ALL AT S.E.A....... !A light-hearted look at the 'Single European Act' legislation .
From 'The Very End' column , 'New Hibernia' magazine , May 1987.
By Patrick Murphy.
Throughout the country families were immediately divided on the issue : some urged ' Vote Yes On Thursday' while others put up posters reading ' Vote No On Thursday' . Interviewed on RTE television last night , Thursday said that it thought it was a great day for Ireland and it felt honoured that a referendum should be held on it .
But the question remains : is Thursday in breach of the State Constitution ? In a special interview with the 'Irish Press' newspaper yesterday , former State President Eamon de Valera said that he was dead and that he could be of no further assistance . But in an exclusive opinion poll commissioned by this magazine we can reveal exactly what the electorate is thinking - firstly , a man in County Clare who would not give his name thinks that Kerry will never win another all-Ireland match and there is a woman in Limerick who thinks that the weather is not bad for this time of year .
When asked what they think on Thursday , ninty-seven per cent replied that it is generally the same as they think during the rest of the week : this shows that thinking is in breach of the Constitution and the Government may now have to hold a referendum on thinking in which the country will be asked what it thinks .......
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BILLY WRIGHT , LOYALIST VOLUNTEER FORCE . " I have been prepared to die for long many a year . I don't wish to die , but at the end of the day no one will force their opinion down my throat . No one . "
On August 29 , 1996 , shortly before the 'Combined Loyalist Military Command's' death threat against him expired , EMER WOODFUL interviewed LVF leader BILLY WRIGHT in his Portadown home .......
From 'MAGILL' magazine , February 1998 .
Emer Woodful : " Moving to Drumcree - what did you say to David Trimble there ? "
Billy Wright : " Very little . David Trimble asked me to use my influence , if I had any , to make sure there was no violence . And what little influence I had , I tried to use . But such was the gravity of the situation , and the depth of the feeling of the unionist people , that my voice was rendered useless . "
Emer Woodful : " You're not in the Orange Order , so what were you doing there ? "
Billy Wright : " Well , how dare you , dear , how dare you ! I live here , my family are buried in Drumcree . I'll go to Drumcree Church , and I will not let you , I will not let any nationalist tell me where I can or cannot go , or that I cannot speak to my MP , at a time when your government is speaking to the IRA or its representatives , or when John Hume can talk to Gerry Adams , and you would condemn me or your community would condemn me for talking to my local MP ! What is is that you want me to be denied of ? "
Emer Woodful : " What I'm saying is there was quite a lot of surprise in Britain as well that you were talking to David Trimble . "
Billy Wright : " What surprise ? I'm not allowed to talk to my local MP ? I'm not allowed to walk to a church that I have been going to for years ? What form of life is it that you would like to see imposed upon people from the unionist community ? "
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LIAM MELLOWS AND THE IRISH CIVIL WAR .......This is the bulk of a public lecture given at University College , Galway , by Sinn Fein Ard Comhairle member and Deputy General Secretary of the 'Local Government and Public Services Union' , Phil Flynn , on December 8th 1982 , the 60th Anniversary of the Free State's execution of Liam Mellows .
First published in 'IRIS' magazine , March 1983 .
In 1921 , Ireland could have achieved either an independent workers state or a dependent bourgeois state - either a workers' Republic or a capitalist neo-colony . A capitalist state could not be independent since Irish capitalism did not have within itself the potential to establish itself as a capitalism independent of British imperialist capitalism .
Irish capitalism could have become independent of British imperialism only by becoming imperialist itself ; but the development of Irish capitalism had been retarded for so long by a stronger British capitalism that it had become incapable of ever reaching 'maturity' . It was pathetically weak against full-blown British imperialism ; it was weak even against its own working class , and could survive only as the agent of British imperialist capital against Irish labour .
A workers' State would have to be independent since British imperialism would not tolerate it on any terms : it could only establish itself against the total opposition of British imperialism . Britain gained definite advantages from the Treaty of Surrender - if it came to it she could tolerate the political unity and independence of Ireland as a capitalist state since she would have the ruling class under her thumb economically , as Churchill pointed out at the time . But a workers' State in Ireland would be a challenge to the existence of British imperialism which would necessarily lead to the destruction of one or the other of them .......
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