“A socialistic nation of scholars and students”
This, from Erin’s Hope (1897), was James Connolly’s first statement of his thesis that primitive communism survived in Ireland much longer than in other countries, indeed until the 17th century, and so the struggle for socialism there equated with the struggle against foreign impositions. It is the fourth instalment on “Connolly’s historiography” in our long-running series on Connolly, politically unexpurgated . “Before the time of the conquest, the Irish people knew nothing of absolute property in land. The land belonged to the entire sept; the chief was little more than the managing member...