The Emergence Of Modern Irish Socialism 1885-87
ireland / britain |
history of anarchism |
feature
Friday March 04, 2005 21:28 by Fintan Lane - published by WSM
The historian Fintan Lane on the early socialist and libertarian movement in Ireland in the 1880's
The early socialist and libertarian movement in Ireland in the 1880's
The Emergence of Modern
Irish Socialism 1885-87
Hans Christian Andersen went weak before princesses and he was a
shocking apologist for elves but when it came to trolls he had an
excellent grasp of his subject. In The Snow Queen, Andersen
introduced a most evil specimen of troll:
One day he was in a really good humour because
he had made a mirror that had the quality of making everything good
and fair that reflected in it dwindle to almost nothing, but whatever
was worthless and ugly stood out and grew even worse. The loveliest
of landscapes looked like boiled spinach in it.... now, for the first
time, you could see how the world and mortals really looked.
Sometimes, if you look hard enough (as Andersen would have put
it), this troll can be glimpsed traversing the Irish socialist
movement with his malignant mirror in tow. In recent years, with
socialism under severe pressure, he has been a particularly busy
little bastard. The history of socialism often looks infinitely
miserable in his mirror of cynicism and the calamity of orthodox
communism is allowed to envelop everything. But there is much in the
past that should give socialists hope for the future. Unfortunately
in Ireland it is a past unfamiliar to most political activists.
Irish historiography has traditionally been inadequate with regard
to working-class political life and this is especially true for late
nineteenth-century Ireland. For many historians, the arrival of James
Connolly in May 1896 has remained a seminal event, when, in the
opinion of F.S.L. Lyons, a spark was lit and Irish socialism
began.(1) In fact, organised Irish socialism began in 1885 and is a
tradition more diverse and more vibrant than commonly assumed.
BEFORE 1885
It could be argued that modern Irish socialism began with the
establishment in 1872 of branches of the International Working Men's
Association (or First International). However, these branches (in
Dublin, Cork, Belfast and Cootehill) were short-lived because of the
intense opposition that they encountered and their demise was
followed by a complete absence of socialist organisation until 1885.
Among the Dublin Internationalists the leading figure was a
cabinet-maker in his forties called Richard McKeon who the police
described as "a troublesome character, and a regular fanatic in
politics, having been a Chartist, a Young Irelander, a member of the
National Brotherhood of St. Patrick, and a Fenian".(2) McKeon was an
old friend of Joseph McDonnell, the ex-Fenian who represented Ireland
on the General Council of the International in London.
The Dublin branch of the International first emerged in
mid-February 1872 and was routed by April. All of its public meetings
saw the section under severe attack because of the Paris Commune of
1871 during which the Catholic Archbishop of Paris had been killed.
The final meeting, held at McKeon's premises in Chapel Lane on 7
April, sealed the fate of the branch when a mob of
anti-Internationalists stormed the building. According to a hostile
Irish Times: "The defenders of the Communists of Paris were set upon,
and a hand-to-hand encounter ensued.... chairs and tables were upset,
the glass was smashed in the windows, and every stray piece of wood
was availed of as a weapon for attack or defence....several members
of the detective force were in the room at the time, but exercising a
wise discretion allowed the parties to fight it out".(3) The meeting
was broken up and the members chased down the stairs and up the
street by an incensed mob.
Little is known about the Cootehill or Belfast branches although
Canon Maguire, a Cork cleric, noted with satisfaction that "those
wretched people had been expelled from Belfast".(4) The Cork branch
had rather more success but it too was eventually driven into
extinction. In Cork the Internationalists had established links with
local workers (primarily the coach-builders) before the local clergy
declared them antagonistic to religion and called on Cork workers to
crush them.
The Freeman's Journal assessed the Cork membership to be as high
as three hundred within a few weeks of the branch's formation in
late-February 1872.(5) In fact, the strength of the group can be
roughly gauged from its ability to effectively disrupt a meeting
called on 24 March in order to distance the city from the
International. Over three thousand people turned out for this rally
but the Internationalists arrived shortly before it commenced with "a
body of men, perhaps about one hundred in number, composed of working
men, and in parts of roughs, nearly all of whom wore green
neckties".(6) In the ensuing free-for-all the meeting-hall was
wrecked: "They rallied at both sides repeatedly, and the taking and
re-taking of the platform was conducted by leaders who were armed
with bludgeons.... The building was very much damaged".(7) After
several hours of rioting the Internationalists emerged as victors.
Within weeks, however, a 'red-scare', exacerbated by the riot, caused
the branch to collapse. The main organiser was forced to leave the
city.
DUBLIN DEMOCRATIC ASSOCIATION
There were socialists in Ireland during the 1870s and early 1880s
but it was not until late 1884 that they again attempted to organise
together. In a sense, Irish socialism from 1885 onwards is best seen
as an outpost of the British 'socialist revival'.
In 1881 the Democratic Federation was founded in Britain by
radicals (and some socialists) who opposed the use of coercive
legislation against the Irish Land League. The Land League, which
sought the diminution of landlordism and the promotion of
peasant-proprietorship, was ultimately banned in October 1881 and
many of its leaders interned. The 'land war' of 1879-82 was a
politicising experience for many in Ireland and in Britain. The
Democratic Federation, which had formed as a result of the Irish
agitation, went on to develop into Britain's first 'nation-wide'
socialist organisation and in 1884 was renamed as the Social
Democratic Federation (SDF).
The Democratic Federation had sent a delegation to Ireland in the
summer of 1881 but it made no serious attempt to recruit members.
There were certainly socialists in Ireland at this time but it was
not until the formation of the Saturday Club in 1884 that they began
to work together. This Club, which met on Saturday evenings in the
Rotunda in Dublin, provided a debating forum which was independent of
the nationalist movement. Social and political issues were discussed
by radical Dublin workers and the attendance was generally impressive
with hundreds at some debates. Its formation and the links it
engendered probably encouraged those who attempted in December 1884
to form an SDF branch in Ireland.
On 20 December 1884 Justice, the SDF weekly newspaper, carried a
letter signed by Samuel Hayes, R.G. Russell, and Alexander Stewart
signalling their intention to found an SDF branch in Dublin. In the
event an inaugural meeting held in the Oddfellows Hall, 10 Upper
Abbey Street on 18 January 1885 saw the formation of a Dublin
Democratic Association which stated that its objective was "to
promote and defend the rights of labour, and to restore the land to
the people".(8) Alex Stewart was elected secretary and James Doyle
was made treasurer. Both were officials in the local branch of the
Amalgamated Society of Engineers (ASE).
According to Samuel Hayes, the crowded meeting at the Oddfellows
Hall had decided not to form an SDF branch "because it would frighten
away any who would be disposed to consider our principles, besides
that all the influence of the Roman Catholic Church would be levelled
against us, as also of the National League".(9) They decided to
advance their principles "without calling them by the name of
socialism".(10) In fact, of the Democratic Association's sixty
members, it would seem that only some fifteen were committed
socialists: the majority were land nationalisers and political
radicals of varying types. At least one, Adam O'Toole, was a former
member of the Dublin branch of the International. Two, Amos Varian
and P.A. Tyrrell, were formerly leading Dublin Land Leaguers.
The Dublin Democratic Association retained strong links with the
SDF in Britain although it never affiliated. On 25 January it decided
to hold a series of public meetings "for the advancement of
democratic principles".(11) Over the following months Adam O'Toole
spoke on 'Democracy Defined', Amos Varian on 'Franchise And
Representation', Edward O'Connor on 'the Social Question', Alex
Stewart on 'Democratic Demands', and Andrew Byrne on 'The Social
Revolution'. Members of DDA also utilised the Saturday Club in order
to put forward their arguments. A foreign socialist, the Danish
Marxist Fritz Schumann, spoke at the Club on 31 January provoking
Michael Cusack, the GAA founder, to charge Marx with being the
creator of an organisation in which "such destructive agents as
petroleum oil had been employed" and he implored Dublin workers to
leave such "international business" alone.(12) After a rambling
speech and a confrontation with Alex Stewart, Cusack stalked out of
the Rotunda. There were other less dramatic opportunities for the
socialists to argue their politics.
The Dublin Democratic Association 'adjourned' in May for the
summer but it was never to reconvene. Samuel Hayes blamed attacks
from the nationalist party "who did all they could to crush it", but
also admitted that it had become a financial failure and its
membership had gradually diminished.(13)
SOCIALIST LEAGUE
The emergence of the Dublin branch of the Socialist League in
December 1885 can be said to mark the real beginning of modern
organised socialism in Ireland. An unbroken continuity of
organisation exists between this first socialist group and the Irish
Socialist Republican Party of 1896. Moreover, the libertarian
socialism of the Socialist League remained influential within Dublin
socialism until, arguably, the arrival of 'new unionism' and the
subsequent establishment of branches of the Independent Labour Party
in the mid-1890s.
The Socialist League in Britain formed in December 1884 as a
breakaway from the SDF. The reasons for the split are complex but
many had to do with the politics and personality of H.M. Hyndman who
was determined to maintain his grip on the leadership of the SDF.
Hydnman's socialism was a most dogmatic and unimaginative variety of
Marxism and he held a condescending view of the working class. His
apparently cynical view of workers' political and industrial
self-activity was one of his chief weaknesses and it greatly
irritated many of those who split to form the Socialist League. For
Hyndman, to use E.P. Thompson's phrase, social reforms "were the
carrot for the donkey; and the donkey was the people."(14) The
Socialist League, in contrast, under the leadership of libertarian
Marxists (like William Morris and Andreas Scheu) and anarchists (like
Joseph Lane), declared its immediate objective to be social
revolution and saw social reforms as palliatives made by capitalism,
in the words of Morris, "with the intention of ....being a nullity or
a bait to quiet possible revolution".(15)
From the beginning the Socialist League saw itself as primarily a
propagandist organisation which would help to sow the seeds of
revolution in working class minds. It also declared itself, like the
SDF, in favour of Irish Home Rule and its secretary, John L. Mahon
(of Irish extraction), made efforts to recruit in Ireland. These
efforts bore fruit mainly because of the arrival of an English
Socialist Leaguer in Dublin in 1885. Michael Gabriel, an anarchist,
moved to Bayview Avenue in the North Strand area of Dublin and in
June he began to distribute League leaflets and the group's
newspaper, The Commonweal.
Samuel Hayes had already, earlier in the year, distributed
material advertising The Commonweal but the Dublin Democratic
Association, which had existed until May, showed no real interest in
the Socialist League. However, George King, a former member of the
Dublin branch of the International (and probably also of the DDA),
contacted the League in London in July expressing his interest in the
organisation. Samuel Hayes subsequently evinced a similar interest
and he sent a list of former DDA members to H.H. Sparling, now
secretary, in London. Nevertheless, while sending the list he struck
a pessimistic note: "Most of the persons mentioned are rather
disheartened as far [as] the propagation of socialism is
concerned....It is impossible to get the people in this country to
think for themselves - they believe everything they hear both from
their political leaders and clergy".(16)
Despite such pessimism, Michael Gabriel managed to form a Dublin
branch of the Socialist League at a meeting in December 1885. The
first monthly membership report gave membership as ten among whom
were a number of members of the former Dublin Democratic Association.
Samuel Hayes became branch secretary and John A. Ryan was made
treasurer. Other founding members included George King, Fritz
Schumann, Thomas Fitzpatrick, John O'Gorman, Auguste Coulon, Michael
Gabriel and Arthur Kavanagh. (Ryan, King and O'Gorman were all former
Internationalists.) The branch selected the Oddfellows Hall in Upper
Abbey Street for its weekly meetings which were held at 8p.m. on
Thursday night. By December Gabriel had already made his presence
felt at the Saturday Club when he argued against returning workingmen
to parliament: "What would be the use of sending labour candidates to
Parliament? It would be no use whatever to send them to talk to
capitalists and landlords whose interests were different from theirs.
As working men they would never get anything by using a vote."(17)
This raw anti-parliamentarianism represented both Gabriel's anarchism
and the general policy of the Socialist League. William Morris held
precisely this opinion.
Fritz Schumann also made an impact at the Saturday Club when he
tried to defend the merits of atheism during a debate on Charles
Bradlaugh. (Bradlaugh was a Radical MP excluded from the House of
Common in London because of his atheism.) "The chairman," declared
Schumann, "has allowed atheism to be assailed with not a word in
support of it (groans)." The chairman's response was swift: "This
gentleman has said now that he will defend atheism and I say I won't
hear it! (applause)".(18) Religious sensibilities in Ireland provided
an enormous impediment for socialist organisers during the late 19th
and early 20th centuries. Nevertheless, the Dublin socialists
received a good hearing at the Saturday Club and over the following
years they played a prominent role in the organisation of the debates
and provided many speakers. In April 1886, the Dublin Socialist
League was instrumental in bringing William Morris to Dublin and,
among other meetings, he spoke on socialism to a packed meeting of
the Saturday Club.
At most the Socialist League in Dublin had just over 20 members at
its height. It was a minuscule organisation but this small group was
enough to raise the spectre of socialism in Ireland. During its
existence it held a number of public meetings although, following a
dispute with the Oddfellows Society in January 1886, the branch had
difficulty in finding halls for its lectures. Samuel Hayes estimated
an attendance of sixty at its first public meeting on January 7
and The Freeman's Journal carried a long report on its
proceedings.(19)
During a general discussion at this meeting, Thomas Fitzpatrick, a
young anarchist who was to become an energetic socialist agitator,
accentuated one aspect of Socialist League politics which became a
serious problem in the years ahead. "The tendency of the age," he
said, "is towards internationalism not nationalism. It is absurd to
think that the separation of Ireland from England would alone benefit
the working men of Ireland".(20) Fitzpatrick did not dismiss Irish
anti-colonialism in this statement but, in the main, these early
socialists equated separatism with a narrow-minded nationalism (which
they correctly saw as harmful to the interests of the working-class).
John O'Gorman summed up this attitude in 1891 when he contended that
Home Rule would entail "the rule of the farmer, the publican, the
clergyman and the politicians".(21) However, rather than oppose Home
Rule with an alternative, as James Connolly was later to do, the
Socialist Leaguers tried to stand above what was the primary
political issue of their day. This attitude, needless to say, did not
bring them either recruits or popularity.
The socialists' dislike of the Home Rule movement was partially an
objection to the notion of change through constitutionalism. In
January, Gabriel argued at the Saturday Club that the "idea of
looking to Parliament, whether Irish or English, to do anything for
them was a mistake", and that "everything depended on the
organisation and co-operation amongst the working class".(22)
Gabriel's anarchism included a distaste for piecemeal reforms and
even extended to the dubious assertion that a suggested "agitation
about rack-renting would not do them any good at all."(23) Such
'realism' must have appeared rather cold comfort to the many victims
of rack-renting in Dublin at that time. Anarchist ideas exerted a
real influence on these pioneers of Irish socialism, although it
would be a mistake to presume that all members of the Dublin
Socialist League adhered to these ideas. Some were Marxists and
other, undoubtedly, were ill-defined in their socialism. This
diversity was acknowledged and accepted by the members of the branch.
"Socialism," said Michael Gabriel, " was capable of a good many
interpretations". Nonetheless he went on to state that in his opinion
"all the evils were caused by class government. He was opposed to a
million men ruling one man, or one man ruling a million. The power of
one man to govern another should be swept away under the socialist
system."(24)
Unlike the International the Socialist League, despite suffering
some attention from the police, was largely unmolested at its public
meetings, although its March social evening to celebrate the Paris
Commune was, according to Gabriel, "a small private meeting" because
of the fear of it "being broken up" if openly advertised.(25)
Nonetheless, such trepidation was uncommon and when a man named
Magennis lectured in the Rotunda on the topic of socialist "snakes in
the grass", the League advertised its following meeting under the
same title and specifically invited Magennis to attend.(26)
Apart from its public meetings the branch raised the profile of
socialism in Dublin by its involvement, through Fritz Schumann, in
the bottle-makers' lockout in early 1886 and in April the lectures in
Dublin of William Morris generated some interest in socialist ideas.
However, April marked a high point for the League in Ireland and as
summer approached the Home Rule issue seems to have impacted on both
the members' morale and activity. April had seen the introduction
into the House of Commons of Gladstone's doomed 1886 Home Rule Bill
and the rest of the year was completely dominated by the controversy
and the hopes that it generated. The socialists admitted this to be a
problem in May when Fritz Schumann wrote to London that it was
proving "extremely difficult just now to get people to think of
anything but Home Rule".(27) By late 1886 the branch was terminally
ill but it staggered on until March 1887 when it finally collapsed.
In October 1886 the Dublin branch clashed with the Central Council
of the League in London and this probably accelerated the demise of
the section. The Council had on 17 May expelled Charles Reuss as a
spy for the German police. Reuss and some supporters counter-charged
Victor Dave, another League member, with being a spy and this
accusation was backed by a Reuss-biased 'commission' which exonerated
Reuss himself. Both Reuss and Dave were anarchists, although from
contending factions. Anarchism in Britain at that time was a rather
diffuse and murky affair. It later emerged that Reuss actually was
the spy after he betrayed Johann Neve, an anarchist wanted in
Germany. However in October 1886 The Anarchist, which was Britain's
only native anarchist paper, devoted almost the whole of its front
page to an article attacking the Socialist League and supporting
Reuss. This dispute in Britain was noted in Dublin where members of
the branch received copies of The Anarchist. The Dublin socialists
contacted London to express their concern and following an exchange
of correspondence they unanimously adopted a motion attacking the
Council. That they took the word of The Anarchist over that of their
own Council certainly points to the strong influence of anarchism
among the Dublin members.
The conflict between the Dublin branch and London was eventually
resolved at a special meeting held in Dublin on 9 November to discuss
the issue. John O'Gorman let Sparling in London know that his letters
"and assurances considerably lessened the hostility to the Council
(practical Anarchists, we) that was displayed at other meetings" and
the matter was left drop.(28) Nonetheless, the dispute would not have
encouraged the Dublin members to maintain the Irish section.
AFTER THE SOCIALIST LEAGUE
This article set out to outline the emergence of modern Irish
socialism with particular emphasis on the Socialist League. It is
necessary to understand the politics of the League branch before one
can fully understand the groups and clubs which followed. Most of the
Socialist Leaguers remained politically active through the next few
years and some like Arthur Kavanagh, John O'Gorman and George King
had connections with Connolly's ISRP.
Perhaps one of the most exciting of Ireland's early socialist
organisations emerged after the demise of the Socialist League in
Dublin. The National Labour League (which included the senior Land
Leaguer J.B. Killen) mobilised the unemployed during 1887 and brought
thousands onto the streets of the capital city. The speeches made by
the leaders of the Labour League were explicitly revolutionary.
Killen told a crowd of some 3,000 at one rally held on Harold's Cross
Green on 6 March that the land and all the instruments of production
should belong to the community and that the worker was "justified in
using any means whatever in order to get rid of the idle class that
fattened upon his misery".(29) On 13 October, 1887 the National
Labour League (at a meeting attended by, among others, Gabriel,
Fitzpatrick and King) issued a manifesto to Irish workers which
called on them to rise up against capitalism:
All over the civilised world the people are rising up against
their tyrants, the capitalist class. Shall you, men of Ireland,
remain behind in the great struggle that labour is making for its
emancipation?(30)
The National Labour League was followed by a variety of socialist
clubs and debating societies and, later, by the Irish Socialist Union
whose members played a significant role in introducing 'new unionism'
into Ireland. Despite setbacks and seemingly insuperable difficulties
these socialists struggled on and laid the foundations for whatever
exists of socialism in today's Ireland. They displayed tenacity and,
within their groups, they also displayed an acceptance of political
diversity in the socialist movement.
In 1888 John O'Gorman wrote of Ireland as a "shuttlecock between
the political tricksters", this despite the fact that "the condition
of the country is getting worse every day; thousands are out of
employment in Dublin and all the towns; [and] the cry of distress is
heard on every side."(31) O'Gorman and his friends believed that
socialism could provide an alternative to this misery.
Note: Fintan Lane is a historian and the author of a
recent study of Irish socialism entitled: THE ORIGINS OF
MODERN IRISH SOCIALISM, 1881-1896. It is published (May 1st
1997) by Cork University Press, Cork.
References: Available from the author.