Saturday, October 04, 2008

Remember Seamus Costello, Assassinated 5 Oct 1977






Seamus Costello — Revolutionary Socialist*


Thanks to D. Michele Duarte and Ireland's Own !

An Outstanding Mind and Personality in This Generation



Seamus Costello exhibited a greatness of the same order as James Connolly. His energy, his intelligence, accuracy and thoroughness, his humour, quickness, and decisiveness, made him an outstanding mind and personality in this generation of Irishmen. He was both a thinker and a man of action, but he was also a man of deep concern and humanity based on that affectionate nature that he shared with his wife Maeliosa and children Caoilfionn, Fionan, Aoibbin, Ronan. He saw clear and far, and dared greatly. He dared to take up the unfinished task of James Connolly.
Single-handedly, as Republicans and Socialists all around him deviated into reformism and one-sided concentration on the class or the national struggle, Seamus Costello gave clear leadership on the unity of the anti-imperialist and socialist struggle and on the need for a revolutionary approach. As Noel Browne wrote about the conference in Boston a year ago where Seamus made such an impression:





"Seamus Costello spoke for the IRSP and gave a scintillating display of good humour, history, politics and facts.... I've never heard his brand of Republicanism before... Is it not a triumph for our radio, TV and newspapers and of the venomous Dublin political denigration machine that none of us has ever read, heard of or seen this man's remarkable dialectical skill and political ability."





Seamus did not court the establishment that promotes shallow pretentious mediocrities like Conor Cruise O'Brien. He had the socialist vision:





"We are nothing and we shall be everything" which the establishment recognises and fears. The establishment responded by the State conspiracy to destroy the Republican Socialist movement by torture, frame-up and perjury.





During the tortures, as the Starry Plough front page reminded readers on the day that Seamus was murdered, Special Branch detectives made it clear that they wanted "something on that man Costello."



The farcical trial is still dragging its repressive length along; and the same repression is now being used on the IRSP in England. Clearly Seamus Costello like James Connolly in his day was the single greatest threat to British imperialist interests in Ireland. This became clear to Noel Browne at Boston as he wrote:



"They will have to shoot him, or to jail him, or get out of his way, but they certainly won't stop him. Costello the revolutionary Marxist Socialist whose ambition is a secular, pluralist united Socialist Republic, won't go away until he gets it."



Owed Allegiance Only to Working Class



Seamus's socialism was profound and practical. He came from farming background and he always championed the rights of the working farmer. The day before he was shot he was arguing at a Wicklow Agricultural meeting for the re-distribution of large ranching estates among small farmers to make their holdings viable and save them from the destruction the EEC is planning for them. He had total faith in the working class and owed allegiance only them. He spoke in the accents of the people, and the workers and small farmers of Bray and of every part of Ireland and above all the working class of Dublin knew him as one of their own. He was militantly proud of his ITGWU badge, and of his Presidency of the Bray Trades Council. His Republicanism and his Socialism were not two competing strands, but an authentic unity. He saw the interrelationship of the class and the national struggle as no-one in Ireland since Connolly had done. He thought for a while this vision could be attained by the Official Republican Movement, until he saw them abandon the anti-imperialist national struggle and turn to social reformism.



He Fought to win not to Compromise



He never allowed the national question to take up all his time, or warp his judgement, or make him soft on native capitalism or its political parties His life was motivated by a burning sense of justice and he seethed with indignation at the injustices and monumental stupidities of capitalist society in Ireland and on the world scale. He fought relentlessly, imperiously, against oppression of all forms of national oppression, wage-slavery, unemployment, slum housing, starvation, criminally inadequate social services.



Like James Connolly, he was a revolutionary; which means simply that he was a fighter, relentless, intelligent, principled and skillful. He took big chances, and thoroughly utilised all resources. He fought to win, not to compromise. He could not be bought, he could not be conned and he could not be intimidated. But he economised effort, and was not unduly discouraged by setbacks, but pressed on. He was in the tradition of Fintan Lalor, who wrote:



"Against robber-rights I will fight to their destruction or my own."



On British Agent's Assassination List



He was not only a political fighter. He was a great soldier. He always asserted and played his part in ensuring the right of the Irish people to use force of arms to achieve freedom from foreign domination. He could not see the British Army oppress the Irish people without attacking it decisively and tellingly.



He fought, was wounded and interned in the '50's campaign, and he did not lay down his weapons. For years he was in the leadership of the Republican Movement He earned the respect and fear of his enemies, who put him on the British agent Littlejohn's assassination list. Like Connolly he had to a supreme degree the military virtue of courage. He lived openly and held his head high.



A Believer in Mass Political Activity



But he was a volunteer soldier of the people. He was not a military elitist, but a believer in the self-liberation of the Irish people by mass political activity. As a soldier of the people he was a genuine man of peace, unlike the mercenary "Peace" Movement, which exists only to encourage Irish people to be informers to their British oppressors. As he said at Crossbarry in Co. Cork in March 1976:



"We want to build a society where our children can live in peace and prosperity, a society where they will control the wealth of this country."





A Peacemaker



Since his war was only against the oppressor, he was a dedicated peacemaker between anti-imperialists. At Crossbarry he said:



"Petty differences and recriminations must be forgotten and the necessary leadership given to the Irish people. No republican or socialist can afford to allow himself to be manipulated into creating disunity in the anti-imperialist forces."



After the assassination attempt on him at Waterford in 1975 he was asked what should be done if he were ever assassinated not by the British but by fellow-Irishmen and he answered typically:



"No reprisals: not one death".




He dedicated his life to anti-imperialist unity and the linking of the class and national struggles in Ireland."





He never refused to talk with anyone in the principled pursuit of his goal. He never ceased to make strenuous efforts to reach agreement on joint action with the Officials, even though they had tried to violently suppress the IRSP, or to develop possible structures of anti-imperialist unity. But as he made clear in the first edition of the Starry Plough in April 1975 he would not consider unprincipled alliances or overtures. He criticised the current attempts at unity with Loyalists in opposing the Belfast Ring Road "We feel", he said, "that the approach to the Loyalists must be an honest one and that we must explain to them... that we are opposed to the British presence in Ireland... because we regard it as the principle means of dividing the Protestant and Catholic working class and because we regard the British presence in Ireland as the principle obstacle preventing the emergence of class politics in Ireland".





He compared what he called "Ring Road Socialists" who try to convince people that they are not Republicans and not Socialists, with "the people in Belfast in 1913 whom Connolly described as 'gas and water socialists' ".





On such anti-imperialist and socialist grounds he rejected the idea of an independent Ulster put forward at the Boston conference, and he maintained to the end of his life that such an imperialist solution to "he Irish question" was counter to Republican Socialism.





International Socialist





That Seamus Costello was an international socialist whose aim was ultimately to remove the scourge of capitalism from all the suffering people of the world is movingly expressed in the many telegrams to the IRSP from socialists the world over.



The IRSP Will go On!



Today we lay to rest a great Irish Republican Socialist. To know him was a privilege. To call him comrade was an honour. To be associated with him was to be inspired by his greatness, and to learn new dimensions of human possibilities.





But the greatest lessons we have learned from our great leader are rationality and persistence. And in the spirit of Seamus Costello, his organisation will go on striking at imperialism and preparing the Irish people to take their part in the liberation of humankind.







* This article is a slightly revised version of an article that appeared in the Starry Plough An Camchéachta August/September 2002
------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- -----
See Also:
2003 - Bernadette Devlin McAliskey speaks on Seamus Costello
The Legacy of Seamus Costello by Liam O Ruairc



Friday, October 03, 2008

Che Guevara in Ireland


Che Guevera and Ireland



by Mireya Castañeda, Granma International staff writer


Two islands, Ireland and Cuba, document a virtually unknown part of Che Guevara's history.


FEW people are aware that Ernesto Che Guevara was in Dublin in 1964. The landmarks of that year are his speech at the United Nations in New York and his journey to Algiers for the Tricontinental Conference.


When Adys Cupull and Froilán González, Cuban researchers on Che, included a letter written by him to his father in their book Un hombre bravo (A Brave Man), some people questioned it.


The brief letter, dated December 18, 1964, reads:



Dear Dad:



With the anchor dropped and the boat at a standstill, I am in this green Ireland of your ancestors. When they found out, the [Irish] television came to ask me about the Lynch genealogy, but in case they were horse thieves or something like that I didn't say much.

Happy holidays, We're waiting for you


Ernesto




FROM IRELAND AT ANOTHER TIME



Bernie Dwyer is an Irish philosophy graduate interested in women's issues and clearly a woman of her time. Thus it came as no surprise when she informed this weekly that she has always closely followed the Cuban Revolution.



In 1988 she traveled to Havana on a solidarity brigade and, impressed by what she saw, became an active member of the solidarity movement with this other island.



She took part in European solidarity conferences (in 1990 and 1992) and the 1st World Solidarity Conference (1994) where, as part of the Irish delegation, she met with President Fidel Castro.



"I had a speech prepared on the two islands and imperialism," she recalls, "but when I came face to face with him I don't remember having said anything, it was Fidel himself who saw to it that we had a photo taken together." (It now hangs framed on a wall in the room where we talked here in Havana.)



Thanks to Bernie Dwyer's solidarity, various Irish films were screened in the 1996 International Festival of New Latin American Cinema, also attended by director Jim Sheridan, who presented his film In the Name of the Father (and who we interviewed for this weekly).



Dwyer returned to Cuba in 1998 with a Pastors for Peace Friend-shipment, and the following year at the invitation of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC).



That was how she arrived at the home of Adys Cupull and Froilán González in the Cayo Hueso neighborhood of Havana, where they are involved in an interesting community project and, moreover, have a Che Guevara study group.



MEANWHILE, IN CUBA



Roberto Ruiz has always being attracted to "making" television, even in his native Guantánamo (Cuba's easternmost province) where, only at the end of the '80s, the Solvisión studios were inaugurated. Ruiz immediately worked as director of programs there and started to film documentaries, his central interest.


As a director, he has also worked in other provinces: Holguín, Camagüey, the Isle of Youth and City of Havana (CHTV).



He was asked to interpret for Bernie Dwyer when she was invited to appear on a TV program, and agreed. Later he accompanied her to the home of Adys and Froilán.



Talking with an Irish woman and a documentary maker triggered Froilán's imagination, and he mentioned to them the letter from Che referring to his stopover in Dublin and the Irish stock of the Lynches.



CHE AND THE IRISH LEGACY



Dwyer recounted to this weekly how she and Ruiz were fired with the enthusiasm of these two academics, who have spent years researching the life and work of Comandante Che Guevara.



"On that same visit," she said, "I was able to talk to Aleida March, Che's widow and the executor of all his papers. She only recalled a stopover in Shannon on his journey from New York to Algeria."



Nevertheless, with the letter to his "Dear Dad" on her mind, on returning to Ireland Dwyer began her own investigations and, in Dublin's National Library, found three newspapers, The Evening Press, The Irish Independent and the The Irish Times, dated December 19, 1964, all of which covered Che's presence in Dublin.



Naturally, Che Guevara's presence wasn't passed over by the Irish press. During the 60 minutes that the then minister of industry, age 36, spent in Dublin airport, he gave several interviews, among them one for the nascent Irish television, and spoke of the Lynches, his Irish ancestors.
It's funny the way things happen. Bad weather that day prevented the stopover in Shannon and the aircraft landed in Dublin.


In addition to the photocopies of those dailies, Dwyer discovered one and a half minutes of TV footage. But this researcher went further.



In one of the photos in the press, Comandante Guevara appears with an Aer Lingus stewardess, Felima Archer, the improvised interpreter. Dwyer met with the stewardess, who still has the original photo.



"After 35 years, she still remembers Che's eyes, his look, and that he was very relaxed, calm and happy."



With all her precious historical material, Dwyer returned to Havana and, for her and Ruiz, the idea of a documentary was not far from their thoughts.



Thus they began to prepare Che, legado irlandés (Che, the Irish Legacy). "We didn't want an experimental documentary, as the important thing for us was the content," Ruiz explained, "so we decided on a simple structure. It's a 10-minute documentary in which we tell this unknown story of Che in Dublin."



The documentary covers the research, the documents they had recovered, photos of the family, interviews with Cupull and González and the Irish television footage, all with a soundtrack of Irish music.



They explained that they also included pictures of Irish patriots, as Che's father, Ernesto Guevara Lynch, mentioned at times that Che "had rebel Irish blood."



HIS IRISH ANCESTORS



In Havana, Dwyer met with Ana María Erra, the widow of Che's father, who showed her a letter dated 1929, signed by Augusta Lynch and inquiring about his family's Irish history.


Dwyer's research into archives in Dublin confirmed that the Lynch family originated in County Galway and, with a complete genealogical tree, she, Ruiz and Rosa Tanya of CHTV have made a second, five-minute documentary, Las raices de un mito (The Roots of a Myth).



Patrick Lynch, founder of the Argentine branch of the Lynches, was born in Ireland in 1715. He left for Bilbao, Spain, and traveled from there to Argentina. Francisco Lynch (Che's great-grandfather) was born in 1817, and Ana Lynch (his grandmother) in 1861. Her son Ernesto Guevara Lynch (Che's father) was born in 1900, married Celia de la Serna and had five children. Ernesto was born in 1927.


LOVER OF HUMANITY


Dwyer and Ruiz have more ambitious plans. They know firsthand the passion of researching a life like that of Ernesto Guevara and have put together a project which is to take them to Ireland, Argentina and Bolivia.


"We want to show the beautiful facet of Che, the family man, poet, philosopher, athlete and lover of humanity," they say.



It was solidarity, which Che preached by his example, that made it possible for the unknown story of his stay in Dublin to come to light, as well as the documentation of his Irish ancestry.


And, finally, Ernesto Che Guevara is "at anchor" on another island, Cuba, which he chose as his mother country for its ideals, and where another part of his genealogy began.
See also:




http://irelandsown.net/


http://www.myspace.com/radiorebelgael

Monday, September 29, 2008

RADIO REBEL GAEL Podcast # 3 - The O.G. Show - Return of the Original Gael !

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