The Programme for the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival 2016 is now available. This year’s festival offers a great variety of events including lectures, film and musical performances.
Spirit of Mother Jones Festival 2016 – Programme
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Direct Provision – Not the Solution!
Cork Mother Jones Committee is pleased to confirm that retired judge Mrs Catherine McGuinness will speak at the 2016 Spirit of Mother Jones summer school. She will speak to the topic “Direct Provision – Not the solution!” at the Firkin Crane Theatre on Friday 29th July at 7.30 pm.
Catherine McGuinness was born in Belfast in 1934. A barrister, she was appointed as a judge in the Circuit Court in 1994, later she served in the High Court and was appointed to the Supreme Court in 2000, where she served until 2006. Elected a senator in the Dublin University constituency in 1979 Senator McGuinness remained in Seanad Éireann (Ireland’s Senate) until 1987. She has been appointed to the Council of State twice, initially by President Hillery and more recently in 2012 by President Higgins.
Mrs McGuinness was President of the Law Reform Commission from 2005 until 2011 and has served on various Boards and other organisations over many years giving freely of her time and experience. She received a 2010 “People of the Year Award” for her pioneering service and vast contribution to Irish life.In June 2011 she became a patron of the Irish Refugee Council and has consistently campaigned for Children’s Rights.
Direct Provision is the term given to the system for dealing with asylum seekers in Ireland. Initially established as an emergency measure in 1999, it commenced in 2000 and it quickly became permanent with over 30 establishments around the country. While asylum seekers receive full board accommodation, some access to the health and education systems, criticism has grown. Many thousands have been held in the system for years, some for over 5 years. Asylum seekers receive just €19.10 per week, children €9.60. There was a recent increase in the payment for children to €15.60 per week. At the end of April 2016, over 4000 people, including over a thousand children were still living in Direct Provision.
Complaints about lack of privacy, unnecessary restrictions, lack of cooking facilities, long stays, lack of independent complaints procedure, sheer boredom leading to mental health issues have been raised over a long period. NASC, the Irish Immigrant Support Centre had published a damning critique of the system in Cork called “Hidden Cork”.
The Irish Refugee Council launched a national campaign “End Institutional Living” in 2013. An Independent Working Group under Dr Bryan McMahon was established in October 2014 to report to the Government in relation to improving the position. It reported in June 2015 with a series of recommendations.
Mrs Catherine McGuinness will speak on “Direct Provision – Not a Solution!” at the Firkin Crane Theatre on Friday evening 29th July at 7.30. It will be followed by a discussion and all are welcome to come along and participate.
The Extraordinary Wallace Sisters
The story of extraordinary Wallace Sisters will be told by Anne Twomey of the Shandon Area History Group on Saturday 30th July at 2.30pm at the Maldron Hotel.
Background to the role of the Wallace sisters.
Now a lifeless vehicular short cut, St. Augustine Street in Cork City is barely noticed by many people these days. A bleak, undistinguished street, it has in recent years become an alleyway located between the Queens Old Castle and McHugh House linking the Grand Parade to South Main Street. It was formerly known as Brunswick Street, which appears on the old street nameplate on the western side.
The street’s current dilapidated condition is in stark contrast to its busy nature in the early years of 1900s. In 1911, some ten shops, stores and houses and the back entrance to St Augustine’s Church lined the street.
Six of those houses were inhabited by a total of twenty seven people on census night 1911. Over at no 4, St Augustine Street, Sheila (Julia) Wallace then aged twenty one was described as “Head of Family”, while her sisters Hannah (29) and Norah (15) also occupied the upper rooms where a young seventeen year old lodger Norah Crean also resided.
Daughters of Jeremiah, an agricultural labourer and Mary Wallace of Barrahaurin, Donoughmore and from a family of eight children, the sisters had moved to the city at a young age and opened their little newspaper and cigarette business. The family had been evicted in the late 1800s and now lived in a small two roomed house on the farm of James Twomey, a local farmer in Barrahaurin. This eviction and the resulting traumatic impact on the large Wallace family being dumped on the side of the road, and its implications for the family must have contributed to the radical political views of Norah and Sheila Wallace, which later lead them to embrace the aims of the Irish Citizen Army.
One might be surprised to learn that many of the most famous names in the revolutionary Ireland 1915 to 1922 came and went with regularity through this street. For at number 13 Brunswick St (later 4 St. Augustine St.) was located the small shop of Sheila and Nora Wallace.
During the War of Independence these firm and engaging sisters went about their day to day shop keeping business as normal which provided a perfect cover for what became a vast beehive of revolutionary activity taking place in their shop.
Located behind their small traditionally fronted tobacconist and newspaper shop with holy pictures and statues in the window and labour pamphlets on the shelves lay nothing less than the Head Quarters of the Cork No 1 Brigade of the Irish Republican Army (IRA). It was effectively the intelligence centre of the IRA where messages were efficiently received and delivered by a huge network of women and men…..in effect an IRA intelligence General Post Office!
Even more amazing is that this simple shop was located just 250 metres from the Royal Irish Constabulary barracks at Tuckey St and the second barracks at the Bridewell on the Coal Quay and yet remained undetected by the Crown forces for a long time.
James Connolly visited the Wallace sisters on his trip to Cork in January 1916, where he spoke later about military tactics at a meeting organised by Tadhg Barry over in the Grianán building in nearby Queens Street, now Fr. Mathew Street. Sheila and Nora were friendly with Constance Markievicz of the Irish Citizen Army (I.C.A) and both the sisters were active members of the Cork Branch of the I.C.A, which as the War of Independence gathered momentum gradually became absorbed into the I.R.A. The Cork Branch members used to meet in the Transport Workers Room in Merchants Quay where a rifle range had been established for practice by the Citizen Army.
University College Cork (UCC) historian and author John Borgonovo has recounted how the Wallace sisters organised a youth and women’s Citizen Army in Cork which lasted until 1921 and which took part in local parades involving the labour movement during the period. Labour organiser and socialist Cathal O’Shannon also took lodgings over their shop for a period while he worked in Cork.
One of the last actions of the Lord Mayor of Cork, Tomás MacCurtain was to visit the Wallace shop late on Friday night 19th March 1920. Florence O’ Donoghue, then head of intelligence in the I.R.A, later recounted how Tomás left the shop with the recently elected Alderman, Tadhg Barry about 11:00 pm that night on what was his final journey. Just a few hours later the Lord Mayor of Cork was murdered in his bed by the Royal Irish Constabulary (R.I.C) in the family quarters overhead his own shop at 40 Thomas Davis Street in Blackpool.
There is a family account how MacCurtain’s successor as the Lord Mayor of Cork, Terence MacSwiney, who was also a regular caller to the Wallace’s shop, went behind the counter and even sold a newspaper and a packet of cigarettes to a customer shortly before his arrest in August 1920. The Wallace sisters were busy at the particular time, taking dispatches around the city. Muriel MacSwiney, his wife, in her December 1951 deposition to the Bureau of Military History mentions how early on she became aware of “a little newspaper shop kept by the Misses Wallace, who were later connected to The Citizen Army”.
Sheila and Nora both worked in the shop and lived overhead at the time and the room to the rear of the shop was regularly used for Irish Volunteer and I.R.A. Brigade meetings. Sheila held the formal rank of Staff Officer as Brigade Communications officer, this was quite unique and she was possibly the only female officer of rank in the I.R.A.
She was awarded a pension of £55-16-8 under the Military Pension Act from October 1934 and her rank was confirmed. This rank is also inscribed on her gravestone in St. Finbarr’s Cemetery. Later on the shop was raided several times and was finally closed by order of the British Military dated 14th May 1921 and the sisters were ordered to be expelled from Cork City.
It reopened immediately after the Truce, indeed Liam Deasy then Adjutant of the First Southern Division recalled a jovial meeting at the premises on 12th July 1921 with the officers of the First Cork Brigade and Tom Barry. As the sisters took the anti-treaty side in the Civil war, it was raided regularly by the Free State forces. Later on the sisters lived on the Old Youghal Road in Teach Shíle.
The years of “working in impossible conditions”, carrying despatches in all weathers and the associated stress took a heavy toll on the sisters. This was recorded in their military service pension applications in 1934. Sheila died on 14th April 1944, on the Friday of Easter week. It was acknowledged by the Pensions Board that Nora who had developed tuberculosis in the 20s and spent some time in Switzerland, acquired her illness due to her exposure to all conditions of weather, wet and cold due to her intense activities, while acting as an intelligence agent. Nora traded on her own at the shop until 1960 and passed away on 17th September 1970.
The premises was later used as a bookmakers shop and afterwards as a dressmakers. The shop portrayed on a drawing by artist Brian Lawlor* in his book “Cork” appears to have been demolished sometime in the 1970s, during the clearance of the area for the reconstruction of the Queens Old Castle complex.
Anne Twomey of the Shandon Area History group will give an account of the story of the Wallace Sisters on Saturday afternoon 30th July at 2.30 in the Maldron Hotel. All welcome to attend and participate in the discussion afterwards.
The Shandon Area History group organised an unique exhibition entitled “Ordinary Women in Extraordinary Times” featuring remarkable women from the area and their contribution to the War of Independence at the St. Peter’s Church in North Main Street. in June 2016.
* Cork. Drawings by Brian Lawlor. Poems by Eiléan Ní Chuilleanán. Gallery Press, Dublin, Ireland 1977.
Update: October 2023:
A memorial plaque to Sheila and Nora Wallace was unveiled by their niece Bernadette Wallace at the national monument in Stuake, Donoughmore on Sunday 24th September 2023. The plaque and events were organised by the Donoughmore Historical Society and it included a talk by Anne Twomey of the Shandon Area History Group in the nearby community hall afterwards. There was a fine attendance in spite of heavy rain.
The Wallace sisters were natives of Kilcullen South in Donoughmore and when the family were evicted in the 1890s they had to move to the nearby townland of Barrachaurin. Later, the sisters moved to the nearby Cork City where they opened their small shop. The plaque commemorates the very vital role Sheila and Nora played during the War of Independence.
(our thanks to Donoughmore Diary)
Organising in the Shadow of the Law
Tish Gibbons works as a researcher with SIPTU’s Strategic Organising Department and leads up its innovative Educate to Organise programme.
She was a union organiser with SIPTU from 1997 to 2008 and will address the above topic at this year’s summer school.
Tish has worked in the Irish trade union movement for 30 years starting in a clerical capacity with the FWUI before becoming a union organiser with SIPTU in 1997. A constant part-time student, She holds a Diploma in Industrial Relations and a BA in English & Politics from UCG; a Post-graduate Diploma in Social Research Methods (OU) and MA Industrial Relations (Keele). After studying for four years at the Working Lives Research Institute in the London Metropolitan University, she was awarded a professional doctorate for her thesis on union recognition and organising.
She is a board member of the Irish Centre for the Histories of Labour and Class and has published in labour law, industrial relations and labour history journals. Earlier this year she addressed the annual Jim Connell commemoration weekend at Crossakiel, Co Meath.
Tish has spent many years as a union organiser on the ground, as did Mother Jones in the USA. The Cork Mother Jones Committee is delighted that she has agreed to bring her experiences and her views on organising workers to the 2016 Spirit of Mother Jones Summer School.
Ms. Gibbons will speak on Organising in the Shadow of the Law at 4.30 on Friday 30th July at the summer school. All welcome.
Festival Time approaches!
The Cork Mother Jones Committee is proud to introduce the 2015 Spirit of Mother Jones festival and summer school which begins on Wednesday 29th July and concludes on Saturday night, 1st August.
We feel very honoured to celebrate the memory of Mary Harris, known as Mother Jones, in the streets of her birthplace and we know that the speakers, musicians, poets, film makers, artists, singers, actors and the visitors will provide a festival and summer school that is interesting, relevant and challenging. The wonderful community of Shandon in Cork City will again provide a historic and colourful backdrop for the events. We also know that many others across the USA, the UK, Greece and elsewhere will be attending in spirit.
The full programme of almost 30 events over 4 days is available to download by clicking on this link: Spirit of Mother Jones programme 2015
The topics and subjects are varied and diverse, yet we are sure Mother Jones would have approved of the debates they will encourage among those attending. We will remember forgotten Cork heroes such as John Dowling and Lily Boole, and others such as Tony Benn, Joe Hill and Rachel Carson. We will hear of injustices perpetrated on the miners at Orgreave or on the Birmingham Six. We will wonder at the bravery of Irish Citizen Army and the labour struggles of the early 20th Century. We will hear of homelessness in our Republic in 2015 and the possible loss of our most precious natural resource.
We will listen to the very best of Cork and international music and song from Two Time Polka, Jimmy Crowley, Johnny Nyhan, Richard T. Cooke, William Hammond, the Cork Singers Club, the Cork Rokk Choir and many, many more.
And we will experience Mother Jones herself when the superb Kaiulani Lee takes the stage to perform “Can’t Scare Me…the Story of Mother Jones”.
Virtually all the events are free and open to everyone, (just be early!). For that we have to thank our sponsors, the Shandon community, all those participating and contributing on a voluntary basis and the ongoing work of the members of the Cork Mother Jones Committee to celebrate an inspirational woman. Come along!
Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living!
Press Launch for 2015 Festival of the Spirit of Mother Jones
The Spirit of Mother Jones Festival and Summer School’s formal launch takes place at the Maldron Hotel on Thursday, July 2nd, at 1pm.
All are welcome to come along as the fantastic programme of events for 29th July to 1st August 2015 is announced.
The full programme of events can be downloaded as by clicking Spirit of Mother Jones programme 2015 or on the link in the menu bar and sidebar of this site.
We are delighted to announce the Irish pre miere of Can’t Scare Me…The Story of Mother Jones written and performed by Kaiulani Lee. This will take place at the Firkin Crane on Friday night 31st July at 8.30pm. Tickets from tickets.ie or 086 1651356. All other events are free and open to all.
The Irish Citizen Army and the Road to the 1916 Rising
The Spirit of Mother Jones festival will include a series of lectures exploring the origins and role of the Irish Citizen Army, a workers army, in the Easter 1916 rebellion. The venue for the lectures will be the Firkin Crane, Shandon, Cork. Date and Time: Friday, 31st July 2015 at 3.30pm.
The 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic refers to just three organisations, one of which is The Irish Citizen Army (ICA). On Easter Monday morning 1916, over 200 members of the ICA, men, women and boys marched into a revolution in Dublin led by James Connolly.
The Irish Citizen Army comprised almost 30% of those who actually turned up for the Rising on that Monday morning and represented an internal mobilisation of almost 80% of the available and active membership. Some 50 including Connolly, who had played a central role in planning the actual military attacks,occupied the General Post Office. The remainder of the ICA played an active part in some of the fiercest fighting witnessed during the week in places such as St Stephen’s Green, College of Surgeons, City Hall and Dublin Castle.
Copies of the 1916 Proclamation itself was printed by the ICA at the Co-Op Stores at No 31 Eden Quay, alongside Liberty Hall, the headquarters of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union. Considerable quantities of the weapons, bombs and explosives used later in the Rising were stored in Liberty Hall, even the flag which flew over the GPO was created there.
Many of the active participants in the Rising had spent the Easter weekend in and around Liberty Hall, and marched from there to seize various buildings. Liberty Hall itself was bombed by the British initially as they immediately understood that the rebellion had been organised from there, the building was wrecked during the attack.
Sean Connolly of the ICA fired the first shot of the Rising, which killed Sergeant James O’Brien at the gates of Dublin Castle. In a strange twist of faith, Connolly himself was the first casualty on the rebel side when he was killed by a sniper an hour later. At the very end, Elizabeth O’Farrell of the ICA was with Padraig Pearse at the formal surrender of the rebels near the GPO, while she also carried the orders and dispatches which confirmed the cease fire and surrender elsewhere in Dublin.
Yet they were pushed to the margins of history soon afterwards and virtually disappeared from the narrative of Irish history for a considerable time, even during the 1966 commemorations. Who were these working class men and women, so many of whom were killed or injured in the Rising or imprisoned or impoverished in its aftermath?
By any standards The Irish Citizen Army was central to the 1916 Rising itself. It provided thecatalyst which set off the explosion leading to eventual Independence. Its origins among workers in the 1913 Lockout, its first Commandant ….. a Boer War hero, its voice unique and its participants brave, its discipline and ideological stance which set it apart in Ireland even in a period of dissent and conflict.
The Army was led by one of the greatest socialist agitators and thinkers of the 20th Century. Yet why is its legacy so uncertain, why is its central contribution considered a curiosity of history and why were its beliefs swamped by the conservative ideology which followed?
Earlier on the 1st August 1915, by order of James Connolly, the Irish Citizen Army had also gathered initially at Liberty Hall to participate alongside the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union in the funeral procession for the Fenian leader Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa, (born in West Cork and a “Freeman of Cork City” who had died on 29th June 1915 in America) to Glasnevin Cemetery.
Led by the James Fintan Lawlor Band, The Citizen Army and the Irish Volunteers marching side by side put on a hugely impressive show of force accompanied by the trade union movement, the Irish Republican Brotherhood and Cumann na mBan as they marched north to the Cemetery.
In the climax to his oration at the grave, Padraig Pearse threw back his head sharply…..….”but the fools, the fools, the fools! — they have left us our Fenian dead, and while Ireland holds these graves, Ireland unfree shall never be at peace.”
Standing nearby, Connolly could see the Rising as a reality.
Almost 100 years to the day, on Friday evening 31st July 2015 at 3.30pm, the Cork Mother Jones Committee will hold a series of lectures at the Firkin Crane entitled “The Irish Citizen Army and theRoad to the 1916 Rising”.The lectures and discussion will explore the origins, the progress and the eventual participation of this workers’ army in the 1916 rebellion. How important was its contribution, the role of James Connolly, what caused its subsequent political isolation and relative obscurity in Irish history?
Under the chairmanship of Theo Dorgan, poet and author, those participating include;
Dr Ann Matthews, author “The Irish Citizen Army” Mercier Press 2014.
Dr Leo Keohane, author “Captain Jack White, Imperialism, Anarchism &The Irish Citizen Army” Merrion Press 2014.
Scott Millar, author and journalist with Liberty, the newspaper of SIPTU (formerly the Irish Transport and General Workers Union, founded by Jim Larkin)
Festival programme for 2015 released
The full brochure for the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival 2015 is now available on this website. The festival takes place from Wednesday 29th July to Saturday 1st August 2015 in the Shandon area of Cork city. This year’s programme is jam-packed with an exciting range of lectures, performance, films and music.
You can view or download the brochure by clicking on the image at the top of this article or by navigating to the Festival Programme 2015 page and following the links. The brochure is laid out in print format and appears as two pages on screen – scroll down the pdf for the 2nd page.
Spirit of Mother Jones Festival 2015 – Music
The music programme for the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival 2015 has been released. The above poster features the full list of musical performances during the festival which will be held from Wednesday, 29th July to Saturday, 1st August. The two venues will be the Firkin Crane and the Maldron Hotel, Shandon.
A host of talent, new and old, will be on display at the festival over the four days. A downloadable version of the music poster in PDF format will be added here after the weekend.
Chris Mullin to speak at Cork Mother Jones Festival 2015
Chris Mullin was a member of the British House of Commons for Sunderland South from 1987 to 2010. He studied law at the University of Hull and trained as a journalist. He wrote Error of Judgement – the truth about the Birmingham Bombings, which was later made into an acclaimed drama documentary by Granada Television and contributed hugely to the success of the campaign to free the Birmingham Six.
Chris was a great supporter of the late Tony Benn and regularly gives public talks and lectures about a man he holds in the highest esteem. He has described Tony Benn as a “life enhancer, a man who fizzed with ideas, who constantly questioned why the world is as it is”. For 35 years he was a friend and colleague of Tony Benn’s and edited two of his books, Arguments for Democracy and Arguments for Socialism.
Chris Mullin was often savagely attacked in the tabloid press but he continued to write, as an activist and being regularly the very first MP to be declared elected to Parliament in each general election.
In 1982 he wrote the novel“A Very British Coup” which portrayed how a radical left-wing government was destabilised by the conservative forces in the United Kingdom. The television version of this book, which made a huge impact won BAFTA and Emmy Awards and has been shown in more than 30 countries.
He has also written three volumes of his diaries, including “A View from the Foothills” in 2009 about his time in Government.
He served as a Parliamentary Under-Secretary in a number of government departments from 1999 to 2005 and was also Chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee. He was the Africa minister in the Foreign Office and regarded his time in this office as thoroughly enjoyable.
Chris Mullin has lead a very varied career which has embraced political activism, defender of human rights, advocate of social justice, a sharp observer of and commentator on political events and he has also found fame as a noteworthy and acclaimed author. In addition he spent 23 years in Parliament and eventually announced his retirement in 2010. He is very much regarded as an independent thinker, a man who like Mother Jones is utterly fearless in saying what he believes in and what he stands for.
The Cork Mother Jones Committee is honoured to announce that Chris Mullin will speak at the 2015 Spirit of Mother Jones Festival which takes place in Shandon, Cork City from Wednesday 29th July until Saturday 1st August 2015.
See Chris Mullin’s website: www.chrismullinexmp.com