United States senator Bernie Sanders and Jane O’Meara Sanders arrived on Shandon Street  to huge applause today. 

 

Bernie and Jane were paying a courtesy call to the Spirit of Mother Jones HQ on Shandon Street where they met members of the Cork Mother Jones Committee and friends of our festival. James and Marie Nolan welcomed our American guests to their local butcher shop which has been on the street since the 1800s and has served as the gathering point for planning the festival which has been held annually since 2012. James is one of the founder members of the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival.

Bernie stepped inside the counter and admitted that this was a first for him in his career as the longest serving Independent senator in United States congressional history. He examined a wide selection of Cork products and checked out the local bodice.

Cork Mother Jones Committee  member Ann Piggott then proceeded to make a number of presentations to the Sanders family. Among the items was a copy of the Frameworks Films produced Mother Jones and Her Children, a festival poster and Elliott J. Gorn’s biography of Mother Jones. 

In addition Ann  produced some Cork treats of a bottle of Tanora, chester cakes (donkeys gudge) and some Tayto crisps, as a symbol of a special Cork welcome which she presented to the Sanders and were very appreciated by Bernie and Jane.

During a brief account of the extraordinary and long life of Mother Jones by committee member Ger O’Mahony, a number of interesting connections between Bernie and the Mother Jones family were revealed. Back in May 26th 2015 Bernie Sanders made his formal announcement that he was running for president of the United States on the waterfront park on Lake Champlain in Burlington, Vermont which he had helped to create while he was the proud Mayor first elected in 1981 of his hometown. He was re-elected three times during his tenure and served until 1989 after which he was elected to Congress. 

Exactly a decade after announcing his presidential run, almost to the day (27th May 2025), Bernie Sanders was standing in Shandon, the home of Mother Jones.  

Amazingly it was from here in Shandon in the heart of Cork City that Richard Harris and his son Richard junior, the father and brother of Mary Harris (Mother Jones) left to go to Canada on the infamous coffin ships in the late 1840s, probably during “Black 47”. According to author Elliott Gorn, the Harris men first appeared in the 1850 US census as living in Vermont in Bernie’s own town Burlington. Boarding with a local family, they were described as Illiterate and propertyless. In an era of fluid borders, the Harris’s had initially travelled into the United States to Burlington just over the border from Canada where they spent some time after emigrating from Cork . 

By the time Richard’s wife Ellen Harris along with the remaining family members including Mary arrived from Ireland in the early 1850s, the Harris family had left Burlington and moved back to Canada to Bathurst Street in Toronto, where young Mary Harris grew up and was educated. 

Everyone then strolled through the ancient and historic streets of Shandon where a young Mary Harris may have walked to assemble at the plaque of Mother Jones erected in 2012 by the Cork Mother Jones Committee.

From underneath the plaque Bernie addressed the crowd,

” Now is the time to fight for the living. Seeing massive concentrations of wealth and power of a handful of multi-billionaires who literally want to control not just the United States but the entire world, who couldn’t care less about working people……they want it all”

“It is imperative that we  stand together as what we see in the United States today will be in Europe and Ireland tomorrow”.

Calling for international solidarity he continued 

“We must remember our common humanity, all the children of the world have a right to live, with food and with education, security and that we must strive for a world of peace and not war. There is an enormous amount of work in front of us, Let’s stand together and let’s do it.”

Jane added 

“It’s wonderful to be here to commemorate Mother Jones. What she stood for in terms of workers rights in terms of protection of the children is very much in our feeling of what are the priorities of life. Thank you for welcoming us to Cork on such an auspicious occasion”

Committee member William Hammond then sang the ballad of Joe Hill and concluded with a rendering of Salonika to rapturous applause.

And the meeting concluded with the traditional whiskey toast at the Mother Jones plaque led by Bernie and Jane.

The Spirit of Mother Jones Festival takes place from Thursday 24th July until Saturday 26th July 2025.

Full programme of events will be available on this site by mid June or thereabouts.