The 2024 Spirit of Mother Jones Festival will be launched officially at the Maldron Hotel, Shandon, on Monday, July 1st. The festival will be launched by the Lord Mayor of Cork, Cllr. Dan Boyle at 1pm. The Lord Mayor will be piped to the hotel by Norman O’Rourke and accompanied by Cork’s Mother Jones (Joan Goggin).
Following the Lord Mayor’s formal launch of the festival, the Kalyna Ukrainian Community Choir will make a special appearance, performing a selection of Ukrainian and Irish songs. The Cobh Animation Team will also be present. Singer John Nyhan will then honour some old friends.
The magnificent 2024 poster featuring Mother Jones based on a painting by artist Lindsay Hand will be unveiled, as will the full programme of events for the three-day Spirit of Mother Jones festival, which begins on Thursday, July 25th, and continues until Saturday, July 27th.
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.
Speaker: Jack Lane of the Aubane Historical Society.
Venue: Saturday 26th July 2024 at 2.15 p.m Maldron Hotel, Shandon.
“The ‘All for Ireland League’ does not feature very much in the standard history of the country. Yet it was one of the most significant movements in our history. It was instrumental in nothing less than creating a social revolution in empowering the rural working class – the farm labourers – into a movement that satisfied their essential needs as a class. It is a very appropriate subject for this festival as it was always identifiable with Cork in its origins and successes. It has many monuments in the numerous Labourers’ Cottages that dot the local countryside.” Jack Lane.
Historian, Jack Lane.
Aubane Historical Society was founded by a number of local people in Aubane in North Cork in 1985. “It seeks to make available original and first hand accounts of various aspects of our history’. It has produced many publications and some of these are available from its website. See www.aubanehistoricalsociety.com
General Background note from Cork Mother Jones Committee:
The Irish Land and Labour Association (ILLA) was founded in the early 1890s in Munster to agitate for tenant farmers and rural labourers rights. Among its founders was Kanturk born D.D. Sheehan (later an MP from 1901 – 1918) who became its chairman. He placed a particular focus on the rights of farm labourers who lived in poor housing conditions, very often in mud and stone cabins almost unchanged since the Great Famine times.
Demanding land and houses for people along with fair wages, education and pensions, the organisation quickly commanded widespread support from rural workers mainly in Co Cork, but also in Limerick and Tipperary. Growing in power and influence, Sheehan’s ILLA demanded a housing programme for these long neglected rural labourers. Later, William O’Brien’s All For Ireland League from 1909, both largely based in Cork supported these demands. This substantial cohort of rural workers and labourers had been largely ignored by the Irish Party in favour of the tenant farmers who were availing of favourable land purchase schemes.
The Labourers Acts of 1906-1914 were influenced by this agitation and their implementation utterly transformed the Irish countryside when the local County Council created a massive programme of large scale public house building of rural cottages with attached plots of land. Tens of thousands of these cottages were constructed over the next decade especially in County Cork and throughout Munster and upwards of a quarter of a million low income people were housed in decent comfort.
Labourers Cottage known as Sheehans’ Cottages. (Wikimedia). (Osioni).
It represented an incredible achievement over a short period. The Government using the state institutions such as the County Councils to acquire the land,construct good quality and affordable houses to a number of designs and then house local families
One is left to wonder why the modern Irish state today with vastly more resources cannot resolve our housing crisis based on the very effective and practical housing template across rural Cork and other counties. A template of public housing sourced and implemented by the ILLA and the All For Ireland League over one hundred years ago.
Ann Piggott of the Cork Mother Jones Committee presents a Mother Jones portrait to Jack Lane, speaker.
Topic. The Future World of Work and the place of Trade Unions.
Speaker. A talk by Owen Reidy General Secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU).
Saturday morning 27th July 2024, 11:30 am at the Shandon Maldron Hotel, Cork.
Owen Reidy, the General Secretary of the ICTU has agreed to speak at the forthcoming Spirit of Mother Jones Summer School.
Owen is from Donegal and spent 18 years with SIPTU where he organised workers in the aviation, finance, contract cleaning and security services sections of industry.
Owen Reidy General Secretary of ICTU
He was involved in several industrial disputes including the Greyhound Lockout, the Luas dispute and disputes in CIE.
Prior to being appointed General Secretary of the ICTU in October 2022, he had responsibility for Northern Ireland as Assistant General Secretary since 2016.
According to James Nolan spokesperson for the Cork Mother Jones Committee
“We are so pleased that Owen Reidy, General Secretary of the ICTU has accepted our invitation to speak at the thirteenth Spirit of Mother Jones Festival. It is the first time the ICTU leader will address those attending the festival and it is a great honour for us to have the leader of the Irish Congress here in Shandon.
It just goes to show how important union woman Mother Jones, born in this very community has become to the Irish Trade Union movement”
Owen Reidy will speak on the topic “The Future World of Work and the place of Trade Unions” at the Summer School on Saturday morning 27th July at 11.30am. This will be of interest to all union members, union activists and workers generally. All are welcome.
Date and venue: Friday 26th July 2024 at 11.30am. Maldron Hotel Shandon as part of Spirit of Mother Jones Summer School.
John Barry is Professor of Green Political Economy and Co-Director of the Centre for Sustainability, Equality and Climate Action at Queens University Belfast. He is also Co-Chair of the Belfast Climate Commission. His last book was The Politics of Actually Existing Unsustainability: Human Flourishing in a Climate-Changed, Carbon-Constrained World (Oxford University Press).
John Barry at Climate Change Rally in Belfast in 2021.
John Barry is a father, a political activist, trades unionist, recovering politician and a member of the Sustainable Future Committee of the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust.
What keeps him awake at night is the life opportunities and future wellbeing of his and other children in this age of the planetary emergency and intersecting social and economic injustices within and between countries. What also keeps him awake at night is the following question: why is it easier for most people to believe in the end of the world than the end of capitalism and economic growth? What keeps him awake during his day job is why higher education is continuing in a ‘business as usual’ manner while the planet burns, inequality increases, and militarisation and conflict within and between societies grows?
John Barry at Palestinian Demonstration Recently.
His areas of academic research include post-growth and heterodox political economy; the politics, policy and political economy of climate breakdown and climate resilience; socio-technical analyses of low carbon just energy and sustainability transitions; and the overlap between conflict transformation and these sustainability transitions.
This will be shown on Saturday 27th July at 3.30 pm at the Maldron Hotel, Shandon during the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival.
What happened at Orgreave?
Forty years ago on 18th June 1984, at Orgreave coking works near Rotherham in the north of England, the National Union of Miners (NUM) organised a mass picket of the miners in an attempt to stop production.
The Miners national strike had been underway for several months at this stage and there had been some minor confrontations between pickets and the police.
However on this occasion the police, adopting military style tactics, attacked the miners, they charged the miners on horses, used dogs to attack individual miners and savagely beat many with batons. Many miners were injured and dozens were arrested. The brutality displayed by the police was quite shocking. It was not a battle, it was a riot by the police. Dozens of miners were seriously injured and many still suffer effects to this day. Over 90 were arrested, however when an initial 15 were put on trial for rioting and unlawful assembly, the trial collapsed due to issues with statements from the South Yorkshire police ( who were also involved in the Hillsborough Disaster just over five years later.) Repeated calls for a public inquiry into the violence of the police on that day, some 40 years ago have been largely ignored by the British establishment.
The events at Orgreave left a very bitter legacy in miners communities and many commentators have since stated that something changed forever in Britain on that morning, in many ways it represented a display of the iron fist of Thatcherism. The miners strike lasted a year and resulted in defeat for the NUM and the end of the coal industry and their communities.
Photographer John Harris’s stark image of the policeman on his horse attacking Lesley Boulton as he swung a long truncheon at her head leaves an indelible memory in many people. She had earlier shouted at a policeman to get an ambulance for an injured miner, the policeman swung round his horse and charged at her. Luckily a miner behind Lesley pulled her back by her belt and the blow missed. (See top right photo on the 30th Anniversary banner below.)
For up to date news on Orgreave and the calls for a public Inquiry visit the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign at www.otjc.org.uk
The Cork Mother Jones Committee showed this film with the permission of Yvette Vanson at the 2014 Spirit of Mother Jones Festival, and again at the 2015 festival when General Secretary of the Durham Miners Association, the late Dave Hopper, who was present at the “battle” gave an eye witness account of the events.
Julianna Minihan will deliver a talk on the above topic on Saturday, July 27th, 2024, at 10:30 a.m. in the Maldron Hotel, Shandon.
Most of us take water totally for granted, and we never ask questions about where it comes from, how it is delivered to our homes and where it goes. Yet where there is no water, there is no life! It is the very lifeblood of the land and nature. It has been fought over; it has been dammed, polluted and disputed, politicised, and wasted; humans have failed to perfect the cycle of water. Clean drinking water may yet be the oil and gold of future generations, but whereas we can live without oil and gold, we cannot survive without drinking water.
Berwick Water Fountain on the Grand Parade in Cork.
In Ireland, the Environmental Protection Agency has been warning about the growing pollution in our rivers, lakes and seas. Growing controversy from 2013 to 2017 about the privatisation of water supplies and charging for water led to tens of thousands of citizens taking to the streets, arguing that access to fresh water is a basic human right. Uisce Eireann, previously Irish Water, a state-owned company, was established to take over the provision of water and wastewater services, which had previously been carried out by Local Authorities across Ireland.
Old water pump which delivered a public water supply to many communities.
The following is Julianna Minihan’s outline of her talk:
“This talk will outline the historical provision of water in Cork City 1760-1900, with some background information on the people of the city, public health, economics, and levels of poverty at the time. It will consider how the poor of Cork were affected by a part time and inadequate supply of water from a very few public fountains paid for by the City; and how 50,000 poor Cork people were dependent on contaminated water in the 1840’s. It will consider how just 900 houses owned by wealthy people had a private supply of water (which they paid for) in the 1840’s, and how that came about.
It will consider the supply of water to industry, and will briefly mention waste disposal, the cess collection business, the usefulness of market gardens for utilizing compost, and the importance of tidal flushing of the river twice daily. It will explain why the City once again took over the water supply around 1860, and why they had once sold shares to businessmen after 1765. It will provide some information on the people who benefited, the politics, economics, public health, and even the basic need for water for human survival involved in the 1800’s.”
In 1833, one fountain provided water (part-time) for the poor in Cork. It was located on Nile Street (now Western Road). At the time, the company was paying its shareholders 5% dividends, and they complained that the fountain for the poor was built at a great loss to them. They refused to allow other fountains without ongoing payments.
The weir by the water works, originally erected by Mr Fitton in 1765, was known as ‘the Bald Weir’ in an 1845 court case, taken by a mill owner when the height of the weir almost blocked the flow of water on the south channel of the Lee.
The Water Weir on the River Lee is close to the Waterworks.
Julianna Minihan will speak at the Maldron Hotel, Shandon, on Saturday, July 27th, at 10:30 a.m.
All are welcome.
The Dunscombe Fountain on Shandon StreetThe Dunscombe Fountain at Christmas.
The Dunscombe Testimonial Fountain above was donated by the Dunscombe family to Cork Corporation in 1883 as a drinking fountain representing an appropriate memorial for abstinence from alcohol. It disappeared in the late 70s, and Cork City Council say they do not know where it is. Would any reader know?
Congratulations to Cork singer/musician Martin Leahy who on Thursday 16th May 2024 completed two years of travelling from Cork to Dáil Eireann in Dublin where he sings his own composition ‘Everyone Should Have a Home’.
Singer Songwriter Martin Leahy in front of the Mother Jones plaque in Cork.
Martin’s song was described recently in the Guardian newspaper as the “soundtrack” for the housing crisis in Ireland. With a huge lack of affordable property to buy and rents spiralling in Ireland, many young people are finding it virtually impossible to put a roof over their heads. Homelessness was brought home to Martin himself when he received an eviction notice in 2022.
That was resolved but then he decided to write his well known song as a protest against Government policy which allowed a huge shortage of affordable homes to arise for an increasing population through the failure to construct social housing, and the provision of financial incentives for vulture funds and increased interest rates.
Martin remains resilient and determined to continue his protest outside the gates of the Irish Parliament each Thursday as his contribution to highlighting this huge failure which prevents young people from acquiring a place of their own to buy or rent.
Martin Leahy with Cork’s Mother Jones, Joan Goggin.
Martin Leahy will sing ‘Everyone Should Have a Home’ and more at the Mother Jones Plaque on Saturday evening 27th July at around 6pm. His appearance last year attracted an enormous crowd to the annual toast to Mother Jones using her favourite tipple which takes place at the conclusion of each year’s festival. All are welcome to join us on Saturday evening.
Historian, Liz Gillis returns to the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival 2024.
Liz will speak at the Dance Cork Firkin Crane on the opening evening Thursday 25th July at 7:00 pm.
Historian, Liz Gillis.Liz and Anne Twomey.
Now that the look back during the Decade of Centenaries has finished in 2023 with the end of the Civil War, we will continue to examine how the new state developed. Defeated Republicans either adjusted to the new order or emigrated. However for the women of Ireland, many of whom had actively participated in the Revolution, it became a very cold place. Liz intends to discuss how and why this took place.
According to Liz:
‘The 1916 Proclamation guaranteed ‘religious and civil liberties, equal rights and equal opportunities to all’, yet when independence came, the new Irish state quickly forgot to honour that guarantee. Women were not to be treated equally in the new Ireland. The new Ireland was a patriarchal society where the role of women was to be that of wife and mother. Was this the Ireland that so many women had fought and sacrificed for? Liz Gillis will discuss how the Ireland that emerged from the revolution was so conservative in its attitudes to women right up to the present time, and in doing so betrayed the vision of the 1916 Leaders.’
Historian and author Liz Gillis is from the Liberties in Dublin. She is the author of six books about the Irish Revolution including, ‘Women of the Irish Revolution’, ‘The Hales Brothers and the Irish Revolution’ and has been a contributor on numerous publications, television and radio documentaries covering the revolutionary period.
She lectures at Champlain College Dublin and in 2021 was appointed the Historian in Residence for South Dublin County Council for the Decade of Centenaries. Liz was the Researcher for the History Show on RTE Radio and was a Historical Consultant for the new Custom House Visitor Centre and Curatorial Assistant in RTE, specialising in researching the Easter Rising. In 2018 she was the recipient of the Lord Mayor of Dublin’s Award for her contribution to history.
Date: Thursday 25th July 2024. Time: 7pm. Venue: Dance Cork Firkin Crane. All Welcome. Liz will be followed by historian Anne Twomey. Discussion will follow.
Justice and truth at last for the Stardust victims and their families..
The piercing sirens of the emergency service on that awful Saturday morning were followed by the smell of toxic smoke and the gaunt looks on horrified faces as daylight broke across the streets of Dublin that Valentine’s Day morning. The eerie silence and hushed conversations among strangers left early risers stunned as the news circulated of the enormous tragedy which had occurred on the northside of Dublin.
The realisation that so many families were receiving the worst news imaginable at that moment was difficult to process, the empty beds, the panic visits to overcrowded and chaotic hospitals, garda stations and morgues. The images of funerals, distraught and traumatised families and survivors and the growing questions.
Yet the years of opportunities to seek the truth are missed and decades waiting for justice passes. The initial Keane Inquiry, held by Justice Ronan Keane (later appointed Chief Justice of Ireland), published his tribunal’s 633 page report in June 1982. The report condemned the “reckless disregard” of the owners of the Stardust Complex for the safety of the people on the premises. The Keane Tribunal was satisfied that the policy of the Stardust owners in keeping the fire exit doors chained and locked until at least midnight was unacceptable.
However it also concluded that the fire was probably caused by arson rather than an accident. This added to the pain of the families as it implied that the kids may have set the fire. This finding wounded the families deeply and disturbed many normal people. The finding that arson was the probable cause opened the way for the Stardust owners to succeed in their claim for compensation and they received about £580,000. The Tribunal cost in total about £1.75 million.
A later review of the decision by barrister, Paul Coffey in 2008 requested that the finding of arson should be removed from the public record, but the damage had been done. A further review in 2017 of the Stardust by Judge Pat McCartan concluded that “no new inquiry is warranted”.
Then glimpses of vigils and marches and protests on dark and dreary February nights grew. People telling the stories of the losses of their loved ones. The country was slowly putting names to and faces on and examining the ordinary lives of the 48 young people who lost their lives. They were becoming very real people in the wider public mind to many.
Many people supposed that they could have been my children and would demand answers too! Why were their pleas for justice being ignored? There was a nagging realisation that the bubble of “Official Ireland” was happy to move on and the working class families and survivors should let things rest.
And yet every visit one made to a pub, a concert, a musical event or nightclub brought the Stardust to mind as the exit signs and the exit doors were sought out immediately on arrival at venues. Some dodgy places were never visited again due to fears for safety in the event of a fire.
The very word “Stardust” no longer meant joy and happiness, its meaning had changed forever, it now stood for the 48 children who never came home. There had been a Stardust club locally in which U2 had played their first gig in Cork and in which thousands of Cork people had danced over the years, but it had been largely forgotten as the word became synonymous with the Stardust fire disaster in Dublin. Even Valentine’s Day itself, an expectant day of love and hope was never quite the same. It was now an anniversary and became tinged with sadness across Ireland; that fire and its consequences was seared into the deep collective memory of so many.
Christine and Antoinette Keegan (Sam Bowl) Courtesy of Antoinette Keegan.
But Christine and John Keegan, who had lost two young daughters, Mary and Martina and nearly a third, Antoinette, along with some friends began to demand real answers rather than accept political promises to do something sometime. They founded the Stardust Victims’ Committee and the campaign for the truth began in earnest.
Maurice and Phyllis McHugh, whose only daughter Caroline perished in the fire also worked with quiet dignity along with many other family members and supporters. This activism across the community added to the growing clamour and calls for justice. The publication of a book, “they never came home, the Stardust Story” (2001) by Neil Fetherstonhaugh and Tony McCullagh with a foreword by singer, Christy Moore, which concentrated on the victims and survivors stories helped to raise further awareness. Yet, the bereaved families continued to experience so many setbacks, so many doors slammed in their faces, so much evasiveness and excuses and delays, however they kept on campaigning and demanding basic answers.
Never has such a small powerful political elite, shown such a lack of empathy and understanding for ordinary people who were suffering the loss of their children in such circumstances. The working class community in which the children and their parents came from were simply ignored by those in charge of government.
Maurice and Phyllis McHugh in Cork.
Following further submissions from a legal firm engaged by the Stardust families, the then Attorney General of Ireland, Seamus Woulfe announced in September 2019, that a new inquest would be held and that this would look at all the evidence again as if it was completely new and for the very first time. The inquest began on April 25th 2023 under the Dublin District Senior Coroner, Dr. Myra Cullinane.
Finally at 2.50 pm on Thursday 18th April 2024 after 122 days, the Stardust Inquest jury foreman announced the verdict of “Unlawful Killing” for everyone of the 48 children. Their family members and relatives and their neighbours cried with joy with sheer relief at the vindication. The truth and justice came dripping very slow indeed!
But they had been believed at last. after 15769 days!
In 2020 the Cork Mother Jones Committee decided unanimously to honour the extraordinary efforts of the Stardust Victims’ Committee and the Justice for the 48 committee by asking Christine Keegan to accept the Spirit Of Mother Jones Award. We felt so honoured when she said yes ! But then Covid arrived and our July festival was cancelled.
The valiant and resilient Christine Keegan sadly passed away on the 14th July 2020.
Suzanne, Antoinette and Lorraine Keegan outside the Firkin Crane.Stardust families at the 2022 Spirit of Mother Jones Festival with members of the Cork Mother Jones Committee.
On 29th July 2022, the 2020 Spirit of Mother Jones award was presented to Christine’s daughter Antoinette Keegan at a ceremony during the festival. The annual award is a Children of Lir figure.
Extract from the Spirit of Mother Jones Award citation:
‘Antoinette and her late mother Christine and father John have pursued answers to what happened at the Stardust fire on 14th February 1981, where 48 young people, including Antoinette’s sisters Mary and Martina lost their lives.In spite of her own injuries, the loss of her sisters and the failure of the Public Authorities to provide answers, Antoinette has continued to actively campaign to uncover the full truth of the events of that night. She is an inspiration to so many!’
Jim Nolan presenting the Spirit of Mother Jones Award for 2020 to Antoinette Keegan.
Following the announcement of the verdict, the Stardust families and their supporters emerged into the Dublin daylight and marched proudly back to the nearby Garden of Remembrance where they had initially gathered at the opening of the Inquest Tribunal almost a year earlier, singing all the while “You’ll Never Walk Alone’. After the hugs and celebrations and the realisation that the truth was now before Ireland and the world they gathered in front of the monument to the Children of Lir designed by Oisín Kelly which symbolises rebirth. resurrection and reincarnation.
Children of Lir in the Garden of Remembrance. Source (Wikipedia).
Nearby in the Garden of Remembrance are the words of the Aisling, “We Saw a Vision” by Liam Mac Uistín written in stone alongside.
Some extracts include,
“In the darkness of despair we saw a vision
We lit the light of hope and it was not extinguished
In the desert of discouragement we saw a vision”
“We melted the snow of lethargy and the river of resurrection flowed from it.”
“We set out a vision aswim like a swan on the river.
The vision became a reality”
It seem fitting that the Stardust families, survivors and supporters should have marched proudly to the Garden of Remembrance nearing the end of their long journey. The families have been given the truth, now is the time for justice as well!
A full state apology was delivered by An Taoiseach, Simon Harris in Dáil Eireann on Tuesday 23rd April 2024. The Stardust family members were present in the Dáil to hear the apology.
An Taoiseach Simon Harris signed off on a 24 million redress scheme for the Stardust Families.
“The State understands very clearly and I understand very clearly, having met with the families, that you can never put a price or any amount on the loss of a life”.
