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.
In 1954, Jim Lane joined the Irish Republican Army (IRA), Sinn Féin and the Cork Volunteers' Pipe Band.
[2] This Cork-based group, which comprised a large number of left-wing former IRA members, produced an influential newsletter in the early to mid-1960s called An Phoblacht (The Republic).
Relations between the group and the IRA were strained for much of the 1960s with the IRF regularly criticising the politics of the Republican Movement and arguing for a socialist way forward.
[3] Jim Lane was a leading figure in this group, as was Seán Daly (a former IRA commander) who was later to write books on Irish labour history.
Despite his membership of Saor Éire, he was briefly the intelligence officer for Dáithí Ó Conaill's command area around County Londonderry/County Donegal at the time of the disturbances.
Also, the rise of the Provisionals fatally undermined Saor Éire's attempt to build a Marxist socialist-republican alternative to the official Republican Movement.
[5] Lane subsequently joined with others in forming the Cork Communist Organisation, which attended the "Comhairle Na Mumhan" conference, aimed at supporting the Éire Nua plan of Ruairí Ó Brádaigh.