UVF training in 1914

Today is the 88th anniversary of the largest 'Mayday' demonstration in Irish history, when what the Belfast Newsletter described as "a little band of disgruntled Red-Socialists" led 100,000 workers through the streets of Belfast. Everywhere else in Ireland in 1919 had also seen massive Mayday demonstrations, with 10,000 demonstrating in Burr Co. Offaly.

Outside of the North East, these had been called for the 1st of May in order "to demonstrate the solidarity of workers and to reaffirm their adhesion to the principles of self-determination". But Belfast marched to a different theme on the 3rd May. Both North and South a massive wave of working class militancy had grown and although these struggles shared a common rhythm they happened in isolation from each other.

The Flood Files:
1916 - Connolly, blood sacrifice and defeating British imperialism | 1916: Just what are we celebrating? | The 1798 Rebellion | Robert Emmett and the 1803 Rising | The Orange Order | Neither Orange nor Green | Troops Out!

On Monday in Dublin, a local history group organised a commemoration of the brave women who fought alongside the men in the fight against British rule and the establishment of the Free State.

The march was led by a colour party of women wearing the uniforms of Cumann na mBán and the Irish Citizens Army and photographs of many of the women were carried on the march. After being erased from the historical record for many years (literally in the case of Elizabeth O'Farrell) the women of the 1916 to 1923 period of Irish history are starting to be recognised once again for the important role they played in the struggle for Irish freedom.

British troops barricade a street in Dublin

The Easter rising began at mid-day today 90 years ago. Traditionally the anniversary is marked as being on the Easter Monday rather than the actual date, perhaps in part because of the common theme of blood sacrifice. Histories of the rising tend to focus on the idea of blood sacrifice at both a motivation for the rising and the reason for the creation of the Free State. This article argues that although this may have been an important motivation on the day it was not the reason for the rising nor was the reason for the subsequent rise of the IRA simply found in the execution of the republican leadership after the rising. So using the article to mark the actual '90 years on'' date seems appropriate.

Money issued by 1919 Limerick soviet

An anarchist analysis of the 1916 insurrection and the war of independence / tan war in the context of the struggle for socialism in Ireland and internationally. Concentrates on the 'unknown' intense class struggle that ran alongside the war of independence and the role republicanism played in the suppression of that struggle in the interests of nationalist unity. Asks what is freedom and shows how anarchism originated amongst earlier European left republicans as an answer to the limitations of republicanism.

An alternative analysis of the legacy of 1916: Previous Indymedia feature

Republican Prisoners, 1921

Eoghan Contradictions Harris Plays Both An Orange Protestant Card And A Green Catholic Card: A Story In Four Parts

Extract: "In the Sunday Independent Eoghan Harris played both an Orange Protestant card and a Green Catholic Card in an effort to explain away this historical context, in dealing with one of the last acts of the War of Independence. In so doing he sought to arouse sectarian feeling where there is little if any. It was the Republican side that overtly rejected an association of religion and nationality. The empirical evidence thus far uncovered supports this contention. In their courageous determination to keep politics separate from religion, and to sweep away centuries-old divisions, Republicans of the Protestant faith broke with the historical identification of their community, while Catholic Republicans defied the ultimate sanction of excommunication from their church. But in playing with sectarian fire, Eoghan Harris risks undoing 80 intervening years that have tended towards harmony and reconciliation."

An account of apparently sectarian murders by the IRA in Co. Offaly in 1921 was publicised by Eoghan Harris in the Sunday Independent in October 2005. The allegation of the sectarian murder of the apparently unassuming Protestant Pearson family of Coolacrease was made by William Stanley of Carlow in his "I met Murder on the Way - The Story of the Pearsons of Coolacrease" (2005). This account of events that took place during the Irish War of Independence was then promoted by Eoghan Harris and by the Sunday Independent.

In the course of his analysis Eoghan Harris criticised Protestants in the South for not supporting his analysis and that of the Reform Group: "a group which wants to dig up the buried British and Protestant parts of Irish identity", according to Harris.

This article gives readers the other side of the story, the side ignored by Harris and the Reform Group, and by the Sunday Independent.