The IRA and Mao's China: in the press

My piece on the IRA's, in the guise of Seamus Costello, approach to the Mao Zedong's China in 1964 was picked up by Clifford Coonan of The Irish Times, with whom I had an email exchange to expand on some issues before he wrote the piece.

I've just been made aware, however, that The Times also picked up (£) on the story, in what is a pretty garbled and incoherent account, complete with totally made up quotes from me!  (Google has informed me that HuffingtonPost.it ran with The Times story as well.

Mao and The IRA's Chinese Takeaway

Flag of the People's Republic of China (PRC)

The following is a short article I wrote a couple of years ago after a research trip to the Chinese Foreign Ministry Archives in Beijing.  It is based on original research.  For those who may be interested I can provide the original source document archive references.  Attribution requested.

UPDATE: On The Cedar Lounge Revolution Blog Brian Hanley has pointed out that the "Moscow was Rome to them" was one of his and Scott Millar's interviewees talking about Irish communists rather than the IRA.  In my defence, however, I did email Brian Hanley while writing the original article for clarification on a number of points, however I never received a reply.

The Starry Plough

On 16th September 1964 a lone figure knocked at the door of the embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Paris. The embassy had only opened earlier that year following President de Gaulle’s decision to break diplomatic relations with Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist government and establish them with the Communist government in Beijing. The man at the door handed over a letter of introduction to the junior embassy staffer who had answered his knock. The letter was from the Chief of Staff of the Irish Republican Army, Cathal Goulding, and requested on his behalf that the letter’s deliverer be received by Ambassador Huang Zhen.