11 March

’The workers in Ireland are evidently literal minded persons. Being blessed with the ’Free State’, they are apt to suppose themselves entitled to a State of Freedom. Thus the Tipperary Gas Company, having refused to concede a demand for the same rate of wages for all workers as prevails in the North, and two workers being dismissed in consequence of the claim, the local branch of the Transport Workers decided to ’take over the concern and run it in the interests of the citizens’. This they proceeded to do, the manager being shown to the door, and one of the discharged men installed in his place, while a Red Flag was hoisted out of the building.

The Irish Labour Party and Trade Union Congress will . . . will . . . .

Ah! yes! they will . . . ?

And while they are doing it, a section of the Republican Army have seized Limerick. The proletarians of the IRA have the future of Ireland in the hands. If the Irish Labour Party would only dare! A mass movement of the irish workers in alliance with the IRA could establish a Workers’ Republic now.’

’Up the Rebels’, The Communist, 11 March 1922