Enquiries to RJ at rjtechne@iol.ie; Anthony Coughlan is contactable at his home address at 24 Crawford Avenue, Dublin 9, phone 00-353-1-8305792.

Volume 22 (continued)

CDG is in Liverpool on January 12 1971 when he gets a phone-call from Sean Redmond to the effect that '..the invitation to Belfast has come..'. It is not clear if it is for him personally or for the CA. It relates to the NICRA conference. Also it seems John Hume has drafted a Bill of Rights of his own. CDG conjectures that pressure has been put on Hume to '...get something prepared as an alternative to the thing those Reds have prepared..'.

This theme extends in the January 18 1971 entry; the Belfast NICRA wants CDG at their conference as the CA's representative, as '..the only organisation doing anything in Britain..'. It seems however that the 'London NICRA' was in a position to claim that it was acting at the express request of the Belfast NICRA. There is evidence of some confusion.

On January 22 CDG arrives in Belfast and as usual goes to see Betty Sinclair, who had been at a meeting of West European CPs, and had '..expected to see me there..'. She gave her impressions: '..the old cameraderie of pre-war years has gone... the Dutch will not sign anything... the Italians did not seem to care about anybody but themselves..'. She went on to tell him '..that whereas the Republicans for all their faults would be glad to have Joe Deighan and John McClelland on the Civil Rights executive, the Party (which means the Stewarts) has vetoed it. I was unable to get any closer to the problem..'.

It seems we are increasingly up against the problem of limited political understanding within the CPNI of the nature of the civil rights question, and the role of the republicans, in the NI political context.

The next day January 23 1971 CDG decides to go to Derry and see Hume, which he does, successfully; Hume makes him welcome, and shows him round the place. It turns out that Hume's 'Bill' is not a Bill at all, but a copy of his submission to the Crowther Commission. He tried to see Kevin Agnew on the way back, was entertained to tea by his wife, who said Kevin was in Enniskillen with McDowell. Kevin was to chair the meeting the next day. This he describes in some detail on January 24; he formed the opinion that it was the result of an 'orange-communist' cabal, analogous to the NILP. Speakers were Kader Asmal, CDG, then Hume. CDG spoke with a 'strong republican bias' given the situation. He suggests that 'they were at their old trick, to demand something and then object to it when they got it, to pose as great reformers before the republicans, but by doing nothing decisive, to hold the Orangemen and the NILP. Hume had been brought in in an effort to confuse the issue..'.

CDG here was attempting to develop a critique of the CPNI, whose role in the development of the NICRA had been ambiguous. In fact the conference seems to have been a genuine though somewhat confused attempt to develop public support for the Bill of Rights approach, which they were trying to extend to economic questions. There was however an undercurrent of anti-communism against which they had to try to swim.

There was a sequel to the foregoing, which CDG picked up from AC in London on January 31 1971: it seems that Micheal O'Riordan and Cathal Goulding were busy discussing an 'anti-imperialist conference' which might be called jointly by the Belfast and Dublin Trades Councils. They had brought in 'Peoples Democracy', it was understood at the Republicans' request, and had decided not to mention Civil Rights but to discuss only the EEC and economic matters. AC thought that the omission of civil rights was partly a sop to PD and partly in accordance with the 'orange communists' that were in the North; it was all confusion; they had no general perspective except with regard to their own small groupings.

I don't recollect anything ever coming of this; it is a reflection of the general level of disorientation and confusion of the Marxist left and the republican left, in response to the perceived current threats of the provisional campaign and the looming concept of the EEC as the new Act of Union.

In London on March 3 1971 CDG attends a meeting of the CPGB in King St at which policy on Ireland is discussed. He urged them not to get involved in anything like a demand for "withdraw all troops and leave it to the IRA" '..as long as they made it quite clear that they were carrying out a more practical policy to end the border and withdraw altogether... I told them that thanks even to the small reforms conceded social changes were beginning in Derry. This is what Hume has shown me..'.

In Liverpool on April 11 1971 CDG receives a visit from AC who regales him with the '..carve-up..' of the NICRA executive positions between the '..IRA and the CP..'. he meant the CP and the Republican Club representatives, some of whom may residually have considered themselves as the 'official IRA' but whose motivations were still political; the leading person in this context was Malachi McGurran. The 'primarily IRA' element had by now gone 'provisional', and would end up suppressing NICRA meetings. Joe Deighan and John McClelland, who were ex-CA stalwarts with long experience of democratic lobbying in the London environment, were sidelined. This reflected a 'Left-Republican convergence' in the worst sense; and it persisted later with organisations like the Resources Protection Campaign in the south: the heavy-handed Stalinist top-down tradition and the Fenian conspiratorial top-down tradition were the key converging philosophies, both being pathological, in a context where a broad movement of concerned citizens was needed. In such a situation there was no room for ordinary civil rights activists.

He pays a quick visit to Dublin and Belfast on April 24-26 1971; O'Riordan had been making speeches in Moscow, at the level of 'see how revolutionary we are', in competition with Kevin St (the 'provisionals') and Gardiner Place (the 'officials'). It seems I had been to Bodenstown for the unveiling of a new monument; Moss Twomey had spoken, and both groups had been there; there was an EEC aspect, and a Breton was there, who walked away when they played the Marseillaise. Kelleher went with him. CDG '...suggested that the EEC opposition send a delegation to London to get big money off the sugar planters. They are thinking of employing a man at £10 a week to work in Cathal's spare room. I told them I would advise him not to consider it. A £10 man would make no impression. Crotty has been at it full time for six months, living on his savings, but must soon stop..'.

There is an echo here of JJ; protected sugar from beet in France is a relic of the Napoleonic wars, defended by vested interests ('les bettraviers'); it is economic nonsense where tropical producers of cane sugar can produce under favourable conditions at low cost and need to export to develop their economies. CDG, like JJ, had in mind the overall iniquity of European protected agriculture, seen in global terms. The 'sugar planters' were of course the British sugar giants who depended on tropical sugar. These would have been strongly anti-EEC.

In Belfast on 26th he met with Hughie Moore and others, urging them to produce an anti-sectarian pamphlet. Joe Deighan has become more active, and Bobby Heatley has been making mincemeat of the PD. One gets an impression of a withdrawal from the Northern issues and a focusing on the EEC, supported by a general disillusion with the Left. Back in London on April 28 1971 it turns out that Fenner Brockway's Bill of Rights is again on the agenda. This occupies much time and space, culminating in a lengthy account of the lobby on May 5.

The objective of the lobby was to support the introduction of the Bill of Rights, which had been personally drafted by Greaves following discussions with Arthur Latham MP, Geoffrey Bing QC and Lord Brockway, as a private members Bill into both the House of Commons and the House of Lords on 12 May. In the House of Commons the Tories imposed a three-line whip to refuse it a second reading. This was granted in the Lords, but it was defeated on a second reading there in June. This was the pinnacle of CDG's achievement on the Bill of Rights and puts the other entries in context. I am indebted to AC for this addendum; I leave further exploration of the significance of this to the political historians.

I pass over the next few weeks, which are basically on CA business; then on July 3 1971 CDG devotes an entry to Bernadette Devlin: '..I thought her statement dignified enough, and of a piece with her rigid Trotskyist position..'. It never occurs to CDG to question why people become Trotskyist; with him it is a dismissive label. The pathologies arising from the Soviet revolution have bedevilled all attempts to develop a consistent Marxist position in Western Europe. This problem is still with us.

The entry on July 7 1971 after some references to the provisionals and the 'Callaghan gang' he comes up with the idea of making the CA conference educational, and moving in the direction of an 'Irish Democrat Supporters League' to strengthen the paper, and to get Trade Unions to join. This is a resurrection of his earlier idea, from 1946; he feels the need again to broaden the movement. The entry continues however as follows: '..today the devil Heath announced his EEC plan. The shadow of a West European Fascist Empire hovers over us, and I wonder how well the Celtic peoples, leave alone the working class of England, fare..'. Hostility to the EEC is evidently becoming an increasing factor in CDG's thinking, expressed in somewhat exaggerated wording.

There is a somewhat obscure entry on July 11 dealing with the 'mass meeting' planned some time back by the London 'NICRA', which by now has become the 'ICRA'. There were it seems meetings of various sorts in various places. He has an acid comment at the end: '...Edwina Stewart is in Bulgaria, Madge Davidson is in North Korea while the crisis breaks!..'. In other words he is scathing about how the CPI, the Irish section of the 'international movement' of aspirant post-Stalinist Marxism, has abandoned any attempt actually to give a sensible lead in the deteriorating situation in Ireland.

There is an entry on July 27 1971 where CDG gets a letter from CMacL; RHJ is now secretary of the WTS. He goes on to mention how he has heard from some Provisionals in Liverpool that AC was to be 'bumped off', as the 'Marxist brain' behind the Goulding faction. The effects of the split go from bad to worse, but this indicates that AC was by this time higher in their perception than RJ! Thus ends Volume 22 of the Greaves Journal.

Volume 23

On September 7 1971 CDG and AC went to Blackpool to the annual Trade Union Congress, primarily to lobby on the internment issue. On September 10 he came over to Dublin for the launch of the Mellows book, which took place in the Tailors Hall. This had been refurbished in the late 1960s and was a regular venue for political events with a historic republican flavour. On November 15 he attends the annual congress of the CPGB; he comments adversely on the way the Irish fraternal delegates perform, Betty Sinclair being upstaged, to her chagrin. On November 28 he reports critically on an event involving Bowes Egan at the conference of the Anti-Internment League.

On December 31 1971 CDG notes the death of one Jack McCabe '..the man from Shercock..'; he decides to give him an obituary in the Democrat, though his evaluation of him in the journal is somewhat candid: '..(a few years ago) I found him completely out of sympathy with CG, and he had a number of young lads about the place, who also I think were not in the Goulding IRA. In other words the split was developing for years. McCabe was as near a thing to a gunman I ever met. He had sharp beady eyes and I have not the slightest doubt he could shoot a man in cold blood. He had no imagination..'.

Then on January 7 1972 in London he has a visit from Brian Farrington, on his way from Paris to Aberdeen, who informs him how the PCF has been recruiting many of the students who fell into the 'trotsky-fascist trap in 1968', and went on to make shrewd comments on the 'international socialists': '..some of them are active in a most dedicated way but there is always a core of cynicism. He told me that RHWJ was not doing much in politics. I said I considered that a mercy..'.

It seems I was totally in the doghouse as far as CDG is concerned! The question at this point begins to arise whether the CDG journals are still a relevant source. I think they remain so for as long as CDG is the main independent external Marxist influence on Ireland. He became increasingly decoupled from the CPGB, as the latter floundered in post-Stalinist confusion, along with the 'international movement'. His primary contact in Ireland increasingly was AC. Insofar as I was active in the 1970s it was in loose association with campaigns initiated by AC, sometimes in critical mode.

My own resignation from the movement comes in for comment on January 18 1972: '..a phone call from AC: apparently RHWJ is basking in the publicity that has followed his resignation from the republican movement and has never felt so good in his life. He is like "Toad of Toad Hall"..'.

This I think is an exaggeration. I was in demand for interviews mostly from British papers, who were looking for sensation. I didn't give them any, and they soon tired of it. I stressed that the military dimension had been introduced by the RUC and the B-Specials in August 1969, that it was basically a civil rights issue, and that the republican response was a consequence of this provocation being successful, with reversion to the culture which we had tried to reform. I made no impact on the British journalists' military mind-set.

There is an entry on February 16 1972 where CDG encounters Joe Cooper, who '..told me that the Civil Rights Movement was initiated by the Belfast Trades Council. That, I said, I knew. "But we were completely brushed aside" he said. And that also is true, for while we (that is SR and I) brought in the republicans to stop the NILP, we had scarcely bargained for the take-over. And we might have told Cooper that the earliest stages were initiated by ourselves, and that there was no need to brush us aside as it was never acknowledged, and that if we had been acknowledged the subsequent balance might have been more to their liking..'.

The context was Joe Cooper from the Belfast Trades Council over in London to address the London Trades Council. In this context CDG I think uses 'ourselves' to mean the Connolly Association, and to be thinking of the early pre-NICRA initiative.

There is a sequel to the foregoing on February 26 in conversation with SR '...we touched on the reasons behind the Aldershot explosion. He said he had no doubt it was rivalry with the 'provisionals'. His brother Tom Redmond had telephoned on some family matter, and had said in passing that whereas formerly the provisional wing was based on the countryside, now its largest group was in Ballyfermot, a Dublin working-class suburb. So the 'officials' need martyrs. And clearly RHWJ is not going to be one of them. And again one reflects on Cooper's words "we were brushed aside", for while they remain "aside" there is small hope for the others. I doubt if in the whole course of history such a pack of nincompoops came to the top.... possibly Cathal Goulding was over-ruled, since the latest policy was contrary to his pronouncements... the deep dread of communism which affects the petite-bourgeoisie..'.

Here CDG seems to be hanging on to his earlier positive opinion of CG, in what is a difficult and perhaps misleading entry. In fact the Aldershot bomb was Goulding's, and it represented on his part a monumental blunder, showing up his basic lack of political clout, despite the earlier glimmerings. The fact that he mentions me in passing in this context suggests a grudging admission that I had for once done the right thing. I had in fact gone to Goulding after Bloody Sunday, and attempted to warn him against any counter-productive response, but to no avail.

We get comments on the suspension of Stormont on March 24 1972: ...the vast commemorative chorus, with orchestra, praising Mr Heath's courage, wisdom, skillful daring, ingenuity and common sense. Obviously this is the end of an era. The Unionist monopoly is broken, but not by the forces of democracy, but by the forces of the EEC. I imagine the fools will run in all directions now.. the great thing is to keep up the pressure for civil rights..'. The side-swipe at the EEC in this context is comprehensible in terms of the perception of the EEC as the Act of Greater Union; Heath being of course engaged in bringing Britain in.

There is however only a small comment in passing on the Irish EEC referendum on May 12 1972: '..It seems that AC's efforts have not borne the fruit he would have wished; very much the reverse..'. CDG goes on then about problems on the railways in the north-east; one gets a sense that he is temporarily decoupling from immediate Irish concerns. On June 12 we get a reflective entry on what should he write next. There has been little direct contact with Ireland in this Volume 23 which ends on June 30 1972, with comments on his work in his Liverpool garden.

Volume 24

This was pure begrudgery. If I had not written something others would have invented it. The amount paid was buttons. I had resigned quietly, on a friendly basis with CG and TMacG; the press got hold of it some weeks later and hyped it. 'Desertion' indeed! I had resigned on principle when it became clear that CG had broken the contract on the basis of which he had recruited me, and reverted to militarist mode. This was the Greaves Dublin gossip network at its worst.

There is a follow-up on July 7 1972 with CDG in Dublin; CMacL regales CDG with the present writer's '..quarrel with AC, who now regards him with contempt and unfortunately shows it. It seems that RHJ thought that the Wolfe Tone Society (of which he is the secretary) was being substituted by the EEC defence committee for the greater glory of AC..'. There was said to be a '..stand-up row..' and that I was threatening to '..raise it on the broad committee, thus threatening to involve the many people new to politics who had flocked to the anti-EEC standard..'.

There certainly was a difference of opinion, but I think Cathal exaggerated it. I was concerned to keep the all-Ireland aspect alive, with an eye on the North, seeking a political alternative to the then acute Provisional campaign. AC was keen to keep the priority actions pointed at the problem of minimising EEC influence post-referendum. The 'Defence Campaign' was later to become the Sovereignty Movement, which was led by AC, who some time later quite suddenly turned it in the direction of the Northern question, to the mystification of the many anti-EEC supporters who had remained with it; some of these as a result were lost. This difference of opinion reflected a real dilemma, but in retrospect, after the referendum defeat, was not the North in fact the key issue? The Sovereignty Movement achieved little by way of rearguard actions against the EEC, and indeed much of the Brussels legislation was perceived as benign. The EEC battle proved to be unwinnable, but we had the seeds of the Good Friday Agreement in the Bill of Rights. So, in retrospect, who was right?

This strain persists into August; on the 9th he records an event in Cathal's where it would seem that I am being frozen out, and CDG retires in a huff. He then comments insensitively on August 11 on our transitional family arrangements, which he observes from a distance, our house being two doors to the west of McLiam's house. It is indeed a bad period.

He goes on to comment on a meeting in Buswell's Hotel, an ill-attended press conference, with Derry Kelleher and May Hayes involved; Kelleher had published a book with Connolly extracts, promoting Marxism as the philosophy of the 'legitimate republican movement' and attacking the provisionals. Kelleher assures him that Jackson's book is now essential reading among the 'officials'. The chairman of the meeting then drove CDG to Cathal's house, conveying to him that but for Kelleher he would have been second in command to Sean Stephenson. Later he comments on the Wolfe Tone Society internal situation, which is divisive, Uinsean Mac Eoin being 'crypto-provisional', and aspiring to the secretaryship; some rump committee meeting had been discussing the SDLP and Whitelaw.

The entries continue mostly on internal CA business until October 21 1972 when there is a mention of CDG not being able to find a letter from the present writer about the WTS meeting in Monaghan. In this, the present writer had invited CDG to contribute a paper to a conference and AGM, in the Nuremore Hotel, near Carrickmacross, and this in fact constituted an olive branch. CDG makes a complex story about this letter, not receiving it, RJ being told that CDG was not contactable, phone-calls to Dublin, 'canary-fits', the conclusion of which is for CDG to blame the present writer for 'messing'.

In retrospect it looks as if the present writer was trying to pull together the agenda for the projected WTS conference, and some people working in the undergrowth were trying to prevent his communicating with CDG, under the impression that the present writer was a person from whose attentions CDG was to be defended. CDG may in fact have conveyed this impression to his followers, given his recent attitudes. In the end he must have got the letter, because the conference took place, and CDG contributed a paper, which was subsequently published. We see more about this below.

The November 1972 Wolfe Tone Society Conference

My own recollection of that conversation was that he was affable, and talked at length about his O'Casey project. The fact that he left no record of the content of the conference however suggests that he discounted it, and had written off the WTS and its possible role on Northern issues. Yet he went, and delivered his paper, which I subsequently persuaded him to publish in Atlantis, #5, April 1973, in a focused issue ('the New Ireland'), along with papers from myself, Jack Bennett, Matt Merrigan, John Horgan and others, including Desmond Fennell. Atlantis was edited by Seamus Deane; the co-editor for this issue was John Dillon; the editorial board had Michael Gill, Derek Mahon, Augustine Martin and Hugh Maxton. My own paper was entitled 'The New Ireland: Utopian or Scientific?' and CDG's was entitled 'England's Responsibility for the Crisis in Ireland'.

CDG records that on November 27-29 1972 he wrote his Atlantis article, based on his WTS conference contribution, and sent it off to RHWJ.

There is an entry on December 17: '..I heard on the midday news that an "Irish Civil Rights Association" has been started by the Provisionals in Dublin. Needless to say BDv Bernadette Devlin is one of the sponsors and (of all people) David Thornley. I remember him as a fresh postgraduate student sitting opposite me in the National Library while I was preparing my Life of Connolly. Now I am told he is drunken, gross, cynical, and what is more, silly. How do these things happen? The Labour Party whose discipline would crack like a whip if anybody touched communism, makes no objection to one of its TDs linking with the provisionals though Cruise O'Brien regards them as the worst thing ever spawned in Ireland..'. There is on January 10 1973 a sequel to the Wolfe Tone conference recorded by CDG. AC had missed the event, being presumably elsewhere engaged on Sovereignty business, and not wishing to support WTS initiatives, of which he visibly disapproved. When he saw Jack Bennett's paper, which he did by chance, he got the idea of publishing a selection of the WTS papers as from the Sovereignty Movement, giving out that he was unaware of the WTS intention to publish proceedings. Cathal on this occasion was inclined to blame AC for bringing '..grist to Roy's mill..'.

This was indeed a gross episode of intellectual hi-jacking of the proceedings of the conference of one organisation by another, confirming my impression picked up on the previous July 7 (see above). It provided the focus for the switch of attention of the Irish Sovereignty Movement from the EEC to the North, which occurred subsequently, over which the ISM lost many members.

CDG has an entry on January 27 1973 based on a visit from John McClelland: the NICRA executive has not met for months, and Edwina Stewart '..pleases herself..'. There is no real policy, though Joe Deighan still thinks it is the Bill of Rights. AC was said to have washed his hands of the North, referring to "bumbling incompetence". Secret meetings between the CPI and the Officials had included the PD, and it was from this that the "assembly of peoples' organisations" concept had been derived. '..As for the Republicans, the officials exist, but the provisionals rule the roost. No political work or explanation is undertaken..'. A further entry on February 18 records Betty Sinclair's opinion that at the coming weekend's conference the republicans would swamp the committee. Their journal however had nothing on civil rights.

There is a sequel on March 9 1973 when AC visits CDG in Liverpool: the republicans had indeed packed the NICRA committee. They also want to oust Madge Davidson from her full-time position, and to replace Anne Hope as treasurer. Micheal O'Riordan is to see Cathal Goulding about it, and try to get "orders" through to reverse it. The NICRA is said to have money.

We have here again the spectacle of two top-down centralist organisations, the CPI and the Official Republicans, fighting for control of a supposedly broad-based body, though at the top they are supposedly collaborating.

Volume 24 of the CDG Journal ends on May 31 1973 with a page devoted to the doings of one B...., who had been earlier, in the late 1940s and early 1950s, associated with the Peace Movement, and had travelled widely to conferences etc in Eastern Europe. He occurred in Dublin at about this time; he wanted to pick up contacts; it seems I had met him in a pub and he had confided in me his sexual orientation; I remember him also on this occasion exuding a slightly sinister air, insinuating that he was working for the GDR, and that there were financial implications etc, but CDG does not pick up on this. CDG's immediate reaction was to label him as a 'butterfly' and advise his CA people to have nothing to do with him if he were to occur in London. This episode illustrates further the pathology and decline of the integrity of the 'international movement' of post-Stalin Marxism.

Volume 25

On June 20 1973 Anthony Coughlan (AC) turns up in Liverpool, with a cheque for £750 from Con Lehane, with talk of more to come. Micheal O'Riordan is to address a joint CP/SF weekend school at the end of July. Sean Redmond is in Dublin looking for a job. AC went on the Birmingham on June 22, where he was addressing a meeting.

On June 27 there is mention of his doing a preface and postscript for the Russian translation of his 'Irish Crisis'. Keeping the international movement up to date in their understanding of the Irish situation was obviously taken seriously and given priority. Then on July 12 there is a letter from SBd (Stella Bond) in Dublin to the effect that 1. Sean Redmond has got his job in Dublin and starts on August 20, 2. EMz (Edwina Menzies) is in Hyde Park with Stallard next Sunday, the Highgate 'NICRA' are arranging it and did not warn us... 4. the school in Dublin CDG was to have attended on July 29 is cancelled, 5. AC cannot act as tutor at ours. '..And all this going on and our telephone cut off..'. The London NICRA (now called ICRA) meeting took place on July 15 in Hyde Park, with EMz (Edwina Menzies) but without Bowes Egan who had been billed. There were about 250 there.

During August 1973 there are mentions of AC, Dalton Kelly and Noel Harris on 4th, the context being obscure, but perhaps to do with meetings in England on NI issues. On August 7 CDG is apparently in Dublin, where there is the following entry relating to an assembly in CMacL's house:

"...In the evening came AC with a French friend on his way to Galway, Micheal O Loingsigh, RHWJ and some others, including a young Oxford don who has 'heard of' the CA but 'knows' Mick Leahy - that gentleman being the principal stumbling block in Oxford, and I suspect little more than a rogue. RHWJ incidentally is very much subdued, now that he no longer has to carry the future of Ireland on his shoulders, though he still cannot resist discrediting things by writing letters to the paper in support of them, still there are worse than he.. I believe he has re-joined the CP...".

On August 29 1973 CDG records a meeting of the PC (Political Committee of the CPGB) which he attended in the expectation that the Irish CP would be there, but they failed to turn up. The meeting is inconclusive, but there emerges the possibility of an international womens' delegation, via the WILPF network (Womens International League for Peace and Freedom); there is mention of a talk with one Connie Siefert, and a 'half-hearted offer' to participate. The effectiveness of these various manifestations of the 'international movement' is becoming increasingly open to question. CDG's conclusion, relating to the women in Armagh jail, is to proceed without them, get a lawyer etc.

On August 1 1973 CDG records the problems encountered in re-publishing TA Jackson's 'Ireland Her Own'; there is talk of the GDR firm 'Seven Seas' taking it up, but they returned it unopened; the policy apparently is to publish books about Germany in English. Occasionally they 'help struggling Parties' but the British Party was held not to be struggling enough. In this volume (25) the entries tend to get longer, suggesting that the worsening situation in Ireland has reduced the opportunities for political action, and CDG has more time to reflect. Entries of direct interest to the current project are quite rare. There is a brief encounter on October 20 with JS (Jimmy Stewart) who is over from Belfast addressing a meeting; he is apparently unable to answer the question 'what do you want us to do?'... Then on December 15 there is a reference to a visit by AC who has been to Belfast, where the CPI is apparently floundering between the 'officials' and the 'provisionals'; I can't discern any clear outline of the issues or positions.

On January 10 1974 CDG takes the boat at Holyhead, recording an encounter with a policeman in the context. He stays as usual with Cathal MacLiam, attends a party in Dalton Kelly's place, meeting with Asmal, SR, AC, and one James Connolly who it seems is the President of the 'Hist' in TCD. SR was approving of the WTS people, and objecting to Carmody's attack on Jack Bennett in the Socialist Review. He had lunch on January 14 with AC and George Gilmore, who regaled him with his experience addressing some Indians in London in the 1930s, along with Charlie Donnelly, whom he categorised as an ultra-leftist, and whose hero was Trotsky. The Indians held that it would not be wise for Britain to withdraw until it was certain that India would be socialist. Note the pervasive nature of the USSR model for the transformation of an empire into a socialist state!. He notes briefly that the present writer looked in for a while on the evening of January 16, without comment. At this time I was developing the techno-economic consultancy in TCD on the fringe of the Statistics Department, and was not active politically, though nominally with the CPI. I was actually scratching around at the problem of making an all-Ireland economic model, at some suitable level of simplified abstraction, using the TCD computer.

On January 17 CDG discovers that Daisy McMacken had taught Dalton Kelly his Russian; she is still alive and living in Grafton St. So he looks in on her; he had last seen her in circa 1949 when in Dublin with Jimmy Shields addressing an IWL school. She had married one Breslin who had started a Young Communist League in the early 1920s, and then settled in Russia, losing touch. CDG was uncertain what had happened to Breslin. Later their daughter went to Russia, post-USSR, to try to track down her father's disappearance, and came up with a tragic saga of Stalinist oppression. I always marvelled at how Daisy remained loyal to the movement, despite her suspicions of what went on.

On January 22 1974 CDG goes to Westminster, calling out AW Stallard MP who had been to Long Kesh to visit Gusty Spence and the loyalist prisoners. They were getting political treatment, and Stallard was waging a campaign to have Irish prisoners in Britain treated equally, with return to the 6 counties. He was also taking up the harassment of NICRA. Then on January 24 CDG records a phone conversation with Betty Sinclair, in which it emerges that John McClelland is no longer with the NICRA Committee, and has 'resigned from West Belfast'. He had had a row, but Betty was not communicative as to the details. We have here indications of tensions and intrigues, but no insight into what was going on.

On March 22 1974 CDG has a chance encounter on the train from Liverpool to London with Madge Davidson, a Belfast CPI activist, dedicated to support of the NICRA and to making the effort to develop links with the official republicans, whose arrogance however she was finding offensive. Her role model was Betty Sinclair. She was interested in literature and archaeology, and regretted that her Protestant education had deprived her of Irish history, which she had discovered late in life.

Volume 25 ends on March 31 1974. Clearly the Provisional campaign is putting a damper on most areas of creative political activity.

Volume 26

May 1 1974: CDG had lunch with AC who shows him a letter on 'the Sunningdale fraud' which he had got 19 Fianna Fail TDs to sign. The next day he goes to Belfast, where he is to deliver a lecture to the Trades Council. Joe Cooper took the chair, and Joan O'Connell of the Irish TUC came up from Dublin. There are 'two-nationists' there who asked silly questions. He was complimented in the vote of thanks as having 'brought Connolly back to life'. There are indications of intrigue to exclude people like John McClelland and Joe Deighan from involvement with the NICRA, on grounds of their Connolly Association background. Edwina and Jimmy Stewart are said to be attempting to get the CPGB to do more for the Irish situation, but are avoiding the CA which is the prime instrument in that context. On the whole he describes a dismal scene; pubs are being blown up in the background; Betty Sinclair remains CDG's prime contact.

On May 14 CDG gets a phone-call from NICRA to the effect that relations have improved since Madge Davidson's visit; Edwina Stewart can't speak on the 20th; they were proposing to replace her with a republican. There is however no subsequent reference to a meeting on the 20th.

On June 2 1974 CDG notes the death of Jim Prendergast, one of the International Brigade veterans, who had been supportive of the left-sectarian element in the CPGB opposed to what CDG was doing. CDG: '..."an accident in the home". In other words he was drunk..'. On June 9 he picks up that 'half Dublin' came over for the funeral, also Betty Sinclair; there was a wake in Joe Monks' house. He has acid comments. He picks up Betty and brings her to address a CA meeting in Oxford. On June 15 he attends a meeting in Manchester which indicates the confusion of CPGB Irish policy.

Om July 5 AC arrived with Micheal O Loingsigh, on their way to a meeting in Oxford. They would have been representing the Irish Sovereignty Movement, which was the follow-up from the Common Market Defence Campaign. They regaled CDG with their take on the Dublin news, along the lines that Cathal Goulding and Tomas Mac Giolla were 'sound enough' but that 'official Sinn Fein' was riddled with 'two-nations theorists' who joined SF when they left the Labour party. Justin Keating is said to be a disgrace. The Dublin 'provisionals' have lost control over Belfast. AC was surprised at the invitation to Oxford, and CDG wonders if Fianna Fail has engineered it.

There is an entry on July 8 which indicates that CDG had been dropped as a reviewer of Irish-related material by R Palme Dutt's Labour Monthly but had got back into favour with a review of the Roots of Unionism. He blamed Betty Sinclair for his being dropped; she had been arguing for people with identifiably English background to get into analysis of Irish issues, a well-meaning position, but inadvertently destructive to CDG's role. Thus the incomprehension of the Irish question by the leading CPGB people keeps showing up.

On July 18 1974 there is an entry in which Gerry Curran brings feedback from the local CP to the effect that the CA is in disrepute for 'raising the question of Partition' which is said to be 'divisive'. CDG goes on to attribute this to the Stewarts' influence from the CPNI; they are said to be '...as Unionist as ever, what RHJ once described as "Orange Communists", though they would indignantly repudiate it..'. The next day he records via AC and MOL that MOR is considering dropping their alliance with the 'officials' because the latter were dropping anti-partition: '..people like CG and TG might not be pleased but that all the Trotskies who had abandoned the Labour Party had flooded into Sinn Fein..'.

There is mention of a 'summer school' on August 25-26 1974 which seems to have been located in London. There is mention of Oliver Snoddy, Terence McCaughey, Daltun O Ceallaigh (now no longer Dalton Kelly), and the appearance of Alison Morton, Alan Morton's daughter. The Celtic League was there in force. The theme must have been Celtic Studies. CDG took an avuncular interest in Alison, his best friend's daughter, who was seeking to do Celtic Studies in Dublin but was being blocked by her academic supervisor, and she had earlier bad health. Alison later in the decade worked as my secretary in the Industrial Liaison Office in TCD.

During most of this year CDG is primarily engaged in his Connolly Association work, political developments within Ireland being stunted by the provisional campaign. The few nuggets of insight into the Irish scene are all the more valuable for their rarity.

November 11 1974: It seems Andy Barr has declined to speak at a meeting on 'somewhat flimsy grounds'. CDG speaks '...to Betty Sinclair about the possibility of getting Micheal O'Riordan to persuade him. She thought it the best plan, though in Liverpool she had told me that there is antagonism to MOR in Dublin, centred on Carmody and Sam Nolan. They are still crying over Czechoslovakia.... another thing ESi told me while we were travelling is that she is anxious to give up the secretaryship of the BTC in order to write a book about Civil Rights. Seemingly she has a voluminous diary..'.

This if true is most important because the Linen Hall library NICRA archive is totally deficient about the early days of NICRA, and her diary if it can be found would be a significant source. The CPI archive, if it is any good, should have it, and we await access to this with interest. At the time of writing I understand that it is in process of being catalogued by one Anne Matthews, in the context of a postgraduate historical project.

CDG visits Dublin on December 15 - 18 1974 for a meeting between the CPI and CPGB, held in the office of Noel Harris, then an ASTMS union official. While there he stocks up on stuff relating to Irish music, including a copy of Bunting, which was presented him as a Christmas present by CMacL and other members of the Dublin contact-network. The meeting considered issuing a joint statement between the CPI and the CPGB calling for the 'declaration of intent to withdraw', but Gollan refused to support it, thus stabbing Greaves in the back, as he had been telling his Dublin support group that they would. He had been arguing that Section 6 of the Bill of Rights should become part of the Constitution of the Six Counties, thus providing for the possibility of merger of government services in certain sectors (for example, and all-Ireland Department of Agriculture, to control animal diseases)..

This is a prescient preview, on the part of CDG, of what has in the end emerged under the Good Friday Agreement, showing a recognition of the possibility of a transitional procedure with the Six Counties still in existence, though with a nascent all-Ireland interface. The notion of a North-South link was in the original Bill of Rights that CDG drafted and which was introduced to the House of Common in May 1971. It totally prefigures the GFA.

This diary entry, over 2 pages, supports my increasing perception that CDG is closer to the CPI than to the CPGB, and the relevance of the 'international movement' in the context is increasingly being called into question. Gollan's opposition was based on not wanting to make any stipulation for a six county government, because they did not believe there should be any such thing, a basically ultra-leftist doctrinaire position in the context.

On January 2 1975 the window of opportunity presented by the Provisional IRA ceasefire presents itself. CDG is on the phone to MOR who is said to be seeing Andy Barr (then an influential Belfast trade unionist), Paddy Devlin (left-SDLP) and MM (Micheal Mullin the ITGWU leader). There is talk of their coming over for a meeting. The key issue is to set a date for the ending of internment. The possibility of acceptance of the 'declaration of intent' by the Provisionals is being explored. Joe Deighan on the phone is less optimistic; even if less is on offer, he hopes they will accept, as political life is non-existent. '..If the truce becomes permanent the CA must undertake a swift and radical re-direction of its work..'.

The above false dawn came and went. On March 9 1975 CDG records an encounter with Betty Sinclair in which she updates him on the growing tension between George Jeffares, Sam Nolan and Paddy Carmody on the one hand, and Micheal O'Riordan on the other, still on the issue of Czechoslovakia, which has become like a personal feud.

In Britain there is tension between the NCCL and the CA which he describes on March 13; from what I can make out, the NCCL had been cultivating the loyalists, and there was talk of setting up an NCCL office in Belfast, it being increasingly understood that the NICRA was regarded as a republican front. Betty Sinclair to her credit resists this: '..we don't want a Protestant and a Catholic Civil Rights movement..'. CDG: '...the NCCL is trying to manoeuvre into the typical English position, of trying to balance between two camps. No wonder they applied for a subsidy from the Home Office last year..'.

CDG visited Dublin on March 22 1975 to attend the CPI congress, which took place in Liberty Hall. He exuded approval of Micheal O'Riordan's keynote speech, which reiterated his hard-line pro-USSR position on Czechoslovakia, and noted 'impassioned speeches' against this by Jeffares and Carmody. Support for the 'declaration of intent' was on the resolution. There were some 120 people there. He noted that '..they had a number of resolutions and adopted the somewhat unusual procedure of debating them one after the other and voting on the whole lot tomorrow..'. I too had noted this, being present, and marked it down as another piece of Stalinist procedural pathology; voting after the debate has been forgotten encourages machine-like voting in support of the leadership's position on each issue. He seemed optimistic about the prospects: '...many new recruits and promising young people... new branches springing up all over the country, thanks to their having the right policy..'. MOR in the closing session paid a warm tribute to CDG for his '..40 years stand for Irish independence in Britain..'.

Back in London there is ongoing dispute with the NCCL over the NI scene, attitude to the CA, visits to Long Kesh etc, indicating that the British political establishment is as confused as ever about what to do about Ireland. The detail of this ongoing struggle within Britain is for CDG's biographer. A key issue apparently is the idea that the NCCL is essentially 'of the Left' rather than a broad-based civil liberties movement. Volume 26 comes to an end on April 30 1975.

Volume 27

There is a curious entry on June 2 which suggests pique; AC arrived in the afternoon, and they discuss a phone-call CDG had received from Janice Williams, then Secretary of the Wolfe Tone Society, asking him to speak at a meeting. The reference to JW is disparaging, in accordance with CDG's practice of being dismissive of any woman taking a political initiative. It seems they had sought permission to reprint his Marx House pamphlet on the national question, but now wanted to print an edited version of a tape recording of the talk which he was invited to give. This he declined to have anything to do with, writing to CMacL to that effect. AC's comment 'more of Roy's nonsense'.

Here was the WTS trying to rescue Connolly from the discrediting process which he has identified in his visit a couple of weeks previously, offering him a platform to do so, and he dismisses it, under AC's influence, in the context of the latter's ongoing policy of trying to build up the Irish Sovereignty Movement and reducing the influence of the Wolfe Tone Society. The concept of a broad-based all-Ireland national movement rooted in the Connolly vision was being sacrificed in favour of a narrow defence of 26-county sovereignty in face of the perceived threat from the EEC.

On a subsequent visit to Dublin on July 6 1975 CDG has a further dismissive encounter with Janice on the question of speaking to the WTS, more of 'RJ's nonsense'; he picks up that the sales of the Irish Socialist had fallen by a third as a result of the IRSP split; she was suggesting a change of name (which he attributed to me). CMacL had refused to go to Bodenstown, there being now 4 separate commemorations. He also encounters Seamus O Tuathail and Daltun O Ceallaigh. His comments are mostly sour. Then on July 8 over lunch with MO'R and AC they discuss the possibility of an Anglo-Irish trade union liaison committee. AC is talking about writing the history of the CA, and CDG urges getting academic sponsorship.

CDG has in the end come around to seeing the importance of utilising the research potential of the academic system, a new departure for him; hitherto he has always disparaged it and discounted the utility of any of the people likely to be involved.

CDG and AC go to Cork to attend the ICTU conference on July 9 1975) and are made welcome by Donal Nevin and others; they meet Betty Sinclair, who leaves to visit the oil refinery. The idea of CDG writing the history of the ITGWU is discussed. There is talk of Betty 'going abroad' and a perceived need to find a job for her at home.

The Provisional campaign is in full swing and little constructive politics is feasible; research and taking stock is on the agenda; building up resources for subsequent political opportunities is all that can be done.

Later on July 29 1975 CDG visits Belfast where there is a Belfast - Dublin - London meeting on the CP network seeking to come up with an agreed policy on the Bill of Rights for implementation via Britain. There is evidence of disagreement and tension; CDG drafts a memorandum; he is disparaging of the NICRA attempt to upstage the CA's work with Brockway's Bill.

CDG concentrates on CA work in Britain until November 17 1975 when he notes that he heard the Irish debate at the Party Congress: '...the important thing was that it took place at all..' and the things he had advised were put in. The Czechoslovak issue is still smouldering and absorbing energy. Then on November 27 he visits Dublin, and talks with MO'R on matters relating to publications and proofing. There is evidence of inter-party tension. Later he sees Maire Comerford, who hints at the possibility of arbitration in the North. Then he sees Tomas Mac Giolla; he has met him earlier at an ISM meeting, and arranged to meet later; CDG remarks critically about Trotskyite influence, and Fanon, with the 'IRA as the vanguard of the revolutionary proletariat', which concept he attributes to the present writer. He picks up later from Sean Nolan that their current policy is to '..sweep away small firms and small businesses in order to increase the numbers of the proletariat..', which of course he identifies as the nonsense it is.

Never at any stage was I identifying the IRA with the 'vanguard of the proletariat'; my vision was to transform the movement into one which would be primarily political, and represent the common interest of workers, working managers, owner-managers and self-employed, conceived consciously as a class alliance around common class interests in a national liberation context, and in that sense being basically Marxist. CDG always dismissed this as 'making the revolution without the workers' and as 'petty-bourgeois', the latter being a dismissive label. CDG was of course himself petty-bourgeois, and most of the working class has petty-bourgeois aspirations, aspiring to own its own business. His dismissal of his own roots, and his failure to recognise the unrealistic nature of the aspiration to working-class purity, was a barrier to his understanding of the Irish situation. Yet he had positive insights, like (on November 29) '...the Irish proletariat is not revolutionary at all, and does not recognise any such vanguard..'! Of course! This was precisely the reason that I had attempted to develop the broad-based class alliance concept, on rational grounds, avoiding jargon labels like 'revolutionary vanguard', or indeed 'proletariat'. This sort of language however crept into the 'official Sinn Fein' after I had resigned, under the influence of ultra-leftist elements who joined, filling the intellectual vacuum. My resignation had been caused by the re-assertion of the militarist culture in the movement, perceived as being the way to compete with the 'provisionals'.

CDG does research into the Casement diaries on this occasion in Dublin; a 'Casement Committee' is set up, at a meeting in AC's office on December 1 1975. The target is a commemoration in 1976. Then on December 2 he picks up from Michael Mullin that a committee has been set up to 'work with him' on the ITGWU history. At this he sees red lights, remembering Dorothy Macardle and De Valera. He went on to draft a letter about protecting the professional independence of the author. He wanted to finish the O'Casey book first. He returns to Liverpool on December 6.

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