James Connolly and Working Class Culture
by Mary McIlroy
James Connolly lived and worked in Ireland at the time of the Irish Literary Revival, a cultural movement of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy. Lady Gregory and William Butler Yeats were his contemporaries, and Countess Constance Markievecz was his comrade in the Irish Citizen Army. But what did the retelling of myths, poetry and plays have to do with the working class, the factory workers, dock workers and domestics, and their daily struggle to survive?
One of the things I find most amazing about James Connolly is his personal story. He was someone who had to leave school at the age of ten to go to work, and he wrote such brilliant Marxist analyses, and on such a wide range of topics, including language and culture. In the days before not only television, but also radio, organizing meant speaking on street corners and at factory gates, writing for various periodicals and holding lectures, composing poems and writing plays. This was a working class culture. Ireland had to contend with being an oppressed nation, as well. What was James Connolly’s role in the Irish working class culture of his day?
One issue Connolly took on was language and “small nations.” The first world was ostensibly fought over the right of small nations to exist. Some in the Socialist movement thought that the elimination of small nations, and the consolidation of capitalist power in fewer and fewer nations would make the defeat of capitalism easier. Connolly related this to the language question. He wrote, “On the other hand, a large number of small communities, speaking different tongues, are more likely to agree upon a common language as a common means of communication than a small number of great empires, each jealous of its own power and seeking its own supremacy.” (The Language Movement, The Harp, April 1908). He clearly supported the right of “minority” populations to their own linguistic expression.
With regard specifically to the Irish language, Connolly wrote:
Let the great truth be firmly fixed in your mind that the struggle for the conquest of the political state of the capitalist is not the battle, it is only the echo of the battle. The real battle is being fought out, and will be fought out, on the industrial field.
Because of this and other reasons the doctrinaire Socialists are wrong in this as in the rest of their arguments. It is not necessary that Irish Socialists should hostilize those who are working for the Gaelic language, nor whoop it up for territorial aggrandizement of any nation. Therefore, in this, we can wish the Sinn Feiners, good luck.
In other words, Connolly saw no contradiction in fighting to overthrow Capitalism and seeking to preserve the indigenous language of Ireland.
Connolly, in the same article, addresses the psychology of language. He chastised “the Liberator,” Daniel O’Connell, for addressing crowds, even in the Gaeltacht, exclusively in English. He took the Catholic Church to task over its condemnation of Irish language bibles and religious tracts. He sited these as examples of those who see shame in the Irish language, that Irish is “bad,” and English is “good.” Connolly rightly concluded that a people who give up their language, and take up the language of the oppressor, are not being “progressive,” as some Socialists believe, but rather have “a slavish and cringing spirit.”
More recently, language has come into play when road signs in the Gaeltacht were changed to exclusively Irish. Rather than be lauded as a move by a modern and self-confident nation, news reports bemoaned the confusion tourists would most likely suffer. An echo of the slave mentality of which Connolly wrote.
Up until the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, Irish in the North of Ireland was a third-class language, behind English then French, Spanish and other European languages. Thus, speaking and learning Irish became a revolutionary act in the Six Counties. When daily lessons in Irish were given, the H-Blocks of Long Kesh and Armagh Women’s Prison became known as “the Jailtacht.”
Connolly concluded his essay with an affirmation of the validity of native languages thusly, “I cannot conceive of a Socialist hesitating in his choice between a policy resulting in such self-abasement and a policy of defiant self-reliance and confident trust in a people’s own power of self-emancipation by a people.”
There are cultural expressions other than language, of course. One of the things the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union did during the 1913 Dublin lock-out was to put on plays for its members and their families. This not only expressed what the struggle was about, but provided a much-needed evening’s diversion. James Connolly wrote several plays around this time, unfortunately, these have been lost to us.
Connolly wrote poetry, as well. One, “The Legacy (The Dying Socialist to His Son), was written in a form fashionable at the time, very sentimental in tone. However, Connolly took this and subverted it. For a worker has no property, no real estate, no gems or jewels, no factory, to leave his son. He has only his hatred of Capitalism and for those who exploited him. The Dying Socialist’s legacy to his son is the struggle for revolution.
In perhaps Connolly’s best-known poem, “We Only Want the Earth, Connolly sums up the Socialists’ goal succinctly, “For our demands most modest are/ We only want the earth.” This is the maximum Socialist program clearly spelled out. And we are not going to settle for anything less. Anything less is a betrayal of both the working class and the Socialist revolution.
James Connolly lived and worked in Ireland at the time of the Irish Literary Revival, a cultural movement of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy. Lady Gregory and William Butler Yeats were his contemporaries, and Countess Constance Markievecz was his comrade in the Irish Citizen Army. But what did the retelling of myths, poetry and plays have to do with the working class, the factory workers, dock workers and domestics, and their daily struggle to survive?
One of the things I find most amazing about James Connolly is his personal story. He was someone who had to leave school at the age of ten to go to work, and he wrote such brilliant Marxist analyses, and on such a wide range of topics, including language and culture. In the days before not only television, but also radio, organizing meant speaking on street corners and at factory gates, writing for various periodicals and holding lectures, composing poems and writing plays. This was a working class culture. Ireland had to contend with being an oppressed nation, as well. What was James Connolly’s role in the Irish working class culture of his day?
One issue Connolly took on was language and “small nations.” The first world was ostensibly fought over the right of small nations to exist. Some in the Socialist movement thought that the elimination of small nations, and the consolidation of capitalist power in fewer and fewer nations would make the defeat of capitalism easier. Connolly related this to the language question. He wrote, “On the other hand, a large number of small communities, speaking different tongues, are more likely to agree upon a common language as a common means of communication than a small number of great empires, each jealous of its own power and seeking its own supremacy.” (The Language Movement, The Harp, April 1908). He clearly supported the right of “minority” populations to their own linguistic expression.
With regard specifically to the Irish language, Connolly wrote:
Let the great truth be firmly fixed in your mind that the struggle for the conquest of the political state of the capitalist is not the battle, it is only the echo of the battle. The real battle is being fought out, and will be fought out, on the industrial field.
Because of this and other reasons the doctrinaire Socialists are wrong in this as in the rest of their arguments. It is not necessary that Irish Socialists should hostilize those who are working for the Gaelic language, nor whoop it up for territorial aggrandizement of any nation. Therefore, in this, we can wish the Sinn Feiners, good luck.
In other words, Connolly saw no contradiction in fighting to overthrow Capitalism and seeking to preserve the indigenous language of Ireland.
Connolly, in the same article, addresses the psychology of language. He chastised “the Liberator,” Daniel O’Connell, for addressing crowds, even in the Gaeltacht, exclusively in English. He took the Catholic Church to task over its condemnation of Irish language bibles and religious tracts. He sited these as examples of those who see shame in the Irish language, that Irish is “bad,” and English is “good.” Connolly rightly concluded that a people who give up their language, and take up the language of the oppressor, are not being “progressive,” as some Socialists believe, but rather have “a slavish and cringing spirit.”
More recently, language has come into play when road signs in the Gaeltacht were changed to exclusively Irish. Rather than be lauded as a move by a modern and self-confident nation, news reports bemoaned the confusion tourists would most likely suffer. An echo of the slave mentality of which Connolly wrote.
Up until the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, Irish in the North of Ireland was a third-class language, behind English then French, Spanish and other European languages. Thus, speaking and learning Irish became a revolutionary act in the Six Counties. When daily lessons in Irish were given, the H-Blocks of Long Kesh and Armagh Women’s Prison became known as “the Jailtacht.”
Connolly concluded his essay with an affirmation of the validity of native languages thusly, “I cannot conceive of a Socialist hesitating in his choice between a policy resulting in such self-abasement and a policy of defiant self-reliance and confident trust in a people’s own power of self-emancipation by a people.”
There are cultural expressions other than language, of course. One of the things the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union did during the 1913 Dublin lock-out was to put on plays for its members and their families. This not only expressed what the struggle was about, but provided a much-needed evening’s diversion. James Connolly wrote several plays around this time, unfortunately, these have been lost to us.
Connolly wrote poetry, as well. One, “The Legacy (The Dying Socialist to His Son), was written in a form fashionable at the time, very sentimental in tone. However, Connolly took this and subverted it. For a worker has no property, no real estate, no gems or jewels, no factory, to leave his son. He has only his hatred of Capitalism and for those who exploited him. The Dying Socialist’s legacy to his son is the struggle for revolution.
In perhaps Connolly’s best-known poem, “We Only Want the Earth, Connolly sums up the Socialists’ goal succinctly, “For our demands most modest are/ We only want the earth.” This is the maximum Socialist program clearly spelled out. And we are not going to settle for anything less. Anything less is a betrayal of both the working class and the Socialist revolution.