Irish Left Archive

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Digital collection of political material from the Irish Left.

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Direct Action #30, the newsletter of @IrelandIww is out now!

Read the full text here:
https://www.onebigunion.ie/_files/ugd/2a4d7f_62525d76e72e46ffac35522e8a795d47.pdf

Screengrab of the front page of Direct Action. Headline reads: "International Women's Day, the struggle continues!" Full text is available at the link in the attached post.
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Allan Armstrong: The Scottish Left, Republican Communist Forum and Internationalism From Below
Allan Armstrong spoke to us about his experience on the Scottish Left, the politics of Republicanism and Internationalism from Below, and linking movements in Scotland, Ireland and across these islands.
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For a Republican, All-Islands, Internationalism From Below Coalition

A series of articles from Allan Armstrong of Republican Communist Forum (@rcfscotland@mastodon.scot).

https://republicancommunist.org/blog/2022/03/25/21248/

Allan Armstrong has written reviews of three books which address the political situation Socialists face, first of all in Ireland. He has extended this to Scotland, Wales and England, and their position in a world of competing imperialisms. The purpose in doing this is to build the case for a Republican, all-islands, ‘internationalism from below’ coalition to challenge the UK state and its imperial allies.

For a republican, all-islands, internationalism from below coalition – Emancipation, Liberation & Self-determination

republicancommunist.org

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New document:

British and Irish ‘Communist’ Organisation – Trotskyite Thugs, Sham Marxist-Leninists and Agents of British Imperialism

Seas le fíor-dhearcadh réábhlóide na hÉireann! Seas le Marxachas-Lenineachas-Smaoineamh Mao Tsetung!

Differentiate between sham and genuine Marxism-Leninism to unite the revolutionary forces and defeat the enemy

From the Communist Party of Ireland (Marxist-Leninist), 1977.

https://www.leftarchive.ie/document/6318/

British and Irish ‘Communist’ Organisation – Trotskyite Thugs, Sham Marxist-Leninists and Agents of British Imperialism (1977) — Communist Party of Ireland (Marxist-Leninist)

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The Labour Party: Northern Policy Statement

Adopted by their annual conference 26th February 1972.

https://www.leftarchive.ie/document/1527/

Northern Policy Statement (1972) — Labour

Irish Left Archive

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"What's Another Tour? No To Racist Rugby"

From 1981, an article in Socialist Republic on a proposed tour of apartheid South Africa for the British & Irish Lions rugby team. The team had toured in 1980 despite widespread opposition (including from the governments of both the UK and Ireland).

Socialist Republic was the magazine of Peoples Democracy, who were then the Irish affiliate of the Fourth International.

Scanned magazine article, reading: What's Another Tour? No To Racist Rugby Most readers of Socialist Republic probably have never played rugby. Rugby, you see, is a peculiar sport If you belong to certain broad categories of humanity ... well, you're out. If you are a woman, for example. That's half of you gone already. If you are from the wrong side of the tracks. |f your accent is vulgar and you really don't know your claret. If you didn't go to a good private school. If you are small or lack the necessary aggression. And, in sunny South Africa, if you are black. So what is all this controversy about the proposed Irish tour about? Why should the doings of fifteen burly executives with time and money to spare concern us? They are drawn from an elite minority segment of the community. If they wish to cart themselves off several thousand miles to the tip of Africa to kick an inflated pigskin up and down a grass field why should we bother? No doubt many of you wish you had the kind of job (that is, if you even have a job) with such attractive travel and recreation opportunities. But South Africa is the problem, not rugby . And South Africa is unique. This vicious society is as repressive and exploitative as any capitalist country. But with the added dimension of apartheid - racial segregation and discrimination enshrined as a fundamental policy of state. Over 80%of the population are totally and permanently disenfranchised, oppressed and degraded by the remaining 20%, simply because of skin colour. In the psyche of the racist minority which presides over this barbarity, rugby plays an important role. All the classic features of the sport are there. Back-slapping bonhomie, character hardening platitudes, the gentlemanly violence of the heaving , stiff upper lips, sexist jokes in the showers after the match, ribald drunken singing over a few brandies on the train home. With one added dimension , all the players, managers, commentators and spectators are white. Any blacks that do want to play must do it on their own and with inferior facilities. Far away from the whites' manicured pitch the black kids are crowded into festering slums. Officially they don't even exist - they are 'citizens' of remote rural native reservations they have never even seen. They kick cans =cross the dusty bits of burnt earth sandwiched between the shacks. Loiter around the shebeens -the white government kindly subsidises the price of booze for blacks. Stand in mute humiliation while a white cop demands the pass book. Sometimes even get shot or clubbed by the riot police - as the touring British Lions saw and heard to their discomfort last year. No changes have really occurred in South African rugby. The wellfinanced and orchestrated SA government propaganda saying otherwise is a blatant lie. South Africa is racist and proud of it. Rugby, like all form of social activity, reflects that racism. The SA government has made it crystal clear that it will not alter apartheid and will fight to maintain it. Even as rugby officials were coming to Ireland to debate on RTE (who paid for that?) SA commandos were invading a sovereign state to murder fourteen innocent civilians who disagreed with being categorized as animals. Rugby is an integral part of white South Africa. Boycotts do have an effect. They stimulate the morale of the oppressed and insure that no aspect of South African life can B pass itself off as "normal". South Africa is beginning to feel the first whisper of the coming wind as bastion after bastion of white rule and colonialism have fallen. That change did not come through any charm being exuded by a touring centre forward at a Johannesburg cocktail party. It came through the African liberation struggle being waged throughout the continent and the maximum international support for and solidarity with that struggle. This is the time to isolate South Africa. The proposed Irish tour must be stopped. it is perhaps unfortunate that the debate on the tour, as revealed in the letters to the Irish Times, show a touching side to Irish liberalism which doesn't rise to the same heights when the issue is closer to home in Long Kesh or Armagh. But Socialist Republic isn't the Irish Times so we won't ask you to raise the matter in your local rugby club or at the next Rotary club luncheon. But do raise it and the issue of apartheid (and Western support for it) on your shop floor, among other workers, at your trade union branch, in your women's group, community association. Workers in Dublin Airport have said they will refuse to process the travel documents of the rugby players. This is the kind of action that will stop the tour. Actions like these must be encouraged wherever possible. Because the tour is a diversion. Apartheid is not. It is the foulest product of centuries of imperialism. ALAN BRUCE
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Policy documents from the Democratic Socialist Party (DSP), early 1980s.

The DSP was formed in 1982 by a merger of the Socialist Party of Ireland (SPI), Jim Kemmy's Limerick Socialist Organisation and individuals including members of the British & Irish Communist Organisation (BICO).

The DSP was the Left of Labour, and strongly anti-Nationalist. (The constituent groups had previously co-operated in Socialists Against Nationalism).

The party ultimately merged with Labour in 1990.

You can see them in our Timeline of the Irish Left here: https://www.leftarchive.ie/page/timeline-of-the-irish-left/#find-DSP

Timeline of the Irish Left

Irish Left Archive

Front cover of DSP Outline Poiicy on Church and State
Front cover of DSP Outline Poiicy on Full Employment
Front cover of DSP Outline Poiicy on Northern Ireland
Front cover of DSP Outline Poiicy on Taxation
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Aileen O'Carroll: Workers Solidarity Movement
Aileen O'Carroll spoke to us about anarchism, the Workers' Solidarity Movement, campaigning – including water charges, abortion and Repeal, Shell to Sea, Reclaim the Streets and the Dublin Grassroots Network, and approaches to political organising.
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📢 Heading out to a protest? 📢Check out our Free to Protest guide!

It provides a range of info about police surveillance capabilities, from IMSI catchers to Cloud Extraction, & provides tips to keep yourself informed before you go. #FreeToProtest

https://privacyinternational.org/campaigns/freetoprotest

Free to Protest | Privacy International

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📢 Heading out to a protest? 📢Check out our Free to Protest guide! It provides a range of info about police surveillance capabilities, from IMSI catchers to Cloud Extraction, & provides tips to keep yourself informed before you go. #FreeToProtest https://privacyinternational.org/campaigns/freetoprotest
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Northern Ireland Perspectives, by Peter Hadden, Militant, 1988.

https://www.leftarchive.ie/document/527/

Northern Ireland Perspectives (1988) — Militant

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Statement of Irish Left With Ukraine (ILWU) on the first anniversary of the imperialist military invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation on 24 February 2022

https://cedarlounge.wordpress.com/2023/02/24/statement-of-irish-left-with-ukraine-ilwu-on-the-first-anniversary-of-the-imperialist-military-invasion-of-ukraine-by-the-russian-federation-on-24-february-2022/#comment-824831

Statement of Irish Left With Ukraine (ILWU) on the first anniversary of the imperialist military invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation on 24 February 2022

The Cedar Lounge Revolution

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Published 24th February 1975:

"Officials' Split over Stalinist Power Play"

By Gerry Foley, for Intercontinental Press, magazine of the Fourth International.

https://www.leftarchive.ie/document/561/

Officials' Split over Stalinist Power Play (1975) — Gerry Foley

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RT @antifascistirl
Statement from Irish Republican Political ex-Prisoners

We, the undersigned men and women, served terms of imprisonment in jails in Ireland, England and Europe during the conflict for Irish republican activity.

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From 1978, Women's Action, published by the Belfast Women's Collective.

https://www.leftarchive.ie/document/629/

Women's Action, Vol. 2, No. 3 (1978) — Belfast Women's Collective

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Snapshots of Political Action: Documenting Protest
We recently launched a new joint project with Irish Election Literature to bring together political material distributed at individual protests in Ireland to see the different political strands that come together in campaigns. To introduce the Snapshots of Political Action project, we were joined by Alan Kinsella.
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Sligo Star, from November 1976.

Produced by the Connolly Youth Movement and supporters in Sligo.

https://www.leftarchive.ie/document/4781/

Sligo Star, Vol. 1, No. 3 (1976) — Connolly Youth Movement

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Michael Pidgeon: Green Party, and Irish Election Manifesto Archive
In 2020 we spoke to Green Party councillor, Michael Pidgeon, about his experience of political campaigning and elections with the Greens.
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22nd February 2014, a rally calling for the release of Margaretta D'Arcy and ending the US military use of Shannon airport took place in Dublin.

https://www.leftarchive.ie/demonstration/6173/

Political Material from: Free Margaretta D'Arcy, US Military Out of Shannon Rally, 22nd February 2014

Irish Left Archive

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22nd February 1992, Democratic Left was formed after a split in the Workers' Party.

https://www.leftarchive.ie/on-this-day/#event-5651

On This Day, 22nd February

Irish Left Archive

The logo of Democratic Left
At a Workers Party Ard Comhairle meeting on 22nd February 1992, several members and six of the party’s TDs left the party and formed a new party led by Proinsias de Rossa. Initially called New Agenda, it was renamed Democratic Left at its founding conference the following month. Divisions in the party between more Marxist and social-democratic orientations had culminated in a special conference at which a motion for significant restructuring of the party — proposed by De Rossa (then party leader) and allies — was narrowly defeated. The Workers’ Party analysis of the split is outlined in this document: Patterns of Betrayal: the flight from Socialism Papers and Viewpoints which set out The Struggle for The Workers' Party
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A list of pubs to boycott who wouldn't serve women, from 1976.

Taken from Banshee, magazine of Irish Women United.

The practice of refusing to serve women in some bars didn't end completely until the late 1990s.

https://www.leftarchive.ie/document/view/2728/?page=15

View Document: Banshee, Vol. 1, No. 2 - Irish Women United

Irish Left Archive

Scanned magazine clipping, reading: MORE PUBS TO BOYCOTT DOLLYMOUNT INN, Dollymount — Women not served a all BLACK SHEEP, Coolock — Women not served at all FAGAN'S BAR, Upr. Drumcondra Rd. — No Pints served to women in Lounge and Bar exclusive to males — AND A CHIPPER ... For the dubious pleasure of parting with 20p for a single and 15p for a portion of beans after 9 p.m. at DI MASCIOS in MARLBOROUGH STREET, you'll have to have a male in tow. Dogs and pushcars are not allowed at any time and after 9 p.m. the axe falls on “unaccompanied ladies”. Are they afraid we'll attack the long ray!