Galway Worker
| Date: | 1974 |
|---|---|
| Organisation: | Socialist Workers' Movement |
| Publication: | Galway Worker |
| Issue: | [N/A] |
| Type: | Publication Issue |
| View: | View Document |
| Discuss: | Comments on this document |
| Subjects: |
Please note: The Irish Left Archive is provided as a non-commercial historical resource, open to all, and has reproduced this document as an accessible digital reference. Copyright remains with its original authors. If used on other sites, we would appreciate a link back and reference to The Irish Left Archive, in addition to the original creators. For re-publication, commercial, or other uses, please contact the original owners. If documents provided to The Irish Left Archive have been created for or added to other online archives, please inform us so sources can be credited.
Commentary From The Cedar Lounge Revolution
14th June 2010
Many thanks to Mark P for forwarding this document which was produced by the Galway branch of the Socialist Workers’ Movement. It’s a brief four page leaflet, hand typed and dealing with issues like redundancies, the Westcon Ltd. Dispute and Life in a Galway Flat.
What is most immediately striking is the emphasis on local issues to the exclusion of all else - remarkable given the period of time in which it was produced. This doesn’t incorporate to any great extent a theoretical analyses or even make much reference to broader political issues on the island. That said it does contain the following outline of an approach:
A Coisti Oibri na Gaeltachta [which] must be formed as a priority… it must build form the start close links of practical active solidarity with the Galway Shop Stewards and rank and File Committee and affiliate to the National Rank and File Movement. A minimum program on which all workers willing to go on the offensive [to]? The bosses can fight must be worked out in fully democratic discussions to become the basic program of these Committees. Revolutionary Socialists accepting this minimum program must be free to propose within the Committees their strategy for fighting all the basic issues facing the working class in such a way as to mobilize the class as a whole and organize it for the seizure of power in a workers revolution that will build the workers Republic over the bones of the Capitalist Class.
And it stands as a contrast to the more polished documents issued by the Socialist Workers’ Movement during and after this period.
More from Socialist Workers' Movement
Socialist Workers' Movement in the archive
Comments
No Comments yet.
Add a Comment
Comments can be formatted in Markdown format . Use the toolbar to apply the correct syntax to your comment. The basic formats are:
**Bold text**
Bold text
_Italic text_
Italic text
[A link](http://www.example.com)
A link
You can join this discussion on The Cedar Lounge Revolution
By: Mark P Tue, 15 Jun 2010 16:26:23
In reply to Conor McCabe.
Does anyone know anything about who published the following items? I don’t think I’ve come across any of them before:
“The Irish Marxist” From 1991 and described only as a “Communist theoretical journal”.
http://www.andrewburgin.co.uk/product_info.php?cPath=10&products_id=7245
“The Worker” “Published by a group of Communist workers in the Six Counties”. 1969. It looks like a periodical but this was the only issue published.
http://www.andrewburgin.co.uk/product_info.php?cPath=10&products_id=7013
“Young Worker” “Published a Young Communist group in Cork.” 1969. This is issue 4, so presumably there were at least three others.
http://www.andrewburgin.co.uk/product_info.php?cPath=10&products_id=7177.
“Class Unity in Belfast” “A Call for the Unity of the Belfast Workers’. Belfast, 23 August 1969. A statement to all Belfast workers from a Workers Defence Unit in the Falls Area. Two-pages, the text of a leaflet issued ‘at the height of the fascist terrorism in Belfast in mid-August … produced by a group of workers in the Falls area and despite difficulties circulated widely not only in the Falls, but also in Protestant areas.”
http://www.andrewburgin.co.uk/product_info.php?cPath=10&products_id=6049
Reply on the CLR
By: Conor McCabe Tue, 15 Jun 2010 16:42:33
Young Worker was produced by the Cork Young Socialists. One of the persons involved with Young Worker was Jack Lane, who was briefly a member of the Irish Internationalists before joining the Irish Communist Organisation.
Brian Girvan, Liam Holland, Jim Moher, Stephen McCarthy and John Deady were some of the other people involved.
I have pdfs of issues one and four on my hard drive somewhere. I must put them up actually.
Reply on the CLR
By: Mark P Tue, 15 Jun 2010 16:52:20
In reply to Conor McCabe.
Do you have any idea why they billed themselves as “A Young Communist Group in Cork” rather than under their own name? Was it perhaps put out by one faction in the Young Socialists rather than the group as a whole?
I’m particularly curious about the Irish Marxist one because that’s quite a recent date, relatively speaking.
Reply on the CLR
By: Mark P Tue, 15 Jun 2010 16:52:58
In reply to Conor McCabe.
Oh, and thanks!
Reply on the CLR
By: Conor McCabe Tue, 15 Jun 2010 16:57:11
In reply to Mark P.
Well the first issue states Cork Young Socialists. It’s on the front page. Issue four states “Published by a Young Communist Group in Cork.” I’d guess that in the interim the local Young Socialists had words with them over the name. As far as I know by Dec. 1968, when Young Worker was first produced, Jack Lane had resigned from the Labour Party Young Socialists.
Reply on the CLR
By: Mark P Tue, 15 Jun 2010 17:06:12
In reply to Mark P.
Interesting stuff.
Reply on the CLR
By: Garibaldy Tue, 15 Jun 2010 17:29:10
In reply to irishelectionliterature.
Don’t know whether to thank or curse you for this AK. Likely to cost me a fortune, along with a few others here. And we’ll probably drive the prices up too all arriving en masse.
Reply on the CLR
By: neilcaff Tue, 15 Jun 2010 20:55:02
Can I just say at this juncture, what a fantastic display by the deformed workers state of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea!
When one contrasts tonights disciplened, well organised, collective defensive display against the rabble that was Australia on Sunday night, the planned economy once again demonstrates it’s superiority over capitalist anarchy when it comes to small footballing nations taking on the might of the big capitalist football powers! 😉
Reply on the CLR
By: Conor McCabe Wed, 16 Jun 2010 00:06:43
In reply to neilcaff.
Is this Eamonn Dunphy? ‘cos that’s pretty much what Eamonn said at half-time, (seriously!), although he did add that if you go to North Korea ‘bring your own food.’
Having seen Portugal and Ivory Coast today, North Korea have a good enough chance at second in the group.
Reply on the CLR
By: DublinDilettante Wed, 16 Jun 2010 03:40:39
In reply to Conor McCabe.
I posted about North Korea the other day, and expected them to do okay, but was very impressed. Ultimately, their strength was also their undoing; with two defensive wing-backs (basically full-backs) in the five-man Korean defence, the Brazilian full-backs (themselves basically wing-backs to begin with) had licence to bomb on with impunity, and that was what broke the deadlock.
For all their defensiveness, North Korea did try to use the ball constructively when they won it back. The ‘keeper whacking the ball long into the channels may have looked like desperation, but it was actually a very clever ploy to get Jong Tae-Se free on the flanks before the Brazilian full-backs could track back. It only needed to work once to change the game, sadly it didn’t.
Didn’t see any handshakes between the players or coaching staff at the end; perhaps it was forbidden? I used to know an old guy who was part of the Hungarian technical team at the 1954 World Cup, and by all accounts the ÁVH shadowed them literally everywhere.
Reply on the CLR
By: DublinDilettante Wed, 16 Jun 2010 03:42:31
In reply to Conor McCabe.
Sorry, I just realised how long and irrelevant that post was; sorry for derailing your thread, CM! You started it though…
Reply on the CLR
By: PJ Callan Wed, 16 Jun 2010 07:59:23
I’ve got the first two issues of ‘The Irish Marxist’ which I have already promised to scan and send to this site. It was published by a socialist student group at Coleraine University.
Reply on the CLR
By: PJ Callan Wed, 16 Jun 2010 08:33:48
The latter is still active –
http://socialistsociety.wordpress.com/
Reply on the CLR
By: Neues aus den Archiven der radikalen (und nicht so radikalen) Linken « Entdinglichung Wed, 16 Jun 2010 08:44:00
[…] * Socialist Workers Movement (SWM): Galway Worker, Oktober 1974 […]
Reply on the CLR
By: Mark P Wed, 16 Jun 2010 10:35:32
In reply to PJ Callan.
That website seems to belong to the socialist societies supportive of the Socialist Party in Queens, Jordanstown and Coleraine. Presumably this isn’t the same “socialist society” that was in existence in 1991?
(Although I suppose, given the turnover of student politics, that the Coleraine socialist society could have been taken over or won round at some point between 1991 and the present day).
Reply on the CLR
By: EamonnCork Wed, 16 Jun 2010 16:48:44
Folks, does anyone know who the ACAB were? I’ve got a photo here of a guy in full punk regalia with an anti police brutality slogan on his jacket and ACAB written on top, circa 1985. Just wondering if anyone might know what ACAB stands for and who they might have been? Thanks.
Reply on the CLR
By: Ramzi Nohra Wed, 16 Jun 2010 16:53:47
In reply to EamonnCork.
where was the photo taken?
Reply on the CLR
By: sonofstan Wed, 16 Jun 2010 16:54:29
In reply to EamonnCork.
You’re joking, surely?
Well known football chant, at least in my neck of the woods…..
‘All coppers are bastards’
Reply on the CLR
By: Joe Wed, 16 Jun 2010 18:01:58
In reply to sonofstan.
Ah EamonnCork. The joys of growing up in innocent rural Sligo. ACAB is still seen graffitied on the odd wall in Dublin. As a teenager, I agreed with it as a slogan but the rightward drift with age has softened my cough.
Reply on the CLR
By: sonofstan Wed, 16 Jun 2010 18:09:34
In reply to sonofstan.
Still current -was chanted as recently as Bohs V Glentoran last April when the Gardai waded into the Glens fans to confiscate a Union Jack – and got the sympathetic chant of A-C-A-B! from us.
Reply on the CLR