• Source: Peter Graham (Marxist)

      • Peter Graham (born 1946) was an Irish republican and Marxist who worked as an electrician.
      Graham was a member of various left-wing movements, a founder of the Young Socialists, and some sources identify him as a leader in the militant Saor Éire organisation.
      He was murdered in his flat in Dublin in unclear circumstances in 1971.


      Early life


      Graham was born in 1946 with father Joseph Graham and raised in The Coombe, Dublin.
      Graham was born into a Catholic family, but relinquished religion later in life.


      Activism


      Graham worked as an electrician for the CIÉ and was a trade union activist in Ireland and London, England.
      Briefly a Labour Party member, Graham left in disillusionment and became a Trotskyite joining the Connolly Youth Movement and the Trotskyist Irish Workers Group (IWG) in 1967. After growing dissatisfied with the ideological stance of the IWG, Graham left and started the League for a Worker's Republic. He was also the chair of the Young Socialistsand a member of the International Marxist Group.
      After IWG collapsed, some members started the People's Democracy organisation, with some of them starting the Saor Éire organisation. While sources identify Graham as a member of Saor Éire, This Week magazine rejects that. He organised a meeting bringing Saor Éire and others together in 1968. He was friends with D.R. O’Connor Lysaght, who both broke away from the International Marxist Group.


      Death


      On October 25, 1971 he was murdered in his own flat on St Stephen's Green, Dublin by rivals in Saor Éire, who accused him of being a police informant. Graham was tortured with a hammer and shot in the neck. He was aged 26 at the time of his death.
      While magazine This Week reported that Graham's friends attribute his death to a false accusation of being a police informant and also suggested his death was possibly linked to a gun smuggling operation.
      Journalist Charlie Bird spoke at his funeral. Both Charlie Bird and Tariq Ali raised a clenched fist at the cemetery.
      The Provisional Irish Republican Army issued a statement thanking him for his support.


      References

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