE NOTE: Send in Sport' News as early

>our as possible

after the games to the SPORTS EDITOR, 'IRISH DEMOCRAT,' 130 SOUTHAMPTON ROW. W.C.I.

feat of Cork. 1945 all-Ireland football champions m the first round of t he Mun-rter Football Championship a t Killarnev. on Sunday. June 2nd.

K t n y a i c again on the al l - I re land war-path with a sprinkling of the s t a r s of th( 1937-41 vintage period to keep the edge on tile newcomers.

NATIONAL LEAGUE Cork have no reason to feel despondent

at their early exit from the 1946 football c.'•••nuign. They failed gloriously before i a better team and often there is infinitely more glory in failing like true spor lsmcn than by winning. The game is or should be the thing, not the victory. Grea t doings v.eie expectcd from Meath this year af ter their s u c c o s in the National League in the final of which they defeated last year's Leinster ch'trip'ons. Wexford. 2 goals :: < cdnts to 1 ,-cal three points. However. I c H'uo^foiiri was confounded with a ven-geance -when l ln i r eld r v a l s Louth put paid to then '94C championship pio.s-pe.'ls Willi a truly thrilling victory in their seeond 1 ound Leinster championsh ip tic at Droiiheda on"Sunday. S;h J u n e , the final scoie bc'ng: I.outh 1 6. M e a t h 6 paint:-

National League form was aga in con-founded w h<-n Cork took the measu re of the Leagui' final -is, Clare, in the first round of th? Munster hurling champion rhip and romped home easy w n " . e r \ th • iin-il score being: Coil; 2—9, Clare 2- 1.

GOLF J immy Bruen (Cork) has the honour

of being the fiist I r i shman to win the British Amateur "Golf Championship, when he defeated T. J. Sweeney in the final held at St. Andrew's Course last month.

SOCCER Shamrock Rovers won the Inter-City

Cup by three goals to two against Belfast Celtic last month. The first leg. played in Belfast, saw Rovers away with a flying s ta r t when they defeated Celtic by three goals to one.

In the return game, played a t Daly-mount Park, Belfast, Celtic defeated t hem by one goal to nil. thus leaving Rovers t he winners by the aggregate scores of three to two goals.

Billy MeCandless, former Irish inter-national full-back, who resigned his post as manage r of Newport County, has been appointed m a n a g e r to Cardiff City.

The Aberdeen team did not have to try very ha rd to beat the Ir ish XI a t Wind-sor Park, Belfast . Aberdeen won by two goals to one. Hamil ton scoring both goals for the visi tors and Lockhart Linfield for the losers.

No°l Kelly, former Shamrocic Rovers ' and Bohemians ' inside-forward has now signed for Glen toran .

Hart ley, the Wate r fo rd fuIK>ack has signed for West Bronnvich Albion.

RACING Up to t ime of going to press we are still

well ahead of the bookies in my system of placing £ 1 to win on certain selected horses.

With a bit of luck Gulf Stream, which came second in the Derby, would have put us fur ther ahead.

Here is our profit and loss account for the past two m o n t h s :

Loss

Aprolan . . . . Patter Best Seller Sunstroke Fine Lad Glengrigor Golden Cloud Gold Drill . . Gulf S t r eam . Hypericunj . . .

£ 1

d. 0

Profit £ s. d.

1 15 0

16 13 4

Total p rof i t . . £ l t 0 0

j CUT THIS OUT — ; PLEASE SEND M E T H E " I R I S H D E M O C R A T " FOR T W E L V E

! M O N T H S . I enclose P.O. for 4/-

DON'T MISS THESE D A N C E S

Name

Address

( W r i t e in Block C a p i t a l * )

j v—t U M u i f w - D a m o e v a t , " 159 S o u t h a m p t o n Raw, London , W .C . I

| R I S H M E N and women in London who want to meet their friends

and enjoy a pleasant social evening should not missnhe Connolly Associa-tion Dance held at St. Martin's School of Art, Charing Cross Road (near Foyle's), London between 7.30 and 11 p.m. on Saturday, 13th July.

A popular Ir ish band wi l l play and there wi l l be Irish and English danc-ing.

Watch out next month for news

about a Re-ur. on and Dance for

members of the Irish Unit , Interna-

tional Brigade.

I

July, 1946 THE IRISH DEMOCRAT 7

PAMPHLET, BOOK A N D VEKS

*N t h e d a r k days w h i c h f o l l o w e d t h e

* f a l l cf Parr,ell o n l y a f e w a r d e n t

.p i r i t s kept a l ight i h e f l ame of pa t -

j io t i s tn wh i ch b l a z e d up so b r i gh t l y

.tgain a t Easter, 1918. A m o n g the few

who s t rove to t u r n the i r dream of a

f r ee I re land i n t o rea l i t y w e r e

Michae l Dav i t t , F r a n k Sheehy-Skef-

f ington and O 'Donovan Rossa—three

men u n l i k e each o ther in many w a y s

1 Dav i t t was a nea r -Soc ia l is t , O'Dono-

van Rossa a m i l i t an t Republ ican, and

Skef f i r ig ton a pacif ist) but who had

one t h i n g in common, an unquench-

able f a i t h in the common people of

I re land.

T h e r/.urder of Sheehy-Skeffington by a crazed Bri t ish officer was one of the most horrible incidents of Easter Week.

Skeffington, pacifist. Socialist and earn-est advocate of the suffragettes, took no par t in the fighting, but spent the first p a r t of Easter Week trying to organise a cit izen's militia to prevent looting.

On Eas te r Mond.iy. 1916. he was return-ing to h i s home in Rathmines , when he was ar res ted ana taken to Portobello Barracks , Handed over to Capt. Bowen-Colthurst , an officer in Portobello, Sheehy-Skeffington was taken out as a hostage with a raiding par ty organised by Colt-hurs t .

Opposite Ra thmines Catholic Church, the p a i t y stopped two boys who were walk-ing in the street ' one of them was a young lad named Coade) and asked them if thev did not know tha t mart ia l law had been proclaimed and that he could shoot them "like dogs."

As Coade turned away. Colthurst said: "Bash him," and one of the officers broke bis jaw with the but t-end of a rifle. Then Col thurs t whipped out a revolver and sho t h im as he lay. Skeffington protes-ted aga ins t this murder and was told by Col thurs t to say his prayers as he Was likely to be next.

Skeffington's Murder After shooting-up some shops a t Kelly's

Corner, the raiders r e t u r n to Portobello, where Skeffington was flung into a cell.

Next morning he w a s taken out, and as he was walking across the barrack yard he was shot in the back without warning. His body was later sewn up in a sack and secretly buried in the barracks yard.

On the same day Capt . Colthurst was in charge of troops in the Camden Street area, when Coun. Richard O'Carroll, the Labour leader and f r iend of Connolly, sur-rendered. Marched in with his h a n d s over his head, O'Carroll was shot in the lung by the then blood-crazed Colthurst, who told a soldier who pityingly asked if the prisoner was dead, "Never mind, he'll die later ."

T h a t afternoon Col thurs t captured a boy whom he suspected of being a Sinn Feiner. When the boy refused to reveal in format ion under cross-examination, Colthurst told him to kneel in the street, and t hen shot him in t h e back.

Later as a result of the intervention of Mrs. Skefflngton and members of the I r i sh Par ty in the House of Commons, public opinion forced the Government to set up a Commision of Enquiry into the Colt-hurs t murders . Th i s Commission, which had Sir John Simon as its head, made every effort to cover up the atrocities of British militarism in Dublin, and Bowen-Col thurs t was eventually declared "in-sane."

He was later released and went to Canada , where he is still living.

Mrs. Sheehy-Sketfington had jus t com-pleted a revised version of her pamphlet , "Bri t i sh Militarism as I Have Known it,"

•"British Militarism as I Have Known it," by Hanna Sheehy-Skoffington (Tho Kerrymnn, 6d.).

"A Short History of the Jews In Ireland," by BBrnard Shlllman (Eason and Sons).

"Irish Hlatorial Studies," March, 1945 (Hodgei, Figgis, 5s. 6d.>.

"The Hawk o' the Hill-top" (O'Donovan I t o r n Memorial Committee, 6d.).

The " F e n " Letter D n v r . t ' s

magni.i tvn; lion to he u class.

was ihe f.tiiioii ins convict on Bailey ir> 1370

The origin of : account oi Davit ' given in a sehola

the Tr

tu-

nc F

article bv the Dublin University history professor. T. W. Mood v. in -Michael Davit t and the 'Pen' L ' tn- r ." j

One aspect of the many-sidedness of Davitt 's s ; .mpathy with the underdog — winch paid no heed to differences o: nationality or religion—was his ha t red of anti-Semitism.

In "A Short His tory of the Jews in Ire-land." Bernard Shi l lman quotes Davitt on the subject of an a t tempted anti-Jewish ag i t auon in Limerick in 1904.

"I protest a s a n I r i shman and as a Catholic aga ins t this spirit of barbar-ous malignity being introduced into Ire-land under the fo rm of material regard for the welfare of the workers." wrote Davitt. "The Jews have never done any injury to I re land." he said. "Like our own race they have endured perse-cution. the record of which will forever remain a r ep roach to the 'Chr is t ian ' nations of Europe. Ireland has no share in this black record. Our country h a s this proud distinction—freely acknow-ledged by Jewish writers—of having never resorted to this un-Christian and barbarous t r e a t m e n t of an unfor tuna te people." Among the classic documents of Ire-

land's struggle for na t ional freedom, none is better known t h a n Pearse's oration a t the grave of O'Donovan Rossa. T h i s speech, along with an account of O'Dono-van Rossa's life, is published in a pam-phlet. entit led "The Hawk o' the Hill-top," published by the Ros?a Memorial Com-mittee, which is raising funds for a memorial to Rossa to be erected in h^s birthplace. Skibbereen. Co. Cork. Sub-scriptions should be sent to Mr. J o h n Duggan. High Street . Skibbereen, Co.

m, m

'., s dcv< i-kin

• f t "s i' \ 1-v

MAHXIS; - . : A N D P O E T R Y by C-eorse F h o m p s o n (i.n'.v;c»5c0 & Wish a;*, 1

feasor Thompson's exr. !>. ' : and in order to shev. ">•-poetry has bfcotre a th i r . common people, we p.re taken o ' ta ins oi primitive r \

M I C H A E L D A V I T T

in prison.

Cork. F, C .

Labour Comes of Age I N this be ok ("World Labour uumcs of

Betty Wallace h a s provided us wi th an in-valuable guide to the World Trade Union Movement.

She explains all the difficulties tha t had to be overcome to achieve world t rade union unity, and conveys to the reader the sense of urgency and responsibility with which the Congress faced its task. A postscript brings the story up to the Par is Confer-ence tha t finally established the W.F.T.U. as a 's table Federat ion with a membership of over 70 million in nearly 60 countries, representing one of the most vital forces in tire world to-day for the improvement of the conditions of the people and the preservation of peace.

The reader will find a valuable brief description of the state of the Trade Union Movement in Eire, while every page should inspire h im to work to s t rengthen and unify the movement wherever he may be. A.L.

Folk Son^s This

ime.ys'.td puxpt i l es — one could wish tiv. ; it had oetn longer ana dealt ii'.cie comprehensive:;, with several points—but it must be adm.t ted t h a t Pro-fessor Thompson puts fo iward a logical explanation cf mat ters which many con-temporary writers on the same subject ei ther shirk or obscure. Perhaps his out-s tanding contribution is in re fus ing to iso-late poetry as something which must be studied apar t from the life cf the com-munities in which it had its origins.

The poetry with which the au thor is most familiar English, Greek and I r ish , and it was the highly-ir.elcdious. rhy thmic folk-language of our Irish peasan t ry which first induced Professor Thompson to at-tempt to lay bare its origins and tha t of similar folk-ianguages in other countries.

Professor Thompson has wri t ten many-works in Gaelic and has t ranslated Maurice O'Sullivan's "Twenty Years A-growing." The student of poetry and, particularly, it might be suggested, cf Gaelic poetry will find this a profitable and s t imulat ing handbook.

AD.

Plays, Pictures and People I ) E C E N T L Y announced was the Eire

Government ' s intent ion , of erecting a new and more imposing State Thea t re to house the w'orld-famous Abbey players. While sent imenta l i s t s shed many a tear , realists point out t h a t the present building (originally a morgue) is an archi tectural eyesore and damag ing to national pres-tige.

Dubliners cynically remark that unless the State speeds up the erection of a new building, no actors will be lett in Ireland to carry on Abbey Thea t re ' s half-century-old tradition.

Reasons are two-fold. Firstly, lure of bright lights of England's Denham Studios, plus comparatively fan tas t ic salaries offered by Bri t ish film companies. (Highest paid Abbey actors average £7 per week.) Secondly, the much - criticised official policy of the Abbey directors in concentrat ing the i r ta lent search among Irish-speaking act resses and actors to the detr iment of purely English-speaking aspirants.

Within recent months it is said tha t no less than 87 Irish artistes have worked at Oenham.

Current "crack" in Dublin is t ha t emi-grants are now. divided into two categories: Those bound for England, and those bound for Denham.

Patron of Irish Theatre Speaking at Clonmel under the auspices

of the South Tipperary Fine Arts Club, Dublin's director-playwright, Lord Long-ford said:

"If this country is not to got com-pletely into the clutches of Hollywood, the Government or somebody—a private

philanthropist would be more accept-able—will have to give the d rama sup-port. or al ternatively finance Ir ish films, which would be a very much more ex-pensive amusement . " The private phi lanthropist touch is

good. In all fa i rness it should be men-tioned that Lord Longford himself has been a more t h a n generous pa t ron of the Theatre . He h a s also contributed an out-standing plav. "Yahoo." based on the life of satirist Dean Swift , author of "Gulliver's Travels."

Symptomatic of a general poetic revival in the theatre, also widespread disillu-sionment with cur ren t theatr ical plots, is

b v

ALEC DIGGES : • . c; ;

who will write each month about films and plays of

Irish interest

the outs tanding success of Sean O'Casey's "Red Roses for Me," now to be seen at Wyndham's Thea t re . London. Frankly autobiographical, the rich, bit ter, brood-ing. yet fasc inat ing poetry of this play provoked eager discussion in m^ny quar-ters. Most quoted criticism is reserittnent a t O'Casey's pract ice of pu t t ing highly colourful, poetically-flavoured speech into the mouths of everyday people.

I* seem to remember a playwright oalled Bill Shakespeare who had a simi-lar habit, and I believe he weathered contemporary critics.

New Vet*e Play While on the subject of poetry in the

Theatre, a pat on the back to Irish play-wright-poet, Austin Clarke, for consistent

work to bring poetry to the peopie through his Verse Choir programmes on Radio Eireann. He has also just wri t ten a verse play which is being performed by the Lyric Thea t r e Company, a hew venture recently formed in Dublin to produce plays in verse.

I was pleased to see rapidly regaining health, the y.oung Irish playwright. Gera rd Healy. au thor of "Thy Gear F a t h e r " ana "The Black Stranger." a play based on the Famine days. Gerard is mar r ied to Eithne Dunne, brilliant leading actress of Hilton Edwards—Michael MacLiammore Gate Thea t re . Recent Gate production of "Merchant of Venice" far surpassed all

previous Dublin Shakespearian produc-tions. Gerard and Eittlne were both mem-bers of the ill-fated Players Theatre , breakaway group of younger ac tors from what is commonly accepted as the restric-tive influence of the present Abbey policy. Alas, a f t e r one brief season, most of thera trod the road tha t does be leading to Den-ham.

Lovers of fun and especially those who like their satire strongly pointed, will do well to book early for Unity Theat re ' s "Boy Meets Girl." by Bella a n d Samuel Spewak. I can thoroughly recommcnd this play as an evening's en joyment . Much on the style of Kaufman-Hart , production ("The M a n Who Came to Dinner ." "You Can ' t Take It With You"), it h i t s hard at Hollywood star-building methods, but you will be too busy laughing to bother about this until you get home.

Following Unity Thea t re ' s production of "Jur.o and the Pajcoek." comes Synge's "Riders to the Sea." by Uni ty ' s Drama School students. This would seem to in-dicate a growing interest In I r ish d rama .

Ka th leen Ryan, formerly of t h e Abbey-School of Acting, Dublin piays t he leading feminine role opposite J a m e s Mason In the film based on F. L. Green ' s novel about the I.R.A in Belfast. "Odd Man-"Out."

Cyril Cusack, F. j . McCormick, Maureen Delaney. Denis O'Dea and other Abbey players also appear In tWs flfm which Is now being directed at Denham by Mr. Carol Reed.

8 THE IRISH DEMOCRAT July, 1946

British Labour's "Victory" Conference

THREE ISSUES DOMINATE THE THOUGHTS OF MILLIONS

T H E forty-fifth Annual Conference of the British Labour Party, attended by 1,179 delegates representing a membership of 3,289,000, will probably be remembered in history as

a "Victory Whoop" Conference celebrating the conclusion of Labour's first year of decisive Parliamentary power.

Socialist leaders, headed by Mr. Attlee, Prime Minister, exuded confidence and the week's proceedings, guided by the professional and occasionally dictatorial Mr . Laski, were dominated by Ministerial speeches.

F o r a w e e k , B o u r n e m o u t h — s e a s i d e r e s o r t of r e t i r e d r e n t i e r s a n d m i d d l e - c l a s s s h a r e h o l d e r s , b e c a m e t h e Soc i a l i s t s e a t of G o v e r n m e n t . T h i s G o v e r n m e n t d o m i n a t i o n o v e r t h e p o l i c y - d e c i d i n g d e b a t e s of t h e L a b o u r P a r t y ' s r a n k - a n d - f i l e c o n f e r e n c e w a s a t o n c e a s o u r c e of e x h i l a r a t i o n a n d w e a k n e s s .

Party, their responsibility was grave, t h a t Spain was still c rushed beneath t h e ugly ty ranny of Franco, a n d nothing would persuade them to regard a revival of the Monarchis t t radi t ions embodied in a Vati-can-sponsored Bourbon as relevant to the

The sessions were "high-spotted ' by lengthy resumes of Government achieve-ments, delivered by the Ministers respon-sible, and a l though 550 resolutions were largely telescoped into 25 considerably "toned down'' composite resolutions, t ime allowed for individual debates was neces-sarily scant.

March of Time Delegates f rom the floor complained in

vain about the inexorable " M a r c h of Time' ' and scores of eager critics were un-successful in mount ing the ros t rum even during the longest, liveliest debate of the week on foreign affairs . Indeed th is p la t -form dictation throughout the week was a primary cause of two resounding de-f ea t s administered to Ministers in the Agricultural and Educat ion debates.

In the sphere of "Home Affairs ' ' the Pr ime Minister analysed the formidable architecture of t en months'^, legislation. Recapitulat ing the achjevfemertfts- repre-sented by a total of 73 B ^ | 3 j j | t a o d u c e d and 55 completed dur ing ^ n e T&riod, he said with t r u t h t h a t they included "some pre t ty big sa l r£on ' ' - j££t ional Insu rance , Repeal of the T r a d e s Disptftes Act, Nationalisation of the Mines a n d a Nationalised comprehensive Heal th Ser-vice. His promise of "more to follow" was greeted with cheers.

Dealing in greater detail with t h e Gov-ernment ' s Nationalisat ion plans, Mr. Emanuel Shinwell, Minister of Fuel a n d Power, showed preference for a modu-lated, sombre vein. He spoke with a reali-sation tha t the Government ' s five-year p l an to Nationalise Fuel and Power, Transport , I ron a n d Steel industr ies was only a commencement of gigantic tasks . Possibly having in m i n d tha t t he m a i n ci tadels of capi ta l is t economy are s t i l l firmly entrenched, he warned tha t e m b a r -ka t ion in the coining years on a more com-prehensive p rog ramme of industr ial a n d economic legislation would require t h e mos t careful p repara t ion . Research was a primary requisite if the l imitat ions im-posed by "improvised legislation" a n d lack of guidance in detai l were to be avoided.

Plain Speech He emphasised that the Government

a imed to secure in all Nationalised indus-t r i e s model conditions for labour, h ighes t •wage s tandards and drast ic technical re-organisat ion in t h e interests of "prof i t -ab le" efficiency. A plain-spoken speech which followed f rom Mr. Will Lawther, the miners' leader, was a s h a r p reminder t h a t promised reforms m u s t not be unduly de-l ayed and t ha t n o t h i n g short of ful l im-plementat ion of t h e miners' "12-point C h a r t e r " could secure a stable, h igh -powered industry.

T h e third day of Conference was given over to controversy over Foreign Affairs a n d the f u n d a m e n t a l issue of "un i ty" wi thin the Brit ish working-class. I t re-vealed the basic pa radox of the 1946 Con-ference—official an tagonism to Com-munism a t home bu t recognition of t he

^ need for f r iendship wi th Communist Rus -s ia abroad. Th i s pa radox remains unre-solved, with f a t e fu l and possibly disas-t rous consequences.

Three Issues I n his Presidential speech, Mr. Haro ld

Laski had previously touched upon t h e three Issues dominat ing the t hough t s of millions of Government supporters.

He said of Russ ia : "I have the convic-tion t ha t a Socialist Government in Br i -tain requires a s t h e centra l principle of i ts policy In the Un i t ed Nations Organ i sa -tion, the fullest unders t and ing with Rus -s ia ."

. . . and of Spain : " I t mus t be regarded « s a tragedy, to which, as a Socialist

b y

ANN KELLY Well-known Industrial

Correspondent

l iberation of a tor tured people. W h a t was true of Spain K also true of Greece."

. . . and of th^TForeign Office: " I t mus t not confide reports on foreign countr ies wholly to men who belonged to an obso-lete t radit ion and knew nothing of the peoples to whom they were accredited."

"Winston and Water" Speaker af ter speaker reinforced these

criticisms in stronger terms, condemning Mr. Bevin's adherence to a "Tory Fore ign policy" and demanding a reversal to "Socialist" policy. Mr. K. Zilliacus, Mr. Bevin's ablest Pa r l i amenta ry opponen t and colleague, bitterly categorised c u r r e n t British policies as being both "Wins ton and water" and the "White hope of t he Black In ternat ional ."

With the skill of t he practised cam-paigner, Mr. Bevin, Foreign Secretary, in his reply, spoke with sorrow of • u n j u s t allegations, emphasised the " t h o r n s " strewn in his p a t h a n d skilfully avoided commit t ing himself on any of the vital points a t issue.

W a r n i n g against the dire in te rna t iona l repercussions which would follow any "vote of censure" passed by Conference, he succeeded in securing the reject ion of the five critical resolutions debated, al-though a good spr inkl ing of the "uncon-verted" voted against h im on the th ree resolutions actually voted upon.

Hysteria Immediately following the t r iumph of

Mr. Bevin, Mr. Morrison generated an atmosphere of hys ter ia into the brief de-bate upon the application of the Commu-nist Pa r ty for affiliation to the Labour Party. Resusci tat ing the "Fled bogey," lie dilated upon the woeful dangers of "Com-munist conspiracy and espionage." Half-

O'CONNELL

an-hour sufficed to endorse the recom-mended policy of "No t ruck wi th British Communists , ' ' reinforced by a change in the Labour Pa r ty const i tut ion seeking to render d isuni ty permanent .

Al though votes of round ha l f a million were cast agains t these policies, no time was allowed for "floor" speeches and even Mr. Jack Tanne r , engineering t r ade union leader, mover of the "aff i l ia t ion" resolu-tion, was no t heard th roughou t with cour-tesy.

Thus, unfor tunate ly , B r i t i sh Labour has del ighted the Tory opposi t ion by re-fusing to heal the existing a n d increas-ingly dangerous split in workipg-class ranks. If the Labour Pa r ty leadership is unduly complacent over this pyrh ic victory and cont inues to castigate cr i t ics within its own r a n k s as "crypto-Communists" this may lead to a fu r the r dangerous divi-sion—increasing divergence of viewpoint between Bri t ish political a n d t r ade union wings.

Fraternal Delegate During the Conference i t w a s repeats

edly made evident t h a t B r i t i sh labour wishes to s t reng then the b o n d s of inter-national f r iendship with t he progressive movement of every country. I t is the more regrettable, therefore, t h a t a f ra te rna l delegate f rom the Ir ish Labour Party was not present . This omission should be made good next year, a n d meantime it would be beneficial to both the British and I r i sh Labour movements if official "goodwill" visits were exchanged. The de-cision of the British Labour P a r t y to send Its leaders to Moscow next m o n t h , and the welcome speedily accorded to t h i s gesture by the Soviet Government is a n instruc-tive precedent.

Tricolour in Woolwich T H E Tricolour was hoisted for the first J- t ime in Beresford Square, Woolwich,

last month, when Patr ick Clancy a n d S. Maitland addressed a meeting organised by the Woolwich Branch of the Connolly Association.

Patrick Early, popular leader of t he Irish in Woolwich, presided, and several new members were enrolled in the Con-nolly Association. The sum of 24s. 5d. was collected for the "I r i sh Democrat" F igh t -ing Fund .

The Woolwich Branch has decided to in-crease the i r order for the "Irish Demo-crat," a n d will hold meet ings regularly in Beresford Square on Sundays. (See Page Four.)

A shor t but enthusias t ic meeting was held a f t e r 12 o'clock Mass, at Ar l ington Road, Camden Town, London, last m o n t h , addressed by P. Clancy, Flnnn Campbell and S. Maitland. T h r e e new members Joined, and plans are being made to s t rengthen St. Stephen 's Close Branch of the Connolly Association. Mr. P. J . Cole-man, an active Belfast t rade unionist, who formerly sold several hundred conies of the "I r i sh Democrat" each month, h a s again placed a substant ia l order for our July Issue.

Mr. T im Walshe, secretary of the St. Stephen's Close Branch, Connolly Associa-tion, is determined to m a k e Camden Town a s t ronghold of Irish Labour ideas.

DAGENHAM COLLECTION In Dagenham, Mr. F lann Campbell , Mr.

J. O'Connell and Mr. Albert Sweetman (secretary of the local b ranch) , held an after-Mass meet ing and conducted a loud-speaker tour of the estate in suppor t of Michael O'Riordan 's candida ture in Cork.

Donated by West London Branch , Con-nolly Association towards O'Riordan 's election f u n d s was £5 5s.; near ly £10 was collected In Ford 's plant a t Dagenham; the Connolly Association Executive Com-mittee gave £ 2 10s.; J . Higgins collected £1 In Wembley; and Joe Monks raised £2 Is. f rom 33 Irish building walkers in Plymouth.

in order to expose Mr. Scan MacEntee, who made scurrilous a t t acks against O 'R io rdan . and questioned t h e sources from which he obtained his funds , we print the following list of P l y m o u t h sub-scribers:—Messrs. F. May (Plymouth) , Alexander (Plymouth) . J. Monks (Dublin), Oates (Plymouth) , Terry (Plymouth) ,

(Continued a t Foot of next Column)

DUBLIN RADIO COMPERE BANNED

By JOHN IRELAND T H E past week or two have been fuller J - t h a n usual of political sensations.

Apar t f rom the Cork by-election and the t r ibunal set up to invest igate into the conduct of Mr. McEntee 's henchman , Dr. Ward, we have had the af fa i r Har tne t t .

Noel Har tne t t . a former Executive mem-ber of F i anna Fail, who resigned several years ago because of political differences wi th several leading members of the Par ty , r an for a number of years an ex-tremely informative a n d valuable press service, the Northern I re land Publicity Service.

Some of the material available in t he files of this service is of ex t raord inary in-teres t for the light it th rows on the men-tal i ty of the clique tha t r u n the Six Coun-ties, and, still more, to remind one of a large number of barbar i t ies of one kind and another committed there in the course of the years: for H a r t n e t t missed little. He once published a very useful survey of the economic s t and ing and con-nect ions of nearly all the leaders of the Unionis t Par ty .

McCAUGHEY CASE However, these services, and much

earl ier ones to the nat ional cause availed H a r t n e t t not at all when he recently criti-cised the Government over t t je Mc-Caughey case. He was ac t ing as compere for a very popular sponsored radio pro-g r a m m e on Radio Eirean till then.

Now he is banned for ever from the air, as a political controversialist— though he has reminded Mr. Little, who pronounced the Government ' s ban, t ha t Jje and the same Mr. Little spoke on F ianna Fail platforms together when Noel was a radio announcer a dozen years ago. Bu t you can be a controversialist over

t he air for F ianna Fail and offend no sensitivities. I t is when you oppose them t h a t you offend, and when you offend them, you go.

REPUBLICAN DEMOCRAT Mr. Ha r tne t t is of an old Kerry Re-

publican family; he was a t Trini ty , where he lef t a reputat ion for ora tory and some converts to the nat ional cause. He is a convinced Democrat, and dur ing the war years had the temerity to re fer a number of t imes in his Press service to Czecho-slovakia as if tha t country h a d a r ight to existence.

SWEDISH SAILORS T h e visit, early in June, of three Swedish

warsh ips to Dun Laoghaire and Dublin, was very welconje.

Certainly for the five days they were with us, the Swedish sailors seemed to be having a good look a t Dublin, and Dublin re tu rned the compliment by swarming all over the cruiser Fylgia, long a f te r t he official closing hour on each of the days when she was open to public inspection. Ever since, one has kept meetirtg people with boxes of Swedish matches—an excel-lent advert isement to add to the very good work done by Herr Nils J aenson . the re-cently-retired Swedish Consul-General here, who "sold" his country in Ireland

.with outs tanding ability, and gave a num-ber of people an insight in to what t he lesser-known democracies can achicve: for he was a convinccd Democrat .

(Continued from Preceding Column) Tapscot (Plymouth), Wal sh (Kerry), Brenan (Cavan), Melly (Sligo), Roberts (Limerick), L y n c h (Cork), Phi lpot t (Cork), Coughlin (Cork), R e g a n ( C o r k \ Healy (Cork), Long (Cork), Morgan (Ennis) , Judge (Klldare), M u r p h y (Drog-heda) , Sheehy (Limerick), Merr igan (Tip-perary) , Cusack (Belfast) , M u r p h y (Cork), Duggan (Water ford) . Barry (Cork), Duggan (Water ford) , McGrath (Galway), Johns ton (Drogheda) , Moriarity (Kerry) , Carrol (Dublin), O T o o l e (Done-ga l . . . . s* Printed by Ripley Printing Society Ltd.

(T.U.), Ripley, Derbys., and published by the Editor, Premier House, 150 Southamp-ton Row, London, W.C.I.

CONNOLLY A3'S0C1AII0N and IRISH D E M O C R A T

Premier nous.., ISO, Southampton Ro\<

W . C . I .

June 20th, 194 6.

Dear Frio-na,

The Connolly association 'is the only Irisn Labour organisation in Britain. It Seeka to - pr\. id a kno-ledge of the Socialist teachings of Jarrk.s Connolly anon., our people, and in every way possible" the Labour Movement in Ireland. "'a na". conai 'tently oampai n . d on all issues affecting Irishman in Britain, and "

:

e can claim to have i-on many advantages on tneir benaif.

We stand today for :-

1)

2)

3)

A United, tre,, and Democratic Ir land, against Partition, and all forms of reactionary interf rence in Irish affairs.

For good neighbourly relations between the working people of Ireland and Britain.

V

L act as a link b e t a ^ n the Labour Movements in botri countries.

For full riant:: nd fair tr t.ant for Irishmen in Bri- a n .

We have launched a great propaganda campaign that will reach ^ery Irish centre in Britain, in order to win support for our cause.

are now preparing to publish a pamphlet on trio -olitical situation in Ireland and the problems of tne Irisn in Britain.

TNO prestige and influence of our fighting paper, "Tne Irish Democrat" is growing daily. Circulation is rising, political activity is increasing, and the appointment of a full-time organiser now gives us the basis for a strong, virile association.

The last meeting of our Executiv. Council called for

(a) Recruitment of 200 new members. (b) Formation of six new branches. (c) To rais al^O in cash.

This to be accomplished by September.

We n^ed the cash to carry out our proposed activity. I appeal to you to give as generously as possible. Nothing is too large, or too small, for us, and anile an appreciate that many demands are aade on your purs..,-a ask you to r a a r v . a pi a for the Connolly association and "Irish Democrat".

Any financial assistance you can n v e as will be greatly ^appreciated.

Please Send your donation to:~

Thank in,:; you,

The Tr . 1surer, Connolly association and "Irish Democrat",

Pr mi r 1 10 us a, lpO, Southampton Row, 'V.C.I.

lours sincerely,

PAT D00LEY P.J. CLLNCY

*r Chairman, Connolly Assn. Sucretary,Connolly Assn.

3.E. MAITLAND - Manager,' "Irish Democrat". FLiNN C A M P E E L L - Editor, "Irish Democrat".