 |
| Ronnie McCartney Image @ Belfast Media |
When he was released in 1995, he was described as the longest-serving republican prisoner. The bulk of it was spent in English prisons of which he saw quite a few as a result of ghosting - a practice which saw prisoners, without any notice, ghosted out of the prison they were in to another, maybe hundreds of miles across the country. A frequent habit of prison authorities was to move prisoners hours before their family visit. The family would then arrive at the prison gates having made the long trip from Ireland, at no small expense, often involving overnight stays.
Last week a former blanketman was reflecting with me on the passing of Ronnie and said that his own nose was out of joint that the blanketmen were always first served when it came to handing out accolades for prison protest. In his view, if anybody merited top table status it was those republicans in English jails. Theirs was truly a horrendous experience. Belfast Media detailed something of Ronnie's experience:
He spent a total of five years in solitary confinement for protesting the severe prison conditions imposed on republican prisoners and was 'ghosted' repeatedly — moved without notice — from jail to jail. He attempted to escape from Wormwood Scrubs in 1977 but was apprehended in the prison yard. He took a leadership role in a series of prison protests, including the Gartree riot of 1978 and the subsequent rooftop protest there. He took part in a further rooftop protest in Wormwood Scrubs in 1980.
Less than two weeks after I had arrived in Magilligan as a young IRA prisoner twenty one year old Ronnie was involved in a shootout with British police in Southampton. 'In spite of one of the biggest dragnets ever mounted by the Hampshire Constabulary' he evaded capture and made his may back to Ireland. But his time there would be short lived. Captured the following year in Tyrone he entered the British penal system and stayed there for almost as long as he had spent outside prison.
By 1991 Ronnie was back in Ireland, not as a free man but a prisoner in Maghaberry by which time he had served around seventeen years of his life sentence. Most of us in the Life Sentence Review Unit were awaiting our final release. But not Ronnie who continued to be held within the general prison population. The former UDA leader John White said to me in 1992 while on the work out programme that Ronnie deserved a break but the authorities seemed intent on denying him one. I didn't know Ronnie at the time but White seemed to have a lot of respect for him, maybe as a result of both having a shared interest in criminology, which they studied.
It was only after we had both been released from prison that I met Ronnie through my late friend Tony TC Catney. We would often talk politics. He was open minded and not averse to different ideas. I didn't find him greatly at odds with Sinn Fein's direction of travel but unlike many in the party he did not respond with a snarl at the unapproved thought. Ronnie viewed the world through a prism of the left and would often join others from that perspective in the John Hewitt bar in Belfast's Donegal Street where ideas flowed as freely as the beer. Ronnie had a penchant for both so he was good company to be in.
Something else I was pleased to find he shared with me, alongside a love of beer, was a passion for Liverpool FC. The one area which saw our paths diverge was religion. For some reason Ronnie held onto his faith. Perhaps the years spent in solitary confinement in England left him with no one to talk to or share his thoughts with but his god.
Ideationally promiscuous, he would turn up at events that Sinn Fein members preferred to avoid. On one occasion he attended an Expac AGM in Monaghan. An ex-prisoners body set up to help any former prisoner seeking advice or direction, it never took the party whip and for that reason while not quite shunned by Sinn Fein, there was no welcome mat laid out for it. Ronnie could fit in, aided perhaps by a level of education that allowed him the confidence to be comfortable with a different idea. This was evident when twenty years ago BBC Spotlight broadcast The Provo and the Policeman in which Ronnie came face to face with the cop he shot in Southampton. The two men talked, shook hands and later went to a restaurant for a meal.
The French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre, probably no stranger to Ronnie, stressed the importance of a life lived authentically. Whatever faults and foibles might have interloped along the way, when this old dog for the hard road was breathing the last breath of his seventy two years he might have cast his mind back to the days of prison protest in England and thought, with much justification . . . authenticity.
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| ⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre. |
Adam Novak
The exchange between philosopher Frédéric Lordon and La France Insoumise raises questions central to ecosocialist strategy internationally: whether electoral left formations can genuinely challenge capitalism, and what distinguishes rhetorical anticapitalism from the real thing.
In October 2025, the French philosopher and economist Frédéric Lordon published a provocative essay asking whether La France Insoumise (LFI, France Unbowed) — France’s main radical left formation — deserves to call itself anticapitalist. His answer: not yet, and perhaps not seriously.
Founded by Jean-Luc Mélenchon in 2016, the movement took 22% in the first round of the 2022 presidential election — narrowly missing the runoff against Marine Le Pen. It anchors the Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP, New Popular Front), the left coalition that unexpectedly won the most seats in the 2024 legislative elections. Its programme, L’Avenir en commun (The Future in Common), combines ecosocialism, a Sixth Republic constitution, retirement at 60, and exit from EU fiscal constraints. LFI represents the most significant left-of-social-democracy formation in Western Europe with a realistic prospect of governmental power.
Lordon’s essay sparked substantial debate. Antoine Salles-Papou, director of LFI’s Institut La Boétie training school, published a lengthy rebuttal in Contretemps.
The exchange between philosopher Frédéric Lordon and La France Insoumise raises questions central to ecosocialist strategy internationally: whether electoral left formations can genuinely challenge capitalism, and what distinguishes rhetorical anticapitalism from the real thing.
In October 2025, the French philosopher and economist Frédéric Lordon published a provocative essay asking whether La France Insoumise (LFI, France Unbowed) — France’s main radical left formation — deserves to call itself anticapitalist. His answer: not yet, and perhaps not seriously.
Founded by Jean-Luc Mélenchon in 2016, the movement took 22% in the first round of the 2022 presidential election — narrowly missing the runoff against Marine Le Pen. It anchors the Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP, New Popular Front), the left coalition that unexpectedly won the most seats in the 2024 legislative elections. Its programme, L’Avenir en commun (The Future in Common), combines ecosocialism, a Sixth Republic constitution, retirement at 60, and exit from EU fiscal constraints. LFI represents the most significant left-of-social-democracy formation in Western Europe with a realistic prospect of governmental power.
Lordon’s essay sparked substantial debate. Antoine Salles-Papou, director of LFI’s Institut La Boétie training school, published a lengthy rebuttal in Contretemps.
Continue @ ESSF.
And all of a sudden, it was steamy. And it was dark. And everyone was off their nut – it was the perfect place for acid house. It really was the uniqueness of the design and the grandeur of the ‘cathedral-like’ spaces...It really lent itself to the music and really came into its moment with the hordes...that wanted to celebrate house music at that time...It seemed to say, ‘whoever you are, whatever you wear, wherever you’re from – you’re welcome here.’
This quote from Peter Hook (as well as a similar one from Ken Hollings that to go into a club and dance was a political act in itself) demonstrates the potent myth of the dancefloor: a place where everyone takes to the floor and, depending on who you talk to:
- Transcend your ordinary surroundings through the power of music.
- Create a euphoria so potent that it could solve world problems in that moment.
- Indulge in a communal atmosphere where everyone is at one.
Individualistic and collectivistic. Quite the combination.
However, there is a dark side to it: shit drugs, the comedowns and the appalling music.
But for some, it’s a way of life. Just like the protagonist of this novel.
First published in France in 2022 under the title L'homme qui danse (which roughly translates as The Man Who Dances), a recent translation into English has seen it being heaped with praise.
Ostensibly about a man named Arthur, it is also a look at the rise and fall of club culture from the 2000’s onwards as the post September 11th hedonism gives way to social media, stopping just before Covid.
Arthur is a simple, yet complex character. He cannot express his isolation in any meaningful or grandiose way, so he simply repeats the same formula (working out, clubbing, sleeping) and never expresses a great desire to do anything else with his life. Yet it is obvious that what was one a lifeline to him has become something that has entrapped him to the extent where he wants to move on but doesn’t know how to.
Crippled by his insecurities and his lack of ambition, he carries on clubbing regardless. He also doesn’t appear to have any knowledge of the outside world (there are no mentions of the Charlie Hebdo/Bataclan murders, the Gilets Jaunes protests, the ban on face coverings and the Lyon synagogue attack) and there are hints that his sexuality is, to quote Bishop Hope, something of a grey area.
With such thin characteristics, it is up to the fast-paced tale which starts in 1990 and ends in 2019 to carry the book. And what it highlights is not just how transient Arthur’s life is but also how we can end up in a routine that, while initially making sense, sees us reach a certain age with little to show for it.
Stylistically, the writing is bare bones. On one hand, this really fits with the theme expressed above but it also makes for a dry and monotonous read at times. It’s possible that something has been lost in the translation from French to English but ones gets the feeling this should be much more philosophical than it is.
Solid, if unspectacular.
Victor Jestin, Sam Taylor (translator) Dancefloor, Scribner ISBN-13: 978-1398531697
⏩ Christopher Owens was a reviewer for Metal Ireland and finds time to study the history and inherent contradictions of Ireland. He is currently the TPQ Friday columnist and is the author of A Vortex of Securocrats and “dethrone god”.
Ten links to a diverse range of opinion that might be of interest to TPQ readers. They are selected not to invite agreement but curiosity. Readers can submit links to pieces they find thought provoking.
Before We Conform, Or Condemn, Let Us At Least Be Curious
♜One recognizes one's course by discovering the paths that stray from it - Albert Camus♞
The death of Searchlight’s founder Gerry Gable at the age of 88 marks the passing of a man without whom modern British anti-fascism would scarcely be recognisable. For more than sixty years, he stood at the centre of the struggle against fascism and the extreme right, as a relentless organiser, investigator and strategist.
To many, Gerry was anti-fascism: tireless, uncompromising, occasionally infuriating, and utterly driven by the belief that fascism had to be understood, exposed and defeated before it could take root.
Searchlight was his life’s work. For half a century, until he retired when it moved fully online in 2025, he poured his energy into building it into the most trusted source of information on the far right in Britain.
Intelligence service
It was never simply a magazine. It was an early-warning system, an archive, an anti-fascist intelligence service, and a weapon. Under Gerry’s guidance, Searchlight uncovered networks that preferred to remain hidden, revealed the true nature of organisations that tried to launder their image, and provided countless activists with the knowledge they needed to confront fascism and right-wing extremism locally and nationally.
Continue @ ESSF.
Shares in US energy companies have jumped as investors bet that the US seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro will open opportunities to tap the country's oil reserves.
Shares in Chevron opened more than 4% higher, after surging more than 7% in pre-market trading, while other firms, including ConocoPhillips and Exxon also gained.
Precious metal prices and shares in defence stocks also rose as the intervention increased investors' concerns about geopolitical risks.
Gold was about 1.9% higher at $4,412 (£3,275) an ounce, while the price of silver was up by 3.6%, as money was moved into so-called "safe-haven" assets.
Prices of precious metals such as gold and silver often rise in times of uncertainty as they are seen as safer assets to hold.
The gold price saw its best annual performance last year since 1979 after rising by more than 60%, reaching an all-time high of $4,549.71 on 26 December.
Those gains were driven by several factors including expectations of more interest rate cuts, major purchases of bullion by central banks and investor concerns about global tensions and economic uncertainty.
Oil prices fluctuated on Monday as investors weighed whether Washington's intervention in Venezuela would affect crude supplies.
Continue @ BBC.
Up and down the UK; there have been angry demonstrations outside hotels repurposed for the accommodation of asylum seekers awaiting the outcome of their asylum applications. The spark for these protests was the arrest and eventual conviction of an Afghan national resident in one such hotel in Epping, Essex for the sexual assault of a 14 year old school girl. Cue a cause celebre for far right agitators such as Tommy Robinson who quickly exploited genuine local concerns about the nature of this mode of asylum seeking accommodation to enflame nativist hostility towards migrants powered by “lock up daughters” hue and cries about the threats to “our women and children” from single, “fighting age”, males of a different skin pigmentation and different religio-cultural background.
Riots erupted outside the Epping hotel and flag draped opponents of asylum seekers mobilised outside many other hotels with counter demonstrations from antiracist and migrant advocacy groups. Last summer also saw the “Raise the Colours” campaign in which Union and St George flags were raised on telegraph poles and street lamps on the outskirts and suburbs of towns; hardly a spontaneous outbreak of patriotic sentiment to celebrate a national sporting achievement (or the Ashes fiasco!) but an attempt, in a manner which resonates with anyone who has grown up in Northern Ireland, to delineate territory in which certain ethnicities are not welcome. Opinion poll findings that more people believe that only ethnic or indigenous Britons can be British citizens (more and more “native Irish” Twittertarians proclaim the same exclusivist message) is another indicator of the growing salience of ethno-nationalism in British political discourse.
Into this febrile atmosphere has entered the Pink Ladies who subvert the language of feminism to pose the spectre of the threat to womanhood and child safety from sexually predatory single men from “backward cultures” who have arrived in the UK by small boats. It is a trope that was articulated by the Daily Mail columnist Sarah Vine in her column of 10th December 2025 after two Afghan asylum seekers were jailed for raping a 15 year-old girl : “For too long this country has ignored the reality of what happens when men from certain cultures are let loose in our liberal democracy.” She went on to state “I don’t care if I’m accused of scaremongering or worse. Facts are facts.”[1]
So behind all the politicians’ outrage at the immigration status of perpetrators and the anecdotal news stories of offences such as sexual assault often accompanied by police mugshots of brown and black men, what are the actual facts concerning asylum seekers and crime? It is certainly moot to point out that the available evidence shows that the ethnic group most likely to be violent and sexual offenders in the UK are white men. However the reality is that the UK government’s own data cannot reveal how many crimes are committed by asylum seekers because the Ministry of Justice does not record offences by immigration status.[2]
The proxy category “foreign nationals” agglomerates a wide mix of people: recent arrivals, long-settled immigrants, students, health and care workers, their dependents, as well as asylum seekers. Taking into account this caveat, the best figures available to us are those disseminated by the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford. They show that foreign nationals in England and Wales are incarcerated or convicted at roughly the same rate that British nationals. When adjusted for age and sex, the share of non-British citizens in prison is actually lower than the share of British citizens but there is no publicly available data on conviction rates after adjusting for age.[3]
Ben Brindle, the Migration Observatory’s lead researcher on its analysis, opines that “it’s more likely that asylum seekers are more likely to commit crimes” but attributes this “to some of the other characteristics that those people tend to have” While asylum seekers are more likely to be young men and while young men have a greater propensity to commit crime, Brindle states the lacunae in the statistics available makes comparing a young male Briton to a young male asylum seeker impossible.[4]
It is difficult to fully address the moral panics about the demographic amalgam of those arriving on British shores despite the availability of nationality data. The big gaps in the underlying population data makes comparisons shaky, if not invidious. The last census took place in 2021 – before the ‘Boris wave’ fuelled peak in migration - and the Office for National Statistics has been experiencing something of an institutional crisis in falling response rates in its main population surveys. These surveys do not include residents in communal accommodation such as asylum hotels which means that recent revivals are not recorded at all. Smaller groups of foreign nationals – for example, Afghans – are most likely to be misrepresented. Ben Brindle makes the further point that possible drivers of crime committed by young men (both Britons and migrants) such as trauma, mental health more generally and socio-economic status cannot be inferred from existing data.[5]
Such complexity of course does not prevent populist and unscrupulous politicians and tabloid newspaper editors from making sensationalist claims. A case in point was the assertion by Reform UK and the Tory Shadow Justice Secretary, Robert Jenrick that Afghan nationals were 22 times more likely than British nationals to be convicted of sex offences. This figure originated from the Centre for Migration Control and was extracted from data from the years 2021-23 (capturing 77 sexual offences committed by Afghan nationals in that period. However the population data was from the 2021 census and did not include the influx of Afghans into the UK after the fall of Kabul in August 2021. Madeleine Sumption, director of the Migration Observatory estimated the rate to be 14.5 times greater for Afghan nationals but even that figure comes with the qualification that there is no age breakdown, unlike for the prison population data. While still a striking difference, the lesson to be learned here is that where there is a relatively small number of offences, a small change in the population can shift the offending rate markedly.[6]
A better metric for assessing the linkage between asylum seekers and crime would be the methodology employed by migration expert Hein de Haas to assess the correlation between crime and (the admittedly broader category of migration). To evidence his claim that not only immigration lowers crime but that crime rates have actually decreased, de Hass cites a major study of trends in crime data between 1988 and 2004 across 26 Western countries showed reductions of 77.1 per cent in theft from cars, 60.3 per cent in theft from persons, 26 per cent in burglary, 20.6 in assault and 16.8 per cent in car theft. In the US, between 1990 and 2013, violent crime and property crime decreased by 50 and 46 per cent.
References
[1] Harron Siddique and Michael Goodier Do asylum seekers commit crimes at a higher rate? The Guardian.15 December 2025 p.21
[2] Ibid
[3] Ibid
[4] Ibid
[5] Ibid
[6] Ibid
Into this febrile atmosphere has entered the Pink Ladies who subvert the language of feminism to pose the spectre of the threat to womanhood and child safety from sexually predatory single men from “backward cultures” who have arrived in the UK by small boats. It is a trope that was articulated by the Daily Mail columnist Sarah Vine in her column of 10th December 2025 after two Afghan asylum seekers were jailed for raping a 15 year-old girl : “For too long this country has ignored the reality of what happens when men from certain cultures are let loose in our liberal democracy.” She went on to state “I don’t care if I’m accused of scaremongering or worse. Facts are facts.”[1]
So behind all the politicians’ outrage at the immigration status of perpetrators and the anecdotal news stories of offences such as sexual assault often accompanied by police mugshots of brown and black men, what are the actual facts concerning asylum seekers and crime? It is certainly moot to point out that the available evidence shows that the ethnic group most likely to be violent and sexual offenders in the UK are white men. However the reality is that the UK government’s own data cannot reveal how many crimes are committed by asylum seekers because the Ministry of Justice does not record offences by immigration status.[2]
The proxy category “foreign nationals” agglomerates a wide mix of people: recent arrivals, long-settled immigrants, students, health and care workers, their dependents, as well as asylum seekers. Taking into account this caveat, the best figures available to us are those disseminated by the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford. They show that foreign nationals in England and Wales are incarcerated or convicted at roughly the same rate that British nationals. When adjusted for age and sex, the share of non-British citizens in prison is actually lower than the share of British citizens but there is no publicly available data on conviction rates after adjusting for age.[3]
Ben Brindle, the Migration Observatory’s lead researcher on its analysis, opines that “it’s more likely that asylum seekers are more likely to commit crimes” but attributes this “to some of the other characteristics that those people tend to have” While asylum seekers are more likely to be young men and while young men have a greater propensity to commit crime, Brindle states the lacunae in the statistics available makes comparing a young male Briton to a young male asylum seeker impossible.[4]
It is difficult to fully address the moral panics about the demographic amalgam of those arriving on British shores despite the availability of nationality data. The big gaps in the underlying population data makes comparisons shaky, if not invidious. The last census took place in 2021 – before the ‘Boris wave’ fuelled peak in migration - and the Office for National Statistics has been experiencing something of an institutional crisis in falling response rates in its main population surveys. These surveys do not include residents in communal accommodation such as asylum hotels which means that recent revivals are not recorded at all. Smaller groups of foreign nationals – for example, Afghans – are most likely to be misrepresented. Ben Brindle makes the further point that possible drivers of crime committed by young men (both Britons and migrants) such as trauma, mental health more generally and socio-economic status cannot be inferred from existing data.[5]
Such complexity of course does not prevent populist and unscrupulous politicians and tabloid newspaper editors from making sensationalist claims. A case in point was the assertion by Reform UK and the Tory Shadow Justice Secretary, Robert Jenrick that Afghan nationals were 22 times more likely than British nationals to be convicted of sex offences. This figure originated from the Centre for Migration Control and was extracted from data from the years 2021-23 (capturing 77 sexual offences committed by Afghan nationals in that period. However the population data was from the 2021 census and did not include the influx of Afghans into the UK after the fall of Kabul in August 2021. Madeleine Sumption, director of the Migration Observatory estimated the rate to be 14.5 times greater for Afghan nationals but even that figure comes with the qualification that there is no age breakdown, unlike for the prison population data. While still a striking difference, the lesson to be learned here is that where there is a relatively small number of offences, a small change in the population can shift the offending rate markedly.[6]
A better metric for assessing the linkage between asylum seekers and crime would be the methodology employed by migration expert Hein de Haas to assess the correlation between crime and (the admittedly broader category of migration). To evidence his claim that not only immigration lowers crime but that crime rates have actually decreased, de Hass cites a major study of trends in crime data between 1988 and 2004 across 26 Western countries showed reductions of 77.1 per cent in theft from cars, 60.3 per cent in theft from persons, 26 per cent in burglary, 20.6 in assault and 16.8 per cent in car theft. In the US, between 1990 and 2013, violent crime and property crime decreased by 50 and 46 per cent.
References
[1] Harron Siddique and Michael Goodier Do asylum seekers commit crimes at a higher rate? The Guardian.15 December 2025 p.21
[2] Ibid
[3] Ibid
[4] Ibid
[5] Ibid
[6] Ibid
⏩Barry Gilheany is a freelance writer, qualified counsellor and aspirant artist resident in Colchester where he took his PhD at the University of Essex. He is also a lifelong Leeds United supporter.
Ten links to a diverse range of opinion that might be of interest to TPQ readers. They are selected not to invite agreement but curiosity. Readers can submit links to pieces they find thought provoking.
Before We Conform, Or Condemn, Let Us At Least Be Curious
♜One recognizes one's course by discovering the paths that stray from it - Albert Camus♞
At sixteen, somebody a brace of years senior often seemed to belong to the adult world, the younger ones, not quite there, grappling with the transition. On the ladder out of adolescence different peer groups perch on each rung. Yet, at two years short of twenty, those who thought themselves men were only teenagers, still finding their way in a world rapidly turned upside down by violent political turbulence.
As with many named Hugh, Belfast people for some reason would insert the letter S in front of the name, so Hughie became Shughie. My father used to tell a joke about it.
A woman brings her son into the shop and asks for a school cap with the letter S emblazoned on the front.
The shopkeeper tells her he has every letter in stock but S.
The woman says to her son, 'come on wee Shughie, we will try somewhere else
The two year age gap placed Shughie Magee in a different peer group from myself. I was friends with his brother Willie. My association with Shughie was not as a result of the IRA but arose out of our peer group winding his up just to get a chase through Lavinia and Pevril Streets and their associated alleyways, at times darting in and out of the various rooms - even hiding beneath the floorboards - in the derelict Orchard building at the top of Lavinia Street where it met the main thoroughfare of the Ormeau Road.
It was a building popular with young people who would congregate outside it to while away the evening hours. Scruff Millen often held court there before, in April 1973, at the age of 23 falling to loyalist assassins on the prowl a mere hundred yards away in Belmore Street. War, that ruthless apex predator remorselessly devouring the young.
When arrested and interned Shughie Magee was only 18 years of age. It says something about the youthfulness of the guerrilla army that hit back against the British and unionist governments and their Repressive State Apparatuses. In that period the average age of IRA volunteers killed on active service was reported to be 20. The Disney dramatization of the era, Say Nothing, captured the youth at war phenomenon in graphic terms. Young people fuelled by a blend of idealism and resentment took the war to the British and Unionist regimes.
It is no exaggeration to say that Shughie Magee led the IRA's war against the British state in South Belfast, including the commercial bombing campaign in Belfast city centre. This led to him becoming a much hunted figure for the British Army, who constantly stopped young people asking if they knew him. They would tell people in pubs to pass a message onto Shughie that he would be shot on sight. As the efforts to take him intensified, young people getting harassed at the street corners would exercise bragging rights to the military foot patrols that they couldn’t catch a cold. So when he took a chance and was caught in bed in his mother's home, a despondency set in, alloyed in part by a sense of relief that the Brits didn't carry out their threat. He was in Long Kesh, not Milltown, a prisoner not a martyr.
I was a beneficiary of Shughie's absence, on occasion sleeping in his vacant bed while on the run as a sixteen year old, the recipient of the hospitality on offer from Shughie's mother, Agnes.
After release from my second prison sentence, myself and Shughie were both in our thirties, youth long since evaporated. By that point he had gone on to marry and have children. When I would call into the Hatfield Bar and see him quietly sipping his pint of Guinness, I would on occasion join him, the thought crossing my mind that teens frequenting the pub would just see a guy at the end of the bar having a quiet pint. They had no idea of the effort put into the armed struggle, the risks faced, the imprisonment endured, the stress his family was placed under, dreading the knock to the door, the harbinger of the news they least wanted to hear.
There are parts of the IRA that will remain unexplored territory until those that made it happen, people like Shughie Magee, are written into its history rather than forgotten about.
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| ⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre. |
From her early years Gonne suffered from Tuberculosis which remained an unpleasant companion throughout her life.
Most Irish historians write favourably of Gonne as an angel to the poor and a close friend of James Connolly. Gonne worked with Connolly on many occasions not least Queen Victorias Diamond Jubilee protests in 1897 which included a mock funeral, and in the soup kitchens during the 1913/14 Dublin Lockout where she was hailed an Angel to the locked out and striking workers. But there was a side to Maud Gonne which James Connolly would probably have been unaware and would have been repugnant to his views. Anti-Semitism was to remain a stain on Gonne’s character throughout her life and was a position from which she never shifted. This was the opposite to James Connolly’s views.
To the Irish Poet, William Butler Yeats, she was a ‘Goddess’ whom he worshiped to the point of humiliation. To militant socialists and Irish nationalists this ‘revolutionary woman’ was an ‘icon’ while to thousands of hungry schoolchildren during the 1913/14 Dublin Lockout she was the woman who brought them a square meal.
James Connolly was strongly opposed to any form of sectarianism and anti-Semitism, seeing them as two sides of the same vile coin. Gonne, however, was an ardent anti-Semite, hating Jews with an ugly grimace. In 1887 aged twenty-one, after an attack of TB, she went to ‘Royat’ in France convalescing and it was while in the land of fine wines she met an unsavoury far-right fascist character, Lucien Millevoye, who was a supporter of far-right French politician Georges Ernest Jean-Marie Boulanger who had held the rank of General in the French Army. Boulanger was involved in prosecuting the Dreyfus affair and campaigned for the maximum penalty for the Jewish French Army Captain, Alfred Dreyfus, after the captain was accused and found guilty of passing secrets to the Germans. Boulanger wanted the maximum penalty for Dreyfus simply because he was Jewish and not because he thought the man was guilty. Dreyfus was sentenced to life imprisonment on Devils Island. Alfred Dreyfus was later exonerated of all charges in 1906 and resumed his career in the French Army fighting in the First World War.
While in France Maud Gonne, who shared Millevoye’s politics, entered into an affair with the fascist, often having sex in semi-public places, perhaps not quite the Goddess Yeats thought! She had kept her anti-Semitism hidden from Connolly perhaps knowing the Marxist’s views on this form of anti-Jewish hatred. The surface of Gonne’s politics would not have had to be scratched very hard to reveal her true colours but nobody, not even Connolly, gave such an issue a second thought. Her work, certainly against British imperialism, and support for the poor of Dublin was second to none, an undeniable fact yet, alas, tarnished with closer examination.
Maude Gonne had two children to Lucien Millevoye, Georges Silvere, who died of meningitis at the age of one in 1891, and Iseult Lucille Germaine (1894-1954) who too later became a figure of W.B. Yeats attraction and, like her mother, Yeats proposed marriage to Iseult who turned him down. Did Iseult inherit her mother’s anti-Semitic politics? Later on Iseult had a rapport with the head of the Nazi Foreign Office, Eduard Hempel, but does this mean she shared the Nazi Party Minister’s views? Many questions could be asked, too many for this article. “Maud Gonne may have been sympathetic to the nationalist objectives which Connolly sought to achieve but she was opposed to his socialist politics” (James Connolly A Full Life Donal Nevin P.90). In a letter,1927, to her, Yeats wrote: “when I knew you first you were anti-Dreyfus and all for authoritative government – Boulanger – and so on; and I was Dreyfussard (sic) & more or less communist under the influence of William Morris.” Gonne’s reply was: “In the old days when you were Dreyfus you use to think it fine the thesis ‘Better France perish, than one man suffer injustice!’ I hold that Dreyfus was an uninteresting Jew & too much money was spent in his cause for it to be an honest cause & that greater injustice triumphed every day when poor men were sent to jail for theft of food and clothing for their families & I would prefer to raise the cry for them. Being a nationalist, I sympathised with French nationalists who objected to the Jews and international finance interfering in their country & upsetting their institutions” (James Connolly A Full Life: Donal Nevin P.90-91). As can be gleaned from this letter Maud Gonne’s anti-Semitism had not mellowed with time. Had she referred to raising the “cry” for the “injustice” suffered by the poor against the rich in general that would have made sense to any socialist. The fact she emphasised Dreyfus’s Jewishness highlighted her grotesque anti-Semitism.
“As a result of the successful anti-Jubilee demonstration he had organised, Maud Gonne invited Connolly to submit an article for the journal which she edited in Paris” (Nevin P.93). L’Irlande Libre was the Journal which she edited and Connolly, along with Michael Davitt, W.B. Yeats, William Field MP, and Lucien Millevoye along with Gonne herself all contributed and it is the last contributor, Lucien Millevoye, who raises questions. Either Connolly just viewed this man, a fascist, in all probability unknown to Connolly, as just another who contributed among many to Gonne’s journal? My view is Connolly had no cause to give Lucien Millevoye more than a passing thought as one who writes for Maud’s publication. James Connolly never met Lucien Millevoye so why would he have given the man any serious thought? He had not been furnished with the knowledge of Maud Gonne’s relationship with him so to Connolly he was just another individual who contributed to the journal. No doubt Gonne kept Millevoye and his views shared by her, a closely guarded secret from Connolly and other socialists in Ireland.
Millevoye died in 1918 but the ideology he followed lived on and almost conquered all of Europe starting in Italy when in 1922 Mussolini was appointed Prime Minister after his march on Rome. Eleven years later a far more aggressive form of fascism, in its generic sense, Nazism, became the government in Germany. Despite Maud Gonne’s anti-Semitism she did not support the Nazis during the Second World War. In fact she is on record as saying “she would not have been a Nazi even if she had lived in Germany during that period.”
It is clear to see Maud Gonne was a very enigmatic figure. Socialistic in her concern for the poor, a member of the Women’s Social and Political Union – the suffragettes – she opposed British rule in Ireland yet, despite all these progressive political positions she let herself down enormously with her anti-Semitic views. Maud Gonne was not alone in the WSPU with her anti-Semitic views and some of the Suffragettes joined Ormonde Winter, former head of British intelligence at Dublin Castle, in a new British fascist party in England. This should not be confused with Oswald Moseley’s anti-Semitic British Union of Fascists which succeeded Winter’s small group. Maud Gonne had two children to a French Fascist who, in all probability had he lived, would, along with French writer Louis-Ferdinand Celine, have supported the Nazis and advocated a military alliance between France and Nazi Germany, and she masterly kept this a secret in Ireland. The question is, how? Had Millevoye lived longer could he have impacted further on Maud Gonne’s political views? This is unlikely because her and Millevoye separated in 1900, eighteen years before his death, and Maud Gonne married Major Sean MacBride in 1903. She had a child, a boy also named Sean, with MacBride who himself would go on to have an impact on Irish political life. Sean MacBride Junior would become an IRA Chief of Staff and would form part of the coalition government when the Republic of Ireland was declared in 1948 (for the 26 Counties, enacted 1949) as the head of the Clann na Poblachta party. MacBride had also been active in Sinn Fein and the left-wing Saor Eire (Free Ireland).
Despite Maud Gonne’s dislike of Hitler’s Nazism in Germany the same could not be said of her view, at least initially, of Mussolini in Italy. To begin with she supported the Italian fascist leader however as time evolved, she began to question his authoritarian government and crushing of civil liberties. This is somewhat ironic because, according to Yeats’ letter in 1927, she once supported “authoritative government – Boulanger – and so on” this was in reference to her and Millevoye’s support for the French far-right activist. She must have known fascism was authoritarian and crushed civil liberties, particularly the right to organise in trade unions. Perhaps her own views were mellowing but not, it would appear, on anti-Semitism and that is an important negative from a socialist perception!
Despite Maud Gonne’s dislike of Hitler’s Nazism in Germany the same could not be said of her view, at least initially, of Mussolini in Italy. To begin with she supported the Italian fascist leader however as time evolved, she began to question his authoritarian government and crushing of civil liberties. This is somewhat ironic because, according to Yeats’ letter in 1927, she once supported “authoritative government – Boulanger – and so on” this was in reference to her and Millevoye’s support for the French far-right activist. She must have known fascism was authoritarian and crushed civil liberties, particularly the right to organise in trade unions. Perhaps her own views were mellowing but not, it would appear, on anti-Semitism and that is an important negative from a socialist perception!
Maud Gonne was one of the more enigmatic figures in Irish history, starting with her relationship with the fascist anti-Semite in France Lucien Millevoye. She was perhaps the last person it must have been thought to hold fascist views given all her other positive affiliations. Then on the 17th February 1903 she converted to Catholicism and on the 21st of the same month she married Sean MacBride. Was this an act in itself of rebellion by Maud? W.B. Yeats begged her not to marry MacBride as did Arthur Griffith but she went ahead regardless. Maud Gonne was one of Ireland’s enigmas, and an enigma she will remain . But, enigma or not, her anti-Semitic views tend to be masked by some historians! The question is why is a side to one of Ireland’s best known activists rarely spoken?
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| Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent Socialist Republican and Marxist. |
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