Category Archives: Saor Eire
Political activist and radical photographer Séamus O’Riain,1937-2014
by Mick Healy
“There are those of us who try to follow the path once taken by Casement, Pearse, Connie Green and O’Hanlon. We seek to put through the charter that was bought with blood of our glorious dead in 1916, which the Free State Regime failed to do, a charter that would make an All-Ireland Workers Republic.” – Séamus O’Riain, HM Prison Brixton, September 1967.
Séamus (Ryan) O’Riain was born into poverty on September 2, 1937 to Katherine Ryan in Dublin. When Katherine married a Tom Ryan, Séamus was fostered out to a family called Corbally; unfortunately he was to end up in Drainages children’s detention centre in County Offaly. What’s more, he remained there for about three years before he was reunited with Katherine and step-father Tom at 51 Viking Road, Arbour Hill, Dublin. (Drainages treated the children more like slaves than children, stated a commission in 2009 that inquired into child abuse at the detention centre.)
O’Riain became an accomplished photographer; his employment for a number of years was with Jerome Photography Studio at 4 Henry Street, Dublin. He created hundreds of remarkable images which are a vital history of Republican and left-wing activity. Moreover, the photographs with his Phoenix Company in London featured Brendan Behan, The Dubliners and Tom Barry, the former Commander of the IRA’s Third West Cork Flying Column during the Irish War of Independence. Tom Barry praised him in a letter dated 24, August 1977, “A hundred note of thanks for your splendid set of photos. They are the finest I have ever seen and I have, unfortunately, had hundreds taken.”
Seamus’ association with radicalism went back to his youth when he joined the IRA along with his comrade Liam Sutcliffe, during Operation Harvest (the IRA 1950s border campaign). Like others of his generation, O’Riain Read the rest of this entry
Ireland’s Marxist guerrillas: the story of the Saor Éire Action Group, 1967-73
by Mick Healy, in collaboration with several former Saor Eire members
(Mick wrote an article about Saor Eire which appeared on this site in 2011; this is an updated and expanded version of that article, including new material added by former Saor Eire members; the article has been proofed and edited by me – PF)
The 1960s was a time of upheaval and change in conservative Irish society; social attitudes, fashion and music, for instance, all changed dramatically. New social movements reflected the thinking of a new generation that, in particular, wanted more freedom. The huge student-worker protests of May-June 1968 in France, the Vietnamese struggle to remove the US, its allies and their Vietnamese toadies, the US civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements, and the national liberation struggles in Latin America and Africa galvanised opposition to the existing order. In Ireland, these events inspired people, especially the new generation, into action. This was especially the case around the civil rights movement in the north of Ireland. Among the new organisations which emerged here as a result of this new ferment and revolutionary idealism was the Dublin-based Saor Éire (SE) or, to give it its full name, the Saor Eire Action Group.
Saor Éire Action Group was established in the late 1960s by former members of the Republican Movement and newer young Irish political left activists coming together. As an organisation they claimed to have their roots in the Read the rest of this entry
Liam Sutcliffe photo
Thanks to my friend Mick Healy for this fine picture of Vol Liam Sutcliffe (1933-2017), a veteran of the Irish Republican Army and later of the Dublin-based Saor Eire.
Liam Sutcliffe.
IRA Volunteer.
Saor Eire Volunteer.
Socialist-Republican.
And the person who blew up Nelson’s Pillar.
Frank Keane and the Irish revolution
by Mick Healy
“The magistrate in his summing up said that he had no doubt whatsoever that I was politically involved. This should stand to my benefit at a later stage and should really nail the lie that I’m a gangster, a criminal”. – Frank Keane, Brixton jail, 14th August, 1970.
Frank Keane, who is now over eighty years of age, was born on May 8, 1936 in Peter Street, Westport, Co. Mayo. He was once regarded as a dangerous political opponent by the Irish establishment.
Frank was the eldest of three brothers and a sister and was educated at the local Christian Brothers School. In 1952 he moved with his family to North Road, Finglas in Dublin. The following year he joined the Jackie Griffith Sinn Fein Cumann. (The cumann was named after a republican activist shot dead by the Free State special branch in Dublin on 4 July 1943.)
Frank volunteered for active service during Operation Harvest, the IRA 1950s border campaign. With training/recruitment officers interned or on the run, he enlisted in the Read the rest of this entry
Charlie O’Neill, socialist-republican, 1937-2016
by Mick Healy
Thomas (Charlie) O’Neill was born in Drimnagh in Dublin on 20th December 1937 and was a dyer by trade. His family had fought with the United Irishman and the Fenians. He was a Socialist Republican with a sharp wit who loved classical music, the Irish Times, a glass of wine and, especially, his family.
As a young man, Charlie joined the Irish Republican Army where, with a large number of Dublin volunteers, he became involved with the breakaway Joe Christle group. In 1956 they joined forces with Liam Kelly’s organisation Saor Uladh in Co. Tyrone. Christle and Kelly were annoyed at the lack of action by the IRA, although the IRA leadership were actually putting together plans for Operation Harvest aka “the border campaign”.
Saor Uladh went on the offensive and attacked the RUC barracks in Roslea, Co. Fermanagh in 1955, custom post telephone exchanges, bridges, B-Special drill halls as well as demolishing lough gates at Newry. When the IRA began its own campaign in 1956, Saor Uladh was subsumed back into it.
Charlie (on left) with folk musician Luke Kelly (on right) and others
With the failure of Operation Harvest, Charlie moved to Cork. He worked in a shoe factory there during the early 1960s and eventually bought a cottage in Crosshaven. He became good friends with many of the University College Cork socialists as well as Jim Lane and Gerry Higgins from Irish Revolutionary Forces. Charlie, Gerry and Jim attended an anti-Vietnam War protest, organised by the Cork Vietnamese Freedom Association, during the berthing of USS Courtyney in Cork harbour in 1967.
At this time Charlie also became good friends with the legendary Tom Barry who had commanded the IRA’s Third West Cork Flying Column during the Irish War of Independence, fought on the anti-Treaty side in the civil war and briefly became IRA chief-of-staff in 1937.
(Left to Right) Lucille Redmond with Republicans Charlie O’Neill, Simon O’Donnell and Bryan McNally.
Upon his return to Dublin, Charlie was associated with the radical National Civil Liberties League. The NCLL agitated around industrial disputes and tenant and traveller rights. Later he became involved in the Saor Éire Action Group, a militant Marxist-republican group which included prominent former members of the IRA like Frank Keane and Liam Sutcliffe and Trotskyist activists associated with the Fourth International.
On October 3, 1968, shots were fired in a Read the rest of this entry
Liam Sutcliffe commemoration
On Sunday (December 3) about 100 people attended a special political commemoration for veteran socialist-republican Liam Sutcliffe, who died on Friday, November 3 and whose funeral took place in Dublin on Tuesday, November 7.
Liam Sutcliffe commemoration, Dublin, Sunday, Dec 3
Friends and comrades of Liam Sutcliffe have organised a commemoration to mark Liam’s passing and his contribution to Irish national liberation and socialism.
The commemoration will be starting at St Patrick’s Cathedral at 1pm on Sunday 3rd December and marching to Mount Jerome Cemetery.
This is an independent commemoration, so please no party political material, but all Republicans welcome.
The Liam Sutcliffe Commemoration Committee has set up a facebook page, here.
Repose and funeral details for Liam Sutcliffe
Liam by The Spire of Dublin, the monument which eventually replaced Nelson’s Pillar. Photo: Luke Fallon
Reposing at the Fanagan Funeral Home, Aungier Street, Dublin from 5pm until 7.30pm, Tuesday, 7th November, with family in attendance.
Requiem Mass at 11.30am on Wednesday, 8th November, in Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Whitefriar Street (Aungier Street), Dublin.
Funeral thereafter to Mount Jerome Cemetery, Harold’s Cross Road, Dublin 6W.
Liam Sutcliffe: a revolutionary life
Liam with other Saor Eire activists
by Mick Healy
Socialist-republican and former Saor Éire activist Liam Sutcliffe passed away suddenly at his home in Greenhills, Dublin on Friday 3rd November, 2017. His wife Bernadette, to whom he was married for over 60 years, died in February 2016.
Liam came from an historic Dublin working class area, The Liberties, and was recruited into the Irish Republican Army along with Tomás Mac Giolla in 1954. Within a few months he was operating as an IRA agent in Gough barracks in Armagh, passing important information to the Republican Movement.
This was part of the preparations for Read the rest of this entry
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