Irish history

In Ireland at the present time there are at work a variety of agencies seeking to preserve the national sentiment in the hearts of the people. These agencies, whether Irish Language movements, Literary Societies or Commemoration Committees, are undoubtedly doing a work of lasting benefit to this country in helping to save from extinction the precious racial and national history, language and characteristics of our people. Nevertheless, there is a danger that by too strict an adherence to their present methods of propaganda, and consequent neglect of vital living issues, they may only succeed...

Part of a series of articles on Connolly: workersliberty.org/connolly James Connolly had a very narrow idea of the Marxism he expounded. Whereas Marxists such as Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Vladimir Ulianov (Lenin) and others of that time thought that there were three fronts in the class struggle, the political, economic and ideological (the battle of ideas), Connolly thought and militantly asserted that there were only two fronts, the economic (trade-union) and political. He believed in fighting for the working-class side in the trade-union and political fronts of the class struggle, and...

Unlike many previous biographies of James Connolly, Liam McNulty’s tells us a story of Connolly evolving, and shifting and changing politically, under the diverse influences of the intense and lively socialist and revolutionary movements of his time, especially in Britain, in the USA, in Ireland, and in France. It is not a story of Connolly as a cardboard hero who knew it all from the start. Perhaps one of the greatest values of Connolly’s writings today is in his evolving appreciation of industrial unionism and sympathetic strikes. The ideas originated not from him but from others such as...

Our good friend the Daily Citizen describes the scenes attendant upon the intended departure of some Dublin children to Great Britain, under the auspices of a committee organised there for the purpose of taking care of children of the locked out workers; as “the most extraordinary scene in this most extraordinary industrial conflict in this country.” We do not wonder at our British friends being surprised, nor at them being horrified, nor at them being scandalised and shocked at the treatment to which they have been subjected, and the vile aspersions cast upon their motives. For ourselves we...

The story of the United Irishmen, and the Irish uprising of 1798. First published to mark the 200th anniversary in 1998, in Workers' Liberty magazine #50/51. Who fears to speak of ‘98? Who blushes at the name? When cowards mock the patriot’s fate Who hangs his head for shame? - The Memory of the Dead, John Kells Ingram From May to September of 1798 the power of Britain in Ireland was threatened by fierce rebellion. The rising had the character of a forest fire. It was rarely clear where the main centre was. When any significant source of unrest was identified and attacked it appeared that the...

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I’m not sure if I’ve read every serious biography or study of the great Irish socialist, James Connolly, but I think I have just read the best. Whereas others have sought either to claim him for their own particular project or discredit him as a nationalist renegade, Liam McNulty’s recent book, James Connolly: Socialist, Nationalist and Internationalist does Connolly the honour of trying to properly understand his ideas and political development. Connolly has too often been the victim of selective and partial readings, whether from nationalists who ignore his long record of activity as a...

The centre of Cork after being burnt by British Black and Tans paramilitaries, 1920 On 21 January 1919, Irish Volunteers from the 3rd Tipperary Brigade lay in wait for a Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) patrol, guarding explosives on the move from a nearby quarry. As the horse-drawn cart, carrying 160lb of gelignite, approached the position of the ambush party, the Volunteers, led by Sean Treacy and Dan Breen, called for the RIC men to surrender and then opened fire. Both RIC officers, James McDonnell and Patrick O’Connell, were killed. The Soloheadbeg ambush was the first engagement in what...

In Solidarity 657 Sacha Ismail highlighted the plight of young women taken to the Magdalene Laundries in 26-Counties Ireland, where supposedly “fallen” young women, many of them teenagers, were subjected to “spiritual” correction (in other words punishment). A number of films have been made in recent years featuring their plight and that of other young women and children dispatched to orphanages, also run by the Catholic Church. One of the most hard-hitting is The Magdalene Sisters (Peter Mullan, 2002). The film follows the fortunes of four teenage women, one of whom, Crispina, is mentally ill...

Part of a series of articles on Connolly: workersliberty.org/connolly At first James Connolly responded to World War One in line with the international socialist movement’s Basle Manifesto of 1912. We saw that in the instalments of this series on Connolly in Solidarity 652 and 653. From late August 1914 he shifted to a pro-German stance in line with the previous writings of the Irish Republican Brotherhood. Some perverted battle-lines Nothing is more remarkable in this war than the manner in which the ruling class in the countries of the Triple Alliance have appropriated and used for their own...