Rev Left Radio - [BEST OF] Irish Republican Army: Anti-Imperialism, Guerrilla Warfare, and National Liberation

Episode Date: June 8, 2025

ORIGINALLY RELEASED Dec 15, 2019 David Swanson, Marxist organizer and host of Radical Reflections, joins Breht to talk about the history and legacy of the famous guerrilla warfare organization: the Irish Republican Army, known colloquially as the IRA. Together, they dive into the history and politics of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), exploring its role in the struggle against British imperialism and for Irish national liberation. The discussion covers the roots of the conflict, the tactics and theory of guerrilla warfare, the political evolution of the IRA, and its broader relevance to anti-colonial movements around the world. A historical and revolutionary analysis of one of the most well-known resistance movements of the 20th century. Here is our episode on the Easter Uprising of 1916, as mentioned in the intro: https://revolutionaryleftradio.libsyn.com/irish-insurrection-the-easter-rising-of-1916 Outro music: 'The Internationale' by Pol MacAdaim. ---------------------------------------------------- Support Rev Left and get access to bonus episodes: www.patreon.com/revleftradio Make a one-time donation to Rev Left at BuyMeACoffee.com/revleftradio Follow, Subscribe, & Learn more about Rev Left Radio: https://revleftradio.com/  

Oglick Neheran, the Irish Republican Army is regarded as one of the oldest, most professional and most successful guerrilla armies of the 20th century. numerous struggles throughout the world have taken inspiration from its example even their enemies in secret captured documents have described the IRA with a dedicated committed and formidable foe who is this army and where did it come from Ireland was Britain's first colony but not its last many other native people suffered the yoke of the British Empire but in almost every generation the Irish people rose up in rebellion.

The land today is dotted with the remains of forts built to keep watch over the unruly Irish. But it was in the early 1900s that the most successful uprising took place. In Dublin City at Easter 1916, militant Irish Republicans staged. staged an insurrection and declared Ireland a republic, free from British rule. The insurrection was short-lived. Leaders of the Rising were arrested, imprisoned, then executed. But their actions and sacrifice touched a deep nerve among the Irish people and inspired a new generation. In the guerrilla campaign that followed, the newly formed Irish Republican

Republican Army engaged British forces at all levels. In the countryside, their flying columns inflicted major casualties upon enemy forces. In the city, British intelligence operatives were identified and executed. The guerrilla war ended in 1921. Under threat from armed Protestant loyalists in the northeastern part of Ireland, Britain partitioned the country. In the north, a Protestant state for a Protestant people was formed. Irish Catholic Nationalists were to have no say in this new state. The B specials, a newly created state militia, waged a bloody sectarian campaign against them. For the next 50 years,

Irish Catholic nationalists lived as second-class citizens in a union estate within their own country. They suffered poor housing, job discrimination and the denial of voting rights. In 1968, they began to organize and campaign for basic civil rights. The response of the state was as ever. Marchers and campaigners were violently assaulted. Catholic areas were invaded and entire streets burned down. the entire streets burned out. The largest movement of population in a European country since the Second World War took place as people fled for safety.

But an angry and risen people are not easily cowed. In running street battles, armed only with sticks, stones and petrol bombs, they forced the heavily armed RUC&B specials out of their communities. out of their communities. With their police and militias under pressure, the state called in the British Army. Internment without trial was reintroduced. Just as it had been in the 1920s, 30s, 50s and 60s.

Hundreds of young nationalists were rounded up and imprisoned. Many were tortured. When people protested against intentional, they were again beaten off the streets. When the beatings didn't work, guns were turned upon the people. Derry City, 30th of January, 1972. 14 people were murdered on a Sunday afternoon by British paratroots. The British government and the Northern Union estate had effectively declared

war upon the nationalist people and they responded. The battle lines were clearly drawn. Irish Republicans wanted a socialist democratic republic, free from British interference. Britain wanted to maintain the status quo in Ireland. To do so meant increasing repression, building more prisons, more lookout posts, more military barracks, deploying more troops and police. It also meant denying that what Britain was engaged in was attempting to suppress a centuries-old anti-colonial struggle.

Captured volunteers were now to be treated as common criminals and not political prisoners. But the volunteers fought as heroically inside the prisons as they had without and resisted all attempts to criminalise them. On the outside, the IRA had gone through a major transformation. Now organized into small units under a central command system, they became more secretive, more efficient, and ultimately much more effective. Hello everybody and welcome back to Revolutionary Left Radio.

I'm your host Brett O'Shea, and today we have on David Swanson from Radical Reflections. I want to keep this short, but I do want to mention that we also have an older episode that I did with Brendan from Marxism and Mosh pits about two years ago, I think, and it was completely on the Easter uprising of 1916. And the Easter uprising of 1916 is really sort of where, in a lot of ways, the IRA was really rooted in and eventually grew out of the socialist Irish republicanism. So if you're interested in that history, after listening to this episode, I encourage people to go back and check out that earlier episode. I'll link to it in the show notes as well. And after listening to both that episode and this episode on the IRA with David Swanson, I hope people really have a pretty firm understanding of 20th century Irish Republican socialism and anti-imperialism. So I'm really happy with this episode.

David is a great comrade. And from across the pond, we had this wonderful discussion. So without further ado, let's go ahead and get into this episode on the Irish Republican Army with David Swanson from Radical Reflections. Okay, so my name is David Swanson. I'll try and keep this introduction as brief as possible. We've got a lot of ground to cover today. But I've also learned from my own experience that listeners like a decently comprehensive account of who they're listening to. So I'll try and articulate all that as best as I can to begin with. First off, thank you, Brett, for bringing me on the show again. It's an absolute pleasure to work with you. This is one of my favorite podcasts and your debunking communist myths episode that we did together was excellent. So I just want to throw it out before we start anything, actually. But my background, I initially came from a place that is not necessarily one of avert social consciousness at all, or campaigning for socialism or Marxism, something which has blunted a lot of my political opinions growing up. But it is also, I say that, because it's a telling initiative,

I hope that anyone is capable of change and throwing off their comfortable lifestyle to advocate on behalf of social justice and Marxist doctrine. My first political trajectory came around the 2008 financial meltdown when banks and financial structures and everything else was sort of literally crumbling before her eyes. But it didn't really have that kind of an input that it should have done. The whole process actually initially pushed me further to the right and incredibly.

And in the context of this episode will become out much clearer. As I attributed the subsequent hardship on the Irish people, us, I turned this into sort of a national conscious. It's very big with Ireland and it's something that we'll talk about throughout this episode is a lot of reactionary propaganda articulated to us as semi-colonial environments and entities. Our own stupidity is the result of these demises. You know, further proof that we need British involvement on our shores and the involvement of European capitalism to save us. And it wasn't really until I moved to Britain itself onto the shores of Britain that these convictions and these nonsensical approaches, I mean, your listeners may laugh at all the things I'm saying, but these are very real and semi-colonial places. And it hit me figuratively.

And it was figuratively, but it felt physical. It genuinely felt like a physical slap in the face. And it took me to a dark place. Well, I want to keep a lot of those things private. it, but the things I saw and realizing that, you know, I couldn't believe it when I saw homeless people, hardship, institutionalized equality on Britain's shores. You know, this was something I'm still wrestling to this day, but it's no exaggeration to say that Marxism has saved me. Explain these inequalities, how the state is structured and how importantly

we can fix these problems to implement social justice throughout the world. So after a long period of activism and a long period of learning, I'm here in Scotland and continuing to strengthening the lives of ordinary people as best as I can in around party circles and lots of other things. It's a very different David Swanson now as it was from years gone by and radical reflections is a big part of that seeking to provide a platform to broadcast all sections for the radical left. I have strong theoretical convictions, but we're trying to keep that as an undogmatic platform as possible. So it would encourage dialogue and discussion amongst different tendencies who wouldn't necessarily speak to each other and ultimately just provide a decent educational format.

So that's kind of where I sit. That's kind of where my work is. And I'm really looking forward to tackling this. This is a project, which is going to be an excellent one. I'm looking forward to working with you on this. Yeah, absolutely. I love working with you. I love our first collab, and so I knew even at the end of that episode that we had to do something together, and the IRA is an obvious choice. I think it's important to note, too, like, you know, coming from various backgrounds, a lot of people throughout history, some great revolutionaries, like, you know, Che and Fidel jumped to mind, each of which had a possible life trajectory where they could have been a doctor and a lawyer respectively and sort of lived a bourgeois upper middle class life,

But both of them in the face of the depravity and the domination of their people, they gave up on that easy life. And in the case of Che, he ultimately died in his 30s, fighting for other people. And we all know what happened with Fidel. He lived well into his late age, but still fought his entire life. And so, you know, anybody that is moved by the plight of oppressed people to abandon whatever class or status background they come from to fight for others is, you know, a welcome comrade on the scene. and it has to be both historically, presently, and in the future. So I'm beyond happy to have you back, David. And like you said, we have a lot to cover.

We're covering an almost a century, basically, of history. The IRA, which I was telling David before we started recording, I had a sort of conception of the IRA that it really only existed sort of in the 60, 70s, 80s, and 90s. I didn't really know that it went further back. And I actually didn't even know that it continues on in some form to this very day. And in fact, there's some border disputes happening right now with the whole Brexit ordeal. that's sort of revamping some of these long, you know, latent tensions and sort of revitalizing a certain sort of republicanism on the Irish side of things. So we'll get to that at the very end. But, you know,

to save time, let's just go ahead and jump into this because we have a lot to cover. So I guess the first question with these history episodes, I always like to just talk about the history leading up to the formation of what we're discussing, the Irish Republican Army. So basically, out of what conditions did the IRA spring and what events from history influence its creation? and ultimately its development. Sure. This is an excellent question to ask because if you were to go into a history exam

and to sit down and the question was, when did the IRA form? The textbook answer is 1919, and that's absolutely true. But, I mean, I think it's almost impossible to talk about the formations of the IRA without discussing the events of Easter 1916, which ultimately influenced and inspired this campaign to emerge. So the sacrifices of Irish republicanism

during the Easter period between the Irish volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army really began to awaken the Irish population to a sense of what Patrick Pierce called a national awakening. And of course that's true. But for Marxists like Connolly, Markovic, Michael Malin and others, and even us as historians and contemporary activists who analyze and dissect these huge events of history

for inspiration, lessons, mistakes, and all these kind of things to be drawn from, the events of 1916 awakened a very different type of consciousness. And subsequently, the practices of not. the whole Irish population, but 90% of them, those who created everything in society, to the fact that in order to prosper, a new state would have to be constructed in their image, run by and for their interests, and set a new precedent for the Irish struggle that would entwine national liberation with the ever more prominent theoretical outlooks of

Marxism, taking strength from the communist campaigns in Russia in 1905 and the rising current of Bolshevism, etc, at the time, and drawing inspiration from texts, which weren't necessarily Irish, Paris Commune, Das Capital, even Marx. Irish question booklet, all of James Connolly's literature and writings. And in essence, something not really seen in Irish history to this point. I mean, you could argue, as you've talked about, that a lot of other Irish Republican struggles of earlier years were left projects, Wolfton's 1798 Rising Springs to Mind, the Young Islanders of the 1840s, or even the Fenianism of the 1860s. And they, of course, did produce a large working

class and extremely progressive contention to their work. That would ultimately define inspirational legacies. But a huge aspect of these campaigns were subject to bourgeois interests. Not unlike the corresponding campaigns for political form in England and, of course, the French Revolution, very progressive and very inspirational for their time, but would ultimately produce a counter-revolutionary bourgeois current, which would go on to dominate and set industrial and social practices going forward. Now, we can never know whether those currents would do that. But this is an edge that potentially would have become that way here in Ireland. It's a telling point of Irish history which would take an entire episode to dissect itself. But with that context and all that's set out,

it really just shows how important Easter 1916 really was in setting down a new basis for Irish national liberation campaigns, a new, fresh outlook for a theoretically inspired assault on the inequalities that were institutionalised by centuries of colonial occupation. And we begin to put the working class in the saddle of the revolutionary charge for the first time in Irish history. So even though the Eastern 1916 failed, and you've done a whole episode of that, an enduring legacy and educational format can't be undone, you can't kill the idea. You know, this is something that Che Guevara would talk about. much later, but it's just as relevant here. The IRA, which naturally grew out of the

1916 campaign, and will come to how that all happened in a second, to challenge British rule in the immediate years would contain within it an overtly class-conscious segment, which would pay a huge part in the Irish War of Independence, and of course the Irish Civil War, something will also come to. But the small segment of Irish people within the Irish volunteers that had detached itself from the many of the national volunteers fighting with the British Empire during the Imperialist World War I in the false hope that the British establishment would grant home rule afterwards and the Marxist Irish citizen army who played a huge part during the Easter Rising would go on to define the course of Irish history and ultimately inspire many to continue

to advocate the needs intertwine international liberation with the social emancipation of the working class. The formulations and the embryo of the IRA happen here and the events immediately afterward would become the new face of the Irish struggle but it would be a very different organization because of that with a whole host of class contradictions within it which as we'll see would absolutely spill out in brute force against each other during the iriscivil war post 21 but without analyzing the rising you don't really have an IRA so it's important to do all that before you even start discussing how it happened you know yeah definitely and like you said we have an entire episode on that i tweeted it out today so people like you know that are that know that this recording

is happening today can go and listen to that and get that historical background because if you can listen to our hour and a half or two-hour episode on the Easter Rising, you'll have a lot of context on which to build throughout this episode. So you don't have to, but it is really important. And if you're interested in this Irish history, I would definitely recommend going and do that. Before we move on to the next question, though, David, I just want to make this very clear, because when we talk about colonialism and imperialism, I mean, a lot of people probably know that Ireland is sort of different than most of Western Europe when it comes to this. But people often think, oh, colonialism and imperialism are things that stem out that are rooted in Europe

and come out and attack the rest of the world. Ireland being a part of Western Europe is, for some people that might not know this history very well, can be sort of confused. So just really briefly, can you just touch on the sort of imperial and colonial apparatus that the Irish were under British rule? Yeah, of course. Well, obviously there was a British colonial administration in London, but they actually moved a lot of lot to Ireland within these years. The British colonial institution was actually residing in Ireland. It was in Dublin Castle particularly. And essentially it made Irish populations second-class citizens in their own home. And I mean, the national historian will tell you that was because, you know, Irish people are Irish people. But there's a whole

economic strand that is important, you know. The idea of Britain conalising Ireland was not just to, you know, put down indigenous natives, which of course that was part of it. But it's to extract resources from Ireland, to take them all across the empire. It's not just taking them back to England, you know, the classic, you know, Lenin, imperialism's highest stage of capitalism is very relevant here, the idea that it will have to, capitalism will have to grow and expand in order to prosper. And basically, Britain did that in Ireland as a template to take it to the rest of the empire. It's why Britain is still, even to this day, very keen to hold Ireland, because not only is there a sort of a traditional passage there that says, you know, we did it to you

first, so, you know, there's a lot of traditional reasoning why we'd keep it to you. But there's also a lot of wealth in Ireland, you know, there's a lot of natural resources. here, a lot of crops, a lot of, you know, the fisheries are massive here. There is a lot of wealth in this country and that's kind of the side in terms of the colonial aspect that we need to latch on to here. You know, it's not the sake of just colonizing Irish because, you know, they're downbeaten natives, which of course that's what they think. But, you know, the economic side is the most important thing to try and take out of this going forward. Does that kind of answer your question? Yeah, 100%. It definitely answers my question. And there's this narrative,

this colonial narrative. I'm reading Fanon right now, so this is very much in my my head, this colonial narrative, which the British certainly applied to the Irish and all of their colonies, which is this narrative that, you know, the imperialists, the colonialists are coming in to save the indigenous or native people sort of from their own inherent barbarity. And, you know, in the process of that narrative is obviously the dehumanizing of the colonized subject. And that is a sort of ideological justification for the brutality with which the imperial or colonial power treats the indigenous populations. And so that's, you know, Fanon talks about that with regards to the French colonialism in Algeria, but it's relevant

in every single colonial context, including this one. So, you know, I just hope people definitely keep that in mind going forward as well. But so we've talked about the Easter rising. And, you know, of 1916, it was incredibly essential just for the sort of republicanism and left-wing ideas. But another thing that they were trying to do, and Connolly especially was a proponent of this, was to build a, and this is, and we'll get into ideologies in a bit, but to build socialism in Ireland, right? Part of the reason why Connolly and the others wanted to kick out the British was so that they could build their own, you know, home rule, but they wanted to build socialism and not exploited it of capitalism. So that's another reason why it's in the British interests to maintain domination of Ireland,

because if you have that entire island go red, it's a huge threat. It would be similar to a Cuba-America situation. And so, yeah, there's lots of reasonings for the British to dominate Ireland and maintain that dominance to this very day. But let's go ahead and move on because after the Easter Rising of 1916 was put down, a few years later another well-known event, inspired in large part by the Easter Rising took place and that was the Irish Independence War. So can you talk about the Irish Independence War? Yeah, of course.

So with a background and context sort of laid down, the War of Independence showcases the actual emergence of the IRA. So the Easter Rising had been the natural progression of rising protest against extremely harsh domestic material conditions laid down by colonial British administrations, fully focused on war in Europe and beyond. But as I mentioned before, many Irish people in the form of national volunteers have been willing to compromise with the establishment with huge members of Irish people heading to the Western Front to fight alongside British troops on the say-so or advice from the Irish Parliamentary Party. I'll refer to them as the IPP, if I have to talk about them again. But this is a largely liberal-influenced party setup that dominated Irish politics to this point

and continued to follow the traditional line of Irish nationalism since 1801, recognize that Ireland as part of the United Kingdom, abide by the act of union, and ultimately look to a British ruling class for salvation, and encouraged domestic forces to do the same. But with World War I exposing this sort of, I guess you could call it a liberal strategy for the carnage that it actually was, and it is believing that state apparatuses are neutral entities

that can be utilised and engage with for the betterment of the people, this seemed pretty stupid with countless of Irish deaths in the Imperial War being traded off for further death and destruction at home with the leaders of the rising being strapped to chairs and publicly executed. So anger at these harsh austerity measures

on Irish shores suddenly had a focal point. Witnessing British troops shoot Irish citizens at home while so many were suffering the same fate abroad can't be ignored at this stage. And within a geopolitical climate of rising anti-colonial sentiment in India, South Africa and everywhere else around the world, opinions

shifted considerably towards national liberation. And into this void, To give the context, first Sinn Féin steps into the electoral sphere, and then the IRA in 1919, into the community-led protest for change. A significant momentum shift. I can't even spell this out highly enough from the damp squid of a dual process strategy that had pandered to London and the IPP and the national volunteers. So people were angry. People had visible proof that the British establishment in Ireland was visibly working against their interests. With 1918 bringing these resentments and popular agitation to the fore, and in the national general election, dominated by rhetoric from the 1916 Proclamation and other such radical initiatives, Sinn Féin won by a landslide, 73 out of 105 seats were taken,

a visible expression of just how popular the idea of an Irish Republic had become, a mandate for full of dependence rather than the wishy-washy ideals of Home Rule within the United Kingdom. So the IPP were lost to the dustbin of history. And the election of 14th December 1918 lives long in the memory of those who continue to advocate it as the lasting mandate for independence, given the fact, and this is important, that this was the last time the entire island has ever actually voted in a single election. But what followed is to become one of the most exhilarating and ultimately, I guess you could call it demoralizing periods of Irish history, the Irish War of Independence. Sinn Féin remained determined to link their party campaign with the exploits of the people, refusing to take their seats within the colonial party. and setting up a de facto dull air in Ireland, in which I would argue was as much inspired

by the de facto dual power pressure applied by the Soviets onto the provisional government in Russia. But nonetheless, this was a direct challenge towards the colonial administration of Ireland. A radical manifesto was outlined in the democratic program in the subsequent meetings of early 19. Unquestionably inspired, this time unquestionably inspired by the example of the Bolsheviks.

Land reform, egalitarian social structures, continued appetite for industrialisation, nutritious state programs, food state programs, these are almost taken out of the Bolshevik manifesto. In fact, the democratic program actually states public ownership of the means of production, natural resources and wealth of Ireland. And this was not only a call for independence, but an overhaul of the entire social order. And interestingly, with that terror, with that whole chapter terrifying the colonial administration in Ireland, came the Irish War of Independence. And the first emergence of the Irish Republican Army,

to put this into complete now context for the episode, as tension spilled over into war. The British would not accept the Dole's legitimacy, the new parliament that Sinn Féin had erected, as would neither the unionist contingent with Ireland, and mass arrests took place at the Dole itself in late January. The protest of which was both daring and militant, two Royal Irish constabulary, the colonial police in Ireland, was shot at Solla Headbeck in County Tipperary on the same day, with many weapons, many explosives, taken by names that would become inspirational leadership within the IRA itself, Dan Breen, Sean Tracy, Sean Hogan, and others stored in the quarry where Breen and others worked. And this all happened on the same day that the mass arrests were going on.

So without permission from the leadership of the Irish Volunteers, in case the opportunity was lost forever, the baton of Republican military leadership was handed to a newly emerging IRA, sparking a conflict which would last until 1921 with the resulting partition of Ireland. which again, I'm sure we'll cover us as we'll move through the episode, but the IRA became the natural progression of a spontaneous military action that would become the leading vanguard fighting for Irish independence, directly connected with and comprised of the people,

and a powerful unit assimilating many experienced veterans of the Irish volunteers, with a new, youthful potential absorbed from the industrial hubs throughout Ireland, committed to achieving independence, and the initiation of the democratic programme laid down in 1919 by the election manifesto. So a special time, and one which still lays down a huge amount of inspiration for contemporary activists striving for that 32-county Socialist Republic today. Yeah, fascinating. So just to do a little timeline summary to catch people up, we have the Easter uprising of 1916. At the beginning of that uprising, it wasn't necessarily a mass popular movement, but seeing the way that the Brits treated the Irish after the defeat of the uprising and the slaughter of the leaders on Irish soil.

It really galvanized the Irish people. Then you have two years, three years later, the War of Independence, which lasted until 1921. And is it correct to say that at the end of that War of Independence, you have the partitioning of Northern Ireland from the rest of it? Yeah, essentially that's what happened. They called a truce. They went to London. They had a few meetings. Basically, the Brits outsmarted us, and the island was partitioned at that stage.

Okay. And so then that's 1921. and then that the partitioning and the end of the independence war then leads directly into the civil war. So can you please talk about the Irish Civil War and its role in basically shaping the Irish Republican Army, which again was really formed in the Independence War? Yeah, pretty much. So to be honest, when you're talking about the Irish Civil War, this is, I mean, bar the Irish famine, this is one of the most heartbreaking epochs of Irish history, if I'm honest.

I mean, I actually find it very hard to mentally deal, with methodically analysing the civil war. It's something we have to do. All good Marxists need to understand or the class contradictions of Irish society brought this sort of green on green warfare, if you will, between our communities and people. But nonetheless, it's not a pleasant experience

and one which is a pretty bitter pill to swallow, if I'm honest. In a nutshell, the period amounts to the biggest feeling of Irish political leadership and, I guess, tactical orientation with a lot of hell about opportunism and a lot of political careerism thrown into boot there. So the truth I just mentioned, there, which began in May 21, produced a set of plenipotentiaries sent to Westminster. You may know about this to negotiate terms with the British establishment.

And much is made of this confrontation. And in honestly, the context of this episode, we don't have time nor immediate relevance to talk about the internal contradictions that went on in those meetings. But the general summary to take would be the context of the entire discussion drawn out over a few days was the very real threat that if the Irish, who were actually doing pretty well in the War of Independence and their military organizations of the IRA didn't accept British terms of peace than a more vicious war with more experienced weaponry, more troops. In essence, the entire empire would come crashing onto Ireland shores and burn it to oblivion, I guess.

This very real threat ensured that Irish Republicans, this is important. We're not necessarily making a fully free choice in this scenario with the prospect of national oblivion, a firm reality, but nobody could have predicted the events that we're going to unfold over the next couple of years in this context between 21 and 23. So I mentioned political opportunism within those plenipotentiaries. Basically, Eamon de Valera, again, a name you might, he was definitely the statesman of the Irish Republican movement, and no one is the influential spokesperson. But he decided not to attend, and instead he threw Michael Collins to spearhead the Westminster detachment, an event which many signal is throwing Collins, who was a military physical and well-respected

soldier, but by no means a statesman. He kind of threw him to the lions, if I'm honest. And the bumbling efforts of Irish republicanism against the, could you call him a greasy political class spearheaded by Lloyd George, etc. It amounted to nothing more than a British victory and huge, huge consequences for Irish national affairs. I mean, the British carved up an outline which signal that unionist opinion in the north should be recognised, pointing, manipulating the election statistics and all these kind of things that parliamentarians do, you know, but basically they propose partitioning the

island into an Irish free state in the southern 26 counties which be granted the right to run its own affairs so long as anyone entering those institutions would swear fealty to the British crime. And a unionist dominated six in the Northern Ireland, as it would become known. Collins attempted to contact Devalera. He didn't answer, so the plenipotentiary signed. Now, in short, this genuinely turned the country, the Republican movement, on itself. And this is important here in terms of the context of this episode, is this is the first split within the IRA. It produced a pro-treaty IRA, which would accept the treaty and would actually become the National Army of the Irish Free State and the anti-treaty irregulars, the anti-treaty IRA continuing

the fight for this Irish Socialist Republic based on the legitimacy of the democratic program and all those other things I've outlined so far. So the pro treaty side heavily influenced by a Catholic church, which is very important in the context of Irish history, frightened to its very core by the radical undercurrent sweeping through the country, marketed peace, market prosperity, marketed freedom, with the pro-treaty IRA becoming the basis of the national army, which would actually become the Irish defence forces in the end, the promise of British capital, British collaboration, and ultimately the right to rule over the nation,

became too much for the Irish bourgeois to resist in honesty. It's our turn to rule now, and we're going to have our day. And this was never going to be accepted by the anti-treaty IRA. He could never accept this deal, you know, inspired by James Connolly's vision of a socialist republic, and all the gains that we've made so far that we've talked about, this deal was simply a betrayal of an Irish aspiring Irish bourgeoisie an attempt from British ruling class interests to divide the Irish against themselves they could see this and they were right of course

but their continued drive to continue the protracted war was short-lived you know a pro-triety IRA backed by British imperialism and with the power of the pulpit to sway the masses which prove far too much for the anti-treaty irregulars to match of course you've got to also take in the internal divisions present with those stranded north of the border unable to even reach their southern counterpart You know, when it comes down to it, the Pro 2T IRA betrayed the Socialist Republic for a continuation of what? British interests in the southern state, reactionary unionist hegemating in the north, a continuation of the capitalist mode of production throughout the entire Ireland, and a carnival reaction both north and south, quote, James Connolly, in which the rule of the bourgeois and the church continue, to this day, dominate all aspects of Irish life.

So Ireland was so close to not only achieving independence in the preceding years, but also continuing the international assault of socialism. sweeping through the globe. And who knows what might have happened if we'd achieved it at that time and had unrelenting moral, financial and military support from the Soviet Union, which was getting off the ground. We can only speculate. But Ireland was now divided and remained so to this day. And at this point, it would seem like the dream was extinguished forever, which of course it wasn't, but it seemed like the end of a radical era, never to be seen again. It's a tough thing to have to process in your own mind. But if you don't do it, if you don't understand the class contradictions within an organization, within a military organization, within a national

liberation force, then, I mean, you're going to come to mistakes all the time. You know, that's kind of the context of what I'm trying to allude here that if you don't, if you don't sort of analyze what's going on in your own organization, then you're going to doom, you know. James Connolly predicted this, but nobody really saw it happening the way it did. And certainly Ireland looks like a very different place now because of, because of these years, if I'm honest, you know. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And again, you know, Fanon comes to mind because what Fanon does in the wretched of the earth is trace out the development of the colonial context. And one of the parts of his books he really wrestles with a lot is the rise of the national bourgeoisie. And so when

you have a colonized country, the class divisions on the side of the colonized aren't as important when you're trying to push out the occupiers. But the problem is after a successful national liberation struggle, or in this case, when you have a partitioning of the country, that national bourgeoisie then rises and becomes really comfortable, basically taking the role of what used to be the colonial powers and that class contradiction really will hurt a fight for, you know, a socialist post-colonial situation and really bring in some of the worst and worse from imperialism maintain that exploitation, those class divides. And so you can see that happening all over the world in colonized context and you see it happening right here in Ireland again. And then the

other thing I want you to touch on really quick is the, just before we move on to the next question, the role that religion played here, because I think sometimes it can be either understated or it can be overstated. So can you just talk about a little bit about the, especially in Northern Ireland, the sort of religious tensions and how that played out politically? Yeah, of course. Well, it's equally, I mean, I'll touch on now that the island is partitioned at this point in history. It's just as relevant in the south as it is in the north. I've touched on there how the church influenced the pro-treaty IRA and influenced people to support the pro-treaty IRA by, you know, preaching it in their sermons at night. I don't know if you've ever seen the wind that shakes the barley. That's a, that's a

movie, which we should actually watch because there's a real scene in that where the church comes out and supports the new pro-treaty IRA and the new state getting off the ground, preaching it as peace and prosperity. These are the kind of things, you know, with people going around shouting about land distribution and, you know, a secular state and a secular education system, the Catholic Church in the South was absolutely frightened out of its wits by this kind of stuff. They saw this as the continuation of communism around the globe that they could, you know, they've watched, they've watched the Bolshev expropriate religious nonsense and all this kind of other stuff. So they could see that happening in Ireland, but you're quite right.

In the north, it's even worse. So when the island partitions in 1921, you've basically got a unionist dominated an ultimately Protestant-dominated state there, neo-state. To be honest, it's almost an apartheid state. I know that's a phrase that people who study Palestinian history and the South African arrangement will probably balk out. But it's not dissimilar if a special powers acts were going in place there.

Catholics were deprived of housing. You know, anything that wasn't Protestant, anything that wasn't, anything that wasn't the church, was basically demonised and in that sense also the Protestant church. So the whole, the religious context in Ireland is something that you really have to grapple with. As Marxists, we do our best, if I'm honest, it's very difficult in Ireland, but we do our best to continue to advocate that Protestant workers should join the side and fight for the Socialist Republic.

But it is difficult. I guess the big elephant in the room here is British imperialism over centuries, dividing populations along religious grounds to continue their dominance over the state and continue to extract resources while the population basically, you know, destroys itself. It's almost like the classic dividing rule. But you have to understand those sort of context. And the partition of the island, I mean, they were basically consigning a minority Catholic population within those six counties to oblivion, if I'm brutally honest.

I mean, it will come to that and how that actually materialized over the historical context from the 1950s onwards. But don't make no step about it. Between 1921 and 1950, that Protestant Unionist state, absolutely destroyed anything that wasn't the cultural norm, and the cultural norm was basically Protestant hegemony over the people of religious apartheid, you know? Yeah, absolutely, and that's really not overstated. I mean, today it's a different situation, perhaps, but at the heat of these situations, in the first half of the century and throughout the troubles that followed it,

there was legitimate second-class status for Catholic Republicans, and in Northern Ireland, is what I'm talking about, and the Protestant unionists or loyalists who wanted to continue to be a part of the U.K. were the predominant majority, and then they used their connections with the British government and their majority status in Northern Ireland to actively oppress the Catholics. And so that religious divide also is sort of magnetized along political lines, and so religion and politics in this can't really fully ever be completely separated. And as much as the church may have been a source of reaction. And in many of these cases, you also see some at least individual priests who are more in tune with liberation theology perhaps pop up. And I was listening to an interview of

priests who lived during the troubles who were precisely that. And they talked about how they were sympathetic to the struggle, but, you know, they also saw the reaction inherent in the broader church. And so they as priests were sort of in a difficult position at times. So all of that is incredibly complex and goes back centuries and centuries. But I just wanted to at least put that on the table so people understand that religion is playing a role here as well. But let's go ahead and move on. So we talk about the Easter Rising, then the War of Independence and then the Civil War and the Partition. So let's just do, before we get into ideologies and members and we'll talk about the troubles and all that stuff, can we just do a basic sort of overview, chronology of the

organization after the Civil War through the following several decades, just so people can have sort of an abstract timeline in their head before we move on. So basically what happened after the Civil War? Yeah, that's fair. I mean, essentially, Eventually, the very short answer is pretty much nothing, but it's not the true answer. Again, you would probably get a tick if you wrote nothing in an exam, but there's still things going on there that are important, you know, even if they're not fundamentally the IRA. So basically, the Devalera talked about formed a new left alternative political party in Fina Fall to enter the new government of the Irish Free State when the majority of the anti-treaty IRA who are still alive or not in prison refused to accept that's legitimacy and split the movement again further into. you know, something that would rot the movement by focusing on parliamentary motives. De Valera moved to the centre ground and at best over time and began to collaborate in the imprisonment

of anti-treaty Republicans with Fina Gale, the electoral party that had sprung from the pro-treaty element of the whole thing. So Fina Gale were kind of the political movement of the pro-treaty and Fina Foll were initially the political movement of the anti-treaty that survived, but then, you know, got corrupted by parliamentary endeavours, everything that Marxists know will happen when you trade the streets for the corridors of power. so the southern state became little more than a bourgeois utopia at this stage so much so that it was actually accepted by most of the capitalist world as a republic in its own right in 1949 you know but this is a very different republic from the one we were advocating for

it's very much taking its place amongst the bourgeois nations of the world and accepted by everybody you know that kind of thing so these were dark years it's quite hard actually again to see just how far the IRA insurgency had dissipated into little more than just rhetoric you know three or four people meeting in a room talking about the glory days of 1919 to 1921 or 21 to 23 analyzing all that that's basically what was happening here but that's crucial i mention all that because it is crucial the the analytical side that was going on it's almost like you know Stalin talks about this a little bit in his literature that kind of like knowing when to retreat and of course the retreat's forced on the anti-treaty IRA but in that retreat they're in rooms

and you know they're taking theoretical classes which shows as much as action is more important in any ounce of revolutionary theory. The theory side that they were dissecting and dissecting how bourgeois forces had began to control the Irish free state was a big part in what would subsequently go on to what would happen in the IRA in the 1950s and onwards stuff we'll talk about. But when you say nothing happened, nothing did happen, but the retreat really brought out, as we'll see, a very different IRA that emerged in the 1950s, which was kind of aware of the past mistakes and was kind of ready to rectify them for one of a better phrase, you know. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, absolutely. So then that,

So we had the Civil War ends in 1923. You have the rest of the 20s, the 30s and the 40s is this sort of dark period where education is still going on, but the IRA as a formal fighting organization has really sort of taken a back seat to events. But then in the 1950s, these campaigns start up again. So can you take us from the 50s onward and sort of summarize those events? Sure. Just before I go on there, actually, the only thing that was relevant that you might want to discuss, The idea that a lot of Irish people went to fight against Franco in the Spanish Civil War,

the International Brigades, the Connolly column, the 15th Brigade of the International Brigades, was a very important part of the Spanish Civil War. And equally, those pro-treaty elements became part of Franco's. You know, Ireland again split on class lines in terms of fighting against Franco and fighting for Franco. I'm not sure if that's relevant. I just want to say that before we move on. No, yeah, no, that's a really important part to point out. And it's sort of similar to the U.S. too, because the U.S. had the Abraham.

Lincoln brigades in the, yeah, fighting Franco-Fascist, but the ruling class in the U.S., especially like, I think it was Conoco, some Texaco, maybe some big oil companies were smuggling oil to Franco and his forces, even under the nose of the U.S. government doing it behind their back. So the ruling class in both these countries really taking the side of the Francoist forces and the sort of radical working class elements, you know, forming sort of international brigades and going over and helping fight. So, yeah, it's incredibly important and definitely worth mentioning.

But yeah, so just go ahead from the 1950s onward. Okay, sure. So it's really the 1950s that the IRA would literally truly rise again. And with particular emphasis this time on the state land in the north, that had become an absolute, and I mean this, an absolute carnival reaction in this period. So all the things we talked about before, special powers acts, refusing Catholic rights, from both voting to social gerrymandering of elections, showcasing, of course, it's a relevant point here, actually, the nonsense of claims.

that British Parliament, the British Parliament is the home of democracy, you know, when supposedly British subjects in this entity aren't even amounted the same privileges throughout the empire. But anyway, I digress from that. The leadership that emerged in the 1950s genuinely began to shake off the chains, engaging in a class-based programme that was significantly bringing the IRA back to its Marxists' origins in 1919, fueling people-power-driven campaigns and focusing on the social issues that were deprivating communities all over the island but with all the focus primarily based on the border in the north so in essence the north became the tactical reasoning to dismantling partition for the simple reason that the southern establishment was

too strong if I'm honest all the things I've just talked about but the rhetoric pushed out that if we could eradicate British presence and do that first then we could tackle the Irish bourgeois presence on the truth actually it's a good line to have I mean that's been proven all around the world by a Marxist insurgency you know push out the colonial presence and then dismantle the domestic class relations that were going on you know it's bringing the bourgeois revolution to its, you know, complete setup, in this case, in uniting in Ireland on bourgeois relations. That's kind of what they're doing. This is the point.

It's a really class-based analysis and a really Marxist theoretical analysis coming out of this. So the border campaign reached its peak in December 1956 when a failed attempt to attack Guy Barracks in Armagh Field. It's called Operation Harvest. It's a night that's actually been documented by a very inspirational Republican ballad called Sean South of Garri Owen. I don't know if you know that song. It's one everybody knows here

And although Sean South is kind of a questionable character It's a very good song and very rousing after a few peers and whatnot But while it failed The leadership, and this is the point here You talk about leadership with the IRA And I've mentioned a lot of good people so far But the leadership that arose out of this campaign Thomas Magalia, Cathal Goulding

Let me think of some more Sean Garland, both have fought in that night Roy Johnston, Myring de Berker A Woman crucially, that's a crucial point of all this as well, re-ignited a spirit and ultimately re-inspired the public support that had been so crucial during the War of Independence between 1990 and 1921. So during the early 1960s, a low operational harvest had failed. They set about inspiring a Marxist insurgency, putting working people in charge of detachment, putting working people in charge of the IRA, essentially Cummins, military organization.

And in the last analysis, this is all part of what's going on around the globe at the time. They're inspired by this too. You know, what was happening in Cuba, Vietnam, China. It's not lost in this leadership. You know, Garland would famously say in 68, and this is, I think I've got the quote somewhere here. Yeah, here it is. The Republican army, both north and south, must become the army of the people. In fact, as well as name, and we seek political, economic, social, and cultural freedom. This is a radical message that could easily have come out of Mao, for example, or Castro. And it was hoped that Protestant workers in the north would become inspired by these social promises to throw off their rotten colonial nationalism, for one of a better phrase,

and really project towards the Socialist Republic. It's a project that inspired so much hope. I mean, you could argue that the sort of non-militant factions like NICRA, the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association, to achieve Catholic social justice, and the people's democracy, which is a student-led Marxist group, striving for social emancipation of everybody, all the workers, ultimately stem from this campaign, this part of the IRA,

and the church, my head, began to feel this ancient sweat when faced, by the radical threat, along with the establishment. But in the context of the IRA itself, these radical moves weren't welcomed by everyone. And as things began to heat up under pressure, we'll come to that in a second. When British troops were deployed, tensions began to boil over.

And I'm sure we'll talk about that. But for now, I just want to kind of focus that the IRA are really going back to its roots. You know, this is a real important part of Irish history. And to be honest, this is the IRA that I feel most affinity with. When I read this kind of stuff, and when I get involved in, you know, commemorating these people, this is the section of Irish history

where I, you know, the hair's got my chest. And I remember there's a massive Marxist current to this that often goes underplayed. But anyway, I digress. The point is, this is the IRA that gives me the most hope and certainly gives me the most interest going forward, you know? Absolutely. Absolutely. So that gets us through the 50s and 60s, correct? Yeah, that's up until about 1968. I stopped there because this is where the split happens again between the officials and the provisionals, but I wanted to kind of stop and just put that current in first. So I'll let you post and do what you want to do. Yeah, no, yeah. So that's incredibly important. And our next question is going to be about ideology. And Marxism certainly played a big role, but not in every split. So we'll talk about that in a second. But before we get into the ideologies, so we're now through the 50s and the 60s, big civil rights movements, also in the 60s where, you know, the Irish are asking for civil rights, etc. And then there's a big split in 1969. So can you just take that and run with that and explain those dynamics?

yeah so again this is a this is a very important part of the IRAs history and to be honest it's really funny actually because all the things I've mentioned all the things I've mentioned even up until now even in terms of the Irish Civil War etc are all kind of you know if you were to if you were to go to a British museum and talk about the IRA the only thing you would see would be the provisional IRA spawning in 1969 is if it just sort of came out of the ground you know these sort of things I've just talked about aren't common knowledge certainly in British education programs, but just populations more broadly. Even some Irish people didn't even know that the IRA I've just talked about had existed

at that time. You know, everybody thinks that the British troops just came into Ireland and 69, and the provisional IRA just sort of spawned out of the ground. Or certainly the British would have you believe that, you know, the IRA were sort of, the IRA were just sort of fighting themselves at this point. It's a very interesting point in history. But the tensions, as I'm talking about now in terms of the split, the tensions arose to such a point when British troops landed in and the colonial police and the RUC

in the North were really battering people right down the streets of the North. It sort of produced a lot of tensions to be honest and I'm going to explain why that was but one split into a Marxist schism the one I'm just talking about, the leadership of the IRA at this point maintained themselves and maintained quite a lot of the majority of the group

and they were named the official IRA which would continue the campaigns I've outlined but also crucially recognise that stormant political institution in the North you know the sort of the reactionary state for Protestants that had emerged post-1921 with the partition of Ireland, they were going to recognise that institution

and combine an electoral campaign with a dual strategy of popular resistance and refused to engage in combat with Protestant workers and essentially use force as a last resort and the provisional IRA, the other split, which continue to refuse to recognise the northern government, defend Catholic areas, and ultimately fight both Protestant paramilitaries,

both the Protestant police, and any British army, insurgency, which came their way. This was heated. This was confrontational. And this was very bitter. And actually, the provisional IRA, a lot of their campaign was inspired by the fact that, you know, let's be honest, that the official IRA were communists and they weren't really particularly interested in, you know, maintaining the Catholic church and all that kind of stuff. This is a very bitter part of the struggle. And Seamus Costello, one of the officials at this time quoted, we have no common ground, good, bad, or indifferent with the provisionals. These

were two very different organisations spanning out, one which had a purely nationalist-based focus, very national-based, you know, no class-based analysis whatsoever. Initially, it will come to that as well. But the provisionals were at this stage very much about a national liberation, very much about continuing the Catholic Church. Again, that would change, but that's where the split emerged from. But I mean, in the last analysis, I can see the logic of both sides. I mean, it's hard to sit on the fence. Nobody should. But in this scenario, as an Irish person, I can't have more respect for both sides, if I'm brutally honest, because the officials wanted to use retaliatory force, using it as a last case scenario, all the things I've just discussed to continue social agitation

amongst workers, you know, but also to aim to link up with the British working class. And in honestly, their Marxist ethos is probably one I would have supported and certainly backed at the time. But the problem was, and this is why I still have a lot of respect for the initial split in the provisionals. I would actually, as history progresses and we'll talk, I have gained unilateral support for the provisionals, and no unquestionably. But at this stage, I can certainly see why they did it because the problem is the growing reasons for armed conflict were almost too big to ignore, you know, people were being butchered by both quasi-fascist paramilitaries, unionist paramilitaries and British establishment troops. The need for protection and direct offensive

almost became too big to ignore. I mean, the other telling part of all of this with the whole split is the age differences. The provisional's average age at the time was between 19 to 21 and the officials was 35 to 37, you know, showcasing that the youthful energy was siding with the provisional's to directly take the fight to the British establishment and protect their communities. You know, it's hard to sit in defence, as I've already said, but I do respect the ethos of both sides because both had legitimate reasons to decide what they did. It's just a shame, you know, we talk about successes and failures. It's just a shame that throughout Irish history, this is a current narrative. We can't reconcile our own differences to engage in the United Front.

You know, another split amongst Republicans can only ever be argued, I guess, in the last analysis, as a victory for reactionary interests, both within and outside the island, you know. but as I say I do side I can definitely see the logic of both sides here and as history progresses when we start talking about the actual conflict the provisionals became an organization which inspires so many to this day and shook off a lot of this split but anyway that's how the split happened and I hope that makes a bit of sense and if it doesn't I'll explain it a little bit more if necessary yeah it does make sense my only question would be so obviously the provisional IRA went on and we're going to talk about the troubles so was the provisional IRA the main sort of segment of the

IRA leading the way after this period of time, or did the official IRA continue to exist for decades alongside the provisional IRA? Yeah, I mean, it's a good question. I mean, the officials did stand alongside. They did have a significant part in the troubles are going forward. But yeah, basically at this point, the official leadership began to sort of splinter off and began to dissipate. I mean, they were around for the next 10 years or so roughly, maybe even 15, I'll be generous. but they started to move towards, you know, electoral process. They've actually become the Workers Party of Ireland. It's another segment of Irish history, which is important to analyze.

But, yeah, basically they dissipated and the provisionals became the main force, the leading vanguard of the IRA. So, yeah, I guess to answer your question, this was kind of the beginning of the end. The split kind of favoured, as again, I talk about the age dimensions. You know, the youth side of with the provisional, so the IRA kind of just, you know, peter out over time only because of age, of nothing else, you know. Okay, so moving on, I want to talk about some leaders. You know,

people, I think individuals, you don't want to hyper focus on them, but leaders of organizations are important and individual fighters can be really great prisms through which to understand a historical event or organization, etc. So can you talk about some of the key leaders of the IRA throughout the years and some of their contributions? Yeah, sure. So a lot of the names I've already mentioned are key figures. So if you look at, certainly going back to the Irish War, of independence. Cattle Brewer is a name, which you may be familiar with. He's sort of like, to honestly use a sort of humorous analogy, he's almost like, it's not a great example, actually, but when you read Animal Farm, that sort of book, do you remember Boxer, the sort of really strong

guy, he was a horse in this context, the sort of guy who was willing to give his life to the cause and, you know, could carry more than everybody else and was basically like a brick shit house. That is Cattle Brew in the context of the IRA. Like this guy, like, you know, there's some really funny stories that come out of Calabrew, and I'm sure none of them are true, but these sort of stories, which were probably, you know, passed over time after five or six pounds in the bar, whatever, you know, Calabrew could take ten bullets and he would still keep going, you know. This is the sort of guy, like, you wouldn't have messed with at all, you know. The other people I would mention in terms of IRA leadership would be Michael Collins is a

big figure. I mentioned Michael Collins already. And Michael Collins' legacy has been absolutely tarnished by the fact that he basically single-handedly signed the partition of Ireland. But, you know, in that Irish War of Independence, he was the, the Lenin figure. I mean, we talk about comparisons that this is a much better comparison. Michael Collins is the man that even if he got it wrong, you would side with him. Do you know what mean? One of these sort of characters, like Lenin got things wrong throughout history and Lenin sort of had to change his mind about a lot of things. Michael Collins is kind of the same. He literally was, I talk about him not being a statesman, but in terms of military stature,

he is absolutely, absolutely the guy. Like, you know, if I had a picture, if I could have a picture of Michael Collins on my wall, I probably would. I mean, that wouldn't go down very well with some people because of all the things that happened in the Westminster Parliament and signing off of the Ireland. But yeah, it's another very tragic thing to come out of the anti-treaty war because he obviously then became, he then sided with the pro-treaty and he became the first, I think he was the first general officer commanding, if my memory serves me right, of the new state forces, of the new Irish defence forces that would basically become the state apparatus of the bourgeoisie, which again makes, it kind of makes me shiver, but all the things that he did in the war of

independence, certainly. I feel like sometimes he gets a very raw deal, you know, he's one of these people who kind of got it wrong and was kind of pushed along the line, had to go with the line afterwards. If you get what I mean, I mean, he got this, obviously he got the Westminster thing completely wrong and his subsequent life. And I've kind of like almost blocked out of Michael Collins, whether I should or not, it's probably a better question. But he is the inspirational man in my head that if I, if I was to meet somebody of the IRA campaign, I would probably pick Michael Collins, you know? I mean, obviously, going back, he would love to meet James Connolly. And there are other Marxists in there.

I'll tell you what, another good example, actually, which is a better example, is Dan Breen. So the guy I was talking to you about in terms of, you know, storing the weapons and stealing the weapons and basically sparking the War of Independence himself by stealing the weapons of the Royal Irish Constabulary and hiding him in the quarry. That is a guy. That is a man who has been emulated in history throughout the years. I mean, we still talk about him in Irish Republican circles and we still talk about him in socialist, you know, discussions and all these kind of things. He's a real hero over time. Kevin Barry is another one actually who was 18 years old.

during the War of Independence and was brutally shot dead. He's become a real martyr. If you walked into any Republican bar, you would see a picture of Kevin Barry on the wall, because he's a real symbol of just how harsh the British colonial establishment were at this time, you know, the sort of idea. He's not a leader per se, but he's an inspirational figure in terms of, you know, they were willing to basically strap Kevin Barry to a chair and kill him at 18 years of age. It's a very, you know, it's a very interesting point of Irish history. There are so many, all the ones I've talked to about Cathal Goulding, Sean Garland, marrying de Berka is another one who was a woman who really stood her own in that sort of 50s campaign and maintained her leadership when, you know, Irish history isn't particularly, you know, full of woman, for example. So if they have her in there, I mean, obviously Constant Markovic is another one who isn't in the IRA context. But, you know, there are a lot of heroes throughout the campaign. And there are a lot of heroes throughout history, which to be honest should be involved in state education programs. You really have to go and find these people. These people don't come to you. There's a lot of independent research and a lot of independent study. I mean, even James Connolly isn't really taught in schools.

you've really got to go and find it. And that's the one thing I would say when we finally get to an Irish Socialist Republic. These neat names are going to come to the fore of education programs. Because at the minute, you know, you have to be to end this books to even find their names

and find out that Ireland, you know, isn't the stupid nation that I talked about in the introduction, you know? Yeah, no, and proletarian leaders in capitalist societies are either whitewashed completely or completely ignored and downplayed or turned into monsters after they're dead.

You can think of like the myths around Che Guevara, for example, of that. So yeah, I think a big part of any socialist transition, a big part of what we try to do on our shows, but even building socialism in the future will be, you know, bringing back those figures and letting people connect with that history because I find when you can make somebody connect with a figure in history on the left, you can really open up the doorway to, you know, push some of their conditioning away and get them to be more sympathetic and open, you know, minded about, you know, our politics and our history. So, yeah, leaders and figures of the past,

proletarian fighters, they're important, and we have to defend them, and we have to defend their legacies. Let's go ahead and move on. I want to talk now about the troubles. Now, the troubles, I think, is, again, where the predominant image of the IRA, at least in most Americans' minds, is really sort of, you know, revolving around the troubles and that period of time. So can you talk about the troubles, what they were, how they played out, and what were their effects on the IRA? Yeah, sure. Now, this is a really good question, because you're right, I mean, as a young person, only thought the IRA would have spawned during the Troubles myself, so I understand why people would have that view. But the Troubles is a term itself. Let's talk about the troubles as a term.

So it's used to describe the nearly 30 years of conflict, which immediately proceeded the involvement of British troops on the island. And in honesty, it's a name I detest. It's another piece of colonial propaganda that aims to paint Irish people of all descriptions, both Protestant and Catholic, as almost just having a few beers in the bar and having a bit of fight afterwards. You know, when in actuality, I mean, the term troubles, this is nothing more than a second Irish civil war within 40 years of the first. Let's make that brutally clear, you know, with a significant amount of blame to be attached to the colonial presence in London that we're trying to, you know, paint this trouble of, oh, there's a little bit of trouble in Ireland, you know, it's nothing we can't handle. When actually, the country, the statelet in the north was absolutely like, you know, falling apart at the seams.

You know, it's funny, actually, I've actually seen serving British soldiers post online about the intolerant sectarian Irish fighting. amongst themselves during this period. And then all colonial involvement was just for the, you know, the greater good to inspire a bit of reconciliation. Perfectly in line, of course, with this idea of the great moral force of the empire uplifting indigenous people, giving them peace and all this kind of crap roads and bread and all the rest, all the usual nonsense that you've actually outlined in this episode already. You know, you've got to recognize that the British government are not a peaceful arbiter, but directly involved in this colonial mechanism. That's important to lay down in terms of the troubles. So from now on, I'm going to call it the second Irish Civil

War, if that's possible with you. that's great that's really great hugely clarifying as well thank you yeah if i may if i may call it that that's that's cool so this is a period that remains etched on people's mind thoughts actions and will never be erased for the trauma it has caused on all communities in the north of them honest where most of the excursions happened now in terms of the actual troubles itself as the republicans continued the offensive mostly through the provisional IRA now we've had that split the youthful detachments began to morph into an organization not unlike the one Collins had spearheaded in 1919 with the War of Independence.

You know, they faced many hardships. All the things we've talked about, special powers acts, interrogations and special senators, being convicted in special rigged courts under special rules, brought about by special legislation. You know, showcasing the corrupt nature of what bourgeois law enforcement is and who it serves. I mean, the famous Republican quote that emerges,

when the law uses the law to break the law, then there is no law. You know, it's a very interesting segment to this discussion that Republicans were, you know, understanding how the law worked at this stage. But another interesting segment actually to the whole dissection of the troubles and this is something which should not be lost

in anybody is the fact that while all that was going on against Republicans, not only did loyalist paramilitaries remain legal for most of the conflict, William Lightlaw, White Law actually, British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, met the UDA and the UVF Senior Army Council three times during July 1972 and General Harry Tuzzo,

head of military operations on behalf of the British Army has been investigated and found out to have colluded with organizations like the UDA and the UVF throughout his tenure, you know? This is a strategy that will remain throughout the conflict. Loyalist paramilitarilities were basically allowed to exist because, you know, they could be useful, you know, you can really use them to your own advantage. I mean, Harry Tuzzo explicitly quoted in 1975 that the UDA was not a terrorist organization. It was a frightening militant manifestation of a point of view, but not a terrorist campaign.

So given further evidence that when push comes to show, of this is all part of this narrative that the establishment will absolutely batter down the hatches include with fascism in any form and you could argue that the uda and the uv are fascist organizations i was going to ask about that yeah yeah to preserve the interests of capital that's exactly what these got that's exactly what these paramilitaries were used for that's exactly what what the whole scenario was but anyway i don't have time to go through the entire history but we'd be here all night but one special mention i think is prudent to mention at this stage which in my opinion actually changed the course of the entire period of conflict i talked about how the

the provisionals changed over time. And you can draw on any subsequent questions that you like to elaborate afterwards in terms of IRA strategy itself, but to capture the spirit of what was going on and how the provisionals became essentially a Marxist organisation. So you talk about the split, you know,

they split from the Marxists. They almost became the Marxists again. Because, and this will happen because of the hunger strike campaign that evolved of the late 70s and the pinnacle it reached in 1981. Now, with internment and all the things I mentioned before

about throwing Republicans into jail, becoming an integral feature of the British campaign. You know, anybody, anybody from a so-called quote-unquote Republican or Catholic background was being thrown into jail without trial or hearing. And many weren't actually. It was actually a brilliant recruitment drive for itself in the provisional IRA.

But it would spawn the hunger strikers movement who attempted to force through special category status for political prisoners rather than simply petty criminals. And they refused to wear prison clothing. Now, this was initially sparked by a man called Kieran Nugent, who was dubbed the first blanket man. and they chose to wore prison blankets rather than any clothes as a visible symbol of their defiance

and became a campaign within the Provisional IRA in jail which didn't actually match the fabric or the rhetoric outside the prison walls this insurgency within the H block's Longcash that's the colonial prison in the north was it became a Marxist insurgency within the very very fabric of the Provisional IRA I mean the dominant ideology amongst Provisional IRA prisoners in the H block the prison of the 1980s, whether on Hungerstrike or not, was that of a revolutionary left-wing socialist, Marxist orientation.

Now, indeed, one of the famous quotes that actually comes out of that period, which is etched in my mind I can sort of always remember, and always be summoned from memory, is by a man called Gerard Hodgins, who was a provisional IRA member in Lonekesh, the prison, which specifically stated that, the Republican doctrine encompasses socialism. We stand for a unified socialist Ireland.

So socialism is the doctrine for the advance of the work. class, and it is this notable class, noble class, that the Republican movement has its foundations. So the prison movement was almost rewriting provisional IRA doctrine and practice from inside prison walls, a lot of which you can find in famous books, which will come to at the end, I'm sure, but pamphlets by Bobby Sands, who was a provisional IRA figure who had actually toyed with the idea of joining the officials in his native twinbrook before deciding his allegiance should be based on overt defensivist community. And actually, now I mention that, actually, four hunger strikers had actually been part of the officials at one point around.

another Francis Hughes, Patsy O'Hara, Kevin Lynch, Michael Devine. But the entire Hungerstriker movement is still as inspirational as it ever was and actually began to rewrite provisional history. Because as the early 80s progressed and with the horrific conclusion of the hunger strike campaign, you know, nobody survived. I mean, it was covert, but Margaret Thatcher basically let them die and you can put their death onto the British establishment for that reason. But the surviving prisoners upon release, who weren't on hunger strike,

particularly Jerry Adams, who's a name that everybody knows, would take over the Sinn Féin leadership, the electoral vehicle of Irish republicanism that had almost been extinguished to this point, revamped the entire message, practice strategy of republicanism, everything. So Sinn Féin began to stand in both southern, and this is important actually,

both southern and northern elections after this point, and combined that dual strategy, which linked the party with the Milliman-Mittal Provisional IRA that was beginning to morph into this Marxist orientation. So the armlight in the ballot box, it's probably a phrase you're familiar with. So cross the box for Sinn Féin, whilst maintaining the strong and concise link

with the military campaign rooted within the community to advance its aims. You know, something which the officials had suggested years before with no avail and had been a contentious part of the split. So Rory O'Broady, the chief force of the split, who became the head of the provisionals, actually quit the provisional at this time with bitter condemnation from the officials who said,

you know, we were right too early in terms of, you know, what they were advocating for. Adams was right too late and Rurie O'Broadie is never fucking right. Now, this is a sort of Catholic far-right zealot. who had split the organization and now the provisional eye were sort of moving back to their to where they should be almost you know and lots of people blame it on rural broadie but the prison movement is the way is the way this sort of materialized into the provisional liars moving away from that catholic far right zealot back to the left you know back to the

community led marxist program which would become morphed with the shinfane electoral strategy but you know it actually became more and more like that vehicle in 1919 that had fought the iris war of independence you know a few adaptions of strategy along the way but became something which stood in direct comparison and solidarity with all the campaigns for the Socialist Republic that had evolved in the past. And the hunger strikers is obviously the seminal part of what made that happen, you know?

I mean, Bobby Sands was actually elected to Framana in South to Rome as an electoral candidate on the back of all these kind of like militant spearheading and the dual strategy between Sinn Féin and the provisional IRA ballot box. It was really quite something. And ordinary people, through determined an organisational practice in terms of how the troubles played out,

really brought a well-oid colonial machine to score-dra. At least, I mean, we're going to talk about specific IRA strategy, but going into that, knowing that the IRA did that brought them to score-draw at the very least is something that, you know, you can't wrestle with, you know, it's almost impossible to do so, but they did it, you know? It's something

that will be written into folklore Irish history for, if not centuries, the millenniums to come, you know? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I want to make a few connections here, because, you know, obviously, I'm from America and I have a lot of American listeners, and we know a lot about the Black Panther Party, They're operating around the similar time.

The troubles obviously happening in the 70s, the Black Panther Party at their peak in the very late 60s, early 70s. You know, Bobby Sands and Bobby Seal from the BPP both ran for office, right? So they had this sort of above ground manifestation of the Black Panther Party and even running for Congress. They know that time they took over the governor house in California because Reagan wanted to impose gun laws on the Black Panther parties, etc. But they also had an underground element called the Black Liberation Army that would, you know, rob banks commit crimes for money and carry out political assassinations, and that's very similar to the way that the IRA and Sinn Féin were sort of structured at this time. It's also really interesting to know that when Bobby Sands was in prison before he died from the hunger strike, of which he was the

first of, I think, 10 volunteers to die through the hunger strike. He actually read the wretched of the earth by Franz Fanon in prison, similar to some Black Panthers who also engaged with the wretched of the earth in prison. So that was really interesting. And then when the when the hunger strikes resulted in all of these deaths, there's actually an international outpouring of support for the hunger strikers. And here in the U.S., you know, you had marches coast to coast in every major city sort of in support of the hunger strikers and the IRA members in prison. And in fact, even Longshoremen Union, the Longshoremen Union guys here in the U.S., blocked British ships from coming into their arbor on the day of the funeral for the hunger strike victims. So there is

this, and of course we all know with the murals in Northern Ireland, this deep connection between the Palestinian struggle and the Irish struggle, which obviously overlapped and drew inspiration from one another. So at this time, as they're sort of refinding their Marxism, they're also, you know, embedded in this broader community of Marxist and left-wing political struggles against colonialism. And I think those connections are really important and really drive home how, you know, we are internationalists and our movements and our struggles are international in scope. And there's a sort of beautiful example of that in this story. So I think that's worth pointing out for sure. Yeah, for sure. I mean, one of the touching things that you brought out there, which is very

important actually, is the reaction to Bobby Sand's death. Now, it's funny, isn't it? There are Bobby Sand streets all around the world. I think there's at least four. I couldn't pinpoint exactly where they are. There's certainly one in Paris. I know that. But there isn't one in Ireland, you know this is this is the sort of telling rewriting of history almost as much as Republican communities as you say are doing tremendous work to keep their legacy alive and keeping the murals on the road

and sorry on the buildings on all sorts of other things the establishment itself will never accept a Bobby Sand Street in Ireland you know it's a telling narrative again of you know the victors of the are certainly in this case you could argue it wasn't a victory for the British but you know

in the context of history the British have always you know seen keeping them a score draws, a victory for them, and whoever wins these battles rewrites history in their own image, and Bobby Sand Street is not a thing in Ireland when it's actually a very internationally recognized symbol across the world, you know?

Damn, yeah, history is a weapon and the winner's right history. Yeah, so let's go ahead and talk about the actions of the IRA because I think this is sort of the focal point. This is why people know of them. This is also where a lot of the controversy and, like, I think really constructive debates on the left can and should take place around some of these actions.

And so just basically what sort of actions did the IRA carry out during its peak? And maybe you can give us some concrete examples of specific actions that they carried out. Yeah, of course. Now, this is a massive part of the Provisional IRA's history, actually. So one of the biggest things, certainly to come out with the Provisional IRA's campaign, was to reignite a spirit and a strategy inspired by the Fenians of the 1860s. You may have heard of them. They were the first to take the bombing or the campaign to, you know, the bombing campaign.

That's exactly what it is, directly to the imperial core of Britain itself, to advance its aims. And that's something that the provisional IRA drew from and drew inspiration from and took their practices for that. So one of the very famous quotes coming out of that period comes from Marion Price, who was involved in the old Bailey bombing actually, but she's a very central figure of provisional IRA history and has a lot to say. And a lot of her work is actually very good. But her quote would be, it's almost out of sight and mind if it's Irish people dying. So if the arm's struggle was to succeed, that it was necessary to bring it to the hearts of the British establishment. Now this is a very big part. I talked about the old Bailey bombing.

They bombed a lot of places, particularly in London. So while things were heating up domestically on Irish shores, a renewed charge was being directed, particularly towards London, as I mentioned, to advance Republican goals. The campaign actually accentuated, this is another part of the split, actually, which was very contentious in the middle of the 70s, towards the early 80s, between the officials and the provisionals, that were becoming increasingly bitter. So the Provisional's maintained this adamant stance that they were only targeting property and not life, which I think is true, actually. It would certainly be the belief of McGinnis and others in the leadership. But the fact that they advanced that rhetoric, as well as advancing things like Margaret Thatcher would have to be lucky every time and us only once, was a severe point of confrontation with the officials and a very important part of the provisional IRA's praxis, but also the official's kind of condemnation, who argued that this, you know, in terms of a Marxist analysis, this is important and we'll hopefully ignite a bit of discussion with your.

listeners who argued that it seemed to be targeting individuals, or at the very least forming part of the educational base of the grassroots involved in the campaign rather than the economic targets, you know, to bring capitalism to a grinding halt in London. And actually compared this, they actually solely compared this to what was going on, if you remember reading in history, what happened in Russia in the early 1980s, you know, the Roddix targeting Alexander III rather than initiating that sort of mass socially based campaign that would eventually overthrow the Russian Tsar system, the whole thing and initiate the Bolsheviks. that's what that's what the official IRA used to sort of you know critique the

provisional's and in honesty if we're looking at the legacy itself this did them no favors in England I understand why they did this because as you know I mean look at look at what's going on in the world today I mean how many reactionary newspapers and reactionary media outlets do you see talking about Bolivia or talking about Venezuela or you know all you see is Hong Kong all the fucking time you know this is kind of similar this is why the provisional felt they had to take it to London because if he didn't take it to London, then and honestly, you know, there's going to be

no news, and Irish people are just going to die and die and die. It's not going to get in any news coverage, but at the same time, it didn't really do them any favours and particularly alienated British workers capable of being part of the campaign to bring down the system themselves, you know, through boycotting transportation or troops, actually, you know. Did it fall file of a nationalism which demonised all British people

without a class-based rhetoric? It possibly, that's up for debate. Again, I can see the logic of both sides here, but it's a telling point of the provisional IRA praxis. I mean, Mambatton is another big one. And also the, I think it was the Royal Marine School of Music. They bombed a lot of places and turned a lot of British workers against the cause. Because obviously, you know, if you're seeing your family being dragged out as a working class person being dragged out by quote unquote was being marketed vociferously as a terrorist organization, it's very easy to become influenced by that.

So I can see both sides of the logic here as I've tried to explain. I can see why they had to take it to London in most respects. But I can also see why the officials felt you've to stop saying things like we have to be only lucky once against Margaret Thatcher because although that's true and although, you know, taking out Margaret Thatcher, would anybody have cried for her death? Probably not, if I'm brutally honest. But at the same time, they just replace her, they just replace her with another. Do you know what I mean? It's just like, it's almost like, it's almost like a victory. Just to clarify, the Thatcher comment was made, and correct me if I'm wrong, but after the IRA bombed a hotel in London that was hosting a Tory conference, is that correct?

That's correct. Thatcher obviously made it out alive, but I think she was present, right? That's correct. Yeah, yeah. And the provisional IRA then debunked the officials by saying, look, we sent a notice saying that we're going to bond this place. And if you have the conference, then it's almost on your own back. That was their retaliation to the officials at this time. And again, you can see why they then came out with a comment about Margaret Thatcher. Because once you send a memo that says, we're going to bomb the place and the Tory conference goes ahead, you know, they then feel that the Tory conference is responsible for anything that happens. But then the officials would then have argued that, you know, you can't come out with things about individuals. your life. Anyway, but with it, the international policy laid down, if you like, the international policy taking it to Britain, domestic relations remained increasingly similar to the campaign laid down by Collins, Breen, hockey, mellows, all those people from the war about independence bring the colonial presence to you and smash them while you can and then disappear into the urban housing networks. You know, a policy that was used to extreme effect, and again, not unlike the early 1900s, actually brought a lot of popular support, which is a massive part

of Marxist insurgency. You know, you can do all these things if you like, but you have haven't got the people, you haven't got the support of people in the surrounding community, then you're almost asking, you're almost asking for suicide, you know what I mean? So, in fact, one of the most famous articulations, altercations, rather, throughout the entire period was what became known as the Falls Curfew in early July, in 1970. This was when British troops had just arrived on the island pretty much, and were effectively locking people up in their home for three days. But women in the communities aroundings eventually began to organize,

literally confronting British troops in this sort of like mass popular resistance. unarmed, by the way, in condemnation of this boldly marching past British troops to deliver food supplies and other necessary provisions, a huge propaganda coup in that initial stage of conflict, you know, forcing an end to this curfew. But more importantly, in terms of domestic relations, and that's the example I use for a reason, it's to showcase the power of organised resistance. But without that sort of organised resistance around the community, the guerrilla movement, while being firmly underway, would never have succeeded without it. The domestic current going on here is very important. It's very, very important.

in terms of the IRA strategy in this period. It's sort of, it's almost the same as any Marxist uncertainty around the world that if you have a sort of, you know, let's say there's 20 people out in a guerrilla patrol, if you don't have the, if you don't have the support of 500 in the community who are willing to let you come in the door and lock the door and all this kind of thing feed you and all these kind of like mass-based support within the community, then there is no IRA. There is no, there is no campaign. Do you know what I mean? And that's the thing that's really underappreciated in contemporary times I feel that you almost have to build this for nine years you almost have to build this but the IRA didn't really do that to be honest I mean they had done it in 50s and 60s

but the provisional IRA where this new organization it almost defies the it almost defies the logic of history that they were accepted pretty much initially on the ground and certainly after the hunger strikes were completely surrounded and supported by the communities surrounding them you know so I guess that kind of links the domestic and the international strategy does that kind of answer your question or is and else you want to ask about that? No, yeah, definitely. And I think it's really important also, as you said, this mass support. You know, Mao talks about guerrilla warfare only being successful

if the militants can swim amongst the people as a fish swims in the water. And so having that mass support and that sort of network of people to help you out in a guerrilla warfare context is absolutely essential. I know there's debates there about taking the fight to London and alienating London working class people. But we're going to talk next about the killing of innocence and bombings. and, you know, I think a core issue whenever we discuss Marxist urban guerrilla warfare, which is pretty much what this was, or as some call it, left-wing terrorism, the question arises of innocents. And we've done episodes recently on the Red Army faction and on the November 17th movement in Greece, both of which, you know, went out of their way to ensure that there were little to know innocent casualties. And at times when they messed up and killed somebody innocent, it was a huge moment of withdrawing and sort of thinking through the implications. of what they were doing. And so we talk about that a lot on the show. So I just basically want to have this conversation with you talking about how the IRA went about, you know, conducting their guerrilla warfare campaigns. The first thing I want to say, and I think the most important thing to

say is that the sort of dialectic of conflict was started by the oppression and domination and violence of the British imperialists. So I do not want to say that if I disagree with this or that action of the IRA that that then means that the enemy is good because we all know that the Brits like the Americans kill innocent people to this day on a daily basis. And so, you know, there's no sort of both sidesing the difference between the violence inflicted by imperialist and colonial powers and the violence inflicted by those who stand up and fight back. So I want to make that very clear up front. But basically, I just want to have this little conversation with you. You know, how did the IRA or did they, you know, I think they did, struggle with this issue of innocence? Were people,

were innocent people killed often. Basically, I just want your thoughts on this problem of urban guerrilla warfare. Yeah, sure. To be honest, it's an excellent question, which I'm glad you've brought up. It's an extremely important part of any conflict. An equally one, which is both complex

and very difficult to reconcile with, if I'm brutally honest. I mean, it's interesting actually how the IRA approached this because not only did they universally condemn infliction upon innocent civilians, they also partially felt extremely sympathetic towards British Army personnel. I mean, more explicitly, actually,

British Army junior ranks. You know, tying in this class analysis to all this which suggested that the major echelongs of British ruling class society were ultimately responsible for the deaths of ordinary people who don't the British uniform rather than them. So again, Marion Price has an excellent quote for this.

It's the death of a British soldier. And don't forget, this is someone in the Provisional IRA. The death of a British soldier is also sad because he's just some kid who doesn't even know why he's in Ulster, let alone why he has to die. At least our volunteers know that they're giving what they're giving their lives for. That's the difference between the idealist and the canon fodder of the British government. So, so being no doubt, both the officials and the provisionals took this issue very

seriously. And you could argue the officials even took it more seriously with all the discussions I talked to about property and not life. But they even drew on class-based analysis in the conclusions. But with that being said, I mean, we didn't always get this, they didn't always get this issue right and mistakes were made, you know? We can't live in this utopia that said, you know, IRA did nothing wrong because horrific mistakes sometimes did actually happen. As you say, they find it very difficult to deal with. I mean, we have to be conclusive of the mistakes of our class if we're going to learn going forward. We have to dissect them and make sure that we have the deepest understanding of them. And in the context of your question, I think a more telling analysis and a better

answer to sort of rather than deal with innocence is deal with one of the IRA failures which kind of produced these innocent lies, if I'm honest. So the fact that the IRA campaign actually got sucked into at various periods of the struggle of this Irish Second Civil War, actually got sucked into a British strategy of, you know, picking off loyalist paramilitaries during sections of the conflicts to divide the Irish against themselves. You know, the classic example of dividing the country amongst itself in sectarian war became a real strategy of the British and the IRA sometimes fed off that. You know, the colonial establishment kind of sat back and what's the IRA butcher loyalist paramilitaries?

And it was these times particularly that innocent lives and in the context of your question would suffer. I mean, a tragedy and a universal mistake that we should. recognize. I mean, it was what the initials had actually feared for at the time of the split at intermittent parts of the struggle. That is exactly how it panned out. I mean, the IRA would target loyalist paramilitary members instead of British colonial troops in their local fish and chip shop or the pub or the takeaway. And in the end, producing large amounts of collateral damage, which fueled significant sectarian tensions between Catholic and Protestant rather than any focus on the British colonial troop. I mean, this was a big part of the certainly the late 70s,

you know, and the ultimate regrettable loss of innocent lives was a telling point of all of this, you know? So the IRAs, and to be honest, this has caused me a huge substantial amount of mental anguish when reading all this stuff. You mean, you read these campaigns. I can only imagine how it must be for someone who has no link with a, we talk about that, you know, being thrown into jail with actually no legitimate entity with a Republican. I can also see why someone from a loyalist background, but with no affiliation to the loyalist paramilitaries, for a burger in the chip shop and, you know, being blown into smithereens or their father doing that and then the sun being like, I'm going to join the UDA tomorrow. It must have been

a huge recruitment drive for these loyalist paramilitaries. So it's important to dissect this. So while the IRA didn't necessarily target innocence, the fact that they got sucked into the sort of British colonial propaganda to, you know, take on the UVF and the UDA and all these other sort of loyalist paramilitaries instead of going after colonial trips, that that has produced a lot of innocent deaths. And to be honest, I'm an Irish Social Republican, but I can genuinely understand if someone will never be influenced by the Irish Social Republic because of the mistake of this. You know, if you continue to target people who are involved in loyalist paramilitary, she's fair enough. But when you're blowing them up in the chip shop, then, you know, obviously one person

isn't going to die in that chip shop debate. Do you know what I mean? There's going to be at least 10 others who are going to be severely wounded or dead at worst. And you can never hope, that's the problem. When that happens, you can never hope to win those nine other people. If, you're if they survive to the, to the cause of the Irish Socialist Republic, you just can't because they're never going to reconcile with the fact that they nearly got blown up on a chip shop. And it's these kind of things. We talk about successes and failures. This is the big failure of the IRA's campaign.

At intermittent periods, this wasn't, you know, this wasn't the whole 30 years blowing up loyalist paramilitaries or, sorry, targeting lawyers' paramilitaries and then having collateral damage as a consequence, but it is something we need to wrestle with, you know. I mean, they did well, particularly when Jerry Adams took the Sinn Féin leadership, of taking this right back on a class base, you know, fight the collateral. in the Al Army, not each other kind of line. Bobby Sands talks about that a lot in his literature as well, actually. But it's something we need to dissect.

It's something we need to learn from. And if this ever was to happen again, we need to be much more secure in the idea that targeting local people is not the way to go about this. If they're involved in Lloyd's paramilitaries, target them in war, not in their local areas, and certainly not in their local chip shops and you know, bars and everything else.

Yeah, incredibly well said. I think very fair as somebody who both of us, you know, support and sympathize with the struggle of the IRA over the years. I mean, I think that's a very fair-handed and balanced critique and an honest assessment of what happened. And, you know, I've said on this show or other shows that, you know, the killing of innocent people is a huge no for me. It can't ever happen. But at the same time, we also have to understand that the enemies that, you know, our movements have historically gone against

are the sort of people that don't give a fuck at all about innocent lives. So the very fact that this sort of reflection is so popular on the left, but the center and the right don't care at all, I think is worth mention. here. The enemies in the form of the imperialist state, whether the Brits or the Yankees, you're talking brutality on innocent people every single day. They don't care how many kids they kill. They don't care how many innocent people they kill. They want power and they're willing to do anything at all. And so when you have a smaller group fighting against these empires and that group has the moral quandary of wrestling over these issues where the enemy doesn't, it sort of has an inequality there that I think is at least worth gesturing towards. We don't just want to say,

The IRA is bad for this. We also want to point out that these reactionary paramilitary military forces had no problem killing people. The imperialist British forces had no problem killing people. A classic image that comes out of the troubles is I think it was a priest waving a bloody white flag. A little kid Jack Duddy was shot, if I'm not mistaken by British forces. And so, you know, I think ultimately died as well. So children died on the Irish side as well. And, you know, the same sort of person who sees their father or brother get blown up at a chip shop for being a lawyer. list on the Catholic Republican side, you know, seeing your house get destroyed, seeing your family be slaughtered, you know, seeing your freedom fighters just get killed with no trial or going hunger strike and die, you know, that also ramps up that conflict. And so the violence just feeds off each other and you have this sort of tragic cycle that continues. But, yeah, those are my thoughts on it. Yeah, just to sort of conclude that, I mean, it's telling you say that actually, that it's telling it, it's very important to drive home that this was British strategy for the IRA to start doing this kind of thing.

you talk about them not really giving a fuck about innocent lives. That is important in the context of this as well because this was a British, this was a colonial strategy that if we can get them fighting themselves then we can just sort of sit back and pretend to be the good guys. You know, as the peaceful arbiter I talked about in terms of, I mean, that's the case in Palestine

and everywhere else that the British have occupied in the past and continue to sometimes to this day, referencing our own country. But, you know, this idea that they're going to let us fight each other as a strategy really showcases just how far they're willing to go to win any war. And if the IRA start blowing up loyalists in the chip shop, you can almost, again, as I said, I find it very difficult to understand why anybody would side with the IRA after

this. But at the same time, there is a logic there that says, look, the Brits were willing for us to let us do this to you. Can you not see that there's a colonial apparatus there that is almost showcasing the sectarianism, hoping it will happen? These kind of things are, there's also a dual process there to reconcile with. But at the same time, I stand by. the fact that if you're going to blow up somebody in a chip shop, they're never going to come around to your view, you know? Yeah, yeah. But I think that's a really important point that, you know,

the forces of British imperialism didn't even care about their own loyalists. Like, they didn't even care if they died because strategically it worked for them. And, you know, the IRA would never not care if, you know, their people were slaughtered because they were of the people and from the people. And so that's important. And then the analogy between, you know, like Hamas and the Israeli government, it basically makes itself, right? This is a similar situation.

in which, you know, the ultimate cause of the violence is really caused by colonialism. And then you have groups of oppressed people fighting back, sometimes, you know, slaughtering innocent people in the turmoil. And then the Western media says, oh, look at Hamas and the Palestinians. They're so violent. Of course Israel has to go and fucking bomb the shit out of their, you know, their cities or whatever. So just thinking about that and understanding how the powers that be will always not give a fuck about human life and always frame things to their advantage and against the advantage.

of people fighting back, I think is really important to remember going forward. And again, just because the IRA or the Palestinians or any group enter, you know, oppressed fighting back group here, the fact that they make mistakes and have hurt innocent people, which I agree with you, is a no-no for me. It still does not mean that you don't overall support what they're fighting for and overall support that movement. And it's in the same way, you know, Hamas shooting a rocket into Israel, maybe killing an innocent Israeli person is bad, but that doesn't mean you then turn on the Palestinians. right, and don't support their struggle for liberation.

So these things are very, very complicated, but, yeah, I just think it's worth at least discussing these things and having these conversations and thinking very deeply about this shit because there's a lot of possible futures in America and for this world in the next century. And balkanizing and guerrilla warfare is certainly on the table at least. And so we should all think very heavily about what that would entail, what the implications of that is, and then ultimately, if we're fighting in any struggle, what our responsibility is. And I think those are very important to keep in mind going forward. For sure.

All right. So we're getting close to the end here. Can you talk about the Good Friday Agreement and let us know what the status of the IRA and Sinn Féin are today? So basically catch us up to the modern period going through that monumental agreement in 98, please. So the Good Friday Agreement signaled an end to the war with a peace document signed between the British government and the Republican leadership to decommission IRA weapons and embark on what they like to call a path to peace as it's often been detailed.

Now the provisional IRA officially disbanded an attempt towards shared government between unionists and nationalist interest established in Storment that political institution in Belfast I was talking about was established actually until quite recently that's a whole different contradiction in itself but Jerry Adams at this time himself produced a line a statement at the time detailing

the reality is that the Good Friday Agreement is not a peace settlement and doesn't claim to be. However, for us, it is a basis for advancement. It is transitional, a transition towards a democratic peace settlement. And for us, we would hope, a transitional state towards reunification. Now, most of the IRA campaign, the provisional IRA campaign, accepted the logic. The official IRA had almost dwindled to nothing at this stage, with the war producing stalemate after stalemate and public opinion. This is important, beginning to sway towards decommissioning weapons, which is important in terms of the Marxist standpoint of what we talk about. But not everyone actually did accept this piece.

The shadow of 1921 somewhat emerged in terms of continuing the war, much less overtly and much less correctly, may I add, which signalled many unhappy with an end to the war. And a number of dissident groups maintaining war as the correct practice and claiming to act as the countenance of the Republican Vanguard, the real IRA, the continuity IRA is another in particular. But here's the thing about these groups in the modern day. And I will come to Monterey Sinn Féin and what all that means in a second. But here's the thing about these sort of continuity groups, the real IRA. I actually, to some degree, share their sentiment. I'll talk about why in a second. But to continue in a war in which public support is dwindling for is not only dangerous. It's actually extremely

harmful to the cause and extinguish it forever. I mean, I think it was Trotsky in terms of the Russian Revolution who said that the party arms solely with the bullet, I'm not sure if I'm quoting correctly, but the general line is the same. The party arms solely with the bullet rather than a combined affiliation with dialectical materialism will bring no success to the movement. And it's true. They won't. And that has played out ever since with these groups that continue to try and, you know, take up the fight for Marxists sort of, or not even, I mean, there's no dialectical class materialism there. The sort of bullet bomb campaign. The real IRA bombed OMA in August 1988, which is a small town in the north. An act I actually remember as a seven-year-old kid,

which really solidified communities once for the end to conflict. And many Republicans, including high profile campaigners like Adams and McGuinness condemned this harsh harshly very fiercely you know people don't want this anymore you've got to stop doing this and they were also involved in excursions with two corporals coming back from Afghanistan and the army in the early 2000s and actually this year

shot a journalist in dairy and public opinion is condemned at all which is the crucial manifestation in terms of these wars there's no point engaging in the war whether for the liberation of our class or not without mass or support because ultimately you're going to do more damage to the socialist republic and the ideal of a socialist republic as a result.

People think this is the campaign for the Socialist Republic happening right now. But of course, I mean, I mean people with no sort of basis of Marxist principles. They think this is what they're fighting for. But of course they're not, because nobody wants it in this respect. The public opinion has changed. But that being said, and coming back to what I was talking about in bringing Sinn Féin into all this, I am no supporter of the Good Friday Agreement, which is what I mean when I say I share their sentiments.

I don't share what they're doing, but I share their dissatisfaction with the document. No will I ever be. because it has entrenched sectarianism between Catholics and Protestants through the electoral process people now have to define whether they're unionist or nationalist in the voting ballot and it has also given the British unilateral say

over the terms of any unification process going forward whether that be a border poll or whatever which essentially means amounting to no forwarding at all I mean a colonial presence isn't going to advance these interests you know if the public are going backwards but you still give the British the right to maintain these kind of colonial occupations and decide whether there'll be an independence referendum

them, for example, that's never going to happen. You know, and it is allowed Sinn Féin by coming part of that establishment to swap being embedded in the communities they used to represent and subsequently empower for the corridors of establishment offices and electoral institutions.

I mean, their parliamentary endeavours have fundamentally corrupted the entire process, certainly amongst their electoral hub. I mean, there's a few excellent comrades amongst the grassroots of Sinn Féin, contemporary Sinn Féin, who continue to advocate decent lines, but this is a shadow, a shadow of the party that Jerry Adams rescued in the 80s.

And even further from the Democratic program that I mentioned at the start in 1919 is sort of publicly owning the means of production. They now advocate continuing involvement in the neoliberal imperial project of the European Union. A change of policy, by the way, from principled European abstentionism and a self-determining Irish republic, completely rid of European capitalist interests. They now hold large private property portfolios at the expense of the people represent. they are considering going into government in a coalition in the South

with both Fina Gale and Fianna Fall the reactionary political elements and ultimately they seek a new type of message seek a new type of voter the middle class road that will allow them to secure power in a parliamentary institution like Stormont or Linderhouse in the South so this has angered many

including myself and it spits in the face of the Republican movement of the past their own party of the past and more particularly in the context of this episode IRA campaigns in which have many given their lives for social Ireland. So while I don't accept the legitimacy of these dissident groups, absent of strategy and absent of any conclusive dialectical engagement with material events, I do advocate for something

more than the Good Friday Agreement. And that alternative now exists. I might close off by mentioning a couple of those groups around Ireland. But for now, you know, we need to get back to the grassroots issues. We need to get back in touch with the core ideals that brought the IRA into existence in the first place. And all those substantial gains that have come from that in terms of empowering local people and empowering, you know, working people to take ownership of the island and link our ideals with patient, methodical practices that can truly end, I mean truly end the total dictatorship of the bourgeoisie on this island. It raised the two failed states that have enacted all the mistakes of the past and enact that socialist republic. Let's make one thing

clear here. I am for nothing short of the dictatorship of the Irish proletariat and the emancipation of labour throughout this island. And I want a state structure rebuilt to support. substantially empower those interests within a nation that is rooted in self-determination and social freedom. And I think we will achieve that. I genuinely, because if we don't believe it, nobody will believe it. We need to live and dream and breathe this stuff. But Sinn Féin of Soul is out and they're going down the middle class route that has become rotted by parliamentary institutions that you can take all the way through history. And, you know, there are so many. I mean, there are so many, the A and C in South Africa, there were so many of these institutions who were

so good when they were empowered with the people. But when you lose that connection with the people. The party becomes rotten at worst and the people become fatigued at best. There needs to be that dual process and Sinn Féin have completely lost that dual process in contemporary times. And the contemporary dissident groups have also lost any sort of tangible strategy and are just bombing things for the sake of bombing things. And that needs to change as well. We need to get back to the Socialist Republic, all the things I'm talking about in the context of this episode and the IRA, the IRA that we want and the IRA that I am campaigning for in this episode. Yeah, completely well said in a really principled materialist

Marxist understanding of the current situation which for the average American leftist who doesn't know much about all the nuances here I think is really really helpful and really clarifies a lot of things I certainly thinking about how Sinn Féin has fallen I think it really does point to the legitimacy of like Mao's claim

that revisionism and opportunism in an organization in a party must be continuously fought or it will sort of default to opportunism and liberalism and the center if you will so I think that's important And then, yeah, like the polls in Northern Ireland, the mass support for or against is really important. I think I heard a recent poll that says, like, I think over 95% of people in Northern Ireland don't necessarily want to leave the union or something.

And so when you have that sort of polling and you have that little mass support, then it really just does, it devolves back into what Lenin was critiquing, which is this form of terrorism, without any mass support. And I think we can never fall into that trap. so yeah all that stuff is very important to keep in mind i think you did a great job covering all of this history david it's really been an honor to have you on i'm going to combine the last three questions um i think they can sort of be combined because we talked about a lot of this stuff already but basically you know what do you think were some of the IRA's main achievements uh what is your main critique of them and then what can we as revolutionaries possibly learn from them in the 21st century yeah sure so the main thing that we can learn from the IRA is that when

you link a military campaign that is built on mass support, that is built upon principled lines, and ultimately seeks to empower the people within the movement, then you have no limitations. The sky is the absolute limit. So you talk about all the things I'm talking about in terms of, you know, the guerrilla movements being linked in with the community and Irish workers during the Irish War of Independence, refusing to carry British troops around the island, refusing to carry British supplies around the island, this is what happens when you link strategy with. the people you're hoping to resent. When you empower them rather than represent them, when you make

them part of the struggle and put them at the forefront of the struggle, then you will genuinely have a campaign that is special and worth living for. The other side-out thing, the failure is not assessing the class contradictions during the War of Independence, which led to the Irish Civil War and the continual theme throughout the IRA history that they need to reconcile some of their differences. Having said all the things about the class contradictions, we also need to reconcile with the fact that we should be doing a bit more united, united work, you know, we shouldn't be splitting all the time. We can have endless splits in a movement, but all that serves, even if you think it's the most principal move in the world, all that serves as reactionary interests. And I'm sure

colonial powers were jumping for joy, both in the 20s and in the 70s when these splits were happening, you know, and God knows what would have happened if we'd managed to maintain those kind of links, you know. So going forward for revolutionaries, we need to dissect those things, both the class analysis and also the fact that compromise can sometimes be necessary because national liberation movements are very messy things. You know, you can't have roses all the time. You've got to try and make concessions with a lot of different people to achieve the goal you want, which is ultimately what we want as a 32 County Socialist Republic. Absolutely. And I would agree with all of that. Certainly a critique of the IRA over time could be at times its lack of a, specifically a Marxist

theoretical coherency, which can give rise to a bunch of problems, whether that's revisionism and opportunism or that's, you know, terrorism without mass support, etc. So those are things you would like to see corrected going forward and that we can learn from and not repeat those mistakes necessarily in the past. Because I think you really do see that when this movement is really guided by theoretical coherency and principled Marxism is when it really is the most effective and it really does have that mass basis support that makes it so effective. So I think that's really important. And then the main achievements, I mean, again, echoing yours, the national liberation struggle is wonderful. And the way that many times in their development, the

IRA saw that their national liberation struggle was sort of inseparable from the international struggles for decolonization and proletarian power around the world at that time is a huge plus of the movement. When it did have that mass support and it did have that genuine proletarian leadership is when it was most effective and that was obviously a wonderful achievement. And then the women's role, you know, it doesn't get talked about too often, but it's really important that women were a part of the IRA the entire time from Easter rising all the way up until probably today, certainly through the troubles. And that really is another component of that

mass support. We see everywhere where you have genuine mass support, you have a huge role that women play in the struggle. And that is a sort of metric by which you can see how much support you actually have. And so at the height of their prowess, they had that, and that's wonderful. So yeah, thank you so much, David, for coming on. It's been awesome. You've covered so much history and you did it so elegantly, so articulately. And I really learned a lot in this. And I I did a lot of prep too, so you taught me a lot beyond what I was able to teach myself, and I really appreciate it, so I know you've taught my listeners as well. Before I let you go, Comrade, can you let listeners know possibly some recommendations that you

would offer for people who want to learn more about the IRA in this history, and then where listeners can find you and your podcast, Radical Reflections Online? Yeah, sure. Well, firstly, thank you very much for having me on. It's been an absolute pleasure to talk about an issue like this, which obviously takes a lot of extensive time and research. So thank you for empowering me the chance to do that. Some books, I guess, Ireland's Civil War, that topic we covered by Kelton Younger, is a really decent, a really decent arrangement.

Sinn Féin, 100 Turbman in Years by Brian Feeney is probably another good book. The Lost Revolution is one, the story of the official IRA and the Workers Party is a massive book which assesses those splits between the officials and the provisionals, which is massive. Cage 11 by Jerry Adams, him writing that in prison, Bobby Sands, writings from prison. and a state in denial actually is pretty good by Margaret Irwin which talks about the British collusion with the loyalist paramilitaries so those are just some I mean if you want to if you want to reach out to me there's plenty more I'm just sort of giving a brief overview where you can find our work we're on Twitter at rad reflections we're on Patreon

patreon.com forward slash radical reflections we have a Facebook page and we're on Podbean and Apple Podcast so those are the best places to find if you want to message me you can do it on all those sites on Twitter or Patreon or any of those other discussion forums and I'm happy to chat a lot more about these issues and more issues and just generally get to know people it's one of the best things about radical reflections actually is I've got to know a lot of people actually and I've been engaging with people I would never have met before so yeah that's good and hopefully maybe one day I'll come to the States and be able to meet you live that'd be cool as well and do a live episode

or something but all those things thank you so much Brett it's been great I've really enjoyed my time and thank you so much for having me on yeah honestly and I'll link to all that in the show notes has been a huge pleasure I would love for you to come in real life and us to collab but even if you don't um i very much plan on continuing to work with you uh going forward because i think we we vibe very well and we have similar analysis and we do good work together so thank you so much for coming on i'll link to all of that in the show notes people definitely reach out to david um if any questions you want some more recommendations anything he would definitely be able to help you out there and yeah basically just love and solidarity from

across the pond my friend yeah same to you comrade it's really good to talk actually yeah the I reckon proletary is something I'm becoming quite new to and I'm learning a lot of the different organizations over there, so that's cool too. So thanks very much for everything really, to be honest. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I hope our collab can help strengthen those bonds between, you know, your part of the globe and our part of the globe.

So it's awesome. So thank you so much. Let's keep in touch and be well, solidarity. Yeah, thanks, comrades. Cheers. I have a vogue of the Tunnel is you're in a cancha but the world

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