Communist Party of Northern Ireland
Communist Party of Northern Ireland | |
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Comintern (1941-1943) | |
The Communist Party of Northern Ireland was a small communist party operating in Northern Ireland. The party merged with the Irish Workers' Party in 1970 to form the reunited Communist Party of Ireland.
Formation
The party originated in the 1941 split in the
In July 1941, the Communist Party of Ireland National Executive suspended independent activities and its membership were encouraged to undertake entryism and join the Irish Labour Party, and trade union movement, the Irish Labour Party was not organised in Northern Ireland and in October the Communist Party of Northern Ireland published its manifesto.[2]
The CPNI held its first conference in October 1942,[2] in Belfast, with many former members of the CPI from the Republic attending.[3] By 1943, it had grown to 35 branches, although it was not able to operate openly in more strongly Catholic areas. Indeed, while the party in Belfast had a mostly Catholic membership in the 1930s, following the split, it became mostly Protestant.[4]
Growth and decline
The CPNI stood their own candidates in the 1945 Northern Ireland general election. While they did not come close to winning any seats, they polled a respectable 12,000 votes for their three candidates (Betty Sinclair, William McCullough and Sid Maitland), who retained their deposits.[5]
The CPNI was unable to use any momentum from their election result and declined in the following decades. It stopped publishing its newsletter,
The party continued to intervene in elections, supporting
Civil rights movement and merger
By the early 1960s, the CPNI was promoting the
The CPNI published following its creation in 1941 the newspaper The Red Hand. Its on-and-off weekly newspaper
General Secretaries
- 1941: Sean Murray - organiser from 1950-61.[13]
- 1942-46: William McCullough
- 1963-70: Hugh Moore
References
- ^ Matt Treacy, The Communist Party of Ireland 1921 - 2011, pp.138-141
- ^ a b The Communist Party of Ireland A Critical History, Part 3 Archived 3 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine by DR O'Connor Lysaght, 1976.
- ^ Matt Treacy, The Communist Party of Ireland 1921 - 2011, pp.151-152
- ^ Matt Treacy, The Communist Party of Ireland 1921 - 2011, pp.153, 161-162
- ^ a b Matt Treacy, The Communist Party of Ireland 1921 - 2011, pp.163-164
- ^ Matt Treacy, The Communist Party of Ireland 1921 - 2011, p.198
- ^ Matt Treacy, The Communist Party of Ireland 1921 - 2011, p.202
- ^ Matt Treacy, The Communist Party of Ireland 1921 - 2011, p.251
- ^ Matt Treacy, The Communist Party of Ireland 1921 - 2011, p.298, 309
- ^ The civil rights struggle and its legacy NICRA Anniversary Supplement, Socialist Voice, September 2008.
- ^ Matt Treacy, The Communist Party of Ireland 1921 - 2011
- ^ Branch, Greater Belfast (3 June 2021). "Belfast Communist Party of Ireland Statement". Socialist Voice. Retrieved 9 June 2021.
- ^ A Shop Stewart remembers by Malachy Gray, Saothar 11, Journal of the Irish Labour History Society, 1986.