Blog news, 14/8/2017

I am currently reading Charlie McGuire’s bio of Sean McLoughlin.

I am going to type up a couple of articles that cde McLoughlin, comdt-general at the end of Easter Week 1916, wrote during the civil war.

McLoughlin, of course, opposed the Treaty and was involved in organising against the Free State at both the military and poltical level, including workers’ soviets.

I will also be working on typing up some more Fintan Lalor articles.

And, hopefully, put in links to some interesting articles from various sources over the last few years.

If I get really disciplined – like really, really disciplined – I will get onto the book reviews I keep promising.

 

Support the remaining Jobstown defendants

The second group of Jobstown accused were in the Criminal Court of Justice on Tuesday (July 25) for a pre-trial hearing.

Judge Melanie Greally stated that she will not tolerate any social media commentary on the trial – that anyone who comments on the ongoing trial will be in contempt of court, and that any sort of online petition in support of the defendants will also be deemed contempt.

Any public display seeking to influence public opinion or garner support can also lead to criminal charges of contempt.

This is a deliberate attempt to gag both the defendants and the general population.

The accused are back in the Criminal Court of Justice this Friday to argue bail conditions and stop the attempted gag on #JobstownNotGuilty.

Anyone who can get to the CCJ to show their support is encouraged to do so.

Top Ten Articles

Below are the ten most-viewed pieces on the blog (excluding Home Page/Archives):

Women’s rights and the national struggle, 1916-1922		9,820
The burning of the British embassy – 40 years on		6,881
Politics and the rise of historical revisionism		5,509
Nationalisms and anti-nationalisms in Irish historiography		4,202
Saor Eire – Marxist and republican		3,329
The global-historical significance of the 1916 Rising		2,981
The New IRA and socialist-republicanism in the twenty-first century		2,851
The working class and the national struggle, 1916-1921		2,781
A history of the Provisional Republican Movement – part one of three		2,594
The Easter Rising and the ‘blood sacrifice’		2,512

 

Plugging ‘Imperialism in the 21st century’

Some folks really should get John over to Dublin to give a talk on this book.  It’s a very important work.

Here’s an interview that a friend of mine at NZ-based Redline blog did last year with John:

https://rdln.wordpress.com/2016/06/01/interview-with-john-smith-author-of-imperialism-in-the-twenty-first-century/

 

NZ elections 2017 – putting the case for not voting

We head towards a general election here in New Zealand in September.  The capitalist National Party has been in power for three terms (ie since 2008; we have three-year terms here) and look headed for a fourth.  The capitalist Labour Party is wallowing in the polls – 27% to National’s 47%.

Labour and National are basically the two cheeks of the one arse.  Or, as a veteran leftist here put it back in the early 1990s, National are the front-stabbers and Labour are the back-stabbers.

I’m involved in a NZ-based blog called Redline and got interviewed on Hamilton local community radio – Hamilton is NZ’s fourth bggest city – to put the case for not voting:

https://rdln.wordpress.com/2017/07/14/radio-interview-with-philip-ferguson-on-a-positive-campaign-for-not-voting-in-the-elections/

 

 

Sylvia Pankhurst on the 1916 Rising

Sylvia Pankhurst was a leader of the struggle for women’s right to vote in Britain.  Primarily involved in organising working class women in the East End of London, she was increasingly attracted to Marxism.  Her support for workers’ struggles led to her being expelled from the bourgeois-feminist Women’s Social and Political Union, led by her mother Emmeline and sister Christabel.  While the feminist family members turned into warmongers in the First World War, Sylvia organised against the war on a working class and anti-imperialist basis.  She was one of the small handful of major figures on the British left who supported the national liberation struggle in Ireland, including the 1916 Rising.  This article was originally published in the Women’s Dreadnought of May 13, 1916, the day after the last of the executions of leaders of the Rising.  The paper soon after changed its name to Workers Dreadnought.   The text below is taken from the Marxist Internet Archive. 

by Sylvia Pankhurst

Justice can make but one reply to the Irish rebellion, and that is to demand that Ireland shall be allowed to, govern herself.

Differences of opinion in England, Scotland, or Wales as to what measure of self-government Ireland is to have ought not to affect the matter – by the “freedom of small nations” which the British Government has so bombastically sworn to defend, this is essentially a question for Ireland herself to decide. Let a popular vote be taken in Ireland as to whether, she shall be an independent, self-governing republic, or an autonomous part of the British Empire, like Australia and New Zealand. That is the only method by which the Irish difficulty can be solved and Ireland learn content.

The “firm and vigorous administration” which The Times demands for Ireland, which we suspect is but another term for coercion, and such suggestions as that of the professing Liberal, Professor Longford, that conscription shall be applied to Ireland, and that the Irish Rebels shall be set free on condition that they join the Army, will only lead to

(Dublin) Classic Hits radio interview with Scott Masterson on Jobstown verdict and role of cops, judge and Joan Burton

Listen to the excellent interview here:

http://www.classichits.ie/interview-with-scott-masterson-of-the-jobstown-6/

 

Paperback (and expanded) version of Tony Norfield’s ‘The City’ out now

The paperback version of The City: London and the Global Power of Finance, is now out. This edition contains a sixteen-page Afterword on the following topics:

• Brexit and imperial power
• The City, Brexit and world developments
• Immigration and nationalism
• Trump and the US hegemon
• Shifting tectonic plates

These develop and update points raised before.

With a cover price of £10.99 and US$16.95 in the global book market, the paperback version of The City is currently available at the following prices:

Verso, £7.69

Amazon.co.uk, £9.98

Amazon.com, $11.52

An eBook is also available.

Do your own arbitrage!

Scott Masterson on Jobstown verdict

 

Lindie Naughton’s biography of Markievicz

I must admit that when I saw journalist Lindie Naughton had a book coming out on Markievicz my initial response was one of trepidation.  Even if it was a good book, what was there left to put into a Markievicz bio that hadn’t already been covered by Anne Marreco, Jacqueline Van Voris, Diana Norman and Anne Haverty?

To my delight – especially since I bought the book after a few internet chats with Lindie  – I can report that Lindie’s biography does bring more stuff to the table and is a really good read.  In fact, I found reading the lead-up to the Rising had me quite excited, indeed riveted.

Lindie has made a good deal of use of the Bureau of Military History archives, most particularly the witness statements from the revolutionary period.

She seems to have been through papers of the time pretty methodically, looking for more stuff by and about Markievicz, as well as using the body of Markievicz’s articles that I dug up in the 1980s and put up on this site when I started it.

One result is that, even though I think a know a lot about Markievicz, I have found out more by reading this book.  I think it’s also interesting that Lindie has brought a journalist’s research skills to the work – these are far superior to those of a so-called professional historian like Anne Matthews.  And, speaking of Matthews, Lindie puts another nail in the coffin of Matthews’ attempt to frame up Markievicz for shooting an unarmed Dublin cop at point-blank range and then gloating over it (Anne Haverty also demolishes this frame-up).  I did, however, think Lindie could have said a bit more about the problematic nature of the Geraldene Fitzgerald claim to have witnessed Markievicz killing the Dublin policeman and exulting over it, especially as she had mentioned to me some problems with the Fitzgerald statement.  While Anne Haverty utterly demolishes Matthews’ attempt to stitch up Markievicz on that one, Lindie does, however, show it to be highly unlikely that Markievicz did any such thing.  Also, Lindie notes that Connolly had specifically ordered ICA members not to shoot unarmed cops and soldiers.

Below is a page from Lindie’s bio.  It will give you a taste for the book and, I hope, encourage you to go out and buy it.  It deserves to sell well and be well-read.  The extract deals with some stuff at Liberty Hall a few weeks before the Rising:

By the time the police returned, Connolly, Constance and Helena Molony, all armed, were