Geoffrey Bing (1909-1977)

[Obituary notice of Geoffrey Bing by Desmond Greaves in the May 1977 “Irish Democrat”]

Geoffrey Bing Dies in London

The death towards the end of April of Mr Geoffrey Bing removes from the London scene a strong supporter of the cause of a united Ireland.

Mr Bing, who was born in Dun Laoire, was the son of a Co. Down schoolmaster. He was educated at Lincoln College, Oxford, and Princeton University, and was later called to the bar.

During the Second World War he served as a signals officer in North Africa, France and Germany.

He was on the extreme left of the Labour Party, having been in earlier days associated with the Marx Memorial Library, and in the 1945 election he became MP for Hornchurch, and became a member of Mr Hugh Delargy’s “Friends of Ireland” group. He was, however, a much more energetic and decisive person than Mr Delargy, and had no fear of expressing his views even if he knew they would be unpopular.

He was one of the two Members of Parliament at the great meeting called by the Connolly Association in 1948 to demand the release of the Republican prisoners who had been sentenced to up to 20 years for the bombings which just preceded the war. The other was Dr Morgan, together with Jim Larkin and Liam Redmond.

His “John Bull’s Other Ireland”, a study of the Six-County regime from an anti-partitionist standpoint, was a best-seller. The publishers, Tribune Publications, had to reprint it again and again. These were the days of the Anti-Partition League, and Mr Bing was a powerful supporter.

When the Irish Republic was declared, Geoffrey Bing was one of the few prepared to defend the right of the Dublin Government to make the declaration, as he was one of the few to vote against the infamous Ireland Act introduced by Herbert Morrison. This was the occasion when Morrison called Delargy an “insolent young pup” and told him he would never get any preferment. Bing was less outspoken on this occasion, but more effective.

There was a period of about 15 years when the situation in Ireland was never debated, because of the “convention” that Six-County affairs were “a matter for the Northern Ireland Government”. During the whole of this time, Bing regularly every year made his intervention on the Finance Bill. It was a terrible pity that he was no longer in Parliament in 1968 [i.e. when the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Movement got going there].

He attended one or two of the meetings called by Lord Brockway in connection with the Bill of Rights, and Sean Redmond [Connolly Association General Secretary in the 1960s] and I would sometimes have a drink with him afterwards. It was clear that his shabby treatment in Ghana was a great blow to him, which some of his enemies were not sorry for.

He was for years a reader of the “Irish Democrat” – and did read it, for if you came across him he would quickly tell you what he thought of this or that contribution.

The fact that he was appointed Attorney-General of Ghana speaks something for his legal ability, and it also speaks of the confidence the leaders of a newly independent state had in his anti-colonial principles. He always remembered that he was an Irishman.

C.D.G.