Dublin Opinion

Last month Tom Redmond of the CPI gave me a large collection of newspapers and pamphlets relating to the Irish left, including all fourteen issues of The Ripening of Time (1976-1982), an Irish Marxist journal produced by the Ripening of Time collective.

Throughout its six-year run, The Ripening of Time provided introductions to Marxist theory, as well as articles which applied those theories to the island of Ireland, its history and society.

The theoretical articles are essentially clear summaries of widely-available, if densely-written, material, but the articles on Ireland are all original and well worth reproducing; and over the next few weeks hopefully I’ll get them all scanned and posted.

The first article in the series on Ireland, from issue one, Introductory Notes on Dominated Ireland, is below.

[Click on image to read online. A pdf of the article is available to download here.]

‘Here is The Ripening of Time‘ the opening editorial said, ‘the collective product and the focus of study-groups, of long drawn-out discussions, of a lot of effort.’

There are many revolutionary organisations and groups in Ireland today. We want to clearly state that The Ripening of Time is built not in opposition to what exists, but on the contrary to complement them. At this time, the unity and consolidation of all the anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist forces around a united programme and strategy for revolutionary action is an urgent and pressing need. We offer The Ripening of Time as our contribution to the unity of action and aim.

The Ripening of Time is a theoretical journal. We see theoretical struggle as an essential part of class struggle, equally important as the economic, the political or the military struggle. Anyone who tries to isolate one or any of those unbreakable aspects of the class struggle is amputating the revolutionary process. As an instrument of theoretical struggle, we do not intend to set up any sectarian principles of our own by which to shape and mould the anti-imperialist and revolutionary movement.

What we aim for is to help militants, and, why not, organisations develop on the basis of our collective effort, work and research, a concrete analysis of the situation - a class analysis; to be used in the interests of the exploited and oppressed masses of the people in our country - north and south.”

Introductory Notes argues that by the mid-1970s the Irish economy had become heavily dependent on International industry and capital, that ‘the decline of the 26 county economy has been accompanied by an increased dependence on the more powerful capitalist countries.’ This dependence manifested itself not only though the significant number of foreign companies which had set up in Ireland since the 1960s, but also through the rise of multinational banking in Ireland, which saw the establishment of American, Dutch and German financial institutions on Irish shores. (It’s interesting to note that Introductory Notes acknowledges the work of ‘Sinn Féin Gardiner Street’ - or Sinn Féin Workers Party - with regard to its analysis of banks and the Irish banking system. The party’s pamphlet, The Banks, was posted here last week.)

The role of these financial and industrial powers in the Irish economy was such that the latter was increasingly run in the interests of the former. The societal functions of the economy were increasingly marginalised in favour of quick and easy profits with the barest of pay-offs for Ireland and its people. And successive Irish governments, particularly those run by Fianna Fáil, were entirely complicit with this set-up. Introductory Notes highlights the so-called ‘merger’ of the Irish semi-state company Erin Foods with the US multinational Heinz as an example of where a multinational simply took over an already-existing, and profitable, company while the government got to chalk it up as foreign investment. It also covers the dubious record of the IDA in bringing jobs to Ireland - in 1974 the IDA ‘created 16,000 new jobs but as 20,000 old jobs got destroyed, all this money did [£66m in grants] was to produce a net loss of 4,000 jobs.’ The policy of handing over sections of Irish economic activity to foreign investors who were out for a quick buck led T.K. Whitaker to sound a word of caution: ‘would there not be a serious risk to employment if large areas of Irish trade and industry came under foreign control in this indirect way?’ Introductory Notes says well, yes, and not only to employment but to Irish society as a whole.

The article ends with a short note on housing and the (1976 economic) crisis. It mentions the serious decline in social housing construction and the huge rise in the mortgage market, fuelled by government tax breaks and more accessible loan and mortgage systems, and argues that such a scenario will lead to a housing shortage as the vast majority of working class families, with no access to private purchase, depend on council housing for accommodation. It’s a tentative conclusion, one surpassed by events in the 1980s and 1990s, but one befitting an introductory article in a series of of same, spread out over six years.

The main articles in The Ripening of Time which deal with Ireland are:

Issue 1 (1976) - Introductory Notes on Dominated Ireland
Issue 2 (1976) - Agriculture and fishing: Two Forgotten Faces of Capitalism in Ireland
Issue 3 (1976) - The State of Ireland pt.1
Issue 4 (1976) - The State of Ireland pt.2
Issue 5 (1976) - The Development of Capitalism in Ireland; Revolt in the North; The Failure of Republicanism; The Economics of Independence
Issue 6 (1977) - Reflections on Agriculture pt.1
Issue 7 (1977) - Reflections on Agriculture pt.2; The Bourgeois Class in Ireland
Issue 9 (1977/78) - Reflections on Agriculture pt.3
Issue 10 (1978) - The Bourgeois Class in Ireland - 18th Century
Issue 11 (1978/79) - Changing Patterns of Domination Since World War II; Irish Republicanism, Socialism and Imperialism
Issue 13 (1980) - Working Class Absenteeism; The Crisis in the 1970s
Issue 14 (1982) - In to the Republic (special edition written by Derry Kelleher)