Introduction

‘On my knees I beg you to turn away from the paths of violence and to return to the ways of peace’. Pope John Paul II, an iconic opponent of Soviet-led communism, made this futile appeal in September 1979 to the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and other paramilitary organisations involved in the Northern Ireland Troubles....

Epilogue

The fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War caused ructions in the WP; the party split in 1992 when ‘reformers’ broke away to create Democratic Left. The ‘reformers’ contended that the WP should become ‘a reconstituted party affirming its adherence to the rule of law’. The ‘reformers’, or ‘liquidators’, who included six of its seven parliamentary deputies, were accused of attempting to destroy the WP. What was left of the ‘revolutionary’ party retained its Cold War assumptions, pointing the finger at the CIA, no less, claiming that it might have had a role in fomenting the split. Drawing a global picture, the WP highlighted the ‘counter-revolutionary’ role of the US in such countries as Cuba, Vietnam, Angola, and Grenada. The reformers highlighted the WP’s ‘historical baggage’ and association with ‘criminality’ – the Official IRA.

The KGB and Ireland

A potential espionage threat to Britain from Dublin-based Soviet agents arose as the establishment of Irish-Soviet relations became a probability. This chapter examines perceptions of the communist-influenced Official republican movement as the Troubles escalated in 1971-2, with officials expressing fears for the stability of the Dublin government – the ‘Irish Cuba’. British and American officials used a Cold War prism here. The Russians could be expected to exploit the northern crisis, the American ambassador warned, using the Official movement as their ‘natural vehicle’. Following Bloody Sunday, when British paratroopers killed thirteen unarmed civilians, the British prime minister, Ted Heath, warned Dublin that the Soviets would cause as much trouble as they could, using the Official IRA as a proxy. The Irish revolutionary left too used a Cold War lens when opposing Ireland’s membership of the European Economic Community (EEC): it would lock Ireland into a NATO-dominated bloc.

Soviet Policies in Dáil Éireann

Ronald Reagan’s visit to Ireland in 1984 proved controversial, owing to the unpopularity of his Central American policy. Having dropped ‘Sinn Féin’ from its title, the WP opposed the visit and faced criticism from the three main parties in the Irish state for being ‘anti-American’ and ‘silent’ on Russian interference in Afghanistan and Poland. The taoiseach, Garret FitzGerald said the WP lacked ‘credibility’ because of its ‘selective pro-Soviet stand’. No longer seen as a subversive threat in the 1980s, it supported Charles Haughey’s minority government. This chapter will highlight Cold War perceptions of the WP’s relationship with the Soviets and its links with Iraq and North Korea. Over the course of the decade, a small party, seen to have good electoral prospects in the south, advanced the Soviets’ agenda in an EC member-state.

‘Communists’, the IRA and the Northern Ireland Crisis

At the beginning of the 1960s, the Soviet Union decided to support national liberation movements to undermine the US and its allies worldwide. Concurrently, the IRA leadership began to emphasise socialism and co-operate with communists in various agitations – the most significant would be the Northern Ireland civil rights movement. This chapter discusses perceptions of the republican movement’s ‘new departure’. William Craig, the Northern Ireland minister of home affairs, contended that the communist-influenced IRA aimed to manipulate the civil rights issue as a prelude to another armed campaign. In 1969 Northern Ireland’s prime minister, Major James Chichester-Clark, warned that some civil rights protesters aimed to create an ‘Irish Cuba’. The civil rights campaign inadvertently worsened sectarian tensions in Northern Ireland, leading to the outbreak of the Troubles.

Communists: Ireland’s ‘Fifth Column’?

This chapter discusses perceptions of Moscow’s ‘fifth column’ in the Irish state. While the communist party amounted to little more than an insignificant cult, not all communists declared themselves openly. Significantly, other political strands, particularly the IRA, were seen to be susceptible to communist manipulation. During the Cold War this gave rise to exaggerated fears about communism and its agents. Dublin officials co-operated with the British, and the Americans, in combating communists and their left-wing republican allies. In Northern Ireland, the Communist Party (CPNI) remained extremely weak, but retained influence of some significance within trade union officialdom. And, in Britain, the Connolly Association attempted to organise Irish exiles under the tutelage of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). The US embassy in Dublin was sensitive to any suggestion of communist activity; Irish and American officials placed intelligence co-operation on a formal footing in 1954.

Conclusion

‘Military neutrality’ and ‘political neutrality’ are not the same. The Irish authorities did not allow the state’s non-aligned status to prevent them joining the crusade in the West against communism. They had a Cold War agenda. In the 1950s, leading officials such as Colonel Dan Bryan in G2, the Irish army intelligence directorate, believed that Ireland should assist the NATO powers in their global struggle. So, too, did Peter Berry, the Department of Justice secretary in Dublin. They supplied detailed information on the tiny communist organisation to the ‘hypersensitive’ Americans, for example, and provided intelligence on ‘peace’ activists to the British. Details on suspect activists ended up in the files of the Church’s ‘vigilance’ committee – a clear breach of the separation of Church and State. As functionaries in what Berry termed the ‘communist international’, Michael O’Riordan in Dublin and Desmond Greaves in London were seen to be taking directions from the British communist party, the CPGB. The communists had their own Cold War agenda to follow, with ‘world peace’ Moscow’s priority. But this issue did not capture the imagination of the working class, as a frustrated Roy Johnston discovered. Nevertheless, orders were orders for Ireland’s ‘fifth column’. Some communist-led organisations, however, were believed to have recruitment potential. Could the CPGB-directed Connolly Association, and its equivalent in New York – both ‘dangerous’ in Bryan’s view – convert Irish exiles by highlighting issues related to Northern Ireland? Was there any possibility that communists could succeed in infiltrating the Irish republican movement?...

‘A Party of the Extreme Left’

The Irish minister for justice, Patrick Cooney, in 1976 identified two threats to the state: the ‘Sino-Hibernian’ Official republican movement and the Provisional IRA. ‘Harsh laws’ to counter subversion would be widely welcomed, he claimed. The Official movement’s leadership now openly endorsed the Soviets’ agenda. This chapter focuses on the Official IRA’s determination to build a political party that stayed close to the Soviet Union but opposed its support for the Provisionals’ ‘prison war’ – the campaign to restore ‘political status’ for newly-convicted paramilitary prisoners. Now advocating ‘peace, work and class politics’ as the solution to the northern crisis, the Official movement’s political creation, Sinn Féin The Workers’ Party (SFWP), abandoned the traditional left-wing republican ‘anti-imperialist’ position. Ironically, this involved the party analysing the situation in the north along the same lines as the British prime minister, Margaret Thatcher.

A ‘Near-Communist’ Movement

The third chapter examines perceptions of the Irish revolutionary left following the outbreak of what became known as the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Unrest in Northern Ireland raised the question of Irish revolutionaries again seeking Kremlin assistance, as KGB ‘special actions’ through proxy organisations had been a tool of Soviet foreign policy. London, at times, had a Cold War understanding in relation to developments in Ireland. And so did the US embassy in Dublin, because White House fears in relation to any threat posed by communism were fuelled by widespread opposition in the West to America’s war in Vietnam. This chapter looks at the geo-political dimension to the northern crisis as it was raised at the United Nations (UN) and the Soviets began to take a greater interest in developments in Ireland. Sectarian violence in Northern Ireland led to a split in the republican movement and the emergence of the leftist Official IRA.

Left-Wing Republicans Align with Moscow

In 1974 the Russian embassy opened in Dublin and the Irish foreign minister visited the Soviet Union in 1976. The American ambassador to Ireland used a Cold War prism when he expressed concerns that the Soviets in Dublin might pose an espionage threat to NATO. This chapter focuses on the increasingly pro-Soviet Official republican movement and its relationship with the Russian embassy in Dublin. Northern Ireland’s Troubles in the mid-1970s constituted the most pressing security issue for those concerned with Irish affairs, and inter-republican violence, involving the Official IRA, contributed to the crisis. The Northern Ireland Office (NIO) perceived the left-wing republican movement as being linked with Moscow-backed ‘terrorist organisations’ worldwide. The northern secretary, Merlyn Rees, described the increasingly peripheral Official movement as posing the most serious subversive threat because it had a ‘coherent philosophy’, unlike the Provisional IRA.