Showing on Saturday 29th July at 11:00 am at the Maldron Hotel, Shandon.
This is a documentary about Roger Casement (1864-1916) and his work as a British Foreign office diplomat to expose human rights abuses in the rubber industry in South America. His efforts to exposed human rights injustices in the Congo and Brazil, and later when he joined the Irish fight for freedom makes him one of the most extraordinary revolutionaries of the period.
In 1910, the British Consul General in Rio de Janeiro, Roger Casement, undertook an investigation into allegations of crimes against indigenous communities committed by the British-registered Peruvian Amazon Company.
Secrets from Putumayo tells of the barbaric treatment of the native peoples in Peru and Brazil which he discovered there and which he exposed to a shocked public. Basically, cruel slave labour conditions were an ongoing feature of the rubber industry in the Amazon rainforest, it was “a real green hell.” Shocked by his discoveries, and despite a heavy personal toll, Casement was determined to bring awareness to the British of their own colonial atrocities by revealing the appalling human cost of the rubber industry.
This documentary is narrated by Stephen Rea who reads disturbing excerpts from his journal, while archival images leave a lasting impression on a viewer. Listening to the stories of the native people whose ancestors suffered at the hands of these savage colonial corporations who plundered the resources on the lands of indigenous tribes makes one question how much the operations of some multinationals and governments have changed in over a hundred years.
Roger Casement (Wikipedia).
Today the exploitation continues as these modern companies exploit the rare metals, resources, environment and fish of native peoples across the world as we stand by. Roger Casement was the equivalent of the canary in the mine of human rights. His reports exposing the treatment of indigenous people deserve a wider audience. Secrets from Putamayo will go a long way to achieving this recognition for an extraordinary man.
After 1913, Casement’s efforts on behalf of the new independence movement in Ireland are reasonably well known. He abandoned the British empire after his retirement to help the Irish Revolution. However he paid the ultimate price when the British government ensured his execution for treason against the empire on the 3rd August 1916 some three months after the 1916 leaders were executed.
Roger Casement was arguably one of the world’s first global human rights activists.
Our thanks to everyone who has made the showing of this film possible at the Spirit of Mother Jones festival.
The Spirit of Mother Jones festival and summer school contains challenging and relevant talks and interesting discussions but it also includes singing, music, poetry and some walking.
The Cork Ukrainian Choir will perform at the opening by the Lord Mayor of Cork. After their stunning performance at the Festival launch earlier in the month……..do not miss them!
Cork Ukrainian Choir.
The 2023 festival again features the Cork Singers’ Club whose unique tradition of singing songs without musical accompaniment has ensured that singing songs for enjoyment to an appreciative audience remains a living cultural idiom of communities all over Cork. Come and enjoy this unique experience in the company of the Cork Singers’ Club which has rendered songs of unions, workers’ lives, freedom and social justice at the opening night of the Spirit of Mother Jones festival for the past 12 years.
Therese and Sean MacCarthaigh of the Cork Singers’ Club.
Legendary Cork ballad and folk singer Jimmy Crowley accompanied by Eve Telford will perform at lunch time on Friday 28th. Jimmy has been involved with folk music in Ireland and abroad for six decades and has released many important folk albums. From his time on the Cork folk club scene to Stokers Lodge, his song-writing to his solo albums to his Opus Mór; Songs From a Beautiful City (The Free State Press 2014), Jimmy has made an enormous contribution to preserving Irish ballads. He has submitted well over 1000 songs to the Songs of Cork column which appears each week in the Evening Echo since 2002. Eve Telford sings traditional folk songs from Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales. Born in Australia, her original songs are inspired by the wellsprings of world mythologies, indigenous rights, the natural world and political protest.
Eve Telford and Jimmy Crowley.
Friday evening sees a Cork tribute to Chilean folk singer, guitar player and socialist, Victor Jara who was murdered by the Chilean military dictatorship, some fifty years ago on 16th September 1973. The tribute is organised by John Nyhan, a versatile musician and singer who has been associated with the Spirit of Mother Jones festivals and has spent many years in the folk and bluegrass music worlds.
John Nyhan with Arlo Guthrie.
John and his friends will continue later with the theme of the evening and play a selection of the songs of protest associated with the Folk Music revival. A memorable evening of music and songs is awaited.
Traditionally, each festival concludes with a toast to Mother Jones at the plaque. This year we will be joined by Cork singer songwriter, Martin Leahy whose song “Everyone Should Have a Home’ has become the theme track of the current housing crisis in Ireland. Each week for a year to May 2023, Martin travelled to Dublin to sing this song outside Dail Eireann to remind the politicians entrusted with solving this human tragedy of their responsibilities to enable people seeking a place to call home are facilitated to do so.
Martin Leahy, Photo by Michael Meade.
“It’s a basic human right to have a dignified place to call your own”
Well known to many of us in Cork, Mary Crilly is the Co-Founder and CEO of the Sexual Violence Centre Cork (SVCC).
Mary Crilly.
Formerly known as the Cork Rape Crisis Service, the SVCC was founded on International Women’s Day in 1983, and has two main aims:
To work towards the elimination of sexual violence in society.
To provide the highest quality of services to victims of sexual violence.
The centre provides a range of confidential and free-of-charge supports and services to the survivors of rape, sexual assault, and child sexual abuse. A dedicated and active campaigner, last year Mary was honoured with the Freedom of Cork in recognition of her work.
Thanks to Mary’s tireless grit and determination to establish and sustain the centre, the SVCC has helped tens of thousands of people who suffered rape, sexual violence, domestic violence, and other horrific experiences over the years in Cork.
Mary was awarded the Freedom of Cork City in June 2022 and enrolled in the Roll of Freedom “in recognition of her unstinting support and advocacy for survivors of sexual violence over four decades”
We look forward to Mary speaking to us at the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival 2023 as she will share her experiences of 40 years of work in Cork city, talk about how far we have come, and what we can all do towards eliminating sexual violence.
Mary Speaking at Cork City Hall on International Women’s Day 2023 to Celebrate 40th Anniversary of the Foundation of the Cork Sexual Violence Centre.
Mary will speak at the Dance Cork Firkin Crane on Friday evening 28th July at 7:00 pm. All are welcome to come along.
Mavis Ramazani, originally from South Africa is a Project Officer with the Irish Refugee Council.
Mavis Ramazani, Irish Refugee Council.
She is a Sheroes Global Award winner (2022) recognised for mentoring young people particularly women from ethnic minority backgrounds.
Her talk will cover the living conditions in direct provision, trying to rebuild after displacement, integrating by getting involved in community events, volunteering, starting Cooking for Freedom, empowering women and young girls with the information and how to access various basic support services, creating awareness in the community and connecting with individuals using the power of sharing food.
Mavis will speak on Thursday afternoon (27th July) at 2.30 pm at the Maldron Hotel. All are welcome.
Victor Jara Martinez was a singer and songwriter, a poet, and a political activist. He was active in Chilean theatre as well as international folk music circles.
Victor Jara (Wikipedia)
Jara supported Salvador Allende who was a popular socialist unity candidate of the Left in a bitterly divided Chile in the early 70s. Along with his wife Joan, they supported the elected Allende government elected in September 1970 by organizing cultural and music events.
The Chilean army generals, with the support of the United States began a violent coup on 11th September 1973 against this elected government and appointed General Augusto Pinochet as dictator.
The army proceeded to conduct a reign of terror against people identified as Allende supporters. Victor Jara was kidnapped and locked up in the Estadio Chile. Jara, who was well known to the army was tortured and murdered on 16th September 1973, at the age of just 40.
The sports stadium in Santiago is now called Victor Jara Stadium.
During Pinochet’s first three years, approx. 130,000 people were arrested, many were tortured and some 6,000 people were murdered or disappeared.
A house belonging to Irish missionaries in Chile was attacked in 1975 and their housekeeper Henriquetta Reyes was murdered. As late as 1983, two Irish Columban Father priests, Fr. Forde and Fr. McGillicuddy were expelled as a result of their human rights work in Chile. Dr. Sheila Cassidy who worked with the poor was imprisoned and tortured.
These two priests as well as Fr Holohan, another Irish priest. were recently honoured in June 2023 by the Chilean government for their work and by President Michael D Higgins at a ceremony in the Chilean embassy in Dublin. The President of Ireland is due to travel to Chile in September 2023 on the fiftieth anniversary of the military coup.
The memory of Victor Jara lives on among those who fight for social justice across the world. It is appropriate as we approach the fiftieth anniversary of his murder that we pause and think of this warm hearted guitar player who wrote songs and sang about freedom.
A tribute to Victor Jara from some of Cork’s musicians will take place on Friday 28th July 2023 at 9:00 pm at the Maldron Hotel.
“A Sense of Wonder”, a documentary by Kaiulani Lee about the life of Rachel Carson will be shown on Friday afternoon, 28th July at 2:30pm at the Maldron Hotel.
Rachel Carson, a marine biologist, published Silent Spring in 1962 which warned the world of the dangers of using pesticides on nature. The synthetic chemicals originally used during the Second World War were repackaged by some chemical companies for farmers to use on insects and weeds with little or no regulation. She highlighted the aerial spraying of DDT in particular.
Carson’s challenging and ground-breaking book resulted in a sustained and personal attack by the chemical industry on her findings and on her personally. However she faced down the industry, defended her work which subsequently led to a huge questioning by many scientists and citizens all over the world of the destruction of the environment through the use of pesticides and biocides in the natural environment. For her bravery, her work and her warnings Rachel Carson is regarded by many as the “Mother of the Environmental movement”.
Unfortunately in spite of growing scientific evidence of the impact of chemicals on birds, insects and vegetation the destruction has continued for the most part in spite of some governmental regulations. The ongoing loss of biodiversity and the growth of industrial agriculture is adding to the current mass extinction.
Carson quoted Albert Schweitzer as follows
“Man has lost the capacity to foresee and to forestall. He will end by destroying the earth”
We are honoured to show “ A Sense of Wonder” which was written and performed by Kaiulani Lee, with the help and guidance of many of Ms Carson’s friends and colleagues.
Kaiulani Lee.
Using many of Rachel Carson’s own words, Kaiulani embodies Carson in a documentary style film which depicts her in the final year of her life. As she battles the cancer, which was to take her life shortly afterwards, Carson tells the story of the attacks by the chemical industry, the government and the press as she tries to get the scientific evidence of destruction to be taken seriously by US legislators and people.
Kaiulani’s overreaching message in filming the documentary was to promote the interrelatedness of all life and the interconnection of all life. She says there has to be a shift in our consciousness and we have to know our place in the wider cosmos. We destroy life on the Earth at our peril.
Rachel Carson passed away on 14th April 1964, in Silver Springs, Maryland a few miles from where Mother Jones had died in 1930.
It is performed with humour, wit, sadness and anger by Kaiulani Lee, who has attended the Spirit of Mother Jones festivals in 2012 and 2015 and whose recent production of Fight Like Hell: – The testimony of Mother Jones is available to watch on Bullfrog Films.
Lord Mayor of Cork, Cllr. John Buttimer with Kaiulani Lee 2012.
The documentary will be introduced by Gerard (Ger) Mullally who is a sociology lecturer at University College Cork, specializing in the areas of environment, community, sustainable development and climate change. He also created the university-wide module in sustainability which is freely available to UCC students and staff as well as community members. This will be followed by an open discussion.
Luke Dineen will discuss the Cork General Lockout of 1909 at the Spirit of Mother Jones summer school on Saturday afternoon 29th July at 2:00 pm at the Maldron Hotel, Shandon.
Luke Dineen receiving a presentation from Ann Piggott of the Cork Mother Jones Committee in 2019.
In 1909 in America, Mother Jones was extremely active. The Miners’ Magazine, publication of the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) stated in 1909 quoting from her speech in South Dakota stated “Mother Jones in her speeches in the Black Hills wore no gloves but rapped Capitalism with bare knuckles”. That year also she helped striking shirtwaist workers in New York City and Mexican revolutionaries jailed in the US.
Here in her native Cork, throughout 1909 there was growing unrest in the Labour movement with thousands of workers either on strike or locked out of their jobs. Small local trade disputes multiplied, the City Docks quarrels of 1908 again came to the boil, James Larkin’s new Irish Transport and General Workers Union (ITGWU) was at the centre of several disputes as it had attracted large numbers of recruits from among various workforces in the city.
By May 1909, the employers in the city formed the Cork Employers’ Federation (CEF) and appointed Belfast born, Sir Alfred Dobbin (owner of the Imperial Hotel and Palace Theatre and many other businesses) as chairman. Described by Luke Dineen as “Cork’s answer to William Martin Murphy” and “widely loathed”, Dobbin’s inability to negotiate resulted in a refusal to resolve disputes as more and more workers were locked out.
Sir Alfred Dobbin.
Cork Chamber of Commerce 1918.
Through the months of June and July 1909, Cork was the scene of violent street battles and baton charges by the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC). Anyone wearing an ITGWU union badge was targeted. On the night of 20th June, twenty people attended the North Infirmary hospital suffering from head wounds as a result of the street battles.
The end result was a total defeat for the workers, the recently formed ITGWU branch collapsed. Inter union conflict with the Workers’ Union,
the ruthlessness of the employers and RIC and the opposition from the local press ensured a comprehensive victory for the employers. Many workers were left destitute or in prison and their families in poverty.
In the later 1913 Dublin Lockout, Cork born William Martin Murphy acted in a similar manner to Dobbin and the Dublin Employers’ Federation (founded in 1911) adopted the same approach as the CEF. Murphy had the advantage of actually owning the Irish Independent newspaper thus ensuring the support of the press. For their part, the ITGWU learned that union unity and working class solidarity, along with appropriate financial resources, were all vital to success.
During the bitter lockout, the ITGWU had organised some of the workers in Cork into protection groups, armed with hurleys and clubs whose role was to protect strikers on Cork’s docks. This became a precursor of the later Irish Citizen Army (ICA) of 1913 and while defeat was again the outcome in 1913 for the unions and workers, the men and women of the ICA were to prove a major catalyst for the 1916 Rising.
Luke is the author of the recent Irish Labour History Society publication “A City Of Strikes: The Cork General Lockout of 1909”.
He previously spoke about the 1909 Cork Lockout at the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival in 2013.
This presentation is by Anne Twomey of the Shandon Are History Group and will take place in Dance Cork Firkin Crane on Thursday 27th July at 7.15 pm.
Anne Twomey of the Shandon Area History Group.
Anne’s talk will be followed immediately by historian, Liz Gillis.
Some Background Notes.
The Blarney Street/Sundays Well district is a long established community on the north west of Cork City, bounded on the south by the River Lee and on the north by Blarney Street.
Three extraordinary women from this community who were born a little more than a kilometre from each other; sisters Lil and May Conlon who lived on Blarney Street and later at 92 Sundays Well Road and Margaret Buckley from 12 Winters Hill all contributed enormously to the Irish Revolution. Yet the advent of the Irish Civil War saw them take opposite sides in the savage political schism which followed. The subsequent lives of these women represent a local human microcosm of the bitter split among friends after the War of Independence and the different roads of life subsequently taken by each.
Anne Twomey will examine their journeys.
Margaret Buckley.
“If I were dealing with the Constitution I would have something to say about de Valera’s treating the women of the country as half-wits”
MARGARET BUCKLEY
Born on or around July 28th 1879, Margaret Goulding became a teacher and joined the various nationalist cultural organizations in Cork operating from An Dún, the cultural fulcrum (this building remains on Fr. Mathew Street, now stands sadly dilapidated) of the pre-revolutionary era in the early 1900s.
When she married Pat Buckley, who worked for the British Custom & Excise and Inland Revenue in Dublin, she left Cork in 1906. Pat Buckley died very young and Margaret became active as a union organiser in the Irish Women Workers Union, where she spent the next four decades. She joined Sinn Fein after the 1916 Rising and returned to Cork for a while to care for her dying father.
Margaret Buckley.
During the War of Independence, Margaret served in the Sinn Fein courts in Dublin. Like most Cumann Na mBan members, she opposed the Treaty. She was arrested and spent nine months in jail during the Civil War, when as officer commanding the women prisoners, she witnessed appalling brutality against women in the civil war jails of Kilmainham, Mountjoy and the North Dublin Union. She was eventually released from prison in October 1923.
Layer, in 1938 she published “The Jangle of the Keys” about her time in jail. Having spent time imprisoned in Mountjoy, her lively account of daily life in the North Dublin Union and Kilmainham jails, (republished by Sinn Fein in 2022) is at times tragic, brutal and depressing, yet her humanity, her humour and sense of fun along with her quiet solid leadership marks her out as a formidable, but fair woman who sailed a single minded path in life.
A tall woman with an impressive presence, Bean Uí Bhuachalla became a natural and respected leader. She continued working with Sinn Fein, eventually becoming its President from 1937 until 1950 and worked unceasingly in maintaining and consolidating what had by then become a very small, inward looking organisation.
Margaret’s approach was to keep active, to remain working in the trade union movement and in her political life, she was very efficient at the tasks and usual monotony of a political activist. Her greatest achievement was to ensure the very survival of the near moribund and divided Sinn Fein organisation during a difficult period in the 1940s. Eighty years later, with the Sinn Fein party, today on the verge of attaining political power both in the south and north of Ireland, perhaps the work and resilience of this revolutionary woman from Winter’s Hill in Cork may eventually be fully acknowledged, especially in her native city.
Margaret Buckley was listed as one of the plaintiffs in what has become known as the Sinn Fein funds case which meandered through the Irish courts during the 1940s. Sinn Fein had sought to recover approx. £22,000 (value in 1947) of funds held in trust which had been owned by Sinn Fein in 1922, prior to the Civil War. The case was lost as the court eventually decided that the reconstituted Sinn Fein of 1923 (post Civil War) was not a legal continuation of the 1922 pre Civil War, Sinn Fein. After legal fees and costs of the myriad of lawyers were paid out of the monies held, very little remained.
Throughout her life, Margaret remained very active in defence of social justice issues and exposing the poor working conditions and discrimination against women workers. Her blunt assessment of the 1937 Constitution was that it treated women as “half-wits” and in her ongoing and prolific writings as Margaret Lee and Maggie she severely criticised the treatment of women and worked to highlight the poor social conditions experienced by many ordinary people in the Republic.
Margaret died on 24th July 1962 and her wish was to be buried in St. Finbarr’s cemetery in Cork.
Lil and May Conlon.
May (Mary) was born on 26th April 1892, while Lil (Elizabeth) followed less than two years later on 29th March 1894. From an early age both sisters from a family of seven were very close and became active in nationalist circles in Cork. They were present in 1914 at the founding of Cork Cumann Na mBan (C Na mB) and later at the founding of the Shandon branch, which became one of the most active in Ireland. May, known as Bealtaine was appointed branch secretary and was described by her sister as having her finger “on the pulse of all national undertaking and activities throughout these tempestuous years.”
Lil Conlon (Left) and May Conlon (Right).
Unlike the wider national body, the C Na mB organisation in Cork voted to accept the Treaty, which had led to the foundation of the Irish Free State and campaigned actively in support of the Cork politicians who spoke in in favour of it. This split in Cork was particularly bitter and rancorous, with many of those women on opposite sides of the Civil War sadly remaining at loggerheads for the rest of their lives.
Lil and May always defended the women who took the pro-treaty side. Lil later worked as a civil servant in Dublin and was subsequently employed on the clerical staff at University College Cork, where her brother Sean taught Irish and served on the governing body of the college. Both continued to be active in Catholic Church support bodies, charity works and were firm supporters of the GAA in Cork.
Back in 2008, a phone call from a Conlon relation cleaning out the old family home in Sundays Well, to the Cork City Museum led to the discovery of a large cache of archives belonging to Lil Conlon, including leaflets, correspondence and the original drafts of her 1969 book, “Cumann Na mBan & the Woman of Ireland 1913-1925.”
She said that this book did not purport to be a history but “simply a pot-pourri of bitter sweet memories”.
This treasure trove of material is available to view online at
Having suffered from bad health for many years, May had passed away earlier in September 1946 aged just 54. Lil died at the North Infirmary Hospital on Thursday 27th October 1983 and both are buried in Kilcrea cemetery, near Ovens, County Cork.
As part of the ongoing debate relating to the climate change taking place (one we feel would have been embraced by Mother Jones, especially in view of her fight against the exploitation of labour by unregulated capitalism, which now in turn exploits the environment), we welcome Niamh Guiry who will discuss how insights from Ireland’s ancient past might assist Ireland developing a sustainable path to resolving its environmental issues.
Niamh Guiry will speak at the Maldron Hotel Shandon on Friday morning 28th July at 10.30 am Conservation Insights from Brehon Law: Exploring Ireland’s Ancient Tree Considerations.
Niamh Guiry.
Many ancient cultures seemed to embody a multi-dimensional understanding of their local environment, recognising the practical benefits of healthy ecosystems as well as their more-than-human qualities.
Delving into Ireland’s past, we find a legacy of environmental considerations, reflected in the legal, social, and cultural value the people of early Irish society bestowed upon trees. Exploring the Old-Irish tree list found in Bretha Comaithchesa (Judgements of Neighbourhood) of Brehon law, mythological stories, and the spiritual practices of the time, this talk discusses how we could use insights from Ireland’s ancient environmental considerations to strengthen our approach to conservation.
Niamh Guiry is a climate activist and PhD Researcher at the School of Law, University College Cork. Her PhD research explores the interrelationship between the 2030 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, global environmental governance, and evolving patterns of international law-making.
A member of Not Here NotAnywhere, a grassroots organisation campaigning to end fossil fuel exploration and the development of new fossil fuel infrastructure in Ireland, Niamh has a keen interest in biodiversity protection, climate justice, and environmental communication.
Eoghan Daltun will speak at the 2023 Spirit of Mother Jones Festival on Friday morning 11.30am about his recent book, An Irish Atlantic Rainforest: A Personal Journey into the Magic of Rewilding.
Eoghan was born in London, brought up in Dublin, lived in several countries and now resides on the Beara peninsula in West Cork. Sculptor and author Eoghan purchased the old Crowley farm of 33 acres with 40 acres of mountain commonage back in 2009. He talks of how the power of nature at Bofickil near Eyeries has regenerated the old woodland and helped to create a temperate rainforest on the farm.
Eoghan Daltun.
The Bofickil woods came about as a result of neglect rather than design. The original owner, Phllip Crowley was a copper miner who worked in nearby Allihies, later emigrated in 1909 to Butte, Montana to work in the copper mines and never came back. While other family members looked after the farm, wild native forest gradually became established and when Eoghan moved in a hundred years later, he provided the protection needed to enhance the natural progress of regeneration. Eoghan had become a conservator and rewilder.
Bofickil Wood
In his book he considers the state of nature in the wider context of the developing ecological crisis across the planet. He has some harsh comments to make about official European Union policy which destroys wildlife habitat and have become box-ticking bureaucratic exercises or fig-leaf solutions.
“….it financially penalises farmers who don’t remove existing wild patches on their land, while other schemes pay them to take token actions that are useless to wildlife. Strange as it might seem, what birds, bats, bees and everything else really need isnt boxes stuck on trees or fence posts, or piles of builders sand, but actual habitat.”
Eoghan cites the influence of James Lovelock and biologist Rachel Carson. Lovelock developed the scientific theory of GAIA about how the Earth’s natural ecosystems sustain the world’s conditions which are conducive and essential to life on planet Earth. By coincidence, Lovelock, a British scientist, once lived about 25 kilometres back the road at Ard Carrig in Adrigole during the period in which he developed the hypothesis of Gaia. The stunning natural beauty and raw nature of the Beara peninsula may have influenced Lovelock as it does Eoghan Daltun.
Eoghan Daltun appears at the 2023 Spirit of Mother Jones Festival on Friday 28th July at 11.30am at the Maldron Hotel in Shandon.
