HOW TO
IU: C:APTURI~
SEl.ECTIVE MEMORIES
107
position which I held of being spokesman for the party on Northern Ire–
land. Their motion failed, but it was touch and go, and I knew if I took
on one additional unpopular cause, it would be "go."
Now this was
197X
and a referendum was about to take place on
whether the Republic should enter the Common Market. The Labour
Pa rty had decided, a t a con ference,
to
oppose entry. In fact I was per–
sonally in favor of entry, and thought the opposition
to
entry was basi–
cally unreasonable and xenophobic. But I had not spoken against entry
at the conference because I knew that the "against" people would carry
it. Worse still, once opposition
to
entry was ratified I personally, as Party
spokesman on Foreign Affairs, would be bound
to
defend the declared
party policy. So I did so in one miserable little speech. I made that speech
because I knew that if I did not, I would cease
to
be spokesman on
Northern Ireland, which was the cause I cared about most.
This was a painful experience, and one which I felt
to
be demeaning.
But I did not feel I could break with my party, for which I was still
spokesman on Northern Ireland. So I stayed on and swallowed the
necessity of lying frolll time
to
time, for the sake of the cause to which
I was most committed.
Then-basically for unconnected reasons-I lost my seat in the Irish
Dail. This did not release me immediately from all the distasteful con–
straints I had accepted. I had been elected to the Irish Senate as a mem–
ber of the l.abour Party, and I assumed I could continue to defend the
line which I had followed when a member of the Dail.
A new leader of the party-Frank Cluskey-had been chosen in the
wake of the General Election and believed my line to have become an
electoral liability. hank, being a friend of mine, knew precisely how
to
get rid of me, and did so. After I had delivered a speech on Northern
Ireland to the British and Irish society and said what I continue
to
believe, Frank summoned me
to
his presence. He said that he, as leader
of the Labour Party, had made himself spokesman on Northern Ireland
in the Dail and that in the future anything I might say on the subject, in
any forum must be cleared with him in advance. As he knew I would, [
then tendered my resignation from the Parliamentary Labour Part),. A
little later after Labour reverted to its former anti-partition line, and
after I had resigned m)' seat in the Senate, I became once more alto–
gether free to speak my mind on an)' subject that concerned me.
This meant that I was now free
to
write my memoirs, without hav–
ing to look over m)' shoulder. There were now no external constraints
upon me, but I was aware that there might be some internal con–
straints. Insofar as these might be constraints of the kind identified by
