Jack White
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Jack White proposed the idea of workers'
militia, the Irish Citizens Army (ICA) in 1913 and played a
key role in its early development and organisation. In April
1916 he was arrested in south Wales for attempting to
organise a strike of miners in support of James
Connolly.
In 1931, White was involved in a bitter
street battle between unemployed workers and the RUC on the
Newtownards Road in Belfast. 1936 at the age of 57 he
travelled to Spain (as part of a Red Cross ambulance crew)
to help fight fascism. Here he gravitated towards the
anarchist CNT.
Impressed by the revolution that had
unfolded in Spain, White was further attracted to the
anarchist cause due to his own latent anti-Stalinism
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Read a short biography of Jack
White
JACK WHITE'S WRITING
Jack White was the author of a number of pamphlets and articles
(see below) as well as an autobiography, Misfit (Jonathan Cape,
London, 1930). However at the time of his death, it seems that White
may have completed a second part of his autobiography (1) &endash;
Misfit ends c.1916. Moreover, Albert Meltzer who knew White from his
days with Spain and The World, states (2) that White worked with Matt
Kavanagh, a Liverpudlian anarchist of Irish extraction, on a 'survey
of Irish labour and Irish aspirations in relation to anarchism'; this
would've been c. 1937 or later. In the same article Meltzer also
mentions 'White's study of the little known Cork 'Soviet''. As with
White's collaboration with Kavanagh, this latter work may have been
suggested to White after his exposure to the workers self-management
movement in revolutionary Spain in 1936-37.
Although it has not been conclusively established as to why, it
does beyond doubt that White's second wife, Noreen Shanahan, either
alone or in conjunction with the White family, disposed of the bulk
of her husband's papers in the aftermath of his death (3). It is
possible that this may have occurred through neglect (4) or simple
expediency, but it is more likely that it was driven by White's
conflict with his wife, an ardent Catholic, about his views on the
evils of the Catholic Church and Catholicism itself (5). White's
arguments with his wife were well known in his circle. (6)
Whatever the exact circumstances, it cannot be ruled out that a
wider agenda was served by the destruction of the papers. For
anarchists this is all the more tragic as these papers may well have
shed a greater and more reflective light on White's views on
anarchism in the Spanish Civil War, as well as anarchism in relation
to the revolutionary struggle in Ireland.
Kevin Doyle
(June 2001)
(1) R. McDonnell, Cushendun in the Glens of Antrim, 1995, p42. See
also C.E.B. Brett, Five Big Houses of Cushendun, Belfast, 1997 p69.
The source of this information is Randal McDonnel, author of a number
of booklets on touring and walks in the Glens of Antrim, from
conversations he had with Patricia English, Jack White's niece. The
English family retained a summer home outside Cushendun and until her
recent death, Mrs English was a regular visitor to the area.
(2) J.R. White, Anarchy, Belfast, 1972. Introduction by Albert
Meltzer, p9.
(3) R. McDonnell, op cit., p42.
(4) Information from Derrick White.
(5) Information from Derrick White.
(6) Information from Andrew Boyd. Boyd knew Jack Mulvenna, a
long-standing Belfast socialist republican, "Mulvenna often spoke of
the terrible domestic rows White would have with his wife &endash;
all over religion."
Whites writings online
Includes, White himself, White Hall, White Hall 2, Gravestone,
Lodge Gate, View of Braid Valley
Acknowledgements
Thanks and acknowledgement to the Kate Sharply Library and the
Institute for Anarchist Studies for their assistance with organising
the material for this site.
Links