A TREASURE trove of historical materials collected by the Communist Party of Ireland over almost a century has just been made accessible to the public.
The collection, which includes a jail journal by executed republic leader Liam Mellowes and historical records relating to volunteers who fought in the Spanish Civil War, was handed over to the Gilbert Library in Dublin last night.
The first tranche of over 60 boxes of historical material was presented by Eugene McCartan, general secretary of the party, to Dublin Lord Mayor Andrew Montague in the library last night.
The material tracks the history of the party from its foundation by James Connolly’s son Roddy in 1921 through a series of up and downs over succeeding decades through to the present day. Events covered include the War of Independence, the Civil War, the Emergency and the Cold War, as well as unemployed action groups and campaigns against communism in the 1950s.
The collection also covers many other strands of Irish life, from the trade unions to the IRA.
“It amounts to a rich vein of working-class life and experience over almost a century, one which is given no credit by official Ireland,” said Mr McCartan.
The party had decided to hand over to the library the records, which have been stored for years in its headquarters in Temple Bar, in order to make them accessible to the wider public. Mr McCartan said the Gilbert Library had been chosen because it provided access to everyone, not just academics.
Mr McCartan said nothing had been removed or censored from the collection, which also includes material relating to the Soviet Union.
Librarian Dr Maire Kennedy said the collection included "a lot of different documents dealing with different topics". Some of the items have been put on public display in the library, including The Book of Cells,a mock newspaper compiled by Liam Mellowes in jail in October-November 1922. Mellowes, who illustrated the journal with watercolour drawings, was executed by Free State forces on December 8th that year.
The library has engaged three researchers to archive the material, which includes a Long Kesh diary smuggled out of the prison in the 1970s and a diary kept by Belfast communist Betty Sinclair over 30 years.