Colm Bryce, 1965-2025
Derry was engulfed in a shroud of grief, sadness, deep love and appreciation at the passing of my beautiful partner, lover, husband, comrade and soulmate Colm Bryce. So were many in London, Glasgow, Australia and across the world.
The outpouring of heartfelt, immensely political tributes is a testament to the man he is. They came from those who knew and loved him through his life as a committed revolutionary socialist, and from other areas of his very rich life.
Colm managed to combine a staunch, determined strength of conviction with a gorgeously tender softness and vulnerability. That flowed through his commitment to fighting for a better world, the seriousness with which he took music, art, culture, clothes (a beautiful Mod) and his always very cool demeanour.
He truly loved people, and this was why he fiercely hated oppression of any kind. It made him the life and soul of any party, and also the man on the very front lines of a picket line or protest or struggle.
“Never take a backward step,” “I want us to go out and meet it,” and, “My heart was fit to burst,” are phrases his sweet dulcet tones would return to. They were instantly recognisable to anyone who knew Colm.
Colm was immensely proud of and deeply shaped by growing up in Derry, under British occupation in the 1970s. He was forged in that heightened, intensely political atmosphere in the north of Ireland.
His family emigrated to Australia in 1980, and Colm would always reflect on the dislocation he felt catapulted from that atmosphere of Derry to suburban Sydney. That was reflected in the staunchness with which he and his brother held onto their Derry accents.
Colm’s reflections on his time in Australia left you with an enormous respect for a very remarkable and intensely political human being. It showed how he was driven by that love and appreciation for the beauty of people and refusal to leave injustice unchallenged.
Words are short, and the tribute page that follows this article, is a space for all Colm’s impact as a sharp, kind, determined and brilliantly talented revolutionary.
Throughout his life, Colm played a very big role and maintained close connections with many different branches of the International Socialist Tendency. He was extremely worldly, informed and well read.
He keenly followed the developments of the movements in different countries, the strategic focusses of the revolutionaries. And it was something we talked about daily and endlessly over debrief pints at the end of the day.
It was his first port of call on any trip. His constant political thirst to listen and engage was with him even in his last few days despite the sharp decline in his energy.
He was excited to hear about the size and nature of the Summit of Resistance. And he said quietly how much it meant to have comrades pop by and lift his mood with political discussion.
Despite his cancer and what this meant for us in day to day life, he was fiercely encouraging of my own often quite demanding political role. He was extremely exercised about the strategy to take on the far right and threat of fascism.
Colm was one of the Raytheon 9 who took on the arms factory in Derry in 2006. He used his much celebrated role in the Palestine movement as a way to discuss the political importance of strategy. He always emphasised that the power of the Raytheon action was how it was intrinsically part of the wider anti-war movement.
This short article can in no way do justice to the incredible revolutionary that Colm was. His time as the Bookmarks publisher, as well as working for the Socialist Workers Party, reflected something very fundamental about Colm’s impact as a revolutionary and as a person.
The time and care and high level of political understanding, reading and grounding he would bring to every project is alive in the feeling of those whose books he worked on.
Many comrades place their time chatting with Colm as a major part of their own political development and what convinced them to become a revolutionary socialist.
It was how Colm combined this huge weight of Marxist understanding, knowledge and intelligence with the way he felt about people. He was ever fascinated to discuss things and would give so much time to chatting gently and warmly about the world.
This was something he was completely at the heart of in Glasgow, at a national level, or in any of the branch meetings he did. There is so much more to say.
His beautiful soulful and brilliant light is burning bright and will continue to for comrades, friends and all of us who love him. It will burn in bars and rooms, on the streets of Derry, London and Glasgow, and in spaces all over the world for all the people Colm has shaped in his beautiful, fierce life.
We invite people to send us their memories of Colm to [email protected] for publication.
Arrangements for Colm’s send-off this week:
Thursday 17 April: Burial at Magheragallan – 4pm arrival in Gweedore (Donegal), leaving Palmerston Park in Derry at 2pm
Friday 18 April: Colm’s Leaving Ceremony- 1pm at St Columb’s Hall in Derry, followed by drinks in Sandinos from 4pm
Donations instead of flowers to Stand Up To Racism
