Czech anarchist, Anti-Racist and Squatter Jakub Polak passed away after a long term illness last week on Tuesday 25th September. Jakub Polák was born in Czechoslovakia in 1952. He became a political dissident as a teenager during the Prague Spring (1968). Because of his political activity Jakub wasn’t allowed to study in university. This made him even more involved in the various underground and dissident movement activities.

On the 10^th anniversary of the death of former Civil Rights activist and Anarchist John McGuffin, local activists including former friends and comrades gathered in Derry’s Bogside and gave the iconic monument a fitting rebellious make-over with the red and black colours of anarchism. Over the next fortnight the black flag of anarchy will fly over Free Derry corner in a fine tribute. No Gods No Masters!

Three days after Christmas, on one of those clear winter days during which the dark clouds are pierced by a sunlight that turns the water to silver, a group of friends gathered at Bull Island in the heart of Dublin city to say goodbye to Sue Richardson. Sue died in October in 2011, aged seventy, sitting at her kitchen table, waiting for the kettle to boil.  At her funeral a former housemate said, ‘Sue had an uncanny knack of turning the conversation away from herself’. She had an extraordinary life, yet spoke very little about it. The story here cannot be anything but incomplete.

Image: Sue on a pro-Choice picket of
a Rogue agency in Dublin in 2007

It was with great sadness that the WSM learned of the news of the passing of Bob Miller on June 17. Bob was a member of the Anarchist Federation and a comrade from Manchester, England. Many of us got to know Bob since after he visited Mayo in 2006 spending a week in Rossport supporting the Shell to Sea campaign. Since then Bob and his partner Sally have attended several Anarchist Bookfairs in Dublin and many members of the WSM had the priveldge to get to know Bob as a friend. 

Patrick Galvin, the renowned Cork writer and socialist, has died.  Born in Margaret Street in Cork in 1927, Paddy was a prodigious and accomplished writer producing many works in poetry and drama, as well as writing the memoir The Raggy Boy Trilogy.  He was also a most accomplished balladeer and many of his early works were in this form.

(Image: Patrick Galvin at his birthday party last summer).

The WSM were greatly saddened to hear of the death of Dutch anarchist Karl Max Kreuger from The Hague. Karl used to sell Workers Solidarity in Holland and many of us also remember him from the annual Anarchist Book Fair in London. We send our sincerest sympathy to his family, friends and comrades.