James Connolly Let Us Free Ireland

... a manly figure in green grasped the other's hand beneath the Post Office porch, crying, "Thank God, Pearse, we have lived to see this day!"

Connolly to Pearse at the outset of the Rising and declaration of the Irish Republic.

"No work in Ireland for Irishmen, lots of work in Ireland for Brit-Huns – every ship that goes to England carrying away Irish men to jobs in England; every ship that comes to Ireland carrying over Brit-Huns to jobs in Ireland.

Was ever a nation so beset?"

#scab #immigration #capitalism #wages

Pearse - Three Addresses - Robert Emmett and the Ireland of Today 2

"We Irish are today the only working class in Europe who are not in revolt against the slavery of the capitalist system; we are the only people with whom the highest ambition in life is to get a good wage from their masters; we are the only people who have not risen intellectually to a conception of what life might be without masters; we are the only people, outside of England, who are trade unionists only in the shop, but become the veriest lackeys of our masters at the political ballot box; and we would all die for the freedom of our country, yet would continue that country in the hands of employers and landlords, who could at their will refuse us the right to live upon it."

#irishpeople #country #capitalism #landlord

"You are neglecting your duty as long as you allow your City Hall to be in the power of men who as landlords derive their living from the rents they extort...

You are traitor to your duty as long as you elect to Parliament the members of a political party which... is officered, managed and financed by that same class – the landlords of our city slums."

#irishtraitor #landlord

James Connolly, this day, May Day, 1908, NYC.

https://www.facebook.com/1427493844128941/posts/2895482937330017/?d=n

"This is Joe Plunkett and he has more courage in his little finger than all the other leaders combined."

- James Connolly to his son when asked about Plunkett.

"It will be found that Ireland failed in the present crisis where her children knew least about the past of their race. And Ireland most wisely met the crisis where her sons and daughters knew most of what that past had held for the people of Ireland."

#irishrace #irishpeople #history

"The dispersion of the clans, of course, put an end to the leadership of the chiefs, and in consequence, the Irish aristocracy being all of foreign or traitor origin, Irish patriotic movements fell entirely into the hands of the middle class, and became, for the most part, simply idealised expressions of middle-class interest.

Hence the spokesmen of the middle class, in the Press and on the platform, have consistently sought the emasculation of the Irish National movement, the distortion of Irish history"

#irishtraitor #history

"Betrayed and deserted by all but a faithful few, Ireland was attacked by every poisonous agency ever brought to bear upon the mind and soul of a people. Her religion, her love of nationality, her strict sexual morality, her natural affection for the weak, her sympathy for suffering and distress – every high and noble instinct implanted in her by ages of suffering, was appealed to that her children might deny the past of their country, and surrender their hopes of moulding its future. Ireland was asked, nay, was ordered, to deny all that her martyrs had affirmed, to affirm all that her martyrs had denied. And this assault upon the soul of the country was planned and carried out in all its minutes and most revolting details by the men whom a cruel fate had allowed to become the leaders and guides of Irish public opinion."

#nation #martyrs #country #history #future

"The Socialists will not understand why I am here; they forget I am an Irishman."


Wounded and unable to stand, James Connolly was strapped to a chair and executed on the 12th May 1916.

James Connolly's Last Statement (1916)


Given to his daughter Nora Connolly on eve of his murder by the British

To the Field General Court Martial, held at Dublin Castle, on May 9th, 1916:

I do not wish to make any defence except against charges of wanton cruelty to prisoners. These trifling allegations that have been made, if they record facts that really happened deal only with the almost unavoidable incidents of a hurried uprising against long established authority, and nowhere show evidence of set purpose to wantonly injure unarmed persons.

We went out to break the connection between this country and the British Empire, and to establish an Irish Republic. We believed that the call we then issued to the people of Ireland, was a nobler call, in a holier cause, than any call issued to them during this war, having any connection with the war. We succeeded in proving that Irishmen are ready to die endeavouring to win for Ireland those national rights which the British Government has been asking them to die to win for Belgium. As long as that remains the case, the cause of Irish freedom is safe.

Believing that the British Government has no right in Ireland, never had any right in Ireland, and never can have any right in Ireland, the presence, in any one generation of Irishmen, of even a respectable minority, ready to die to affirm that truth, makes that Government for ever a usurpation and a crime against human progress.

I personally thank God that I have lived to see the day when thousands of Irish men and boys, and hundreds of Irish women and girls, were ready to affirm that truth, and to attest it with their lives if need be.

 

JAMES CONNOLLY,
Commandant-General, Dublin Division,
Army of the Irish Republic

Ireland 1916. Citizens Army during World War One.

Founding members of the Irish Women's Workers Union. Outside Liberty Hall in Dublin, 1914.

Soldiers of Cumann na mBan - Brian O'Higgins

Cumann na mBan is an Irish nationalist women's organisation formed in 1914 to assist the Irish Volunteers in the struggle for Irish freedom. To this end they fundraised, provided medical care, carried out scouting operations and, at times, engaged in gunfights. Around the time of the Easter Rising, this song was written to commemorate the efforts made by this valiant organisation.

All honour to Óhlaigh na hÉreann
All praise to the men of our race
Who in days of betrayal and slavery
Saved Éireann from shame and disgrace

But do not forget in your praising
Of them and the deeds they have done
Their loyal and true-hearted comrades
The soldiers of Cumann na mBan!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sgp56f_IRkE

I
Talking of Gaelic scholars brings me by an easy and natural transition to speak of the great Celtic renascence of late years. I think it has its bad and its good points. Its bad points are, in my opinion, only accidental to the movement and were well got rid of.

They consist in the attempt to exclude all other methods of culture, to deny the value of all other literature and the worth of all other peoples and, in general, to make our Irish youths and maidens too self-centred. I believe the Gaelic movement has great promise of life in it, but that promise will only be properly fulfilled when it naturally works its way into the life of the nation, side by side with every other agency making for a regenerated people.

The chief enemy of a Celtic revival today is the crushing force of capitalism which irresistibly destroys all national or racial characteristics, and by sheer stress of its economic preponderance reduces a Galway or a Dublin, a Lithuania or a Warsaw to the level of a mere second-hand imitation of Manchester or Glasgow. In the words of Karl Marx, “Capitalism creates a world after its own image,” and the image of Capitalism is to be found in the industrial centres of Great Britain. A very filthy image indeed.

You cannot teach starving men Gaelic; and the treasury of our national literature will and must remain lost forever to the poor wage-slaves who are contented by our system of society to toil from early morning to late at night for a mere starvation wage. Therefore, I say to our friends of the Gaelic movement – your proper place is in the ranks of the Socialist Republican Party, fighting for the abolition of this accursed social system which grinds us down in such a manner; which debases the character and lowers the ideals of our people to such a fearful degree, that to the majority of our workers the most priceless manuscript of ancient Celtic lore would hold but a secondary place in their esteem beside a rasher of bacon.

Help us to secure to all our fellow-countrymen, a free, full, and happy life; secure in possession of a rational, human existence, neither brutalised by toil nor debilitated by hunger, and then all the noble characteristics of our race will have full opportunity to expand and develop. And when all that is good in literature, art and science is recognised as the property of all – and not the heritage of the few – your ideals will receive the unquestioned adhesion of all true Irishmen.

I do not ask you to cease for a moment your endeavours on your present lines of education, but only to recognise in us your natural allies, as you should recognise that those who, under any pretext, however specious, would ask you to help them to perpetuate that British capitalism – which now thwarts you at every turn – is your enemy and the enemy of your cause. The success of our cause is certain – sooner or later. But the welcome light of the sun of freedom may, at any moment, flash upon our eyes and with your help we would not fear the storm which may precede the dawn.

II
I do believe in the necessity, and indeed in the inevitability of an universal language; but I do not believe it will be brought about, or even hastened, by smaller races or nations consenting to the extinction of their language. Such a course of action, or rather of slavish inaction, would not hasten the day of a universal language, but would rather lead to the intensification of the struggle for mastery between the languages of the greater powers.

On the other hand, a large number of small communities, speaking different tongues, are more likely to agree upon a common language as a common means of communication than a small number of great empires, each jealous of its own power and seeking its own supremacy. I have heard some doctrinaire Socialists arguing that Socialists should not sympathise with oppressed nationalities or with nationalities resisting conquest. They argue that the sooner these nationalities are suppressed the better, as it will be easier to conquer political power in a few big empires than in a number of small