Jim Lane (full name James Anthony Lane) is an Irish republican and socialist who was born in 1938 on Devonshire Street North in Cork's north inner city. His father Michael, a former quartermaster sergeant in the Free State army, worked in Ford's motor plant - the family originated in Conna in east County Cork where they had a medium-sized farm. Fianna Fáil - The Republican Party (Pronounced fee-na fall.) (English: Soldiers of Destiny) is the largest political party in the Republic of Ireland. ... Jump to: navigation, search The color red and particularly the red flag are traditional symbols of Socialism. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1938 was a common year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ... Jump to: navigation, search Cork (Corcaigh in Irish) is the second city of the Republic of Ireland. ... The Irish Free State (Irish: Saorstát Éireann) was (1922–1937) the name of the state comprising the 26 of Irelands 32 counties which were separated from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland under the Irish Free State Agreement (or Anglo-Irish Treaty) signed by British and... The regular army of the Republic of Ireland has 8,500 personnel, and is divided primarily into three infantry brigades, each responsible for a geographical area of the country: Irish Army brigade areas In addition to the three brigades, there is also the Defence Forces Training Centre, which is responsible... County Cork (Contae Chorcaí in Irish) is the most southwesterly and the largest of the modern counties of Ireland. ...

Jim Lane, 1984, Chairman of the IRSP

In 1954, Jim Lane joined the Irish Republican Army (IRA), Sinn Féin and the Cork Volunteers' Pipe Band. He subsequently actively participated in the IRA's 1956-62 border campaign. He was of the first group of volunteers sent north for the campaign. However, when the Cork brigade of the IRA disengaged from the armed campaign, he resigned, along with a number of other Cork volunteers, such as his close friends Brendan O'Neill and Charlie Ronayne, and they continued to participate in the border campaign as unaligned volunteers. Jump to: navigation, search Image File history File links Jim_Lane. ... Jump to: navigation, search Image File history File links Jim_Lane. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1954(MCMLIV) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Jump to: navigation, search The West Cork Flying Column during the War of Independence. ... Jump to: navigation, search The name Sinn Féin (pronounced in English, in Irish), which means ourselves or we ourselves (not as sometimes incorrectly translated, ourselves alone or we alone) has been applied to a series of political movements since 1905 in Ireland, each of which claim or claimed sole...

He was also involved with the Unemployed Protest Movement in the late 1950s and was instrumental in establishing the Cork Vietnamese Freedom Association in the 1960s. An active trade unionist, he was a socialist republican from an early stage and was much influenced by Maoism in the 1960s and early 1970s. Jump to: navigation, search This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... The color red and particularly the red flag are traditional symbols of Socialism. ... Jump to: navigation, search Maoism or Mao Tse-tung Thought (Chinese: 毛泽东思想, pinyin: Máo Zédōng Sīxiǎng), is a variant of Marxism-Leninism derived from the teachings of Mao Zedong (1893–1976). ...

Lane was a leading figure in the republican 'splinter-group', the Irish Revolutionary Forces throughout the 1960s. This Cork-based group, which comprised a large number of left-wing former IRA members, produced an influential newsletter in the early to mid 1960s called An Phoblacht (The Republic). This paper openly criticised the Republican Movement for its lack of action on the north and for reneging on republican principles. There was considerable tension between the IRF and the IRA, which turned into raids and armed counter-raids. In 1963, for example, a group of eight armed IRF members raided the Cork Sinn Féin headquarters and warned the city's IRA leaders at gunpoint because of the IRA's seizure of the group's newsletter from the printer where it was being produced. The group also seized thousands of copies of the United Irishman, the Sinn Féin paper, as it arrived in the local railway station. Relations between the group and the IRA were strained for much of the 1960s with the IRF regularly criticising the politics of the Republican Movement and arguing for a socialist way forward.

The IRF group established Saor Éire in 1968 and produced a paper called People's Voice. Jim Lane was a leading figure in this group, as was Seán Daly (a former IRA commander) who was later to write books on Irish labour history. Lane and his comrades brought guns and assistance to Derry in 1969 when the Bogside was under seige (see Battle of the Bogside. Despite his membership of Saor Éire, he was briefly the intelligence officer for Daithi O'Connell's command area around Derry/Donegal at the time of the disturbances. Saor Éire (meaning Free Ireland) was a left-wing political organisation established in September 1931 by communist-leaning members of the Irish Republican Army, with the backing of the IRA leadership. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1968 was a leap year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1968 calendar). ... Labour (Commonwealth English) or labor (American English) may refer to one of the following. ... Jump to: navigation, search The Battle of the Bogside was a battle only in a rhetorical sense. ... For other places with similar names, see Londonderry (disambiguation) and Derry (disambiguation). ... Jump to: navigation, search County Donegal (Irish: Contae Dhún na nGall) is a county in the northwest of Ireland. ...

Saor Éire was essentially a political group, but the name of the organisation was forever connected with militarism following a number of bank raids in the Dublin area in late 1969 by an unconnected republican splinter-group that termed itself the 'Saor Éire Action Group'. Also, the rise of the Provisionals fatally undermined Saor Éire's attempt to build a Marxist socialist-republican alternative to the official Republican Movement. The group disappeared at the beginning of the 1970s. Jump to: navigation, search Dublin (Irish: Baile Átha Cliath), is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Ireland, located near the midpoint of Irelands east coast, at the mouth of the River Liffey and at the centre of the Dublin region. ... Marxism is the political practice and social theory based on the works of Karl Marx, a 19th century philosopher, economist, journalist, and revolutionary, along with Friedrich Engels. ...

Lane subsequently joined with others in forming the Cork Workers' Club, which operated out of the same premises in St Nicholas Church Lane that Saor Éire had used as its headquarters. Over the years, the CWC ran a bookshop selling Marxist and republican literature, and published a series of 'Historical Reprints' of Irish socialist classics.

Jim Lane was central to the anti-H-Block movement in the Cork region at the end of the 1970s and became the chairperson of the Cork City and County National H-Block Committee, which organised many large demonstrations in support of the H-Block hunger strikers in 1980-1. He also joined the Irish Republican Socialist Party and became its national chairperson in 1983, a position he held for a number of years. He was influential in steering the IRSP/INLA towards explicitly Marxist politics. He stood unsuccessfully as an IRSP candidate in the 1982 general election, garnering a few hundred votes. A mural in Derrys Bogside, commemorating Irish hunger strikers. ... Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP) describes itself as a republican socialist party and claims to be both Marxist and republican. ... The Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) was formed on 8 December 1974 as the military wing of the Irish Republican Socialist Movement (a political wing, the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP), was formed the same day) by Seamus Costello and other activists who had left or been forced out of...

Jim Lane was a central figure in left-wing politics in Cork city during the 1960s to late 1980s and involved in many campaigns. He was also influential in republican circles nationally and a well known advocate of socialist republicanism, albeit of a Marxist-Leninist hue.

Lane was chief shop steward in Cash's of Patrick Street, his place of employment for many years, until he retired in the 1990s. Married with four grown-up children, he currently lives near the Lough in Cork city. One of his sons, Fintan, is a well known left-wing and anti-war activist, and author of a number of books on Irish labour history.