Jim Lane

Who is Jim Lane?

Jim Lane is an Irish republican and socialist. He was born 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. Jim Lane's mother, Mary Ann, was in Cumann na Cailini and Cumann na mBan, the girl's and women's sections respectively of the Republican Movement, from childhood until 1935.

In 1954, Jim Lane joined the Irish Republican Army, Sinn Féin and the Cork Volunteers' Pipe Band. He subsequently actively participated in the IRA's 1956–62 border campaign. He was one 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.

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.