Moses.
Party, some months before his nomination and Northern Ireland. The Dr.'s actions in the happenings associated with the last event have union and Labour Party bureaucrats and careerists, there are very few who would now be willing to follow that Moses into the wilderness.
In Britain, however, there is still a certain confused admiration for the man. Just as before, in Ireland, respect for his undoubted intelligence and physical courage and acceptance of the rulefriend" has been translated into a belief that his of-thumb principle "My enemy's enemy is my polities must be correct. The truth is rather different. If the developing Irish revolution has been aborted, Dr. Cruise O'Brien bears a direct share of the responsibility. In the second place, by doing so, he has helped ensure the splitting of the Irish Left, the weakening of support for his own Party, and, it must be added, all this, not, as many both left and right will claim, because he is a dirty red, but for a reasor diametrically opposed.
How can it be that this man can effectively fool everyone? The answer is, of course, partly in the readiness of people to be fooled: in the failure of so-called Marxists in Britain, Ireland and elsewhere to examine the credentials of those whom they choose to call "friend". For Dr. Cruise O'Brien did do good work insofar as he was able. His abilities were circumscribed by his life and times.
Early Life and Background He was born in 1917 into, perhaps, the most brilliant family groupings of Irish nationalism: the Sheehy Clan. His mother was a Sheehy. Her sister, Hannah, had been married to Francis Skeffington, the prominent pacifist-socialist victim of a lunatic British officer in 1916. Another sister had been married to Thomas Kettle, the nearest thing to a theoretician that the Redmondite gombeen-nationalists had. Their brother was a Redmondite M.P. All three sisters had been amongst the earliest women students at University College, Dublin. Conor's father, Francis Cruise O'Brien, did not reach the prominence of his in-laws, but like them he had had a notable academic career The intellectual atmosphere of the circle resembled that of the early British Fabians: high-minded, idealistic and politically stimulated. However, there was one important ditference: it was Irish, and Catholic Irish (at least in background). Whereas the Fabians were products of the high noon of the British Empire, ready to defend the system that ensured their dividends and to educate pro-consuls to administer it, the Sheehy's had their class opportunities limited by the Empire, and were, at the least (as with Kettle and Sheehy) striving for a place in the sun; at the most (as with the Skeffingtons) ready to replace the whole system with a more humanitarian one. As a result of this, Conor Cruise O'Brien has learnt to recognise the psychology of anti-colonialism; what he has never understood is what creates it.
For, when he was born, his two most prominent uncles, Kettle and Skeffington, were already dead. He grew up in a family whose effective political leadership was in the hands of his aunt, Mrs. Hannah Sheehy-Skeffington. He views emphasised the high-thinking and moral tone of the views of the whole family. She was an outspoken and courageous advocate of a variety of causes whose only direct link was her own acceptance of them as good: women's emancipation, Republicanism, Pacifism and Socialism were all given her imprimatur. She did useful work in all these matters, but it was entirely on an individualist and moralist basis.
For her, the Republic was a good in itself;
women should be free; it was fitting that the workers be fed; war was a bad thing. She was not a Marxist, in any sense of the word; her causes had nothing to do with the objective needs of the working class. They were her versities, he might today be serving his causes as a professor: a manner that was almost as suitable for his talents as diplomacy had been. But he was blacklisted, and internationalist though he was, he wanted to be able to live permanently in his native country. In addition, he disliked the way the ideals of the External Affairs Department were degenerating since his fall. At the end of 1968, he thought that he had the answer.
The Irish Labour Party The Irish Labour Party was trying hard to renovate itself and to return, at least formally, to the policies of its founders. In doing so, it produced a series of policy documents, most notably on education, welfare and industrial democracy. These policies did not add up to Socialism: indeed, in some matters they represented a decline from the leftism of their predecessors. Nonetheless, they did express a genuine aspiration on the part of a somewhat confused organisation, interpreted by its leadership in its own fashion, replacing right opportunism by left opportunism.
To reinforce (and possibly, save) this leftism the same leadership had recourse to namedropping. Anyone who had any sort of political reputation was called upon to run as a Labou Party candidate. This whole business was re duced to its logical absurdity (and in the eyes of most of the electors as well as of more sophisticated observers) when the right-wing exPresident of the National Farmers Association accepted the candidacy for North Co, Tipperary Conor Cruise O'Brien was one of the earliest fishes caught by the Labour Party bureaucracy He was shown the policies and went into rap tures over them. At the Party Conference in January 1969, he used socialist rhetoric Che called for the diplomatic recogrition of Cuba to defend the policy document on Externa Affairs. Many socialists were impressed: man non-socialists, alienated. Many of both kind used his speech as an excuse to ignore what the actual document said. This was far less controversial: simply a rehash of the ideas of Hammarskjold and Cruise O Brien-a "peace ticket, urging on Ireland the leadership in opposing war, without any sort of reference to class poliCuban Labour Despite attacks on the Party, and the complete inability of that bod to defend itself credibly, the swing of the pendulum increased its vote (though not its membership in Dail Eireann) and the big names became Deputies. Conor Cruise O'Brien was able to stay in Ireland, and, as Labour's spokes man for External Affairs, to push for the return and extension of the policies of the Department thereof in his day: non-alignment, the leadership of peace initiatives and support of the "brooders" against the "gloaters • A Face-Lift for the Labour Party | Immediately, the new-style Labour parliamentarians acquitted themselves well. Dail Eireann, Labour's Deputies attacked the Government with a greater determination than before. Outside, they showed a new readiness to take to the streets.
But it soon became clear that this was no more than a face-lift. Conor Cruise O'Brien has been, actually, one of the less guilty these matters, yet he was bad enough. His neglect of the ordinary routine of his constituency is not as obvious as that of his colleagues he has a good organisation to do his job here More annoying to workers both inside and outside the Labour Party was the fact that, wher Labour (including Deputy Cruise O'Brien) marched, it marched for high-minded internationalist principles rather than for the materiai are less visible (indeed, invisible) when there are marches over housing or a major strike More subtle was Dr. Cruise O'Brien's part in the Coughlan affair. In the most effective blast at the new Labour "Radicalism", the party Deputy for East Limerick, the City's Mayor Alderman Stephen Coughlan, defied Socialist principle and policy by (in chronological order)
publicly denouncing the actions of half-a-dozen Maoists and welcoming a petition against them drawn up by openly-avowed Fascists, offering to give a civic welcome to the Springbok team.
urging the striking cement workers to allow the admission of frien cement. and praising a
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*Dr. Conor Cruise O'Brien is the golden calf of the Irish Left. This would not be so bad were he not being portrayed as its
So (or to that effect) wrote the present author just under two years ago, on the eve of Dr. Cruise O'Brien's re-entry into the Irish Labour
subsequent election to Dail Eireann (the Irish House of Representatives) as a candidate for that party and just under one year before the establishment of dual power in certain areas of
helped ensure that the golden calf is considerably tarnished and that, outside the ranks of trade