Justin Keating RIP 1930-2009

Sorry to hear today of the death of Justin Keating. Justin died just days short of his 80th birthday. Keating was the son of Sean & May Keating, 2 stalwarts of the radical left in the early 20th century. His father painted and his mother was also involved in the arts. Justin studied veterinary science at UCD and one of the few on the left who applied leftwing economics to agriculture in the 1960’s. He presented RTE’s agriculture programmes and received a Jacobs award for his pioneering work, the Irish equivalent of a BAFTA. Justin opposed Irish entry into the EEC, leading Labour’s acampaign in the 1972 referendum. His death removes from the stage the final intellectual pillar that Brendan Corish attracted to Labour in the 1960’s.
Justin was my local TD and he was strongly disliked by Fianna Fail. When he served as Minister for Industry and Commerce in the Cosgrave Coalition he was pilloried because he believed in regulation of prices. He was targeted by Fianna Fail because he believed that the state should play a role in developing our natural resources and that the economy should be planned. He imposed terms on exploration companies that would see royalties and taxes paid on prospecting and recovery of hydrocarbons within Irish waters and ensured that the state paid below world price for gas from Kinsale while also taking as take in the field. This ensured that NET, ESB and Bord Gais could expand in Cork Harbour when gas brought ashore. The conditions he set on oil companies were significantly reduced by Ray Burke at a major loss to the exchequer.
He had very little time for free market economics in industry or agriculture. While prices rose under his tenure, so too did wages and I don’t recall cross border trade impacting hugely on state finances at that time.
Shortly after he lost his seat in 1977, I remember walking home from mass with my father and a neighbour who was a strong FF supporter. Our neighbour rejoiced at the defeat of “that card carrying communist Keating”. This description intrigued me about the man who made a genuine attempt in his political life to share the wealth our society produced. A walk home from mass was something that Keating was a stranger to as he was a committed humanist, being President of the Irish Humanist Association. He was a strong opponent of Zionism calling for the occupied territories to be returned to Palestinian control.
Justin also served as a Senator and MEP. He also pioneered Sunday morning news broadcasting on RTE in the 1980’s after he left politics. He was a committed socialist and a genuine radical who made more than a contribution to our country. It’s sad that my first blog entry of 2010 is to mark his passing. My sympathies to his family.

Bob Doyle, Ireland’s last International brigade member dies

The death has taken place in London of Bob Doyle, the last surviving member of the international brigade. Bob was the last surviving Irish combatant having survived the last surviving Blueshirt by about 2 years. Bob was 92 and a member of the Irish Communist Party. Bob was a member of the Connolly Column He was a colleague of the late Mick O’Riordan the General Secretary of the CPI however he had lived in London for he past few years.

Bob was born in North King Street, Dublin in 1916 as part of a family of five children, This part of Dublin was the scene of much fighting during 1916. He joined the IRA as a teenager. He became politically active in the 1930s, and a beating by Eoin O'Duffy's right-wing Blueshirts after one demonstration left him with permanent damage in one eye. In 1937 he went to Spain to fight fascism. After working his way through France he arrived in Valencia and joined up with the republican force where the skills learnt from his IRA-days were put to use training foreigners entering the war.
However, he disobeyed orders and joined a group heading for the front line. He was eventually captured and interned in a concentration camp before being released as part of a prisoner exchange in 1939. In an interview with The Irish Times Bob Doyle said he felt the battle in Ireland and Spain were one and the same. "I thought there was a danger that Ireland would go fascist and that was one of the motivating factors in making up my mind to go to Spain," he said. "I didn't know much about Spain, but I knew my thoughts were that every bullet I fired would be against the Dublin landlords and capitalists."

Mr Doyle returned to Spain many times since as his wife was Spanish, and he also worked with the underground during the years of dictatorship. An avowed communist until the end, Mr Doyle remained active in politics speaking at meetings through out Europe right up to his death. In 2006 he released a record of life’s work in a biography Brigadista - an Irishman’s fight against fascism.
I never met Bob but I admire his idealism and his belief. I understand that to mark the 50th anniversary of the wars end surviving veterans were given honorary Spanish citizenship. I wonder what Bob would have made of the colapse in Spanish and Irish capitalism almost 60 years on from the end of the war.
It is hard to understand now how anyone could be so dispised and feared, but Franco earned every last bit of it. My recollection of the end of fascism was that Franco knew the end was coming and that he had lined up his succesor Juan Carlos but resolutely stood firm against any other intrusion. Pleas to commute death sentences were responded to by using a firing squad rather than the inhumane garot to execute. I once worked with a Spaniard whose early years were towards the end of Franco's reign. She vividly described the shear hatred there was for Franco in her home. As Franco lay on his death bed rumour's spread that he had already died so her father and a few friends opened a bottle or 2 in reief only to discover that when they sobered up he was still alive! When Franco eventually died she told me that they ran out of champagne in Barcelona!
Well done Bob Doyle on a long and active life, may the sod lie softly on you.