North Korea Increases Aid to Russia, Mos... Tue Nov 19, 2024 12:29 | Marko Marjanovi?
Trump Assembles a War Cabinet Sat Nov 16, 2024 10:29 | Marko Marjanovi?
Slavgrinder Ramps Up Into Overdrive Tue Nov 12, 2024 10:29 | Marko Marjanovi?
?Existential? Culling to Continue on Com... Mon Nov 11, 2024 10:28 | Marko Marjanovi?
US to Deploy Military Contractors to Ukr... Sun Nov 10, 2024 02:37 | Field Empty Anti-Empire >>
A bird's eye view of the vineyard
Alternative Copy of thesaker.is site is available Thu May 25, 2023 14:38 | Ice-Saker-V6bKu3nz Alternative site: https://thesaker.si/saker-a... Site was created using the downloads provided Regards Herb
The Saker blog is now frozen Tue Feb 28, 2023 23:55 | The Saker Dear friends As I have previously announced, we are now “freezing” the blog.? We are also making archives of the blog available for free download in various formats (see below).?
What do you make of the Russia and China Partnership? Tue Feb 28, 2023 16:26 | The Saker by Mr. Allen for the Saker blog Over the last few years, we hear leaders from both Russia and China pronouncing that they have formed a relationship where there are
Moveable Feast Cafe 2023/02/27 ? Open Thread Mon Feb 27, 2023 19:00 | cafe-uploader 2023/02/27 19:00:02Welcome to the ‘Moveable Feast Cafe’. The ‘Moveable Feast’ is an open thread where readers can post wide ranging observations, articles, rants, off topic and have animate discussions of
The stage is set for Hybrid World War III Mon Feb 27, 2023 15:50 | The Saker Pepe Escobar for the Saker blog A powerful feeling rhythms your skin and drums up your soul as you?re immersed in a long walk under persistent snow flurries, pinpointed by The Saker >>
Can Science Tell Us the Meaning of Life? Mon Dec 23, 2024 19:54 | Dr David Bell At Christmas time, Dr David Bell reflects on what has true value in this world, the limits of science to tell us what that is and what a baby in a manger might have to say about it.
The post Can Science Tell Us the Meaning of Life? appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
Non-Crime Hate Incidents Surge in Half of Police Forces Despite Government Crackdown Mon Dec 23, 2024 17:46 | Will Jones The number of?non-crime hate incidents?recorded by police has surged in half of Britain's forces despite attempts by the previous Government to crack down on the practice, official data show.
The post Non-Crime Hate Incidents Surge in Half of Police Forces Despite Government Crackdown appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
Reeves?s Simplistic Thinking Spawned This Budget from Hell Mon Dec 23, 2024 15:44 | David Craig Simplistic linear thinking by Rachel from Accounts and the Treasury spawned this Budget from hell, says David Craig. A systems thinker would have known it would send the economy into a doom loop of recession and decline.
The post Reeves’s Simplistic Thinking Spawned This Budget from Hell appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
British Drivers Steering Away From New Cars In Their Droves Mon Dec 23, 2024 13:00 | Sallust British car-buyers are turning away from new vehicles in their droves and keeping their reliable old petrol models going for far longer as Labour's Net Zero war on affordable motors heats up.
The post British Drivers Steering Away From New Cars In Their Droves appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
Britain on Brink of Recession After Growth Revised to Zero Following Reeves?s Horror Budget Mon Dec 23, 2024 11:09 | Will Jones Britain is on the brink of a recession after official figures were revised to show zero growth in the third quarter of the year and living standards fell, with Rachel Reeves's horror Budget blamed.
The post Britain on Brink of Recession After Growth Revised to Zero Following Reeves’s Horror Budget appeared first on The Daily Sceptic. Lockdown Skeptics >>
Voltaire, international edition
Voltaire, International Newsletter N?113 Fri Dec 20, 2024 10:42 | en
Pentagon could create a second Kurdish state Fri Dec 20, 2024 10:31 | en
How Washington and Ankara Changed the Regime in Damascus , by Thierry Meyssan Tue Dec 17, 2024 06:58 | en
Statement by President Bashar al-Assad on the Circumstances Leading to his Depar... Mon Dec 16, 2024 13:26 | en
Voltaire, International Newsletter N?112 Fri Dec 13, 2024 15:34 | en Voltaire Network >>
|
The Third History – What Happened To Captain Jack White’s papers?
national |
arts and media |
feature
Wednesday April 18, 2007 00:24 by Kevin Doyle
Whitehall - where Captain Jack White died in 1946
“The Burning” – PDF here– is a full length play written about the circumstances surrounding the destruction Captain Jack White’s papers following his death in Broughshane, Co. Antrim in 1946. White, as many people will know, was one of the more well known figures in Irish history that identified with anarchism. The only son of British Boer War hero, Sir George Stuart White (“The Hero Of Ladysmith”), he was assured a bright future in the upper echelons of the British military until his conscience intervened and he resigned his commission.
Breaking with family, he gravitated to political activism and the revolutionary left. His baptism of fire was the Great Lockout in Dublin in 1913, where he worked alongside Larkin and Connolly and proposed the idea of the Irish Citizen Army. Of Protestant “stock”, he was active in the fight against imperialism, reserving particular vitriol for the “Orange” state formed in the north of Ireland after partition in 1922.
Related Links:
Launch Of 'Misfit': Autobiography of Captain Jack White |
1916 - Connolly, blood sacrifice and defeating British imperialism
White’s involvement with the Left in Ireland and the UK was constant throughout the 20’s and 30’s, but it was not until he went to Spain in 1936 that he became an anarchist. He was very active in London in the organisation and newspaper Spain And The World and wrote The Meaning Of Anarchism; an article that sought to provide balanced assessment of the upheaval in revolutionary Spain. He spoke and wrote positively of anarchism and felt it was a set of ideas closest to his own sentiment – this at a time when anarchism had few proponents in Ireland.
In the introduction to the reprint of White’s The Meaning Of Anarchism (entitled Anarchy and published by the Belfast Anarchist Collective in the early 1980s) Albert Meltzer wrote a short account of White’s life. Meltzer met White a number of times and was familiar with White’s collaboration with Matt Kavanagh, a “Liverpool-Irish” anarchist rooted in the anarcho-syndicalist tradition. White and Kavanagh worked on “a study of Irish labour in relation to anarchism” as well as an account of the Limerick Soviet. According to Meltzer, these and other works of White’s were ‘irretrievably lost’ when White’s heirs ‘disposed of his papers’ following White’s death from cancer in 1946 at “Whitehall”, the name given to the family home just outside Broughshane. Although Meltzer doesn’t elaborate, White’s ‘papers’ also probably included personal and political correspondences from decades of activism, his documents and notes from speeches and articles, as well as a draft of the second part of White’s biography.
Exactly what was “lost” will be never now be known but is nevertheless clear that a great deal of material of irreplaceable value disappeared. Not only documents important to the left and particularly the libertarian movement, but also material of a general historical value too, given the period that White lived and was active in.
Today White’s father, Sir George Stuart White, is a celebrated figure not just in Broughshane but also in the wider locality of Antrim. A number of guidebooks mention his life and role and, of course, his famous command in the siege of Ladysmith during the Boer War. At the family home (Whitehall) a Historical Society plaque on the door celebrates the house as the family residence of ‘Sir George Stuart White’. In contrast there is in no mention of Captain Jack White. Indeed it is difficult to find mention of him in the area at all and, for the most part, questions about him, elicit polite embarrassment.
It is beyond the terms of this short introduction to go into the detail of Captain Jack White’s politics and activism (see http://www.struggle.ws/anarchists/jackwhite.html for this). However what is clear now is that the destruction of White’s papers played a significant role in Captain Jack White’s subsequent near erasure from history. Only in recent years, mainly through the efforts of the Kate Sharpley Library and other interested anarchists, have new facts emerged. As a result there has been something of grudging appreciation of his life and activism. The fact that he remains one of the few left activists in the Ireland of the time to openly challenge the hegemony of Communist Party orthodoxy with respect to the civil war in Spain, is to his long-lasting credit.
The loss of White’s papers is not uncomplicated however. When viewed through the prism of his personal life, other aspects emerge. On the one hand White’s schism with his blood family ran deep and was acrimonious. It was alleged that he had besmirched the family name through his actions, and at one point a sibling attempted to have him declared insane. Add to this White’s own not-uncomplicated personal life. To cut a long story short he met his second wife, Nora Shanahan in London in 1936. Shanahan was a practising Catholic and from a well-off Dublin family and they had three children together. They returned to live in Broughshane around 1938 and stayed there until White’s death. Nora Shanahan later sold Whitehall and left the area.
“The Burning” is set in the family home at Broughshane in the period immediately after Jack White’death. The characters involved are White’s widow, Noreen Shanahan; White’s sister, Lady Napier; Lily, a family friend of Jack White’s; and finally Matt Kavanagh, White’s comrade. The play of course is a work of fiction, a conjecture about what may have happened. Although none of the individuals portrayed are alive today, there will be some who have memories of those involved. If any offence is caused by the portrayals set out then I apologise in advance.
Lastly a note on production: Although The Burning remains under consideration it still awaits its first stage production. So to anyone other there who knows of ‘theatre alternative’, press this work into their hands…
|
View Comments Titles Only
save preference
Comments (3 of 3)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3I have also thought that some of his passages in "Misfit" would lend themselves well to a type of performed monologue. Fascinating man.
...sounds as if she didn't want to keep his papers?
Let's hope someone writes a play about our nation's papers burnt in the Customs House (1920) and the 4 courts (1922).
In 'Guerilla Days' by Tom Barry, (going off on a tangent I know) there are a few photos from 'Captured British Officers Album' Does anyone have any idea where these photos are these days? Thanks Sean