Dublin Anarchist Bookfair 6th April 2013 - Liberty Hall

The Dublin anarchist bookfair returns to Liberty Hall on the 6^th of April for our 8^th annual edition, and the theme 1913-2013 - Rebuilding a Movement from Below.

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For the full details of the bookfair see the Dublin Anarchist Bookfair page

Help with promotion by signing up for the Bookfair event on Facebook

Event date and time: 

Sat, 2013-04-06 10:00 - Sun, 2013-04-07 16:30

Source Workers Solidarity Movement

Mat Kavanagh, Liverpool-Irish anarchist (1876-1954) anarchist (1876-1954)

This obituary was published in the British anarchist paper, Freedom, in 1954.

Mat Kavanagh was a Liverpool-Irish anarchist who, in a lifetime of political activity, worked alongside such well known revolutionaries as Peter Kropotkin, Rufolf Rocker andEricco Malatesta.

click here to download

Born in Limerick in 1876, he moved to Liverpool and became involved in the anarchist movement in his teenage years. A good public speaker, he often spoke at the Sunday morning anarchist meetings at the Monument in Liverpool’s city centre.

In 1912 he was chosen to be one of the speakers at the mass rally in Trafalgar Square against the threatened deportation of the celebrated Italian anarchist Malatesta.

Like the vast majority of anarchists, he took a strong anti-militarist stand during World War One. One of the great sadnesses of his life was to occur at this time. His only son was conscripted and died in the fighting.

John Hewetson in his obituary says that “in 1916 Mat went back to Dublin to take part in the activity initiated by Connolly and Larkin”. However, we have found no confirmation of this. The accuracy of Hewetson’s account is questionable as Jim Larkin was in America at that time and was not involved in the preparations for the rising.

As the Spanish civil war brought new interest in anarchism, Kavanagh spoke at the first open-air meeting of the newly-invigorated anarchist movement in Paddington in 1936, an attempt to start a series of mass meetings. It came under attack from the fascists who were successfully driven off.

The following year Kavanagh met up with Jack White of Irish Citizen Army and Republican Congress fame, who had moved to anarchism as a result of his first hand experiences whilst fighting Franco’s fascists. They worked together on a survey of Irish labour but this was lost when White died in 1940 and his papers disappeared. According to Leo Keohane, who researched White’s politics for a doctoral thesis, their intention was to “produce an anarchist’s perspective on Connolly’s ‘Labour in Irish History’”.

As Hewetson noted: “Just how far back his personal memories went was illustrated by his anecdotes about old Edward Craig whom Mat knew at the end of his life, and who, in his early manhood had been the inspirer of the Owenite Commune at Ralahine in the years 1830-33”.

James Connolly wrote about this in his Labour in Irish History.  Ralahine is close to Newmarket-on-Fergus in Co. Clare.

In a short biography of Kavanagh at libcom.org, Nick Heath adds:

“During the Second World War Mat moved to Southend. Now in his sixties, he was interned under Regulation 18b with other members of the local anarchist group, the Independent Labour Party and pacifists, when Southend was declared a ‘danger area’ by the authorities.

“Mat organised these together and demanded to see the Commandant of the internment camp. He requested that the anarchists, socialists and Jews interned there be separated from the Mosley fascists who had also been rounded up. Eventually the authorities backed down and released Mat and co, realising that the so-called anti-fascist war they were pursuing would be questioned if obvious anti-fascists were being imprisoned alongside fascists.

“Mat contributed to the pages of Solidarity, the paper of the Anti-Parliamentary Communist Federation, which appeared from 1938 and continued throughout the Second World War.

“Mat had to move up to London where he found work as a barber. He had worked most of his life on the building sites and advancing age had meant his seeking of alternative employment.  Albert Meltzer, in his autobiography ‘I couldn’t paint golden angels’, tells us that he was not a very good barber, but had the honour of shaving George Orwell, who wrote him up in an article calling him a “an old Irish IRA (!) Anarchist hairdresser” who “used to cut my hair in Fleet Street”.

source http://irishanarchisthistory.wordpress.com/2012/07/25/mat-kavanagh-liverpool-irish-anarchist-1876-1954/

Belfast Anarchist Group and the long march to Derry (1969)

People’s Democracy march with Belfast Anarchist Group banner, January 1969

There is a myth about John McGuffin carrying the Belfast Anarchist Group‘s banner singlehanded on the Belfast to Derry civil rights march organised by Peoples Democracy in January 1969.

In his A Wee Black Booke of Belfast Anarchism (1867-1973) the Derry anarchist and historian Máirtín O Catháin described that episode:
“It was during the ‘long march’ and savage attack on the demonstrators at Burntollet by police and Paisleyites, that McGuffin was written into history for having an anarchist banner on the march. Much mileage has been made out of the story that McGuffin allegedly carried the banner on his own at times throughout the march, though it is something confirmed only in some memoirs of the events and finds no verification in the major studies of the protest and period. What actually happened, according to a Belfast Anarchist Group member, was that McGuffin phoned him to bring the banner for the last stage of the march into Derry, and after the Burntollet ambush, these members joined with McGuffin and marched with the banner into Derry.
“However, at Irish Street in the Waterside the march was attacked by another group of Paisleyites. A Belfast anarchist veteran takes up the story, ‘I remember sticking my pole into the face of one attacker before I was punched and kicked and the banner snatched away. The attackers must have had lighter fuel with them for only a few moments later I looked back to see the banner well alight’.(1)
“It’s not in doubt, of course, that McGuffin did indeed carry the banner, but not all the way from Belfast and certainly not on his own as a demonstration of his political righteousness. Such apocryphal tales may entertain but they rarely enlighten, and they permit those who are not anarchists (though they may even be patronisingly sympathetic), to portray anarchism as a political eccentricity – the last refuge for the impractical and the whimsical on the left – of those convinced but unable to convince.”
(1) The mistaken story of McGuffin carrying the banner himself appears to have originated with Bernadette Devlin or her ghostwriter (see Bernadette Devlin, The Price of My Soul [London, 1969], p.125 & p.142).

source http://irishanarchisthistory.wordpress.com/2012/06/12/belfast-anarchist-group-and-the-long-march-to-derry-1969/

Resistance! (Dublin) no.1 – 1980

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Resistance! was produced in 1980 by members of the Dublin Anarchist Group who also ran the ABC bookshop in Dublin’s Marlborough Street. Much of the magazine is given to stories about “state repression” (H Block, Mountjoy jail, the Curragh military prison, Noel & Marie Murray, torture of criminal suspects in Sundrive Road garda station, and an uncritical short about an arson attack on a clothing factory which had a contract for Garda and Army uniforms – with no mention of the people put out of work). Circulation was about 500 copies.

Other articles of note are one criticising the Sunday World columnist Fr Brian Darcy for “writing lies and misrepresentations” attributing industrial unrest to “sinister anarchist groups” like the Socialist Workers Party!; and a review of “the right” which put Trotskyists and Fianna Fail on the same side of the left/right divide.

Believing in the concept of creating alternative anarchist organisations (unions, campaign groups, etc.) rather than being active where people already are and trying to win them over, we see a call for a new ‘syndicalist’ union and the announcement of a ‘Student Anarchist Movement’. Nothing more was heard about either. In the anti-nuclear movement, for which the Contaminated Crow magazine in 1979 listed 46 local groups, they refused to engage with others and instead set up their own Anti-Nuclear Collective. They were also sympathetic to “armed struggle” but there is no suggestion that they actually practiced it.
Only two issues of this magazine were published and the group disappeared shortly afterwards, though a couple of members were involved in the formation of the Dublin Anarchist Collective in 1983.
Among those involved were ex-Provos like Billy Jackson and Jackie Crawford, as well as Mike Gilliland (whose father was a former President of the Methodist Church), Doreen McGouran, Steve Woods, Denise Jackson.
source http://irishanarchisthistory.wordpress.com/2012/06/10/resistance-dublin-no-1-1980/

7th Dublin Anarchist Bookfair 2012 - May 26th Liberty Hall

The 7th Anarchist Bookfair will take place in Dublin the weekend of 26th May 2012 at Liberty Hall, Eden Quay. We have a full schedule of meetings planned and a varied range of book stalls from a host of anarchist and radical publishers and organisations. Doors open at 10am and the first meetings start at 11:30 so forgo the weekend lie-in, grab a coffee and come on down!
Help with promotion by RSVPing to our Facebook event for the 2012 Bookfair, inviting any interested friends and then sharing the event to your profile.
Admission is free but a donation to costs is appreciated!
Sessions (we are only starting to add these). Check back later for more.

Eyewitness Afghanistan - the current political situation in Afghanistan as told through interviews conducted with Afghan politicians, artists, religious leaders, community organizers, journalists and activists; a Forum on Radical and Underground Publishing; Racism in the Recession with a speaker from the Traveller community; The Sue Richardson panel: My Life in Struggle, Women Speak - a forum on women in activism; Is it kicking off in Ireland? – discussion on the Irish response to austerity; a talk on Dublin’s Other History hosted by the authors of the popular blog Come Here to Me, a GP speaks on the Right to Choose, a debate on the fiscal treaty referendum as well as introductions to anarchism and the WSM.

The Bookfair will also host a showing of “Bernadette: Notes on a Political Journey” with a Q&A session with director Leila Doolan and  “The Viking Way”, a documentary about how Iceland responded to the crisis. 

Bookstalls carrying an array of radical literature will be set up for the day. Among the organisations from home and abroad will be: PM Press, AK Press, WSM, RAG (Revolutionary Anarcha-Feminist Group), Manchester Anarchist Federation, Solidarity Books, Look Left magazine, Organise and Just Books, Oxfam, the Irish Labour History Society, Corporate Watch and Freedom Press. 

Several campaign groups will be present with information stalls including: IPSC (Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign), Choice Ireland, Shell to Sea, LASC (Latin America Solidarity Centre), FEE (Free Education for Everyone), AFA (Anti Fascist Action) and the Campaign against Household and Water Taxes. 

Old Media In the Age of The Internet - Why Bother With Radical and Underground Publishing
Speakers from: Look Left, Rag, rabble, Liberty Paper and Workers Solidarity.
11.30 to 13.00 in the Mail Hall Liberty Hall



Eyewitness Afghanistan
Eyewitness Afghanistan will outline the current political situation in Afghanistan as told through interviews Farah conducted with Afghan politicians, artists, religious leaders, community organizers, journalists and activists between December 2010 and February 2012.
14.30 - 15.30 in the Red Room, Liberty Hall




Stalls 2012:,  AK Press, WSM, Manchester AF, S2S, Solidarity Books, Look Left magazine, Organise! Just Books, FEE, Oxfam Books, Corporate Watch, Latin American Solidarity Centre, RAG, IPSC,Campaign Against the Household Tax, Shell to Sea, Anti-Facist Action, Freedom Press. Check back later for more.

sourec http://www.wsm.ie/c/7th-dublin-anarchist-bookfair-2012-may-26th-liberty-hall

Belfast Anarchist Bookfair to take place Saturday 28th

  The 4^thBelfast Anarchist Bookfair will take this Saturday at 12pm in the Warzone centre, Little Victoria Street in the city centre. Hosted by Organise!/Just Books Collective there will be also a WSM stall including the latest Workers Solidarity and Irish Anarchist Review.
There will also be two talks/discussions taking place.  The first at 12.30pm on radical co-operatives, collectives and ‘free space’ will be lead off by a panel of people involved in a range of co-operatives, occupations and collectives.
The second talk, at 2pm, on a woman’s right to choose.  Entrance is free and a range of stalls present including the Independent Workers Union, Anarchist Federation and Anarchist Studies Network offering  a wide range on new and second hand books on Irish politics and history, labour history, feminism, socialism, anarchism, gender, fiction etc.
The events of the day will be followed by a social/gig in the centre from 7pm with Runnin’ Riot and That Bastard Chapman.
So come down and check out the Bookfair and ideas to fuel a revolution!

source  http://www.wsm.ie/c/belfast-anarchist-bookfair-2012-saturday