Klann on Poblachta ( irl. Clann na Poblachta , [kˠɫanˠ nˠə pʷɔbʷɫəxtˠə] - “Republican Family / Children of the Republic”) [1] - the Irish Republican left -wing political party, founded in 1946 by Sean Macbride .
Klann on Poblahta | |
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Leader | Sean McBride |
Founding date | |
Date of dissolution | |
Ideology | socialism Irish Republicanism |
Content
Foundation
The creation of Klann on Poblacht was officially announced on July 6, 1946 in Dublin [2] . Her first annual conference was held in November 1947 in the Balalaika Club ( Balalaika Ballroom ), which was co-founder of the party, former chief of staff of the Irish Republican Army and communist Mick Fitzpatrick .
He led a new party, Sean McBride , the son of actress Maud Gonn , the muse of W. B. Yeats , and executed after the suppression of the Easter Rising of 1916, Major John McBride, also the former chief of staff of the IRA. The new party attracted frustrated urban youth and Republican voters. Many of them felt an increasing alienation from the ruling (and formally the main republican) party Fianna File . According to more radical Republicans, she betrayed her principles during World War II , executing IRA prisoners. In addition, the energetic and incorruptible Sean McBride looked to them as the best alternative to the corrupt long-term government and opportunism of Prime Minister Imon de Valera . Klann on Poblachta also received the support of people tired of the old policy, focused on the divisions of the Civil War , and demanding more attention to social issues - poverty, unemployment, poor housing, diseases. They saw in Klann on Poblahta a dynamic replacement not only of Fianna File, but also of the left, but marginal Sinn Fein . The new party grew rapidly throughout 1947.
The party was influenced by Social Democratic and Keynesian (in the style of United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal or British Prime Minister Clement Attlee and his welfare state ) policies, elements of European Christian democracy , and Irish republicanism. It attracted a wide range of members — from traditional Republicans like Noel Hartnett, defending IRA members in courts, to socialists like Dr. Noel Brown , who lost many relatives due to tuberculosis and sought to eradicate such diseases by introducing universal medical care, or a former member of the Executive Committee of Labor the party of Pedar Cowan, who left the ranks of the Labor Party because of internal strife [3]
Klann appeared during the crisis period in Irish politics. Both leading parties, Fianna Fayl and Fine Gel , were weakened. Phine Gahl could not break the hegemony of her main rival, and Fianna Fayl noticeably lost support because of the failure of her program to end mass unemployment, poverty and emigration. The Labor Party and the trade unions that it relied on experienced a difficult split in 1944 due to personal disagreements between veterans of the labor movement William O'Brien and James Larkin , while Klann was seen as too narrowly specialized farmer party on Talmhan.
Electoral Success
In October 1947, Klann at Poblahta won two by-elections to parliament (in Dublin and Wicklow) [4] . Seeing the threat from the new party, Premier de Valera announced in February 1948 an extraordinary general election to try to take her by surprise. De Valera's tactics proved successful in the sense that Klann at Poblacht received 13.2% of the vote and only 10 seats — far less than expected. However, the elections did give the opposition groups a majority and the opportunity to form a government - for the first time in 16 years. This first interparty government was extremely diverse, relying on a coalition that included the more right-minded Fin Gal and the more left-wing Clans at Poblacht, Clann at Talmhan, the Labor Party and the National Labor Party, as well as some independent deputies.
Thus, in the coalition "against de Valera" people united on different sides of the barricades in the Civil War united. Republicans from Klann on Poblacht did not want to obey Fin Gell, who supported the Anglo-Irish agreement, and especially its leader Richard Mulcahy , who had shot their comrades as a general of the Free State during the Civil War. At the suggestion of Labor leader William Norton, it was decided that not one of the party leaders would become prime minister. He elected former Attorney General John A. Costello , who had previously worked for the Coemann governments on nGadall, the predecessor of Finale Gall, known for his opposition to de Valera. Norton became deputy prime minister and Shaun McBride became foreign minister. Klann on Poblacht was an uneasy coalition of socialists and republicans; to reassure the left wing, McBride nominated for the post of Minister of Health popular in the people of Noel Brown, but many Republicans remained irreconcilable to the coalition with Fine Gall.
In government
Foreign affairs
As Minister of Foreign Affairs, McBride as a staunch Republican was able to achieve the repeal of the Foreign Relations Act of 1936, according to which King George VI , proclaimed king of Ireland, served as diplomatic head of state. In September 1948, Costello declared in Canada that the government was going to declare Ireland a republic. The corresponding bill - the Republic of Ireland Act of 1948 - was adopted in Parliament , and on Easter 1949 the country became the Republic of Ireland , in which the functions of the king were assigned to the President of Ireland . However, Republican McBride thought Costello stole his idea and refused to participate in the official inauguration ceremony of the new republic.
Under McBride in 1949, Ireland joined the Organization for European Economic Cooperation and the Council of Europe as a co-founder. McBride was foreign minister when the Council of Europe drafted a European convention on human rights , and as chairman of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe from 1949 to 1950, played a key role in the adoption of this convention, signed in Rome on 4 November 1950. He also served as Chairman of the Council of Europe Foreign Ministers Council in 1950 and Vice-President of the Organization of European Economic Cooperation from 1948 to 1951. He ensured that Ireland did not join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) [5] , rejecting the relevant proposal on the grounds that this would mean that the republic recognizes the membership of Northern Ireland in the United Kingdom. In 1950, he proposed a bilateral alliance with the United States, but this idea was rejected, and Ireland remained outside the military alliances.
Healthcare
A medical professional appointed to the post of Minister of Health, 32-year-old Dr. Noel Brown was a newcomer to politics, but he turned out to be not a timid man. As Minister Noel Brown immediately took up the creation of the state system for combating infectious diseases - in accordance with the law on health care of 1947, prepared by the previous government, medical examinations and X-rays became free, massive and systemic. General vaccination and antibiotic use allowed Brown to quickly end the epidemic of tuberculosis in Ireland. Brown then set about creating a nationwide system of free medical care, which caused dissatisfaction among those who received profits from private medical institutions, from the doctors themselves to the Catholic church, in which part of the hospitals were owned. They found a reason for disrupting Brown’s plan in the face of the Mother and Child program proposed by him in 1950, the goal of which was to provide the state with free medical care for all pregnant women and children under the age of sixteen, regardless of income.
Although she was only at the project stage, she provoked tough opposition from medical workers who were afraid of reducing income due to the introduction of free antenatal care in hospitals and dissatisfied with government intervention between the patient and the doctor, but especially the Catholic Church, which accused the program of “undermining family values” and "communist" interference in the affairs of the family. In particular, the Catholic bishops rejected the proposal to introduce sexual education for women, which they considered as the first step towards the introduction of contraception. Brown met with the bishops and hoped that he had dispelled their fears, but in fact even potential supporters in a hierarchy such as Bishop William Philbin were alienated from him. The position of the church caused concern even among members of the Klann party at Poblacht, and finally, on April 11, 1951, the leader of the party, McBride, suggested that Brown resign. After leaving the party, Brown published his correspondence with the Catholic hierarchs with Costello and McBride. He was followed by several other deputies from Klann to Poblacht, leaving the coalition and thus destroying the fragile internal unity of the party. The confrontation between Brown and the clergy was called the loudest event of post-war Irish politics [6] .
Decay and Decay
In 1951, the coalition faced growing pressure and announced early elections. The representation of Klann on Poblacht was reduced to only two places - many supporters believed that party leader McBride had betrayed Dr. Brown. Former party members Noel Brown and Jack McQuillan, both of whom were elected as self-nominees, decided to support the de Valera minority government. In 1954, the results of the new general election brought Prime Minister Costello back to power with a second interparty government — although Klann agreed with him on parliamentary support with Poblacht, he was not included in the cabinet itself.
In accordance with the republican views of many of its key supporters, Klann on Poblacht maintained close ties with Republicans in Northern Ireland, allowing for the possibility of armed struggle there. Her closest ties were established with the Northern Irish Republican wrestler Liam Kelly, whose election to Senate Eyreann in 1954 (at that time he was imprisoned for seditious speeches), the party called the condition for supporting the second inter-party government [7] . The government’s increasingly decisive struggle against the IRA, which had just launched Operation Harvest , along with a sharp deterioration in the economy, were the main reasons why Klann at Poblacht withdrew her support for the coalition in early 1957.
In the 1957 election, McBride lost his seat in the House of Representatives , and his unsuccessful attempts to return him to the two subsequent elections marked the end of his political career. In the 1961 election, only one candidate for the House of Representatives passed from the party. After the elections of 1965, John Talley became the last deputy from Klann in Poblacht.
The party entered into negotiations with the Labor Party on a possible merger, but they ended in failure, because the participants could not agree on the direction of the united party, or whether to invite Sinn Fein and the National Progressive Democrats (Noel Brown's new socialist party) to it. At the congress on July 10, 1965, Klann v. Poblahta voted for self-dissolution.
Notes
- ↑ Amir Abedi (2004), Anti-Political Establishment Parties: A Comparative Analysis , London: Routledge
- ↑ Sean MacBride - a Life by Elizabeth Keane p. 73
- ↑ Sean MacBride - a Life by Elizabeth Keane pp. 74-75
- ↑ Parliamentary election results in Ireland, 1918–92 / Walker, Brian M. - Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 1992. - P. 167. - ISBN 0-901714-96-8 .
- ↑ Jordan (1993), p. 115
- ↑ Neville P. Ireland: the history of the country. Chapter 17. Towards Europe, 1949-1973 . M., 2009.
- ↑ Sean MacBride - a Life by Elizabeth Keane p. 211
Bibliography
- MacDermott, Eithne. Clann Na Poblachta . Cork University Press, 1998. ISBN 1-85918-187-2 , ISBN 978-1-85918-187-4