The Irish Workers' Republican, Atheist, Birth Control, Civil and Industrial Emancipat (1 Viewer)

[Scientician 0.8]

Re: The Irish Workers' Republican, Atheist, Birth Control, Civil and Industrial Emanc

Oh, yeah. I forgot about that! When I was looking at the old labour papers, I came across some pretty poor poems and songs by a guy called Liam O'Brosnahan. His actual poetic structure was a bit 'man from Nantucket', but he was very prolific and it's all very "Hey ho, raise the red flag". He'd actually be a fairly interesting fellow to look into.

Another interesting question I have is, why the Irish radical labour movement in the early 20th century produced so little in the way of decent literature or art? I'm sure it's all tied up in the fact that literature and the arts were largely dominated by the Anglo-Irish, who were less likely to be invovled in a labour movement, but still, it seems like that's not a totally adequate answer.

I dunno, maybe they were utilitarian? or maybe there wasn't enough of them, enough of a pool from which to spring artly delights? Not really an answer .

 

[jane]

Re: The Irish Workers' Republican, Atheist, Birth Control, Civil and Industrial Emanc

I dunno, maybe they were utilitarian? or maybe there wasn't enough of them, enough of a pool from which to spring artly delights? Not really an answer .

I don't know. I imagine it was a combination of all of it. But I wonder if movements elsewhere (in countries where socialism didn't ever take hold, I mean) were actually much bigger than Ireland's, or if they just seem bigger because they produced literature and/or art? Or that they were not quite so deliberately erased from folk memory and forgotten by later historians? I dunno if I'm making much sense.

I was at that Lenox Robinson play with a friend of mine who would consider herself somewhat republican, and she said she has a hard time accepting that much of the drama and literature from the early 20th century doesn't reflect the whole range of values and worldviews of the period because it was produced mainly by Anglo-Irish. Even those with republican sympathies would still have seen those through the lens of their own class values. It made me think about these other kinds of things.

Still, the labour movement was at least ostensibly an internationalist one, so their lack of art and literature can't necessarily be explained without comparing them to the whole idea of the comintern.

That said, however, some of the old socialist and labour cartoons I came across were really incredible. A very smart person would publish a book of them. There were a few that, if you didn't know already what time period they came from, you would think were drawn last week. It's chilling, really, to realise that the problems of nearly a century ago are still just as unresolved today.

 

[CITY BABY]

Re: The Irish Workers' Republican, Atheist, Birth Control, Civil and Industrial Emanc

The Red Flag was written by an Irishman (I'm sure ye all know that but I thought I'd mention it), Jim Connell. There's a great song called Labour's Call by Peadar Kearney that you can download in .MP2 format here.

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[Antrophe]

Re: The Irish Workers' Republican, Atheist, Birth Control, Civil and Industrial Emanc

Still, the labour movement was at least ostensibly an internationalist one, so their lack of art and literature can't necessarily be explained without comparing them to the whole idea of the comintern.

Sean O'Casey comes immediately to mind as somebody who did manage to produce refreshingly original, commited socialist literature during this period. Maybe he is usually portrayed as standing alone on a gang plank for a reaosn. With the disapproval of cultural nationalists who'd rather see the working poor of Dublin smother in Mother Eireann's arm pits, than bear their faces in public on one side and then with the haughty approval of a upper class ango-Irish elite that were taken with his rather cutesy portrayals of the little people but just quite didn't get "it".

I wonder are there more out there like him though, those that didn't gain his noteriety or drifted away from literature due to the absence of the sort of patronage O'Casey gained.

A good parallel is probably Charterist ficiton in the UK, despite the enormity of that movement - a substantial portion of this fiction remains pretty much out of print, a mere archeological side note to academics interested in the social life of the period.

Yet this sort of fiction lives on in works like Mary Barton by Gaskell, and other middle class authors who took inspiration from more popular forms. Sometimes this sort of fiction contains a didactic function, a 'so what dear reader do you think of this?" that lessens its appeal to readers outside the immediate context of the social struggles it arose within.

Most of the charterist fiction was published in the working man's press, places like the Northern Star, the poetry of the movement could be found there too. It's probably the same with any labour movement fiction produced here in the early 20th Century - apart from exceptions like O'Casey who were granted a life outside of the movement though patronage it remained very much a "pulp" phenomenon.

So you really have to ask who keeps a literature alive across generations, who choses what gets re-published before deciding there was none. For instance it is only through an act of charity on behalf of the Welsh national library that a host of labour fiction from authors like the communist writer Lewis Jones who documented struggles small mining villages in stories like "We Live" and "Cwmardy" are even in print today.

Something else worth noting in this context is the strenght of the oral tradition in Ireland during the period and how this is related to power dymanics. A lot of Irish labour history is archived through a scattered folk memory - you can see it on this thread - but it lacks the sort of binding narrative our official nationalist interpretations popularly provide to nationalist folk tales. We have no holes to peg these historical echoes clearly into.

An oral labour history is a very precarious one, subject to the flucuating power balance between labour and capital. Essentially you do not mouth off as much in front of a boss whose power is relatively strong, but you do if it is weak. Knowledge of labour struggles, myths and their discussion in hushed, conspiratorial tones can often be quite a criminalising thing in a scenario where the movement is weak - you remain "whist!"

I think this is what happened the radical labour movement during the immediate period after the civil war where it really pushed its autonomy. Essentially it lost, and as a result lost the confidence to keep its tales alive. There was nothing to mobilise for, so the mobilising myths disappeared.

On a grander scale, none of labours' actions or mobilising stories, poems and myths provided much use then to those trying to chronicle and solidify the state's reason d'etre for indpendence, labour just didn't fit in - sure qoutes from Connolly gave a few platitudes and pats on the head but that was it.

I can use a very potent example to illustrate this. Down home its quite regular for people to racously sing their way through the whole cannon of Irish republican thumpt-thumpers, these are a sort of neutral political terrain - they don't really mean anything, no black and tan's are going to come out and fight them and much less likely were any of these people to do anything about the North when there was a war there.

Sometimes though depending on the composition of people there, very rare it is too, an friend of the family in her late seventies will be asked to sing her "father's song." I only came across this in the past few years, but essentially she is the only person in the area that knows this song written by her father, her other seven sisters have disowned it.

The song called "Gratton's Domain" documents a series of land seizures in this small rural/semi-urban community during the civil war. It goes on "I'll sing thee the song of eleven of my Father's comrade men, I will not give their names, I will not give their names' who took over some land owned by a local landlord of the Anglo-Irish sort.

Evetually after a period where they sowed corn and the like, the landlord, some goons and elements of the local IRA I believe evicted them violently and sent them to Mount Joy, quite a number died on hungar strike there.

Out of nearly a dozen time's that I have seen this song requested, I have only heard it sang once - the essentially reason for this is that it points the finger at families that still live in the area, people who still own that land and individuals who were alive up to two decades ago.

The song is seen as sectarian, when its intention is far from it, and as the power of labour rescinded in the area you were hardly going to keep alive songs that fingered some of the only employers in the area as death merchants.

I am sure there are hundreds of songs like this out there, ready to die with the few that refuse to forget them. Peadar O'Donnell has written a lot about this sort of land seizure, is it any good?

Another thing I find fascinating is the popularity of Joe Hill as a folk song in Ireland, its essentially a eulogy for an anarchist IWW union organiser and I've yet to meet someone who can't sing a verse or two and the chorus. Why this down to Luke Kelly or was he merely riding it on a popularity that was already there? I've also heard Pete Seger and other Guthrie songs sung regularly in the most surprising of places where casual racism and pro-McDowell shite rule the day.

Then not to mention stuff like Carnsore Point, there is a MASSIVE submerged radical history scattered across Ireland that has no popular memory. Something like the Toronto based Missing Plaque Project would go a long way to rectifying this.

 

[killy kill]

Re: The Irish Workers' Republican, Atheist, Birth Control, Civil and Industrial Emanc

It's a shame you don't post more often, Antrophe, excellent stuff

 

[georgestapleton]

Re: The Irish Workers' Republican, Atheist, Birth Control, Civil and Industrial Emanc

Come Home Antrophe.

In the library in Bray there is bunch of old books on the communist movement, Communism in Modern Ireland, Communism and Ireland, Emmet Larkin's book on James Larkin (surprisingly no relation), and that massive book on the Trade Unions. When I was on the hop or avoiding doing homework from school I used to go in there and read them.

There really is an unwritten history out there.

I'm looking forward to seeing that documentary.

Also to the OP, I'd recommend Communism in Modern Ireland or Communism and Ireland to find more info. on The Irish Workers' Republican, Atheist, Birth Control, Civil and Industrial Emancipation thing.

 

[Carlow Punks!]

Re: The Irish Workers' Republican, Atheist, Birth Control, Civil and Industrial Emanc

Come Home Antrophe.

[contradiction]

I used to go in there and read them.

There really is an unwritten history out there. [/contradiction]

 

[Antrophe]

Re: The Irish Workers' Republican, Atheist, Birth Control, Civil and Industrial Emanc

Whist you! You could have just badgered him about going on the mitch and then wasting it by digging into so many dusty old books he was blowing black snots out his nostrils for the following week. But you had to go too fair and point out the illogic in his mouth sounds.

 

[georgestapleton]

Re: The Irish Workers' Republican, Atheist, Birth Control, Civil and Industrial Emanc

eeeek. I meant. Ah fuck it. You know what I meant. They touch on loads that isn't mentioned anywhere else. Like a paragraph on an organisation. That organisation had a history a paragraph isn't it.

Like my great granda was involved in a cattle drive association in north galway that drove cattle onto a landlords land to reclaim it. Much like what antrophe was talking about.

Did I get out of that one?

 

[Antrophe]

Re: The Irish Workers' Republican, Atheist, Birth Control, Civil and Industrial Emanc

Did I get out of that one?

Only because of your grandpappy. A Cattle Drive Association? It sounds like the sort of decent, morally upstanding thing you do with your family on a good Sunday evening.

 

[georgestapleton]

Re: The Irish Workers' Republican, Atheist, Birth Control, Civil and Industrial Emanc

Whats wrong with decent, morally upstanding class struggle you do with your family on a good Sunday evening?

 

[JohnnyRaz]

Re: The Irish Workers' Republican, Atheist, Birth Control, Civil and Industrial Emanc

On a grander scale, none of labours' actions or mobilising stories, poems and myths provided much use then to those trying to chronicle and solidify the state's reason d'etre for indpendence, labour just didn't fit in - sure qoutes from Connolly gave a few platitudes and pats on the head but that was it.

I can use a very potent example to illustrate this. Down home its quite regular for people to racously sing their way through the whole cannon of Irish republican thumpt-thumpers, these are a sort of neutral political terrain - they don't really mean anything, no black and tan's are going to come out and fight them and much less likely were any of these people to do anything about the North when there was a war there.

Sometimes though depending on the composition of people there, very rare it is too, an friend of the family in her late seventies will be asked to sing her "father's song." I only came across this in the past few years, but essentially she is the only person in the area that knows this song written by her father, her other seven sisters have disowned it.

.

the only ballad song with socialist/union overtones Ive ever heard is a lamment for james connelly; theres apparently two, I was looking for lyrics, but only found one that was much more of the 'bould ira men' crap than the anything more substantial. I think Christy Moore recorded the other (good) one it back in the 60's, its a pretty good song.

i reckon in the socialist element in traditional songs/llterature got elbowed out due to the fairly rabid anti communism of the church. my grandad can remember priests screaming invective agaisnt republican spain and insisting it was the christian duty of every able bodied irish man to go and fight for franco!

 

[jane]

Re: The Irish Workers' Republican, Atheist, Birth Control, Civil and Industrial Emanc

the only ballad song with socialist/union overtones Ive ever heard is a lamment for james connelly; theres apparently two, I was looking for lyrics, but only found one that was much more of the 'bould ira men' crap than the anything more substantial. I think Christy Moore recorded the other (good) one it back in the 60's, its a pretty good song.

i reckon in the socialist element in traditional songs/llterature got elbowed out due to the fairly rabid anti communism of the church. my grandad can remember priests screaming invective agaisnt republican spain and insisting it was the christian duty of every able bodied irish man to go and fight for franco!

Yeah, and it's funny as well that while a lot of these radical folks would have been very anti-church, there were loads who still went to mass. And during one particular strike -- I think in Bagenalstown -- I remember reading that there was a mass said for the strikers.

I came across a booklet a few years ago, a memento from a boys' school graduation in the 1930s, which included the text of the speech/sermon given by one of the priests. The whole thing was just a tirade against communism, and he'd tried to weave in the whole graduating class thing as an after thought. At one point, after an extended plea to stamp out communism, he kinda threw in, "And who better to crush the communist threat that lurks behind every corner but a group of boys who just finished school?!" One of the most mental things I've ever read. Gotta track it down and photocopy it.

It's weird because there was an element of the church that was very pro-worker, it just didn't seem to filter down to ground level, and was pretty controversial to begin with. My dad remembers being taken around these communist farms in Sicily by one of his commie cousins in the 1950s, and he was telling his cousin that the senior church people were quite pro-worker, as was he (he was a priest at the time). He said his cousin was quite surprised to hear it because as far as he knew, all the priests ever did was say the rosary and tell people what to do.

The debate over whether the poor worker should be pitied or empowered has been a subject of debate for ages. Pope Ratzy was one of the most vociferous opponents of Liberation Theology, of course.

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

Re: The Irish Workers' Republican, Atheist, Birth Control, Civil and Industrial Emanc

the only ballad song with socialist/union overtones Ive ever heard is a lamment for james connelly; theres apparently two, I was looking for lyrics, but only found one that was much more of the 'bould ira men' crap than the anything more substantial. I think Christy Moore recorded the other (good) one it back in the 60's, its a pretty good song.

i reckon in the socialist element in traditional songs/llterature got elbowed out due to the fairly rabid anti communism of the church. my grandad can remember priests screaming invective agaisnt republican spain and insisting it was the christian duty of every able bodied irish man to go and fight for franco!

that eoin o'duffy book i was reading earlier in this thread had a very amusing chapter about the 700 or so fellas that o'duffy brought out to spain to fight for franco. they were a bit of a joke and bailed out again after about 2 months, much to franco's relief. franco himself came to inspect them on st patricks day in whatever year they were there and found them all hammered drunk and firing at each other and generally being indisciplined. meanwhile, o'duffy (their general) was off swanning around on sight seeing tours, staying in expensive hotels and eating well (all at the expensive of those he was fighting for) while his men were at the front being shelled and shot at and digging trenches and burying bodies etc

 

[JohnnyRaz]

Re: The Irish Workers' Republican, Atheist, Birth Control, Civil and Industrial Emanc

Yeah, and it's funny as well that while a lot of these radical folks would have been very anti-church, there were loads who still went to mass. And during one particular strike -- I think in Bagenalstown -- I remember reading that there was a mass said for the strikers.


The debate over whether the poor worker should be pitied or empowered has been a subject of debate for ages. Pope Ratzy was one of the most vociferous opponents of Liberation Theology, of course.

I remember reading that lenin was disgusted that many of the english fabians/socialists went to church on a sunday; he reckoned you could never make a revolution in a country like that!

Plenty of indiviidual clergy throughout the past 100 years have stood up for various causes against the ignorance or oposition of the church in general.

In fairness to old popey B, hes no more of a company man than jp was when it comes to most issues, he just not as good at PR.

 

[taubstumm]

Re: The Irish Workers' Republican, Atheist, Birth Control, Civil and Industrial Emanc

I remember reading that lenin was disgusted that many of the english fabians/socialists went to church on a sunday; he reckoned you could never make a revolution in a country like that!

also, about lenin; wikipedia sez:

Lenin had a certain admiration for the Irish socialist revolutionary James Connolly, and the Soviet Union was the first country to recognize the Irish Republic which fought a war of independence against Britain. He would often meet with the famous revolutionary's son, Roddy Connolly, and developed a close friendship with him.

i wonder what happened roddy; he must have had a couple of good stories about hanging out with uncle vladimir.

 

[georgestapleton]

Re: The Irish Workers' Republican, Atheist, Birth Control, Civil and Industrial Emanc

Roddy connolly founded the Communist Party of Ireland. He later joined the labour party. And was chairman of the party during the whole 'the seventies will be socialist' period.

A bloke, Seamy, I used to get grinds off in maths when I was doing the leaving used to teach with him when he was young. However Roddy couldn't drive so Seamy used to have to drive him and the art teacher, Breton Nazi collaborator Yann Goulet, to school everyday. Bizarrely Roddy, the communist, and Yann, the Nazi collaborator, got on like a house on fire by avoiding discussing anything but women.

 

[georgestapleton]

Re: The Irish Workers' Republican, Atheist, Birth Control, Civil and Industrial Emanc

Oh look actually there's wiki entries on both of them

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roddy_Connolly
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yann_Goulet

 

[taubstumm]

Re: The Irish Workers' Republican, Atheist, Birth Control, Civil and Industrial Emanc

Roddy connolly founded the Communist Party of Ireland. He later joined the labour party. And was chairman of the party during the whole 'the seventies will be socialist' period.

A bloke, Seamy, I used to get grinds off in maths when I was doing the leaving used to teach with him when he was young. However Roddy couldn't drive so Seamy used to have to drive him and the art teacher, Breton Nazi collaborator Yann Goulet, to school everyday. Bizarrely Roddy, the communist, and Yann, the Nazi collaborator, got on like a house on fire by avoiding discussing anything but women.

this reminds me a bit of the coolest fact ever: as a kid, future superstar wrestler andré the giant used to get lifts to school from samuel beckett.

 

[Carlow Punks!]

Re: The Irish Workers' Republican, Atheist, Birth Control, Civil and Industrial Emanc

Bizarrely Roddy, the communist, and Yann, the Nazi collaborator, got on like a house on fire by avoiding discussing anything but women.

classic anecdote closer there. ha ha...must work that into a novel sometime

this reminds me a bit of the coolest fact ever: as a kid, future superstar wrestler andré the giant used to get lifts to school from samuel beckett.

please tell me more.

please...