Review: Poverty in the U.K.

and me, yet’. The working class Citizen Army going out to fight, for what, for vanity, for the lovely uniform!

In 1927 O’Casey wrote The Silver Tassie, an anti-war play, with a second _ act full of symbolism, breaking with - the realistic style of the earlier plays, What a courageous thing to do! Not for him the safe realistic play that had made his name, and the Abbey Theatre a lot of money. The Abbey rejected The Tassie, and O’Casey, deeply hurt, left Ireland at the age of 46. But in The Tassie, where did O’Casey lay the blame for the 1914-18 war? On Poverty in the UK by Peter Townsend (Penguin, 1979) Belfast Household Survey: Preliminary Report (Northern Ireland Housing Executive). Poverty in the UK is basically a report on a comprehensive survey of 2052 households drawn from the 51 parliamentary constituencies of the UK in 1968/9. This is supplemented by special surveys of minority groups and of four selected poor areas — Salford, Neath, Glasgow and Belfast. Much of the book is a defence of the relevance of the survey findings today, as well as an attack on the limitations of government statistics for developing an accurate picture of complex patterns of ‘class structuration’, While in the early 1960s the rediscoverers of poverty (amongst whom Townsend was a key figure) were able to generate something of a constituency for Labour Party reformism to replace thirteen years of Tory rule, the political and ideological contexts of the 1980s are quite another matter.

During the ‘boom years’, parliamentarians could afford to be concerned with ‘social problems’ whether or not presented as the ‘by-products of industrial development’, Now the very survival of capital dominates the day to day affairs of the state. Poverty in the UK is not the sort of publication to capture the terrain now occupied by the radical right, or one which is of major value to the contemporary struggle of socialists. Most of the data, largely generalised at a UK level, lends itself only to very broad centralist ‘social goals’, such as those comprising Townsend’s ‘assault on poverty’. These targets include a statutory maximum possession of wealth and maximum income, the scrapping of social security benefits and income tax (to be replaced by a state regulated income fixed by a schedule of work merit and need, ‘publicly agreed’), the right to work for all (including the elderly and disabled), capitalism? No, on the church! ar O’Casey now entered his Elite Artist period and wrote to Lady Gregory of the Abbey Theatre ... We must continue to fight for that which is above and before all governments and parties — Art and literature which are the mantle and mirror of the Holy Ghost, and the sword of the spirit.

As Greaves puts it, ‘Art had become his substitute religion’.

O’Casey wrote many more plays, some good, some bad. He attacked the church, capitalism, fascism, and he praised youth, life, love and joy. In more nationalisation, greater industrial democracy and restraint on professionalism, an extension of universal education, and more ‘community development’. There is some ammunition in the book but little to inform, local struggles over redundancies, social security benefits, housing, fuel bills, cuts in education and health services, and so on, The chapter on ‘the problem of poor areas’ is a case in point. We learn nothing of the political economy and history of these areas or of the current state of social relations in them. Belfast (and Northern Ireland as a whole}-wins the poverty league table on every count — but we knew this anyway and have better statistics to prove it. In addition the reader would discover that Northern Ireland is comprised of Catholic and Protestant areas and has experienced ‘disorder and bloodshed’ for the last ten years — but no hint as to why (poverty?!). Instead Townsend draws our attention to some quaint and archaic scenes... ‘In my first visit to Belfast in 1968...

I was struck not only by the evident poverty in Catholic and Protestant areas alike, but by scenes which seemed to belong more to the 1930s — of red-haired boys using scales on a cart drawn by an emaciated pony to sell coal by the pound, teenage girls in a second-hand clothing shop buying underslips and skirts, and some of the smallest ‘joints’ of meat in the butchers’ windows that I had ever seen’, Of considerably more use and interest is the latest research publication of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive.

The preliminary report on the Belfast household survey conducted in 1978 is the first explicit indication that the NIHE has to plan and manage housing on a sectarian basis. This is played down in the commentary, which is in any case sparse, but is certainly observable in the diagram and statistical tables which are broken down by electoral wards. With enough local knowledge it is not difficult to sort out the sectarian division in unemployment, housing conditions, incomes, internal migration patterns etc.. The report demonstrates that housing in Belfast has improved very little since the last surveys of 1974 and 1975, and

ISR 27

1937 he became a communist, wrote constantly for the Daily Worker and was on the Board of Directors, Mind you, he could still come out with some wild sayings: he named Japan as the next Communist country! Greaves ends this excellent book with this summing up, ‘O’Casey retains his place as a foremost revolutionary dramatist, not because he understood the part, for he did not, but because all his work was informed by the vision as a whole’. Amen to that! Alex Farrell in some areas has deteriorated. The situation in specific areas can be gauged reasonably well. For example, pensioners constitute nearly 50% of the Shankill population compared to 24% on the Falls whereas the latter has three times the number of one-parent families.

In New Lodge 24% of families are headed by a single parent. The proportion of vacant dwellings in Protestant areas is relatively high, reflecting the very restricted choice of housing and ‘safe’ areas for Catholics. 93% of the houses in the Catholic Cromac ward were built before 1870 and 83% lack four of the standard amenities (the Shankill is almost as bad in this respect).

On the Falls 51% of economically active households have an unemployed head of household (Whiterock 48%), compared to 14% on the Shankill.

Twelve tables are devoted to migration and household formation which indicates that the report is principally designed as a planner’s primer. No doubt someone is attempting to use it to prove that the as yet unbuilt Poleglass estate for West Belfast is unnecessary.

Mike Tomlinson Books Received Schools Council History Project, The Irish Question; Holmes McDougall (1977).

Eamonn McCann, War and an Irish Town; Pluto Press (1980; 2nd edition).

Michael Farrell, Northern Ireland: The Orange State; Pluto Press (1980; 2nd edition). Austen Morgan and Bob Purdie (eds), Ireland, Divided Nation, Divided Class; Inklinks (1980). Troops on Turf: A Comprehensive Guide to Information on Ireland; (15p trom Just Books, 7 Winetavern St., Belfast

BTI 1JQ).

Derry IRSP, Seven Stars (Quarterly Journal 30p from The Bookshop, 8 Chamberlain Street, Derry).

Recent Publications of Interest Prisoners Aid Committee, Irish Voices from English Jails (December 1979).

F.S.L.Lyons, Culture and Anarchy in Treland 1890-1939; Oxford University Press.

The contents of previous issues of ISR have been described as ‘forthright, analytic and comprehensive studies’ by the journal Troops Out. It added that ‘the articles in it are something that militants will want to keep for reference as well as to read now for information and political debate’.

BACK ISSUES STILL AVAILABLE — PRICE 50p (including postage).

@ NUMBER ONE (WINTER 1977/78)

Labour and Ireland. The 1969 Labour Party conference debate analysed. Ireland and Decolonisation. Why is lreland an exception?

Class and Nationalism in Ireland. What is the nature of the Republican movement? Irish Political Prisoners. The importance of their struggle.

Prospects for the UTOM. A critical view of solidarity work.

@ NUMBER TWO (SUMMER 1978)

Northern freland — Beyond British Nationhood, Beyond British Reform. The Tribunal on Britain's Presence: A Historical Perspective.

Class Unity, Nationalism and Irish Trade Unions.

Critical Comments on ISR 1.

@ NUMBER THREE (AUTUMN 1978)

Parliamentary Labour Party Commission of Inquiry into the Present Conditions in Ireland (1920). Withintroduction.

Review of Beyond Orange and Green.

Trade Union Reports. From the CPSA and TUCAR.

Review of Home Soldier Home.

@ NUMBER FOUR (SPRING 1979)

TV Coverage of the War in Ireland.

Surveillance, the Law and Military Rule.

Labour, Democracy and Ireland. A discussion article.

Debate in ASTMS. The case history of a motion on represston

@ NUMBER FIVE (SUMMER 1979) @ NUMBER SIX (WINTER 1979/80)

Interview with the Women and Ireland group Multinationals and Ireland.

General Election Results in the Six Counties Transcript of 1979 Labour Party Conference debate on Northern Ireland: Economic Trends Ireland, With introduction.

Reviews (UDA, Fine Gael, Republicanism) Reviews of media and trade union pamphlets.

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: Rioti Ifast shi ‘d kers, 1920 > ISSN 0143-2729 Cover photo: Rioting Belfast shipyard workers