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Speaking of his meeting in July with Irish Taoiseach (prime minister) Simon Harris, British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, said it was time to ‘move on to the next chapter, for stronger and deeper ties between both countries’. He and the new Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Hilary Benn, had visited Northern Ireland earlier in the month.

Relations between the countries were particularly strained after the passing of the UK Troubles Legacy Act and the Irish government’s decision in December 2023 to begin a legal challenge against the UK government for offering immunity, through the act, for crimes committed during the Troubles.

Historical archives in the UK and Ireland document the relationship between the two countries at the time of the Troubles, in which the voices of the people from the time come through clearly.

The Heisler Collection at Senate House Library includes primary source material which gives a fascinating insight into the views of the British left at the time, including the left wing of the Labour Party. Much of this material is ephemeral – pamphlets, leaflets, flyers and posters; it was created quickly in response to contemporary political events, to lobby, demonstrate, explain, call to action, and it tells a vivid story. 

Three names crop up constantly: Tony Benn (father of the current Northern Irish Secretary), Ken Livingstone and Jeremy Corbyn. They feature as authors of pamphlets and speakers at events, endorsing republican causes and campaigns, disagreeing fundamentally with official Labour Party policy and equating the Party leader Neil Kinnock with Margaret Thatcher, then Tory Prime Minister.

Livingstone wrote the foreword to a pamphlet published in the early 80s, Labour and Ireland: which way to withdrawal, in which he described his visit to Northern Ireland, the meetings he’d had with Sinn Fein leaders Gerry Adams and Danny Morrison, and wrote ‘I have no doubt that we can achieve a British withdrawal within the next decade’ and that it was time to reopen ‘a serious discussion in the Labour Party [...] on what Britain is doing in Ireland and what a socialist approach should be’.

The pamphlets also aim to inform and advocate for the far left position on Ireland. Published by ‘Information on Ireland’, H-Blocks: the truth: a reply to HM Government, was written by Ernie Roberts, MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington and responded to a pamphlet that had been published by the Government called H-Blocks: the facts. Similarly, Why we say Troops out of Ireland, published by the Socialist Workers Party in the 1990s, posed and answered a series of questions asked by ‘normal’ British people: about the Prevention of Terrorism Act, political status, whether British withdrawal from Northern Ireland would lead to a bloodbath, and whether it would ‘just [be] giving in to the IRA’.

There is often a connection with history and with events elsewhere: draws a parallel between the Levellers of 17th century England, who disagreed with Cromwell’s Irish policy and distributed leaflets to his soldiers. It includes quotes from the South African Minister for Justice at the time of apartheid: ‘I would be willing to exchange all the (South African) legislation of that sort for one clause of the Northern Ireland Special Powers Act’; and Nelson Mandela: ‘We would like to see the British government and the IRA adopt the precise line taken by us. There is nothing better than opponents sitting down to resolve their problems in a peaceful manner’. 

The H-Blocks: an indictment of British prison policy in the North of Ireland (1981) draws a parallel with British treatment of people in Malaya, Kenya, Aden and Cyprus using emergency powers and quotes Lech Walesa’s support for the hunger strikers: ‘Mr Sands was a great man who sacrificed his life for his struggle. I have also undertaken hunger strikes. That is why I grieve for him’. The Irish War: why we say troops out (1981) quotes Marx: ‘A nation which enslaves another cannot itself be free’.

The material also gives a glimpse into the life of Irish people in Britain, immigrants and their descendants, and the social side of republican events. A flyer advertises a social at the Arsenal Tavern where CDs will be raffled as part of the campaign for political status for Irish prisoners (1994); another, a 30th anniversary commemoration of Bloody Sunday at the Hammersmith Irish Centre (2002) - Jeremy Corbyn one of the speakers – is preceded by a Bloody Sunday social Cuban-Irish night at Conway Hall. The Irish Solidarity Movement national week of action in March 1984 included a parade in Kilburn and a St Patrick’s Night social at Caxton House Archway. 

The materials also show the frustration of some Northern Irish politicians with the view of the British left.

Labour leader: an alternative Irish strategy, published by the Independent Labour Party, includes an extract from an interview with Councillor Seamus Lynch, Vice-President of the Workers Party of Ireland, giving a different perspective.

‘We would ask the left to rethink and re-examine its positions’; ‘the traditional position [...] is a simplistic one’. He refers to Livingstone’s visit to Northern Ireland, and a visit by Tony Benn, saying that they only talked to Catholics, while others visit and only talk to Protestants: ‘these are the worst things to do’. ‘We reject what we term “Nescafe revolutionaries” with their instant solutions like Troops Out ... Our message to the Left in Britain is to ask them to align with the Irish left’.

Speaking of the Labour Committee on Ireland’s support for Sinn Fein, he says ‘While the Workers Party is totally opposed to the economic, social and political programme of the unionist parties, we do not endorse the murder of their supporters’.

This blog piece has given a very brief introduction to the collection – the link between the British left and Irish republicanism, the continuing place of republicanism in the social life of the Irish ex-pat community and the views of the Northern Irish left. There is a lot more material to explore and research, a lot of it unique and all of it rare. 

Catriona Cannon is the Librarian and Programme Director, Library Transformation Programme, at Senate House Library in the ���Ｇ of London. She provides strategic leadership for the Library’s programme of collections-based research and engagement, partnering with researchers from the School of Advanced Study, ���Ｇ of London, and other universities around the world. Catriona has an MPhil in European Literature from the ���Ｇ of Oxford. Among other research projects involving library collections, she was Co-Investigator of the Opening the Edgeworth Papers research project at the ���Ｇ of Oxford and Curator of the exhibition Barbara Pym and the Bodleian.