D R O'Connor Lysaght state:
M Merrigan died on 15 June, Although just seemed in good health, rccovercd trom the ocalh ol his beloved wife, Rose, and work for his class.
Small, physically, he was a giant of the left. He struggled consistently against capitalism and the vast and compromising careerist morass in his movement. Nor did he lose sight of the wood for the Irish political trees. He wa 485 3859887 tional socialist:
*In spite of the damage of Stalinist reaction to the theory and practice of Socialism, the objective economic circumstances that put Socialism on the world agenda 150 years ago are still there, only more so. The underdeveloped countries in uc woru arc How h ud neo-imperialist grip of the developed world and their 9006348998 0806889 urden of foreign debt interOn the other hand, though he denounced the dogma of armed struggle, he recognised the need for Irish is: for the Labour Government to declare its intention to work for Irish organise. unity with the Irish Government and all the parties in Ireland and to disengage from Ireland at the eginning of the process."
As TGWU District Secretary in the twenty-six county Republic, he performed his role in a manner 000EO e3CTOnS of his opposite numbers in other unions. Unlike them, his socialist beliefs prevented him secing the way forward as being through national wage agreements ยก AS A NEW CENTURY BEGINS, the battles of the last century rmain to be won. millions of women and men are taking part in mobilisations against the evils of capitalism and the fact that humanity face widening dangers. l astation faces millions of people. Ecolorkai. military, social and economic dow.
any more peopie reconise the barbarc nature of capitalism. In a situation where the inability of the social democratic an I communist parties to provide socialist solutions is becomine clearer. the task of creat ing new leaderships remains ahead.
Socialist Outlook is written and sold by socialists committed to this struggle. We are supervised by the capitalist sensus is not possible in a society riven by property and class differences.
hese insights remained those of an individual. Although the needs and common interests of industrial union work enabled him to recruit around himself a group of radical officials from disparate backgrounds, uniting them in opposition to state pay controls, he could never build never repcated. socialist front.
The reasons for this lay in his carly life. He was born at Dolphin's Barn in June 1921 and grew up like most working class boys at this time, losing his father and, later, a brother to TB and leaving school at 14. From 1936, he was employed by Savoy Rowntree's confectionery works at Inichcore Road! started to denounce on strike for union recognition, he Amalgamated T Transport and General Workers' Union won, and he remained a member.
Further radicalisation was not immediate. Though active in the union, he was irked by its ineflicient and arbitrary procedures. Then, ia 19%4, tacre came tac xov- localitics. ernment's wartime Wages the Trade Union Act, aimed at limiting workers' right to T he Dublin Trades Irish Labour Party organised a Council of Action to oppose these measures. Mattie was active in his support for the council and was brought into the influence of pute in the Fourth International (F1) joined in the spring of 1942.
Partly because of the intensified class struggle and partly for want of competition, the Labour Party was as radical as it had been the British supporters of the world-wide marxist organisation, the Fourth International. We stand for the revolutionary transformation of society and a pluralist, socialist democracy world wide. The overall goal which we pursue is the emancipation of all human beings from every form of exploitation, oppression, alienation and violence Socialism must be under the control of ordinary people, democratic, pluralist. multi-party, feminist, ecologist, anti-militarist and internationalist. It must abolish ware savery and nadon oppression The working class is the backbone of unity among all the exploited and oppressed. The working class and its allies must uncompromisingly fight against capitalism and for a clear programme of action in order to since the civil war. The collectivist analysis, while Catholic bishops and the the national secretary, John borna pacia tac ord minc. recently revealed the limits Their party survived until of this militancy by persuad- the FI World Congress, in ing the leadership to remove 1948, rocognised it as the the aim of the Workers" official Irish section. Then it Republic from its constitu- collapsed. tion, but the party remained Armstrong went to a threat to the establish- London, and other supportment. In August 1942, ers of the bureaucratic colMattie Merrigan's first par- lectivist line abandoned the ticipation in a bourgeois revolution, leaving Mattie as clection ended triumphantly the line's sole advocate in with Labour becoming the Ireland, facing John Byrne. largest party on Dublin Durine the fifties, the tro of Corporation: a feat it has them worked together on Almost immediately, a and in the Labour Party, but Ceciline beran. The eader- they were never able to sink ship of the Irish TGWU their differences enough to feared that its hegemony in form a revolutionary the Labour Party would be nucleus. swamped and rigged the For himself, Mattie saw the Dublin convention to select movement being built pragcandidates in the general matically and feared forming clection. When this was what he believed would be revealed, it got Labour to just another sect. For a expel the whistleblower and whole period, Trotskyism in Ireland meant recruitment Communist influenee in thel At last, in the late sixties, hose Communist the reai thing hac to be Party members reborn. We were unable to doing deep entry rely on the experience of work reacted by Merrigan and Byrne to help secking to weaken the Trotskyists -Still, the increasing radicalisation, worldwide and in several branches - by invokarciana stimulsicd taca, ing the rule limiting mem- too. However, their answer Mattie Merrigan was one ist babel within (the Liaison of the Trotskyists. He recog- Committer of the Teit) and outside (Socialis: Labour)| nised that they would have the Labour Party. to organise more effectively and, though correctly scepti- These bodies might not have been the failures that cal abour the possibilities of expansion, he helped form they were had Mattic, in particular, been willing to Party in 1944, becoming sec- ine Revolunonaty socialsy give a programmatic lead.
He seems to have feared Almost immediately, it was have reduced himseif to the hit by the wash from a disavci or toc scotarans. 2s a result, he remained politically more isolated than any degenerated workers' state Was the Soviet Union a sectarian.
He had a lot to give his felcarrying possibilities of renewing its local socialist low workers. He gave them a lot. Perhaps it is ungrateful potential, as Trotsky had to say he might have given insisted, or was it a new more. It happens to be true.
Outlook the decisive moment of crisis. _ commit itsel to these struggles.