AN IRISH REPUBLICAN The following interview with Northern Irish civil rights leader Malachy McGurran was obtained by Gerry Foley of Intercontinental Press and Susan Lamont of the Young Socialist Alliance in New York on March 18. Malachy McGurran is a representative of the Irish Republican movement, an all-Jreland anti-imperialist organisation, and has been active in the leadership of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association.
-Mr. McGurran, does the nationalist population of the Six Counties feel that they have won a victory in the August fighting?
No. No one won any victory. All that arose out of the August troubles was probably to help re-establish more strongly British imperialist control and influence in Northern Ireland. It gives the Wilson administration an opportunity to re-establish itself as a kind of protector of the "warring Irish". - What alternative to direct British rule do you propose to protect the rights of the nationalist minority in Northern Ireland from the Orange machine?
The British government claims the ultimate authority under Article 47 of the Government of Ireland Act for all that happens in the North of Ireland. Therefore they can and must legislate directly from Westminster on the demands of the civil rights movement. Aside from the question of democratic rights, however, we basically believe that direct rule can in no way help the situation.
Our alternative both for the mass of the Catholic or nationalist population, and for the Unionist or Protestant population is not to ask them to come into the present political set-up in the Twenty-Six Counties, which we are as much opposed to as the set-up in the Six Counties. We are asking them, in fact, to disestablish the whole of the Establishment in Ireland, to re-establish the Irish people in the ownership of ireland. This can only be done through a direct conflict with both British imperialist and native capitalist interests-which are predominant in the Twenty-Six Counties. -Does that mean that you consider the Republican movement a socialist movement? Yes, very much so. Going back ten years ago, the Republican movement-particularly the Irish Republican Army was only concerned with the national question. Basically, it was a para-military organisation which concerned itself with attacks on the established British in the North of Ireland.
But in the last four years it has come to a very radical standpoint. We realise that what is needed in Ireland is not just a military campaign against British occupation forces in the Six Counties, but a revolution in the whole of We in the Republican movement believe that a revolution must eventually come about by the establishment of some organisation, particularly on military lines, but also on social, political, and economic lines, with all of the radical and left-wing organisations in Ireland merging in the fight to disestablish the capitalist overlords.
We hope within a short number of years to see the establishment of a form of national liberation movement that will encompass the whole of the revolutionary groups that now exist in Ireland into one united mass organisation.
We have plans afoot to bring this about and we hope that it can be accomplished within the next twelve to eighteen months. -Can you give us some idea of what you understand by socialism; do you want to establish a socialist system with central planning: would there be any role for, say. small capitalists within the socialist system that you propose for Ireland?
We believe that at least in the beginning we would have to be able to take these people some way along the road with us. To a large extent they make up the backbone of the population in the rural parts of Ireland, and eventually they must be brought to a point of seeing that their merests as marvauais ne in the establisnment of workers and cooperative control of both industry and agriculture. This would be in a context of a cooperative form of state structure. all the way from what we term a rural or county level right up to provincial and national level. -Who do the people in the nationalist ghettos in the North look to for leadership? The organisation that had the most contact with the people prior to this was probably the Civil Rights Association itself, but it was recognised by the mass of the people that the back bone of the association was the Republican We were able to give some form of lead and guidance, particularly in the areas where up to 100,000 people were barricaded in after the August troubles, in relation to the setting up of defence committees which to a large extent the Republican movement controls.
The Catholic Church attempted to use their influence to win back the leadership and control legislation which is to my mind even more of the people, in their attempt to remove the barricades at a time when Republicans were being searched for and hunted for by the police to be arrested under the Special Powers Act. We had to, at that stage, have a head-on collision with the Catholic Church which for hundreds of years has had the strongest influence over the mass of the Irish people Various other organisations attempted to lead the movement. The members of the People's Democracy are an example. But what they had, probably, in theory, they lacked in the question of the practicalities of being able to give guidance and deal with the people, because a lot of them were students who had attle or no connection with the masses of the working class in areas like Belfast, and Bogside in Derry.
These people have traditionally looked to the IRA anyway in the stand against authority and particularly the stand against the police. We were unfortunately in a position where a lot of our leadership both on a local and national imprisoring. the August period had been imprisone -Do the Citizens' Defence Councils still exist, and if they do, how are they selected? The Citizens' Defence Committee is still very much in existence because we are expecting a lot of trouble in the coming five or six months. There is a definite right-wing move within the Unionist party for control of the Unionist Association which, in fact, would be the group to decide what form of government we would have in Northern Ireland.
The committees are elected on a parish system where the local people get together at public meetings. They elect a chairman, a vice-chairman, and a guard-duty officer whose job is to get members of the defence committee out every area in the whole of Ireland.
The whole system aims at controlling and defending the area, not even so much against extremist Unionists who come in buring and shooting, but against infiltration by members of People's Democracy, I feel, got so involved in the Special Branch, of the RUC | Royal Ulster Constabulary, and particularly more so now, into and with the people by holding functions and all this type of thing.
The Citizens Defence Committee has been able to prove to the people that the British army are not there in their interests, that they can only depend on themselves and their own structure.
-Have there been arrests of civil rights activists in the recent period?
There have. I myself was arrested and spent four objectives: the establishment of an Irish and a half months in prison under the Special Powers Act without charge or trial. This is probably one of the most obnoxious pieces of legislation in operation in any part of the world today.
They have a maximum law in relation to the Special Powers Act which can cover detention for an unlimited period at the discretion of the minister of home affairs of the Unionist government. Thousands of people have spent some ten, fifteen, twenty years in prison without charge or trial at various times in the history the Establishment. We believe that from a of the state of Northern Ireland.
There is another piece of oppressive oppressive, and that is the Offences Act Against the State Act operated by the Twenty-Six Country government. I have also spent three and a half years in prison in Dublin under this act without charge or trial for Irish Republican activities.
-How would you compare the Republican movement and the People's Democracy in the North in regard to their respective strength and their approach to the civil rights movement? Well, the People's Democracy started about two years ago out of a purely students* demonstration that was held in support of the civil rights demands and as a reaction against the repressive activities of the police on the streets in Derry City on 5th October 1968.
Within six or seven months they grew to around 600 or 700-at least this was how many came to their meetings, and anyone could come. There was no real organisation, no committee was elected, and no one was responsible, really. for anything, They believed that this was the best system and that the Civil Rights Association should adopt this attitude. They looked on the association with disdain because of its "bureaucratic" insistence on elections and an executive to coordinate and plan activities of the civil rights movement.
We differed with them because we felt that there must be central coordination within the Civil Rights Association because it was made up of a large number-of organisations, some very much on the left, some in the centre, and some on a kind of quasi-chauvinist nationalist stand very near the right.
People's Democracy are confined mainly to the city of Belfast. Outside of that, even in the North of Ireland, they have no real organisational form, whereas the Republican movement is a national organisation, covering We have been able in the Republican movement to maintain our own political existence with our own political objectives outside of the civil rights movement. The members of the the civil rights struggle that they lost their own identity.
months to form themselves into an organisation with card-carrying membership and a central executive. To a large extent I believe they have failed in this because they have had no roots or contacts with the mass of the ordinary people.
-Are there specific political differences of analysis and approach between the Republican movement and People's Democracy?
Basically we accept and believe in the same socialist republic, a workers' and small farmers republic. There is little or no difference in political analysis from that standpoint.
People's Democracy disagrees with our whole attitude of abstentionism from parliamentary representation in either the Westminster parliament, the Stormont parliament, or the Twenty-Six Count y parliament.
They believe that you should be able to use the whole parliamentary system to disestablish revolutionary standpoint if you tell people you want to destroy the Establishment which is represented by these parliaments, then you can't ask the people to elect you into them.
Some members within our own movement feel that you can destroy these things from inside.
This is a contentious question within the Republican movement itself.
But our main difference is over our approach and our tactics in involving the people in all forms of agitation. They believe that it is a question of just standing up and saying it at public meetings and in handing out leaflets. We believe that you must show it a practical sense and be working with the people and giving them lead and guidance, and proving to them by example that they are a power and that their interests require an irish revolution and an Irish revolutionary organisation.
-Are there other socialist forces involved in the civil rights struggle in the North besides the Republican movement and People's Democracy? And if there are, would you describe them?
The only other influential left-wing organisation in the struggle in the civil rights movement is the Communist Party of Northern Ireland. This 1s a very small organisation that would not number any more than, I suppose, 150 to 200 Anthe Beops. The a are based mainly and solely What can be said for them is that they have large influence in the trade union movement. They have been able to avoid sectarian clashes and progroms in areas like the Belfast docks.
They originally were purely a branch of the Communist Party of Great Britain. They have since attempted to come to grips with the nanom quesdon or reina. ney are attempting to amalgamate with the Irish Workers Party, which is their Twenty-Six Country equivalent, to form themselves into the Irish Communist Party, which will cover the whole of Ireland. They are reasonably active in the civil rights struggle and have been one of the co-founder organisations, if you like, of the civil rights movement in the North of Ireland.
But a lot of them and much of their leadership are rather conservative in relation to the possibility of a national revolution in Ireland as a whole. -What is the attitude of the Republican movement to the labour parties in Northern Ireland; both the Northern Ireland Labour Party and the Republican Labour Party? Well, the Republican Labour Party is basically led and controlled by one individual, Mr. Gerry Fitt. It is even smaller in a numerical sense than either the People's Democracy or the Communist Party of Northern Ireland, It hasn't really got a social programme or political programme either. Its membership is made up to some extent of ex-Republicans and expolitical prisoners who got together after they came out of prison after the last war and who felt that the Republican view on parliamentary participation was wrong. They have two MPs at the moment. Basically they have little or no support among the youth in the greater Belfast area, and outside of that they don't exist.
The Northern Ireland Labour Party really has looked upon itself as a branch of the British Labour Party and attempted, in fact, at their annual conference this year to merge directly with the British Labour Party. Again, they have two representatives in Parliament.
-What kind of activities does the Republican movement carry on on a day-to-day basis in an attempt to involve the nationalist masses in Northern Ireland?
We work through the Republican Clubs, which you must remember are banned in the North of Ireland under the Special Powers Act. It is punishable by a five- to fourteen-year term of imprisonment to be a member of a Republican Rather than knuckle down under the ban, our attitude has been to operate in public.
We have in the rural areas become involved in the land question. Native and foreign capitalists are involved in land speculation coming in and buying up landed estates. The movement's activity at the local level is to get the small farmers involved in defence. We have formed Defence Associations, agitating for the control of these estates to be given to local cooperative organisations to be distributed among the people.
In some cases we are forced to take direct action. This means the destruction of some of the large estate houses by one means or another
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