Free Derry Corner
‘Can a nation be free if it oppresses other nations? It cannot.’*
The above quote by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the Soviet leader, encapsulates the situation between Ireland and Britain. Often described as the ‘Irish Problem’ the almost thousand-year struggle of the Irish to get the British off their backs and out of their country should be called the ‘British Problem’, as it’s the colonising country that has caused, and is still causing, the problem.
In all that time the Irish have fought for their freedom, sometimes in an organised and conscious manner, most times just out of frustration and anger. They have achieved some victories, made many mistake and have produced enough martyrs for a dozen countries. But they have never been defeated.
It might have taken a few years for liberation forces to regroup and raise yet again the banner of freedom but there have always been a select few in every generation who have done so.
Although the struggle has been going on for centuries when a revolutionary upsurge occurs it’s always depicted in Britain as having virtually ‘come from nowhere’, that it’s just the fault of ‘hotheads’ or the current buzzword to denigrate the opposition, ‘terrorists’. If the British people don’t really have a great understanding of their own history they have even less understanding of what has happened across the relatively short distance of the Irish Sea. Perhaps it’s a consequence of colonialism, remembering their history is a way that the colonised can maintain their identity.
The aim of the pages on the blog related to this is to attempt to provide a resource for some of the historical material that will enable both the Irish patriots to learn about their own history and struggle as well as making this material available to any others, from the imperial country or further afield, so they might better understand the why of the struggle in the most westerly island of Europe.
Ireland is the British problem in the sense the British state has always been able to divide workers from the two countries based upon ignorance and by using the racism card and thereby the attention of British workers has not been directed against the main enemy, the capitalist state in which they live and from which it is attacking fellow workers in a neighbouring country.
Much of this material was produced (or at least made readily available) in the 1960s and 1970s. The political climate is different now and much of this material might be difficult to access. Hopefully these pages will fill, if only in a minor way, that knowledge gap.
Ireland was Britain’s first colony we should make it its last.
*VI Lenin, The Right of Nations to Self-Determination, Selected Works, Vol 20, p413
Ireland – The Historical Background
The British State has never been held responsible for Bloody Sunday
An article written on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the massacre.
The Writings of James Connolly
The Relevance of James Connolly Today
Blood on London’s hands (10th february 2022)
Whitehall knew for decades that the UDA paramilitary group was carrying out wholesale murder – yet ministers long refused to ban it as a terrorist organisation and officials continued to meet its leaders.
‘Comfortable in his coffin’ (21st September 2022)
A 10 year-old Belfast boy was killed by a plastic bullet fired by a British soldier in 1975 – one of 17 people who died from this ammunition during The Troubles. A coroner has now slammed the Ministry of Defence for failing to change its Rules of Engagement in time.
See also;
They Shoot Children – The use of rubber and plastic bullets in the North of Ireland
and
Plastic Bullets – Plastic Government – Deaths and Injuries by Plastic Bullets, Aug 1981 – Oct 1982
‘Lodged in skulls’: The army’s deadly plastic bullets scandal. (17th March 2023)
The Ministry of Defence knew metal end-caps fitted to plastic bullets could remain attached on firing, potentially ‘lodging in the skulls’ of anyone they hit – but authorised the weapon’s continued use in Northern Ireland.
Waterboarded by the British army. (29th March 2023)
A Belfast court has posthumously awarded compensation to a man tortured and assaulted by British soldiers in Northern Ireland in the 1970s. Documents show the use of electric shocks and sexual assault were commonly inflicted on detainees.