Liam Mellows and the Irish Revolutions
Liam O RuaircLiam Mellows (1892 - 1922) is remembered not just as a great Republican, but also as a major figure of the Republican Socialist tradition. But who was he exactly, and what were his ideas? Mellows was one of those who set up the Fianna Eireann organisation, and was later involved in the Irish Volunteers and the IRB. In 1916, he made an unsuccessful attempt to develop the Rising in Galway. He was then forced to escape to the USA, where he carried on propaganda and organisational work. While in America, he was elected TD for Galway in 1918, and re-elected later in 1921. In 1919 - 1920, he organised De Valera's tour of the USA. He then returned to Ireland, and became a member of the GHQ Staff of the IRA, where he was Director of Purchases. When the Treaty was signed, he took a clear stand for the Republic and against the Free State. In March 1922, he was among the leaders of the section of the IRA which occupied the Four Courts. He was captured by the Free State on the fall of the Four Courts in July 1922 and was imprisoned in Mountjoy. It was there that he wrote a series of three letters (which were later called "Notes from Mountjoy" -the first letter is dated 25 August, the second 29 August and the third 9 September 1922) about the current crisis of Republicanism. During the Treaty debate in the Dail, Mellows had declared that "the reason for many young soldiers going wrong is that they never had a proper grasp of the fundamentals." Mellows engaged in a process of reflection about those fundamentals. From these letters, he emerges as the most progressive and far-sighted Republican Socialist thinker of that period. [The Blanket: Liam Mellows and the Irish Revolutions]
Comments: Google It! 6:51:17 AM 
|
|
