*James Connolly-Commandant- Irish Citizens Army- A Critical Appreciation Of Easter, 1916

Click on title to link to "Workers Hammer" (International Communist League/Great Britain newspaper) critical appreciation of James Connolly, a hero of the Irish rebellion of Easter , 1916.

"James Connolly"

The man was all shot through that came to day into the Barrack Square

And a soldier I, I am not proud to say that we killed him there

They brought him from the prison hospital and to see him in that chair

I swear his smile would, would far more quickly call a man to prayer

Maybe, maybe I don't understand this thing that makes these rebels die

Yet all men love freedom and the spring clear in the sky

I wouldn't do this deed again for all that I hold by

As I gazed down my rifle at his breast but then, then a soldier I.

They say he was different, kindly too apart from all the rest.

A lover of the poor-his wounds ill dressed.

He faced us like a man who knew a greater pain

Than blows or bullets ere the world began: died he in vain

Ready, Present, and him just smiling, Christ I felt my rifle shake

His wounds all open and around his chair a pool of blood

And I swear his lips said, "fire" before my rifle shot that cursed lead

And I, I was picked to kill a man like that, James Connolly



A great crowd had gathered outside of Kilmainham

Their heads all uncovered, they knelt to the ground.

For inside that grim prison

Lay a great Irish soldier

His life for his country about to lay down.

He went to his death like a true son of Ireland

The firing party he bravely did face

Then the order rang out: Present arms and fire

James Connolly fell into a ready-made grave

The black flag was hoisted, the cruel deed was over

Gone was the man who loved Ireland so well

There was many a sad heart in Dublin that morning

When they murdered James Connolly-. the Irish rebel



"James Connolly"

Marchin' down O'Connell Street with the Starry Plough on high
There goes the Citizen Army with their fists raised in the sky
Leading them is a mighty man with a mad rage in his eye
"My name is James Connolly - I didn't come here to die

But to fight for the rights of the working man
And the small farmer too
Protect the proletariat from the bosses and their screws
So hold on to your rifles, boys, and don't give up your dream
Of a Republic for the workin' class, economic liberty"

Then Jem yelled out "Oh Citizens, this system is a curse
An English boss is a monster, an Irish one even worse
They'll never lock us out again and here's the reason why
My name is James Connolly, I didn't come here to die....."

And now we're in the GPO with the bullets whizzin' by
With Pearse and Sean McDermott biddin' each other goodbye
Up steps our citizen leader and roars out to the sky
"My name is James Connolly, I didn't come here to die...

Oh Lily, I don't want to die, we've got so much to live for
And I know we're all goin' out to get slaughtered, but I just can't take any more
Just the sight of one more child screamin' from hunger in a Dublin slum
Or his mother slavin' 14 hours a day for the scum
Who exploit her and take her youth and throw it on a factory floor
Oh Lily, I just can't take any more

They've locked us out, they've banned our unions, they even treat their animals better than us
No! It's far better to die like a man on your feet than to live forever like some slave on your knees, Lilly

But don't let them wrap any green flag around me
And for God's sake, don't let them bury me in some field full of harps and shamrocks
And whatever you do, don't let them make a martyr out of me
No! Rather raise the Starry Plough on high, sing a song of freedom
Here's to you, Lily, the rights of man and international revolution"

We fought them to a standstill while the flames lit up the sky
'Til a bullet pierced our leader and we gave up the fight
They shot him in Kilmainham jail but they'll never stop his cry
My name is James Connolly, I didn't come here to die...."

*The Music Of The Irish Diaspora-In Honor Of Easter 1916

Click on the headline to link to a "YouTube" film clip of John McCormack performing "The Rose Of Tralee".

Commentary/CD REVIEW

I have mentioned in this space more times than one is reasonably allowed that in my youth in the early 1960's I listened to a local folk music radio program on Sunday nights. That program played, along with highlighting the then current up and coming folk revivalists like Bob Dylan and Dave Van Ronk, much American traditional music including things like the "Child Ballads". In short, music derived from parts of the "British" homeland. What I have not previously mentioned is that directly after that program I used to listen on that same radio station to the "Irish National Hour", a show devoted to all the old more traditional and unknown Irish ballads and songs. And, by the way, attempted to instill a respect for Irish culture, Irish heritage and the Irish struggle against the "bloody" British. (That struggle continues in one form or another today but that is a subject for another time.) Of course, today when every `progressive' radio station (or other technological format) has its obligatory "Keltic Twilight" programs we are inundated with music from the old country and this is no big deal but in those days it was another question.

All of this is by way of reviewing the music of the Irish Diaspora. Our Irish forebears had the `distinct' opportunity of following the British flag wherever it went, under one set of terms or another. And remember in those days the sun never set on that British Empire. So there are plenty of far-flung traditions to talk about. But, first comes the old country. Chocky Ar La (roughly translated- "Our Day Will Come")


Music For St. Patty's Day


Celtic: The Heart Of Ireland, Worldscapes, Mastertone, 1998

I have attempted, in order commemorate the celebration of Easter 1916 this year, in this space to go behind the usual St. Patty’s Day Irish music known to one an all, Irish or not. You know, those who are green for a day and then forget it. Fair enough. However I believe, in the interest of completeness, that it is necessary to take a look at those obvious Irish tunes, bastardized as they may have become over time and travel. Here goes.

This compilations of well- known Irish songs has the virtue of being produced by a record company that specializes in world musical traditions and so therefore has produced a representative sampling of Irish music that reflects the old instrumentals, the songs of loves lost or unrequited, songs of longing for Ireland, children’s songs and songs from the British occupation. Outstanding here are “Country Medley” to highlight the reel and jig tradition. “The Rose Of Tralee” for love’s longing. “Roison The Bow” and Carrickfergus” for longing for Ireland. “Three Grey Geese” for the kids. In this compilation “Galway Bay” with its line about the British trying to impose their strange language on the Irish will have to do for the political end.


The Rose of Tralee
By William Pembroke Mulchinock

The pale moon was rising above the green mountains,
The sun was declining beneath the blue sea,
When I strayed with my love by the pure crystal fountain,
That stands in the beautiful Vale of Tralee.

She was lovely and fair as the rose of the summer,
Yet 'twas not her beauty alone that won me.
Oh no, 'twas the truth in her eyes ever dawning
That made me love Mary, the Rose of Tralee.

The cool shades of evening their mantle were spreading,
And Mary all smiling was listening to me.
The moon through the valley her pale rays was shedding,
When I won the heart of the Rose of Tralee.

She was lovely and fair as the rose of the summer,
Yet 'twas not her beauty alone that won me.
Oh no, 'twas the truth in her eyes ever dawning
That made me love Mary, the Rose of Tralee.

In the far fields of India 'mid war's dreadful thunders,
Her voice was solace and comfort to me.
But the chill hand of death has now rent us asunder,
I'm lonely tonight for the Rose of Tralee.

She was lovely and fair as the rose of the summer,
Yet 'twas not her beauty alone that won me.
Oh no, 'twas the truth in her eyes ever dawning
That made me love Mary, the Rose of Tralee.

*A Segregated Peace- A View Of The Real Situation In Northern Ireland - A Guest Commentary

Click on the headline to link to a "The Boston Sunday Globe" article, dated March 14, 2010, by long time Ireland reporter, Kevin Cullen, concerning the situation in Northern Ireland in the twelve years since the Good Friday Peace Agreement of 1998.

Markin comment:

Obviously our socialist solution- federated workers republics linked to a larger federation of the British Isles (England, Scotland, Wales and maybe some of the other Celtic fringe areas), hard as it may seem to see how that would come to fruition given the past history in Ireland, doesn't seem so far-fetched after all if one reads this fact-filled report from a knowledgeable reporter on the situation in the North.

From The "Communist International" (1920)-Thomas Darragh-Revolutionary Ireland and Communism-In Honor Of James Connolly And The Easter Uprising Of 1916

Thomas Darragh

Revolutionary Ireland and Communism

Source: The Communist International, No. 11-12, June-July 1920, pp. 2281-2294, (4,901 words)
Transcription: Ted Crawford
HTML Markup: Brian Reid
Public Domain: Marxists Internet Archive (2007). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.

“Thomas Darragh” is believed to be a pseudonym for Roddy Connolly, James Connolly’s son, who was a founder member of the first Communist Party of Ireland. Roddy Connolly and Eamonn MacAlpine (an Irish-American and friend of Larkin) were the two official Irish delegates. Their visit to Russia was financed by Jack White. See Arguments for a Workers’ Republic for details of MacAalpine’s speech.—Note by transcriber.


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Ireland is of primary importance to international communism primarily for the following two reasons, viz: 1) its strategic position with regard to England, the seat of British imperialism; 2) the influence of Ireland’s political development on the broad masses of its nationals scattered throughout the British Empire and the United States of America.

For the purpose of this report it is necessary to give a brief survey of the Irish labour and socialist movements, and the personalities who played and are playing a part in their development. The recent history of the Irish labour movement may be said to start from the coming of Jim Larkin to Ireland in 1907. Up to this time very few of the Irish workers were organized in trades unions, and of these about 75 per cent were in Irish branches of English unions. They were mere dues-paying members who exercised little or no effect upon the policy of these unions, whose executive offices were in England.

Larkin, who was identified with the Independent Labour Party of England from its inception, came over as organizer of the English Dockers’ Union, and within a short time of his arrival the first big strike in Ireland took place in Belfast. This strike is noteworthy in as much as, along with the dock and transport workers of the city, the police came out on strike. It was marked by much rioting and military activity. Within a few months of the settlement of the Belfast dispute the dockers in Cork went on strike. As a result of the treatment meted out to the Belfast strikers by the executive of the union in England, and a continuation of the same policy with regard to the Cork workers, Larkin broke away from the English Dockers’ Union and organized the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union on the lines of industrial unionism. After a series of fiercely fought strikes the Transport Workers’ Union got a permanent foothold in the bigger ports and industrial centres. Connolly returned from America in 1910 and immediately went to see Larkin, who was in Mountjoy prison in Dublin. As a result of this meeting Connolly took over the management of the union during Larkin’s imprisonment, and on his release they joined forces. From this onwards they worked together until Larkin went to America to raise funds for the union treasury, which had been completely exhausted by the great Dublin strike of 1913-1914.

Connolly spent his early life in the Social Democratic movement in Britain, particularly in Scotland. He was one of the few intrepid young Marxists who in the early days of the Social Democratic Federation split from the first manifestations of Hyndman’s social-patriotism and reformism to form the Socialist Labour Party, of which he was the first chairman and organizer. Up to the last he was in constant touch with it and his influence is still felt in this organization, which is one of the few fighting socialist bodies in Britain. In 1896 he returned to Ireland and founded the Irish Socialist Republican Party, the first socialist party in Ireland. He was editor of its official organ, The Workers’ Republic, by means of which the revolutionary doctrines of the party began to make themselves felt on the Irish working masses. It is noteworthy to record that alone of all other parties, no matter how extreme in nationalism, the ISRP was the first to openly advocate the establishment of an Irish Republic. The party was small though active, and contested some few municipal elections without success.

In 1902 Connolly went to America to raise funds for the party by a lecture tour. The tour completed he stayed on and was identified with the foundation of the IWW, and was for a time an organizer of the American Socialist Labour Party. In 1908 he founded the Irish Socialist Federation in America and was editor of its official organ, The Harp, which was later transferred to Ireland. In 1910, on his return to Ireland, he published Labour in Irish History, the only Marxian interpretation of the history of the development of the Irish proletariat and peasantry.

From 1910, Larkin and Connolly dominated the Irish labour and socialist situation. Their work consisted in organizing the Irish Transport and General Workers Union, educating the masses in the use of the mass strike and the sympathetic strike, and in the transformation of the Irish Trade Union Congress into an Irish Labour Party. So powerful did the Transport Union become, with its revolutionary cry for the abolition of the wage system, that in 1913 the Irish bourgeoisie and English capitalist interests in Ireland combined to crush it. This resulted in the Dublin strike and lock-out, which lasted for over ten months and was the first great proletarian upheaval in Ireland. The radical section of the British workers rallied to the aid of their Irish comrades, sending money and food into Dublin; but the British labour leaders, true to their position as henchmen of the capitalist class and saboteurs of every revolutionary act of the workers, killed the demand for sympathetic action in Britain, and the Irish workers were forced back to the shops. This proved a pyrrhic victory for the bourgeoisie, the Transport Union emerging from the struggle depleted in membership and in funds, but still with its organization intact, and with a bitterness in the minds of the workers which flared into action in 1916.

The outbreak of the world war found the Transport Union sufficiently recovered to make vigorous protest against the social-traitors of British Labourism, who, rallying to the defence of the British Imperial state, assisted in the already beginning double brutal coercion of Ireland as a small nationality and the Irish workers as a class. Larkin and Connolly held meetings throughout the country, baring the capitalist-imperialist nature of the conflict; urging the workers to use the crisis by every means in their power; ruthlessly criticizing British Labourism; revealing the essentially bourgeois-imperialist content of the Irish Parliamentary Party, which had hitherto masqueraded as the party of democratic opposition to British imperialism, and now supported the war, and the equally bourgeois reaction of Sinn Féin, which declared Ireland to be neutral. Realizing that the difficulties of British imperialism must necessarily be the opportunity of the Irish proletariat, they set about the development of the Irish Citizen Army, extending its scope, arming its members and intensifying the military nature of its organization. In order to raise funds Larkin went to America, being exiled immediately the British government found he was out of the country, Connolly taking full charge of both the union and the Citizen Army, and carrying on the work alone. From now until Easter 1916, the Irish Citizen Army dominated Irish Labour politics.

The Irish Citizen Army
The Irish Citizen Army was founded in Cork in 1908. Its purpose was to protect the strikers from the brutality of the police, but beyond this it was little heard of and of no particular importance until the latter end of 1913, when it figured in several riots arising out of the Dublin strike. With the outbreak of the world war serious attention was paid to its organization, military instructors were obtained (the first instructor being Captain White, son of British Field Marshal Sir George White. He was identified with the Dublin strike and subsequently, in 1916, was arrested in South Wales for attempting to bring the miners out on strike to prevent Connolly’s execution) and the systematic arming of its members was begun. Connolly as Commandant surrounded himself with a socialist staff, the chief of whom was Michael Mallon, a silk weaver subsequently executed by the British in 1916. National revolutionary ferment developing rapidly all over the country was met by British military suppression, which resulted in the establishment of military staff co-operation between the Irish Volunteers (the Nationalist Republican armed forces) and the ICA, upon the initiative of the latter, which dominated the alliance until the 1916 rebellion. British activity in suppressing all revolutionary papers resulted in Connolly’s paper, The Workers’ Republic, being published under an armed guard of the Citizen Army, which also provided a guard for Liberty Hall, the headquarters of the Transport Union. This condition of affairs lasted for about three months, the last number of The Workers’ Republic being issued two days before the rebellion.

The Army was designed upon a proletarian basis, with the Commandant, staff officers and ordinary officers elected by the soldiers, and in addition, a governing committee consisting of equal representatives of the officers and the men. Its activities were confined to the neighbourhood of Dublin city. It was of first rate efficiency, outmatching in many competitions the rival Irish Volunteers, holding on several occasions demonstrations of actual street fighting, and its well-trained officers, especially the Commandant, lecturing and instructing the Irish Volunteers, particularly in street fighting. The ICA being drawn from the proletariat had within its ranks many men who through economic necessity had served in the British Army.

It was the ICA which set the pace in the months preceding the rebellion, and despite the usual wavering of the middle class leaders of the IV, when faced with the actual crisis the iron determination of the ICA and its leader forced the participation of the IV in the uprising. The immediate causes of the failure of the revolutionary forces was the countermanding at the eleventh hour of the mobilization order of the Irish Republican troops throughout the country by the timid right-wing bourgeois leaders, who had always opposed Connolly and the co-operation of the IV with the ICA. Despite this, 1,000 raw Republican troops defended the captured capital against 47,000 disciplined and modernly equipped British soldiers, a victorious onslaught on Dublin from the north county took place, and there were several attempts at uprisings in the West of Ireland.

In the rising the Citizen Army, as a unit of the Republican forces, attacked and seized Dublin Castle, the executive headquarters of the British government in Ireland, as well as holding several strategic positions throughout the city. Connolly was Commander-in-Chief of all the fighting forces of the Republic during the rising. After the surrender Connolly, who had been severely wounded during the fighting, and Michael Mallon, Chief of Staff of the ICA, were executed along with several of the left-wing nationalist leaders, while the majority of the remainder of the prominent proletarian leaders were killed during or after the fighting. An overwhelmingly greater percentage of the ICA than of the IV participated in the fighting, and as a result during the arrests that followed the ICA was practically destroyed as an organization, while the IV was able to preserve its organization intact throughout the greater portion of the country, where no fighting had occurred.

On its reorganization after the release of all prisoners in December 1917, the ICA retained its proletarian basis, but as the situation was now dominated by the IV and all the leaders of the ICA were killed, it steadily weakened, and is not now an effective influence on Irish political life. It must be remembered that it is not a Communist organization, although it is hostile to the present social democratic tendencies of the Socialist Party of Ireland, having co-operated with it only once, when it forced the holding of a meeting, despite the military, in favour of the Russian Bolshevik Revolution.

The ICA programme is the establishment by force of arms of a Workers’ Republic in Ireland, though the form and structure of such a republic are not consciously understood by the majority of its members.

Sinn Féin and the Irish Volunteers
In order properly to understand Sinn Féin it is necessary to deal with its political predecessor, the Irish Parliamentary Party. This party dominated Irish national politics for well over 40 years. Its aim was to secure Home Rule for Ireland within the British Empire, by constitutional means. Out of a total of 104 Irish members in the British Parliament the Irish Parliamentary Party numbered about 80, the remainder being mostly Unionists returned from the Protestant constituencies of North-East Ulster, who stand on the anti-Home Rule platform and are a wing of the English Tory Party.

Under the leadership of Parnell the Irish Parliamentary Party pursued a policy of obstruction in the British Parliament, and maintained its independence by refusing to ally itself with any British party, throwing its weight now to this side and now to that. This policy led to its gradually compromising, until finally it became the tail end of the English Liberal Party. Though still protesting its independence in Ireland, this attachment to the Liberal Party caused it to become identified with English Imperial politics, thus relinquishing its so-called democratic opposition to English imperialism. Its final act in this role was its opposition to the Boer War, 1899-1901.

Whilst this party was losing its hold on the national revolutionary mind of the people a new national policy in the form of Sinn Féin made its first appearance. A pamphlet called The Resurrection of Hungary. A Parallel for Ireland began to attract attention. In this work Arthur Griffith, an independent bourgeois journalist, traced Hungary’s fight for political independence against Austria, and advocated the adoption in Ireland of the tactics employed by the Hungarian nationalists. He sketched a programme, subsequently amplified with the attainment of his party to power after 1916, the most salient points being (a) the election of members by the English electoral system pledged to abstention from the British Parliament; (b) the actual setting up of an Irish Parliament or General Council; (c) refusal to pay taxes to the English imperial exchequer; (d) establishment of a policy of protection, especially against England; (e) the encouragement of Irish industries; (f) the building up of an Irish Consular service; (g) and the general encouragement of all Irish national movements, such as the Gaelic League, the organization of the Irish language-revival movement, the Gaelic Athletic Association for the revival of old Irish sports and games, the Irish literary and dramatic renaissance and the Irish Boy Scouts (Fianna), organized in opposition to the English military Baden-Powell Boy Scouts.

Sinn Féin was a party designed to use political and extra-parliamentary action, but did not advocate the use of arms for the accomplishment of its object, nor did it aim at the establishment of an Irish Republic. It remained true to the Hungarian parallel and urged the establishment of an Irish Parliament which should be united to the British Parliament only in the person of a British monarch, who would also be king of Ireland, thus ratifying the decrees of both Parliaments. In fact in the first decade of the twentieth century no party except the Irish Socialist Republican Party openly advocated an Irish Republic.

For many years, even up to the rebellion, despite the waning popularity and political bankruptcy of the Irish Parliamentary Party, Sinn Féin made little headway, existing rather as a critic of the Irish Parliamentary Party than as a definite political party. In its economic doctrine it followed the obsolete bourgeois economist Friedrich List, and its pronunciamentos on economic questions were reactionary in the extreme. In 1913 it assumed an attitude of hostility to the Dublin strike.

From the outbreak of the war to the rebellion Sinn Féin assumed a more revolutionary role, being largely influenced by the Irish Volunteer movement, which rather than Sinn Féin itself was the dominant National force in Irish politics. After the rebellion, though Sinn Féin played no actual active part in the struggle, by shedding the more reactionary portions of its doctrines aid harmonizing its programme with the now popular demand for an Irish Republic, it assumed the position of the political leader of the Irish people. It leaped from success to success until in the 1918 parliamentary general elections it swept the country, following which it set up its own Parliament, Dáil éireann, and attempted to form ministries and assume the government of the country. It was immediately declared illegal; since then it functions whenever possible, though most if its members and prominent officials are being continually imprisoned in English jails, from which they escape by hunger-striking, jail deliveries and other means. With the increasing oppression of English militarism Sinn Féin is coming more and more under the dominance of the Irish Volunteers. In the recent elections Sinn Féin captured the majority of the municipalities and rural councils, its nearest competitor being the Irish Labour Party, which co-operates with it in the local government of the country. The whole policy of Sinn Féin is to make British government impossible in Ireland, and at the same time to establish as many of its own institutions as possible, so that it may step in and function as the government of the country.

The Irish Volunteers in form is a purely military organization with a General Staff and officers elected by the rank and file. Its programme originally consisted in the establishment of an Irish Republic by force of arms, and now the Republic has crystallized into the form which is in the process of establishment by the united efforts of themselves and Sinn Féin. Its membership consists mostly of proletarians and the peasantry, though on the average mostly officered by the younger members of the petty bourgeoisie and farmers. The majority of the rank and file look upon the establishment of the Irish Republic as of the first importance, and are inclined to defer the solution of social problems to the successful accomplishment of this aim. The allegiance of the country members to this ideology is being somewhat under-mined by their being now mostly organized in the IT&GWU, the consequent spark of class consciousness derived from this, and the increasing economic difficulties which force them into opposition to the farmer-class members of the IV. On the whole there are but few socialists within their ranks, but many sympathizers and admirers of Connolly and the idea of a Workers’ Republic.

Owing to the constant national revolutionary ferment that dominates the activity of all classes of the population, and the almost universal opposition to England, which throws otherwise antagonistic classes into spasmodic co-operation, it is difficult actually to determine of what classes the various organizations are the Political expression. Roughly speaking Sinn Féin is controlled in the rural districts by the small farmers and petty peasantry or tenant farmers, in the towns by the small shopkeepers and middle men, and in he cities by the smaller manufacturers, merchants and bourgeois intellectuals. There are practically no big landowners or even moderately big capitalists in this movement; this class in Ireland being economically dependent upon English capitalism and having as its Political expression the English Liberal parties. The conglomeration of classes comprising Sinn Féin necessarily causes antagonism to develop within the Party and results, as long as endures the co-operation of these classes and the working masses, necessary to achieve political independence, in its being unable to formulate any definite socio-economic programme. Its aim being political independence, it finds it necessary to draw all classes of the population to it to accomplish this object, and, to preserve the co-operation of the classes, it dare not issue any definite political and economic programme. Instead it has issued a so-called democratic programme, breathing all the false glittering generalities of bourgeois democracy—the will of the sovereign people, the ownership of the land and resources of the country by and in the interests of the whole people, the equality of all citizens, etc., etc.; but it reveals its essential class content by promising international regulation of the conditions under which the working class will live. The ideology of the two allied movements, Sinn Féin and the Irish Volunteers, is similar to that of any small nationality. Finally the hope of Sinn Féin is the development of the already existing antagonism between America and England, and the tendency is to rely more and more on American capitalism and to become subservient to its interests.

The Irish Labour Movement
The Irish labour movement is composed of the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union, local or national craft unions, and branches of the big English trades unions, such as the National Union of Railwaymen and the Amalgamated Society of Engineers. It functions nationally through the Irish Trade Union Congress and Labour Party, and locally through Trades Councils, composed of representatives of the various unions in the district. By far the most powerful body is the IT&GWU, which now numbers 120,000 members. It was originally organized on the lines of industrial unionism, and though small in numbers and restricted to the larger towns, it wielded with tremendous efficiency and success the weapons of the mass and the sympathetic strike, at the same time carrying on an almost incessant revolutionary propaganda campaign. Since the rebellion, with the loss to the union of its two leading figures and the indiscriminate increase of its membership, its revolutionary outlook has deteriorated, until now it has become a federation of unskilled workers with a large sprinkling of craft unions and with bureaucratic and strong centralization tendencies. It is not a craft union, but neither has it kept abreast of the later developments of industrial unionism, consequently tending to become an unwieldy and ineffective weapon for the proletariat either against alien imperialism or native capitalism.

The larger portion of its membership at the present time consists of the poorer peasantry and agricultural labourers, who are not in close sympathy and whose activities are not in co-ordination with those of the industrial proletariat. It should not be forgotten, however, that the organization of the rural proletariat has been a tremendous accomplishment, and has imbued them with a certain amount of class consciousness. On account of the form of the organization and the failure of the IT&GWU sufficiently to educate these rural workers as to their class position, it has been demonstrated that this is not the organization to bridge the gulf between the agricultural and industrial proletariat.

The general condition of Irish life being nationalistically revolutionary, the IT&GWU, in common with the craft unions, has a much stronger fighting spirit than its English prototypes. In alliance with the Nationalists the Irish labour movement defeated conscription in 1918; on May 1, 1919, it stopped industry throughout the greater portion of the country; and only recently, again in alliance with the Nationalists, by a two day general strike it forced the British government to release over 100 political prisoners who were on hunger strike. In the majority of these cases, however, the general sentiment of the people practically forces the labour movement to take action, and the strike is carried out by unionists and non-unionists alike.

It is only comparatively recently that the IT&GWU has entered the political arena as a dominant force, and its successes in the late municipal elections have only strengthened its tendency toward reaction. The Irish Labour Party and Trade Union Congress, acting through its local Trades Councils, emerged from the municipal elections as the second party in numerical strength, and of the labour members elected the IT&GWU secured an overwhelming majority. This solidifies the domination of the Irish Labour Party and Trade Union Congress by the IT&GWU, which gave to it its present form and programme. Despite the insistence of the Labour Party that this programme was constructed by Connolly and must therefore be revolutionary, it refuses to understand that such a programme was designed for use by the proletariat in a pre-world-revolutionary period.

The attempt of the IT&GWU, under the slogan of the One Big Union, to absorb the craft unions, has led to the development of antagonisms within the Labour Party. The craft unions object to such absorption primarily because of their craft ideology, and also because they claim that the transport union does not represent industrial unionism, but the growth of a federation which is tending to bring the whole labour movement under a bureaucracy. The craft unions in Ireland are small and constantly dwindling. They are of little political importance with the exception of one or two big branches of English unions, the tendency of which is to break away from the parent bodies and form national unions. A large section of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers has already done so recently.

The transport union publishes the only labour paper in Ireland, The Watchword of Labour a weekly with a circulation of about 10,000 and which shares the common fate of all nationalist and rebel papers in Ireland—continual suppression by the government. This paper, while claiming to be the successor of Connolly’s revolutionary Workers’ Republic, in fact constantly emasculates his application of revolutionary Marxism to Ireland in much the same manner as Kautsky emasculates the general principles of Marxism. It voices or represents the views of the dominant section of the IT&GWU, the Irish Labour Party and the Socialist Party of Ireland.

Internationally the Irish labour movement is affiliated to the Yellow International. Cathal O’Shannon, the editor of The Watchword of Labour, executive member of the Irish Labour Party and at present President of the Socialist Party of Ireland; Thomas Johnston, treasurer of the Irish Labour Party; William O’Brien, secretary of the Irish Labour Party, treasurer of the IT&GWU, and one of the biggest forces in the Irish labour movement, and another Irish Labour Party executive member, together with Hughes, assistant secretary of the IT&GWU, who represented the Socialist Party of Ireland, being the delegates from Ireland. O’Shannon and Johnston, who were equipped with supplementary mandates from the SPI, were the only two to reach Berne. They signed the Adler-Longuet resolution and generally adopted the policy of that wing of the conference.

The Socialist Party of Ireland, which was founded in 1896, underwent many changes of programme and name, until now it is a very small and ineffective party with no bearing upon national politics. The same personalities who dominate the Irish Labour Party and the IT&GWU influence and direct its policy and tactics. For one brief spell it was captured by the left wing, which during its brief term of power, against the violent opposition of the rest of the Party, succeeded in introducing a few revolutionary conceptions into its long established programme, ordered the revocation of the affiliation to Berne and secured a majority vote in favour of the Third International, and held a meeting in Dublin on the last anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. Before it had time to consolidate its forces it lost power, consequently its orders regarding the internationals were never put into force. It is now a party numbering scarce 150 members in Dublin, about 30 of whom may be considered effective members, and a few hundred members throughout the country, badly organized and having no direct connection with each other or the Dublin headquarters. It is very inactive, has no paper and but a few pamphlets by its own members, none of which deal with the problems facing the Irish proletariat.

A force which will undoubtedly play an important part in the revolutionary development of Ireland is the Co-operative movement led by George Russell (A.E.) There are several well organized branches of this movement, which now form a considerable part of the economy of the country, and may readily be utilized by the proletarian state for the solution of the immediate problems of food distribution, etc. during the first period of the proletarian dictatorship. It is in the co-operative production on the land by the poor peasantry that the Communists will be chiefly interested. This movement, which tends to destroy, even now, the ideology of small private property ownership among the land-hungering poorer peasantry, is of paramount importance to the Communists. For it actively tends to the solution of one of the most important and difficult problems of the proletarian state, by initiating the organization of the poorer peasantry on the basis of large-scale co-operative production, thus mentally harmonizing the two sections of the working class and making certain the unity of the industrial proletariat and peasantry under the dictator-ship of the proletariat.

Ulster, or more properly the north-east corner of Ireland, is the big manufacturing and industrial centre. Industrially it bears a greater resemblance than any other part of the country to the highly industrialized portions of England and Scotland. It is dominated by the only big capitalists in the country, who are closely allied with the British bourgeoisie. Economically the workers are organized in branches of English Trades unions, and politically the vast majority adheres to the Unionist Party, the party of extreme opposition to Sinn Féin and any form of Irish nationalism. One of the main factors, though steadily declining of late years, is its religious antagonism to the rest of the country. In many respects the problems of the Communists are here much easier, it being possible to rally the proletariat to their banner on the straight issue of the capitalist state versus the proletarian state. The lack of any nationalist republican feeling on the part of the majority of the proletariat renders them hostile to the establishment of an Irish bourgeois republic. With the exception of the anti-Nationalist feeling, which is partly the outcome of religious bigotry, Ulster presents a problem similar to that presented by any large industrial centre, and for this reason may become one of the chief centres of the proletarian struggle against an Irish bourgeois state.

*Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By-"The Rising Of The Moon"- For Those Who Struggled For Ireland's Freedom

Click on the title to link a "YouTube" film clip of the Clancy Brothers performing the classic "Rising Of The Moon".

In this series, presented under the headline “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here. Markin.

By the Rising of the Moon-John Keegan

And come tell me Sean O'Farrell tell me why you hurry so
Husha buachaill hush and listen and his cheeks were all a glow
I bare orders from the captain get you ready quick and soon
For the pikes must be together by the rising of the moon

By the rising of the moon, by the rising of the moon
For the pikes must be together by the rising of the moon

And come tell me Sean O'Farrell where the gath'rin is to be
At the old spot by the river quite well known to you and me
One more word for signal token whistle out the marchin' tune
With your pike upon your shoulder by the rising of the moon

By the rising of the moon, by the rising of the moon
With your pike upon your shoulder by the rising of the moon

Out from many a mud wall cabin eyes were watching through the night
Many a manly heart was beating for the blessed warning light
Murmurs rang along the valleys to the banshees lonely croon
And a thousand pikes were flashing by the rising of the moon

By the rising of the moon, by the rising of the moon
And a thousand pikes were flashing by the rising of the moon

All along that singing river that black mass of men was seen
High above their shining weapons flew their own beloved green
Death to every foe and traitor! Whistle out the marching tune
And hurrah, me boys, for freedom, 'tis the rising of the moon

'Tis the rising of the moon, 'tis the rising of the moon
And hurrah, me boys, for freedom, 'tis the rising of the moon

From The In Defense Of Marxism Website- On The 100th Anniversary-Connolly and the 1916 Easter Uprising

Connolly and the 1916 Easter Uprising

Written by Ted Grant
Saturday, 14 April 2001

It is impossible to understand the Easter Rising without understanding the ideas of its leader, James Connolly, who considered himself a Marxist and based himself on the ideas of Internationalism and the class struggle. (Written by Ted Grant in 1966 on the 50th anniversary of the uprising.)

On 17th April 1916 the Irish Citizen Army, together with the Irish Volunteers, rose up in arms against the might of the British Empire to strike a blow for Irish freedom and for the setting up of an Irish Republic. Their blow for freedom was to reverberate round the world, and preceded the first Russian Revolution by almost a year.

The background to the rebellion was the centuries of national oppression suffered by the Irish people in the interests of British landlordism and capitalism. In this they had the support of the Irish landlords and capitalists, of the Catholic hierarchy, who were linked by ties of interest to the Imperialists, and joined with them in fear of the Irish workers and peasants.

It is impossible to understand the Easter Rising without understanding the ideas of its leader, James Connolly, who considered himself a Marxist and based himself on the ideas of Internationalism and the class struggle. Like MacLean in Britain, Lenin and Trotsky, Liebknecht and Luxemburg and other Internationalists, Connolly regarded with horror the betrayal by the leaders of the Labour movement in all countries in supporting the Imperialist War. Dealing with the betrayal of the Second International, Connolly declared in his paper The Workers Republic: "If these men must die, would it not be better to die in their own country fighting for freedom for their class, and for the abolition of war, than to go forth to strange countries and die slaughtering and slaughtered by their brothers that tyrants and profiteers might live?" Protesting against the support by the British TUC of the war, Connolly wrote: "Time was when the unanimous voice of that Congress declared that the working class had no enemy except the capitalist class - that of its own country at the head of the list!"

Connolly stood for national freedom as a step towards the Irish Socialist Republic. But while the Stalinists and reformists today - 50 years after 1916 still mumble in politically incoherent terms about the need for the "national revolution against imperialism", Connolly was particularly clear about the class question that was at the basis of the Irish question. Without being in direct contact with Lenin and Trotsky he had a similar position. "The cause of Labour is the cause of Ireland, and the cause of Ireland is the cause of Labour", he wrote. "They cannot be dissevered. Ireland seeks freedom. Labour seeks that an Ireland free should be the sole mistress of her own destiny, supreme owner of all material things within and upon her soil".

Connolly had no illusions in the capitalists of any country, least of all Ireland. On International capitalism he wrote: "If, then, we see a small section of the possessing class prepared to launch into war, to shed oceans of blood and spend millions of treasure, in order to maintain intact a small portion of their privileges, how can we expect the entire propertied class to abstain from using the same weapons, and to submit peacefully when called upon to yield up forever all their privileges?"

And on the Irish capitalists, "Therefore the stronger I am in my affection for national tradition, literature, language, and sympathies, the more firmly rooted I am in my opposition to that capitalist class which in its soulless lust for power and gold would bray the nations as in a mortar". And again, "We are out for Ireland for the Irish. But who are the Irish? Not the rack-renting, slum-owning landlord; not the sweating, profit grinding capitalist; not the sleek and oily lawyer; not the prostitute pressmen - the hired liars of the enemy. Not these are the Irish upon whom the future depends. Not these, but the Irish working class, the only secure foundation upon which a free nation can be reared."

Writing on the need for an Irish insurrection to expel British imperialism he wrote in relation to the World War: "Starting thus, Ireland may yet set the torch to a European conflagration that will not burn out until the last throne and the last capitalist bond and debenture will be shrivelled on the funeral pyre of the last War lord."

As an answer to the demand for conscription which had been imposed in Britain and which was supported by the Irish capitalists for Ireland too, where the employers were exerting pressure to force Irish workers to volunteer, Connolly wrote: "We want and must have economic conscription in Ireland for Ireland. Not the conscription of men by hunger to compel them to fight for the power that denies them the right to govern their own country, but the conscription by an Irish nation of all the resources of the nation - its land, its railways, its canals, its workshops, its docks, its mines, its mountains, its rivers and streams, its factories and machinery, its horses, its cattle, and its men and women, all co-operating together under one common direction that gather under one common direction that Ireland may live and bear upon her fruitful bosom the greatest number of the freest people she has ever known."

He looked at the employers who were opposing conscription too from a critical class point of view: "if here and there we find an occasional employer who fought us in 1913 (the Great Dublin lock-out in which the employers tried to break union organisation, but were defeated in this object by the solidarity of the Irish workers and their British comrades too) agreeing with our national policy in 1915 it is not because he has become converted, or is ashamed of the unjust use of his powers, but simply that he does not see in economic conscription the profit he fancied he saw in denying to his followers the right to organise in their own way in 1913."

Answering objections to the firm working class point of view which he expounded he declared: "Do we find fault with the employer for following his own interests? We do not. But neither are we under any illusion as to his motives. In the same manner we take our stand with our own class, nakedly upon our class interests, but believing that these interests are the highest interests of the race."

It is in this light that the uprising of 1916 must be viewed. As a consequence of the struggles of the past Connolly who was the General Secretary of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union had organised the Citizens Army for the purpose of defence against capitalist and police attack and for preparing for struggle against British imperialism. The Citizens Army was almost purely working class in composition: dockers, transport workers, building workers, printers and other sections of the Dublin workers being its rank and file.

It was with this force and in alliance with the more middle class Irish volunteers that Connolly prepared for the uprising. He had no illusions about its immediate success. According to William O'Brien, on the day of the insurrection Connolly said to him: "We are going out to be slaughtered." He said "Is there no chance of success?" and Connolly replied "None whatsoever."

Connolly understood that the tradition and the example created would be immortal and would lay the basis for future freedom and a future Irish Socialist Republic. In that lay his greatness. What a difference from the craven traitors of the German Socialist and Communist and Trade Union leaders who despite having three million armed workers supporting them, and with the sympathy and support of the overwhelming majority of the German working class (ready to fight and die, capitulated to Hitler without firing a shot.

Having said this, it is necessary to see not only the greatness of Connolly, sprung from the Irish workers, one of the greatest sons of the English speaking working class, and the effect of the uprising in preparing for the expulsion, at least in the Southern part of Ireland of the direct domination of British imperialism, but also the faults of both.

There was no attempt to call a general strike and thus paralyse the British Army. There was no real organisation or preparation of the armed struggle. No propaganda was conducted among the British troops to gain their sympathy and support. The leaders of the middle class Irish Volunteers were split. One of the leaders Eoin MacNeill countermanding orders for "mobilisation" and for "manoeuvres" and in the confusion only part of the Volunteers, joined with the Irish Citizens Army in the insurrection. Thus at the last minute the insurrection was betrayed by the vacillation of the middle class leaders, as they have betrayed many times in Irish history and in the history of other countries.

The British occupying troops suppressed the insurrection and then savagely executed its leaders, including the leader of the insurrection James Connolly, who was already badly wounded.

Connolly was murdered, but in the last analysis, British imperialism really suffered defeat.

Nowadays all sections of Irish society in the 26 counties hypocritically give support to the "brave and undying heroism of Connolly." The Irish capitalists pretend to honour him. Connolly would have split contemptuously in their faces. He fought them, ever since he attained manhood, in the interests of the Irish workers and of International Socialism. But his most withered contempt would have been reserved for those in the Labour movement, including the leaders of the Labour Party and of the so-called Communist Parties, and of the various sects claiming to speak in the name of Irish Labour, who fifty years after Easter 1916, have not understood that unity of the Irish workers North and South can only be obtained by conducting the struggle on a class basis for an Irish Socialist Republic, in indissoluble unity with the British workers in their struggle for a British democratic Socialist Republic.

April 1966.

*Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By- Donagh McDonagh's "James Larkin"

Click on the title to link to a "YouTube " film clip of Patty Reilly performing "Jim Larkin" ( different song about Larkin than the lyrics printed below).

In this series, presented under the headline “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here.

James Larkin
(Donagh McDonagh)

In Dublin City in nineteen thirteen
The boss was rich and the poor were slaves
The women working and children starving
Then on came Larkin like a mighty wave
The workers cringed when the boss man thundered
Seventy hours was his weekly chore
He asked for little and less was granted
Lest given little then he'd ask for more

In the month of August the boss man told us
No union man for him could work
We stood by Larkin and told the boss man
We'd fight or die, but we wouldn't shirk
Eight months we fought and eight months we starved
We stood by Larkin through thick and thin
But foodless homes and the crying of children
It broke our hearts, we just couldn't win

Then Larkin left us, we seemed defeated
The night was black for the working man
But on came Connolly with new hope and counsel
His motto was that we'd rise again
In nineteen sixteen in Dublin City
The English soldiers they burnt our town
The shelled our buildings and shot our leaders
The Harp was buried 'neath the bloody crown

They shot McDermott and Pearse and Plunkett
They shot McDonagh and Clarke the brave
From bleak Kilmainham they took Ceannt's body
To Arbour Hill and a quicklime grave
But last of all of the seven heroes
I sing the praise of James Connolly
The voice of justice, the voice of freedom
He gave his life, that man might be free

From The Bob Feldman 68 Blog-"Hanna Sheehy Skeffington"--Irish Nationalist Feminist- In Honor Of The Anniversary Of Easter 1916

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Bob Feldman performing his Hanna Sheehy Skeffington.

*The Music Of The Irish Diaspora-In Honor Of Easter 1916

Click on the headline to link to a "YouTube' film clip of Dolores Keane performing "Mary Clare Malloy" from the Tom Russell album under review.

Commentary/CD REVIEW

I have mentioned in this space more times than one is reasonably allowed that in my youth in the early 1960's I listened to a local folk music radio program on Sunday nights. That program played, along with highlighting the then current up and coming folk revivalists like Bob Dylan and Dave Van Ronk, much American traditional music including things like the "Child Ballads". In short, music derived from parts of the "British" homeland. What I have not previously mentioned is that directly after that program I used to listen on that same radio station to the "Irish National Hour", a show devoted to all the old more traditional and unknown Irish ballads and songs. And, by the way, attempted to instill a respect for Irish culture, Irish heritage and the Irish struggle against the "bloody" British. (That struggle continues in one form or another today but that is a subject for another time.) Of course, today when every `progressive' radio station (or other technological format) has its obligatory "Keltic Twilight" programs we are inundated with music from the old country and this is no big deal but in those days it was another question.

All of this is by way of reviewing the music of the Irish Diaspora. Our Irish forebears had the `distinct' opportunity of following the British flag wherever it went, under one set of terms or another. And remember in those days the sun never set on that British Empire. So there are plenty of far-flung traditions to talk about. But, first comes the old country. Chocky Ar La (roughly translated- "Our Day Will Come")

20 Famous Irish Ballads, various artists, Outlet Recording Company, 1998

The music traditions made popular by the late Tommy Makem and the Clancy Brothers and The Dubliners are two of the first places any modern analysis of Irish music. Neither group kept strictly to the parameters of traditional music but certainly both groups had the primal respect for the traditions that is key to any appreciation of the music. Here we have The Dubliners and some groups and individuals influenced by their work doing twenty of the most famous Irish ballads. From “All For Me Grog” and “Take Me To Castlebar” at the most traditional end to songs in honor of the Irish national liberation struggle such as the one to the Irish Citizen’s Army leader and revolutionary socialist James Connolly and Sinn Fein’s founder Arthur McBride this CD is a great primer for those unfamiliar with Irish music beyond the St. Patty’s Day classics.

Special mention should be made here of the song “Patriot Game” by Dominic Behan (brother of the more famous, at least in America, playwright Brendan Behan and another brother who was a leader of one of the myriad of Trotskyist groups in Britain in the 1960’s). “Patriot Game” served as a cross-over, of sorts, during my youth between the generic folk music that I was interested in learning about and the folk music of my Irish heritage. I first heard this song on a Sunday folk music show that I have mentioned above, not the “Irish National Hour”. The sentiments expressed there concerning the fate of an Irish Republican Army rank and file liberation fighter were among the first that helped explain to me not only the roots but the need for political struggle to resolve “the Irish question” well before the uprisings in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. The period of the song actual represented trough in the fortunes of the IRA after several failed efforts to ignite the struggle in the North in the 1950’s.

Addition mention should also be made concerning the song “James Connolly” about one of the revolutionary Irish leaders of Easter, 1916 executed (despite being severely wounded) by the British for his role. Naturally the name James Connolly is a fitting one in this space and each Easter time has been the subject of commemoration. I need go no further here except to say, even today when I listen to this song I rage against the stupidities of the bloody British rulers who executed him. And you should too.


Looking For The Roots

The Man From God Knows Where, Tom Russell, Iris Dement, Dave Van Ronk and other artists, Hightone Records, 1998

If a first look at the music of the Irish Diaspora has to begin with a look at the ballads and traditions from the old country then the next look almost logically, at least for one writing in America, is to look here for the dispersal of that music. America, as a nation of immigrants from its inception, was a natural place for those who had to flee the old country to land. In the particular case of my forebears it was in the `famine' ships of the late 1840's, necessitated by the potato blight that led to the starvation of millions (although there was, in fact, plenty of food- for the British).

For the creator of the CD under review, Tom Russell, it was an earlier time for his forebears but the conditions were the same-luck, fate, opportunity, political opposition call it any name but mainly, it was time to leave- or be pushed outof the old country. Russell, in his search for his roots, has created this "concept" CD that reaches deep into the Irish immigrant experience and what became of its progeny. In some sense it is a generic immigrant story, but mainly it is an Irish story that goes the length and breath of America over several generations.

Here is a question first though: What is not to like about a serial tale of the Texas Irish, the Irish liberation struggle and Iris Dement? Well, given my commentaries over the past year reviewing the literary work of Texas author Larry McMurtry, some reminiscences of my own growing up in a poor working class, mainly Irish, neighborhood in the Greater Boston area and my `discovery' of my "Arkie Angel", Iris Dement, who is heavily featured here (especially good are "Acres Of Corn" and "The Old Rugged Cross"), the answer is absolutely nothing. Add in an well-cast appearance as "The Outcast" (representing the wretched of the earth who landed on these shores, for good or evil) of an old folk favorite, Dave Van Ronk, and this sets up as a great CD for those searching for their roots.

Two themes dominate this album. The first is suggested by the title-"The Man From God Knows Where..." That little concept encapsulates the gist of the American experience over the past century and one half as the Irish (and others) assimilated and took their places in society. Nevertheless, as described here, it was a near thing and as some of the songs indicate it was dearly bought either by alienation from the main culture or a lost of sense of the past in the old country. Hence the search. In some senses that title song (broken up into several tracks interspersed throughout the album), "Patrick Russell" (about the first Russell on these shores), "Mary Clare Malloy" (about the landing on the shores) and "When Irish Girls Grow Up" (about the varied possibilities when young women leave home in search of adventure, etc.) represent that aspect of the immigrant experience.

The other theme is that of the "American Primitive Man" who takes this land by a storm, one way or another, starting with old Patrick and who twists and turns it to his liking-or gets turned and twisted by it. That contradiction lies just below the surface of this fine work, and is epitomized by the story of Tom Russell's Texas tall father (who is the inspiration for this whole thing) in "Chickasaw County Jail". But enough. Get this CD and listen (several times) to a slice of our common history.

Tom Russell, The Man From God Knows Where Tabs/Chords


Capo 3rd fret.

Intro: (Am) - (G) - (Am) x 2

(Am)Come gather round me children, a (G) story I will (Am) tell
(Am)I've been around since Jesus met the (G) woman at the (Am) well
(C)I've walked these roads ten (Am) thousand years,(C) I'm a ragtime (Am) millionaire
(Am)I'm the rake and the ramblin saint. I am(G) the man from God knows (Am) where

(Am)Oh, they hung me in Downpatrick, up (G) near St.Patrick's (Am) tomb
(Am)But my ghost rose up in the peat fire smoke (G) toward the rising of the (Am) moon
(C)Now as I drift through your (Am) villages, all the (C) maidens stop and (Am) stare
(Am)"There goes old Tom, the vagabond, he's the (G) man from God knows (Am) where"

(C)So it's rise up all you (Am) ancestors, (C) and dance upon your (G) graves
(C)I've come to hear your (Am) voices, now, (C) so maybe I'll be (Am) saved
(Am)Cursed are we who forget the past, but (G) pray and don't (Am) despair
(Am)My song might haunt your dreams tonight, I'm the (G) man from God knows (Am) where

(Am)I've slept beneath your bridges, near your (G) oil (Am) refineries
(Am)I've gambled on your river boats,(G) Shenandoah; (Am) Kanakee
(C)I'm the homeless lad, I'm an (Am) orphan child, (C) leaves of grass sewn through my (Am) hair
(Am)Yeah, me and old Walt Whitman, we're the (G) men from God knows (Am) where

(Am)I've rode the rods on steam trains with a (G) banjo on my (Am) knee
(Am)While the voice of Stephen Foster, (G) whisperd songs to (Am) me
(C)Of the storefront church and the (Am) chain gang choir; (C) Black sorrow filled the (Am) air
(Am)Then Stephen died on a doss house floor, like a (G) man from God knows (Am) where

(Am)I've heard the sound of Indian drums I've (G) heard the bugles (Am) blow
(Am)Before they re'wrote history, (G) into a Wild West (Am) Show
(C)My kin sailed toward (Am) America, (C) to steal their Indian (Am) ground
(Am)They passed Bill Cody's (G) circus ships, European (Am) bound

(Am)So lock up all your daughters, your (G) whiskey and your (Am) gold
(Am)I have come to claim my bounty, for (G) the lies that I've been (Am) told
And (C) as I look out on this (Am) crowd tonight, I (C) see most of you don't (Am) care
(Am)Come lift your glass, reveal your past, to the (G) man from God knows(Am) where

*Poet's Corner- William Butler Yeats' "Easter, 1916"

***Poet's Corner- William Butler Yeats' "Easter, 1916"

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of A Reading Of William Butler Yeats' Homage To The Lads Of 1916- "Easter 1916".

Guest Commentary

This is the 93rd Anniversary of the Irish Easter Uprising-

BELOW ARE TWO FAMOUS POEMS BY THE ANGLO-IRISH POET WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS-CHOCKY AR LA

Easter, 1916

I have met them at close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-century houses.
I have passed with a nod of the head
Or polite meaningless words,
Or have lingered awhile and said
Polite meaningless words,
And thought before I had done
Of a mocking tale or a gibe
To please a companion
Around the fire at the club,
Being certain that they and I
But lived where motley is worn:
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

That woman's days were spent
In ignorant good-will,
Her nights in argument
Until her voice grew shrill.
What voice more sweet than hers
When, young and beautiful,
She rode to harriers?
This man had kept a school
And rode our winged horse;
This other his helper and friend
Was coming into his force;
He might have won fame in the end,
So sensitive his nature seemed,
So daring and sweet his thought.

This other man I had dreamed
A drunken, vainglorious lout.
He had done most bitter wrong
To some who are near my heart,
Yet I number him in the song;
He, too, has resigned his part
In the casual comedy;
He, too, has been changed in his turn,
Transformed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

Hearts with one purpose alone
Through summer and winter seem
Enchanted to a stone
To trouble the living stream.
The horse that comes from the road,
The rider, the birds that range
From cloud to tumbling cloud,
Minute by minute they change;
A shadow of cloud on the stream
Changes minute by minute;
A horse-hoof slides on the brim,
And a horse plashes within it;
The long-legged moor-hens dive,
And hens to moor-cocks call;
Minute by minute they live:
The stone's in the midst of all.

Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
That is Heaven's part, our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night but death;
Was it needless death after all?
For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead;
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?
I write it out in a verse -
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born. 80

September 25, 1916


Sixteen Dead Men

O but we talked at large before
The sixteen men were shot,
But who can talk of give and take,
What should be and what not
While those dead men are loitering there
To stir the boiling pot?

You say that we should still the land
Till Germany's overcome;
But who is there to argue that
Now Pearse is deaf and dumb?
And is there logic to outweigh
MacDonagh's bony thumb?

How could you dream they'd listen
That have an ear alone
For those new comrades they have found,
Lord Edward and Wolfe Tone,
Or meddle with our give and take
That converse bone to bone?

Songwriter's Corner- Spain 1936- The Irish Connection

Commentary

I have spilled no small amount of ink, and gladly, writing about the heroic military role of those Americans who fought in the American-led Abraham Lincoln Battalion of 15th International Brigade during the Spanish Civil War. The song "Viva La Quince Brigada" can apply to those of other nationalities who fought bravely for the Republican side in that conflict. Here's a take from the Irish perspective. Note the name Frank Ryan included here, a real hero of that operation.


Viva La Quince Brigada
(Christy Moore)

Ten years before I saw the light of morning
A comradeship of heroes was laid.
From every corner of the world came sailing
The Fifteenth International Brigade.

They came to stand beside the Spanish people.
To try and stem the rising Fascist tide
Franco's allies were the powerful and wealthy,
Frank Ryan's men came from the other side.

Even the olives were bleeding
As the battle for Madrid it thundered on.
Truth and love against the force af evil,
Brotherhood against the Fascist clan.

Vive La Quince Brigada!
"No Paseran" the pledge that made them fight.
"Adelante" was the cry around the hillside.
Let us all remember them tonight.

Bob Hillard was a Church of Ireland pastor;
From Killarney across the Pyrenees ho came.
From Derry came a brave young Christian Brother.
Side by side they fought and died in Spain.

Tommy Woods, aged seventeen, died in Cordoba.
With Na Fianna he learned to hold his gun.
From Dublin to the Villa del Rio
Where he fought and died beneath the Spanish sun.

Many Irishmen heard the call of Franco.
Joined Hitler and Mussolini too.
Propaganda from the pulpit and newspapers
Helped O'Duffy to enlist his crew.

The word came from Maynooth: 'Support the Fascists.'
The men of cloth failed yet again
When the bishops blessed the blueshirts in Dun Laoghaire
As they sailed beneath the swastika to Spain.

This song is a tribute to Frank Ryan.
Kit Conway and Dinny Coady too.
Peter Daly, Charlie Regan and Hugh Bonar.
Though many died I can but name a few.

Danny Doyle, Blaser-Brown and Charlie Donnelly.
Liam Tumilson and Jim Straney from the Falls.
Jack Nally, Tommy Patton and Frank Conroy,
Jim Foley, Tony Fox and Dick O'Neill.

Written in 1983
Copyright Christy Moore
apr97


Here are a couple more Yeats classics.

THE SECOND COMING

by: W. B. Yeats (1865-1939)

TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

"The Second Coming" is reprinted from Michael Robartes and the Dancer. W.B. Yeats. New York: Macmillan, 1921.

ON A POLITICAL PRISONER

by: W. B. Yeats (1865-1939)

HE that but little patience knew,
From childhood on, had now so much
A grey gull lost its fear and flew
Down to her cell and there alit,
And there endured her fingers' touch
And from her fingers ate its bit.

Did she in touching that lone wing
Recall the years before her mind
Became a bitter, an abstract thing,
Her thought some popular enmity:
Blind and leader of the blind
Drinking the foul ditch where they lie?

When long ago I saw her ride
Under Ben Bulben to the meet,
The beauty of her country-side
With all youth's lonely wildness stirred,
She seemed to have grown clean and sweet
Like any rock-bred, sea-borne bird:

Sea-borne, or balanced in the air
When first it sprang out of the nest
Upon some lofty rock to stare
Upon the cloudy canopy,
While under its storm-beaten breast
Cried out the hollows of the sea.

"On a Political Prisoner" is reprinted from Michael Robartes and the Dancer. W.B. Yeats. New York: Macmillan, 1921.

*Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By- Dominic Behan's "The Patriot Game"

Click on the title to link to a "YouTube" film clip of a presentation of Dominic Behan's "The Patriot Game".


In this series, presented under the headline “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here.

Patriot Game
From: Songs of Ireland
words and music by Dominic Behan

Come all ye young rebels, and list while I sing,
For the love of one's country is a terrible thing.
It banishes fear with the speed of a flame,
And it makes us all part of the patriot game.

My name is O'Hanlon, and I've just turned sixteen.
My home is in Monaghan, and where I was weaned
I learned all my life cruel England's to blame,
So now I am part of the patriot game.

This Ireland of ours has too long been half free.
Six counties lie under John Bull's tyranny.
But still De Valera is greatly to blame
For shirking his part in the Patriot game.

They told me how Connolly was shot in his chair,
His wounds from the fighting all bloody and bare.
His fine body twisted, all battered and lame
They soon made me part of the patriot game.

It's nearly two years since I wandered away
With the local battalion of the bold IRA,
For I read of our heroes, and wanted the same
To play out my part in the patriot game.

[extra verse I found]
I don't mind a bit if I shoot down police
They are lackeys for war never guardians of peace
And yet at deserters I'm never let aim
The rebels who sold out the patriot game

And now as I lie here, my body all holes
I think of those traitors who bargained in souls
And I wish that my rifle had given the same
To those Quislings who sold out the patriot game.

On The Anniversary- HONOR THE MEMORY OF THE TEN IRISH REPUBLICAN HUNGER STRIKERS!

Reposted from August 2006

THIS MONTH IS THE ACTUAL ANNIVERSARY OF THE DEATHS OF THE TEN IRISH REPUBLICAN HUNGER STRIKES LED BY BOBBY SANDS, MP. SEE MY BLOG DATED MARCH 28, 2006 WHERE I PAY HONOR TO THESE IRISH NATIONAL LIBERATION FIGHTERS IN CONNECTION WITH HONORING THE MEMORY OF JAMES CONNOLLY AND THE 90TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE EASTER UPRISING. WHAT WAS STATED THERE APPLIES HERE AS WELL. CHOCKY AR LA.

Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By- DROPKICK MURPHYS-"Heroes From Our Past"

DROPKICK MURPHYS-"Heroes From Our Past"


And so the story's told of a hearty group of men it's a tale of their triumphs and their woes.
Be it raids and melees ancient or the modern worker's struggle
that inspires men to stand up for their rights.
And should we fall down by the wayside in this ever-changing world
we can look back to these heroes of our past.
With their staunch determination and ferocious iron will,
no tyranny would quell them in their task.

It's an age-old situation with an ever-present message:
that time and tide waiteth for no man.
So without fear of confrontation of the consequence of outcome,
it's for freedom and for happiness they toiled.
An in looking to the future,
we can see a better place where we can shake the yoke of tyranny for all.
It's been paved by generations who have gone now to their rest.
It's just remembrance of their dignity we ask.

[Chorus:]
So come on rally round this brave and valiant cause with tradition, pride, and honor at its core.
With swords drawn to defend stood these noble-hearted men fág an bealach,
clear the way, me boys!!

Under perilous conditions with small hope of success they left behind the lives that they once led
and by virtue of their fortitude and single-minded strength
they cleared the way for the people of today
so when we think back to our ancestors respectfully we hark
and thank the men whose struggle broke the chain it's a long road up ahead of us
let's forge on while we're strong and leave our mark of honor once again

So the story has been told and it comes now to an end.
It's setting any era, any land.
When abusive tyrants force the hands of matters great or small,
it inpires men to stand up for their rights.

*The Music Of The Irish Diaspora-In Honor Of Easter 1916

Click on the headline to link to a "YouTube" film clip of traditional Irish music.

Commentary/CD REVIEW

I have mentioned in this space more times than one is reasonably allowed that in my youth in the early 1960's I listened to a local folk music radio program on Sunday nights. That program played, along with highlighting the then current up and coming folk revivalists like Bob Dylan and Dave Van Ronk, much American traditional music including things like the "Child Ballads". In short, music derived from parts of the "British" homeland. What I have not previously mentioned is that directly after that program I used to listen on that same radio station to the "Irish National Hour", a show devoted to all the old more traditional and unknown Irish ballads and songs. And, by the way, attempted to instill a respect for Irish culture, Irish heritage and the Irish struggle against the "bloody" British. (That struggle continues in one form or another today but that is a subject for another time.) Of course, today when every `progressive' radio station (or other technological format) has its obligatory "Keltic Twilight" programs we are inundated with music from the old country and this is no big deal but in those days it was another question.

All of this is by way of reviewing the music of the Irish Diaspora. Our Irish forebears had the `distinct' opportunity of following the British flag wherever it went, under one set of terms or another. And remember in those days the sun never set on that British Empire. So there are plenty of far-flung traditions to talk about. But, first comes the old country. Chocky Ar La (roughly translated- "Our Day Will Come")

Chocky Ar La

The Rough Guide: Irish Folk, various artists, World Music Network, 1999


Because English domination and occupation of Ireland for many centuries meant that the lingua franca of commerce and administration was English the rich history of traditional Irish music in Gaelic (Irish) was placed under the radar. For most of the English occupation it was a serious criminal offense to speak Gaelic (to speak nothing of speaking "Irish" by an occasional rebellion). The reels, the jigs, the lonesome ballads the songs of love and redemption in the old language were thus either Anglicized like in the rest of the British Isles or existed in a subterranean culture away from the cities and the snooping eyes and ears of the bloody occupiers.

The CD under review represents a compilation of both types of musical expression. I would add here that this CD was produced as part of a series of world wide material to expand our knowledge of roots music beyond the `pop' tunes for holiday occasions. These tracks are not the stuff of St Patty's Day celebration, although your grandmother (or great-grandmother) may have sung some of them sweet and low when you were a child. The simple fiddle, as in many Western agrarian cultures, played a central role in forming the base line of such music as reeds and jigs that were the festivities that brought the folk together after a hard week's work.

That instrument and those musical expressions are well represented here in Brian Hughes' medley, Paddy Glackin's and The Tulla Ceili (party) Band's as well. The Gaelic traditional singing (and contests associated with such efforts, a separate subject which when I have time I will discuss later) is well represented here by Padraigin Ni Uallachain on "A Bhean Udai Thall" and Aine Ui Cheallaigh on "Seoladh Na nGgamhna". Damn, just listing this stuff brings back strong memories of grandmother humming these old tunes while working around her house.

*A Bit Of The Odd Manner- Irish Style- The Childhood Saga of Frank McCourt- In Honor Of Easter 1916

A Bit Of The Odd Manner- Irish Style- The Childhood Saga of Frank McCourt- In Honor Of Easter 1916

Book Review

Angela’s Ashes: A Memoir Of Childhood, Frank McCourt, Flamingo, London, 1997

Frank McCourt’s “Angela’s Ashes” is probably the easiest review that I have had to write since I have been doing such reviews in this space. Why? Frank McCourt’s book of childhood memoirs is my story. No, not in the details of his life’s story, or mine. But rather in how being Irish, being poor, and being uprooted affects your childhood, and later times as well. And those traumas, for good or evil, cross generational lines. McCourt, we are told as his story unfolds, was born in America of immigrants of the diaspora after Irish independence who, for one reason or another, returned to the old country in defeat in the 1930’s. As McCourt notes right at the beginning, that fact in itself provides a rather ironic twist if one is familiar with Irish history (at least until very recently). He is, in any case, thus a child of the Great Depression and World War II, the generation of my parents, as it was refracted through Ireland during that period. I, on the other hand, am a child of the 1960’s, the “Generation of ‘68” here in America born of the dreaded Irish Catholic-English Protestant combination- and raised in an Irish Catholic enclave. Nevertheless the pages of this memoir are filled to the brim with the results of the emotional (and sometimes physical scars) of being “shanty” Irish in this world that hit home, and hit home hard, to this reader.

That said, we do not share the terrible effect that “the drink” had on creating his dysfunctional family with his father’s, Malachy McCourt, crazed need for the alcohol cure to drown his sorrows and his bitterness and the fact that his great moment in life was his bit for “the cause” (of Irish independence). A familiar story in the Irish community here and in the old country but my father seldom drank, although he too was constantly out of work and shared with Frank’s father that same bitterness about his fate. He was uneducated, lacking in skills and prospects and as a “hillbilly” Protestant Southerner from coal country down in Kentucky was thus, an ‘outsider’ in the Boston milieu like Frank’s father had been in Limerick. That is the commonality that caught my eye (and sometimes my throat) as I read of Frank’s youthful trials, tribulations and adventures. McCourt’s ability to tap into that “mystical” something is what makes this a fine read, whether you are Irish or not.

Throughout the book McCourt’s woe-begotten but fatally prideful father is constantly referred to in the Irishtown working class poor ghetto of Limerick (and elsewhere, as well, but the heart of the story is told from there) as having an "odd manner". This reflects a certain clannishness against those from the North of Ireland (Dare I say it, the area then known as Ulster) and a sneaking suspicion amount that crowd of some alien (meaning English Protestant) heritage. As the book progresses that odd trait is transferred (by heredity?) to Frank in his various wanderings, enterprise and desires. What joins us together then is that "odd manner" that gets repeatedly invoked throughout the book. Frank survived to tell the tale. As did I. But in both cases it appears to have been a near thing.

There is more that unites us. The shame culture, not an exclusive Irish Catholic property but very strong nevertheless, drilled in by the clannishness, the closeness of neighbors, the Catholic religion and by the bloody outsiders- usually but not always Protestants of some sort (as least for blame purposes- you know, the eight hundred years of British tyranny, although very real to be sure). All driven by not having nearly enough of this world’s goods. Every time I read a passage about the lack of food, the quality of the food, the conditions of the various tenements that the McCourt family lived in, the lack of adequate and clean clothing I cringed at the thoughts from my own childhood. Or the various times when the family was seriously down and out and his mother, the beloved Angela of the title, had to beg charity of one form or another from some institution that existed mainly to berate the poor. I can remember own my mother’s plaintive cry when my brothers and I misbehaved that the next step was the county poor farm.

And how about the false pride and skewed order of priorities? Frank’s father was a flat out drunk and was totally irresponsible. From a child's perspective, however, he is still your dad and must be given the respect accordingly, especially against the viciousness of the outside world. But life’s disappointments for the father also get reflected in the expectations for the son. The dreams are smaller. Here, the horizons are pretty small when a governmental job with its security just above the “dole” is the touchstone of respectability. Sean O’Casey was able to make enduring plays from the slums of Dublin out of this material. And Frank McCourt enduring literature. Thanks, brother.

Note: The movie version of “Angela’s Ashes” pretty fairly reflects the intentions of Frank McCourt in his childhood memoirs and follows the book accordingly, without the usual dramatic embellishments of that medium. The story line is so strong it needs no such “touch-ups”. Particularly compelling is the very visual sense of utter poverty down at the base of Irish society in Frank McCourt’s childhood.

The two songs below are constantly being sung by Frank McCourt's father when he is "on the drink" to give a little musical flavor to this entry.

"Roddy McCorly"

O see the fleet-foot host of men, who march with faces drawn,
From farmstead and from fishers' cot, along the banks of Ban;
They come with vengeance in their eyes. Too late! Too late are they,
For young Roddy McCorley goes to die on the bridge of Toome today.

Up the narrow street he stepped, so smiling, proud and young.
About the hemp-rope on his neck, the golden ringlets clung;
There's ne'er a tear in his blue eyes, fearless and brave are they,
As young Roddy McCorley goes to die on the bridge of Toome today.

When last this narrow street he trod, his shining pike in hand
Behind him marched, in grim array, a earnest stalwart band.
To Antrim town! To Antrim town, he led them to the fray,
But young Roddy McCorley goes to die on the bridge of Toome today.

There's never a one of all your dead more bravely died in fray
Than he who marches to his fate in Toomebridge town today; ray
True to the last! True to the last, he treads the upwards way,
And young Roddy McCorley goes to die on the bridge of Toome today.

"Kevin Barry"

In MOUNT JOY jail one Monday morning
High upon the gallows tree
Kevin Barry gave his young life
For the 'cause of liberty
Just a lad of eighteen summers
Yet no true man can deny
As he walked to death that morning
He proudly held his head up high

Another martyr for old Erin
Another murder for the crown
The British laws may crush the Irish
But cannot keep their spirits down

Just before he faced the hangman
In his dreary prison cell
The British soldiers tortured Barry
Just because he would not tell
The name of all his brave companions
And other things they wished to know
Turn informer or we'll kill you
Kevin Barry answered no

Another martyr for old Erin
Another murder for the crown
Whose cruel laws may crush the Irish
But CANNOT KEEP their spirits down