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ABSTRACT
During the Cold War era, the Connolly Association, an Irish republican socialist political organisation in Britain close to the Communist Party of Great Britain, was seen by British Communists as a potential means of winning recruits amongst Britain’s growing post-war Irish community. This view was shared by the Catholic Church, which, amidst the broader ideological atmosphere of the Cold War, placed an increased emphasis on anti-communism in the early post-war years. This article will discuss clerical opposition to the Connolly Association in early Cold War Britain and Ireland, drawing chiefly on diocesan archives and Catholic periodicals.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the Irish Research Council for funding my PhD research from which this article emerged, as well as my PhD supervisor, Dr John Cunningham, for his advice regarding this article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Keogh, “Ireland, the Vatican and the Cold War: the case of Italy, 1948,” 67–114.
2. Cronin, Washington’s Irish policy, 229–30.
3. Kirby, Religion and the Cold War.
4. Kirby, “The religious Cold War, 540–64; and Kosicki, “The Catholic Church and the Cold War.” 259–72.
5. Delaney, “Anti-communism in mid-twentieth century Ireland,” 878–903; McFarland and Johnston, “The Church of Scotland’s special commission on communism,” 337–61; and Jones, “The clergy, the Cold War and the mission of the local Church: England ca. 1945–60,” 188–99.
6. Delaney, The Irish in post-war Britain, 160–1.
7. Catholic Truth Society of Ireland, Handbook for the Catholic Emigrant to England, 20.
8. Irish Freedom, February 1942; Irish Democrat, January 1949; Greaves. Reminiscences of the Connolly Association. 17–8; and Goldstone, “Leslie Daiken and Harry Kernoff,” 201.
9. Irish Freedom, February 1940.
10. Coughlan, C. Desmond Greaves, 3–4.
11. Greaves, Reminiscences of the Connolly Association, 18.
12. Irish Freedom, April 1944.
13. Irish Freedom, February 1943.
14. Irish Freedom, May 1943.
15. Ó Drisceoil, Censorship in Ireland, 197.
16. Jackson, The Irish in Britain, 127.
17. Irish Freedom, January 1939; Catholic Herald, 10 February, 24 February, 3 March 1939; and Mentioned in Moulton, Ireland and the Irish in Inter-War England, 266.
18. See note 14 above, 1939.
19. Irish Freedom, January 1940.
20. See note 14 above, 1941.
21. Catholic Herald, 14 February 1941.
22. Irish Freedom, March 1941.
23. Standard, 17 December 1943.
24. Irish Independent, 9 November 1948; Cork Examiner, 10 November 1948; Connacht Tribune, 13 November 1948.
25. Limerick Leader, 9 February 1948.
26. Irish Press, 23 April 1956.
27. Irish Press, 13 February, 1956.
28. Cork Examiner, 23 April 1956.
29. Cork Examiner, 17 April 1961.
30. Aspden, Fortress Church, 273–5.
31. Morgan, Cohen, and Flinn, Communists and British Society, 185.
32. See note 30 above, 275.
33. Morgan, “Douglas Hyde—Campaigner and Journalist,” 162–6.
34. Morgan, Cohen, and Flinn, Communists and British Society, 196–202.
35. Smylie, “Cold War, Partition and Convergence,” 113.
36. People’s History Museum, Manchester, (hereafter PHM) CPGB papers, CP/CENT/PC/02/File 14, Political Committee, ‘The Situation in Ireland, 30/4/’53’.
37. Johnston, Century of Endeavour, 167.
38. Smylie, “Cold War, Partition and Convergence,” 121–2.
39. For a biography of Dillon, see Manning, James Dillon.
40. James Dillon, Dáil Debates, 106, no. 19, cols. 2332–3, 20 June, 1947. Accessed 19 November 2017. Available from: http://oireachtasdebates.oireachtas.ie/debates%20authoring/DebatesWebPack.nsf/takes/dail1947062000005?opendocument.
41. James Dillon, Dáil Debates, 106, no. 19, cols. 787–91, 3 July, 1947. Accessed 19 November 2017. Available from: http://oireachtasdebates.oireachtas.ie/debates%20authoring/DebatesWebPack.nsf/takes/dail1947070300003?opendocument.
42. Irish Democrat, August 1947.
43. Liam Cosgrave, Dáil Debates, 147, no. 4, col. 454–6, 27 November, 1954. Accessed 19 November 2017.Available from http://oireachtasdebates.oireachtas.ie/debates%20authoring/DebatesWebPack.nsf/takes/dail1954111000054?opendocument.
44. Frank Aiken, Dáil Debates, 165, no. 6, col. 917–9, 27 February, 1958. Accessed 19 November 2017. Available from: http://oireachtasdebates.oireachtas.ie/debates%20authoring/DebatesWebPack.nsf/takes/dail1958022700029?opendocument.
45. Treacy, The IRA 1956–69, 74.
46. Communist Review, January 1947.
47. Gallagher, Glasgow: An Uneasy Peace. 230.
48. PHM, CPGB archives, folder CP/IND/POLL/9/15, letter from Harry Pollitt to Harry McShane, 26 April, 1948.
49. PHM, CPGB archives, folder CP/IND/POLL/9/15, letter from Seán O’Casey to Harry Pollitt, 26 April, 1948.
50. Krause, The letters of Seán O’Casey, 1942–54, 520–1.
51. Connolly, Labour, Nationality and Religion, iii.
52. Krause, The Letters of Seán O’Casey, 1942–54, 541.
53. Coughlan, C. Desmond Greaves, 6.
54. PHM, CPGB archives, folder CP/IND/POLL/9/15, letter from C. Desmond Greaves to Harry Pollitt, 28 April 1948.
55. PHM, CPGB archives, folder CP/IND/POLL/9/15, letter from Pat Devine to Harry Pollitt, undated.
56. For examples, see Irish Democrat, June 1949, November 1949.
57. Irish Democrat, March 1948.
58. Greaves, Reminiscences of the Connolly Association, 24–5.
59. Irish Democrat, January 1949. For a longer discussion of the ensuing controversy, see Madden, “Bishop Michael Browne of Galway and Anti-Communism,” 26–7.
60. See note 57 above, 1949.
61. Gallacher, Mr. Brogan Opens Wide His Mouth, 12.
62. PHM, CPGB archives, folder CP/IND/POLL/3/7, letter from Harry Pollitt to Willie Gallacher, 25 April 1951.
63. Tuam Herald, 15 July 1949; Tuam Herald, 22 July 1949.
64. PHM, CPGB archives, CP/IND/POLL/9/15, letter from Pat Devine to Harry Pollitt, undated.
65. Dublin Diocesan Archives, (hereafter DDA) AB8/B/XXIII/743, letter from Douglas Hyde to Timothy Connolly, 9 August 1955.
66. Irish Times, 18 February 1956.
67. Irish Independent, 20 February 1956. Also see Cork Examiner, 20 February 1956; Irish Press, 20 February 1956; Irish Times, 20 February 1956.
68. MacKenzie, ‘The American Youth Campaign in Ireland,” 355–72.
69. Limerick Leader, 11 February 1957.
70. Delaney, The Irish in Post-War Britain, 137–41.
71. DDA, AB8/B/XXI/79/32/38, letter from John Charles McQuaid to Cardinal Bernard Griffin, 22 January 1955.
72. DDA, AB8/B/XXI/79/32/11, letter from Hubert Daly to Frank Duff, 25 July, 1954. For examples from Daly’s reports of matters of sexual immorality, and broader examples of McQuaid’s contacts in Britain, see Ferriter, Occasions of Sin, 278–84.
73. DDA, AB8/B/XXI/79/32/12, letter from Hubert Daly to Frank Duff, 5 August 1954.
74. DDA, AB8/B/XXI/79/32/12, report by Fr. John Casey, November 1956.
75. DDA, AB8/B/XXIII/738, entries on Irish communists.
76. DDA, AB8/B/XXIII/70, Vigilance Committee, Minutes of Meeting, 9 February, 1959.
77. DDA, AB8/B/XXIII/764, note to McQuaid, 10 November 1960.
78. DDA, AB8/B/XXIII/98, note to McQuaid, 28 Novemberd 1961.
79. DDA, AB8/B/XXIII/762, note to McQuaid.
80. DDA, AB8/B/XXIII/481, undated note from Byrne to McQuaid’s Secretary.
81. DDA, AB8/B/XXIII/454, undated note from Byrne to McQuaid’s secretary. Johnston, Century of Endeavour; and Hussey and Kealy, Nothing is Written in Stone.
82. DDA, AB8/B/XXIII/469, note from Byrne to McQuaid’s Secretary, 6 September, 1961.
83. DDA, AB8/B/XXIII/468, undated note from Byrne to McQuaid’s Secretary.
84. DDA, AB8/B/XXIII/329, letter from Archbishop McQuaid to Bishop Lucey, 1 November 1961.
85. See note 29 above, 1961.
86. Delaney, “Anti-Communism in Mid-Twentieth Century Ireland,” 885.
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Dr. Gerard Madden
Dr. Gerard Madden recently completed his Irish Research Council-funded PhD thesis at NUI Galway, entitled '"We here in Ireland are not outside this struggle": the Irish Catholic Church, anti-communism and the Cold War, 1945-1965'. A founding member of the Irish Centre for the Histories of Labour and Class at NUI Galway, he is broadly interested in the social, cultural and political history of Ireland, north and south. He has published articles in Irish Historical Studies and Saothar, journal of the Irish Labour History Society.