Anarchism in Ireland has its roots in the stateless organisation of thetúatha inGaelic Ireland. It first began to emerge from the libertarian socialist tendencies within theIrish republican movement, with anarchist individuals and organisations sprouting out of the resurgent socialist movement during the 1880s, particularly gaining prominence during the time of theDublin Socialist League.
One of the prominent figures in the Irish socialist republican movement was the syndicalist James Connolly, who led the formation of theIrish Transport and General Workers' Union along the lines ofindustrial unionism and fought in theEaster Rising as part of theIrish Citizens Army. Following the independence of Ireland and the rise of communist tendencies in the country, some left-wing republicans began to gravitate towards anarchism, includingJack White, who himself became an anarchist while fighting on the side of theRepublicans in theSpanish Civil War.
It was only in the late 1960s that a specifically anarchist movement began to emerge, in the context of thecivil rights movement inNorthern Ireland and the outbreak ofthe Troubles. A number of small local groups formed and dissolved throughout the 1970s before the establishment of theWorkers Solidarity Movement (WSM) in 1984, which continued to exist as a nationalplatformist federation up until its disbandment on 8 December 2021.[1]
Before theTudor conquest during the 16th century, It has been suggested by some thatGaelic Ireland was largely stateless, being described as "anarchic" by the Irish historianGoddard Henry Orpen, although this characterisation was disputed byIrish nationalists such asEoin MacNeill. Gaelic Irish society was largely built around kinship and had few if any political institutions, with theearly Irish law scholarD. A. Binchy having written about the absence of anylegislature,bailiffs orpolice, and noting "no trace of State-administered justice". The historianKathleen Hughes argued that one of the reasons that it took more than five hundred years for the English conquest of Ireland to finally be achieved, was precisely because of the lack of a centralised state in Ireland, as Irish people were reticent to give up their freedoms to any state.[2]
The basicpolity form of Gaelic Ireland was thetúath, a voluntary assembly offree men that democratically decided how to take action on the issues of the time, with the ability toelect their ownkings, resolve matters of war and peace, and institute their own policy.[3] The kings themselves had minimal power, strictly limited to acting as a local military leader and presiding over the assemblies of thetúath, which themselves held ultimate legislative power.[4]
Laws were passed down orally by a class of professional jurists known asBrehons who could be consulted bytúatha and enforced by groups of private individuals through a system ofsureties, which were the basis for almost all legal transactions. Common tactics to resolve disputes included mutual fasting between plaintiffs and defendants, in which the one that broke their fast or refused to submit to adjudication would "los[e] their honor within the community", with the harshest punishments that communities dealt out being outlawing and exile.[5] The Gaelic Irish also did not mint nor issue their own coinage, despite Viking and later English colonists having done so, which allowed for fair and equal exchange to take place.[6]
When theAnglo-Norman invasion established theLordship of Ireland in 1171, native Gaelic institutions came under some strain as they attempted to adapt to the political system brought by the new state. The conquest of Ireland culminated under theTudors, who established the centralisedKingdom of Ireland in 1542 and suppressed thelast holdouts of rebellion by 1603, finalizing the "destruction of the old anarchic society".[7]
ThePlantations of Ireland brought on another series of rebellions against increasinganti-Catholic discrimination, culminating in theIrish Confederate Wars, during which theIrish Catholic Confederation briefly re-established self-governance in Ireland before eventually beingconquered by theCommonwealth of England underOliver Cromwell. Following theGlorious Revolution, IrishJacobites attempted to restoreJames II to the throne, but they were defeated andWilliamite rule was successfully secured over Ireland.
One of the earliest examples of anarchism in Ireland was in the early work of the Anglo-Irish political philosopherEdmund Burke.A Vindication of Natural Society, though intended as a satire ofHenry St John'sdeism,[8] elaborated one of the first literary expressions ofphilosophical anarchism, which inspired the works of the English radicalWilliam Godwin and was later praised by the American individualist anarchistBenjamin Tucker.[9] Somelibertarian scholars have insisted that Burke was initially sincere in his anarchist views, but later disowned them in order to advance his political career,[10] although this characterisation has since been disputed.[11]
Following the events surrounding theParis Commune, efforts were made to establish branches of theInternational Workingmen's Association (IWA) in Ireland, led byJoseph Patrick McDonnell, the Irish representative on the IWA's General Council. In February 1872, a branch of the IWA was established in Dublin by Richard McKeon, but its activities quickly came under attack byanti-communist mobs, which forced its premature closure on 7 April of the same year. ACork branch had also been established in February, to more success, gaining 300 members within weeks. When an anti-communist meeting was called by city officials on 24 March, a hundred internationalist workers wearing green neckties disrupted the meeting, themselves taking control of the stage after several hours of conflict with its organisers. But like the Dublin branch, the Cork branch was itself driven out of the city amid a "red scare" driven by the local clergy. There were other short-lived branches inCootehill andBelfast, which were likewise suppressed.[12]
Socialists were not able to establish their own organisations again until the 1880s, in the context of the greater socialist revival happening around theUnited Kingdom. One early mention of an Irish connection toanarchism was theBoston-basedIrish nationalist W.G.H. Smart, who wrote articles forThe An-archist in 1880 and 1881.[13] By this time, members of theIrish Home Rule movement led byCharles Stewart Parnell established theIrish National Land League, which spearheaded a period of agrarian agitation for land rights known as theLand War. The implementation of theCoercion Act to suppress the movement triggered the formation of theSocial Democratic Federation (SDF), which quickly developed into the first nation-wide socialist organisation in the United Kingdom. By December 1884, attempts were being made to form an Irish branch of the SDF by a local socialist club in Dublin, which on 18 January 1885 established the Dublin Democratic Association (DDA) "to promote and defend the rights of labour, and to restore the land to the people," although this did not affiliate with the SDF due to worries that it would alienate Catholic members of theIrish National League. Only about one quarter of the DDA's members were actually socialists, the rest being a mix of various different radical tendencies, the largest of which were nationalist Land Leaguers. Largely the organisation focused on promoting "the advancement of democratic principles", but after a foreign Marxist was invited to speak at the club, nationalist members protested, causing a split in the DDA that resulted in its disbandment by May 1885.[14]
By this time there had been a split within the SDF, in whichlibertarian socialists led byWilliam Morris andAndreas Scheu broke fromHenry Hyndman's parliamentarian faction, establishing theSocialist League with the intention of fomenting asocial revolution. From its outset the League lent its support to the Home Rule movement, with its secretaryJohn Lincoln Mahon setting into motion efforts to recruit Irish members to the League. By June 1885, the League's Michael Gabriel, anEnglish anarchist, had moved to theNorth Strand in Dublin, where he distributed the League's newspaperCommonweal.[15][16] Despite a sense of pessimism regarding the prospects of propagating socialism in Ireland, in December 1885, Gabriel was able to establish a branch of the Socialist League in Dublin, drawing its membership from a number of former members of the DDA and even a couple former members of the IWA. The anti-parliamentarism and atheism proclaimed by the League quickly made the rounds at the local socialist club, in spite of the impediment provided by the prevailing religious orthodoxy in Ireland. The Dublin League remained a small organisation throughout its existence, with few more than 20 members, but still managed to successfully propagate socialism for the first time in Ireland. At the first meeting of the Dublin branch, which attracted 60 people, the young Irish anarchist Thomas Fitzpatrick railed against Irish nationalism in favour ofinternationalism, arguing against Home Rule but without providing a socialist alternative (one which would only later be provided byJames Connolly).[17][18] The Irish Socialist League's opposition to Home Rule came largely from its anarchist rejection of parliamentarism, with Gabriel arguing that "the power of one man to govern another should be swept away under the socialist system."[19][20]
Unlike its predecessors, the activities and meetings of the Socialist League were able to continue largely unmolested until April 1886, organising among local bottlemakers during alockout and inviting William Morris to give lectures in the city. But with the defeat of theFirst Home Rule Bill, the organisation's capacities began to wane as political agitation in Ireland started to focus almost exclusively on the issue of Home Rule. By October 1886, the Dublin League had come into conflict with the London-based Central Council over the earlier expulsion of Charles Reuss, with the anarchist-leaning Dublin branch supporting Reuss in line withThe Anarchist newspaper. The branch quickly resolved the dispute within a month, but members had already become discouraged by the conflict, and the Dublin League collapsed in March 1887. Nevertheless, former members of the League continued their socialist agitation for years to come, with the Socialist League being quickly succeeded by the National Labour League (NLL). The NLL mobilised the unemployed to demonstrate in the streets and proclaimed a distinctlyrevolutionary socialist outlook, calling for thecommon ownership of land and for Irish workers to rise up against capitalism. By the turn of the 1890s,new unionism was introduced to Ireland by the Irish Socialist Union, laying the foundations for the rise ofsyndicalism.[21][22]
Irish writerOscar Wilde notably expressed anarchist sympathies, especially in his essayThe Soul of Man under Socialism.[23]
Around 1890John Creaghe, an Irish doctor who was joint founder (with Fred Charles), ofThe Sheffield Anarchist, took part in the "no rent"agitation before leavingSheffield in 1891. He went on to become the founding editor in Argentina of the anarchist paper,El Oprimido, which was one of the first to support the "organisers" current (as opposed to refusal to organise large scale organisations).[24] In 1892 English anarchists visited Fred Allen at the Dublin independent offices to see if his Fair Trial Fund could be used for anarchist as well asIrish Republican Brotherhood prisoners.[25] In 1894 atTrinity College Dublin's Fabian Society "over 200 students listened sympathetically" to a lecture on "Anarchism and Darwinism".[26]
In 1896, the Irish syndicalistJames Connolly[a] moved toDublin, where he founded theIrish Socialist Republican Party (ISRP) with the aim of establishing anIrishworkers' republic, but left the party in 1903 following an internal conflict withE. W. Stewart regarding trade unionism and electoralism. Connolly subsequently led the Scottish left-wing faction of theSocial Democratic Federation to split off and form theSocialist Labour Party (SLP), aDe Leonist political party that advocated forindustrial unionism. He then moved to the United States, where he collaborated with fellow syndicalists in theAmerican SLP and theIndustrial Workers of the World (IWW), before returning to Ireland in 1908.[28][29]
Another Irish syndicalist that moved to Dublin at this time wasJames Larkin, a trade union activist of theLiverpool-basedNational Union of Dock Labourers (NUDL) that had been expelled for participated inwildcat strike actions. Connolly and Larkin together collaborated in the foundation of theIrish Transport and General Workers' Union (ITGWU), a trade union withsyndicalist tendencies which the two hoped would eventually form the nucleus of "One Big Union" in Ireland.[28] Connolly's view of syndicalism held that "the political, territorial state of capitalist society will have no place or function under Socialism", thus he rejected the use of state bureaucracy in the transition to socialism, instead considering thatindustrial unions wouldprovide the framework for a future socialist society.[30] Connolly also viewed electoral participation as a "political weapon" for industrial unionists, although he rejected the conquest of state power as a goal, believing that anysocial revolution must immediately abolish thestate.[31] This position led Connolly and Larkin to establish theLabour Party as the political wing of theIrish Trades Union Congress (ITUC), of which the ITGWU was an affiliate.[28]
A series of industrial disputes led by the ITGWU eventually escalated into theDublin lock-out of 1913. During the lockout, Connolly and Larkin came together withJack White to establish theIrish Citizen Army (ICA), a workers' militia set up to protect striking workers from thepolice. Following the suppression of the strike movement, Larkin fled to the United States, where he became involved in the activities of the IWW and later gravitated towardsBolshevism.[28] Meanwhile, with the outbreak ofWorld War I, a section of the ICA around Connolly began to plan for an armed uprising againstBritish rule with the aim of establishing an independent Irish Republic. Connolly's take on republicanism rejectednationalism, which he believed would simply lead to Irish workers being oppressed by an Irish capitalist state. Connolly insisted on the necessity for Irish independence to come about through a socialist revolution in which workers would seize themeans of production, stating that "only the Irish working class remain as the incorruptible inheritors of the fight for freedom in Ireland." But by 1916, Connolly had shelved his anti-nationalist criticisms and socialist ambitions, leading the ICA into an alliance with Irish nationalists. During theEaster Rising, republican forces including the ICA seized a number of strategically important buildings around Dublin and aProvisional Government including Connollyproclaimed the formation of an Irish Republic, before its suppression by British forces and the unconditional surrender of the rebels. Connolly and the other rebel leaders were executed in the weeks following. In his analysis of the Rising,The Only Hope of Ireland, the Russian anarcho-communistAlexander Berkman declared that it had failed because of its nationalist character and lack of socialist program:[32]
"The precious blood shed in the unsuccessful revolution will not have been in vain if the tears of their great tragedy will clarify the vision of the sons and daughters of Erin and make them see beyond the empty shell of national aspirations toward the rising sun of the international brotherhood of the exploited in all countries and climes combined in a solidaric struggle for emancipation from every form of slavery, politicaland economic"
Following theIrish War of Independence, Jack White had found himself politically isolated from the main camps of the newIrish Free State, gravitating towardsanti-parliamentary communism and briefly joiningSylvia Pankhurst'sWorkers Socialist Federation. In 1934, a number of communist members of theIrish Republican Army came together with other left-wing figures to establish theRepublican Congress, which White joined, organising a branch in Dublin with other formerBritish Army serviceman. The Congress soon experienced a split between socialists in favour of establishing a workers' republic and communists that advocated a temporary alliance withFianna Fáil, with the socialists breaking off and many joining the Labour Party, while White himself remained in the organisation. When theSpanish Civil War broke out, the Congress organised support for theRepublicans and established theConnolly Column, with White joining it to fight against theNationalists. Upon arriving in Spain, White was immediately impressed by therevolutionary gains, particularly the collectivisation projects and the organisation of theconfederal militias advanced by theanarchists. While fighting on the Aragon front, White trained militiamen and women how to use firearms, while also becoming increasingly disillusioned with the influence of the Communist Party over the Irish internationalists, gravitating closer towards anarchism. White began to clash with IrishMarxist-Leninists likeFrank Ryan, enough so that he relinquished command in theInternational Brigades and joined the anarcho-syndicalistNational Confederation of Labor (CNT). Back inLondon he worked withEmma Goldman and theFreedom newspaper to organise support for the Spanish anarchists, but following the Nationalist victory in the civil war and the subsequent Allied victory inWorld War II, White died in 1946, leaving behind a number of papers that his family destroyed out of shame.[33]
Later developments in Irish syndicalism included the establishment of theCongress of Irish Unions after a split in the ITUC, their subsequent merger into theIrish Congress of Trade Unions and eventually the merger of the ITGWU and Larkin'sWorkers' Union into theServices, Industrial, Professional and Technical Union (SIPTU), which continues its activities to this day as Ireland's largest trade union.
In the late 1960s, as the civil rights campaign took off,People's Democracy, before it became a smallTrotskyist group, included some self-described anarchists[34] such asJohn McGuffin and Jackie Crawford. The latter was one of the group who soldFreedom inBelfast's Castle Street in the late 1960s. There was an anarchist banner on the Belfast-Derrycivil rights march.[35] PD members, including John Grey, contributed to a special issue of the BritishAnarchy Magazine aboutNorthern Ireland in 1971.
In the early 1970s some ex-members of theOfficial IRA became interested in anarchism and developed contact withBlack Flag magazine in London. Among names used were Dublin Anarchist Group and New Earth. Their existence was brief and not widely known.[36] A number of jailings for "armed actions" saw the group disappear. Two members,Marie and Noel Murray, were later sentenced to death for the killing of an off-dutyGarda during a bank raid as part of a group called the Anarchist Black Cross (with no relation to the much olderprisoner support group). Their sentences were commuted to life imprisonment on appeal. In 1970 there existed ahippy commune in a squatted house on Dublin's exclusiveMerrion Road known as the Island Commune. Some inhabitants, includingUbi Dwyer ofWindsor Free Festival fame, soldFreedom outside theGPO on Saturdays.
The first steps towards building a movement came in the late 1970s when a number of young Irish people who had been living and working in Britain returned home, bringing their new-found anarchist politics with them. Local groups were set up inBelfast, Dublin,Limerick,Dundalk andDrogheda. Over the next decade anarchist papers appeared, some for just one or two editions, others with a much longer life. Titles includedOutta Control (Belfast),Anarchist Worker (Dublin),Antrim Alternative (Ballymena),Black Star (Ballymena),Resistance (Dublin) andOrganise! (Ballymena). Bookshops were opened in Belfast (Just Books in Winetavern Street) and Dublin (ABC in Marlborough Street). All of these groups attracted people who identified themselves as anarchists but had little in the way of agreed politics or activities, and no organised discussions or education about anarchism. This imposed limits to what they could achieve and even to their continued existence – all groups were short-lived, had little impact and left no lasting legacy.
In 1978, ex-members of the Belfast Anarchist Collective and the Dublin Anarchist Group decided that a more politically united, class-based, and public organisation was necessary. Their discussions led to the Anarchist Workers Alliance, which existed from 1978 to 1981, although only to any substantial extent in Dublin.[36] It producedAnarchist Worker nos. 1–7; documents on thenational question,women's liberation, trade unions, and a constitution.
Irish anarchists, amongst others, organisedReclaim the Streets parties in Dublin in 2002 and 2003.[37] In 2004 Dublin Grassroots Network, a "broad-based network including anarchists,environmentalists,anti-war activists",[38] organisedprotests against the May 2004 summit of European heads of government inFarmleigh.[39] During the protests there were clashes between demonstrators and police.[39] 29 people were arrested and there were several injuries.[39]
Several organisations have operated in Ireland in the past:
There are also a number of organisations and spaces which, while perhaps not explicitly anarchist, share much in common with the anarchist movement. These include the Grassroots Gatherings (2001–present), the Dublin Grassroots Network (2003–2004), Grassroots Dissent (2004–), Galway Social Space (2008–2010),Rossport Solidarity Camp (2005–2014), Jigsaw (2015–2021) formerly titledSeomra Spraoi (2004–2015), 'Grangegorman' Squat (2013–2015) and the Barricade Inn (2015–2016).
