Galway Advertiser 1982/1982_12_30/GA_30121982_E1_006.pdf 

Extracted text

Galway

Advertiser,

30th December,

1982

JVERTISERGAL' .. JG ALWAYiSljyE iSERGALWA ISERGALWAYAPVEBTISE LWAYADVE tRTlSERGALWAYADVERTISE JERGALWAYADVERTISERGAL "AYADVERTISERGALWAYADVE WAYADVERTISERGALWAYADVERTISE

Long Ago
Dear Peter, Congratulations to the St. P a t r i c k ' s B a n d for keeping it alive and well. My father was a member back in the 1930's. He died in 1936 when I was 6 years old so I only have a faint memory of him. Well the other day I received a copy of the Galway Advertiser and to my surprise to find a photo of my father in the group of the band of 1830. The only other picture of my father I have seen was a photo of him in a dance band, I think they called 'Sorento'. We had the picture in our house but it got water damaged so I could not have a copy made. I would love it if you knew someone who had a photo of the band so I could have a copy made of it. I would gladly pay for what it costs to have it done. The band used to play a lot out at the old Hangar in Salthill. I think that was where the picture was taken. There were about ten or so members in the band. There names were Dooley, Harlow, Spelman, Jones, Jack O'Brien. He was the drummer and he came from the Small Square back in the West. A lot of the members came from Henry Street. My father used to play the Clarenet and Sax. Congratulations again to xhcGalway Advertiser, it's a great little paper, the Galway people out here in the U.S.A., Boston, love to see those old fond memories. There are about 250 or more people from the town out here in the Boston area. Thank you. Yours sincerely, Chris O'Sullivan, 38 Wilmot St., Roslindale, Boston 02131.

Degenerated Revolution
Dear Sir, While welcoming the coverage of our book The Degenerated Revolution-- the Origins and Nature of the Stalinist States by your correspondent Nollag O Gadhra, I would like on behalf of its publishers and authors-- the Irish Workers Group and Workers Power--to make a few brief points on same. First the title of the book is misprinted as 'The Degenerated Revolution the Origin and Nature of the Socialist States'. Our title contains 'Stalinist States' and this leads to my main point. We do not deem Russia or the other Stalinist States, i n c l u d i n g C u b a and Vietnam, as socialist. We have shown in the book 1) How and why the Russian October Revolution degenerated, so that movement in the direction of Socialism was obstructed by a parasitical bureaucracy, which gradually throughout the twenties dispossessed the workers and pesants from all real control over the economy and the state. 2) How this degenerated revolution, with the movement to socialism so frozen within it, was e x p o r t e d to E a s t e r n Europe in the expansion of Stalinism between 45 and 50. 3) Why a worker-led political revolution is necessary to overthrow the usurping parasitical bureaucracy in all the Stalinist States so as to liberate th potential of the post-capitalist property forms in these states to move forward in the direction of socialism. Finally, though the Russian Revolution has degenerated, and though this degererated revolution has been duplicated outside the USSR, in a way that, taking the process as a whole, was counter-revolutionary in that it was predicated on the prior destruaion of the independent initiative of the toiling masses, nevertheless, the ending of capitalism in these countries, the establishm e n t of c e n t r a l i s e d planning, considered on their own, were gains for the worlds labour movement. It is because these gains, though frozen at the moment in their potential for socialism by the stranglehold of the Stalinist bureaucracy, have not been reversed, either in the USSR or the other Stalinist States, that our book stresses our commitment to defend these States against attack by world capitalism. Yours, A. Johnston, Irish Workers Group, (Galway) 4, Mervue Road.'

IMAGES OF THE FUTURE
Christmas and N e w Year are a time of reappraisal, of looking back and looking forward. A backward look over 1982 will yield little of comfort or inspiration. Political instability, economic decline, continuing violence occupied the headlines. Will '83 be a continuation of such themes only more so? Has our self-image as a Nation received s u c h a battering that we are unable to greet the N e w Year in a hopeful way? Negativity, after all, can produce the very conditions which it most fears. Just as in the personal life a positive, expectant selfimage can aid the emergence of a better future so too in the hfe of a people. T h e r e is a growing body of evidence to suggest that the kind and quality of the images we hold about the future can play a powerful role in the shaping of society. T h e D u t c h futurist, F r e d Polak in his Images of the Future points the way in which, for example, the Jewish people survived all adversity because of their expectations of a future state of freedom and well being. Conversely the Roman Empire fell into decay at the point where the image of itself and a possible future became weak and confused. I n our own progress as a nation we too have had our visionaries and prophets, most notably in the early years of this century -- Pearse, A.E., Yeats, Connolly. It has sometimes been argued that the failure to live u p to the high destiny imagined for us by such people led to the depressive, inert decades of the 30's and 40's. T h e problem of o u r image of the future becomes particularly acute when, as it now seems, we are moving into another period of low expectations, zero growth and social stagnation. Is there a way of viewing our situation which, while accounting for present discontents, can yet find a realistic image of better times to come? O n e way of doing so is to say that what we are now witnessing is the necessary decay of one kind of consciousness and the particular world which grew out of that consciousness. Present troubles are a phase transition to a new awareness and with it a new world. A whole new set of values is emerging, however tentatively and however vulnerably. It should be possible to discern the growth points now and in Galway. Everybody w h o is watchful will have his or her list -- the C . N . D . M o v e m e n t , t h e Environmental G r o u p s , Simon, the College of Natural Law and so on. Better to focus o n these than spread negativity.

LETTER

BOX

Who is Behind these Leaflets?
Dear Editor, I would ask you to please publish this letter referring to the recent election. I wish to say, and I know that many people feel the same way as I do, that I was sickened and am still outraged and frustrated at the way I was quite innocently tricked into becoming part of the SPUC leaflet campaign. Since last s u m m e r , sometime, a local shop here in Newcastle, had an enormous glass collection jar standing in the middle of the shop floor. It had a white label with an outline map of Ireland and something about protection of unborn child written on it. Now I understand that this money was to be used for informing young people about pregnancy, to help them towards being sexually r e s p o n s i b l e . Neither I myself, nor many contributors who put money in that jar, had any idea that money was going to be used to print emotive leaflets, to be used in an election. I wonder if this store was aware that this is what the money was to be used for? It is hard to think they would abuse their customers like that. If this were an election fund I think this should have been clearly stated on the collection jar and

on the notice that was displayed on the window of the store. This window notice gave two telephone numbers (23201 and 21854), but when, after the election, I rang to enquire as to who those people were, I was told "we don't give our name". Why? who do those numbers belong to and what other, if any affiliations have they? Why was it that, except for a few known Opus Dei people and a few others, the distribution of the leaflets were carried out by Fine Gael and Fianna Fail people. Is there a Galway Fianna Fail and Fine Gael SPUC. I think that SPUC should make its list of members public. It might help to clear up some of the confusion. What really adds to the sense of shame and ill usage is knowing that Galway is the only place in the country--out of 41 constituency that any leafletting like this was done. I feel so badly about it I feel this had to be said. Thanking you. Yours faithfully, Newcastle Reader.
(Name and Address with Editor)

GARRET'S GOODIES
It appears that the final make-up of both the new Coalition Government and the Junior Ministeries has caused as m u c h surprise and not inconsiderable disappointment within elements of both Labour and Fine Gael as it has among the m e m b e r s of the general pubUc. Generally speaking it would seem that the West has been given a number of second-rank allocations to counter the accusation that the Coalition is too Dublin-based, b u t we are prepared to accept that our two new Galwegians in power are simply not pawns in a wider game, that is definitely being played out nevertheless. It is somewhat ironic that M r . Donnellan, who in one sense may be seen to be "shadowing" the former Fianna Fail Junior Minister Killilea, who also moved from East to West Galway following the shake-up of the constituencies. Ironic, too, that the man who mainly negotiated the alliance with Sinn Fein in the County Council, against the specific instructions of D r . FitzGerald, should now find himself, like Mr. Kiliilea, in a D e p a r t m e n t where he has to act as official censor of those same politicians who helped his party to control o n the Galway Council. Mr. Donnellan, to be fair, has been on record all along as being against this type of political hypocracy. H o w long the inconsistency can last is another question. Especially when you recall the alleged enthusiasm of both Killilea and Donnellan to re-broadcast BBC television, by whatever means possible, throughout the West. T h e mind boggles at a situation where Governments, and Junior Ministers in Post and Telegraphs in particular, are anxious to licence and facilitate the broadcasting of British television signals throughout the country including programming that at the same time they prevent R T E from screening by specific d i r e a i v e s of political censorship for narrow political advantage. s for the Cabinet, it still is t o p - h e a 7 , with a total of 10 of the 15 members drawn from Leinster, 4 from M u n s t e r and only one from Connacht/Ulster. Even within the Leinster allocation, apart from Paddy Cooney in Athlone, five, including the Taoiseach, are based in Dublin, while the other 4 are drawn from the three counties that circle the great national conurbation -- Wicklow, Kildare and M e a t h . A resurrection of the old Pale -- or should we say the multichannel area? In any case, we wish D r . FitzGerald, M r . Spring and his young team well. T h e y are going to need all the good wishes that are on offer right from the beginning of 1983.

1979 VAUXHALL CAVAUER For Sale by Tender Vehicle may be inspected from 3 to 7 January, 1983 by prior arrangement with the Higher Officer, Custom House, Galway. Phone 091-62100

Two Firsts for U.C.G.

Prof. Jim Doolan with two of the new M.B.A. (Master of Business Administration) graduates at U.C.G. Miss Amu Doherty, Placement Officer with the N.R.B. in Castlebar, is the first woman to receive an M.B.A. Degree at U.C.G. Sgt. Brendan McDonnell is the first member of An Garda Siochana ever to be conferred with this degree. He hails froni Ballaghaderreen, Co. Roscommon, has been Sergeant in charge of stations in Drumcollogher and Cappamore, Co. Limerick, and is now attached to the Community Relations Section at Garda H.Q. in Dublin. Sgt. McDonnell is interested in community based policing.

/