THE VIVID FACE OF JAMES CONNOLLY

James Connolly 1868-1916
Image from Wikimedia Commons                

JAMES CONNOLLY was only 48 when he was shot for his part in the 1916 Easter Rising. He was so wounded that they had to tie him to a chair to shoot him. He was executed not even a month after the Rising, on May 12, 1916.

Historian, Mick O'Farrell believes the figure on the stretcher (center, covered by white sheet) to be Connolly.
Image from O'Farrell's book.

I was interested in learning more about James Connolly for a couple of reasons. The first was his connection to women's rights. In her history lecture to our class, Dr. Mary McAuliffe told us that the inclusive language of the 1016 Proclamation (which begins "Irishmen and Irishwomen...") was inspired by Connolly, who was a self-proclaimed feminist, and we see that in some of his other writings. Two weeks before the Rising, he published "The Irish Flag" in the Worker's Republic, where he said: 

• The power whose reign in Ireland has been one long carnival of corruption and debauchery of civic virtue [...] has rioted in the debasement and degradation of everything Irish men and women hold sacred [...] (emphsis added).

Staff Lieutenant Constance Markiewicz
Image from http://www.independent.ie/

But Connolly was not just paying lipservice to feminist ideas. Historian, Mick Sinclair tells us that in contrast to the Irish Volunteers, founded by Pearse, where women didn't carry weapons, nor were they encouraged to engage in political discussion, the Irish Citizen Army (ICA), which Connolly led, issued weapons to women and expected them to use them.

Connolly appointed Constance Markiewicz as staff Lieutenant and Dr. Kathleen Lynn was the medical officer, a Captain. In her 1926 memory of the Rising, "Stephen's Green," Markiewiecz told how James Connolly demanded equal sacrifice from the women:

• There were a considerable number of ICA women. These were absolutely on the same footing as the men. They took part in all marches, and even in the manoeuvres that lasted all night. Moreover, Connolly made it quite clear to us that unless we women took our share in the drudgery of training and preparing, we should not be allowed to take any share at all in the fight. You may judge how fit we were when I tell you that sixteen miles was the length of the average route march.

High expectations of women showed that he truly respected them, and his teachings showed that he understood their precarious position in society, noting in "Woman," The Reconquest of Ireland, that "[t]he worker is the slave of capitalist society, the female worker is the slave of that slave." Incidentally, John Lennon echoed this idea in a song, and cited Connolly as his inspiration.

Connolly saw the British Empire as divisive:

• [T]his power [...] sets Catholic against Protestant, the Hindu against the Mohommedan, the yellow man against the brown, and keeps them quarrelling with each other whilst she robs and murders them all [...] ("The Flag of Ireland").

Image from Kindle

In his book about Connolly and Pearse, Mick Sinclair tells us that Connolly saw religion as separate from politics, and that he 

thought that the Catholic Church wasn't necessarily in conflict with socialism. One historian speculates that he had "extreme sensitivity to the religious feelings of the Catholic worker" (Metscher, qtd. in Sinclair). Connolly seemed to believe that Socialism transcends religious differences. In "The Firebrand or the Olive Leaf" he wrote that "socialism is neither Protestant nor Catholic, Christian nor Freethinker, Buddhist, Mahometan, nor Jew; it is only HUMAN...We reject the firebrand of capitalist warfare and offer you the olive leaf of brotherhood and justice to and for all."

I am also interested in Connolly's connection to labor. Having recently participated in a strike myself, I know firsthand that "power concedes nothing without a demand" (Frederick Douglass). Connolly was born in an Irish slum in Scottland to a working class family, and he allied himself with the Irish working class which he called "the only secure foundation which a free nation can be reared" (Connolly, "The Irish Flag).

Image from twitter.com/_iww

Image from Wikimedia Commons

James Connolly spent time in the U.S. working with the International Workers of the World (IWW), also knows as the Wobblies. Wikipedia actually lists Connolly as a founder (The IWW was founded in Chicago in 1905) and a statue of him stands in Union Park. I couldn't find his name in the minutes of the founding convention. However, he must have rubbed elbows with Eugene Debs, "Big Bill" Heywood, and one of my heroines, Mary Harris "Mother" Jones, herself.

Although Connolly was listed as a poet, I wasn't able to find any of his poetry this week, and our anthology doesn't list any, so maybe he wasn't a great poet. But he was certainly poetic even in his revolutionary writings, ending "The Irish Flag" with:

• In these days of doubt, despair, and resurgent hope, we fling our banner to the breeze, the flag of our fathers, the symbol of our national redemption, the sunburst shining over an Ireland re-born.

Image from 1913 Lockout