The Mosquito Press\": Anti-Imperialist Rhetoric in Republican Journalism, 1926-39

$Page 1: The Mosquito Press\": Anti-Imperialist Rhetoric in Republican Journalism, 1926-39$

CaoilfhionnNí Bheacháin

In December , the Irish republican newspaper Saoirse pub-lished an article entitled “Mary of England in Ireland, Eddy of Eng-land and his brother in Uganda.” This article made a connectionbetween the language used in two publications, the Daily Expressand the Daily Mail, to describe separate British royal visits. Follow-ing a brief introduction to the context of each article, the Saoirsewriter quotes two long extracts from these papers and concludeswith one line at the end of the second extract: “Trace the relation-ship.” The relationship that the reader is encouraged to recognize isthat between a description of a royal visit to Uganda and one toNorthern Ireland. In the first case, Sir Perceval Phillips sends areport to the Daily Mail from Mombasa that depicts the royal visi-tors stepping “straight from European civilization into a savageworld”:

256

. In an article entitled “What good is a paper?” the Wolfe Tone Weekly refersto John Redmond’s description of the political publications of radical groups as the“Mosquito Press.” The writer reappropriates the term by paying tribute to the“swarm of small papers of which nobody outside Ireland usually ever heard.” TheWolfe Tone Weekly argues that “the small weekly and monthly papers, written andproduced not for material considerations, but out of a burning desire to keep thetruth before the minds of the people, and to combat the lies that have ever beenforemost weapons in England’s armoury, have taken a part in the resistance toBritish domination and absorption of Eire into the robber Empire” ( Jan.):, .

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No more bizarre spectacle has ever been witnessed by the Prince orthe Duke than the natives’ incessant swaying and posturing to therhythm of the Uganda drums—that strange, secret native medium ofcommunication across Africa. . . . A steady throb of these long cylin-ders of covered zebra skin hour after hour has a curious effect on thespectators as well as the dancers. One had only to watch the latterwrithing in ecstasy to their monotonous note to realize that here wasthe origin of all jazz. . . .2

The second report is published in the Daily Express some ten dayslater. This describes the reception of Princess Mary on her arrival inHillsborough and Portadown in Northern Ireland.

But the drums! Will Princess Mary and Lord Lascelles ever forgetthem? They were beaten into a tremendous maddening sound thatgrew wilder, till one felt in the midst of a nightmare battle. Therewere of them, drums twice as large as ordinary big drums, andwith extraordinary depth of sound, and the Orangemen, trainedespecially for the occasion, slapped them skillfully with canes. . . .3

The similarity of language used to describe the drumming at thesereceptions is eye-catching. Saoirse seems to be suggesting that, forimperialists, there is no difference between the “natives” through-out the colonies. Both accounts suggest alien, exotic, primitivesocieties. The republican writer implicitly implies that an ideologyand discourse of empire was immediately accessible to British jour-nalists when describing events in the colonies, however disparateor far apart they might be. The juxtaposition of these two extractswith no commentary, apart from the implied, but ambiguous,injunction to analysis prompted by the words “Trace the relation-ship” offers a certain insight into republican engagements withanti-imperialist thinking in this period. The Saoirse article suggeststhat republicans were attentive to, and critical of, the idioms usedby journalists when referring to colonial lands and subjects, andthis self-consciousness about the rhetoric of empire raises ques-tions about how republicans conceived of their own activism in theIrish Free State.

Éire-Ireland 42: 1 & 2 Spr/Sum 07 Republican Journalism, – 257

. Saoirse—Irish Freedom (Dec. ), .

. Ibid.


The anti-imperialist activism of republican groups is sometimesdismissed, as in Stephen Howe’s recent book Ireland and Empire, as“small-scale and seemingly almost tokenistic.” Dismissive allusionsof this kind suggest that republican anti-imperialism was inconse-quential, and that its significance has been “misinterpreted” and“inflated.”4 They also contribute to a prevailing belief that republi-can anticolonial consciousness only emerged in the (post-)Sinn Féin rhetoric of the “Troubles” in Northern Ireland5 and inrecent postcolonial paradigms in Irish Studies.6 Moreover, this is aposition that is sometimes reinforced by the representation of Irelandas an inward-looking cultural wasteland in the decades following theCivil War. Such a view of Irish society from the mid-twenties to themid-fifties can influence common perceptions of that period,although in recent years this perspective has been challenged in anumber of publications.7 Although stereotypes of Free State insu-larity and stagnation have dominated, it has also been argued thatwhat occurred, socially and politically, in the Irish Free State in theperiod – was a counter-revolution.8 However, despite thesubordination of republican revolutionary politics by a new statekeen to solidify and legitimate its status, there was also extensiveopposition to this process of consolidation. Individuals, groups, andorganizations from across the political and social spectrum resistedthe new order. Certainly, there was a more vital and dynamicexchange of ideas in this period than is sometimes allowed. Culturaland political influences came from all continents. Just as European

Éire-Ireland 42: 1 & 2 Spr/Sum 07 Republican Journalism, –258

. Stephen Howe, Ireland and Empire:Colonial Legacies in Irish History and Cul-ture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, ), , .

. Conor Cruise O’Brien argues that “the politics, now defined as ‘anti-colonial’and larded with Third Worldly quotations from the school of Frantz Fanon, is reallygood old Catholic Irish nationalism, in trendy gear.” See Passion and Cunning: Essayson Nationalism,Terrorism and Revolution (New York: Simon and Schuster, ), .

. In The Living Stream, Edna Longley criticizes contemporary uses of post-colonial paradigms in Irish cultural studies when she argues that “Strange collu-sions are taking place: intellectual holiday romances in post-colonial never-neverland” (Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Bloodaxe, ), .

. See, for example, Joost Augusteijn, ed., Ireland in the s (Dublin: FourCourts Press, ) and Brian Fallon, An Age of Innocence (Dublin: Gill and Macmil-lan ).

. See John M. Regan, The Irish Counter-Revolution – (Dublin: Gill andMacmillan, ).


and American films, jazz dancing, fashions, and marketing cam-paigns all were in evidence in the Free State in the s and s,so too there was demonstrable interest in international politics as isillustrated by the coverage of the Spanish Civil War.9 And also, asthis essay shows, there was a vibrant discourse that centred on anti-imperialist struggles in Africa, Asia, and South America.

Even a brief review of the many republican pamphlets and news-papers held in the National Library reveals a consistent interest inanticolonial struggles abroad. Papers such as Saoirse—Irish Free-dom,10 An Phoblacht,11 Republican Congress,12 Republican Review,13


. See John Horgan, Irish Media:A Critical History Since (London: Rout-ledge, ), –.

. Saoirse was a monthly paper that featured occasional anti-imperialist pieces,particularly in the late s. This incarnation of Saoirse (a previous version waslaunched in and ran for four years) came into existence in November andcontinued until November . The paper is associated with the conservative SinnFéin movement and contributors included Manus O’Donnell, Maire Nic Shuibhne,Helena Moloney, and J.J. O’Kelly (Sceilg). A significant portion of the paper’s con-tent was devoted to reprinting the writings of individuals such as Terence Mac-Swiney, Fintan Lalor, John Mitchell, and Aodh deBlacam. Many of those who wrotefor Saoirse later became involved in the Wolfe Tone Weekly. Saoirse’s anti-imperialistarticles ranged from the factual to the polemical. Some demonstrate ideologicalinconsistency. For example, an article by Sceilg (January : –) argues thatBritain’s claims to certain colonies are unfounded because other imperial powers gotthere first and, moreover, he does not differentiate between settler and native peoples.

. The publication most closely associated with the anti-Treaty movement inthe Free State, An Phoblacht was launched in and ran (with interruptions) until. It briefly reappeared in . Editors and assistant editors of the paperincluded P.J. Little, Peadar O’Donnell, Geoffery Coulter, Frank Ryan, HannaSheehy-Skeffington, and Donal O’Donoghue.The content, tone, and extent of anti-imperialist rhetoric varied according to the editor in charge.

. Republican Congress, the communications organ of the organization bearingthe same name, was launched in May and lasted twenty months. UinseannMacEoin states that “the nominal editor was Peadar O’Donnell, but much of thewriting and the real hard work was put in by Frank Ryan.” See The IRA in the Twi-light Years (Dublin: Argenta, ), . Writing in , Stephen J.M. Brown notesthat the publication was “the product of the definitely communist wing of the IRA,”that it was “frequently suppressed,” and that it described itself as “against Imperi-alism and Fascism and for the Irish Republic.” He comments that the paper was“anti-clerical” and that it contained “outspoken attacks on Bishops.” See The Pressin Ireland:A Survey and a Guide (Dublin: Brown and Nolan, ), , .

. Operating in a political climate that was hostile to the radical republicanpress, Republican Review printed articles by anonymous contributors. These articlesfrequently criticized the Fianna Fáil government. Anti-imperialist articles include


and the Wolfe Tone Weekly14 are just some of the publications thatoffered anti-imperialist critiques during the period under review.Publishing and distributing an antigovernment paper was difficultthroughout the s and s.15 Both the Cosgrave and de Valeraadministrations suppressed publications like An Phoblacht, and fre-quently targeted the printers of the paper. Thus, circulation figurescan be difficult to obtain and, where available, are not always repre-sentative of interest or support. However, there were clear differencesbetween the audiences of the various papers, and the quality of thepublication was reflected both in terms of circulation and govern-ment response. Thus, the staff of Saoirse—Irish Freedom did not suf-fer the harassment meted out to those involved in An Phoblacht, butneither did Saoirse enjoy the same level of public support as AnPhoblacht. In , the editor of Saoirse outlined the positive state ofthe paper at that time, but admitted that in while “inflated bysending large bundles to many newsagents, who required a fewcopies only, and omitted to return the unwanted copies, the real cir-


“We want neither King nor Empire” (February ) and “No mandate for theEmpire” (May ). The monthly paper survived for just ten issues, ceasing pub-lication in June .

. The Wolfe Tone Weekly (–), edited by Brian Ó hUiginn, featured occa-sional anti-imperialist articles and opinion pieces: see, for example, “Poppies, Jin-goism and the Union Jack” ( June ), “The Empire to which we belong,” (

Aug. ), “The Game of Empire i–iv,” ( Dec. – Oct. ), and “TheBritish in Palestine” ( Nov. ). The paper strongly emphasized Gaelic games,the Irish language, and a pro-Catholic agenda. Contributors included Maire NicShuibhne and J.J. O’Kelly (Sceilg). In the run-up to World War II, the paper’s focuswas primarily on the European context. Its writers tended to promote neutrality,were generally critical of British motives, and viewed the war as a cynical powerstruggle between imperial nations. A minority of pieces argued that there could beno alignment between Irish and British interests, and that Ireland should activelyundermine the British war effort.

. In October , a Military Tribunal was established with extensive powersto suppress publications. This tribunal proscribed both republican and left-wingpublications. John Horgan notes that “its zeal sometimes exposed its ineptness: oneissue of the banned Republican File was comprised solely of quotations and excerptsfrom the Irish Press, the Irish Independent, Patrick Pearse (the revolutionary executedby the British in ) and W.E. Gladstone.” See Horgan, . The paper RepublicanFile was issued as a substitute publication for An Phoblacht which had been bannedfor fifteen weeks in by the Cosgrave administration. Its content comprisedpublished clippings from other papers.


culation was almost nil.”16 By contrast, Geoffery Coulter (assistanteditor of An Phoblacht when Frank Ryan took it over) recalled thatRyan transformed the weekly “from a quiet political review withorganisation notes into as lively a political newspaper as I’ve seen.Circulation grew from a few thousand a week to more than ,.”Coulter credited Ryan’s knowledge and skill for this success, describ-ing how Ryan “used pictures, cartoons and make-up as they hadnever been used before in this country with witty captions in Irish,French and German as well as English.”17 An Phoblacht is one of themain sources for tracing anti-imperialist activism in the late sand early s. It reported on political meetings and initiatives suchas the direct trade “India-Ireland shop,” the speeches of visitingIndian radicals, and the anti-imperialist rhetoric articulated at repub-lican meetings.18 This activism is also reflected in the content ofGarda files held in the National Archive of Ireland. Indicating thespeakers and numbers in attendance at meetings that occurred underan anti-imperialist banner, these police files provide information onrepublican efforts to establish links with activists in different countries.Republicans attended the international Anti-Colonial Conferencesheld in Brussels in and Frankfurt in .19 Personal contact wasalso established with leading Indian nationalists such as V.J. Patel (thefirst president of the Indian Legislative Assembly) and Subhas Chan-dra Bose (president of the Indian National Congress in ). Fur-thermore, groups such as the League Against Imperialism, the India-Ireland Independence League, the Women’s Prisoners DefenceLeague, and the Anti-Imperialist Vigilance Association espousedanti-imperialist politics. Yet, the most visible manifestation of anti-imperialist attitudes is to be found in the rhetorical solidarity withother colonial peoples expressed by republicans in their newspapers.


. Saoirse—Irish Freedom (Samhain ), .. Quoted in Séan Cronin’s biography Frank Ryan:The Search for the Republic

(Dublin: Skellig Press, ), .. For examples of this interest, see An Phoblacht for coverage of the India-

Ireland shop ( Sept. ; Oct. ), visiting Indian radicals ( Sept. ),and anti-imperialist meetings ( Nov. ).

. For a discussion of these conferences, see Robert J.C. Young, Postcolonial-ism:An Historical Introduction (Oxford: Blackwell, a), , and Kate O’Malley,“The League Against Imperialism: British, Irish and Indian Connections,” Commu-nist History Network Newsletter (Spring ): –.


In the interwar years, republican newspapers consistently pro-moted anticolonial struggles around the world and identified therepublican cause with other international radical movements. Anumber of issues characterize republican anti-imperialist analyses.Firstly, the focus was generally on the “English” empire, althoughthere were exceptions to this trend. The Italian invasion ofAbyssinia, for example, created confusion in republican circles andultimately provided an opportunity for republicans to think aboutimperialism in a global context.20 Secondly, republicans tended toidentify most strongly with colonized countries, such as India andEgypt, which had a glorious and well-known history. There wereoccasional allusions to other peoples like the Maoris and the Zulus,but these were mainly confined to sympathetic references and thesesituations did not receive in-depth coverage. Access to information,level of personal contact and extent of general knowledge probablydictated the movements that were discussed in the papers. Forexample, in , when a Basque activist visited Ireland and gave alecture to Cumann na mBan, republican papers focused on thatpolitical situation in a number of follow-up articles. Thirdly, repub-lican analyses in this period reveal a considerable knowledge ofworld affairs and an understanding of international relations. How-ever, republicanism was not a monolith during the interwar period.Perspectives varied from uncomplicated anti-British rhetoric tomore refined critiques of colonial discourses, attitudes, and actions.If colonial discourse employs a “range of tropes, conceptual cate-gories and logical operations for purposes of representation,”21 thenit can be argued that republican writers attempted to create acounter-colonial discourse by identifying contradictions in imperialrhetoric, by challenging flawed representations, by unmasking the


. Because Britain opposed Italy in this action, some republicans were initiallyunsure as to whether support for Italy was a stand against imperialism. RepublicanCongress warned against such ambivalence, arguing that dislike of de Valera (whoopposed Italy) and of Britain should not cloud the moral issue at hand. The authorinsisted that republicans should support Abyssinia, a “small nation” that repre-sented “the spearhead of the anti-Imperialist struggle today” (Republican Congress

Oct. ), .. See David Spurr, The Rhetoric of Empire: Colonial Discourse in Journalism,

Travel Writing and Imperial Administration (London: Duke University Press, ), .


cynical motives that underpinned the discourse of salvation andprogress, and by ridiculing the narrative authority of colonial texts.

To downplay the anti-imperialist aspect of republicanism is toobfuscate the attempts by radical activists to develop an alternativepolitics, one that was not bound by electoral advantage or politicaljurisdiction. The discourse presented in the radical republican pressthroughout the s and s, with its emphasis on trans-territo-rialized solidarity, challenges the traditional state-citizen construct.Robert Young argues that “transnational movements and transna-tional links between movements have been the most effectiveresponse to patriarchal national imperialisms throughout the cen-tury. Resistance to the oppression of the colony or the nation canbest be broken by cutting through its boundaries and reaching outbeyond them.”22 There is a danger, therefore, that republicanism ofthe period can be reduced to a history of its organizational splitsand ideological cleavages; but such an assessment is reductive, notleast because it ignores the extent to which transnational solidaritybetween non-élite groups constituted a conceptual riposte to thepolitical norms of both state-nationalism and to the practice of éliteinternational relations.

Notwithstanding the view that Irish republicanism in the sand s lacked any sophisticated economic analyses,23 republi-cans nevertheless frequently linked material exploitation and thecolonial project. In March , for example, An Phoblacht printeda front-page cartoon that depicted the clawed hand of “John Bull”grabbing Ireland’s national resources (figure ). While republicannewspapers did not print refined critiques of national or interna-tional economics, and their treatments were designed to be polem-ical rather than theoretical, such articles reveal a definite uneaseabout the development of global capitalism.24 For example, one


. See Robert J.C. Young, Postcolonialism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford:Oxford University Press, b), .

. See, for example, Howe Ireland and Empire and Richard English Radicalsand the Republic: Socialist Republicanism in the Irish Free State – (Oxford:Clarendon Press, ).

. Although, from , Cumann na mBan began to emphasize the need tostudy economics in notes that were published in An Phoblacht. See Margaret Ward,Unmanageable Revolutionaries (London: Pluto Press, ), .



Fi .An Phoblacht, Saturday, March , page .


article in the short-lived Cumann na mBan newspaper The Anti-Imperialist argued that the Free State was the site of an “industrial-ization” policy that masked the economic exploitation of the colo-nized periphery by the imperialist center:25

England, in fact, is attempting to “industrialise” Ireland in the sameway she “industrialised” India, Egypt and every other country whichshe conquered by the sword, by hiring out the native population to dothe rough work, and sending in her own citizens to control andmanipulate the factories in the interests of England.26

In an article entitled “Imperial Piracy,” the author argued that Eng-lish colonialism was a logical development of English capitalism.The anonymous writer questioned the morality of being a “co-equal” partner in this enterprise and problematized the activities ofIrish missionary projects. Arthur Griffith’s dream of a Hiberno-British Empire was firmly rejected by this logic:27

It is [with] this industrial system built on shame and infamy that weare invited to be “co-equal partners.” We are to share the spoils of a“commonwealth” wrung from the widow and the orphan, to fill ourown coffers by seizing the riches of the Indian, the Egyptian, and theChinese. We are to send our missionaries abroad to preach Christ’sword: “Suffer little children to come unto me,” and then to seizethose little children and condemn them to a fate worse than death.28

This refusal of partnership in empire and rejection of the promises ofCommonwealth membership suggests recognition of the ambiguousposition of the Free State in the new world order.29 Other papers likeSaoirse, An Phoblacht, and Republican Congress also focused on the


. This publication was produced by the Anti-Imperialist Vigilance Associa-tion, an organization established by Cumann na mBan in . A single copy of oneedition of the paper is held in the National Library, while the British Library News-papers archive at Colindale has no record of this publication.

. The Anti-Imperialist (Samhain), .. Griffith had expressed regret for the lost potential of a Hiberno-British

Empire. For a study of Griffith’s political ideology, see Richard Davis Arthur Grif-fith (Dublin: Dublin Historical Association, ).

. The Anti-Imperialist (Samhain), .. The Free State’s ambiguous position was highlighted in different republican

papers. See, for example, Saoirse (Sept. ), Republican Review (March ), andthe English edition of the Irish Bulletin ( Aug. ).


economic motives that underpinned the colonial project. Here, too,concern is expressed at the perceived fusion of the imperial projectwith the endeavors of missionaries. In January , for example,Saoirse examined contemporary political upheavals in China andMexico. The author warned against propaganda claims that Chris-tianity would be eradicated in China if “missionaries were no longerprotected by the Union Jack” and suggested that missionaries wouldbe safe so long as they remembered that their king was not Englishbut divine. Readers were reminded that this divine king did notwant to “interfere with Chinese trade or grab concessions or hinderChinese National aspirations.” Furthermore, if missionaries alignedthemselves with the British Empire, then “they must take the con-sequences.” Thus, all missionaries (“Catholics included”) must beseen to separate their interests from those of Empire and shouldprefer martyrdom to British protection.

It would be good to see from all Catholic missionaries a public repu-diation of any desire or intention to help any foreign political interestsin China, Mexico or anywhere else and a public protest to the foreignaggressors against using the Missionaries and their interests as acatspaw in the game of grab.30

The article proceeded to question the integrity of “Western Civili-sation” and the imperial rhetoric that described Chinese nationalistsas “the mob,” “the rabble,” or “the victims of Red propaganda.”Using irony to suggest an inappropriate connection between mis-sionary activity in Mexico and the quest for material wealth, thewriter drew the readers’ attention to the situation in Mexico where“well-armed Catholics” were proclaiming their allegiance to Christaround the “richest silver districts in the world and the great oilregions.” Again the implication is that Irish republicans should notautomatically give allegiance to the missionary project abroad:

Imperial exploiters are quite ready to shout “Christ the King” if theycan make poor foolish people believe that in saving the capitaliststhey are serving Heaven. But should Catholics the world over toler-ate such hypocrisy and blind their eyes to the truth?31


. Saoirse (Jan. ), .. Ibid.



Throughout the years of its existence, Saoirse intermittently ques-tioned the relationship between the missionary and imperial projects.The paper’s writers argued that economic exploitation was the rai-son d’être of imperialist activity and that Christian missionaries weremorally obliged to distance themselves from the protection andactivities of empire. Few republican publications of this period wereanti-capitalist, but these papers consistently expressed disdain forthe imperialist exploitation of colonized peoples.32

Whereas republican publications differed in their views on themerits of capitalism, there was a common preoccupation with thefates of colonized peoples throughout the world. As mentioned ear-lier, the focus was usually on England rather than on imperialistprocesses in general and republican writers tended to substitute theterm “England” for “empire”; this verbal slippage resulted from theimmediate political context that informed their beliefs. The War ofIndependence and the Treaty negotiations had shaped the republi-can conceptualization of imperialism. Moreover, Irish republicanshad greater access to information regarding the British colonies andhad more contact with the native populations of these colonies thanthey did with those of France, Belgium or Spain. Still, there weresome allusions to the dynamics of global imperialism. In , Cap-tain Robert Monteith33 wrote an article that was published in AnPhoblacht that attributed American inaction in the face of Britishoppression in countries such as India to the US’s own imperialistictendencies. Condemning both economic and military colonialism,Monteith maintained that the entire system of global imperialism

. Republican Congress was the publication that most consistently made theconnections between capitalist and imperialist systems of thought. Unlike that ofsome of the other republican organizations at the time, the core ideology of activistsin the Republican Congress was anticapitalist. However, republican publicationsfrequently portrayed pro-Treatyites as pro-British and as a comprador class thatprofited from Irish involvement in empire. In , for example, An Phoblachtprinted a cartoon that depicted the Cumann na nGaedheal party bowing down “inadoration of the British Crown” (figure ). Similarly, a later cartoon from AnPhoblacht depicted the Free State Senate as the bastion of “avowed imperialists”who had been nominated by the Cosgrave administration (figure ).

. Captain Monteith was an Irish Volunteer organizer prior to and heaccompanied Roger Casement while the latter was in Ireland. Following escape tothe USA, Monteith became an active member of Clan na Gael and a member of theCentral Committee on Indian Independence.



F .An Phoblacht, Saturday, June , page .



depended on mutually supportive relationships between the “great”powers. It is significant that this article emanated from an Irish repub-lican based in the USA; few Irish republicans would have includedthe US in the pantheon of imperial powers. American empathy withthe Irish struggle, the existence of a large Irish-American community,and the fact that the United States had seceded from Britain meantthe Irish nationalist community was reluctant to criticize US foreignpolicy. However, Monteith made a striking comparison betweenBritish and US foreign interests:

There was a time in the United States when England’s imperialismwould have been denounced from end to end of this country. Why isit that a free, democratic Republic should support this outrageousmonarchial imperialism? The reason should be apparent to anyonewith even a nodding acquaintance with world affairs. “People who

Fi .An Phoblacht, Saturday, March , page .


live in glass houses should not throw stones.” An American brickthrown at England’s glass house in India might result in an Englishbrick smashing a costly pane in America’s crystal palace inNicaragua, the Philippines or elsewhere.34

Monteith identified India as the lynchpin that secured the global sys-tem of imperialism. Wishing for more than the disintegration of theBritish Empire, he sought the overthrow of all imperialist powers:

A successful revolution in India will sound the death knell of everyempire in the world. England is recognized as the keystone of thewhole damnable imperialist system. With her fall in India will comethe revolt of every subject nation smarting under the lash of foreignfinancial or military domination. This is the plain, obvious truth. Theimperialist powers of to-day dare not even criticize each other; theyare afraid to make war on each other. Such a war would result in thesmashing of the entire system of imperialist spoliation.35

Monteith’s analysis posited the US as an emerging imperialistpower and his reference to a global system of imperialist exploitationdemonstrated a political perspective that was international ratherthan national in outlook. He concluded his article by calling on “thelovers of liberty the world over” to support the quest for freedombeyond their national boundaries.

Despite the occasional macro-analysis of international relations,articles in the radical press tended to focus on specific political sit-uations. For Irish republicans, India and Egypt were the coloniesthat were most immediate and interesting because conditions inboth countries were thought to resemble those in Ireland. Therepublican press followed the nationalist struggles in these twocountries with consistent interest. In their treatment of both strug-gles, republicans were critical of nonviolent protest and of non-rev-olutionary nationalism. Commenting on the death of Zaghlul Pasha(–), the Egyptian nationalist leader and founder of theWafd party which secured limited independence for Egypt in ,a writer in Saoirse commended him for his honorable nature and forhis commitment to the liberation of his country. But it then pro-


. An Phoblacht, Aug. , .. Ibid.



ceeded to criticize him for his moderate methods, and for his alien-ation of the indigenous working class. Gandhi’s doctrine of passiveresistance and his moderate philosophy were also a source of frus-tration for anti-state Irish republicans. Whilst all references toGandhi were prefaced by expressions of solidarity and admiration,there were frequent allusions to the futility of non-violent resistancein the face of imperial power. As Figures and demonstrate,republican papers tended to represent violent oppression as centralto imperial rule in different colonial contexts and they frequentlyargued that violent revolt was, therefore, the most appropriateresponse. Republican writers tended not to engage with the com-plexity of non-violent protest (as an active performance rather thanpassive disengagement) in the Indian context. Although republicanspromoted methods such as boycotting British goods and had, dur-ing the revolutionary period, developed radical political practicessuch as establishing a rival Dáil and judicial system, they were gen-erally dismissive of the idea that non-violent resistance alone couldchallenge imperial norms or provide an effective strategy for under-mining colonial authority. Anticipating Fanon’s later analysis ofcolonial Algeria, Irish republicans tended to argue that only forciblyejecting the imperial enemy would result in adequate decoloniza-tion. Their rhetoric emphasized the idea that the imperialist powerswould not respond to reasoned argument or non-violent mobiliza-tion. Thus, the perspectives of republican writers were ofteninformed by the exigencies of their own situation and they could becritical of the methods of anti-colonial activists in other countries.

A further example occurred in when the Wolfe Tone Weeklyprinted an open letter by the Indian poet, Rabindranath Tagore,who had recently renounced his British knighthood in protest atpolitical conditions in India. Originally published in the ManchesterGuardian, Tagore’s letter was moderate in tone as he argued that theimperial prestige of Britain had come at “too heavy a price” for boththe British and Indian peoples. The editor of the Wolfe Tone Weeklyadded a note at the end of the letter that clearly depicted a deeplevel of frustration at the “moderate” attitudes of men like Tagore:

This letter is a pathetic example of the faith of “moderate” men, inIndia as elsewhere in the justice and humanity and sense of fair play



Fi .An Phoblacht, Saturday, April , page .



Fi .An Phoblacht, July , page .


of “the English people.” If Rabindranath Tagore, who is a poet, wouldrouse his own great, populous but disunited nation to red war againstthe English invaders and robbers it would be more fruitful work forthe future peace of the world than the writing of futile letters to theEnglish Press.36

Tagore’s letter was inflected with Gandhi’s political perspective andphilosophy.37 However, the republican writer’s enthusiastic call for“red war” and its assumption that communal divisions in Indiacould be overcome if the different factions united against Britainwas clearly naïve and demonstrated little patience with India’s com-plex communal history or volatile regional demographic mixes. Itcould also be said that it showed equally scant regard for the volatil-ity of Irish communal relations in the tense aftermath of the War ofIndependence and Civil War. Republican writers tended to evaluatenationalist activism in Egypt and India using their own experienceas a frame of reference and as a mechanism for assessing the meritsor demerits of particular political approaches.They valorized armedstruggle, not because they thought it necessary for consciousness-raising or to restore national self-respect, but because they viewed itas the only effective strategy for dealing with imperial intransigence.Allusions to anti-imperialist activities in both Egyptian and Indiancontexts provided a context for talking about ongoing republicanrecalcitrance in the Irish Free State, but this position was limited inthat it did not always engage sufficiently with the alternativephilosophies and strategies of anti-imperialist activists abroad.

Analyses of political developments in the international arena did,however, allow both author and audience to think about Free Statepolitics beyond the specificities of the domestic context. An articlein Saoirse outlined the contemporary political position of Egypt,opening with information on the geography and society of the coun-try. In describing the constitutional position of Egypt, the writermade a parallel with the Irish situation.


. Wolfe Tone Weekly, Aug. , .

. Young argues that Gandhi “introduced psychology as a weapon of the weak,in a more radical way than [Frantz] Fanon who was primarily concerned to exposethe ideological basis of ethnopsychology and for whom colonialism’s nervous con-dition . . . could only be healed through a masculinist violence.” See Young (a),.


Egypt has a “North-East” or “Ulster” in the Soudan. . . . [British inter-ference] leaves the Independent State of Egypt like the “Free-State,”apparently her own master, but actually the slave of England.38

Republican writers occasionally compared the partition of Ireland topartition in countries such as Egypt, and they usually categorizedpartition as an unnatural tool of empire. By identifying a trans-imperial policy of partition, republican writers attempted to demon-strate that the political circumstances that led to the establishmentof two separate states in Ireland were the product of imperial inter-ference. Such intervention, it was implied, was the result of politicalexpediency and imperial policy that continued to be practiced inother colonial contexts. Comparisons with Egypt and India werefrequently used by republican writers. The fact that both politicalcontexts had well-recognized ancient civilizations was a factor thatappealed to Irish republicans because the cornerstone of republicanand nationalist ideology was the belief that Ireland too had a glori-ous culture and civilization prior to colonial conquest. By appropri-ating the ideology of empire to strengthen their claims for inde-pendence, Irish, Indian, and Egyptian nationalists made commoncause by each emphasizing their celebrated heritage. Thus, Irishrepublican writers were eager to point out the superior culture of themilitarily subjugated Egyptian people:

So in humanity required that a Convention be concluded mak-ing Morocco a sphere of French influence, Egypt a sphere of Englishinfluence, England to stay, moreover, until she had taught the art ofself-government to the benighted Egyptians who had passed throughwhole cycles of civilization before the English had risen above the sta-tus of painted savages.39

Even though its intent is to challenge English cultural superiority, theuse of the term “painted savages” and the acceptance of a hierarchyof civilizations suggest that this republican writer had actuallyassimilated the teleological view of progress that underpinned theimperialist enterprise. The British conception of civilizational pre-


. Saoirse (Aug. ), .. Saoirse (Jan. ), .


eminence is derided, but the idea that human progress moves from“painted savages” to “civilisation” remained solidly intact.

Egypt and India were not the only locales that provided a discur-sive platform for interpreting the independence struggle in Ireland.In , for example, Republican Review published a detailed two-part analysis of the political situation in Palestine. This article againframed its analysis using the Irish experience as a paradigm. Theintroduction to the piece drew a parallel between the war of attritionin Palestine in and the guerilla war in Dublin in . Furtheranalogies were drawn between the settlement of Jewish immigrantsand the plantations in Ireland, an Arab general strike and Larkin’sDublin strike in , and between the language used to describeArab and Irish rebels.40 Ultimate responsibility for the strife inPalestine was assigned to European Christian countries “who saw inthe Palestine plan a way of getting rid of their own responsibilities totreat the Jews as equals.”41 However, the writer also attributedblame to the Jewish settlers who refused to recognize that the Pales-tinians “had any rights in a territory which the Arabs had occupiedfor thirteen centuries” and Zionist attitudes to Arabs are comparedto those of seventeenth-century English planters in Ireland:

The attitude of such colonists resembles the attitude of the English“planters” towards the “mere Irish”; they were lazy, shiftless, merce-nary barbarians whose religion was superstition and made them badsubjects.42

Nevertheless, the Jewish people were not blamed for seeking ahomeland in Palestine as this was a result of the persecution they suf-fered at the hands of “professed Christians.” The “fault lies withBritain” because “her ‘sympathy’ with the Jews took the form of giv-ing away another country’s territory in order to provide them witha ‘National Home’.” Rather than blaming either the Jewish settlersor the Palestinians for the conflict, the writer ultimately assigned


. The writer was probably referring to the general strike that began in April and concluded that October. Part of the three-year Arab revolt of –, thestrike’s leaders requested an end to Jewish immigration and demanded immediateelections as they feared becoming a minority in the territory.

. Republican Review (Jan. ), .. Ibid.


responsibility to the British Empire. The Palestinians were thenwarned against accepting either partition or dominion status.Republican writers often cautioned other peoples against acceptingthe precedent of compromise established with the signing of theAnglo-Irish Treaty. They thereby identified perceived policies,methods, and precedents of imperialism, and they highlighted thesefor their audiences.

The critique of colonial discourses that labeled and denigrated thecolonized was a recurring concern for some republican publications.Republican Review presented another analysis of the political situationin Palestine and emphasized the language used by the imperialadministration. Questioning the “smug statement” that “the charac-ter of the British soldier is too well known to require vindication,” theauthor responded that this official statement can “scarcely be swal-lowed here.”43 This article challenged the reluctance of the Westernmedia to publish the text of an Arab petition to Mussolini that out-lined the atrocities committed in Palestine while “the official Britishdenial was published in full.” From this starting point, the writerundermined the credibility of the British position:

Of a similar kind is the “explanation” of the blowing-up of Arab vil-lages as reprisals. “Demolitions” says the document in the sameeuphistic [sic] strain, “are only carried out when the houses belong torebels, or have been sniped from, or have been used to hide ammu-nition, or to hold rebel courts.” These courts, it is stated, are carriedon by “the better educated of the Arab gangs” while the fighting isdone by “the lower class of terrorist thugs.”44

By reminding the reader that similar language had been used by theDaily Mail to describe Irish republicans, the writer attempted toidentify a key trope of colonial discourse. Implying that terms suchas “thug” and “terrorist” were used to discredit anticolonial insur-gents, the article concluded that “thuggery, therefore, may be takento be a bond of union between Irishmen and Arabs.”45


. See “The Amadán’s Guide To The Empire We Live In,” Republican Review(Feb. ), .

. Ibid.. Ibid. The next section in this article examines a court case in which four

British constables are charged with the “premeditated murder” of an Arab prisoner.


In general, republican writers attempted to challenge the notionthat imperialist projects were predicated on notions of progress andcivilization, and there were attempts to include other subject peoplesin this analytical paradigm. For example, a poem by Francis Fahywas reprinted in The Wolfe Tone Weekly in that acknowledgedclaims that the Irish played a part in building the British Empire:

They say the British Empire owes much to Irish hands,That Irish valour fixed her flag o’er many conquered lands

However, Fahy criticizes those that participated in the colonial proj-ect. He then questions the imperial notion of “progress” and thevalue of the “commerce, science, art and laws, the knowledge of Hisword” that the Empire allegedly brought to the colonies. Again, thiswriter expresses solidarity with a variety of oppressed native peoplesand questions the notion that the imperial project benefited nativepeoples:

Go, ask the hapless Maori, why fades he from his homes,The Zulu, why no more his plains in happiness he roams;Go, ask the Hindoo why he starves amid his teeming fields,The Fellah, why he tastes not of the wealth his river yields.46

Although the treatment of cultures such as that of the Zulus and theMaoris was superficial, some republican writers attempted to iden-tify with and celebrate the precolonial past of these societies. In anarticle in Saoirse,Sceilg argues that “John Bull tried his worst to dis-possess and exterminate the Maoris, whose land tenure, like that ofthe Fijis and other distant islands, was tribal, as in early Ireland, and


Using facts “derived from official reports but . . . not treated in the official way,” thispiece questions the integrity of the British justice system when dealing with suchcases.

. SeeWolfe Tone Weekly, Oct. , . Francis Fahy (–) was presidentof the Gaelic League in London between and , and the well-known authorof poems and songs such as “The Ould Plaid Shawl” and “The Queen of Con-nemara.” Fahy’s poem is similar in style and content to one by Henry Labouchre thatwas also printed in The WolfeTone Weekly, Nov. , . Labouchre was English andhis poem was entitled “Where is the Flag of England?” The Anti-Imperialist alsopublished Labouchre’s poem (Samhain ), .


so repugnant to the confiscator.”47 Both the defense and idealizationof precolonial societies was a feature of republican anti-imperialistideology, although the treatment of such extremely diverse contextstended to be uncritical and to lack detail. In an article in the WolfeTone Weekly, one writer decried the colonial project in India andlaunched a verbal assault on “Indian fools as well as Irish fools wear-ing war medals and poppies and miniature Union Jacks.” Thisauthor also condemned the colonization by Britain of the “cul-tured” Indian people:

You will understand why the hypocrites of England have defamed agreat, cultured, noble people throughout the world; why that peoplehad been robbed and divided and degraded and anglicized even as wehave been; why fire and fury have been let loose against it; whyunyielding Indian men have been chained to the mouths of greatEnglish guns and blown to fragments. . . . 48

This mode of deploying other national situations to forward ananalysis premised on the notion that the imperial project uniformlydestroyed civilizations was limited by the tendency to refer to, ratherthan investigate in detail, the situations being discussed. But thisshould not deflect from republican attempts to create a counter-colonial discourse by valuing the cultural inheritance of subjugatedpeoples. By identifying colonialism as the force that “degraded” anddestroyed these civilizations, they produced the basis for alternativehistories that conflicted with the versions produced in colonialdiscourses.

Indeed, contrary to studies that claim that Irish republicans wereloath to compare their political situation to that of African and Abo-riginal peoples, it is evident from the newspapers examined thatrepublicans readily identified with these struggles. Numerous articlessymbolically figure different colonies as reluctant members of thesame family. As noted above, there is little to suggest that republicanwriters had in-depth knowledge of remote subject peoples such as


. Saoirse (Jan. ), . It should be noted that Sceilg was one of the most pro-lific and ideologically problematic of republican writers in the period. Fundamen-tally anti-British, he was one of a minority of republican writers who expressed sup-port for Germany during World War II.

. Wolfe Tone Weekly, Nov. , .


the Zulus or the Maoris, but there is evidence that they viewed thesepeoples as having legitimate struggles. A report in Saoirse challengesthe notion of imperial justice when reporting on a case from SouthAfrica where “Chief Tskekedi flogged an Englishman, whose behav-iour with African women had long been objectionable.” Recountinghow the Chief had stated that he had made repeated complaints tothe British administration who had refused to take action, but whohad deposed him from the “headship of his tribe” on account of hispunishment of the Englishman, the report suggests that imperialclaims of impartiality and fairness are disingenuous:

Pity that these things get out. England managed better in the olddays. Of course, had a native misbehaved with Englishwomen! Butthere—England is so just.49

The wry tone employed in this piece is characteristic of republicantreatments that highlighted the contradictions in imperial policiesand rhetoric, thereby providing their audiences with a platform for amacro-analysis of colonialism. Although republican writers focusedon Indian nationalism, in particular, expressions of solidarity andempathy exist with African peoples, and Africans were included in theglobal alliance of the oppressed that was represented in the radicalrepublican press.

The concept of the all-inclusive family of the oppressed demon-strates two recurring features of republican anti-imperialist rhetoric.Firstly, at a time when fascism and race-thinking were on the riseacross Western Europe and America, republican writers of theperiod had not embraced the racist ideology of empire, althoughtheir discourse could occasionally reflect an acceptance of under-lying categories and rhetorical descriptions. Secondly, these activistswere often reluctant to engage with the internal dynamics ofsettler/native interaction in the colonies. Thus, an article in Saoirseconcluded by articulating the belief that division in each colony wasa result of British interference. This emphasis on the “divide-and-rule” imperial policy was essential to the republican belief that anindependent thirty-two county state was feasible and that the vari-ous interest groups could be accommodated:


. Saoirse (Oct. ), .


Whatever the professions of goodwill, England will be rememberedfor her policy of ballooning the Kaffir against the Boer, the Moslemagainst the Hindu, the Orangeman against the Papist, the Federalistagainst the Confederate, the Italian against the Frenchman, for herconcentration camps in South Africa, her holocausts in India, herconvict settlements in Australia: and until John Bull is well advancedin his dotage, no one will trust him to change his methods.50

Divisions in the colonies were frequently used by pro-imperialistsas a justification for continued British occupation. Some imperial-ist intellectuals even claimed that communal antagonisms wereintrinsic to certain colonial peoples and that these societies weretherefore incapable of sustaining a civic nationalism that tolerateddifference. For example, in the Palestine Royal Commission Report(), Professor Reginald Coupland argued that partition was afavorable solution to the “gulf between the races” in Palestine,because, unlike Canada or South Africa, the British were outsidersin the dispute:

where the conflict of nationalities has been overcome and unityachieved—in Britain itself, in Canada, in South Africa—one of theparties concerned was English or British, and . . . where that has notbeen so, as in the schism between the Northern and Southern Irish,or between Hindus and Moslems in India, the quarrel, though it iscenturies old, has not been composed.51

Coupland’s thesis was that competing nationalisms in colonies suchas India or Palestine could not be worked out because warring fac-tions in these contexts were incapable of accepting difference, andthus partition was a practical solution.52 However, Coupland’s per-spective occluded the possibility that communal divisions were the


. Saoirse (Jan. ), .. Cited in T.G. Fraser, Partition in Ireland, India and Palestine:Theory and Prac-

tice (London: Macmillan, ), . Coupland was Beit Professor of Colonial Historyat Oxford and a member of the Royal Commission that went to Palestine in .

. Joe Cleary argues that, for Coupland, the “English or British possess a tem-peramental capacity to live harmoniously with other races in heterogeneous soci-eties” while the Irish, Indians, or Palestinians lack “the tolerant capacity to con-struct viable common nationalities” in a similar way. See Literature, Partition and theNation State: Culture and Conflict in Ireland, Israel and Palestine (Cambridge: Cam-bridge University Press, ), .


result, in part, of unequal power relationships in the colonies. Byrefusing an interpretation based on the notion of primordial ethnicdivisions, republicans were challenging this aspect of colonial dis-course. Republican rhetoric on this issue varied from a limitedperspective that elided the ethnic tensions that did exist in colonialcontexts by arguing that these were solely the result of imperialinterference to a more refined critique that foregrounded theresponsibility of empire but also drew attention to power inequali-ties that existed, both between settler and native populations andwithin native populations also.

As has been briefly outlined above, republican activists weredemonstrably sympathetic to anti-colonial struggles around theworld. Organizations like Sinn Féin, Cumann na mBan, and theRepublican Congress situated their activities within the context ofinternational anti-imperialism. Other organizations and politicalparties were less inclined to frame their discourse in a similar man-ner, although this is not to suggest that they did not follow Domin-ion politics with interest. There are several reasons for this. Thestate-orientated political parties had other priorities: in their partybulletins, Fianna Fáil and Cumann na nGaedhael were keen to pro-mote the benefits of accepting the state. The Fianna Fáil Bulletingenerally confined its coverage to government propaganda53 and tothe denigration of the party’s domestic adversaries.54 State achieve-ments form the basis of most of the articles. Advances in farming,houses built, films broadcasted, industrial progress, investment inhealth and efforts to reduce unemployment are the key subjects dis-cussed. Between and , the Cumann na nGaedheal gov-ernment tried to advance the position of the Free State through theevolutionary frame provided by the Imperial Conferences, therebyaccepting, it could be argued, the realpolitik of élite international


. Titles of articles include “Amazing Industrial Progress” (June : ), “TheAdvance Continues” (Nov. : ), “Five Years of Achievement Reviewed” (Mar.: ), and “Fianna Fáil Achieves the Impossible” (June : ).

. The Fianna Fáil Bulletin regularly contrasted its trade and employment fig-ures with those of the former administration (see, for example, Aug. : –; June: –). Articles refer to the “Fine Gael lie factory” (Feb. : ), to the“cranks and malcontents” who vote against the government (July : ), and to the“Blueshirt Conspiracy” (March : ).



relations. On taking power in , de Valera and Fianna Fáil pri-oritized the issue of sovereignty, but they too tended to work withinthe structures of empire. Furthermore, despite the occasional dec-laration of solidarity with colonized peoples, both the activities andrhetoric of this administration suggest a low-intensity interest inanti-imperialist activism abroad.

The discourse in both papers of the Blue-Shirt movement wascharacterized by a number of key features: authoritarianism, fixa-tion on the state, admiration for similar movements in Europe, andrespect for the Catholic Church.55 In particular, there were manyadmiring references to Mussolini and to the evolution of the Italianstate.56 Use of the term “imperial” was confined to occasional de-scriptions of the Anglo–Irish relationship. For example, in April, there was a short piece on the desirability of removing “impe-rial monuments” in Dublin, but no indication of solidarity withoppressed peoples and no engagement with the broader issue ofimperialism. In addition to admiration for European fascism, onewriter expressed pleasure when an international Congress praisedIreland for spreading “Christianity and civilization over theworld.”57 Indeed, the Blue-Shirt was an admirer of imperial powerslike Italy. While domestic political differences were presented asstark and frequently dichotomous in party political publications, thenational dailies offered less obviously partisan articles. Theyreported on global politics and imperial affairs, demonstratingworldviews that were outward-looking and engaged in the key inter-national issues of the day. For example, Brian Fallon notes that theIrish Times maintained a foreign correspondent, Lionel Fleming,behind the republican lines during the Spanish Civil War, althoughthe Evening Mail was “almost the only prominent Irish paper in theThirties to oppose the cause of Franco.”58

. The Blue-Shirt movement produced two publications: The Nation and TheBlue-Shirt.

. See, for example, “Italy’s example to all Europe,” The Blue-Shirt, Feb., .

. The Blue-Shirt, Jan. , .. See Brian Fallon, An Age of Innocence, for a brief overview of the national

dailies between and , esp. –.



Of Ireland’s major national dailies in , the Irish Press was onethat had an editorial policy that contested global imperialism.59 Ina letter to the British United Press, the first editor, Frank Gallagher,outlined the types of stories that the Irish Press would be interestedin receiving.60 These included “movements for national independ-ence anywhere, particularly those in the British empire. . . Theprogress of Gandhi’s movement in India . . . the national movementin Palestine, the Frontier Movement in India . . . and also all seces-sionist movements in Canada, Australia and South Africa.”61

Republican groups initially welcomed the paper, as many were stillundecided as to the merits of Fianna Fáil operating as a Free Statepolitical party: An Phoblacht announced “we welcome the arrival ofDublin’s third daily, the Irish Press. By breaking the paper wall thathides people from their slavery, their impoverishment and the bru-tality of their rulers, the Irish Press will render national service.”62

The paper had many radical contributors, particularly in the earlyyears of its production and Gallagher’s initial directions to sub-editorsdemonstrate the paper’s anti-imperialist leanings:

3. Be on your guard against the habits of British and foreign newsagencies who look at the world through imperialist eyes. Forinstance:

(i). Do not pass the word “bandits” as a description of SouthAmerican revolutionaries.

. The Irish Press had a sizable readership, increasing from an average daily fig-ure of nearly , following its launch in to around , by . See theFrank Gallagher Papers, National Library of Ireland, MS .

. Gallagher was Republican Director of Publicity during the Civil War and hasbeen described as “one of the most brilliant propagandists for the republican cause.”In the mid-s, Gallagher was a lodger in Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington’s house.However, by the mid-s, relations between Gallagher and Sheehy-Skeffingtonhad become less cordial. Ward suggests this could be as a result of the Fianna Fáiloath-taking controversy. See Margaret Ward, Hanna Sheehy Skeffington: A Life(Cork: Attic Press, ), , . De Valera later appointed Gallagher director ofthe Government Information Bureau (–) and it seems Gallagher fullyembraced Fianna Fáil policy. However, Gallagher was extremely unhappy with thedirectors’ prioritization of commercial rather than ideological concerns, and heeventually resigned from the Irish Press in .

. Cited in Mark O’Brien, De Valera, Fianna Fáil and the Irish Press (Dublin:Irish Academic Press, ), .

. Cited in MacEoin, The IRA in the Twilight Years, –.


(ii). Pirates and robbers in China are not necessarily commu-nists and therefore should not be described as such.

(iii). Propagandist attacks on Russia and other countries shouldnot be served up as news.63

The Irish Press also published anti-imperialist cartoons during Gal-lagher’s editorship; figure , as an example, depicts John Bull emp-tying a bag labeled “self-government” (full of viceroy vetoes) beforea bound Indian. However, the Irish Press (the media organ of theFianna Fáil party) became increasingly reluctant to challenge thelegitimacy of the state or to critique government activities. MarkO’Brien argues that the paper, “having originally been founded toarticulate a radical populist discourse, became an organ of defensefor the party.”64 Gallagher’s guidelines had been issued in , ayear before Fianna Fáil came into power. At this time, the FiannaFáil leadership was keen to establish its republican credentials andits revolutionary origins. Following its accession to power, the partylifted the ban on the IRA and An Phoblacht. Political prisoners werereleased. Yet, within a few years, Fianna Fáil had again proscribedboth the IRA and An Phoblacht.65 Furthermore, it used MilitaryCourts and repressive legislation to incarcerate many of those whocontinued to refuse the embrace of state nationalism. Occasionally,such action against republicans made both the rank-and-file mem-bership and leading members of the Fianna Fáil organization ideo-logically uneasy.The positions of both republicans and state-nation-alists were neither as fixed nor as immutable as is sometimesconstrued. Individuals could occupy ambiguous positions, under-mining any dichotomous reading of Free State politics. However,whatever sensitivities the Irish Press displayed under the stewardship


. Cited in J.J. Lee, Ireland –: Politics and Society (Cambridge: Cam-bridge University Press, ), .

. See O’Brien, De Valera, . For example, O’Brien notes that The Irish Pressexpressed sympathy for the Spanish Republic when Fianna Fáil was in opposition,but that following the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in “the paper did notstand by its previously expressed view, supporting instead de Valera’s policy ofimpartiality.”

. The IRA was declared an illegal organization in June and the annualBodenstown commemoration was banned the same month. An Phoblacht was cen-sored and suppressed on a number of occasions from .



Fi . Irish Press, March , page . By permission of Irish Press Plc.



of Gallagher, the national dailies tended not to engage with the issueof anti-imperialist struggles abroad in a similar fashion or to thesame extent as the republican press.

Through their formulation of narratives that sidelined the FreeState, republican writers demonstrated a commitment to alterna-tive forms of human solidarity, and their rhetorical dismissal of thestate was an act of political recalcitrance. By focusing on interna-tional anti-imperialism and by identifying with the subjugationexperienced by oppressed peoples, republicans challenged thenarrative of progress and achievement that the government privi-leged in its attempt to normalize the new order. Republican writ-ers, although vehemently antistate, cut across the discourse ofstate nationalism by creating a global alliance of colonized peo-ples. The very temporality of this narrative differed from that ofstate-nationalism. The narrative telos of the latter posited thefoundation of the state as, at the very least, a significant steptowards decolonization. For republicans, the establishment of thestate was not coincident with the end of the anticolonial struggle;that struggle had not been concluded. Indeed, republican writerscontested the assumption of progress upon which the state narra-tive depended by extending the definition of “progress” beyondeconomic or modernizing successes. By comparing their ownexperience with that of peoples like the Indians or the Palestinians,republicans implicitly rejected the notion that the anticolonialstruggle in Ireland had been resolved with either the signing of thetreaty or with the assimilation of Fianna Fáil to the state. The veryact of imagining alternative forms of human solidarity was anincipiently revolutionary one.

The anti-imperialist discourse of republican activists in the sand s represents an attempt to intervene in the discourses ofstate and of empire by those at the margins. For some commenta-tors, these activists represent only the idiosyncratic vestiges of adefeated republicanism. But one might also argue that their activismcan adumbrate the outlines of an alternative politics. Republicans’primary rhetorical allegiance was to the elusive “Republic,” but theexistence of a discourse that gave voice to a horizontal comradeshipwith oppressed peoples also represents a strategy by which republi-cans contested the authority of the state-nationalist narrative. This


secondary allegiance to a broad anticolonial community providedrepublicans with a means to further differentiate their agency fromthat of their erstwhile comrades. Even so, the anti-imperialist rhet-oric of republican writers had its limitations. The emphasis onBritish imperialism and the attempts to read disparate political sit-uations through the prism of their own position resulted in a dis-course that could be seen as self-serving, and one that sometimesreinforced a dichotomous interpretation that occluded the nuancesand complexities of particular contexts.

These writers were also activists. Their attempts to theorize theirposition were inevitably inflected by their experiences, and theirobjectives included discrediting the British imperial project andundermining the legitimacy of the Free State administration. Theydemonstrated a vigilant, critical ability to expose the contradictionsin imperial rhetoric, and they regularly dismissed the racializedthinking and assumptions that informed colonial discourses. By pre-senting macro-analyses of imperial policy, republican writers devel-oped a critique that positioned the Free State as both the site ofneo-colonialism and as the product of an unsatisfactory decolo-nization process. Because republican arguments had a popularappeal, successive Free State administrations repressed the alterna-tive narratives presented in republican journalism.66 Thus, bothCumann na nGaedhael and Fianna Fáil criminalized republicansand attempted to eradicate their discourse. Writers for An Phoblachtsuffered harassment in –. Their Longford-based publisherceased printing the paper in after receiving several threats.Brian O’Higgins, the editor for the WolfeTone Weekly, was arrested in.The Offences Against the State Act () forced its editors todiscontinue The Republican Review in . The editorial of the lastissue explained the decision to withdraw the paper:

The wide definition given to the term “seditious document” shows theutter impossibility of criticizing the Twenty-Six County Governmentfrom the Republican point of view in any publication which is openly


. This is not to suggest that the articulation of anti-imperial solidarity wasspecifically the target of government hostility. The features of republican discoursethat were most problematic for the government included the concept of the illegalityof the Free State, references to the “Republic,” and support for the outlawed IRA.


offered for sale. All criticism of this nature must in future be printedand circulated secretly in the same manner as the Anti-Nazi journalsare kept in existence in Germany.67

The editorial identified the new act as the culmination of a FiannaFáil policy to suppress discourse and debate. Although ostensiblysubmitting to the draconian act by discontinuing the publication,Republican Review stated that the opinions of editors and contribu-tors remained unchanged, even if these opinions were no longerarticulated in the public domain. These writers maintained thatrepublican antistate agency and rhetoric may be superseded by pro-government discourses in the public arena, but not eradicated.

Republicanism in the s and s was characterized by orga-nizational splits, internal debates, disparate political leanings, andideological dissent. It was a movement that produced several news-papers, numerous pamphlets and a large number of subgroups.These groups involved clearly lacked the coherence and discipline ofthe state-nationalist political parties. However, to dismiss republicandiscourses on these grounds alone is to exclude and silence thevoices and perspectives of the subjects under discussion. To do sodoes a disservice to the evidence that exists and implicitly priori-tizes electoral success over other types of ambition. It accommo-dates a reading of the past that views republicanism as unchanging,monolithic, and profoundly cynical. Once in place, these paradigmsbecome so self-evident that the unruly and occasionally surprisingpolitical vagaries of the period become unthinkable. Caricatures andstereotypes of the period as uniformly conservative and stagnantsimply erase the heterogeneity and vibrancy of the political dis-courses available at the time.This essay has shown that a capacity toidentify with oppressed peoples, or to critique empire, did not haveto await the enlightenment of the Lemass era or the academic post-colonialism of the s. Throughout the s and s, in theirjournalistic writings, republican anti-imperialists both challengedimperialist discourses and espoused a politics of solidarity with rad-icals abroad.


. Republican Review (June ), .


The Mosquito Press\": Anti-Imperialist Rhetoric in Republican Journalism, 1926-39

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