IRISH REVOLUTIONIST GIVEN FIVE-YEAR SENTENCE
By Sean Reed
London
An international solidarity canpaign has been opened to secure the release of an Irish revolutionist imprisoned in Dublin. The details of the case are as follows:
On May 6 Joe Dillon, a 22-year-old Dublin Republican and a member of the No. 2 branch of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union, was sentenced to five years in gaol.
He had been charged with attempted armed robbery of a rent office at Harmonstown Estate, Dublin, in December 1965.
The Irish police did not arrest Joe Dillon until six months after the incident. Then on the night of June 6, 1966, he was seized in his home by members of the Special Detective Unit of Dublin Castle (who specialize in political cases), taken to Dublin's police prison and put on an identification parade with two other Republicans from the Raheny, Harmonstown area.
Witnesses were produced -- the rent collector, the owner of a car taken on the night before the attempted robbery and a number of local people who were in the rent office at the time. None of the witnesses identified any of the people on the parade.
All the arrested men were released within a few hours -- except Joe Dillon.
Before his arrest, he had been offered bribes by the Special Branch [Irish olitical police] to inform on the IRA Tirish Republican Army] and other bodies. When he refused, he was told that the Special Branch would "get him."
A year later he was brought to trial and found guilty of taking a car without the owner's consent, and illegal possession of a revolver with intent to rob and endanger life.
The only evidence was a thumbprint on the driving mirror of the getaway car. A police witness stated that this bore fourteen points of resemblance to Dillon's print. (Scotland Yard normally demands 21 points of resemblance before they will make a positive identification.
The sentence was passed by "Jus-
tice" O'Caoimh, an in-law of President De
Valera and attorney general for the Fianna
Fail regime for many years.
Even he had to admit that he was
"probably in error when I impose a sen-
tence of five years," and was "leaving
myself open to criticism." Which was put-
ting it mildly.
No matter what the background to
the case, this alone should call forth
the strongest protest from the Irish,
British and world labour movement. But
there is more to it.
For years the rump of the semi-
legal Irish Republican Army has acted as
a substitute for a revolutionary movement
in Ireland, functioning as a safety valve
to prevent the bourgeois republic from
bursting at the seams.
One such antirevolutionary ten-
dency, in alliance with certain Stalin-
ists, is at present in control of the IRA
and seems set to follow the path already
trodden by De Valera and Co.
Joe Dillon, an active Republican,
was one of the leaders of an opposition
grouping inside the IRA which was moving
towards a Trotskyist position. This is
the real reason why the Special Branch
decided to "get him" and why such a sav-
age sentence was meted out.
The Fianna Fail tenants of power
have a vested interest in maintaining the
present leadership's control of the Repub-
lican movement. The five-year sentence
served (a) to remove Joe Dillon person-
ally from the political scene, and (b) to
deter others from following in his foot-
steps.
For these reasons the largest pos-
sible protest on an international scale
should be mounted. The Irish Militant, a
Trotskyist paper, has appealed to defend-
ers of civil liberties in other countries
to support the protest movement in Ire-
land, which is demanding Joe Dillon's re-
lease.
Protests and appeals should be di-
rected to Brian Lenihan, Department of
Justice, Merrion St., Dublin 3, Ireland.