Category Archives: Mother Jones Festival 2020

Just Imagine if Mother Jones Returned to Shandon

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The Cork Mother Jones Committee will show a short film of Mother Jones visiting Cork  100 years ago in December 1920 at the Spirit of Mother Jones Virtual festival (Friday Nov 27thto Monday Nov 30th).

There is no evidence that Mary Harris/Mother Jones ever did return to Cork city where she was born in 1837 and left after the Great Hunger in the 1840s.

However for the purposes of the imagination, we imagine Mother Jones visiting her childhood home and streets in Shandon just before Christmas 1920 after the burning of Cork City.

Taking the lead role is actress Joan Goggin know to all as Cork’s own Mother Jones. Joan’s family, especially her Dad had an involvement in the labour/trade union movement for many years and the famous union leader Jim Larkin sometimes stayed in their house when visiting Cork.

The film also features a series of flashbacks to the 1840s where Joan is joined by her daughter Eadaoin Delaney who plays the role of Ellen Cotter, Mary Harris’s mother. Joan’s granddaughter Aoife plays a young Mary Harris skipping on the streets of Shandon.

In a remarkable twist of faith, in her soliloquy at Shandon, Mother Jones recalls her only son named Terence who was born in 1865, but who tragically died in the Memphis yellow fever epidemic in October 1867 and  acknowledges Cork’s Lord Mayor Terence MacSwiney who had died a few weeks earlier in October 1920.

This short film entitled Mother Jones Returns to Shandon was filmed in and around the Streets of Shandon by Frameworks Films. 

All events will be streamed by Frameworks Films for the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival 2020 and will be freely available to view by all.

Full programme of events will appear here and the Mother Jones Cork Facebook by mid-November.

Joan Goggin (Courtesy of Andy Jay)
Joan in Shandon
Joan with Lord Mayor John Sheehan at the March of the Mill Children 2019
Joan at the March of the Mill Children 2019.

“Anne & Betty United by the Struggle”, with Ian Clayton. Published by Route.

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This publication is a rarity.  Working-class women who fight for social justice seldom get an opportunity to tell their own story in their own voices. Social, trade union and labour history is sometimes interpreted by those far removed from the day-to-day lives and experience of those directly involved. The contributions of working class women remains unacknowledged and invisible when it comes to the absence of their names and images on the public monuments and street names of our cities and towns. 


Anne Scargill and Betty Cook did not come together until the beginning of the British Miners’ Strike in 1984/85 when they both joined “The Women Against Pit Closures Movement”. What followed was a roller coaster of practical action including feeding their striking neighbours and taking direct action to protect their communities. 


However, it also led to a personal journey for each of them. Both were married with families at the beginning of the strike but through the tumult of the mining war in the North of England, alongside a passion to stand against exploitation of people, they achieved their own personal independence and freedom in spite of the disastrous outcome of the Miners’ Strike. In the midst of defeat, Anne and Betty emerged with the power to act as they had discovered their own voices. 


The accounts of their early lives in Barnsley and Brick Lane are told in raw unvarnished personal accounts, without self pity, without preaching or seeking acceptance…… life was tough in the coal fields. Yet they tell their stories with gritty humour, compassion and fierce direct humanity in spite of personal tragedy and upheaval in their lives. The chapter: “Rent A Mob, Rent a Gob” leaves one angry and yet uplifted.  


Today they look back on a life of standing firm against the exploitation of workers and they do so with a sense of pride. Both remain committed to the struggle. Betty recently retired from a call-centre at the age of 81, however, she is worried that ” a lot of working-class people are against one another”, while Anne says that “anybody who needs help on a picket line only has to pick up the phone and I’ll be there”.

Their trip to the women miners reunion in Appalachia 2013, organised by Marat Moore (friend of the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival, Guest Speaker at 2012 Festival) led to the founding of The Daughters of Mother Jones group in the UK and inspired their interest in Mother Jones. Few will forget Anne and Betty’s powerful rendition of Mal Finch’s song “Women of the Working Class” at the Cork Spirit of Mother Jones festival in 2014.


In these dark times for working people with ongoing political upheaval and Covid-19 lockdowns, “Anne & Betty United by the Struggle” illuminates and shines warmly through adversity, hard times and the necessity to keep fighting against injustice. 


This book is highly recommended and is available from annescargillbettycook@gmail.com

Anne & Betty with their Daughter of Mother Jones banner at the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival in 2019. (Courtesy of Claire Stack).

Anne & betty helping striking SIPTU workers in Dublin in 2014 (Courtesy J Thomson)


The Spirit of Mother Jones Festival 2020 on Cork Community TV

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Beginning on Saturday 1st August, the Cork Mother Jones Committee in conjunction with Cork Community TV are making available on television, some of the talks and presentations, which have been delivered at the Spirit of Mother Jones Festivals and Summer Schools since 2012.

The original series of Mother Jones annual lectures, will be shown on Saturday next while during the month of August, further talks delivered over the years at the Summer School will be televised. These will feature Margaret Aspinall, Louise O’Keeffe, Fr. Peter McVerry, Chris Mullin, Anne Twomey and many others.

These are free to view, thanks to Frameworks Films and Cork Community TV, for allowing us to celebrate Mother Jones during August.

The 2020 festival will be held in late November 2020. Further talks and speakers, will be televised during the November Festival.

To see the schedules or tune into the live stream please visit www.corkcommunitytv.ie

Mor tune into Virgin Media Channel 803.

Spirit of Mother Jones Festival Cork

Mother Jones Lives.

Some photos of past speakers, throughout the years.

Fr. Peter McVerry at the plaque in 2015.
Louise O’Keeffe receiving the Spirit of Mother Jones Award in 2018 from James Nolan and Ann Piggott of the Cork Mother Jones Committee.
Sue Roberts, Margaret Aspinall, Lord Mayor of Cork, Cllr. Catherine Clancy, and Professor Simon Cordery in 2013.
Kaiulani Lee with Lord Mayor of Cork, Cllr. John Buttimer in 2012.
Marat Moore, Professor Rosemary Feurer, Lord Mayor of Cork, Cllr. John Buttimer, and Professor Elliott Gorn in 2012.
Former miner, Marat Moore in 2012.
Warren Davies in 2017.
Lord Mayor of Cork, Mick Finn, with the Mother Jones’, Joan Goggin, Aoife Delaney and Loretta Williams.
Luke Dineen in 2016.
Loretta Williams with Dominic O’Callaghan, Cork Mother Jones Committee in 2018.

Cork Mother Jones Festival 2020 postponed.

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The Cork Mother Jones Committee, wishes, to announce the postponement of the ninth Spirit of Mother Jones Festival (2020), from its original date (29th July-1st Aug), to the final weekend in November. (November 27th -30th).

James Nolan, spokesperson for the festival and summer school stated.
“We are postponing the festival in the interests of the safety of those attending, and those taking part, due to the uncertainty as to the conditions under which it could take place.

We feel the November date allows for more certainty and gives us time to ensure the safety of those attending. It also gives us the option of perhaps using online technology to ensure the festival can go ahead.

Mother Jones died on the 30th November 1930, so we will commemorate the 90th Anniversary of her passing at the forthcoming festival in November.

The fact that in the past week the President of Ireland, Michael D Higgins invoked the famous quote of Mother Jones, “Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living” to honour our front line and emergency workers, as an acknowledgement of her role in protecting workers and ensuring decent working conditions for millions of people. Today, thousands around the world still draw inspiration from her work.

Indeed as an indicator or her resilience, it should be remembered that she herself survived three fever pandemics……. the Great Famine here in Cork, the Yellow Fever outbreak in Memphis in 1867, which took her family and the Flu pandemic of 1918/19.” She continued to practice as a nurse in Memphis until the fever outbreak was over.

We also intend to ensure she will be remembered around the period of July/August and closer to the original dates we will see the most practical way to celebrate her birth in Cork.”

The Festival Facebook pages and the website at http://www.motherjonescork.com will continue to update the position.

Picture 1: Mother Jones in 1901.
Picture 2: Joan Goggin, Cork’s own Mother Jones (Courtesy of Andy Jay).
Picture 3: March of the Mill Children, in Shandon, in 2019 (Courtesy of Claire Stack).
Picture 4: Mother Jones, meeting, President of the United States, Calvin Coolidge.

Mary “Mother Jones” photographed in 1901

Preliminary announcement for Spirit of Mother Jones Festival 2020

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The Cork Mother Jones Committee has announced that the 2020 Spirit of Mother Jones Festival and Summer School will take place in and around Shandon over four days from Wednesday 29th July to Saturday 1st August 2020.
It will again feature talks, discussions, films, songs, stories and music associated with the “Spirit of Mother Jones”.
These will relate to labour and trade union matters, the history and heritage of the lives and contributions of working people, along with social justice, environmental and human rights issues.
The Committee welcomes relevant, interesting and challenging ideas, proposals and suggestions for topics or events for the 2020 festival and summer school from the public. Please forward outline details as soon as possible to motherjonescork@gmail.com for consideration.
Each year we present the prestigious Spirit of Mother Jones award to honour an individual (or group) who has made a difference to the pursuit of justice.
 
The Spirit of Mother Jones is a community based festival which is coordinated by a voluntary committee. We try to make a contribution to the expenses of those participating although most of those participating do so on a voluntary basis. In return, the events are informal, free and open to all to attend as we do not impose a charge on those who come along. We rely entirely on the goodwill, expertise and work of those participating, on the generosity of the local community in Cork, on fundraising and donations as well as sponsorship from the Cork City Council and the Trade Union movement.