In memory of Anne Scargill RIP.

Posted on April 11, 2025 by Admin

The Cork Mother Jones Committee is sad to announce the passing on Thursday 10th April 2025 of our great friend Anne Scargill following a long illness with Alzheimer’s disease.

Anne was a lifelong community activist in the North of England.

She was a co-founder of the Women Against Pit Closures (WAPC) who took a key part in the struggle in defence of their mining communities during the Miners Strike in 1984/85. Later she remained active on social justice issues alongside her great friend Betty Cook for over 40 years and took part in the occupation of the Parkside coal mine over the Easter weekend in April 1993. This underground sit-in required extraordinary courage, made international news and highlighted the dreadful treatment of the mining communities after the strike was long over.

Anne Harper was born on the 12th October 1941. Her background was totally connected to coal mining.

“I was brought up in the heart of the Barnsley coalfield with my mam, dad and sister Joan in a terraced row in Barugh Green. There was a pub called the Phoenix at one end of the row and a Co-op at the other. My dad was Elliott Harper, a coal miner from a big family of colliers in Gawber. My mother was Harriet Hardy from Skelmanthorpe near Huddersfield.”

From Anne & Betty United by the Struggle. 2020

Anne Harper met a young trade union and political activist Arthur Scargill in Barnsley when she was 18 when he visited her father who was also a trade union man. They married in 1961. In their book with Ian Clayton, Anne describes their life and adventures as the union activist Arthur rose in the ranks of the National Union of Miners (NUM) to eventually become the president of the powerful NUM. She traveled extensively and experienced life in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. She attended the World Social Forum in Mumbai, traveled to Australia and visited Cuba where she encountered Fidel Castro. She met Hortensia Bussi, the widow of Salvador Allende in Cuba also.

Anne second from left supporting the Greyhound Bin workers strike in Dublin in 2014. Courtesy of J Thomson.

She remained very proud of the way, her then husband, Arthur led the miners and proud of the women who joined in at the pickets, at the food kitchens and the marches. She also noted that as the men marched back to work at the end of the strike, many women had been changed by their activism during the strike. Anne began to spend time with women’s activist groups. Taking inspiration from the Greenham Common women, the WAPC organised several pit camps outside mines to highlight the mine closures by the Tory government, Anne spent a year in the Grimethorpe pit-camp. She even sat in a camp outside the Tory party offices and the Department of Trade in London. And like Mother Jones, she was arrested on several occasions, once placed in a van prison cage and strip searched! She became even more determined to continue picketing and did so up and down the country wherever she was needed..

Anne and Betty at the County Hotel balcony, Durham Miners Gala 2014.

In recent times Anne accompanied by her friend Betty Cook, she visited the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival in Cork in 2014 and 2015 and returned in 2019 to take part in the March of the Mill Children recreated in Shandon that year.

Anne and Betty with their Daughters of Mother Jones banner at the March of the Mill Children in Shandon in 2019. Courtesy of Claire Stack.

Left to Right:. Anne Scargill, Spirit of Mother Jones Award recipient 2019 Louise O’Keeffe and Betty Cook.

Anne and Betty spoke at the festivals and sang Mal Finch’s great anthem ‘Women of the Working Class’. She enjoyed signing the visitors book in the Cork City Mayoral Office in the presence of the Lord Mayor of Cork, Chris O’Leary in 2014.

Anne Scargill & Betty Cook sing “The Women’s Song”

Anne Scargill signs the visitors book, at Cork City Hall in the Lord Mayors Office in 2014. Cllr Chris O’Leary, Lord Mayor of Cork and Betty Cook look on. Courtesy of J. Thomson.

The women marched each year in the huge Durham Gala and proudly carried their ‘Daughters of Mother Jones’ banner along the parade route. Anne was just so happy to be amongst mining community friends. She also visited Jonesborough in the Appalachian mountains to meet up with the Daughters of Mother Jones colleagues such as Marat Moore and Libby Lindsay.

With a glint in her eye, Anne loved to tell funny and hair raising stories about her activities. Laced with wit and shrewd and perceptive observations,she certainly did not stand on ceremony in the presence of the famous or those charged with upholding the law if she felt she was right. Her humour was ever present and her positive energy radiated through her activism. She always knew which side she was on and followed passionately in the footsteps of her hero, Mother Jones!

Ní bheidh a leithéid ann arís.

To Anne’s daughter Margaret and family we extend our sympathy and also to Betty Cook, her great friend and colleague in activism, and to her many comrades. May she rest in peace.

Walks at the 2024 Spirit of Mother Jones Festival.

Posted on July 12, 2024 by Admin

Saturday 27th July.

9:00 a.m.

Gather in front of the Maldron Hotel, Shandon. No booking required.

Peter Foynes of the Cork Butter Museum will conduct a walk through the historic birthplace of Mary Harris.

It will take about 75 minutes.

Shandon comes from two Gaelic words, sean, old and dún, a fort or castle. Shandon has had a distinct identity on the northern hill overlooking the River Lee since the 12th Century. It is a remarkable community , containing a rich urban heritage and many regard it as the very heart of Cork City. The heritage of the area represents the old religious struggles and conflict in Ireland going back many centuries, now existing in mutual respect and tolerance. Uniquely the business history and heritage of Cork City and County can also be found in this small area, represented by the butter and meat trade both from its rural hinterland and then sent over the world. Thirdly, a vibrant, diverse and positive community lives in the narrow streets largely unchanged since the time when a young Mary Harris lived and played by these streets on the hill. Peter Foynes has written extensively about Shandon, he is active in the local community and knows these streets.

https://thebuttermuseum.com

Saturday 27th July 2024, 3:00 p.m.

Feminist Walk 2. This begins in University College Cork and arrives at the Mother Jones Plaque at about 5.45 in time for the annual toast to Mother Jones.

The event lasts 2-3 hours.

The joint hosts are Professor Maggie O’Neill and Conach Gibson, UCC to discover more about some of the amazing, trail-blazing women of Cork on an outdoor walk.

Message from event organiser, 18th July 2024. Registration for this walk is now full. Only walkers who registered on event brite can be accommodated on the day.

Feminist 2 ‘ Women, Confinement and Social Justice’ takes a winding guided walk across Cork City to learn more about the contributions of trail-blazing women woven into the history and topography of the city, and their great work in challenging sexual and social inequalities to build safer and fairer societies for all. Maggie O’Neill, Professor in Sociology & Criminology, Director of ISS21 and Collective Social Futures at UCC, and has a long history of socially engaged research with communities for social justice. Conach Gibson Feinblum is a PhD student at University College Cork, who worked as a researcher to co-create the feminist walk and website.

Maggie O’Neill speaking at the 2023 Spirit of Mother Jones Festival.

Registration for the walk is now open at:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/feminist-walk-2-women-confinement-and-social-justice-tickets-943556311327on Event Brite.

A Feminist Walking Tour of Cork City.

Posted on June 27, 2023 by Admin

Following the very successful Launch of the Feminist Walk Cork website at last year’s Spirit of Mother Jones Festival, we are delighted to announce the return of Maggie O’Neill to the festival for 2023.

http://www.feministwalkcork.ie/

The feminist walk of Cork (the first in a series of feminist walks created with community partners, staff and students at UCC) celebrates the contribution of women to art, culture, society and the city. Along the route we will explore the role of women in addressing sexual and social inequalities, and building fairer, safer communities.

Following the legacy of Mother Jones, the walk writes women into the spaces and topography of the city and is facilitated by Maggie O’Neill and Conach Gibson-Feinblum.

Meet at 4.30 at the Maldron Hotel, Shandon on Saturday 29th July.

Maggie O’Neill is Professor in Sociology & Criminology at University College Cork, she has a long history of working with communities to create change, using arts based and participatory research methods. Maggie loves walking, walking as a way of doing research and as a teaching and learning method. She leads a walking module at UCC and is a member of the Walking Artists Network. Maggie has co-created a number of pedagogic walks.

Conach Gibson-Feinblum is a graduate of Criminology (BA) and Anthropology (MA) at University College Cork. She has a passion for feminist epistemologies, particularly Jewish feminism and worked as a research support to co-create the development of the feminist walk website and the feminist self-guided walking map.

Salt of the Earth.

Posted on June 16, 2023 by Admin

The Cork Mother Jones Committee is proud to present the 1954 documentary Salt of the Earth at this year’s Festival. It will be shown on Thursday 27th July 2023 at the Maldron Hotel, Shandon, beginning at 11:00 am.

Salt of the Earth is the story of a strike which is based on a 1951 strike in New Mexico.

Deemed “culturally significant” by the US Library of Congress,it is now preserved in the National Film Registry.

On its release in 1954, the American Legion called for a nationwide boycott, it was denounced in the US House of Representatives, investigated by the FBI and the film set was attacked by vigilantes. As its writer Michael Wilson, director Herbert J Biberman and producer Paul Jarrico were all blacklisted in Hollywood in the McCarthy campaign against Communism, Salt of the Earth itself was also blacklisted and many cinemas refused to show it..

Due to financial constraints, a few professional actors such as Rosaura Revueltas as Esperanza Quintero (later deported to Mexico). Will Geer played the Sheriff, he was a socialist, a comrade of Woody Guthrie to whom he introduced Pete Seeger. (he is better known to Irish audiences as Grandpa in the Waltons). They were joined by miners from Local 890 of the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter workers. and their families in the cast. Juan Chacon who played Ramon Quintero was a union local official.

Rosaura Revueltas and Juan Chacon. Source: Wikipedia.

The blunt and austere realism of the strike is full on and direct in some emotional and powerful scenes. Crucially it embraces a unique feminist approach to union politics which was rare in the early 1950 cinema. The wives, family and widows of the miners rally to offer hope for the future of migrant workers.

The earlier efforts of Mother Jones to assist the Mexican trade unions and support the Mexican Revolution is especially relevant

In spite of production difficulties and the quality, this film remains long in one’s mind due to its honesty, its realism and the common human story of labour injustice it displays as the participants strive to tell the story of the union activists and the strike.

Even the biblical origins of its title, Salt of the Earth did not prevent its condemnation in some quarters as communist propaganda. Yet its message lives on as a brave political statement in opposition to the rampant McCarthyism which prevented progressive film making, culture and the arts in America. That it survives and endures almost 70 years later is testament to the everlasting story of workers organising to fight injustice.

Salt of the Earth will be shown on Thursday morning 27th July 2023 at 11:00 am at the Maldron Hotel, Shandon followed by a discussion. Running time 90 minutes.

Liz Gillis, author and historian to speak at the 2023 Spirit of Mother Jones Festival.

Posted on June 3, 2023 by Admin

She Carried Out All the Duties Given to Her in a Most Efficient Manner – Women in the Irish Revolution.”

As we approach the end of the Decade of Centenaries, Liz Gillis who is a prolific writer on the revolutionary years 1913-1923 will address the treatment of activist women during and after the period. Originally from Dublin’s Liberties, which she loves and promotes, Liz has highlighted the role of women during that era and has argued that they were fighting not just for freedom but also for real freedom with social justice at its very core.

From Cumann Na mBan to the labour based Irish Citizen Army and onwards to the “Invisible army” of the Irish Republican Army, many of the women were often the public face of the resistance as the men risked immediate death if exposed. Conversely with the arrival of the new State, the men became more prominent and conservative in the Church dominated post Civil War politics of the era, while many of the radical women were rendered powerless and became invisible for decades.

The 1916 Proclamation declaring an Irish Republic addressed to the people of Ireland (Ireland is described as “she”), is directed to “Irishmen and Irishwomen” and includes direct reference to Irish women in two later sections. The use of the pronoun “her” in reference to Ireland as feminine appears on ten occasions in the first two paragraphs of the Proclamation. The signatories certainly intended that Irish women should play an equal role in the Irish Republic.

Ms. Gillis’s book Women of the Irish Revolution, published in 2014, exposed the faces, achievements and sacrifices and treatment of hundreds of these invisible women who served in the engine rooms of the revolution. The book contains a unique set of photographs which provide a human face to many of those heroes for the first time. The publication along with others which highlighted the essential work of the women made an enormous contribution to the belated, if often grudging State acknowledgement in recent years of their pivotal importance during the period. The new Free State meted out cruel and harsher treatment to them than the British forces had attempted during the War of Independence and over subsequent decades failed to provide pensions to many of the women activists. Even today there is very little recognition of the contribution made by these women in for example public space names or monuments by national or local government.

“They were the wives, mothers, sisters and girlfriends of the men who fought and died for Irish freedom and their story is one that needs to be told”

“Women of the Irish Revolution” Published by Mercier Press Cork 2014.

Liz is the author of several books and has championed the contribution of women for many years. She previously worked as a researcher for the RTE History Show and lectures at the Champlain College, Dublin. She has appeared in many RTE documentaries in relation to the revolutionary period and has recently authored The Hales Brothers and the Irish Revolution.

Liz will speak to the topic “She Carried Out All the Duties Given to Her in a Most Efficient Manner – Women in the Irish Revolution.”

Venue: Dance Cork Firkin Crane. Thursday evening 27th July 2023.

Feminist Walking Tour of Cork Launched at Festival

Posted on August 10, 2022 by Admin

Professor Maggie O’Neill launched the walk, a printed map and website for the new feminist walking tour of Cork on Saturday 30^th July at the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival.

The launch was a collaboration with Mother Jones Festival and TVG Traveller pride. Following a brief introduction, a large number of the participants headed off to visit a number of the sites, including the Traveller Visibility Centre, the Mary Elmes Bridge, the Sexual Violence Centre and the Mother Jones Plaque.

Feminist Walking Tour at Mary Elmes Bridge

While some representations of women can be found, and some streets are named after queens and saints, there are no monuments to women in Cork City. Yet the women of Cork have made an enormous contribution to building better communities throughout the city and far beyond.

The Cork Mother Jones Committee wish to congratulate all associated with this venture which focuses on celebrating the contribution of women to Cork City and explores “the role of women in addressing sexual and social inequalities and building fairer, safer communities”.

https://www.feministwalkcork.ie/

Further Information in relation to Cork Street names from Cork Mother Jones Committee:

It does appear as if the only female representation used on Cork street names are indeed those of queens and saints/religious figures. The name of Queen Victoria appears on approximately eleven place name locations in Cork City; the renaming of the area around MacCurtain Street as “The Victorian Quarter” is the latest example.

Interestingly, over one hundred place names in Cork City are named after saints, representing thirty-one saints, seven of which are female. (only St Mary, St Joseph and St Patrick can match Queen Victoria in popularity).

Dozens more place names have religious associations such as the names of popular Cork priests or Italian saints. Just two nuns, both founders of religious orders such as Mary Aikenhead and Nano Nagle are remembered on a road, places and a bridge.

Names such as Bernadette, Mary, Margaret and Geraldine appear on Cork street names and they are probably connected to saint names also.

Only Dr Mary Hearn (2011) and Mary Elmes (2020 ) who have had the honour of recently having a park and a bridge named after them in the city may be deemed to have come from a secular if somewhat privileged background.

To date it appears that no secular working class woman has been bestowed with the honour of her name being placed on any public structure or street in Cork City. When one realises that Thom’s Commercial Directory of 2004 listed some 2805 streets in Cork City and yet no street is named after an ordinary Cork woman, it is a very serious omission and represents gender and class discrimination on an epic scale in our city.

The Spirit of Mother Jones Festival

Shandon, Cork City, Ireland

Category Archives: Feminism