Against the Tide

by Noël Browne

  We were visited on occasions by left-wing comrades from Britain; these meetings were of value for the interchange of ideas about Anglo-Irish left-wing politics. At the beginning of one such meeting, which was to be addressed by one of our visiting speakers, an incident occurred that was to have serious results for me politically but showed at the same time a refreshing side of liberal-minded Dublin people’s sense of justice.

  This happened during the Kruschev-Kennedy confrontation over Fidel Castro. In what became known as the Bay of Pigs invasion, the United States threatened to abort Cuba’s socialist revolution. In defence of Castro, Krushchev moved missiles to Cuba in October 1962. We now know that the world was closer to nuclear extermination that night than ever before or since. As our meeting began that night, 23 October, we all shared a restless foreboding of impending danger. Worse still was our sense of helplessness before it John Byrne pleaded the futility of our sitting in a basement discussing the future when there was a good chance there might be no tomorrow for any of us. He moved that we take to the streets in Dublin to try to create a public awareness about the possible imminence of world catastrophe.

  For an Irish politician in Dublin to protest in defence of a Marxist revolution, even thousands of miles away, was asking for trouble. As we walked up the steps from our basement headquarters, I murmured to him ‘John, this is going to cost us Dublin South-East’. We marched up Kildare Street, around Stephen’s Green, down Grafton Street, along Nassau Street towards Merrion Square and the US Embassy in Ballsbridge. It was our intention to protest formally, leaving a message to that effect at the embassy.

  As we marched down Grafton Street calling out our message and asking for support, a few good-humoured young boys and girls from the cafés and ice-cream parlours decided to join us. The rest ignored us or patronisingly smiled at our foolishness, remaining in their queues for whatever makebelieve dream world was to be presented to them on the cinema screens. We were eventually met by a solid blue line of gardai. As a parliamentary representative in a peaceful protest march acting as its spokesman, I asked permission to protest formally at the embassy. Seconds later I was violently hurled through the air, victim of some kind of street-fighting artistry favoured by a notorious policeman who specialised in brutality and was proud of it. This was followed by a general assault on our small group. Slowly we were driven back towards Clare Street. Many of the gardai were patient and did not use brutal methods. Our resistance, was finally crushed, however, by the use of savage alsatian dogs, which had arrived in a police van. The assault, the strange animal sounds, the snarls, excited barks and whimpers, were all so unexpected and unthinkable that it was hard to know what was happening. There was the sudden realisation that a large and angry animal with sharp teeth was furiously tearing at your clothes, your body, your head, face, and arms. My first reaction was one of incredulity. Fear was blotted out by emotions closer to despair and disgust. As in most Irish homes, we have always kept dogs. I experienced a sense of hurt revulsion that men could pervert the age-old friendship of man and dog. Someone had trained these dogs to savage a fellow man instead of serve him, to deliberately pervert a generous instinct into a fearsome hurting one.

  By this time a crowd had gathered in Clare Street. While being mauled by the dogs, I tried to tell the public that the men setting these dogs on us were the men whom we as citizens paid to keep the peace. Finally the press arrived, among them a photographer. He got a particularly spectacular picture of one alsatian jumping at my head, a record of the event which could not be controverted. Some of the young men and women needed hospital treatment for their bites. I treated my own.

  There were a number of sequels. There was a court case in which it was implied that it was we, the marchers, who had provoked the police dogs. There was even a suggestion of irritation that I did not look frightened in the photograph, the implication being that I had enjoyed the whole revolting episode. Those who went to court were given no sympathy. But a worthwhile result was that the police may no longer use alsatian dogs to disrupt protest marches. Credit for this must go to the distinguished short story writer, Frank O’Connor, one of the early republicans in the Anglo-Irish struggle. He wrote to tell me of his sympathy because of the attack by the police dogs. While disclaiming any interest in the subject of the march, he went on to invite us to take part in another march, to be led by him to establish without question any citizen’s right lawfully to march anywhere, without molestation by police dogs, in the city of Dublin. It was for such a freedom that earlier, as a young man, he had risked his life.

  It was a dramatic occasion. That march duly took place, silently and peacefully. Nothing was said; there were no partisan flags, no scrolls or banners, no political slogans. No note or letter was handed in when finally we arrived at the American Embassy. The march completed, all of us, citizens of differing shades of political and religious beliefs and of all ages, departed our different ways. It was comforting to see the citizens of Dublin validate of their own accord, in the streets of Dublin, that liberal thesis, ‘I don’t agree with what you say, but I will defend your right to say it’.

  Several years later a member of the gardai with whom I had become friendly told me of that incident as seen by him that night. He said that inside the American Embassy a number of embassy staff were armed, and prepared to use arms against us. The gardai had been for our protection; it was essential that we be prevented from reaching the embassy.

  For ourselves, the sad sequel was as we had feared. The McCarthyite smear that our march had been a gesture of pro-Communist solidarity was used ruthlessly in the 1965 general election. Our protest march had indeed ‘cost us Dublin South-East’. I lost my seat to Fianna Fáil’s Seán Moore, although increasing my vote from 4,717 in 1961 to 5,348.

  With the demise of the National Progressive Democrats in 1964, Jack McQuillan and I concluded that our contributions in the Dáil, while valuable, remained limited in their long-term effect without the support of a political party. Inevitably and reluctantly we were driven to accept the need to work within the least objectionable of the three main parties. With equal reluctance the Labour Party finally accepted us as working members in October 1963. Surprisingly, the conservative Jim Tully voted for my admission while, unsurprisingly, Brendan Corish fought against it.

  All went well for a short few years. I was even elected vice-chairman of the party in 1967. Then, as the pact-making between Fine Gael and Labour intensified, we became effectively isolated and silenced. It is possibly true that we had been mistaken in not appreciating quite how effective what was euphemistically called party discipline could be. Parliamentary questions were permitted only with the authority of the shadow minister. The use of motions, and bills on the order paper, which had been so effective and valuable in elaborating radical policies by initiating debates in the Dáil up to now, was forbidden. Frank Cluskey, the party whip, was an enthusiastic member of the inner cabal, determined to form yet another coalition with Fine Gael and so win ministerial office. For this reason, none but those chosen speakers who preached harmless banalities unlikely to ruffle Fine Gael were tolerated as speakers in the Dáil, especially on contentious issues. It was Cluskey’s practice to promise permission to speak on a subject, but at the end of a long list which appeared miraculously to elongate further just as soon as I asked permission to speak. I began to wonder whether we had been deliberately permitted to join the Labour Party so that we could be silenced.

  In the late sixties and early seventies, for the first time, there was talk of liberal, even socialist, thought in the Republic. Politics began to ease its way from the monosyllabic, catch-cry rhetoric of anti-British republicanism to a more creative, mature political mould. Much of this may have resulted from marginal access to world opinion through international travel, the extension of television through the country, and the access to technological education needed to accommodate the new multinationals now beginning their ritual transitory flit to the favourable tax concessio
ns of the gullible Republic’s Ministers for Commerce.

  Back in the fifties, the nationwide enthusiasm for our cause during the mother and child election had been a truly memorable but fleeting experience. The exuberant spirit of youth in the 1969 general election now came as a new and encouraging element in Irish public life. What an opportunity was to be missed by the Labour Party to harness this into something lasting. By this time I myself was more consciously radical politically than I had been in 1951. Young people poured into the election rooms in Margaret Gaj’s restaurant in Baggot Street, all anxious to fight the Labour Party cause. The potential then for social and political change was considerable.

  Whatever its origins, there had been an exciting resurgence of interest in Labour Party politics. From the national schools to the universities, debates on socialist ideas among the young were common to an extent never before seen, or indeed, permitted, by the authorities. For the first time I was to hear Marx and Communism referred to and discussed by young students at Synge Street School debating society. Socialist ideas began to compete with the limited rhetoric of republicanism. The new influx of well-known names into the Labour Party, supported by an improved administrative machine, appeared to have relieved the traditionally conservative Brendan Corish of his normal dislike of socialist ideas. In the United States, Conor Cruise O’Brien had been associated publicly and courageously with a number of radical issues, such as apartheid and the peace movement. This had given us hope that in turn he might, when the opportunity arose, help similar causes in his own country.

  In a well-publicised speech, we were surprised to hear Corish promise ‘Socialism in the Seventies’. Growing more daring, he went on to cause raised eyebrows by taking an oath declaring that, under no circumstances, would he take part in any future Fine Gael coalition. Even more recklessly he promised that he would go into the backbenches, sooner than go into a coalition. These were brave empty phrases, as time would show; they meant nothing either to Corish or to his speechwriters.

  Within the Labour inner cabal it was perceived that, with the radical spirit of youth during that era, socialism was a possible password to office. The captive Corish, like any well-trained circus pony, simply went along in the expectation of a lump of sugar at the conclusion of his act.

  With a well-equipped head office, for a change, and more money than usual, we set out to fight the 1969 election. Though I was as anxious as anyone for radical change, I was uneasy about such an over-optimistic estimate for the promised socialist millenium. It seemed to me to be wrong to promise, in the context of our still predominantly conservative Irish society, the unattainable ideal of socialism in the ’seventies.

  Just in time for the annual Labour Party Conference, I felt compelled to write two articles, which appeared in the Irish Times, questioning the socialist protestations of the Labour leadership. I proposed an alternative prospect for an entirely new left, arising from within the three existing parties. In the Labour Party, our sole claim to be a rallying point for a radical re-grouping was the reality of James Connolly, our socialist founder. Outside that, there was little we had to offer in the form of left-wing radical or socialist thought. Though all three political parties were predominantly conservative, there were among the rank and file men and women who would have joined a liberal or socialist party had such a party existed. Increasing literacy had bred young people who recognised the dangers of taking their politics with their nationality and religion as compulsory parental birthrights. A genuine alternative to civil war politics was needed. A new re-grouping on conscious ideological lines was suggested by me as a pre-condition to the creation of new political structures in the Republic along western European lines.

  I was promptly condemned for my temerity in questioning the analysis of the Labour Party leadership. I was to find myself in trouble for making these somewhat obvious proposals as a counter to their irresponsible claims for instant socialism. I was damned for my pessimism, yet such a re-grouping on ideological lines still remains to be achieved as an essential pre-condition to a genuine ending to civil war politics in the Republic.

  17

  Leaving Labour

  FOLLOWING the general election in 1969 — Fianna Fáil were returned to power with 75 seats, Labour winning 18 and Fine Gael 50 — the unjustified demoralisation and disillusionment of the Labour leadership was reminiscent of what had happened earlier in Clann na Poblachta. The leadership had anticipated being swept to power in the new wave of socialism, just as Seán MacBride had hoped for success in an earlier wave of republicanism. Without a backward glance at their socialist Republic, their oaths against coalition, or their threat to go to the backbenches, they prepared to seek office otherwise. Standing for Labour, I was re-elected in Dublin South-East, with 5,724 first preferences to Garret FitzGerald’s 8,412 and Seán Moore’s 4,979. I continued to advocate a socialist solution to the economic problems of unemployment, poor housing, and neglect of the aged.

  From 1969 to the mid-seventies it became noticeable that our Labour Party policy statements were being carefully orientated to dovetail with the conservative thinking of the Fine Gael party. I realised that I was wrong in my earlier assumption that the new leadership of the Labour party genuinely shared my political commitment to socialism. I had believed that it would be possible for them even to enter coalition and survive with suitable safeguards. The almost total defection of the Labour Party from socialism between 1969 and 1975 soon cleared up that mistaken belief. For the second time in twenty years a radically-minded generation of young Irishmen and women felt betrayed. Not surprisingly, they became sadly disenchanted with politics and the parliamentary system.

  Isolated in a party which had only one objective, office at any price, I felt a hopeless sense of entrapment. There appeared to be no worthwhile political action open to me. I decided that I should try to remind Irish society, the unions and the political parties, that parliament was not simply a sterile bureaucracy concerned solely with ward-heeling activities. Traditionally it was the function of a Labour Party to articulate the needs of the underprivileged and down-trodden. Yet the Labour Party appeared to avoid such issues deliberately. It had set out to ingratiate itself with the power institutions and the financial groups. Politically it appeared to wish to merge into Fine Gael. Connolly’s Labour Party had simply become a political trading stamp for use in exchange for a handful of Cabinet seats in a coalition government.

  At a public meeting of the Labour Party held in Tramore on 23 April 1971, I made a comprehensive statement calling for an alternative set of objectives and policies for the Labour Party. I dwelt at some length on the powerful influence of the Catholic Church, which I described as being comparable to the influence of the Orange Order in the North of Ireland. If we were to change Irish society in ways appropriate for Connolly’s socialist labour party, then this control of education by the church must be altered radically.

  I numbered the most obvious ways in which the church interfered with political decisions — the powerful influence of the confessional, the use of the pulpit and the pastoral letter, and finally, the perennial secret and undisclosed interference by the bishops in political matters. I put it to those present that the Labour Party must show that we in the south were free to debate, discuss, and decide on all matters which concerned our people’s lives, issues such as coeducation, interdenominational education, inter-church marriages, homosexuality, abortion, capital punishment, corporal punishment, contraception, divorce, socialism and Marxism.

  ‘It is time’, I concluded, ‘that our people got off their knees, and our people, both in the north and in the south, finally took on the responsibility of governing themselves, uniting our unhappy divided nation, under the common name of Irishmen’.

  This was the occasion on which I finally came to understand the remarkable poverty of spirit within the Labour Party. This fear of the church affected all classes in the parliamentary Labour Party in an identical manner as it had affected my Ca
binet colleagues in the coalition twenty years before. Consciously or not, it was the last serious move I was to make in what John Whyte correctly described as my attempt in 1951 to ‘break the mould of Irish society’. Undoubtedly it failed. The meeting of the parliamentary Labour Party on the following day verged on the hysterical. Indeed, the whole nation, to judge by its newspaper headlines, equally verged on the hysterical. With the single exception of deputy John O’Connell, all those present shared the conviction that I must be disowned without delay.

  As expected, the deputies from rural Ireland were mystified by much of the substance of my criticism and shocked by my suggestion of sexual ambivalence among celibate clergy, and its consequences through clerical control of the schools. All of them favoured the commonly-held simplistic appreciation in the Republic: ‘If it were not for the Christian Brothers, I would never have got an education’. They believed that my critique of the true dynamics of power in Irish society was unfair.

  I was subjected to varying forms of abuse. Echoes from Clann na Poblachta recurred: ‘You can’t afford to fight the Church’. In twenty years, nothing had changed. What did surprise me was that the intellectuals and academics competed with one another to dissociate themselves from me and all that I had said. Conor Cruise O’Brien joined with Keating and Thornley in a mixture of shock and disbelief. Each in his own way hurried to dissociate himself from such sacrilegious and dangerous ideas. At the same time, each carefully signalled to the rural deputies and to Corish that they need have no fear of a revolt by the intellectuals or academics in the submissive ‘battery hen’ conditions of what passed for politics in the Labour Party.