Eamonn McCann, War and an Irish Town Written in 1973, the classic account of a nationalist working class youth in the North of Ireland during the current phase of the struggle. Me. Cann was 26 when British troops marched into Derry after the people of the Bogside had driven the RUC since the meeting outside the high flats in Rossville Street when Ber- nadette Devlin warned the victorious if exhausted Bogsiders not to make Things have come a long way the soldiers welcome because they were agents of British imperialism. Twelve years of war has even the most dubious that no reliance can be placed on the British state, least of all to defend the belcagured nationalist population of the six counties.
convinced tion to the late Bobby Sands and his comrades, McCann had been involv- ed in what passed for traditional Labour politics in the sectarian Coming from a different genera- statelet for several years before the outbreak of the latest troubles. Like Sands and his generation, bigotry, batons and then bullets in the hands of the RUC and the British Army showed him that no conventional labourist or trade union politics is possible in the see- tarian state; the main problem is the existence of the state itself and the interests it defends -- British across these points in a highly amus- ing way. exclaims his aunt when an IRA rocket lands accidently on the Creg- But the book manages to put gan Community Centre, 'are they going to kill us all before they free *Jesus, , Mary and Joseh us. (£1.95) NEW UPDATED EDITION Ernie O'Malley ON ANOTHER WOUND MAN'S Queens, he formed People's Democracy, which organised the famous Belfast to Derry march, described by MeCann as ta horrific trek which dredged to the sur- face all the accumulated political filth of fifty Unionist years'. Burntellet by a Paisleyite mob the marchers managed to reach Derry, where they were faced yet again with rampaging loyalist mobs. Farrell's Despite a murderous ambush at book is by far the best history of the sectarian state from its foundation in 1921. (E3.95) Ernie O'Malley. Man's Wound, the Singing Flame The 1916 Easter rising in Dublin, and the execution of its leaders was the trigger for a young medical student joining the Republican movement and the fight against the later played a leading role in the bit- partitioning of the country, under Rising rapidly in the ranks he mediate and terrible war"
(both £2.95)
On Another ter war against those who agreed the the threat by Lloyd George of im- O'Malley's books are at once per- sonal and highly readable historical accounts of a leading figure in one of the first modern guerrilla armies. Ernic Andrew Boyd, The Rise of the Irish Trade Unions Describes the foundation of unions in Ireland, at the same time or even before similar developments in England, Scotland or Wales -- an interesting antidote to those chauvinists in the British labour movement who claim superiority on the grounds of precedence. book is the account of how the workers in Belfast were, in the carly 1930s, able to overcome sectarian differences in a united fight against the bosses. Unfortunately, like the efforts of Connolly and Larkin in The most interesting part of the 1913, these came to nought, mainly because the Unionists were able to use sectarian fears to divide the working class. (E1.50)
Socialist Challenge 3 December 1981