'The Only Communist in Mayo': John Meehan, 1936-2020, An Appreciation

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John Meehan 1936 - 2020

Fergal Costello & Carmel Tansey

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ITGWU/ILHS seminar on Centenary of National Land League in Castlebar, 1979: front, l-r, Dan McCarthy (National Land Leagye), Patrick Powell (Galway Branch Secretary, ITGWU), Fergal Costello; back, l-r, Francis Devine, Paul Bew [now Lord Bew], Michael Neary (Castlebar Branch Secretary, ITGWU), John Meehan

Fergal Costello & Carmel Tansey

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ITGWU NEC 1989: seated, l-r: John Meehan (Castlebar No 1), Mary Oakes (Mullingar), Chris Kirwan (Genera; Secretary), John Carroll (General President), Edmund Browne (Vice president), Doris Kelly (Dublin 2), Paddy Teahan (Tralee)

Fergal Costello & Carmel Tansey

The death of John Meehan of Ballinrobe in April 2020 arguably witnessed the passing of a long tradition of rural, radical socialist republican activists who drew their inspiration from Davitt and Connolly, the Land War and opposition to landlordism, forging a unity between workers and small farmers in the image of Peadar O’Donnell. Sometimes referred to as ‘the only Communist west of the Shannon’, he was more accurately perhaps the ‘only Communist in Mayo’, his open Party membership making his subsequent rise to the National Executive Council (NEC) of the Irish Transport & General Workers’ Union (ITGWU) all the more remarkable. A celebration of his life was held on Saturday, 9 July 2022, at the family grave in Ballinrobe.[i]

Early Life, Emigration & Joining the Communist Party

John Meehan was born on 19 June 1936 and raised on a small farm in Cloongowla West (Cluain Gabhla), Ballinrobe County Mayo.  He was the youngest of five children, with three sisters, Sally [Sarah], Mary and Nellie [Ellen], and an older brother Patrick who died in infancy. His father, Patrick, died at age forty-five when John was five years old, and his mother, Norah raised the family on her own.  Meehan’s grandfather, John, born in 1845 but recorded as 71 in the 1911 Census, had lived through the Famine.[ii]  The Great Hunger was seared on Mayo’s memory and shaped his grandson’s commitment to the land and its people.[iii] Michael Davitt was born on the family farm in Straide, north of Ballinrobe, in March 1846 and, on 16 August 1879, the Land League of Mayo was founded in Castlebar, superseded on 21 October by the National Land League.[iv] In addition to rural poverty, in the early 1900s, Tuberculosis (TB) wiped out many poor families. Fergal Costello noted that:

‘Noël Browne, who lived in Ballinrobe as a child in the 1920s, lost both parents and five of his seven siblings to TB. Understandably, this had a profound effect on Browne’s life and subsequent political career. Together with Davitt and the Land War, this local inheritance suggests that resistance to oppression, injustice and colonialism was almost certainly built into John Meehan’s DNA.’[v]

After Meehan’s father’s death, times were hard but the family ‘managed’.[vi] Young Meehan was educated at the Sisters of Mercy Convent National School and at the Christian Brothers in Cornmarket before working on the farm for a few years.[vii] Around 1956, Meehan briefly left for London before returning to farm in Cloongowla. He already held strong convictions, recalling that ‘when I was around twenty, I stopped attending Mass’.[viii]  The local priest visited his mother, Norah, and gave her a hard time.  Meehan ‘took it upon himself to visit the priest to tell him to leave his mother alone’.  Attempting to placate him, the priest invited Meehan in and gave him his first glass of alcohol! There are overtones of Leitrim’s Jimmy Gralton in this tale and Meehan held him as hero and was, unsurprisingly, a founder-member of the Jim Gralton Labour History Society.[ix]

Meehan returned to London in the 1960s, working for British Rail in a ticket office and then as a porter. He spent one Christmas at Royal Mail’s Mount Pleasant, the country’s largest Sorting Office. Meehan also laboured on the Isle of Dogs as dockland slums were replaced, the area now known as Canary Wharf.[x] About this time, he became friendly with Maurice O’Byrne and his son Terry from Waterford. Through them and a woman called Minnie Bowles (known to John’s niece Helen Ward as Auntie Min), Meehan became involved with the Connolly Association and Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). Bowles was active in the Young Communist League (YCL) and served as secretary to Harry Pollitt, then CPGB General Secretary.[xi] Meehan sold the Daily Worker on Balham High Street.

Return to Ireland & the ITGWU/SIPTU

Around 1966-1967, having saved enough money, Meehan returned to Cloongowla and built a new house for his mother. He farmed the land and got a job with An Foras Talúntais at the Agricultural Institute at Creagh, Ballinrobe. Meehan was one of thirty men who worked on the land at Creagh and they were the first group that he organised into the ITGWU.

In 1970, after his sister Mary’s husband Brian Ward died, Meehan went back to London for about a year. He worked with McAlpine’s and helped to lay the foundations of the National Theatre. Dominic Behan’s song ‘McAlpine’s Fusiliers’ – an anthem for migratory Irish building workers at that time – had a particular poignancy and purpose for him. His working hours were long but he would:

‘every now and then … go AWOL for a few days and spend the time reading everything he could lay his hands on about trade unionism and socialism.  His book-shelves in Cloongowla were packed with such reading material and the walls and shelves adorned with pictures of his heroes, like James Connolly, Lenin and Marx and memorabilia from his travels to Russia, Cuba, Poland and other socialist countries.’

On his frequent trips to Dublin, he rarely left New Books [now Connolly Books] without an armful of books and pamphlets to ‘bring himself up-to-date’.

Returning to Ireland, he was employed as a Water Scheme Caretaker with Mayo County Council. He became very involved with the ITGWU and travelled the country unionising workers as well as supporting the cause of small farmers. He was very articulate and delivered some excellent speeches and wrote top class articles to newspapers and letters to politicians. Many County Managers felt his biting criticism and his keen negotiating skills.

Recalling his time working with John, Des Geraghty, former SIPTU President, said, ‘I have very fond memories of John for a number of very good reasons both as a friend and as a trade unionist. When I took over representing Local Authority workers John was a stalwart. He represented the Waterworks Caretakers nationally and you were always solid going in to negotiations with the employers either at county or national level with John at your side because he was a fantastic solid man, very straight. John Meehan represented the Local Authority Workers in the Irish Transport and General Workers Union with a vigour to organise every county in Ireland and some people will remember here, he fought the good fight against loss of jobs in Mayo County Council too. When there was an emphasis on direct Labour and they fought to build the roads by direct Labour John Meehan was one of the ones who fought that campaign against all of the advice from the employers and engineers for bringing in contract labour and they were successful. He also fought for part-time workers being taken on. There were a lot of small farmers in the area who were dependent on the Council for part-time work in the summer and there was a tendency to close that off and not employ those people. John fought very hard for those people as that summer work fitted very well with their work on their small farms and helped them to maintain themselves and their families.’

In 1984, he was elected to the National Executive Council of the ITGWU, later SIPTU, despite being a well-known communist. When Fergal Costello stepped down from the ITGWU National Executive after six years in 1984, Meehan was persuaded to run and was duly elected to the Executive. Afterwards, he always told Costello, with his much-noted wry grin, ‘you handed me the poisoned chalice’. All acknowledge that the truth was that Meehan was ‘elected on his own merits, as he had huge respect, not just in Mayo, but in the wider union throughout the country. John had ‘great contacts, that he never spoke about’. Meehan, often a lone voice defending a progressive cause, had caught members’ attention and their respect. Meehan served on the ITGWU/SIPTU Executive until 1999, testimony to that regard.

Meehan and Europe

Meehan railed against the ‘utopian projections’ made before EEC entry by the ‘unholy trinity’ of the IFA, FUE and major political parties. Typical of Meehan’s continued opposition to Europe, other than in its brevity, was his 1983 motion:

‘That this Conference, in the light of historical developments, and in keeping with the long-term objectives of this Union and our founders, of establishing a Socialist Republic on this Island, demands that the Government take immediate steps to negotiate an Agreement for our withdrawal from the EEC as presently structured, more conducive to our economic development and to world peace, that the treaty of accession signed in January 1973.’

Meehan’s position on Europe was unaltered since 1972 and ‘unlike Justin Keating I have not been intellectually wounded by any road to Damascus accident nor have I been opportunistically attracted by the lights emanating from the end of any celestial autobahn’. Reading the speech over forty years later, the gathering attention of the audience is palpable, their largely unchallenged perceptions subject to gathering challenge. He found time to condemn the ‘mendicant and condescending attitude’ in the media to US President Reagan’s visit, symptom of the ‘philosophical pollution’ that facilitated the repatriation of Irish industrial profits. He attacked the increasing cuts in public expenditure, he demanded state control of financial institutions.

It was, by any standard, a tour de force. His motion was supported by Jean Roche (Dublin 6), a fellow CPI activist, but opposed by Brendan Byrne (Dublin 14), Dermot Tobin (Dublin 2) and Éamon Gilmore (Professional & Managerial) whose views ITGWU General President Carroll said reflected those of the NEC. Carroll invited Meehan to withdraw but the motion proceeded and was ‘overwhelmingly lost’. Meehan later addressed a motion opposing water rates, pointing out that it would be his job to ‘cut off your water’. He noted that County Managers and Engineers were ITGWU members and that this demanded a considered strategy.  He also successfully moved for an ‘up-to-date register on all property owners’.

In 1985, and now an NEC member, Meehan – against the convention that Executive members did not speak – moved a lengthy motion asking that Ireland re-affirm its ‘positive’ neutrality by rejecting support for NATO. He wanted the ITGWU to support ICTU demands that ‘permanent military neutrality’ be included in the Constitution. Returning to his reservations about the EEC, he demanded opposition to calls for a European Political Union’. He began with the words ‘Comrade Chairman and comrades’, words that no doubt gained him immediate attention. He cited the Connolly-Walker debate in reprising arguments about independence and self-determination and decried the abandonment of neutrality ‘by stealth’. He cautioned against ‘trading’ peace in the North against entry to some European military alliance. He wanted his motion – and every motion – ‘taken back to the members’ despite the ‘fear on the part of the leadership’ of doing so’. The ITGWU had, in 1979, adopted a policy of defending neutrality and Meehan’s motion, supported by Eric Fleming (Dublin 5) was carried. In 1986, wearing his NEC and Castlebar No 1 hats, Meehan seconded his Branch Secretary Michael Kilcoyne’s unchallenged motion demanding a Buy Irish Campaign.

Meehan, CPI & Culture

Once home, Meehan joined the Irish Workers’ Party, forerunner of the re-united Communist Party of Ireland (CPI). He campaigned against Irish membership of the EEC (Common Market) in 1973, travelling extensively around the country pointing out the dangers that membership posed to the tens of thousands of small family farmers. He maintained his opposition, as at the 1983 ITGWU Conference calling for withdrawal from the ‘rich men’s club’. For many Belfast and Dublin delegates, Meehan was an unusual presence at the CPI Unity Conference in 1970 that united communists, north and south. He ‘stood out since there were few communists from west of the Shannon and certainly no small farmers’. Meehan staunchly defended Cuba, fought to end the war in Vietnam and campaigned to overthrow the Apartheid regime in South Africa. He demanded Civil Rights for all in Northern Ireland and for Travellers.

Meehan was very proud of his involvement in ITGWU/SIPTU NEC. Among other achievements, realising the value of education, he was instrumental in setting up a Third-Level Scholarship Fund for children of union members and for supporting Ballinrobe Development Committee in their efforts to supply housing for the Travelling Community. In researching the union’s history, Francis Devine observed Meehan’s contribution to NEC debates, skillful, measured and strategic, a quiet but effective presence that swam against the prevailing current but one that he often succeeded in turning or, at least, slowing down. His involvement with ITGWU/SIPTU allowed him to travel far and wide for NEC business from Brussels to Moscow and Cuba. Cuban cigars were one of his favourite pleasures. He made special trips to Auschwitz and to the Somme, both moving him very much and reaffirming a life-long commitment to peace and disarmament. In 1984, he was very involved in the successful campaign to erect a memorial to the memory of Thomas Patten, an Achill man and an Irish Volunteer, who died in defence of the Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War.

Meehan, Humanist

John Meehan consistently opposed discrimination and inequality wherever and whenever he encountered it. This required both physical and moral courage, especially when his views were far from those of the majority in the of the conservative, Catholic rural community in which he lived. An example was his distaste for the antagonism shown towards Travellers. It was once suggested, by an ITGWU part-time Branch Secretary, that the ‘solution’ to the ‘itinerants problem’ – the terminology of the 1960s and 1970s – was to deport them to uninhabited offshore islands, a proposal not universally rejected by all conference delegates! Former ITGWU colleague Mike Jennings relates that:

‘In Ballinrobe there is a well-known story that a few families of Travellers camped by the roadside on the town’s outskirts. A meeting of residents was called to discuss this ‘problem’ and, as the discussion went on, the mood turned angrier and more extreme. Eventually it was proposed and agreed to march immediately to the Travellers’ campsite and forcibly ‘move them on’. As the mob, many carrying sticks and cudgels neared their destination, they rounded a bend in the road and found themselves faced by one man, John Meehan. In his usual soft-spoken, but authoritative, voice he told the crowd that if they wanted to go further they’d have to get past him first. An uneasy stand-off ensued. Gradually, one by one at first, the crowd melted away and John had prevailed. He had, single-handedly and by sheer personal courage saved the Travellers from certain harm and violence.’

Meehan, The Person

Re-constructing Meehan’s life proved problematic. Fergal Costello recalled:

‘When Anne Casey, a very good friend of his, asked if I would be interested in recording John’s memoirs, I jumped at the opportunity. We met in the West County Hotel on the outskirts of Dublin. It was an enjoyable get together but it became clear early on that there was no way John would commit his memoirs to tape. As his friends will testify, John was a very private person and this was a bridge too far.’

Carmel Tansey provides insights to the private, family life that Meehan enjoyed. She remembers that ‘over the years my mother Nellie would often take us over to Ballinrobe to visit Granny Norah and John’. She remembered him:

‘then as a clean shaven, soft spoken, quiet man with a gentle smile.  Thinking about it now it must have driven him crazy when a gang of five children landed in, tearing around the place, chasing the hens and knocking over cocks of hay, but he never showed it.  In fact one of the nicest memories I have is of him bringing us for rides on the donkey and cart, and the fun we had saving hay and turf, the O’Malley’s, Chris, Noel, Jim and Jack often joining us on these occasions.’

Meehan was a kind and generous man. In the traditional country way, he was ‘very kind and caring towards his neighbour, Bridgie Morahan, who lived directly across the road from his house and ran a little shop’. Confined to her armchair, Meehan looked after her.   People gathered with her in the evenings, sitting by the open fire, playing cards and having great conversations. Tansey observed that ‘everyone who knew John has
a story to relate of his kind deeds’.

After Meehan retired in 2001, he continued to take a strong interest in current affairs and politics.  He read books, newspapers, the Irish Socialist and Socialist Voice which came in the post every month. He loved listening to the radio and music and enjoyed the companionship of his friends when he went to O’Hare’s for a few drinks.  His health declined with age but he was able to stay at home for a long time due to the kindness and help he received from his neighbours, Noel, Josie and Jimmy, and carers Bernie and Martha. He spent his last two years in Hollymount Nursing Home.

Meehan was ‘a deep thinker, wise and honest to the core. He did not suffer fools gladly. He was a man of principle and defended those principles without compromise’.  He did not have children of his own but his nieces and nephews ‘always looked forward to his visits, and when they were very young often used to ask when Santa was going to arrive!’ They had ‘lovely memories of him sitting at my kitchen table sharing wonderful stories of his adventures’. Fergal Costello recalled that ‘when he visited us in Rathmines the kids
were in awe of him as his hairstyle, with the bushy side locks and long well-tended beard, was straight out of The Onedin Line, a popular sea-faring TV series at the time’.

John Meehan died on 7 April 2020 in Mayo University Hospital, Castlebar. The CPI hailed him as ‘a man of his own place and his own people, never forgetting who he was or where he came from, firmly rooted in the soil of County Mayo. We salute his memory as we acknowledge the of one of the last of that generation of rural communists who paid a heavy price for upholding the red banner of communism, the banner of labour’.

Notes

Our thanks to Declan Bree, Francy Devine, Mart Hyland, Mike Jennings, Jimmy Jordan and Eugene McCartan for their assistance in constructing this appreciation.

[i] This appreciation has been drawn on Carmel Tansey, ‘Eulogy: John Meehan, 9July, 2022’ and Fergal Costello, ‘Tribute to John Meehan, 9 July 2022 on the occasion of the interment of John’s ashes in the family grave in Ballinrobe’.

[ii] In 1911, the Meehan family lived at 3 Cloongowla and consisted of John, 70 and a farmer, and Sarah, 54, and their children Patrick, 14; Annie, 20; and Nellie, 17. All were literate and spoke Irish and English, www.nationalarchives.ie/reels/nai002954846/. In 1901, at 28 Cloongowla, the Meehan family consisted of John, 54, a farmer, and Sara, 42, and their children Maggie M, 13; Annie, 10; Nellie, 7; Patrick, 4; and step-daughters, Mary T. Rogers, 16, and Sara J. Rogers, 15: www.census.nationalarchives.ie/reels/nai001062595/ [retrieved 2 September 2022]. The adding of a few years was not uncommon as eyes were turned to the Old Age Pensions Act, 1908!

[iii] Costello recalled that ‘from 1845 to 1849 hunger and disease wreaked havoc on the community and on a grossly overcrowded Ballinrobe Workhouse. Trenches were dug at the rear of the Workhouse where the dead were buried daily. In one week alone in 1849, ninety seven inmates died. Those who could emigrated. Many of those who couldn’t, died of hunger or disease’.

[iv] The ITGWU and Irish Labour History Society held a 1979 Conference in the Imperial Hotel, Castlebar to commemorate the founding of the National Land League, Meehan being a prime mover. Costello represented the union at the unveiling of a statue to Davitt in Straide in 1979.

[v] Costello, op. cit.

[vi] Tansey’s recollection from family stories.

[vii] In 1990, the CBS, Sacred Heart Secondary School and the Vocational School merged to form Ballinrobe Community School.

[viii] As told to Carmel Tansey.

[ix] Information from Declan Bree.

[x] Information from his sister Mary and niece Helen.

[xi] Bowles was a CPGB member from 1941-1991. As a Battersea YCL member Bowles described an incident in which Saklatvala was called to deal with a domestic fight in which a man was beating his wife: ‘Sak stood inside the door and said, quietly, ‘Now why do you beat your wife? She is not your enemy. You have real enemies. Think of the landlord who charges you rent for this slum; or your boss who pays your wages, hardly enough to keep you alive’. And he [Saklatvala] went on in this quiet way until the man was weeping, and the wife was comforting him’, Irfan Chowdhury review of Marc Wadsworth, Comrade Sak, (Peepal Tree Press, London, 2020).