GAZA

A film by Garry Keane and Andrew McConnell.
90 mins long. Released 2019.

This powerful film shows a world which was seldom seen and which following the genocide does not exist now, it is a place of rubble. Gaza is a coastal strip along the Mediterranean which measures twenty five miles long by 6/7 miles wide. In 2019 it was home to nearly two million people.

Gaza

Following the attack by Hamas in October 2023, in which 1200 Israelis and foreign workers were killed, the subsequent relentless and brutal Israeli government attacks on Gazan civilians has claimed the lives of at least 75,000 of its children, women and men who have been killed amidst the silence from many politicians in Europe, who look the other way in spite of the objections of their own people and in spite of the Israeli attacks being described as genocide by the United Nations.


Directors, Keane and McConnell and their team have bequeathed the world a portrait of a unique place, everyday scenes with a vibrant community and people which has been largely obliterated. In spite of ongoing Israeli bombs landing in the busy streets, background images of Hamas and mass attacks on the border fences, the everyday “normal” lives of normal people continue to play out with their hopes and dreams. Their resilience, their humour, courage and compassion in attempting to survive the violence and do normal things has been captured for posterity in GAZA.

As one Gazan says “We simply want to live”.

The film allows Karma Khaial, a young 19 year old student, to tell us about her dreams of playing the cello and studying for a Masters in International Law in an uncertain world. Or Ahmed Abu Alqoraan who has a dream to own a big fishing boat and crew it with his many brothers and sisters to provide an income from his “catch” for his very large family. The reality he faced was the petty three mile fishing restriction imposed by the Israelis.

Gazan children.

GAZA allows the people to speak openly for themselves as they live day to day. By observing and listening to the mundane living of life, the viewer develops an empathy and appreciation for the decent people surviving in a land steeped in tragedy, bound by history and plagued by conflict over which they have no control. Yet one remembers the smiles, the banter, the brief everyday joys, the hopes and dream of the people and wonder how Karma and Ahmed and their neighbours, families and friends are today. This GAZA documentary remains as visual evidence of the genocide which is taking place.


GAZA will be shown on Friday evening 24th July at 5:00 pm.

Thanks to Wildcard Distribution.

Other Films and Documentaries about Mother Jones. 

Mother Jones and her Children.

4:00 p.m. Friday 26th July, Maldron Hotel.  Produced by Frameworks Films and Cork Mother Jones Committee. 

This film tells the story of Mary Harris (1837 – 1930) from Cork who went on to become known as “the most dangerous woman in America”. Starting with her early years in Cork, the documentary goes on to detail her life in America following the famine, her marriage to George Jones and the birth of her four children. It details the tragedies which befell her. Her growing involvement in the labour movement in America, defending the rights of children and workers is documented. Through interviews with leading experts on Mother Jones, we learn of her fearless and tireless campaign to organise workers at a time of severe labour strife and her international legacy today. Produced by Frameworks Films and the Cork Mother Jones Committee in 2014. Runtime is 52 minutes.

Mother Jones and her Children

March of the Innocents 

5:00 (approx) Friday 26th July, Maldron Hotel Shandon.  Produced by Kymme Patrick and Theatre Works.

In this film production we are introduced to Mother Jones (Kymme Patrick) and listen to the children who work in the mines, mills and factories of America in the early 1900s. The bleak dead eyes of the children betray the sense of tiredness and hopelessness of children, who have lost their childhood and are confined to daily slavery.

Enter Mother Jones who exposes the horrible world experienced by these children to a wider public and which is eventually declared illegal. Jones organises the remarkable March of the Mill Children in July 1903 from Pennsylvania to New York, which generates sufficient publicity to raise a wider awareness of child labour, leading to its eventual abolition. Kymme Patrick in this Theatre Works production recreates the sad and sick lives of these innocent children who are working to generate even more wealth for the wealthy. March of the Innocent leaves a lasting impression on viewers. Run time 23 minutes. 

March of the Innocents. Copyright: Theatre Works.

Mother Jones, America’s Most Dangerous Woman 

Friday 26th July at 5.40 p.m. approx at the Maldron Hotel, Shandon. 

Rosemary Feurer & Laura Vazquez. 

Mother Jones: America’s Most Dangerous Woman is a documentary about the amazing labour heroine, Mary Harris Jones, known as Mother Jones. Mother Jones’ organising career influenced the history of early 20th century United States. She overcame class and gender limitations to shape an identity that allowed her to become an effective labour organiser in the early 20th century. Mother Jones transformed personal and political grief and rage about class injustices into an effective persona that led workers into battles that changed the course of history. The terrible conditions and labour oppression of the time motivated her to traverse the country, in order to organise against injustices. This film also gives a deeply moving account of the Ludlow Massacre. This is a film by Rosemary Feurer and Laura VazquezRelease Date 2007 (Canada). Its runtime is 24 minutes.

Mother Jones, America’s Most Dangerous Woman.

Fight Like Hell: The Testimony of Mother Jones

Written and performed by Kaiulani Lee.

Irish Premiere: Dance Cork Firkin Crane, Thursday 25th July at 4pm. 

Kaiulani Lee as Mother Jones.

“We were never supposed to know her name. She was a poor Irish immigrant who survived famine and war, fire and plague. Unable to save her husband and four very young children, she dedicated her life to saving working families everywhere. The “robber barons” called her “the most dangerous woman in America” but the workers called her Mother Jones.”

And she asked the workers to pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.  This documentary has been adapted from Obie Award-winning actress Kaiulani Lee’s one-woman play “Can’t Scare Me” Kaiulani performed at the Firkin Crane Theatre back in July 2015 and visited Cork city for the inaugural festival in August 2012. Kaiulani lives Mother Jones.

The Lord Mayor of Cork, Cllr. John Buttimer meeting with Kaiulani Lee at the Lord Mayor’s Office in 2012.

Length: 55 minutes.

The performance is drawn from the 1925 autobiography of Mother Jones as well as her letters, speeches and interviews.

Kaiulani visiting Abbeystrewry Famine Graveyard in 2015.

Nae Pasaran

Director Felipe Bustos Sierra, will appear on Zoom in a Q&A

Thursday morning 25th July at 10.30am at the Maldron Hotel, Shandon.

The Opening Event.

Felipe Bustos Sierra (director) is a BAFTA-winning Chilean-Belgian filmmaker based in Scotland. His first feature “Nae Pasaran” (2018) uncovered the true impact of the solidarity of Scottish factory workers for victims of Pinochet’s military coup in Chile. 

Felipe Bustos Sierra.

As a result of the film’s research, the men involved received recognition from the Chilean government and a public monument was erected to commemorate their gesture 40 years later. The workers were presented with the Bernardo O’Higgins award, the highest honour the Chilean Government can give to non-citizens. O’Higgins had Irish roots in Co Sligo and was one of the founders of Chile.. 

Order of Bernardo O’Higgins Medal. Source: Wikipedia.

The film became, on release, the most successful Scottish documentary in UK cinemas. It was nominated for Best Documentary at the BIFA 2019 and won Best Feature Film at the BAFTA Scotland Awards 2018.

Run time 96 mins.

Salt of the Earth.

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.

Source: Wikipedia.

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.   

Mother Jones and Her Children is now available here to view online.

The documentary Mother Jones And Her Children is now available to view at the link below.

This 2014 documentary tells the exciting story of Mary Harris/Mother Jones from her birth in Cork in 1837 to her death in 1930. 

It features US Labour historians such as Rosemary Feurer, who administers the website www.motherjonesmuseum.org and who writes extensively on Mother Jones. Elliott Gorn, author of Mother Jones: The Most Dangerous Woman in America appears also along with interviews with authors Simon Cordery and Marat Moore. Larry Spivack of the Illinois Labour History Society and John Alexander of the Virden Monument Committee and US trade union activists such as Mike Matjelki, Dave Rathke and Terry Reed take part. In addition, there is an interview with Uibh Laoghaire historian, Joe Creedon regarding the birth place of Ellen Cotter, the mother of Mary Harris, while members of the Cork Mother Jones Committee (CMJC) provide details about her baptism in Cork, and the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival.

According to James Nolan of the CMJC

“This documentary is ideal for anyone who wishes to learn more about this amazing Cork woman, a woman who survived horrific personal tragedy and bravely supported the trade union movement and fought for social justice in America for over four decades.

Mary Harris’s efforts in the early 1900s to highlight the exploitation of children in the mines, mills and factories of America and her arguments that they should receive an education instead  will still resonate with school children across the world today. 

This documentary should be included in the Irish educational curriculum.”

Mother Jones and Her Children remains available on CD. The link to the documentary also appears above the main website masthead.

It was produced by Frameworks Films and the Cork Mother Jones Committee. 

March of the Mill Children re-enacted in Shandon, Cork

A re-creation of March of the Mill Children was held on 31st July 2019 and was staged by Cork Community Art Link. It was directed by Beibhinn O’ Callaghan and Elisa Gallo Rossi.

 The event took place on the historic streets of Shandon in Cork city in conjunction with the Cork Mother Jones Committee as part of the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival 2019. Ms Joan Goggin was Mother Jones. The Lord Mayor of Cork Cllr. John Sheehan attended.
We thank everyone who participated in what was is a historic event which commemorated the original event led by Mary Harris\Mother Jones from Philadelphia to New York during three weeks in July 1903.
For more information on the background of the original March of the Mill Children see our previous article here:https://motherjonescork.com/2019/06/25/mother-jones-and-the-march-of-the-mill-children/

Note: According to UNICEF (United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund),

Worldwide, there are now 160 million children involved in child labour – an increase of 8.4 million in the past four years – and the risk to children is increasing due to the global recession, climate change and conflicts.

UNICEF, Oct 2023.

Day 4 of the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival & Summer School 2019

The 8th annual Spirit of Mother Jones Festival and Summer School continues today (Saturday, 3rd August) and the main events finish tonight, However there will also be an evening with the talented Stan Notte on Sunday night at Maureen’s Bar, John Redmond Street.

Spirit of Mother Jones festival and summer school events for Saturday 3rd August.

 

10:30 a.m.   L       Briege Voyle

Ballymurphy August 1971” 

F        Includes a screening of the Channel 4 documentary “The Ballymurphy Precedent”

Directed by Callum Macrae

Firkin Crane Theatre.

2:00 p m.             A Conspiracy of Lies

Author and journalist Frank Connolly launches his novel (Mercier Press.)

Maldron Hotel.

3:00 p.m      L       Prof. Elliott Gorn

The Lynching of Emmet Till. ……………A Civil Rights Movement is born!”

Firkin Crane Theatre.

5:30 p m               Conal Creedon reads from his new novel Begotten Not Made

7:30 p.m    M       Annual toast and songs to Mother Jones at the plaque on John Redmond Street.

Maureen’s

9:00 p.m    M      Vocalic   (Dance and celebrate the end of the 2019 festival.)

Maldron Hotel.

 

Sunday 4th August. 

In the round with Stan Notte. Music and Spoken Word.

Maureen’s, John Redmond Street at 8.30pm,

All welcome.

 

 

 

Day 3 of the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival & Summer School, Cork

The 8th annual Spirit of Mother Jones Festival and Summer School continues today (Friday, 2nd August) and until tomorrow night.  Below you will find today’s programme.

Spirit of Mother Jones Festival and Summer School events on Friday 2nd August.  

Friday 2nd August

11:00 a.m.  L     Luke Dineen 

                           “Craftsmen and the Irish revolution, 1920-23” .

Cathedral Visitor Centre

 

1:00 p.m.    M     Music at the Maldron.

                            Jimmy Crowley.

  

2:30 p.m.    L       Dr. John Barimo.

Social Justice, Inequality and Climate Change”. Cathedral Visitor Centre

 

3:30 p.m     F      Remembering the Cork Climate Change March 2019

                   L      Micah Neilson.    Fridays for Future Cork.

                   L      Alicia O’Sullivan.  Irish Ambassador for the Worlds Oceans. 

 

5:00 p.m     F      Fords – Memories of the Line.

A film documentary produced by the Ford Ex-workers Group and Frameworks Films.

Maldron Hotel.

 

7:30 p.m.   L      Michael Kingston, Tom McSweeney.

                         The Whiddy disaster

                          Statement by Madame Ginette Ravaleu, President of the

French-Irish Association of Relatives and Friends of the Betelgeuse                         

                           Firkin Crane Theatre.

 

9:30 p.m  M     John Nyhan and Mick Treacy present the songs of Pete Seeger (1919- 2014)

Maldron Hotel.

 

 

 

Day 2 of Spirit of Mother Jones Festival & Summer School

The 8th annual Spirit of Mother Jones Festival and Summer School continues today and until next Saturday night.  Below you will find today’s programme.

Spirit of Mother Jones Festival and Summer School on Thursday 1st August.

The Radical Irish Diaspora

11:00 a.m.       Lorraine Starsky

        “In the Footsteps of Mother Jones – The Life and Legacy of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn         1890- 1964”                

Cathedral Visitor Centre

1.00 p.m.         Music at the Maldron.

William Hammond

2.30 p.m.         Dr Kieran Groeger.

                        “The Extraordinary Life of John Swiney, the United Irishman from Shandon.”

Cathedral Visitor Centre

 

5.00 p.m          The Limerick Soviet

A collaborative documentary between the Limerick Council of Trade Unions and                  Frameworks Films. We celebrate the 100th Anniversary of The Limerick Soviet. Author Liam Cahill will introduce the documentary. An exhibition on the Limerick Soviet courtesy of Cork City Library will be on site.

Maldron Hotel, Shandon

7.30 p.m.         Anne Twomey Shandon Area History Group.

“Mary Elmes …………An Irish Heroine”   

                          Firkin Crane Theatre 

 

8:00 p m         Fili Na Reabhloide (Poets of the Revolution)

                        Myo Café, Popes Quay.

Readings  from your favourite poets of revolution and social change.

(Tel. 083 0425942)

9.30 p.m        Club Ceoil Ballyphehane Ballad Group.

Evening includes the Song for Mother Jones.    

Maldron Hotel