Connolly and the Provo leadership

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is there no depth to which the Provo leadership won’t sink in trying to prove to the British and Irish ruling classes what a reliable pair of hands they are?

And is there no amount of delusion to which their enablers won’t go in order to pretend that it is all part of some leadership cabal very clever master plan, mapped out by Adams and McGuinness and their clique several decades ago?  A master plan that will deliver a united socialist republic on the island.

It seems the more obvious it becomes to everyone else that their whole trajectory is in the opposite direction, the more the enablers drink the kool-aid.

Sean McLoughlin, Ireland’s Forgotten Revolutionary

You need to get – or at least read – this book

I actually began this six months ago.  It started as a book review and kind of evolved into almost as much a synopsis of the book.  But after I had done a lot of the synopsis I worried that people who read it, if I finished it, might decide they now knew the book and so not go out and buy it.  So I mulled it over for ages and decided to not take the synopsis any further but deliberately leave it incomplete.  Hopefully people who want more will buy the book.

Anyone serious about a free working class in a free Ireland needs to know about Sean McLoughlin.  They need to know who he was, what he did, and to read what he wrote.

For a long time, we had no such knowledge and no reason to go hunting for it.  But thanks to Charlie McGuire, we now have all these things.

I had come across the name Sean McLoughlin years ago, but only in passing.  The name cropped up in a book I was reading that happened to mention some of the Irish soviets from the

Successful Newbridge meeting on Irish citizens of Basque origin

 

by Mick Healy

A very interesting talk on Ireland’s Basque refugees during the Spanish Civil War was given by political activist Stewart Reddin at Ubh café in Newbridge, Co. Kildare on Saturday, June 16 as part of June Fest.  The cafe was packed out for the talk, with part of the audience having to stand on the stairs.

Stewart told the extraordinary story of Ireland’s Basque refugees and one man in particular, Iker Gallastegi.  Iker survived two dictatorships, was taken to Mexico as a child refugee just months after being born.  He returned home at five years of age only to be forced to flee again as a ten-year-old following the fascist bombing of Gernika.

Living in Ireland as a refugee from 1937 to the 1950s, Iker attended school in the Meath Gaeltacht and became a Gaelic speaker. He studied in UCD and turned down an offer to play for Bohemians football club before returning home to fight in the Basque struggle against Franco’s fascist regime.

He returned again to Ireland to train with IRA members including Seamus Costello and Frank Keane in the early 1960s.  on February 12 this year, Iker passed away peacefully at his home in Algorta aged 91.

After the talk local folk singer Sive, who recently shared a stage with Christy Moore in Dublin, entertained the large crowd with a few songs like “Hoverfly” and “I Don’t Know”.

 

Neil ‘Plunkett’ O’Boyle remembered in Wicklow

Neil Plunkett O’Boyle, 1898-1923

by Eamon Heffernan

Wicklow Republicans gathered on Sunday, May 27 to commemorate Commandant Neil Plunkett O’Boyle at Knocknadruce, Valleymount, County Wicklow.*  Cmdt O’Boyle was murdered there by the Free Staters on May 8 1923, as the civil war was coming to a close.

O’Boyle was a Donegal man and was brought up on a small farm near Burtonport. As a teenager he had a keen interest in Irish Republicanism and in the Irish language but initially could not get involved in politics as he helped his mother in looking after his father who was in poor health.

O’Boyle was 19 when his father died and he then needed to work to support his family.  For a short time he worked on the railway but his open support for the republican cause led to harassment by the Royal Irish Constabulary and he was forced to leave Ireland at the age of 21.  He went for Scotland where he worked as a miner.

The stone that was erected at the spot where Cmdt O’Boyle was murdered by Free State forces at Knocknadruce. The fresh flowers were laid there May 27, 2018 by local non-aligned Republicans.

While in Scotland he joined the IRA and began procuring weapons to be sent back to Ireland.  However, he was caught by the Scottish police and in December 1920 sentenced to five years hard labour at Peterhead prison.  He spent long periods there in solitary confinement.

When the ‘treaty of surrender, aka the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty, was signed O’Boyle qualified for release.  He was freed in February 1922.  Nevertheless he opposed the Treaty as a betrayal of what had been fought for in the war for independence.

He returned to

Long Kesh documents collection

A substantial body of material produced by prisoners in Long Kesh is now available.  The blurb for the site for these states:

“All these documents were written by republican prisoners in HMP Maze / Long Kesh.  All this material was confiscated by the authorities after the last escape attempt.  They did not get the backup disks which were hidden in a mattress and subsequently smuggled out of the prison in a box of chocolate which was taken out on a visit.  Much of this material was considered lost forever and I have decided to make it available to give an insight into prison life.  Some prisoners were under the illusion that a lot of this stuff was confidential as they saved to floppy disk, once it was inserted into the computers, the prison authorities had access to it.  These documents are made available for information only and the owner does not support any political groupings.”

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B5zInPpmsywNZXFOZllQVVhpcEE&usp=sharing