There
are millions of people of Irish descent all over
the world, and quite a number of them became involved
in Republican politics. Though they left a major
imprint on history, second generation Irish Republicans
have largely been neglected by historians. Brian
Dooley’s book is “a modest attempt
to help fill some of the gaps in knowledge about
the contribution of second/third generation Irish
people to the fight for Irish independence, and
how some people responded to growing up second generation
Irish in Britain during the Troubles.”
The reader can feel the author’s genuine enthusiasm
for his subject. More anecdotal than analytical,
the book almost exclusively concentrates on Irish
Republicans born and raised in Britain from 1916
onwards, and their political activities during the
last thirty years in particular. The author does
not cover the 18th or 19th centuries –English
born Fenians for example- or the contributions of
people of Irish descent from countries other than
Britain to the cause of Republicanism.
There
is a long tradition of Republicans born outside
Ireland. For example, Tom Clarke was born in the
Isle of Wight and spent his childhood in South Africa
where his father was a British soldier. James Connolly
spent the first part of his life in Edinburgh, as
did Jim Larkin in Liverpool. Eamon de Valera was
born in Manhattan from a Spanish father (bizarrely
Dooley mentions an FBI document written Edgar Hoover
describing him as a ‘Portuguese Jew’),
and Liam Mellows in Lancashire. Mary MacSwiney was
born and educated in London and Cambridge. Erskine
Childers and Countess Markiewicz were born in England
were they had an upper class upbringing. Sean MacBride,
the IRA chief of staff and future founder of Amnesty
International, was born in France where he was brought
up speaking French. It is thus hardly surprising
that during the treaty debates, Collins could insult
de Valera and Markievicz, calling them “Foreigners-Americans-English”
while Griffith said to Erskine Childers “I
will not reply to any damned Englishman in this
assembly.” The book explores the background
of many of these second generation Irish Republicans.
There
are two chapters on Sean MacStiofain, one of the
founders of the Provisional IRA and the organisation’s
first Chief of Staff. Born John Stephenson in London,
his father was an English Tory, and spoke with a
Cockney accent all his life. Interestingly, MacStiofain
had been in the IRA for well over a year until he
visited Ireland for the first time in his life!
Surprisingly, he was no exception. As Dooley shows,
volunteers from London, Liverpool and Glasgow fought
during the 1916 Rising, and this was the first time
many of them had actually been to Ireland. There
were also reports of individuals from Poland, Finland
and Sweden fighting alongside the insurgents during
the Easter Rising. During the Black and Tan War,
IRA units in England carried out many operations.
Over one thousand men were enrolled in the IRA units
in Britain, and at its height, there were two incidents
a day, mainly in London, Newcastle and Manchester.
One
of the most interesting chapter in the book is about
second generation Irish people from Britain who
became active in the IRA. A typical example is Diarmuid
O Neill, who lived his whole life in England until
he was killed in controversial circumstances in
London in 1996. His background and his accent were
very much London and didn’t identify him as
Irish. When he talked with Irish born people about
the conflict in the North, they would make disparaging
comments like ‘how would you know anything
about it? You’re from England’.
For
Dooley, “There is no one simple explanation
of why second generation Irish people chose to join
the IRA. For some it was a predominantly socialist
motivation, for others it may have been an effort
to establish a ‘Super Irish’ identity,
and for others still because of a highly developed
sense of ideological Republicanism. Unsurprisingly,
the motivation seems to have been rooted in a series
of factors rather than one specific belief or incident.”
For instance, one of the key operators during the
bombing campaign in England in the mid-1970s was
Liam Quinn. Born in San Francisco from a Mexican
mother and an third generation Irish American father,
he once said: “I guess that nice American
boy wasn’t happy with the television culture
and the Disneyland world. I guess he was looking
for a new identity and better sense of values and
just happened to find a worthy cause to be devoted
to.”
Some
people not of Irish descent also became involved
in Republican politics though socialism. At least
three members of the English group Red Action were
convicted of IRA and INLA activity during the 1990s.
And as far as 1920, Scottish communists John McLean
and Willie Gallagher were involved in gunrunning
for the IRA. Dooley could also have mentioned Rudolf
Raab and Hans Joachim Stemler, two Germans who were
actively involved in the INLA.
If
some people of Irish descent joined the IRA, others
joined the British Army.
A soldier quoted in the book declares: “My
grandfather came from Letterkenny, and many of the
people I stopped and questioned in Derry had the
same surname as me…I began to wonder if I was
interrogating distant cousins.” Dooley’s
book shows that as informers, police officers, prison
warders and British soldiers, second generation
Irish people in Britain played significant roles
in the war against the IRA.
The author also describes how second generation
Irish people were sometimes among the victims of
IRA operations in England. For example, among those
killed in the 1974 Birmingham, three were of Irish
descent, as were 35 of the 200 injured. IRA bombs
left Irish people open to suspicion and hostility.
Thousands of second generation Irish people were
detained under the 1974 Prevention of Terrorism
Act. A study released in 1996 showed that until
then about 6500 people in England, Scotland and
Wales had been arrested under the PTA, with many
thousands more questioned and detained. Of those
arrested under the PTA, 97 percent were Irish. Despite
the arrests, less than three percent were finally
charged. And some of those charged, like the Maguire
seven, the Birmingham six or the Guildford dour
were wrongfully convicted. “The possibility
of being questioned, detained, arrested and convicted
for something you had not done was a constant threat
to thousands of second generation Irish people in
Britain during the Troubles.”
What
remains unexplored in the book are the tensions
between the Republicanism adopted only by a minority
of second and third generation Irish people, and
the ‘moderate nationalism’ or indifference
expressed by a majority. After all, only a minority
ever ended “choosing the green”.
