The
above slur on the character of the late Cathal Goulding
destroyed a speech for me which I am in much agreement
with and which was delivered by Anthony
McIntyre at the H-Block 25th Anniversary Ceremony
in Bundoran, County Donegal, recently. Perhaps
the speaker was aware that like himself many in
the audience were ex-provisionals who in the main
followed Gerry Adams on the road towards reinforcing
partition until for whatever reason they had a Damascus
type of experience and left. That they did so I
welcome but I cannot go unchallenged cheap playacting
to an audience at such a hallowed event.
It
is obvious that Anthony McIntyre is completely ignorant
of Cathal Goulding as a person and the former IRA
Chief of Staff as a revolutionary republican. Goulding
was one of the main arthitects who kept the Republican
Movement in existence after the cease fire in 1962
based upon his total committment to the republican
cause and especially its revolutionary and working
class roots. Cathal Goulding was elected the Chief
of Staff of the Irish Republican Army because of
that committment. A task which he fulfilled to the
best of his ability, in spite of the fact that at
the time there were only a handful of active republicans
(especially in Belfast) in existence centered around
people like the late Liam McMillen and a young up
and coming Joe McCann. For after the 56/62 Border
Campaign many so called republicans in Ireland went
into retirement. Demoralised or whatever! Some of
the latter in the north then returned when the Defence
Committees appeared in the nationalist areas. Some
becoming founders of the Provos especially in the
light of contact made to them by Captain Kelly and
others of southern military intelligence. Fuelled
of course by Jack Lynch's speech of 'we shall not
stand idly by' and the small amount of training
of nationalist youth at Irish Army bases near to
the border, plus the promise of weapons from the
Haughey administration. And in spite of this Goulding
kept his head, although he knew that some of the
returned elements were dead set upon his removal
for that is what their new found friends in Fianna
Fail desired. Yes there was to be 'no talk of republican
socialism and the lefties had to go if you want
our help and support'. Sadly the reactionaries succeeded
in destroying an evolving revolutionary movement.
The right on that occassion were successful but
the ultimate outcome has led to the Adams phenomenon
of today. A split, demoralised republican movement
of contesting factions. An aspect of which was the
event at Bundoran at which Anthony McIntyre slurred
a dead revolutionary — perhaps because that's
what some of his listeners desired. For whether
they like it or not many of his listeners gave life
to the Adams sell out. Attacking the memory of Cathal
Goulding will not salve the conscience of the betrayers
whether conscious or otherwise.
In
addition, some of Anthony McIntyre's audience used
the well-worn 'communist or red scare' in their
attempt to undermine the republican leadership of
the time. Captain Kelly et al. had done their homework
well and also recruited elements of the republican
population in Belfast who had become inactive following
the 56' to 62' period; indeed there were some who
were recruited and were not active during that period.
These non activists had to gain control of the movement
in Belfast in particular, and they alleged that
the republican leadership had no weapons to defend
the nationalist areas from attack because the weapons
had been sold to liberation groups in other countries.
What the overwhelming of those collaborators with
the Dublin Government failed to acknowledge was
that the IRA had just come out of a border campaign
in which the northern so-called security forces
had succeeded in capturing many republican arms
dumps. Also, others had been captured in the south
through an informer at national leadership level
and who was one of the founders of the Provos. They
also overlooked that fact that the then republican
leadership was in the throes of rebuilding the movement
with no help from those who put out the latter lie
of numerous gun sales. In fact, I have always maintained
that the advent of the tactic of civil rights agitation
was premature, for it destroyed the the formation
of a disciplined revolutionary movement which Goulding
hoped to see moving amongst the nationalist population
as a means of guideing positive street politics.
Yes, a vanguard if you wish, but at the service
of the Irish population who subscribed to national
self-determination and revolutionary democracy.
I
present extracts from a speech by Cathal Goulding
in 1965 which reveals the picture of the true person
not the suir type projection presented to the listeners
at Bundoran by Anthony McIntyre.
There
Must be a Fight
Goulding's
speech 'There Must be a Fight' was delivered at
Drogheda on 15th August 1965, and was first printed
in United Irishman in September of that year.
"The
men whom we honour here today died for a cause
which promised a glorious future. I think that
it is appropriate that I, a man who has been reared
in a period since their deaths, the period of
their future, should deliver this oration. Some
of the men whom we honour died at the hands of
the Black and Tans. Two of them, Tommy Halpin
and Sean Moran died at this spot. All died so
that Ireland might be Gaelic and Free. All died
for a future, a glorious future. A future in which
Ireland would be governed by Irishmen, owned by
Irishmen, an Ireland which would cherish her children
equally, which would spread her wealth equally
among all her children, an Ireland the charter
of which would be the dictum of the Proclamation
of Easter Week. They died for a future, for a
glorious future, the children of that future,
for you and me, for your children and mine, so
that we might have our country for ourselves,
be kings of our own castle, so that we could enjoy
the fruits of our own land, that we might have
independence, live in peace and comfort, hold
our heads in honour and that Ireland our country
could take her place among the nations of the
earth.
"The
future for which they died would be a glorious
one indeed. That future has come and gone, but
the glory, the truth and the honour have been
missing from it. Their dreams, hopes, objectives
are unattained, but their fight has been carried
on, their battle cry of freedom taken up. This
town of Drogheda, of all Irish towns, has been
witness to the continuation of the fight. Some
of the finest of your manhood have participated
in that fight right up to the present day. You,
in this town, have seen some of your best men
behind prison bars in the 20's, 30's, 40's and
50's.
"You
have seen the remains of Ritchie Goss [executed
by hanging in Portlaoise Prison on 9th August
1941] pass through this town on the way to his
final resting place in Dundalk. He carried on
the fight of the men whom we honour today. He
fought for that glorious future, he made the supreme
sacrifice. You in this town have seen the remains
of Tommy Harte [executed by hanging in Mountjoy
Gaol on 6th September 1940] and Sean McCaughey
[died on hunger-strike on 11th May 1946 in Portlaoise
Prison] being borne to their final resting places.
You too have seen the remains of Sean South [killed
on active service on 1st January 1957] and Keegan
go southwards on their way to Wexford. You have
seen evidence that some have paid more than lip
service to the ideals of those honoured. You should
know their fight will be continued, continued
to the end, continued till Irish freedom has been
won, continued till that glorious future for which
they died has been achieved.
"The
belief is still held today that the only way to
rid this country of an armed British force is
to confront them with an armed force of Irishmen
backed by a united Irish people. There will and
must be a fight. We only have to look around to
see that we will have to fight on the military
front, the social front, the economic front and
the cultural front. It is unnecessary for me to
dwell on the state of our language, our music
and our dancing in Ireland today. Official attitudes
to our culture can be seen in the amount of attention
paid to it in our mass communication media. It
is our task to give our language, our music and
our games an honoured place among our objectives
in the struggle for full independence. The battle
on the economic front is second only in importance
to the battle on the military front. . .
"Is
the fear of our rulers that all will have a certain
measure of prosperity instead of the present position
in which the privileged live in luxury and the
majority live in poverty? Whether they like it
or not the battle is on, economic resistance is
in progress. The success or failure of this movement
relies on the ordinary people. It is up to the
worker, the small farmer, the fisherman and the
housewife to fight in this campaign. It is up
to us to break the grip of the foreign financier,
the foreign capitalist (and the Irish ones too),
the hire purchase companies, and the profiteers
on the economy of our land. It is up to us to
see that our money is put to work in our own country
and for our benefit. It is up to us to see that
our country does not become a playground for the
rich foreigners, a land in which we are trespassers
in what is rightly our own, a land in which we
are poachers of what belongs to us, a land of
shoneens and slaves. The men whom we honour did
not die for such a land, we owe it to them and
to ourselves, that it does not become so.
"Of
all the ideals for which Irishmen have fought
and died, none has been greater, none has been
of more importance to them, none has been nobler
than the guarantee enshrined in the Proclamation
of Easter Week — Equal Right and Equal Opportunities
for all the children of the nation. Are Equal
Rights and Equal Opportunities available to all
the children of this country? Are they available
to the children of any part of this country? Do
the opportunities available to a child in this
country depend on the abilities which God has
given that child or do the opportunities which
he gets depend on how much money his father has?
Well do you and I know that the latter is so.
Well do you know that there is one law for the
rich and one law for the poor. To bring about
a position in which equality of opportunity can
be guaranteed we must have independence. We will
have to fight for that independence on the fronts
we have mentioned, we will have to unite our people
and united we will have to rid our country of
the last vestige of British influence.
"In
the Ireland of today with all those tea parties,
charity balls and big shot entertainment’s
we tend to forget that part of our country is
occupied by an armed force of British soldiers.
The majority of us tend to accept it as inevitable
that they remain there but there are some, there
have always been some to whom the kernel of the
whole national problem lies in the military occupation.
The men whom we honour here today believed that
such was the case. The men in the '40's believed
it. Sean South and the men of '56 believed it.
The belief is still held today, the belief that
the only way to rid this country of an armed British
force is to confront them with an armed force
of Irishmen backed by an united Irish people.
"The
British forces in the six counties will be confronted
by such a force. It is inevitable that they will
be. This military camp combined with the economic
resistance camp can be successful. It will be
successful if we unite and fight for it."
That
speech reflects the true nature of Cathal Goulding
and what he had in mind for the Irish people. And
as I said earlier, unfortunately the movement required
time to ripen and this it lacked for circumstances
and a positive morale prematurely ignited the civil
rights movement. For an important aspect of the
new thinking in the movement was allied street politics
such as the civil rights campaign. For as I have
written elsewhere:
"Following
the IRA ceasefire of 1962 (the so-called Border
Campaign) a small group of republicans, centred
around Cathal Goulding, Seamus Costello and Tomas
MacGiolla, were interested in the ideas contained
in a pamphlet by Desmond Graves: 'The Irish
Question and the British People'. Graves was
a member of the Connolly Association in Britain
and editor of its newspaper, The Irish Democrat.
In the pamphlet he argued that the best way forward
for the anti-partitionist movement was through
a civil rights campaign.
In
August 1966 representatives of an Irish version
of the Connolly Association, namely the Wolfe
Tone Society (a republican think-tank) met in
Maghera, Co. Derry. The subject of the conference
which included invited guests was whether a civil
rights movement should be established in the six
counties of British occupied Ireland (as distinct
from the 26 county neo-colonial statelet).
Those
in attendance included the IRA Chief of Staff
Cathal Goulding, Roy Johnston, Ciaran Mac an Aili,
two Nationalist Party MPs, and Conn and Patricia
McCluskey. . . IRA OCs and republican organisers
from the north were also in attendance.
After
an agreement was reached to establish a civil
rights movement, the Belfast Wolfe Tone Society
agreed to sponsor a meeting, later, in order to
present the proposal to a wider spectrum of potential
supporters. In November the second meeting took
place, and Kadar Asmal (who was eventually to
become a member of the South African Government,
then a Law Lecturer at Trinity College, Dublin)
made an interesting contribution to the meeting.
Among the other contributors, Ciaran Mac an Aili,
in a talk on civil disobedience as championed
by Martin Luther King suggested that similar tactics
could be used in the 6 counties. A proposal to
launch a movement was well received, and at a
third conference on January the 29th, 1967, the
Civil Rights Association (NICRA) came into being.
Parallel
with these developments a reorganising of the
republican movement was taking place. The late
Malachy MacGurran of Lurgan and myself (a native
of Limavady, Co. Derry) were appointed full- time
organisers of the movement in the north of Ireland.
In addition to republican structure our task was
to include the involvement of rank and file republicans
in the civil rights campaign as well as co-operating
with individuals and groups in the establishment
of housing action committees and branches of the
civil rights movement.
At
the 1967 Sinn Fein Ard Fheis, Tomas MacGiolla
stated that it was the intention of Sinn Fein
to launch a campaign of social agitation north
and south, particularly in the area of housing.
In
the north housing agitation had an anti-unionist
complexion. And because of Derry's uniqueness,
as a place of unionist discrimination and gerrymandering,
I was given the task of forming a coalition between
members of the local James Connolly Republican
Club and local radicals. In due course this became
a reality through the holding of meetings attended
by a select number of people..."
The
latter reflects the thinking of Cathal Goulding
and other republican leaders of the time. It was
indeed a new venture. In fact, in an oration at
a special Wolfe Tone commemoration at Bodenstown,
Co Kildare, I emphasised the point that republican
participation in the civil rights movement was for
one reason only: a means for "nurturing a revolutionary
consciousness in the Irish people and gaining their
support."
This
oration was delivered during the re-dedication of
a new memorial by the National Graves Association,
after loyalists (allegedly) bombed Tone's grave
some months previously.
As
a member of the Ard Comhairle of Sinn Fein at the
time, I recall writing the oration in the home of
the then president, Tomas MacGiolla, who agreed
with the contents and endorsed it on behalf of the
leadership.
Retrospectively,
the tragedy of the split which gave rise to the
birth of the Provisionals aside from the intelligence
activity of the southern political establishment
arose from a few personality struggles, wrong assumptions,
and the mistaken idea that physical force was a
republican principle rather than one of a number
of means to achieve our objective of a free and
self-determining Ireland.
No!
Cathal Goulding was not what he was painted by Anthony
McIntyre, and in due course history will confirm
the truth of my opinion.
