Dublin and the Bolsheviks and Dr Kathleen Lynn
From the ULSARA 2017 Newsletter and www.ulsara.ie Following the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, representatives from Ireland and Russia met in New York, where the Irish delegation agreed to advance a loan of $20,000 to the new Soviet government. The collateral for this transaction was a cache of confiscated tsarist jewels which was brought to Ireland and hidden in the Dublin family home of Harry Boland during the Civil War. In 1949, the treasures were returned to the Soviet Union. Apart from such high-level dealings, there were other early links between Ireland and the Bolsheviks. While living in New York, the Irish poet Padraic Colum met the Russian revolutionary, Platon Lebedev, who is said to have helped Colum travel to Ireland at the time of the Easter Rising. Using the pseudonym Kerzhenets, Lebedev published numerous works about Ireland in Russian, including ‘Ireland in the Fight for Independence’ (1936). On a more literary note, ‘The Gadfly’ a revolutionary tale written by Co...