The programme for the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival & Summer School 2017 is now available with the publication of the official brochure today (23rd June).
The programme covers a comprehensive range of events which will take place during the Festival and Summer School. These will include lectures, music, film showing and commemorative events over the five days of 2017 event which runs from 1st to 5th August in the Shandon area of Cork city.
The Cork Mother Jones committee announces that singer Karen Underwood will appear for the first time at the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival on Wednesday night 2nd August at the Maldron Hotel, Shandon, at 9.30 pm.
Karen Underwood concert at Spirit of Mother Jones Festival
Karen was born in Chicago in the early 60s at a time when the Civil Rights movement was gaining momentum. Her home was full of music and song and she absorbed many musical influences as a young girl from Nat King Cole to Church and Gospel music.
She arrived in Cork in her 30s around 1997 and settled in the city. Here she experimented with various musical genres however the music of her heroine Nina Simone was celebrated in her show “The Nina in Me” where she sings many of Nina Simone’s songs interspersed with commentary of life, her memories of America and the tragedy, joys and experiences of her life in Cork.
Karen’s version of “Mississippi Goddamn” is awesome while “Strange Fruit”, with its echoes of lynching in America resonate the growing fear in today’s Trump’s America. Her live performances are a tribute to her extraordinary versatility and her embracement of what life throws at one.
Karen has performed all over Ireland, including the National Concert Hall, the Olympia, the Gaiety and she has appeared on numerous TV and radio programmes.
Karen Underwood Image processed by CodeCarvings Piczard
Tickets for this festival fundraising show are €15 euro each (limited to 70) and are available from the Maldron Hotel, or from Nolan’s (Victuallers) 21/22 Shandon Street or phone 086 1651356. This show is highly recommended.
The Lion of Freedom comes from his den; we'll rally around him, again and again; We'll crown him with laurel, our champion to be: O' Connor the patriot: for sweet Liberty!
Published in the Northern Star 11th September 1840.
Cork born Chartist leader to be remembered at the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival 2017. Updated DECEMBER 2024.
Feargus O’Connor (1796-1855)
Born on 18th July 1796 at Connorville close to Ballineen in Co Cork, Feargus O’ Connor was the son of Roger O’Connor (1762 – 1835) and Wilhelmina Bowen. Both his father and more famous uncle, Arthur (1763 – 1852) (a barrister, former MP and High Sheriff of Cork) were arrested in 1798 for activities connected to the United Irishmen. Arthur was exiled to France, where Bonaparte welcomed him as an official representative of the Irish people. Roger’s family were also dispersed for some time as a result of his ongoing brushes with the law.
After some teenage adventures in England and Ireland, Feargus acquired Fort Robert, Dromidiclogh near Ballineen in West Cork from his uncle Robert Longfield Connor in 1820 and worked the attached farm alongside over one hundred of his tenants. At this time, rural areas of County Cork were hotbeds of Whiteboy actions led by the infamous and mysterious Captain Rock and O’Connor may have become mixed up in these activities. He had also addressed his first public meeting at the original Catholic Church in Derrigra, Enniskeane, but due to the treasonous nature of his comments, he disappeared to England in 1822, where he later qualified as a barrister.
The view over the Fort Robert Farm where Feargus O’Connor once worked alongside his tenants.
The ruins of Connorville, Ballineen, birthplace of Feargus O’Connor
Returning to Cork he defended many ordinary people in the courts at the time. However his experiences led him to become angry at the lack of civil rights, a critic of tithes (payments to the Protestant church) and more active in politics. He did not support Daniel O’Connell’s Catholic Emancipation campaign contending that it was limited emancipation and O’Connell was “the only Irishman to have benefitted”. In any event he was more interested in the Repeal of the Union movement and his brilliant oratory skills helped him to sway huge crowds at public meetings. He addressed a crowd of some 50,000 people in Dunmanway in 1832, while also holding a large campaign dinner for 500 in Enniskeane village.
Large in stature, fiery and red haired, self-confident, charming, defiant and passionate, he engaged huge crowds and was a natural leader. Occasionally these meetings could be rather robust affairs and O’Connor became involved in many altercations. He was described by his cousin, friend and neighbour, William J O’Neill Daunt as being “indefatigable in agitation”. His increasingly radical views gained many supporters among disenfranchised tenants, labourers and working class people of no property.
William O’Neill Daunt was a supporter of Daniel O’Connell, the Liberator, who had achieved Catholic Emancipation in 1829. Daunt later acted as secretary to O’Connell. He had also won a seat for Mallow in the 1832 election but it was later overturned.
O’Connor challenged openly the aristocratic Tory grip of politics across County Cork and in 1832 surprised all when he was elected MP for County Cork, breaking the political stranglehold of the landlord class in Ireland. His victory sparked mass evictions of hundreds of tenants along the Bandon Valley by Lord Bandon. The influential landlords never forgave Feargus for betraying his class, while those evicted and dumped on the sides of the roads, never forgot either. The entire area became a hotbed for the Irish War of Independence under the West Cork Brigade of the IRA in subsequent generations. Some bloody events during the War of Independence and the Civil War may have had echoes of those evictions in 1832. Kilmichael is just 20 km (12 miles) to the north of Enniskeane, while the infamous Bandon Valley Massacre of April 1922 took place in the general vicinity.
O’Connor was initially a strong supporter of Daniel O’Connell, but he later sundered all relations with O’Connell over his softly softly approach to Repeal of the Act of Union and O’Connell’s collusion with the Whig government after 1835. O’Connell, who later opposed efforts of working class people to organise, blocked all attempts to set up an Irish Chartist movement. In 1834, O’Connor had defended the Tolpuddle Martyrs , six of whom were convicted of administering “unlawful oaths” of union solidarity and were sentenced to transportation for seven years. He blamed the Whig and the Tories for this injustice on working people and by implication O’Connell.
Yet he continued to engineer electoral victories in a corrupt system by somewhat pragmatic methods in many Cork towns against a backdrop of increasing anti tithe violence. (In December 1834, 12 people were killed when troops opened fire in Rathcormac, Co Cork).
In the House of Commons, the new MP for Cork was very isolated and gradually split from Daniel O’Connell accusing him of selling out the Irish people on Repeal, especially after the Liberator’s agreement to the Lichfield House Whig Compact. O’Connor and the working classes became alienated even further from O’Connell due to O’Connell’s regular attacks on the emerging trade union networks.
Re-elected in January 1835 as MP for Cork, he was soon disqualified from the House of Commons in June when a Select Committee found he had not enough property or income to qualify in the first place (.Property qualification was £600) Being unable to contest the Cork election again he then turned most of his attention to English politics.
Later in England in September 1835 O’Connor helped found the Great Radical Association, which united many radicals and agitators and which sought universal suffrage (for men), voting by ballot and the removal of property qualifications for MPs. He possessed ferocious energy and spoke at huge mass meetings in support of working peoples’ rights. He is regarded by many commentators as one of the founders of Chartism. Feargus was becoming the “Lion of Freedom”, adored by countless thousands, yet remaining a very divisive figure to others.
The Northern Star
He established the Northern Star newspaper in 1837 in Leeds. This newspaper was hugely popular and sold thousands of copies, which promoted the ideas of Chartism throughout Britain and supported the People’s Charter announced by the London Working Men’s Association in June 1838. He made the north of England his political heartland.
O’Connor was a vigorous campaigner, an accomplished orator, a smart agitator and a shrewd self-publicist. He spoke in a spectacular oratorial style at huge meetings attended by hundreds of thousands of people. Unfortunately he also became involved in the many irrelevant disputes which weakened the Chartist movement. To his credit, he highlighted the many grievances of Ireland to his mainly English audience, whenever he could, thereby making serious enemies in the British establishment.
The authorities ensured he was charged and imprisoned for eighteen months in York Castle for seditious libel in May 1840. While weakening his direct control over the Chartist revolution, O’Connor became a martyr for the now huge movement. In spite of many setbacks, the widespread violence arising from industrial strikes especially in 1842, the rejection of parliament petitions, an over ambitious land plan, O’Connor and others kept Chartism central to the political agenda throughout the 1840s. Feargus was elected as an MP for Nottingham in 1847 and became an even bigger thorn in the side of the political establishment in the Westminster Parliament.
There were serious internal disputes and animosity among the Chartists and Feargus was usually in the centre of the rows. He fell out with many of the Chartists leaders, but due to his popularity among working people where he was seen as a martyr for the cause he remained the colourful public face of Chartism. His publication the Management of Small Farms in 1843 which attracted much attention saw Feargus concentrate Chartist principles on the management, ownership and cultivation of land. Many of his arguments resonate in the modern world when he discusses elements such as ecology, land and wealth distribution, food production for the masses and the mechanisation of agriculture. However these land settlement plans were somewhat of a diversion and distracted Feargus and Chartism from the central aims of the movement.
He founded the Chartist Cooperative Land Company in 1845 and his Land Plan saw over a thousand acres being purchased and hundreds of working class families being settled on small plots of land in model settlements. This was practical Chartism in action and its impact sowed the seeds for the self help organisations and the trade union movement. After initial success, the plan, which was well before its time, fell apart in legal disputes, financial issues and recriminations from those so opposed to O’Connor.
Chartist Procession with a petition to the Houses of Parliament in 1842.The crowds of Chartists at Kennington Common in 1848. Source: Wikipedia.
A series of great petitions to Parliament on behalf of the Chartists got nowhere and the failure of the mass meeting at Kennington Common on April 10th, 1848, when it was banned by the police authorities, perhaps following the example of the Irish authorities who banned Daniel O’Connell’s mass meeting in relation repeal of the union at Clontarf, Co Dublin in October 1843. Kennington Common effectively signalled the end of the mass gatherings, the main effective democratic weapon available to Chartists .
Detail from Feargus O’Connor’s gravestone at Kensal Green Cemetery (via Findagrave.com)
Eventually worn out by years of campaigning, wounded by arguments within the movement, lack of finances and the ongoing efforts of the Establishment to be rid of him, O’Connor experienced poor health and mental difficulties, he was eventually sent for treatment to an asylum where he remained for several years. He died at his sister Harriet’s lodgings at 18 Albert Terrace in Notting Hill Gate on 30th August 1855 and is buried at Kensal Green Cemetery. Vast crowds attended his funeral in London and the gates of the cemetery were “unceremoniously broke open” by the throngs. A large monument was erected over his grave. Another monument was erected in Nottingham by his admirers.
Monument to Feargus in Nottingham Arboretum. The inscription reads Feargus O;Connor Esq, MP. This statue was erected by his admirers (1859).
Chartism, riven with disputes between reformers and militants receded in the 1850s and much of its vision in education, parliamentary and land reforms and universal suffrage came to nothing in the short term. However the awakening working classes proceeded to organise and consolidate trade unions, co-operatives and friendly societies and absorb new socialist and democratic ideas. Wage negotiations commenced. While political reform took longer…… for many on the ground, O’Connor had led the way across the revolutionary Rubicon!
The Southern Star – British Chartist newspaper (not related to the West Cork paper of the same name)
As early as February 1838, O’Connor as quoted in the Bolton Free Press (Dorothy Thompson The Chartists) had declared that society is divided into two classes…. “The rich oppressors and the poor oppressed. The whole question resolved itself into the battle between labour and capital”. He emphasised the need to create independent working class organisation.
Feargus had introduced powerful ideas to the workers and he would not be silenced as he understood how to promulgate these ideas fearlessly through his newspaper, through vast meetings and through Chartism. Establishment attacks tried to destroy his character portraying him as a colourful and dangerous eccentric of this period yet the West Corkman remains the one innovative, questioning and radical voice in the complex tapestry and history of agitation for full political rights for all in Britain and Ireland.
Feargus was reputed to have had several children and in 1844 he had a son Edward O’Connor Terry with Emblon Terry. On a romantic note, he had a long standing relationship with actress Louisa Nesbitt (1817-1858) , a granddaughter of John McNamara of County Clare.
Today, O’Connor has been consigned to occupy a marginal role in Irish and British history, although he was a central and significant figure in the British Revolution. In his publication “Feargus O’Connor …a Political Life” by Paul A Pickering (published by Merlin Press 2008), Professor Pickering contends that O’Connor has not been “treated kindly by history” and his book is a plea for a place in Irish and British history for Feargus, as “he had earned it”.
Ronan Burtenshaw editor of the Tribune in the UK suggested recently in an article “The Irish Chartist who led Britain towards Revolution” argued that the Fenians in their proclamation was “littered with Chartist rhetoric”.
Issued on 10th February 1867 by the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), this proclamation refers to “founding a Republic based on universal suffrage which shall secure to all the intrinsic value of their labour”. It adds “as for you workmen of England it is not only your hearts we wish, but your arms. Remember the starvation and degradation brought to your firesides by the oppression of labour”
Carrickmore House – extension of the original Connorville at Ballineen – both in ruins now.
Today, Connorville and the later Carrigmore House shamefully lie in ruins alongside the present day Carbery Milk Products factory at Ballineen. Cattle graze beneath the walls of Feargus’s old home Fort Robert (built in 1787) which is nearby. Very little remains of the old church at Derrigran, Enniskeane where he made his first speech, and today a parochial house stands on the site.
The weeds grow at the entrance to the once magnificent Carrigmore House, associated with the O’Connor family.
Alongside the “Idle Bridge”, on the main Bandon/Dunmanway road (a bridge built by Roger to carry water from a never completed Blackwater river diversion on the O’Connor lands at Manch), a small plaque unveiled in 1999, commemorates Roger and Arthur O’Connor and their role in the United Irishmen.
Monument to Roger and Arthur O’Connor at the Idle Bridge.
The Plaque on the Monument.
For Feargus O’Connor…the “Lion of Freedom”… a truly great West Cork man who has left his mark on the democratic landscape of both the land of his birth which he never forgot and the country where he embraced the democratic principles of Chartism, he remains sadly neglected. West Cork should remedy this neglect and acknowledge the huge contribution of Feargus Edward O’Connor to the struggle for freedom, equality and justice for all people who live in Ireland and Britain today.
The Flag of the Chartist Movement.
Warren Davies, was a Labour Councillor, who represented Baird Ward in Hastings in East Sussex. For many years he taught history, politics, Sociology and anthropology. Warren gave a lecture entitled speak of “FeargusO’Connor – The Corkman behind a British Revolution” on Saturday 5th August 2017 at the 2017 Spirit of Mother Jones Festival.It was attended by Oriana O’Connor of the O’Connor family of Manch and historians, Louis and Bernie Whyte of Enniskeane.
Sources:
Epstein, James, The Lion Of Freedom: Feargus O’Connor And The ChartistMovement, 1832-1842. (Croom Helm, London & Sydney 1982).
Hayter Hames, Jane. Arthur O’Connor, United Irishman. (The Collins Press, Cork 2001)
Howe, Catherine. Feargus O’Connor and Louisa Nisbett (Catherine Howe UK 2016)
Pickering, Paul A, Feargus O’Connor, A Political Life. (Merlin Press Ltd Wales 2008).
Read, Donald, Glasgow, Eric. Feargus O’Connor, Irishman and Chartist. (Edward Arnold (Publishers) Ltd London 1961).
Thompson, Dorothy, The Chartists, Popular Politics in the Industrial Revolution. (Breviary Stuff Publications London 2013).
Thanks to Oriana O’Connor of Manch, widow of the late Con O’Connor. Gratitude also to Bernie & Louis Whyte who know so much about the origins of the Connor/O’Connor clan. Warren Davies is a regular visitor to the annual Spirit of Spirit of Mother Jones Festival.
Oriana O’Connor with Warren Davies at the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival 2017.Left to Right: Louis Whyte, Eithne O’Mahony, Bernie Whyte, Oriana O’Connor, Speaker: Warren Davies, and Gerard O’Mahony, Cork Mother Jones Committee at the 2017 Spirit of Mother Jones Festival.
On Friday 22nd November 2013, Tom Gilmartin passed away at the Cork University Hospital. He was 78 years old and died of kidney failure due to heart complications. Following his removal from the Wilton funeral home, his body was taken on its last journey, initially to his own place at Grange, Co Sligo and finally to Urris on the Inishowen Peninsula, where his wife Vera is from and where he was laid to rest. Trevor McBride’s classic photo of Tom’s funeral in the cemetery at Urris, with the bleak November landscape as its backdrop remains an enduring image.
No political figures attended his funeral, Official Ireland was absent. Yet the story of Tom Gilmartin and his treatment by a corrupt planning and political system is literally a parable for modern Ireland. His experiences at the hands of some planners and some politicians is told with great humanity and forensic skill by investigative journalist Frank Connolly in his classic bestselling book “Tom Gilmartin – The Man who brought down a Taoiseach and exposed the greed and corruption at the heart of Irish politics” (Gill and Macmillan 2014).
While he co-operated with the author and read the final manuscript, Tom Gilmartin, the man who did the State some service, did not live to see this book published but he would surely have been proud of the telling of the story which lies within.
Fintan O’Toole has commented that “Tom Gilmartin did all Irish people an immense service by telling the truth about the corruption and cynicism he encountered at the very top of the political system”.
From the car crash Late Late Show of Friday night 15th January 1999 where E.U. Commissioner Padraig Flynn made derogatory comments about him and Vera… to his straightforward, candid and forthright honesty at the Mahon Tribunal, Tom Gilmartin told a story of a hidden Ireland and made a memorable mark on Irish politics. His revelations revealed a corrupt system of planning in Dublin and in the politics of planning which was at the very root of the property and banking crash of 2008 and which ruined the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.
The emigrant, the family man, the businessman, the patriot, he was many things and he told the truth. Tom Gilmartin deserved better from Ireland!
Cover of Frank Connolly’s book on Tom Gilmartin
Frank Connolly first met Tom Gilmartin in 1998, began work on the book in 2004 and over almost the next decade talked to him and his family and then awaited the Mahon Tribunal findings which largely vindicated many of Gilmartin’s allegations.
In a lecture entitled “Political and corporate corruption – have we learned the lessons from past?” Frank Connolly will discuss the Tom Gilmartin story, the Mahon tribunal findings and the subsequent Irish financial and banking collapse. He will go on to examine what has happened since in the light of the recent sell-off of Irish property assets to global vulture funds.
Frank Connolly will present his lecture at the Spirit of Mother Jones summer school at the Maldron Hotel, Shandon, Cork, on Saturday 5th August at 11am. All are welcome.
The Cork Mother Jones Committee is pleased to announce that Fergal Keane has agreed to speak to the topic “Human Rights in a Divided World”.
Fergal Keane (Photo: Limerick Leader)
He will appear on Sunday evening 31st July at the Maldron Hotel at 7.30pm.
Born in London to his parents, Maura Hassett was from Cork city and Eamonn Keane from Listowel. Both were actors, who had met in Cork and had been married in Ballyphehane church, Cork City. The family also lived in Dublin for some, before Fergal moved to Cork to live with May Hassett, his grandmother.
Keane spent much of his youth in Cork, attending St Joseph’s National School on the Mardyke. Later at the Presentation Brothers College nearby, he came under the influence of Brother Jerome Kelly, “a man who would change my life”. In 1972, Brother Kelly, had founded SHARE – Schoolboys Harness Aid for Relief of the Elderly which was set up to assist the elderly in Cork to obtain a home. This charity continues to work in Cork City to this day.
He says of Cork
“More than any other place I have lived, it is Cork I regard as my home.”
He became a reporter with the Limerick Leader and later went to Dublin where he worked in The Irish Press. Moving to RTE he gained experience as a foreign correspondent especially in Africa, before joining the BBC.
In his memoir All of these People published in 2005, Fergal describes, while reporting on the Eritrean war, seeing a badly wounded boy Ande Mikail lying in a tent covered in a foil blanket after being wounded from an Ethiopian MiG fighter…
“That moment on the Eritrean hillside was a point of departure for me. I had seen news photographs of war victims and I’d watched documentaries. But they didn’t smell the way that tent did, and the eyes of the dying on the screenhad never caught me the way Ande Mikail’s had. Having looked into the eyes of this child of war I could not look away again.”
Fergal Keane
Now one of the BBC’s most distinguished foreign correspondents, Fergal is a multi-award winning journalist and author. Having travelled widely, he has reported and borne witness from many of the world’s trouble spots such South Africa, Rwanda, Iraq, the Balkans and Northern Ireland. His descriptions of the horrific conflicts around him are grounded from the perspectives of the ordinary people and children who are suffering and dying in circumstances over which they have no control or say. The recipient of a BAFTA, he has won the George Orwell prize for literature, as well as being named Amnesty International’s Human Rights reporter of the Year in 1993.
Fergal has made several documentaries such as Forgotten Britain for the BBC and The Story of Ireland (RTE and BBC Northern Ireland)
He is the author of many books including The Bondage of Fear, Road of Bones,and Season of Blood Rwandan Journey, Letter to Daniel and All of These People…a memoir.
Fergal loves to potter by the sea shore at Ardmore in West Waterford.
Greenshine to play at The Spirit of Mother Jones Festival 2016.
Maldron Hotel on Friday 29th July, Tickets €5
Greenshine in concert
GREENSHINE is a family trio comprising Noel Shine, Mary Greene and their daughter Ellie. Their material straddles the boundaries of contemporary, folk and roots and includes many self-penned songs. Their fast picking and close harmonies are a treat to the ear.
Noel is a multi-instrumentalist, turning his hand to guitar, bass, mandolin, bouzouki and traditional whistle and this musical dexterity had seen him much in demand as a session and band player by artists as diverse as The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem and funk and soul legends The Republic of Loose amongst many others.
Mary brings rhythm guitar to the mix and her voice is a wonderfully versatile instrument. She is much in demand for her recording session work and has added her talents to the albums of Christy Moore, John Spillane, Mick Hanly and Frances Black as well as cult psychedelic outfit Dr. Strangely Strange.
As a duo, Noel and Mary have released 3 critically acclaimed albums to date ~ The Land You Love the Best (placed no. 3 in The Irish Times Folk albums of the year of its release), Unspoken Lines (described as ‘The heart and soul of folk music, coming from a deeper well…,’ by John Spillane) while Mary’s solo, Sea of Hearts, earned an impressive 8 out of 10 in Hot Press.
Ellie Shine has grown up surrounded by music and has been performing in concerts and festivals since the age of 13 including an appearance with GREENSHINE for President Michael D. Higgins and his wife Sabina at The Abbey Theatre. Despite her tender years, Ellie has featured on 4 recordings to date. She has a huge interest in the songs of the Muskerry Gaeltacht and reached the All-Ireland final of Fleadh Cheoil na hEireann’s under 15 Sean-Nós Singing competition in her debut try-out. She enjoys singing songs of all genres and has a special place in her heart reserved for classic Beatles and country as well as good contemporary songwriting. She accompanies herself on the ukulele.
The music of Greenshine has been covered by several Irish music artists and has been used commercially by Follain Preserves in their ad campaigns, Carrie Crowley in her film Waterway and as signature tunes by several national radio station programmes.
Luke Dineen has been a regular contributor to the Mother Jones summer school and we are delighted to welcome him back in 2016. He will address the significance of the Postal Strike of 1922 at the Maldron Hotel on Saturday 30th July at 11.30.
J.J. Walsh with Countess Markievicz
”The Postal Strike of 1922 was the first major industrial dispute the new government of the Irish Free State faced and it occurred right in the middle of the Civil War.
When the dispute began, the government refused to concede the right of public servants to strike. The postal workers were condemned for taking industrial action against wage reductions because, as members of the public service, they enjoyed permanent, pensionable positions.
The government’s handling of the postal strike challenges the narrative that the establishment of the Free State represented the triumph of democracy. Rather, it shows an authoritarian government that was intolerant of dissent and willing to use harsh measures to suppress it.”
(Extract from Cathal Brennan in online article in The Irish Story).
The Cork postal workers had earlier voted to strike in February 1922 due to threatened pay cuts, but action was postponed as a result of union intervention whereby an independent commission was established to examine the issues in relation to pay.
Cork historian Luke Dineen
The Postmaster General during the strike was James Joseph Walsh, known as J.J., a TD from Cork. Born near Bandon, Walsh was a former postal worker himself, an active trade unionist and member of Sinn Féin. He had taken part in the 1916 Rising in the GPO and received a ten year sentence.Described by Marcus De Burca author of The GAA…a History as “a dominating Cork personality”, he had also been Chairman (President) of the Cork County Board of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA). His Departmental Secretary in 1922 was P. S. O’Hegarty, another Corkman and a former post office worker in London who was friendly with Michael Collins.
The events during this strike in September 1922 and the government’s brutal reaction form a surprising if largely forgotten portrait of the new Irish State at the time and raise a fundamental question….…was the labour movement the biggest casualty of the Irish Civil War and its aftermath?
Luke Dineen will tell the story of the events surrounding this strike on Saturday morning 30th July at 11.30 am. Luke is currently writing his PhD Thesis at University College Cork.
The formal press launch of this year’s Spirit of Mother Jones Festival was held last week at Cork’s Maldron Hotel. The festival begins on Thursday, 28th July and runs until Monday, 1st August 2016.
Here are some photos from last week’s very successful launch. Our sincere thanks to Martin Duggan, photographer for these images and for his ongoing support:
The press launch of the Spirit of Mother Jones festival and summer school takes place at the Maldron Hotel on Wednesday 29th June at 1pm and will be performed by the Lord Mayor of Cork Cllr. Des Cahill. The festival itself will take place from 28th July to 1st August.
The speakers at the 2016 summer school include Catherine McGuinness, Jack O’ Connor, Justine McCarthy, Dr Sean Pettit, Laurence Fenton, Fergal Keane, Luke Dineen, Dave Hopper, Anne Twomey and Pat Egan.
The festival will see Jimmy Crowley will perform some of his songs. The Cork Singers’ Club, Richard T Cooke, the Mother Jones Ceili Band and the Butter Exchange Band along with Greenshine are participating. John Nyhan and Mick Treacy are appearing on Saturday night 30th July. Several films will be shown throughout the five days of the festival. Only the Greenshine concert requires tickets. All other events are free and open to the public, however as some events fill up quickly, please be on time! All are welcome. Most events are at the Maldron Hotel except where stated on the programme.
This event takes place at the Maldron Hotel on Saturday night 30th July at 9pm. All are welcome.
To Mother Jones the miners were “My Boys” and her activist life was spent in organising miners of all nationalities across America. She “could arouse more fight in men than any speaker I have ever seen behind a rostrum” declared Fred Mooney, a union organiser in West Virginia. The United Mineworkers and its offshoots were among the most famous and radical of organised groups of workers in the world. Mining itself has involved going to the bowels of the earth for the rocks and minerals which have created the modern industrial world.
Yet those brave men and women who then worked in the pits and still work deep in the ground have been amongst the most exploited and expendable in human history. During the 18thcentury in Britain mine fatalities averaged a thousand a year. Safety, health and the welfare of miners and their families was not considered as important.
Yet from this mining tradition across all countries has sprung some of the most progressive movements in politics and some of the greatest living folk songs, colliery music, musicians and community solidarity. Names such as Bob Davenport, Tommy Armstrong, Anne Briggs, and A. L. Lloyd sang the songs created by working people in Britain. Sarah Gunning, Nimrod Workman and Hazel Dickens and many others sang mining songs in America. Their legacy remains and inspires new generations.
John Nyhan and Mick Treacy continue this tradition and on Saturday 30th July, beginning at 9pm they will present the songs, stories and lore of the mining tradition.
Mick Treacy.
Mick Treacy
Mick came to folk music through listening to The Weavers , Delia Murphy, Joe Lynch, Connie Foley and the one and only Margaret Barry in the fifties and then the Skiffle movement in Britain which was spearheaded by Ken Colyer one of the leading exponents of the Classic New Orleans Jazz style in Britain. The revival of interest in Folk song and music happened to coincide with this outbreak of people’s music making and before long there was a natural fusion which led to Skiffle groups becoming Folk Groups like The Ian Campbell group in Birmingham or The Quarrymen from Liverpool becoming the Beatles.
Mick went to England in late 1960 became part of the whole folk revival first listening and learning from Ewan McColl, Bob Davenport, Alex Campbell, Ramblin’ Jack Elliot and many more. By 1964 he was singing in Birmingham Town Hall in a fund raising concert for West Midlands Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and later joined an Irish Group called ‘The Munstermen’. This lead in turn to the founding of ‘The Holyground Folk Club’ which had three glorious years and hosted many of the world’s great folk artistes.
In 1967 he came to Dublin and sang in most of the venues of the day The Embankment, The Castle Inn, The Old Sheiling and many of the local Folk Clubs before returning to his native Mitchelstown where he settled down, got married and raised a family. He has always had an interest in the songs of the working people collecting many down through the years. He feels privileged to have shared the platform and stage with many pacifist and socialist poets, writers, singers and performers who shared his dreams.
John Nyhan.
John Nyhan
John was born in Cork City and now lives in North Cork. He was heavily influenced by the Folk revival and has been playing and promoting music for over 40 years.
During the 70s he was a founding member of The Shandon Folk Club in Eason’s Hill,within an earshot of the Shandon Bells.Today he continues his voluntary involvementas a promoter of concerts and festivals. He is especially well known for the Bluegrass and Folk concerts he runs at The Village Arts Centre,Kilworth Co Cork. He is an avid collector of folk, bluegrass and songs of the people and has an encyclopaedic recall of singers and songs.
In the 1970″S John worked as a peace campaigner in the North of Ireland as a member of Voluntary Service International.He was also a worker with the Simon Community.
In the past decade he moved to Lombardstown in North Cork, as part of a Sustainable Housing Project,where he maintains an active role in his local community. In 2015 John organised the already legendary session “The songs of Joe Hill” at the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival.
“Where it’s dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew,
Where the dangers are double and the pleasures are few.
Where the rain never falss and the sun never shines,
It’s dark as a dungeon way down in the mines”
From “Dark as a Dungeon” by Merle Travis of Muhlenberg County, Kentucky.
This event will be preceded by two films about the struggles of miners for justice.
4.30. The Battle for Orgreave, a film by Yvette Vanson (www.yvettevanson.com). The events of 18th June 1984 during The Miners’ Strike are disturbing and have shocked the world. This film by Journeyman Pictures is required viewing for an understanding of the Miners Strike. As calls for a full public enquiry into the events of that day and afterwards mount, this film is a must see.
Press Cutting from “Mine Wars” era
7.00. The Mining Wars, a film produced and directed by Randall MacLowry, the film is a production of the Film Posse for American Experience (WGBH – Boston). It features the mining union battles in the USA and the activities of the tough union organisers including Mother Jones.
These epic struggles in the first two decades of the 20th Century culminated in the largest civil insurrection since the American Civil War. www.thefilmposse.com
