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James Connolly (1868-1916) |
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James Connolly was an author, orator, poet, musician, an advocate for social justice and workers right.
Connolly played a key role in organising various socialist movements and fronts, for establishing an independent labour's republic in Ireland.
Connolly was born on June 5th, to a poor Irish immigrant family in little Ireland slum neighborhood of Edinburgh, Scotland. His parents were Catholic Irish, who came seeking a better life but ended up in one of the filthiest Edinburgh Slums. He quit school at the age of 10 and started to work as a cleaner at a newspaper printing shop to help his family.
At the age of 14, he joined the British Army and was deployed to Ireland. There, he witnessed how the Irish people were treated not just by the British Army but also by landlords who had taken Irish lands. It was by this time that Connolly developed a hatred for the Army, landlords, and financiers.
During the New Year of 1890 in Dublin, Connolly met Lillie Reynolds, a protestant girl. She followed him to Scotland where they married in a Catholic church. The couple had six children. This occasion showed him that without the incitement of religious and nationalist sentiments by the exploiters, people are hateless and friendly towards each other's in many parts of the World.
Connolly deserted the army in 1889 and returned to Edinburgh in 1890. He got involved in the Socialist Movement, fronted by the Scottish Socialist Federation, while setting up a cobbler shop, which earned him no money.
Connolly left Ireland with his family to the US in1903. There he became a full-time organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World, before coming back to Ireland in 1910.
Soon after returning to Ireland, he was appointed the Belfast organizer of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union.
Connolly got convinced that Ireland couldn't be freed from the suppressive rule of British government, through the world of working-class family's struggles. He believed that socioeconomic grievances of the Irish poor would be better addressed by armed struggle.
At the beginning of 1916, Connolly revived the Irish Citizen Army. An armed militia of the Dublin left. He believed that Ireland could achieve its freedom via the establishment of a socialist republic.
Connolly played a commanding role in the Easter rising of April 1916. During that period, Britain was fighting its imperialist war of WWI. And was committing apprehensive crimes abroad and oppression of workers and marginalized at home.
The most criminal act under the infamous Churchill, was seizing grains and other foods in Iran, and allocating it to the British Army. This crime caused a devastating famine and diseases in that country, with more than 8-10 million deaths.
Extreme poverty and oppressive policies were the main cause of the Easter Monday Rising in Ireland. Connolly played a leading role taking active military command in Dublin. The Army used even heavy artillery to quell the uprising. Many people, including unarmed citizens, were slaughtered; buildings were ruined. Connolly got gravely wounded. The Uprising lasted for six days. Connolly with 15 other nationalist leaders were detained and given capital sentences. Widespread arrests and semi-secret lengthy executions transformed the Irish public opinion, which had originally been rather hesitant and conflicted, toward the nationalist rebellion.
As a Marxist, Connolly was involved in the Proclamation of the Irish Republic, which expressed an egalitarian socioeconomic vision and an implicit commitment to women's suffrage rarely seen in the Irish nationalist circles.
On May 12th 1916, too weak to stand, Connolly was strapped to a chair and shot by firing squad alongside other revolutionaries. They were buried in a secret mass grave and without any burial rituals.
He was known for his sense of humor and wit, and using these qualities to engage with others and make complex political ideas more accessible and understandable to the public.
Connolly quickly became Ireland's most celebrated martyr, a man whose vision of a more just and equitable society remains inspirational for those seeking change in Ireland and abroad.
Published Works:
Erin's Hope-the End and the Means (1897).
The New Evangel- preached to Irish Toilers (1901).
Labour in Irish History (1910).
Religion, Labour, and Nationality (1910).
The Reconquest of Ireland (1915).
And many Essays.