The Red Flag Festival takes place in County Meath from Friday 30th May to Sunday 1st June 2025. The Festival celebrates the life of Jim Connell, known as the man who wrote The Red Flag.
Jim was born in Kilskyre, County Meath in 1852. He worked as a casual docker in Dublin, however he was blacklisted due to his efforts to unionise the workers in Dublin’s docklands. Connell emigrated to London in 1875, and became a staff journalist on Keir Hardie’s newspaper, “The Labour Leader”.
Inspired by the London Dock Strike, Jim wrote the Red Flag in 1889. It quickly became an anthem of the International Labour Movement and is sung each year at the British and Irish Labour Party’s annual conferences. His life and work for trade unions and the promotion of social justice is celebrated in his home place at this festival. He is honoured at Crossakiel, Co Meath by a magnificent monument.
Jim Connell died in 1929, and he is buried in London.
A very interesting 2025 Festival programme of events takes place over the weekend and full details can be obtained at info@redflagfestival.com. All are welcome.
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 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.
Durham Gala.
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.
While on his recent travels, James Goltz of Mt Olive visited an exhibition at the Yuma Arizona prison museum. The exhibition included a photograph of Mother Jones and information about some of the Mexican revolutionaries which she had assisted. It also mentioned that Mother Jones had addressed a meeting of socialists in the Arizona area in 1909 and had brought a sum of some $4,000 raised by the US trade unions to help defend the Mexican revolutionaries imprisoned in the United States.
Mother Jones at the Yuma Arizona Prison Exhibition, courtesy of James Goltz.
One of the constant if less well appreciated themes of the life of Mother Jones was her endless campaigning for the release of political revolutionaries especially the Mexicans imprisoned in U.S. jails. The revolutionaries opposed the anti-union authoritarian government of Mexican President Porfirio Diaz* whose autocratic regime from 1884 to 1911, promoted U.S. investment through low taxes, compliant courts, a lack of labour regulations and the banning of trade unions. These industrial ” Wall Street pirates and robber barons” as described by Mother Jones were extracting the oil and mineral wealth of Mexico using low cost labour to enrich themselves. The Cananea miners strike of 1906 had been broken by the Mexican army of Diaz in cooperation with the Arizona Rangers.
The main Mexican opposition movement was the Partido Liberal Mexicano (PLM) , some of whose leaders such as Ricardo Magon, Antonio Villareal, Manuel Sarabia and Librado Rivera had fled to the U.S. to avoid execution and imprisonment. The PLM backed the Mexican trade unions and US trade unions including the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) had found common cause with this revolutionary movement in order to prevent Mexican labour from undercutting US union workers in the mines and mills, especially in Arizona.
Mexican Revolutionaries at the Yuma Arizona Prison Courtesy of James Goltz.
Mother Jones took up the cause of the Mexicans. She organised many protests, addressed meetings raising substantial monies to pay for the defence of those who had been arrested by the US government and imprisoned for breaking America’s neutrality laws. She argued that these men fought for the cause of labour in the same way the American unions were doing and urged international labour solidarity. She even took their case to President William Howard Taft who did nothing. Interestingly, she compared the activities of the revolutionary Mexicans in America to the revolutionary Irish Fenian and republican movements of the Irish in America who were attempting to secure independence from England.
Richardo Magon, (C) Wikipedia.
The Mexicans were eventually released from prison in Arizona in August 1910. Early in 1911, an uprising deposed President Portfirio Diaz and the new Mexican government led by Francisco Madero restored democracy and trade union rights. Mother Jones and officials from the United Mine Workers and WFM visited Mexico soon afterwards in October 1911 to congratulate the new government.
Later in 1921 she again returned twice to Mexico where she was treated as a hero ‘Madre Juanita” due to her work for democracy and trade union rights in a Mexico where competing armed factions remained volatile, She addressed the Pan-American Federation of Labor and visited friends such as Antonio Villarreal whom she had helped back in 1909 and who was now the Minister for Agriculture. Mother Jones enjoyed the adulation of Mexican workers and hospitality during her visit.
Antonio Villarreal. (c) Wikipedia.
She had certainly earned the honour as a result of her endless campaigning for the rights of Mexicans imprisoned in the United States over several decades.
The following is an extract from a leaflet of a radical and a speech from 1908 about the Mexican situation which resonates politically today by Mother Jones.
(as quoted in Mother Jones Speaks by Philip S Foner.)
“Now it is the United States government seconding the murderous despotism of Russia and the irresponsible dictatorship of Mexico. The fight has become international; yet it centres in the United States. If these foreign vultures of oppression win now, then our liberty goes.
For Diaz and American capitalism are partners! Pierpont Morgan (a wealthy banker) goes to Russia and shakes hands with the czar; and now the czar comes to America demanding the surrender of political refugees. Mrs Diaz, when visiting in Texas is entertained by members of the Copper Queen syndicate, whose headquarters are at 95 John Street, New York, and Elihu Root, of New York (a Wall Street lawyer) is wined and dined by the tyrant dictator Diaz, when in New York”
Source of material.
Mother Jones: The Most Dangerous Woman in America. Elliott J.Gorn provides an account of Mother Jones efforts on behalf of the Mexicans.
The Mother Jones Heritage Project Committee and its supporters marched in the St Patrick’s Day parades 2025.
Accompanied by the enormous Mother Jones float the large contingent made a colourful display in the windy City with their banners of “Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living”. While it was balmy on Saturday, heavy snow fell on Sunday.
According to organiser Rosemary Feurer, who was delighted with the large turnout and the crowds response” It was really heartening to hear the cheers from the crowd. “I LOVE MOTHER JONES!!” and “Go, Mother!” “and this rubbed off on the enthusiastic marchers.
It was a great celebration of Cork born Mother Jones.
All photographs courtesy of Dave Adams. Our thanks to the Mother Jones Heritage Project in Chicago.
The Mother Jones Foundation annual dinner was held at Springfield, Illinois on Saturday evening 12th October last. The Foundation is the longest established organisation which promotes the work of Mother Jones and is dedicated to educating and raising awareness about labour history.
Mother Jones Foundation Dinner 2024. Photo: Mike Matejka.
The large attendance at the 2025 event heard guest speaker, author Hamilton Nolan speak of the power of the trade union movement to practice democracy, “a union is not a special interest, a union is a training school for democracy”.
Solidarity Forever. Photo: Mike Matejka.Solidarity Forever: James Goltz is on the right hand side. Photo: Mike Matejka.
Nolan called on trade unions to organise millions of working people into the movement and to just go out and organise. While union membership has dropped dramatically in the past decades, there has been a recent resurgence in numbers, in activism and in the fight against inequality.
Author: Hamilton Nolan with Joann Condellone of the Mt. Olive Cemetery Committee. Jim Alderson is in the red shirt. Photo: Mike Matejka.
Sunday October 13th saw a further large attendance gather under a sunny blue sky for the annual Miners’ Day at the Union Miners’ Cemetery outside Mt. Olive where Mother Jones is buried.
Miners Parade Arriving at Mt Olive Cemetery 2024. Photo: Mike Matejka.
Miners Day commemorates the tragic events of October 12, 1898, when union miners confronted the Chicago-Virden Coal Company at Virden over the arrival of strike-breakers. During a subsequent gun battle at the local railway station, a total of thirteen people died, eight miners and five company guards and some 40 miners were wounded.
Union Miners Cemetery at Mt. Olive, Photo: Mike Matejka.
However when Mount Olive town refused to allow some of the miners to use the cemetery, the miners purchased land just north of the town. The Union Miners Cemetery was thus established and remains the only union-owned cemetery in America. For the past 125 years people have gathered annually to remember those Virden miners.
Joann Condellone, a founding member of the Mother Jones Museum in Mt Olive and of the Perpetual Care Associaton of the Union Miners Cemetery welcomed all to the ceremony. The opening speaker, Tim Drea, the Illinois AFL-CIO President spoke of the vital contribution immigrants had made to the American Labour movement. Mary Harris was herself an immigrant from Ireland.
President of Illinois AFL-CIO, Tim Drea. Photo: Mike Matejka.
Highlight of the day was the appearance of Cecil Roberts, President of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) who spoke of the huge work which the union had contributed to ensuring pensions and health care for the miners. He called for a just transition for the communities impacted by the reduction and phase out of coal due to climate change.
President of the UMWA, Cecil Roberts speaking in Mt. Olive Cemetery. Photo: Mike Matejka.
President Roberts, whose great Grandmother Ma Blizzard was a close friend of Mother Jones and whose family supported the miners during the infamous Paint and Cabin Creek strikes in West Virginia during the “Coal Wars” of 1912-1914 gave an account of the impact on miners and their families and solidarity of those who fought for justice in those struggles.
Cecil Roberts with Joann Condellone. Photo: Mike Matejka.
In a prescient observation, President Roberts also recounted the burning of the miners’ union tent village by the Colorado National Guard and Mine company militia and the massacre of the women and children and men at Ludlow in Colorado one hundred and ten years ago. Many of those killed in Ludlow were immigrants from Greece.
Cecil Roberts with UMWA comrades: Photo: Mike Matejka.
He then concluded by quoting Mother Jones who spoke in her autobiography of the “dark story” of coal, and asked how in order for “life to have something of decency, something of beauty – a picture, a new dress, a bit of cheap lace lace fluttering in the window – for this, men who work down in the mines must struggle and lose, struggle and win.”
Loretta Williams as Mother Jones: Photo: Mike Matejka.Dale Hawkins as General Alexander Bradley. Photo: Mike Matejka.
The Daughters of Mother Jones at Mt. Olive Cemetery. Photo: Mike Matejka.
Loretta Williams and Dale Hawkins in period costume transformed into Mother Jones and union leader, English born “General” Alexander Bradley for the proceedings, while Wildflower Conspiracy provided music and union songs. Loretta attended the Spirit of Mother Jones festival in 2018. Wildflower Conspiracy sang the Children of MotherJones written and first performed by the late Cork singer/songwriter Pete Duffy at the 2014 Cork festival.
Wildflower Conspiracy: Erin O’Toole. Photo: Mike Matejka.
“Those in power showed her no sympathy In her fight to set the children free.
She lies in Mount Olive Illinois But Mother Jones’ true spirit never dies.”
Cecil Roberts, Dale Hawkins and Loretta Williams then honoured the miners of Virden by placing a wreath on the Virden miners grave.
Gathering at the Grave of Mother Jones, Sunday October 13th 2024. Photo: Mike Matejka.
The Cork Mother Jones committee wishes to thank Mike Matejka of the Illinois Labor History Society for permission to use some of his photographs. Our gratitude also to James Goltz of Mt Olive, a regular visitor to Cork, for all his assistance. We send our good wishes to Nelson Grman who has been involved with the Union Miners Cemetery Perpetual Care Committee for many decades.
Due to unforeseen circumstances, Luke Dineen is unable to attend the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival 2024. Historian Gerard O’Rourke, will instead give a talk on his recent book, “Land War to Civil War 1900-1924 Donoughmore to Cork and Beyond” at 4:30 pm on Saturday 27th July 2024 at the Shandon Maldron Hotel. All are welcome.
See further details on the site.
Maldron Hotel Shandon.
Speaker: Luke Dineen.
2024 is the 150th Anniversary of the birth of Jim Larkin, who was born on January 28th 1874 in Liverpool.
Iconic photo of Jim Larkin, in O’Connell, 1913.
Jim Larkin founded the Irish Transport and General Workers Union in December 1908.
He was among the founders of the Irish Labour Party in 1912 and led the workers in the Dublin Lockout in 1913/14. He also helped to establish the Irish Citizen Army which played a prominent role under James Connolly in the 1916 Rising, Larkin spent from 1914 to 1923 in America. . On his return from America he was involved in a split from the ITGWU and the Workers Union of Ireland was formed. Jim Larkin was elected to Dáil Eiréann on three occasions. He died on 30th January 1947.
Luke Dineen, a regular speaker at the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival intends to “put a particular focus on what underpinned Larkin’s ideology – Larkinism as it was called at the time – and how significant this was for events in Cork (1909 lock out) and across the country”.
Luke Dineen speaking at the 2022 Spirit of Mother Jones Festival.
Radio Telefis Eireann (RTE), the Irish public broadcaster has reported that recent Oscar winner Cillian Murphy from Cork will star in and produce the film adaptation of Mark Bradley’s book, ‘BloodRuns Coal: The Yablonski Murders and the Battle for the United Mine Workers of America. (UMWA)
The report states that Murphy’s latest film project will concentrate on the terrible dark tale of corruption in the UMWA trade union in the 60s and early 70s under the leadership of Tony Boyle and the murder of the Yablonski family.
Yet during the long history of this great union, it has provided a beacon of hope and inspiration to hundreds of thousands of American union miners and their families over the past 130 years and had a unique Cork link in the connection with Mary Harris (Mother Jones), who was appointed the union’s first female organiser.
Founded in January 1890, the UMWA went on to become the largest, toughest and most powerful trade union in the history of the troubled American Industrial relations. Men such as Michael Moran, John McBride and Richard Davis along with thousands of miners forged the reputation of solidarity in this proud union.
Mary Harris was appointed a UMWA organiser in the late 1890s and from then until the early 1920s, she spent more time organising miners than any other group of workers. She became part of a large group of tough male union UMWA organisers, many of whom were Irish. Following the Lattimer Massacre in 1897 in which 19 miners were killed, John Mitchell, just twenty eight years old of Irish immigrant parents became the fifth president of the UMWA. He succeeded Michael Ratchford from Co Clare, who as president was the first to notice the organising ability of Mother Jones and hired her to become a UMWA “walking delegate”. John Mitchell later appointed her as a paid organiser in 1901 to try to unionise the difficult West Virginia coalfields.
John Mitchell, President of the UMWA, 1898- 1907
Over the next decade, Mother Jones became the most active, colourful, and outstanding union organiser during a period of violent industrial unrest which saw the UMWA call several national coal strikes to seek decent wages, safe conditions and shorter working hours. Mother Jones was directly involved in numerous strikes from Pittsburg, to West Virginia, to Arnot in Pennsylvania, to Colorado where she unionised thousands of miners as the UMW grew into the strongest and most diverse union in America. Later Jones played an active part in the Coal Wars in West Virginia and Colorado from 1912-1914 in which dozens perished in the brutal pitched battles between the miners and militias along with private detective firms paid by the mine owners.
Fred Mooney and Frank Keeney., officers of the UMWA in West Virginia.UMWA Banner. Source. James Goltz,
In July 1902, as a result of her union activities, Mother Jones was described in court as “the most dangerous woman in America.”. Later she fell out with President John Mitchell but each retained a great respect for each other. Today a large monument of John Mitchell stands in Scranton in Pennsylvania, the hometown of President Joe Biden. Very soon Mother Jones will have her own monument in the city of Chicago.
Monument to John Mitchell in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
In recent years the UMWA union membership has been much reduced due to the decline of the mining industry but it is now actively organising among other workers including the public sector.
The current president of the UMW is Cecil Roberts, who is the great-grandson of Ma Blizzard.
Cecil Roberts. Source (Wikipedia).
Ma Blizzard was a fearless union activist in Cabin Creek, West Virginia, and a great personal friend of Mother Jones during the Coal Wars. Her son Bill Blizzard was a miners leader at the Battle of Blair Mountain in 1921.
Ma Sarah Blizzard.
President Roberts in a beautiful Proclamation, presented by James Goltz from Mt Olive, Illinois to the Cork Mother Jones Committee in 2014 expressed “special thanks and recognition to the remarkable annual Spirit of Mother Jones Festival for keeping her Irish Spirit alive in her birthplace in County Cork, Ireland, in the Shandon area of Cork City”.
James Goltz from Mt Olive with the UMWA Proclamation to Cork at the 2017 Festival.
Proclamation to the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival from President of the UMWA, Cecil Roberts in 2017.
Speaking about Mother Jones, the UMWA Proclamation continued,
“We loved her and still love her. We call her the Miners’ Angel. Only an angel could have endured all of the suffering, hate and obstacles that the industrial masters hurled at her as she valiantly fought for the dignity, economic security and safety for mine workers and their families.”
extract from the Proclamation to the Spirit of mother jones festival from cecil roberts, president of the umwa.
The connection of the UMWA to Cork continues as we look forward to Oscar winning actor, Cillian Murphy playing the part of Chip Yablonski as he seeks justice for his coal mining father.
Delegate Badge to the 100th UMWA annual delegate conference in 1990, held in Miami, Florida.
Mother Jones passed away at 11.55pm on Sunday November 30th, 1930. This year marks the ninety third anniversary of her death. The death certificate stated it was due to senility. She was ninety three years old. A requiem mass was held for her at St Gabriel’s Church in Washington on the morning of December 3rd.
Mother Jones and friends with a birthday cake on her American birthday 1st May 1930. She had claimed to be one hundred years old, in reality, Mother Jones was ninety two at the time. Mother Jones lived on the farm run by Walter and Lillian Burgess at Old Powdermill Road, Hyattsville, near Washington DC, where this birthday party was held. Photo courtesy of Saul Schniderman.
Her remains were taken by railroad car to St. Louis Union Station and then the 40 miles onwards to Mount Olive. A band played “Nearer, My God, to Thee” as thousands of people awaited the transfer of her coffin to the Odd Fellows’ Hall. It lay in state until the memorial service on Sunday during which many thousands of workers, union officials and the curious filed past.
Thousands of union miners march in Mt Olive at the funeral of Mother Jones (Illinois Labor History Society).
The Ascension Church was packed for Fr John Maguire’s eulogy at 2pm, with thousands of miners gathered outside, packing the nearby streets listening on loudspeakers. On the morning of Monday, December 8th after 10:00 am Mass, her casket was then taken to Mount Olive Miners cemetery to her final resting place.
Union leaders carry the coffin of Mother Jones,
Old photos show an enormous gathering of people covering the large graveyard. Motion picture cameras record the huge funeral throngs.
Fr Maguire’s tribute opened with;
“today in gorgeous mahogany furnished and carefully guarded offices in distant capitals, wealthy mine owners and capitalists are breathing sighs of relief.
Today upon the plains of Illinois, the hillsides and valleys of Pennsylvania and West Virginia, in California, Colorado and British Columbia, strong men and toil worn women are weeping tears of bitter grief.
The reasons……….are the same. Mother Jones is dead.”
Fr. Maguire tribute.
It was hard to imagine that this frail Cork women was once branded as “the most dangerous woman in America”.
Thousands gather outside the Ascension Church, Mt Olive, Illinois.
The Leadville Irish Miners’ Memorial committee will hold a ribbon cutting and celebration of completion on September 16th next.
The striking memorial was constructed in memory of over 1100 Irish Immigrants, many from West Cork who lie nearby in unmarked graves.
The Leadville Miners Memorial (J. Goltz).
The Cemetery remembrance, high in the Rocky Mountains will include a reading of the names of those unfortunate immigrants and the formal unveiling of the memorial.
It will be followed later at the Tabor Opera House by “From Cork to Colorado”, a Leadville Style Revue. A delegation from Allihies in West Cork where many of the immigrants began their journey will attend. Mother Jones will be there too!
From Cork to Colorado (Tabor Opera House).
Mother Jones was familiar with the Rockefeller mine holdings in Southern Colorado, having been jailed in the State on several occasions during the Colorado Mine Wars in 1914.
“From January on until the final brutal outrage- the burning of the tent colony in Ludlow- my ears wearied with the stories of brutality and suffering. My eyes ached with the misery I witnessed. My brain sickened with the knowledge of man’s inhumanity to man”
The official completion of the Leadville Irish Miners’ Memorial organised by the Irish Network Colorado took place on Saturday 16th September 2023 in front of several hundred people.
Dreamed of by Kathleen Fitzsimmons and the Colorado Irish Roots organisation, created by Terry Brennan, now christened as “Liam O’Sullivan”, and the brainchild of Dr Jim Walsh of the University of Colorado, who discovered the burial place in the local Leadville Evergreen Cemetery of over a thousand poor Irish emigrant miners and their families including many children, this wonderful monument, high in the Rocky Mountains is a beacon for the Irish diaspora and the labour movement. Leadville is the highest elevated city in the United States.
Speaking at the completion, Dr Walsh said,
“At Ludlow, the workers were killed by bullets and kerosene, here they died from poverty. For the Labor community, these graves are now sacred, the people who lie here struggled to form unions – this is the breadbasket of the Colorado labor movement”
Irish Ambassador to the US, Geraldine Byrne Nason, Honorary Irish Consul, Jim Lyons and Colorado Senator Michael Bennet as well as other dignitaries, including the Mayor of Leadville, Gregory Labbe also attended.
The Irish Government had made a substantial grant towards the completion of this landmark monument.
The ceremony was also attended by Tadhg O’Sullivan and representatives from Allihies in West Cork, from where many of the miners originally departed for Leadville.
Mother Jones (Joan Goggin) meeting with Mick Lynch, General Secretary of the RMT Union at the 2023 Spirit of Mother Jones Festival.
Mother Jones with Mick Lynch.
Joan’s dad, Bill Martin was a branch secretary of the ITGWU for several years. When Jim Larkin visited Cork, he usually called to the Martin family home on Bandon Road for a meal and a chat.
Just a short distance down Bandon Road near Warren’s Lane was the family home of the Lynch family. Mick Lynch’s dad, Jackie Lynch emigrated from Bandon Road to London at the beginning of the Second World War.
Mick’s mother was Ellen “Nellie” Morris, who left Crossmaglen in South Armagh to go to London during the Blitz. Her brother, Mickey still runs the farm in the area.
Labour history resonates among neighbour’s children.
Watch interview between Emma Bowell of Frameworks Films with Mick Lynch at the 2023 Spirit of Mother Jones Festival.
Updated 10th January 2025:
Mick Lynch has announced that he retire as General Secretary of the RMT Union in May 2025. After four years of General Secretary of the RMT and thirty years involved in the union, he has decided to step down. Mick became the public face of the trade union movement from 2022 to 2024 during the rail strikes in Britain, a period in which he articulated in a straight forward manner the socialist perspective of his working class members. In many interviews, he destroyed a series of right wing interviewers and media outlets inhabited by Tory commentators who sought to disparage his unionised train drivers who were on strike. The Cork Mother Jones Committee wishes Mick Lynch a happy retirement and congratulates him again on being selected to receive the Mother Jones Award for 2023.
