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A Little Known Republican Military Group: Saor Eire
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Liam O Ruairc • 13 January 2005
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If
one looks at the list of proscribed Republican organizations
North and South of the border, all of them (IRA,
INLA, IPLO, Fianna Eireann) are well known with
the exception of one: Saor Eire. Little is known
by the general public about that organization, not
to be confused with either the Saor Eire political
party of the early 1930s or the Saor Uladh group
of the 1950s.
Saor
Eire was formed around 1967 by members of the IRA,
such as Frank Keane (the former head of the Dublin
Brigade of the IRA) who resigned because of the
organisation's lack of military activity; in conjunction
with people associated with the Irish Workers Group
(a small Trotskyist organization which published
a paper called The Irish Militant) like Gerry
Lawless. Saor Eire had between forty and sixty members,
the majority based in Dublin and Cork, as well as
a couple round Derry. What distinguished this group
from other Republican paramilitary organisations
was that its politics were explicitly orientated
towards the international Trotskyist movement. One
of its leaders, Peter Graham, was a member of the
United Secretariat of the Fourth International.
Saor Eire had privileged relations with the British-based
International Marxist Group and its journal The
Red Mole. Its sole political statement was the
Saor Eire Manifesto published in May 1971(printed
by the Red Mole, which at the time was also
printing the London Provo journal edited by Brendan
Magill). For a short time, Saor Eire generated some
enthusiasm amongst some sections of the international
left, like Tariq Ali or Bob Purdie for example,
who believed the organisation could create the fusion
between Republicanism and Marxism. In 1972, Ernest
Mandel, the leader of the United Secretariat of
the Fourth International met leading members of
Saor Eire during a visit to Dublin. In an interview
with the Red Mole journal in 1971, a spokesperson
of Saor Eire explained that the organisation drew
its inspiration from both the Republican tradition
and international revolutionary movements (like
the Tupamaros urban guerilla group in Uruguay).
Saor Eire styled itself as an urban guerilla group,
as it believed that the decisive struggle was taking
place in cities amongst the working class.
The
group's military activities were supposed to act
as a political catalyst, however they were limited
almost exclusively to bank robberies. (However,
when the situation erupted in the North in 1969,
before the IRA split, Saor Eire supplied some weapons
to the Nationalists in the North, gave military
training to a number of them, and provided funds
expropriated in bank raids.) During one such bank
'expropriation' in June 1970, a Garda was killed
by the group. Saor Eire's concentration on bank
robberies meant that gangsters on the fringes of
the Republican movement were soon playing a leading
role in the organization at the expense of the more
politically orientated members. This had lethal
consequences. On 25 October 1971, the head of the
Dublin Brigade of Saor Eire, Peter Graham (also
a member of the Fourth International with contacts
in the London criminal underworld) was assassinated
in Dublin in mysterious circumstances. At the time,
Republicans and the United Secretariat of the Fourth
International blamed the Garda Special Branch or
British intelligence for his assassination. The
truth was that Graham had been assassinated by two
of his own comrades from Cork (including Larry White,
himself later killed by the Official IRA in Cork
in 1975) in a dispute over money. At his funeral,
prominent leftists of the time such as Tariq Ali,
Bob Purdie and Gerry Lawless were present as well
as four representatives of the Provisional IRA.
One of them praised Graham's role in supplying weapons
to the defenceless nationalists in the North, even
if the organization had no input in the armed struggle
there. Peter Graham's name was added to the Fourth
International's 'Role of Honor' and his comrades
in Ireland even set up a 'Peter Graham Memorial
Library'.
The
death of Peter Graham was a fatal blow to Saor Eire.
The organization never recovered from it as soon
after, a lot of members died in tragic circumstances.
Liam Dalton commited suicide by jumping of a train.
Liam Walsh, the former commanding officer of the
south Dublin unit of the IRA during the 1950s, was
killed in a premature explosion, while trying to
plant a bomb. Mairin Keegan died from cancer in
January 1972. She was one of the organisation's
leading members, and had participated in the May
1968 events in Paris. At her funeral, despite the
presence of over 200 police officers, Saor Eire
activists fired three volleys of shots over her
coffin draped with the flag of the Trotskyist United
Secretariat of the Fourth International; and the
Irish Trotskyist DR O Connor Lysaght read the oration.
This accelerated the decline and degeneration of
the organization. On 18 May 1973, the majority of
its prisoners issued a statement from Portlaoise
saying they were resigning from the organisation
because it had ceased to play a progressive role.
While Saor Eire had been formed to struggle against
imperialism, they noted that
"during
the last two years, owing to political weaknesses
...undesirable elements have been able to operate
around its fringes and carry out actions ... which
had nothing in common with the stated objectives
of that organisation."
They
also denounced the fact that some members had been
used to carry out bully-boys tactics and intimidation
of other Republicans. The statement was signed by
eight prisoners. (one of them was Joe Dillon, who
was later to play a leading role in the 32 County
Sovereignty Movement). Trotskyists agreed with their
assessment:
"Saor
Eire was not a homogenous organisation. It had no
centralised military command, let alone a common
political leadership. It was a loose alliance of
diverse groups which on occasion co-operated together
in joint actions and used the umbrella name Saor
Eire. Needless to say, the criminal element used
the name as a cover for their own exploits."
('Militants Leave Saor Eire', The Plough,
June 1973, Volume 2 Number 2)
The
remnants of the organization officially disbanded
Saor Eire in 1975.
POSTSCRIPT
Saor
Eire is not be confused with two similar armed left
wing groups once active in Ireland. The first is
the 'Irish Anarchist Black Cross', a group influenced
by the Angry Brigade, which carried out a series
of armed raids and attacks against the US and Spanish
Embassy in Dublin in the mid-1970s. In September
1975, during a robbery of a Bank of Ireland in Killester,
a Garda was killed. (a raid reminiscent of Saor
Eire actions). In June 1976, Noel and Marie Murray
were convicted of the capital murder of Garda Michael
Reynolds, and sentenced to be hanged. Following
world wide protests, the capital conviction was,
however, overturned by the Supreme Court and the
sentence commuted to life imprisonment. They had
to wait 1992 to be granted parole after spending
seventeen years in prison. While imprisoned, they
failed in an appeal to the Supreme Court to be allowed
to start a family while in prison. The other group
is Revolutionary Struggle. This small group, led
by a mysterious man called 'Nick The Greek', was
heavily influenced by Italian armed groups like
Prima Linea or the Red Brigades (see for example
the special issue of their journal The Ripening
of Time). To emulate their Italian comrades, in
1981 they shot a business lecturer in the leg during
a class a Trinity College Dublin. This was not aimed
to be a traditional Irish 'kneecapping', but rather
a local version of the Italian 'gambizatzione' ('legisation'),
a common practice of Italian groups… The group
was later associated with Jimmy Brown, after he
had left the IRSP. Nothing has been heard of it
since the late 1980s.
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All
censorships exist to prevent any one from challenging
current conceptions and existing institutions. All progress
is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and
executed by supplanting existing institutions. Consequently
the first condition of progress is the removal of censorships.
- George Bernard Shaw
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