FIANNA FAIL - THE MASK OF DE VALERA ....... From 'AP/RN' , August 10th , 1989 .
(No 'By-Line')
In July 1927 a General Election was called and Fianna Fail won 44 seats to Cosgrave's 47 : de Valera's policy was not to enter the Free State parliament until the Oath of Allegiance to the British monarch was removed .
Then in July 1927 , Kevin O' Higgins was assassinated and the Free State government passed a law which would force future Leinster House candidates to swear on their nomination that they would take the Oath of Allegiance : in August 1927 , de Valera led the Fianna Fail elected representatives , many of them with revolvers in their pockets , into Leinster House and signed the Oath of Allegiance document .
A second General Election was held in September 1927 and Fianna Fail increased its vote , winning 57 seats : the Sinn Fein party from which de Valera had split was virtually wiped out and ceased to be a relevant political force . De Valera's departure from Sinn Fein by no means meant that he was irrevocably split from the IRA which remained independent of both parties . The relationship between Fianna Fail and the IRA in these years was very close ; their members campaigned in common against the repression of the Cosgrave regime whose legitimacy they did not recognise . Indeed - de Valera was , then , full of praise for the IRA .......
(MORE LATER).
1913 : 75 YEARS AFTER THE LOCK-OUT .......From 'Liberty News' , March/April 1988 .
(No 'By-Line' )
The new 'documents' are the beliefs in privatisation , deregulation , public expenditure cuts and increasing appeals to individualism . Trade union values are being dismissed as "...old fashioned.. " or "...belonging to the nineteenth century.. " but in fact they were never more necessary if we are to win the struggle for control of our destinies and management of our own economic , social and political affairs .
The lessons are that we must learn from 1913's solidarity between different trade unions , national and international . The trade union movement fought for the whole of the working class not just the organised sectors . The 'Irish Worker' newspaper through its mass readership countered the employers message through the bosses' servant press . The trade unions provided social and cultural activities for its members as well as industrial and political leadership .
(MORE LATER).
PLUS CA CHANGE .......Charles Haughey and Charles Stewart Parnell .
From 'MAGILL' magazine , February 1998 .
By Vincent Browne.
A correspondence was entered into between Cecil Rhodes and Charles Stewart Parnell that purported to link the donation to an undertaking from Parnell that the Irish Party would continue to support the retention of Irish members in the (British) House of Commons once 'Home Rule' was granted : but the Rhodes biographer dismisses the correspondence -
- " A close examination of this correspondence reveals that Parnell had made no real commitments . It is hard to disagree with an eminent contemporary biographer , who dismissed the Rhodes-Parnell letters as 'mere verbiage' designed to obscure the fact that Rhodes had bought the Irish Party support for £10,000 . "
[END of 'PLUS CA CHANGE' .]
(Tomorrow - ' LIAM MELLOWS AND THE IRISH CIVIL WAR' : by PHIL FLYNN , from 1982.)
