Irish history

“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...

National and economic subjection in Irish history

This third instalment on “Connolly’s historiography” in our series Connolly, politically unexpurgated is chapter one of Connolly’s longest and most-worked-on piece of writing, Labour in Irish History . It argues that even the best middle-class Irish nationalist leaders offered no more than “such reforms as might remove irritating and unnecessary officialism, while leaving untouched the basis of national and economic subjection”. But it depicted national and economic “subjection” (via capitalist or via feudal relations) as more or less synonymous, and the struggle against both as a struggle...

The Irish working-class and its inheritance

This second instalment on “Connolly’s historiography” in our series Connolly, politically unexpurgated is the foreword to his booklet Labour in Irish History (1910). Its conclusion, ”only the Irish working class remain as the incorruptible inheritors of the fight for freedom in Ireland”, is one of Connolly’s most-quoted maxims, but the lead-up to that conclusion defines “freedom” as restoration of (supposedly communistic) Gaelic tradition, and equates capitalism with “foreignism”. In her great work, The Making of Ireland and its Undoing , the only contribution to Irish history we know of which...

"The Conquest of Ireland"

In this chapter from the 1915 pamphlet The Reconquest of Ireland, Connolly set out a thesis that “the genius of the Irish race” had produced and continued to relatively modern times a communistic form of society, and the development of capitalism in Ireland was not so much economic evolution as a matter of “the capitalist and landlord classes” being “still saturated with the spirit of the English conquest”. This is the first instalment on “Connolly’s historiography”, in our series on “Connolly, politically unexpurgated”. The whole series is available here . Before we can talk of or develop a...

James Connolly's Marxism part eight: Socialism in Ireland

The articles by James Connolly in this issue of Solidarity are part of our series, “Connolly, politically unexpurgated”. They express Connolly’s answer on the issue of how socialism would make headway in Ireland given the hostile influence of the priests and the division of the working class on religious lines. We find that amongst a large section of the Irish in this country [the USA], and Irish Socialists here are included, it is tacitly assumed that Socialism cannot take root in Ireland, that the Home Rule press, the supposed conservative habits of thought of the people and, above all, the...

The Land Acts and socialism

It is interesting to observe how Ireland has been and is being made the scene of many radical experiments in legislation which, in any other country, would be only looked for as the result of a great Socialist upheaval. The Land Acts or rather the Purchase Clauses of the Land Acts upon which so many of our doctrinaires waste so much good ink in reckless denunciations are, despite their many drawbacks, an assertion of the right of the original community not only to establish new property relations to suit new ideas, but also to establish tribunals by means of which the working of these...

Connolly, the strike, and the children of Dublin

Part of a series of articles on Connolly: workersliberty.org/connolly James Connolly, in support of Jim Larkin, led the workers of Dublin in the great Labour War of 1913-14. The attempt to get strike-bound children to families in Britain and Northern Ireland that would take care of them during the strike was a major event in the Labour War. It led to a sectarian Catholic hue and cry. The then very strong “Catholic Orange Order”, the Ancient Order of Hibernians (Board of Erin), rioted and attacked strikers. Eventually it was direct physical force that stopped the transfer of strikers’ children...

Michael Collins, from 1916 to 1922

April 10 was 25 years after the Good Friday Agreement, and 24 May will be 100 years after the end of the Irish civil war. Neil Jordan’s 1996 film Michael Collins , with Liam Neeson as the Republican military leader Michael Collins, begins with the defeat of the 1916 uprising in Dublin. Collins vows that the next struggle will be different, a guerrilla war where the British superiority in numbers and arms will not prove decisive. After springing Eamon de Valera (Alan Rickman) from prison, he builds up an effective guerrilla force. He wipes out the British secret service agents in Dublin and the...

Connolly's Marxism, part four: Physical force in Irish politics

The articles by Connolly we have this week formulate his attitude to the physical-force and cultural-nationalist traditions in Ireland as he found them on his first arrival there as a socialist organiser. Ireland occupies a position among the nations of the earth unique in a great variety of its aspects, but in no one particular is this singularity more marked than in the possession of what is known as a “physical force party” — a party, that is to say, whose members are united upon no one point, and agree upon no single principle, except upon the use of physical force as the sole means of...

This website uses cookies, you can find out more and set your preferences here.
By continuing to use this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.