Irish history

Charlotte Despard in Ireland in the 1920s

Charlotte Despard and Irish republican Maud Gonne Part two of a series on the feminist and socialist Charlotte Despard (1844-1939). Part one is here . “Bad news from Ireland… (the General Post Office) is in the hands of the rebels”. That was an entry in Charlotte Despard’s diary in April 1916. A couple of days later she wrote “the Irish trouble seems to be spreading”. These in-passing comments in Charlotte’s diary, written in the midst of World War One and all the activities and causes she was involved in on the ground in London, were about events yet to have a significant impact on her. The...

Glorious Dublin!

Dublin workers wait for food aid ships sent by British unions To the readers of Forward possibly some sort of apology is due for the non-appearance of my notes for the past few weeks, but I am sure that they quite well understand that I was, so to speak, otherwise engaged. On the day I generally write my little screed, I was engaged on the 31st of August in learning how to walk around in a ring with about 40 other unfortunates kept six paces apart, and yet slip in a word or two to the poor devil in front of or behind me without being noticed by the watchful prison warders. The first question I...

Catholicism and socialism

This is the title of a pamphlet by Patrick J. Cooney of Bridgeport, Conn., which we would like to see in the hands of all our readers, and especially those who are struggling towards the light out of the economic darkness of today.

The religiosity of Connolly and Larkin (2)

This is the title of a pamphlet by Patrick J. Cooney of Bridgeport, Conn., which we would like to see in the hands of all our readers, and especially those who are struggling towards the light out of the economic darkness of today.

The religiosity of Connolly and Larkin (1)

Part of a series of articles on Connolly: workersliberty.org/connolly Introduction: Connolly, Larkin and The Irish Worker , by Sean Matgamna Both Jim Larkin and James Connolly were Catholics, children respectively of Liverpool and Edinburgh Irish immigrants. Connolly was a “mick-mac”, an Irish Scots Catholic. Both received the religion as part of what they were. Both passed themselves off in Ireland as Irish-born, Connolly from Monaghan. Connolly’s real age and origins were given in the official history of the Social Democratic Federation in 1935. With Desmond Greaves’s biography in 1961 they...

Connolly as Home Rule reformist (3)

Part of a series of articles on Connolly: workersliberty.org/connolly Introduction: the phases of James Connolly, by Sean Matgamna In the course of his political activity James Connolly went through a number of phases, and sub-phases as well. First, in the 1890s, there was the Social Democratic Federation and more or less conventional Social Democracy of the era. The SDF advocated “Legislative Independence for Ireland”, not a republic. This is what Marx himself had argued for — the 1782 affair, only democratised. There is no evidence that Connolly disagreed. Later, from 1898, he would call his...

James Connolly, politically unexpurgated

• Connolly and the Catholic "Orange Order" , Solidarity 613, with "The Ancient Order of Hibernians", Forward 18 March 1911 (original headline “Mr John E Redmond MP: His Strength and Weakness”) • Yellow unions in Ireland , Solidarity 614, from Forward 20 June 1914, with an introduction • The churches and the mobs in the battle for human freedom , Solidarity 615, with “The Irish Presbyterians and Home Rule”, Forward 21 June 1913 • What is the sympathetic strike? , Solidarity 622, with: section from "Labour in Dublin", The Irish Review October 1913; "Old wine in new bottles", The Age, 30 April...

Kino Eye - Ireland on film: Strumpet City

The recent articles in Solidarity on James Connolly and other aspects of Irish labour history bring to mind what some have called the “great Irish novel”: James Plunkett’s Strumpet City , adapted for TV by Hugh Leonard and broadcast in Ireland in 1980 and then the UK. Strumpet City covers the period from 1907 to 1914, taking as its central event the Dublin Lockout of 1913. Connolly doesn’t make an appearance (he was in the USA for some of this time) but we are offered a surprisingly bravado performance from Peter O’Toole as the famous labour leader Jim Larkin. For me, however, the TV...

For workers' unity and a democratic united Ireland

This year marks the centenary of the partition of Ireland and the creation of the Northern Ireland (NI) state. It comes after a rare period of relative peace in the territory, and Unionists might have hoped that the celebrations could have been less contentious than previously. In fact the stability of both NI and Unionism have been thrown into question by the emerging impact of Brexit. The imposition of a customs border in the sea between Britain and NI, in flat contradiction to explicit promises made by Boris Johnson, has become a flashpoint for loyalist insecurity and anger. Street rioting...

Marxism and Irish politics: Rayner Lysaght and Sean Matgamna debate and discussion

In November 2018, the longtime Irish-based Trotskyist Rayner Lysaght debated with Sean Matgamna, a founding member of Workers’ Liberty, on Marxist perspectives on Irish history and the Irish revolution. The following day they had an extended discussion on related topics. This has been recorded and released as nine videos.

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