"The IRA 1956-69: Rethinking the Republic" by Matt Treacy

[Phelan]

I believe they dispute the fact that they were members. Personally, I don't think it really matters if they did formally sign up. There is no sense of either of them operating under Party discipline and could not be described as members in any meaningful way.

Furthermore, even if someone is an active member of a communist party it does not mean that if they join another organisation that they are "infiltrating". I was a member of many organisations when politically active, because the isssues affected my life or out of interest, but no one ever instructed me to "infiltrate" anything and I never joined any group with any agenda other than to assist it in its stated objectives.

Treacy is just on some anti-communist crusade.

They are on membership lists as fully paid up members over the period they were either on the IRA Army Council or a leading advisor to the same. Would it matter if they had been secretly members of Fianna Fáil at the same time?

The fact that they were members is significant. It is also the fact that the same people who were supporting a, dareisayit Stalinist , attempt to ban Treacy's book and calling him a liar and ensuring his book was not reviewed in certain places, are now continuing to lie through their teeth despite having seen the evidence, or are alternatively like you claiming that "ah sure it doesn't matter if they were in the Party or not."


Your last point is ad hominen nonsense. Why would anyone conduct a campaign against a tiny peripheral and irrelevant organsiation like the CPI? Their only significance in this context is the fact that Treacy mentioned them in his book. Are you claiming that he spent however many years writing a thesis to attack a little sect?

I suspect too that the reason they are annoyed is that the debate reminds them of the fact that they shared the same position as the stickies for almost a decade before they fell out over who was Moscow's bestest bestest friend in Ireland.

Now they laughingly claim to be part of the 'national liberation movement' and in some implausible manner responsible for the success of the Provies

[Phelan]

I suspect the ban was introduced out of anti-communism. When exactly did the CP attempt to "infiltrate" the IRA?

I never heard of the ban being lifted. I was told it was part of the Green Book.

Well you suspect wrongly. It was introduced after the IRA took umbrage at the CP attempt to infiltrate in the 1930s. The CP placed secret members into the IRA over a prolonged period beginning in 1922. Some of the infiltrators were even suspected of having informed on IRA members in Belfast in 1941 or 1942 after the Soviet Union ended its alliance with the Nazis and thus ensuring that the IRA were now on the wrong side again.


I beleive the ban was removed at an Army Convention.

[Sam Lord]

The fact that they were members is significant.

I would have to disagree. Like in most other things I would suspect the CPI had a very lax attitude towards membership. You could probably pay your dues and get the party publications and be considered a member without having to be part of any basic organisation of the party or carry out any particular work.

Your last point is ad hominen nonsense. Why would anyone conduct a campaign against a tiny peripheral and irrelevant organsiation like the CPI? Their only significance in this context is the fact that Treacy mentioned them in his book. Are you claiming that he spent however many years writing a thesis to attack a little sect?

I never suggested that Treacy set out to campaign against or attack the CPI. I stated that his bad history was a reflection of an anti-communist mentality. A mentality that would automatically see, for example, a communist joining some other body as "infiltration". Anti-communism is an ideological outlook and has nothing to do with an atittude to some party somewhere. Treacy would still be an anti-communist if he moved to Argentina tomorrow and never had an contact with the CPI.

I suspect too that the reason they are annoyed is that the debate reminds them of the fact that they shared the same position as the stickies for almost a decade before they fell out over who was Moscow's bestest bestest friend in Ireland.

Now they laughingly claim to be part of the 'national liberation movement' and in some implausible manner responsible for the success of the Provies

What success? There has been no success that any genuine progressive, anti-imperalist individual would ever possibly wish to lay claim to. I never had that much regard for the CPI but not even they would stoop that low.

And you are correct that they had a rotten position on the national liberation struggle. That, however, has nothing to do with the quality of history being produced by Treacy.

[Sam Lord]

Well you suspect wrongly. It was introduced after the IRA took umbrage at the CP attempt to infiltrate in the 1930s. The CP placed secret members into the IRA over a prolonged period beginning in 1922. Some of the infiltrators were even suspected of having informed on IRA members in Belfast in 1941 or 1942 after the Soviet Union ended its alliance with the Nazis and thus ensuring that the IRA were now on the wrong side again.

I will have to research this. I will get back to you.

I'm finding it all a bit ironic though. It reminds me very much of the stickies in RTE accusing the republican movement in the 1980s of infiltrating the community anti-drugs campaign for its own ends. The stickies were motivated by anti-republicanism and were, of course, wrong ... just like Treacy is motivated by anti-communism and has accordingy jumped to the wrong conclusions.

[Sam Lord]

Well you suspect wrongly. It was introduced after the IRA took umbrage at the CP attempt to infiltrate in the 1930s. The CP placed secret members into the IRA over a prolonged period beginning in 1922. Some of the infiltrators were even suspected of having informed on IRA members in Belfast in 1941 or 1942 after the Soviet Union ended its alliance with the Nazis and thus ensuring that the IRA were now on the wrong side again.

The Soviet Union never had an "alliance" with the Nazis, bty. I hope you are not a historian.

[Phelan]

So you are a better judge of Treacy's history than TCD and the people who passed his thesis for a doctorate, and the academic publisher who published his book

CP membership was select. It was not like joining your local soccer club. They had less than 100 fully paid up members in the 60s. RJ and AC were among them. Those who claim that that is not a fact are lying through their teeth.


Anti Stalinism, by the way, is a completely justifiable position and is shared by many - most infact - on the left apart from Treacy. Defending Stalinism is no better than defending the Holocaust. Only naifs believe that it was in anyway superior.


The Soviet Union did have an alliance with the Nazis. Molotov/Ribbenrop Pact ring a bell? Ask the Poles. They divided their country between them and murdered millions of them. Or ask the German Communists who were taken from the camps and torture cells and handed over to the Gestapo.

And you have the cheek to question someone else's history!!!

[Sam Lord]

So you are a better judge of Treacy's history than TCD and the people who passed his thesis for a doctorate, and the academic publisher who published his book

I'm very suspicious of some stuff coming out of the history department in TCD I have to say. As has been pointed out earlier on this thread you can interview dead people as sources and earn a Phd in Trinity for it.

CP membership was select. It was not like joining your local soccer club. They had less than 100 fully paid up members in the 60s. RJ and AC were among them. Those who claim that that is not a fact are lying through their teeth.

I'm not claiming that they were not members. I don't know. I'm saying that, in itself, the fact that they were (if they were) is not particularly significant from a historical point. It cannot be concluded from this in itself that they infiltrated the IRA on behalf of the CPI.

Anti Stalinism, by the way, is a completely justifiable position and is shared by many - most infact - on the left apart from Treacy. Defending Stalinism is no better than defending the Holocaust. Only naifs believe that it was in anyway superior.

I have no idea what you mean by "stalinism". It is a term used in many ways by many people.

The Soviet Union did have an alliance with the Nazis. Molotov/Ribbenrop Pact ring a bell? Ask the Poles. They divided their country between them and murdered millions of them. Or ask the German Communists who were taken from the camps and torture cells and handed over to the Gestapo.

And you have the cheek to question someone else's history!!!

There was a non aggression pact. It was not any sort of alliance. I am not going to pursue this as it will divert the thread but you clearly have no real historical understanding of the period.

[Phelan]

Do you reckon that Treacy made up interviews with dead people? Pretty serious allegation against TCD history Dept anyway.

As for the Orwellian difference between a 'non aggression pact' and an 'alliance'. I suppose the Stalinists, sorry "revolutionary proletarian Red Army and Chekists", did not deport and murder more Poles than the Nazis between 1939 and 1941 either?

Nor did they hand over German Communists from the gulags to the Gestapo? Actually the latter wre more fortunate than those who stayed in Soviet Union as they had far higher chance of survival. Almost none survived the Soviet camps.

[Sam Lord]

Do you reckon that Treacy made up interviews with dead people? Pretty serious allegation against TCD history Dept anyway.

As for the Orwellian difference between a 'non aggression pact' and an 'alliance'. I suppose the Stalinists, sorry "revolutionary proletarian Red Army and Chekists", did not deport and murder more Poles than the Nazis between 1939 and 1941 either?

Nor did they hand over German Communists from the gulags to the Gestapo? Actually the latter wre more fortunate than those who stayed in Soviet Union as they had far higher chance of survival. Almost none survived the Soviet camps.

You are never going to impress me with your Trinity Phd. eliteism. As for the rest of the post I will leave it for another thread and another time.

[Phelan]

You are never going to impress me with your Trinity Phd. eliteism. As for the rest of the post I will leave it for another thread and another time.

How is getting a Phd elitist? It's something people get for putting in a lot of time and work. Same goes for any high acheivement in music, sport, building dry stone walls, or whatever. Any distinction is by definition 'elitist' I suppose. You claimed people get them by fraud in TCD!

[Sam Lord]

The CP placed secret members into the IRA over a prolonged period beginning in 1922. Some of the infiltrators were even suspected of having informed on IRA members in Belfast in 1941 or 1942 after the Soviet Union ended its alliance with the Nazis and thus ensuring that the IRA were now on the wrong side again.

OK. Going back to 1922 it appears that the CPI fought alongside republicans in the Civil War in Dublin and elsewhere. And the IRA was glad to have them. No bans then. Also that there was fairly substantial contact between the leadership of the two groups ... but no one was talking of "infiltration" that I can see. It also appears that leading IRA figures were interested in or actually joined the CPI. Should we look on that as infiltration of the CPI by the IRA.

Liam Mellows, the imprisoned IRA leader, wrote from his cell that the IRA should set up a provisional government in Cork and implement the socialist programme advocated by the CPI. He also expressed his interest in joining the CPI. So too did his fellow-imprisoned IRA officer Joe McKelvey. Peadar O'Donnell, a member of the IRA GHQ, had gone a step further and actually joined the CPI by this stage.

http://www.communistpartyofireland.ie/cogadh.html

The Communist Party was dissolved in 1924 and not restablished until 1933.

I think I will have to read Hanley's Book on the 1930's before I address your charges of Communist "infiltration" in that period. It appears to be the authoritative work on the subject.

[Sam Lord]

How is getting a Phd elitist?

Obtaining one is not elitist. It is the view that having one makes ones work immune to scrutiny. "Sure how can you say I'm wrong ... didn't I get a Phd. from Trinity."

[Sam Lord]

A good synopsis of the Treacy mindset or where he is coming from. He is haunted by the spectre of communism. This is how he started a review for Anpoblacht in 2004 of "Reds and the Green: Ireland, Russia and the Communist Internationals 1919-1943" by Emmet O'Connor

Ireland is surely fortunate in having escaped most of the horrors of the 20th Century. Chief of those was Soviet Communism and this book serves as an interesting insight into the links between the Communist International and Ireland through O'Connor's research in the Comintern archives held in Moscow.

It looks like Sinn Fein has been infiltrated by a full time anti-communist.

[Sam Lord]

Here's audio of last nights talk.

http://www.irishleftreview.org/2012/...treacy-260612/

In an unusual display of consideration for a fellow academic Treacy interrupts Hanley's presentation (about 31.30) to dispute his elaboration of how anti-communism was propogated by the Catholic Church in Ireland. Then in the introduction to his own talk (which Hanley has the courtesy to never interrupt) Treacy again attempts to downplay the role of the church in propogating anti-communism. What a deep historical understanding of 20th Century Ireland! Hanley firmly puts him back in his box on these questions later in the discusion.

Has Sinn Fein been infiltrated by the Opus Dei?

[C. Flower]

They are on membership lists as fully paid up members over the period they were either on the IRA Army Council or a leading advisor to the same. Would it matter if they had been secretly members of Fianna Fáil at the same time?

The fact that they were members is significant. It is also the fact that the same people who were supporting a, dareisayit Stalinist , attempt to ban Treacy's book and calling him a liar and ensuring his book was not reviewed in certain places, are now continuing to lie through their teeth despite having seen the evidence, or are alternatively like you claiming that "ah sure it doesn't matter if they were in the Party or not."


Your last point is ad hominen nonsense. Why would anyone conduct a campaign against a tiny peripheral and irrelevant organsiation like the CPI? Their only significance in this context is the fact that Treacy mentioned them in his book. Are you claiming that he spent however many years writing a thesis to attack a little sect?

I suspect too that the reason they are annoyed is that the debate reminds them of the fact that they shared the same position as the stickies for almost a decade before they fell out over who was Moscow's bestest bestest friend in Ireland.

Now they laughingly claim to be part of the 'national liberation movement' and in some implausible manner responsible for the success of the Provies

They were on lists, I understand, as having paid something. Are you saying that these lists were definitively proven to be membership lists? Is that what it said at the top of them? Any chance of a scan, so we can have a look?

I don't know anything about the attempted ban. Has anything been written about this? I would certainly not agree with any attempt to ban a book unless it breached "hate /incitement" laws.

If a statement in a book about to be published is believed to be defamatory, then a person of course is entitled to go to court to defend their reputation. It would be hoped that communists, whether with a small or large C, would avoid recourse to the courts over such an issue, if it was possible to deal with it via "comradely debate" . I'm at a loss why someone who is or was a communist would want to deny it. The mobs trying to burn Communist's premises out in Ireland are pretty thin on the ground these days.