Leaving aside the related tradition of syndicalism
in Ireland, associated with figures like James
Connolly, Irish anarchism had little historical
tradition before the 1970s.
As a movement it only really developed from
the late 1990s – although one organisation,
the Workers Solidarity Movement has had a
continuous existence since 1984.
Anarchists have been active in Ireland as
far back as 1886, but these were short-lived
groups or isolated individuals with large
gaps between activity.
== Origins ==
The first mention of an Irish connection to
anarchism was the Boston-based Irish nationalist
W.G.H.
Smart, who wrote articles for The Anarchist
in 1880 and 1881.
In 1886, Michael Gabriel, an English anarchist,
arrived in Dublin and moved to Bayview Avenue
in the North Strand.
He was a member of the Socialist League, an
organisation whose members included libertarian
Marxist William Morris and anarchist Joseph
Lane.
A branch of the League was formed and it is
known that anarchist publications were among
those distributed by them.
Around the same time, George Bernard Shaw
(1856–1950) wrote the article "What's in
a name (how an anarchist might put it)" at
the request of Charlotte Wilson for issue
no.
1 of The Anarchist in 1885.
Shaw had been taught French by the Communard
Richard Deck, who introduced him to Proudhon.
Later he was embarrassed by unauthorised reprints,
as he was a Fabian socialist, not an anarchist.
Irish writer Oscar Wilde notably expressed
anarchist sympathies, especially in his essay
The Soul of Man under Socialism
Around 1890 John Creaghe, an Irish doctor
who was joint founder (with Fred Charles),
of The Sheffield Anarchist, took part in the
"no rent" agitation before leaving Sheffield
in 1891.
He went on to become the founding editor in
Argentina of the anarchist paper, El Oprimido,
which was one of the first to support the
"organisers" current (as opposed to refusal
to organise large scale organisations).
In 1892 English anarchists visited Fred Allen
at the Dublin independent offices to see if
his Fair Trial Fund could be used for anarchist
as well as Irish Republican Brotherhood prisoners.
In 1894 at Trinity College Dublin's Fabian
Society "over 200 students listened sympathetically"
to a lecture on "Anarchism and Darwinism"In
the 20th century Captain Jack White was active
as an anarchist in the 1930s after returning
from the Spanish Revolution.
== Modern development ==
In the late 1960s, as the civil rights campaign
took off, People's Democracy, before it became
a small Trotskyist group, included some self-described
anarchists such as John McGuffin and Jackie
Crawford.
The latter was one of the group who sold Freedom
in Belfast's Castle Street in the late 1960s.
There was an anarchist banner on the Belfast-Derry
civil rights march.
PD members, including John Grey, contributed
to a special issue of the British Anarchy
Magazine about Northern Ireland in 1971.
In the early 1970s some ex-members of the
Official IRA became interested in anarchism
and developed contact with Black Flag magazine
in London.
Among names used were Dublin Anarchist Group
and New Earth.
Their existence was brief and not widely known.
A number of jailings for "armed actions" saw
the group disappear.
Two members, Marie and Noel Murray, were later
sentenced to death for the killing of an off-duty
Garda during a bank raid as part of a group
called the Anarchist Black Cross (with no
relation to the much older prisoner support
group).
Their sentences were commuted to life imprisonment
on appeal.
In 1970 there existed a hippy commune in a
squatted house on Dublin's exclusive Merrion
Road known as the Island Commune.
Some inhabitants, including Ubi Dwyer of Windsor
Free Festival fame, sold Freedom outside the
GPO on Saturdays.
=== Origins of the movement ===
The first steps towards building a movement
came in the late 1970s when a number of young
Irish people who had been living and working
in Britain returned home, bringing their new-found
anarchist politics with them.
Local groups were set up in Belfast, Dublin,
Limerick, Dundalk and Drogheda.
Over the next decade anarchist papers appeared,
some for just one or two editions, others
with a much longer life.
Titles included Outta Control (Belfast), Anarchist
Worker (Dublin), Antrim Alternative (Ballymena),
Black Star (Ballymena), Resistance (Dublin)
and Organise!
(Ballymena).
Bookshops were opened in Belfast (Just Books
in Winetavern Street) and Dublin (ABC in Marlborough
Street).
All of these groups attracted people who identified
themselves as anarchists but had little in
the way of agreed politics or activities,
and no organised discussions or education
about anarchism.
This imposed limits to what they could achieve
and even to their continued existence – all
groups were short-lived, had little impact
and left no lasting legacy.
In 1978, ex-members of the Belfast Anarchist
Collective and the Dublin Anarchist Group
decided that a more politically united, class-based,
and public organisation was necessary.
Their discussions led to the Anarchist Workers
Alliance, which existed from 1978–81, although
only to any substantial extent in Dublin.
It produced Anarchist Worker nos. 1–7; documents
on the national question, women's liberation,
trade unions, and a constitution.
Some anarchist-inspired material can also
be seen on Indymedia.ie.
=== Modern conception of the Anarchist Movement.
===
Ireland has seen a relatively large comparative
growth in Anarchist politics, in various forms
since the alter-Globalisation movement of
the 1990s and 2000s.
Dublin now hosts numerous explicitly Anarchist
squats, as well as regular social events facilitating
for the Anarchist scene in various locations.
Anarchist have been involved in activities
from squatting, pro-choice, anti water charges
to anti-fascist activity.
=== Active organisations ===
There are several anarchist organisations
operating in Ireland:
The Workers Solidarity Movement is a platformist
anarchist group with members in Dublin, Cork,
Limerick, Belfast, Derry, and Galway formed
in 1984.
A Belfast branch of the British Solidarity
Federation, which was formerly Organise!,
a small class struggle anarchist organisation
formed in 2003 from a merger of the Anarcho-Syndicalist
Federation, Anarchist Federation, Anarchist
Prisoner Support and a number of individuals.
The Dublin-based Revolutionary Anarcha-Feminist
Group (RAG), a group for female anarchists
was formed in 2005 and has published six issues
of a magazine, The Rag.
In April 2015, the Dublin Anarchist Black
Cross (ABC) was founded.
There are also a number of organisations and
spaces which, while perhaps not explicitly
anarchist, share much in common with the anarchist
movement.
These include the Grassroots Gatherings (2001–present),
the Dublin Grassroots Network (2003–2004),
Grassroots Dissent (2004–), Galway Social
Space (2008–2010), Rossport Solidarity Camp
(2005–2014), Jigsaw (WSM venue) formerly
titled Seomra Spraoi (2004–2015), 'Grangegorman'
Squat (2013-2015) and the Barricade Inn (2015–2016).
== See also ==
Irish Anarchist History Archive
World Socialist Party (Ireland) - defunct
political party which advocated a stateless,
democratic society and rejected the idea of
vanguardism and any transitional state.
== References ==
== Further reading ==
Fintan Lane, The Emergence Of Modern Irish
Socialism 1885–87
Fintan Lane, "Practical anarchists, we": social
revolutionaries in Dublin, 1885–87, History
Ireland, March/April 2008.
