Obituary: Ivan Corry (2023)

Obituary from the February 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are saddened to have to report the death in December of our comrade Ivan Corry at the age of 90. Ivan was from Dublin and joined the Socialist Party of Ireland (SPI) in his twenties. Like many who had passed through their hands he had an abiding contempt for the Catholic Church, compounded by the experience of priest-led mobs trying to break up SPI outdoor meetings as ‘godless communism’. He was part of the large-scale Irish emigration to England in the 1950s, including most members of the Dublin branch of the SPI. Some members found work in the car factories in the Midlands. Ivan went to London where he worked in his trade of upholsterer. He joined the Islington branch in 1956 and became an active member. In fact he was known right up to the 2000s for his exuberant and memorable appeals at Conference for the Party to be more active. When he was younger he had been one of a number of branch members who were amateur wrestlers (Ivan was actually the name he adopted for this and for his Party membership, as his legal name was Sean). On retirement he moved to Worthing on the south coast but continued to visit London from time to time.