Cork singer-songwriter performed his new song Mother Jones at the Mother Jones plaque on John Redmond Street in the Shandon Historic Quarter on the final day of the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival 2024 to great acclaim from the large gathering. 

You can listen to Martin Leahy’s wonderful new Mother Jones song on the link below.

(Words and music used by kind permission of Martin Leahy) 

“Walking boldly in her black shoes

Not a saviour from outside not a saviour from above

She was of and she came from the wounds

Of the working class people the people she loved

Shining through the darkened back roads

A star that lit the way for the ages yet to be

Organizing in the shadows

Freedom for all people in the land of the free

To the struggle where the workers and their families rights were abandoned

From the alleyways the streets and the lanes by the bells of Shandon

Out of Famine out of fever

Out of fire out of grief out on her own

Out of a wounded Mary Harris

Came the healing burning blood of Mother Jones

Striking out across the nation

In the white heat with the strikers side by side

Striking fear into the bosses

They were powerless to stop a revolutions rising tide

Close to the workers and the movements right at the root

Spinning yarns and shaping myths in the service of a bigger truth

We need you in our hearts more than ever today

The rich still burn the earth and the poor still pay

We can hear you in our heads when the spirit won’t give in

Pray for the dead but fight like hell for the living

Across the lines of all religion

Across the lines of race we’ll hold her name

Across the women men and children

The iron heel on all flesh feels the same

Marching to the city with the little ones broken and bruised

To the mansions of wealth built on the crushed bones of youth”