Irish history

James Connolly, German warmonger (1)

German soldiers in WW1 Part of a series of articles on Connolly: workersliberty.org/connolly At first James Connolly responded to World War One in line with the international socialist movement’s Basle Manifesto of 1912, as we saw in the last instalments of our series on Connolly, in Solidarity 652 and 653 . From late August 1914 he shifted to a pro-German stance in line with the previous writings of the Irish Republican Brotherhood. The war upon the German nation Now that the first drunkenness of the war fever is over, and the contending forces are locked in deadly combat upon the battlefield...

Connolly, the socialists and August 1914

The German Social Democratic Party's paper Vorwärts announces that its deputies in the Reichstag have voted to support the government's war effort Part of a series of articles on Connolly: workersliberty.org/connolly There were no major European wars between the wars of Bonaparte and the outbreak of the Great War in August 1914, not for 99 years. There were important wars. In the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1 Paris was occupied and the Prussian king proclaimed at Versailles to be Emperor of Germany, with sovereignty over such other German states as Bavaria. During the German occupation of...

Connolly and World War One

Part of a series of articles on Connolly: workersliberty.org/connolly These two articles convey Connolly’s first response to the outbreak of World War One in August 1914. His attitude would later change. Our duty in this crisis , Irish Worker 8 August 1914 A martyr for conscience sake , Forward 22 August 1914

Connolly and Partition: summary

Part of a series of articles on Connolly: workersliberty.org/connolly “Insofar as national peace is in any way possible in a capitalist society based on exploitation, profit making and strife it is attainable only under a consistently and thoroughly democratic republican system of government the constitution of which contains a fundamental law that prohibits any privileges whatsoever to any one nation and any encroachment whatsoever upon the rights of a national minority. This particularly calls for wide regional autonomy and fully democratic local government, with the boundaries of the self...

Connolly's exchange with George Barnes on partition

Part of a series of articles on Connolly: workersliberty.org/connolly On 9 March 1914, the British Liberal government said it would seek to amend the Irish Home Rule Bill — then nearing the limit of two years for which the Tory-majority Lords could delay it — to allow counties or county boroughs (Belfast, Derry) to vote to be excluded “for six years”. On 20 March, in the “Curragh Mutiny”, British officers stationed in Ireland said they would refuse to act against Unionists then threatening armed rebellion against Home Rule in the north-east. The Liberals later dropped their Amending Bill after...

Taking the line from the Irish nationalists

George Barnes As I predicted last week: the Tories have been in somewhat chastened mood recently. In fact there was something like a revolt on the back benches for a day or two, and it looked as if Bonar Law & Co. were to be thrown overboard. The Army had been tried and it had turned out a cock that would not fight. The warriors, in short, had bowed their crested heads to the storm of indignation which had been evoked, so the Tories gave up bullying and tried cajolery. Irishmen were urged to win Ulster by kindness, to try Home Rule for Catholics till Protestant Ulster was willing to come in...

Ireland on the dissecting table

This being Easter week, the news from Ireland for the readers of Forward will necessarily be of a short and scrappy character. We are all busy enjoying ourselves, and as this is the last Easter before the red flames of war will light up our hilltops and the red rivers of blood flow along our valleys (ahem!), our amusements must perforce be absorbing and exciting. For it is an awful and serious thing to think that in a month or two the wooden guns of Ulster may go off, and the trained ambulance corps may be wrestling with the problems of how to tie up broken heads or staunch the flow of blood...

What was James Connolly's alternative to partition?

Part of a series of articles on Connolly: workersliberty.org/connolly It is well known that James Connolly, and the Irish labour movement, and the whole of Catholic Ireland, were against Partition. It is less well known that Edward Carson, the leader of the Unionists movement against Home Rule, was against Partition. Carson, an MP for Dublin University, and others were willing to use their Unionist majority in north-east Ulster. But they wanted by using it not to get a separate “Ulster” but to stop any Home Rule for any part of Ireland. The outcome of two states was not what they wanted before...

The British Marxists, Ireland and Ulster

Part of a series of articles on Connolly: workersliberty.org/connolly The article below by Harry Quelch is part four of the subsection on “Connolly and the Protestant workers” of our series on “Connolly, politically unexpurgated”. See the list of articles at the link above for all the parts. Until the outbreak of World War One in 1914, there was a powerful, or seemingly powerful, Marxist international movement. Its most eminent party by far was the German SPD. It had a national newspaper, Vorwärts ( Forward ), and dozens of papers dotted throughout Germany. Its vote steadily grew. The trade...

Partition, Irish Protestants and James Connolly

Part of a series of articles on Connolly: workersliberty.org/connolly This article by Sean Matgamna is part three of the subsection on “Connolly and the Protestant workers” of our series on “Connolly, politically unexpurgated”. See the list of articles at the link above for all three parts. In Desmond Ryan’s four-volume selection of Connolly (1948-51) there is a small piece entitled “The First Hint of Partition”. It accurately says what partition will do to Ireland, North and South: “perpetuate in a form aggravated in evil the discords now prevalent, and help the Home Rule and Orange...

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