Periscope - Rebel With a Cause

By NiallO’Dowd

GEORGE Harrison, 90, who passed away last week, never met a revolution he didn’t like. There are so many stories about George showing up to protest outside a variety of embassies, leaving the occupants wondering what they had done to warrant the wrath of an Irishman.

George was merely calling for a revolution and their overthrow. Pinochet in Chile, de Klerk in South Africa, Thatcher in Britain — all were equally scorned and hated by George Harrison.

He apparently became a particular thorn in the side of the South African Embassy during the Apartheid era. Little did they know that the lonely protester outside their gates knew he had the power and certainty of history behind him.

George knew in his soul that all things rotten eventually come crashing down. Protest might well have been Harrison’s middle name.

He was forever on the side of the powerless against the powerful. Many people go through a phase in their lives when they develop a radical outlook, but for George it was a lifelong belief, one he practiced every day right until the last days of his long life.

Indeed, one of his final acts was writing a letter of protest to the Irish Voice, which appeared in last week’s issue. It was vintage George, calling for President Bush to be ousted in the upcoming election because he feared he was turning the U.S. into an “imperialistic power.”

Of all the alleged sins of the Bush administration, that was the most heinous for George. The notion of his beloved adopted country becoming as imperial as the British once were was a recurrent nightmare for him.

He had grown up under imperialism in his native Mayo, and from an early age the atrocities of the Black and Tans and the attempt to “pacify” Ireland left an indelible imprint. In that respect he was much like his Mayo counterpart, the great Paul O’Dwyer. 

Both men had their hearts touched by fire while undergoing that searing experience. Neither ever forgot what it felt like. Subsequently, both became champions of the downtrodden.

There were many such men and women in the early days of the last century who experienced a revolution in Ireland and never again feared man or imperial institution. They had seen the greatest empire in the world crumble, and they were never afraid again.

George never feared the powerful afterwards. He once told me that one of his greatest regrets was that he was too young to have taken a full part in the Irish revolution. He was determined to make up for it in later life.

Ireland, of course, was George’s special cause. He was a tireless advocate for Irish reunification — by violent means if necessary. 

He never tried to gild that lily. What he saw as a young man convinced him his country was worth fighting for. He put his money where his mouth was, running guns to the IRA for at least a decade.

Such views are neither popular nor fashionable nowadays, but George didn’t mind that. If he had ever thought about being popular or fashionable he would have crept toothlessly into old age, rather than becoming the lion in winter that he became. 

George used to merely point to the American Revolution, and say this country knew a thing or two about overthrowing despots by force — and the men who did it are revered today. One man’s terrorist, he remarked, is another man’s freedom fighter.

He was set up in a sting operation, caught and put on trial for running guns to Ireland in the 1970s. Harrison’s lawyer, Frank Durkan, took issue with the prosecution, stating that the time period they had given for Harrison’s gun running activities was far too short, and the man himself wanted to confess that he had been doing it for much longer. 

Durkan said George felt it was incumbent on him to protect Northern Nationalists at a time when vicious crimes were being committed against them for standing up to the British.

It was the type of bold defense that only Durkan and Harrison could mount and, incredibly, the jury believed them, and George went free. It was yet another unbelievable escape in a life that was full of them.

George remained unreconstructed to the end of his life. We argued about the peace process, which he never saw as the means to the final end of Irish reunification. 

Even though I disagreed strongly with him on that it was impossible to not respect his views. He had spent a lifetime fighting for them. May he rest in peace.