Ireland and World Peace           [1984]

[This text was drafted  by  Desmond Greaves as a discussion paper for a conference on “Ireland and World Peace” that was organised by the Connolly Association in Liverpool on 18 November 1984. It was carried in the December issue of the “Irish Democrat” that year.]

The centre of the “Irish question” is the disputed sovereignty of the Six Counties of “Northern Ireland”.  The Connolly Association has from his foundation sought to persuade the British Labour movement that no just and permanent solution is possible without the recognition of the right of the majority of the people of Ireland to govern the whole of their country. This means rejecting the Tory claim to hold territory in Ireland, and the Unionist claim to separation from the rest of Ireland under Tory protection.

The word “Tory” is here used advisedly. When the Liberal Government in 1912 introduced the third “Home Rule Bill” which would have given self-government to the whole of Ireland, the Tory party organised armed rebellion in the north-east and engineered a mutiny in the British Army when it was proposed to take steps against it. These facts should be remembered when members of Mrs Thatcher’s Government talk about “law and order”. There has never been any doubt that the partition  of Ireland was carried out from motives of imperialism, the aim being to retain a military, political and economic foothold in Ireland. For those of us who believe that the terrible evils and dangers that beset the world today are primarily due to imperialism, there can be no question of our alignment. It must be with those who stand with the majority of the Irish people for national unity and independence.

The Irish Republic, established as a “rebel” government in January 1919, adopted an advanced “democratic programme” drawn up in consultation with Irish Labour, and a protracted guerrilla war resulted from the imperial effort to detach the majority from its allegiance to this republic. Despite substantial support from British Labour, Lloyd George’s  Government ultimately succeeded in using the propertied elements inside Ireland to divide the national movement, and the result was enforced partition followed by a disastrous civil war.

The issue which most sharply divided the nationalists at that time was not in fact that of partition, about which a pledge had been of received that it would only be temporary, but that of allegiance to the Crown, that is to say the issue of sovereignty. The matter was debated very shortly after the end of the First World War, into which Ireland was bundled without her consent, at a time when its maimed and shell-shocked victims were to be seen on the streets of Dublin, as indeed they were to be seen on the streets of Liverpool. To accept the Crown was seen as a commitment to participate in an imperial war.

Already there was a strong tradition in favour of neutrality in Ireland. As early as 1790 Wolfe Tone, the father of Irish Republicanism, urged Irish neutrality in Britain’s war with Spain. In 1914 James Connolly joined with Irish nationalists in establishing the “Irish Neutrality League”.  The Rising of 1916 had as one of its objects withdrawing Ireland from the European conflict. The Tories who engineered the Curragh Mutiny of 1914 were by now in the War Cabinet, and were in the position to consign the Dublin “rebels” to the firing squad –some lawyers have  claimed in complete defiance of legality.

In comparison with the Republic of 1919, the Irish Free State established at the end of 1922, was reactionary. In comparison with some of the regimes being set up on the basis of the Versailles Treaty, it had important democratic aspects. It was politically necessary to retain features of the 1919 Republic, and the issue of an Irish foreign policy independent of that of Britain was never allowed to lapse.  it should be commented here that the occupation of the Six Counties by British forces necessarily reacted negatively on Dublin’s freedom of action.

In 1923 the Free State joined the League of Nations. In 1935 Ireland supported the admission of the USSR into the League, and the following year it applied sanctions against Italy following the invasion of Abyssinia. Ireland was not a party to the Tory build-up of Nazi militarism in the 1930s and was under no obligation to go to war when Hitler turned on his western friends. But a heavy economic price had to be paid. De Valera always combined neutrality with support for collective security and tried to reactivate this at the end of the war. He said: “I think we have a duty as a member of the world community to do our share in trying to bring about general conditions which will make for the maintenance of peace.” His successors in the post-war “Interparty” Government turned down the invitation to join NATO, giving as a reason the existence of partition. While there were interests within Ireland which would have been prepared to barter neutrality against the return of the Six Counties, it is doubtful whether public opinion, affected by the long tradition of neutrality, would have been prepared to allow this.

In the 1960s, Ireland opposed nuclear re-armament, urged general disarmament and condemned apartheid in South Africa. Mr Frank Aiken proposed the creation, region by region, of nuclear-free zones which would ultimately cover the whole world. It was as a result of an Irish resolution at the UN, adopted unanimously in 1961, that the Non-Proliferation Treaty was signed in 1967. It was the Irish who first raised the question of Chinese membership of the United Nations against the express wishes of the USA and the warnings of Cardinal Spelman. The liberal orientation of Irish foreign policy has been a constant embarrassment to ruling circles in London and Washington. There is a continuous war of pressure and counter-pressure within Anglo-Irish relations. The fundamental fact is that British imperialism still exists, with vast economic interests in every part of the world. The essence of its policy, now that its military predominance has passed, is that these interests shall be defended by the United States. This in turn leads to subservience to Washington and willing acceptance of the anti-Soviet arms race. To Ireland this is an economic irrelevance and Irish foreign policy does not require the Cold War, though of course that are interests prepared to make a deal on it.

Throughout the World War 2 period there were constant complaints that Irish harbours were not available to Allied navies. There were frequent completely groundless allegations that German submarines were using them, and preparations were made for an invasion from the Six Counties when British tanks were to have flown Irish tricolours to support  the pretence of repelling a German landing. These flags were subsequently sold at auction. During the war Mr Churchill raised the question of concessions over partition if Ireland  would join the allies. Whether De Valera could have persuaded public opinion to accept this is a matter of speculation. What is fact is that Churchill did not make a firm offer, doing little more than promising to do his best with the Unionists. These were to represent a veto in reserve.

The use of Irish facilities for war purposes has been under regular discussion, for example in the House of Lords in 1960. The inception of the second Cold War by the aged necromancer President Ronald Reagan revived such discussions. The pretence that Ireland has no strategic value  – and therefore that Britain retained the Six Countries out of sheer altruism towards the Unionists  – was incontinently dropped. It would not wash in America. Among matters discussed were landings at Irish ports, transit of war materials through Irish territory, the use of the underpopulated Midlands as a dispersal area for American troops, and the erection of microwave interceptor stations round the West coast. Serious discussion was given to converting Shannon Airport as the terminal of an American air-lift and suspicions have been  voiced that certain EEC-sponsored electronic programmes are intended for war purposes.

Meanwhile the militarisation of areas under British control has proceeded apace. Microwave stations, submarine detection equipment and early-warning devices have been installed in the Six Counties and linked to Scotland. In Co. Armagh a whole mountain has been hollowed out for some undisclosed military purpose . There has been a progressive militarisation of the Irish Sea where ships have been mysteriously sunk, notably in the Tusker Rock area. For some of these sinkings the British Government has been compelled to pay compensation. Fishing has been forbidden in an area between Larne and the Isle of Man, the reason being the dumping of “high explosives”. Whether for this one should read “nuclear waste” is a matter for speculation. It is admitted that the Irish Sea is the most radioactive in the world and the high rates of leukaemia noted in the neighbourhood of Windscale (Sellafield) are gradually creeping round the coasts of Cumbria, Lancashire and the east of Ireland.

This process which threatens the British people as a whole, but particularly the densely populated towns and cities of Lancashire, would be enormously accelerated in the event of Irish neutrality breaking down. It is therefore an essential working-class  interest to support the Irish people in their refusal to allow the militarisation of their country. They are performing a service to the peoples of the world. It is therefore remarkable that the British peace movement has tended to regard the Irish question as irrelevant. This probably arises from its tradition of pacifism, from which there arises the tendency to concentrate, very understandably, on the abolition of nuclear weapons, without coming to grips with the political realities which lie behind the threat of their use. For the fact of the matter is that if Russia and America do not come to some agreement, then we will all be blown up. It is as a non-aligned area, outside the confrontation, that a neutral Ireland is so vitally important.

It is essential to recognise that here we have the true essence of the Irish question, to which the question of partition is linked as the part is linked to the whole. Partition is only the most blatant and indefensible of the means adopted by British imperialism in its policy towards Ireland as a whole. It is for this reason that successive governments at Westminster have been prepared to tolerate 2,300 deaths and 24,000 non-fatal casualties in the Six Countries over the last 13 years, accept  an estimated estimated £11,900,000,000 of economic destruction and a loss to the British Exchequer of some £2,000 million a year on present figures, amounting to £4 a week for every family in Britain. This is all seen as war expenditure. There is always money for that. Money for the Health Service, the mines or the railways is another matter altogether.

Following the Brighton explosion the comment was made that the violent actions of the IRA enjoy considerable support in the Six Counties. This should give pause for thought. It means that the ultimate result of British policy in Ireland is to create a mood of desperation not only among a few activists but in a wide stratum of the population. There must therefore be grievances that are found intolerable. There must be a total lack of confidence that any redress will be attempted. And the fact that no redress has been attempted arises from the fact that no redress is possible within the framework of the war policy.   That is why pussyfoot liberalisation programmes which do not touch the political heart of the question remain in the region of well-meaning goodwill.

The reaction to nationalist grievances is repression – bogus trials, bogus courts, super-grasses and plastic bullets. When these fail, efforts are made to enlist the services of the government of the Republic, understandably nervous of the spread of anarchy to all Ireland,  to encourage quiescence  and assist the security forces. There is talk of elements of national unity; these invariably involve police operations.   Witness for example the proposal for an all-Ireland police force for a partitioned country. The matter was made crystal clear by Tory MP Mr Michael Mates who on October 12th 1984 said that if enough people wanted it in the Six Counties, Britain might give way on the issue of partition, but on no account would this happen while the Republic maintained its neutrality. One can imagine the state of an Ireland united within the war-alliance – there would be more than an all-Ireland police force!

It is a matter of interest that Mrs Thatcher’s insensitivity and arrogance, as  it  is seen in Ireland, has led the most pro-imperial government that has ruled Ireland for many years  to placate public opinion by making nationalist statements that have run encounter to its stated policy. This has been noted particularly in the field of external affairs.

It should be clear from the above that we are not concerned just with a thorny, difficult intractable problem in a corner of the United Kingdom.  We are dealing with a policy for total war. This involves the use of Irish territory for imperial purposes, and the result is popular resistance – republican, nationalist and CND. The great and growing movement in defence of neutrality which has helped to defeat EEC efforts to edge Ireland into the war alliance exemplifies further. From the standpoint of the British working class it is essential to reverse the war policy and that means abandoning its objective. The supreme democratic question before the world today is peace:  and the Irish question is part of that.

Some British observers fail to see this. They start from a limited Six-County position, dreaming of “unity through socialism”,  though socialism cannot even be approached while the workers are divided on the national question. Moreover they would need to be reunited on the issue that divides them. And this is in turn impossible while the whole weight of British policy in every aspect of administration and decision-making is thrown behind the tactic of “divide and rule”.

The first step therefore must be the public recognition of the need for withdrawal from Ireland. This is only possible to a Government that means peace. It requires an enormous re-think of assumptions, aims and policies. The extent of the change should not be overlooked. It should also be recognised that there is an Irish interest in how withdrawal is carried out. Perhaps the simplest scenario, which we do not need to finalise until the necessity for withdrawal is recognised, is that the British Government should make a declaration of its intention of withdrawing, and accompany this with an invitation to the Dublin Government to discuss the measures necessary. It is clear of course that something more sophisticated is required than is implied in the crude slogan, ”Troops out now”. Disengagement might be quick or slow according to circumstances.

It is not the intention of this paper to deal with internal Irish affairs. But it can be said that there are policies available in Ireland to meet most of the problems likely to be encountered following a British policy of withdrawal and reunification. It would be necessary to work for the maximum possible consent. Following a declaration of intent IRA violence could be expected to drop sharply. Emergency powers could be progressively relaxed. Troops could be withdrawn. Violence instead of escalating would de-escalate. Money saved by the  cessation  of repression could be diverted to constructive properties, such as  a deliberate well-financed government campaign to reconcile the estranged communities. It is worth noting that not a penny of Government  money  has ever been allocated for this. Instead of constantly highlighting the British identity of the Unionists,  which historian A.J.P. Taylor remarked was never heard of until 1922, the much more extensive Irish ethnic, cultural and historical background could be highlighted. It is not the business of anybody in Britain to make a blueprint for such policies. It should be sufficient to state that such politics exist.

The purpose of this paper is to present the Irish question in relation to world peace. This is the most important aspect of it. But nothing said above must be taken as disparagement of movements intended to tackle partial aspects of the problem, for example plastic bullets, the Prevention of Terrorism Act, the deindustrialization policy of the Tories etc. The purpose has been to try to show the nature of the whole.