WHILE in the last century there was a clear continuity of Irish communist party organisations, the fact that their names changed a number of times can easily confuse.

Despite those amendments, it should be borne in mind that the Revolutionary Workers Group, two Irish communist parties, the Communist Party of Northern Ireland and the Irish Workers League, were actually a product of that continuity rather than ideological division. This biography of Sean Murray, a leader of those Irish communist parties between the 1920s until his death in 1961, explains such complexities and a range of highly controversial debates with satisfying clarity.

It’s a well-written and highly stimulating work, with abundant references, attractive photographs and enough anecdotes to make it an enjoyable read too.

Sean Murray first became involved in politics when he worked with Captain Jack White as a revolutionary republican in Antrim in 1919. He later lived in London where he joined the Communist Party and, recognised for his intelligence and leadership qualities, he became a student of the Lenin School in Moscow.

Some might question why this biography is relevant today, simply labelling Murray as a “Stalinist” and dismissing him as being of no interest beyond summary rejection. They’d be wrong because this book by Sean Byers is certainly no hagiography. He notes that Murray, a lifelong and sincere socialist republican, represented both what was best and worst from his political tradition and anyone interested in 20th-century Irish history — especially left or republican history — would gain from reading this biography.

There were perhaps two moments in the 20th century where socialist republicanism powerfully shaped modern Ireland, the Easter Rising led by James Connolly in 1916 and the civil rights movement of the late 1960s. Byers, inspired by Connolly and someone who contributed to the civil rights movement, is thus well placed to help us understand the decades between 1916 and 1968.

He makes no secret of his own interpretation of Irish socialist and republican history but carefully references other perspectives. So, if nothing else, this book provides an engaging introduction to a number of vexed and important debates on Irish history and left strategies.

There are hints of Gramsci and even Althusser in Byers’s discourse but the focus is a vibrant account of Irish left politics. Highly recommended.

Review by Derek Wall