“Mother Jones was an Irish immigrant labor activist who advocated for child laborers and mine and factory workers across America and campaigned for the eight-hour day, safer working conditions, and an end to child labor. She often visited our region to speak and support workers. She is buried in the Union Miners Cemetery, Mt Olive, Illinois, with the Mt. Olive miners who died to preserve the union at the Battle of Virden, 1898. She called those miners her ‘brave boys’.”
Gathering at the grave of Mother Jones in Mt. Olive Miners Cemetery in 2024.
Not only is she buried in the only union-owned cemetery in the USA, but she also has the honor of a festival in her name in the country of her birth, Ireland, and at her final resting place. See: https://motherjonescork.com/
The Friends of the Mother Jones Museum, located in the City Hall of Mt. Olive, IL, announced several Labor Day weekend events to honor the Irish firebrand. Events will take place in Mt. Olive, Edwardsville, and St. Louis.
Mary Harris was baptised at this Baptism Font in the North Cathedral in Cork on August 1st 1837.The burial site of Mother Jones at Mt Olive, Illinois in 1930.
On Labor Day weekend this year, members of the UMWA Local 1613, Friends of the Mother Jones Museum, the Union Miners Cemetery Association, and Mother Jones actor Loretta Williams will celebrate Labor Day in three events.
Saturday, September 5th at 5:00 pm. The Mt. Olive Homecoming Parade in downtown Mt. Olive, with miners, actor Loretta Williams, and friends of Mother Jone
Sunday, September 6th at 1:00 pm. Dedication of a historic plaque at the grave site of Ernest F. ( Fred) Long, at Woodlawn Cemetery, Edwardsville. Fred Long was a nineteen-year coal miner from Edwardsville who lived in Mt. Olive died fighting for the union in the Battle of Virden, 1898. This program is presented by the Woodlawn Cemetery Board, 400 St. Louis St., Edwardsville, 62025.
Monday, September 7th at 5:30 pm. Celebration of Mother Jones and labor’s contributions to America at the Greenfinch Theater and Dive, 2525 S. Jefferson, St. Louis, Mo. The program will include the Bread and Roses Choir, Unseen St. Louis, The May Day Orchestra, labor songs presented by Casting Runes, Mother Jones speeches with Loretta Williams, and a presentation on union banners.
For more information: greenfinchstl.com
All at the Cork Mother Jones Committee send our best wishes for a successful celebration at Mt. Olive on Labor Day weekend 2026.
Joann Condellone is a founding member of the Mother Jones Museum in Mt. Olive and of the Perpetual Care Association of the Union Miners Cemetery, also in Mt. Olive.
A reminder from the Mother Jones Museum and Heritage Project Committee to join them for the annual St Patrick’s Day Parade in Chicago this Saturday March 14th2026.
Meet up at 11am at Columbus and Balbo.
All supporters of Cork born Mary Harris/ Mother Jones are welcome to join in the huge St Patrick’s Day parade.
According to Rosemary Feurer of the Mother Jones Heritage Project
“We always have a great time at the St Patrick’s Day parades in Chicago and this time we want to carry this great banner about Free Speech, a quote from Mother Jones. Come along and help us to spread the message about her.”
Mother Jones died at the Burgess farm in Maryland at 11.55pm on November 30th 1930.
Mother Jones at Lillian Burgess’ Farm. Left to Right: Mr. Burgess, Mother Jones and Burt Fowler.
Mother Jones and Lillie Burgess on Sept 16th 1930, just before Mother Jones died.
Her funeral was attended by tens of thousands of union workers. Father William Sweeney celebrated mass for the repose of her soul at St. Gabriel’s Roman Catholic Church in Washington on Wednesday, 3rd December 1930.
The casket was then placed on the Baltimore and Ohio train and was transported by rail following the route taken by the train bearing the remains of Abraham Lincoln to Springfield in 1866. From St Louis’s Union Station, the casket bearing Mother Jones was placed on the Wabash train to Mount Olive. It was taken to the Odd Fellows Hall in the town where it lay in state for a further three days. Thousands of miners and their families called to pay their respects.
Media reports state that up to 40,000 trade unionists and working people swamped the town over the three days in what was probably the largest gathering for a funeral of a woman trade unionist in history. Women could not ascend the formal male career ladder of trade unionism at the time and so Mother Jones remained a front line union organiser especially in the early 1900s.
The crowds of miners gather in Mt Olive.
Yet her leadership of miners, her fearless approach to union organising and her moral authority among working class people remained without parallel. Her fearlessness and courage had made her a legend, and so almost a decade after she took a back seat from union activity, when she was over 80 years old, her funeral provoked a massive response from workers everywhere.
They remembered, we remember too after ninety five years.
The reponse is probably best summed up by Fr. John Maguire
Father Maguire, a labour activist, spoke in his oration at the funeral of Mother Jones.
“Sometimes, she used language that a polite family journal could not print, sometimes she used methods that made the righteous grieve……But let it be remembered that she was, after all, human. Her faults were the excesses of her courage, her love of justice, the love in her mother’s heart. Today in gorgeous mahogany furnished and carefully guarded offices in distant capitals, wealthy mine owners and capitalists are breathing sighs of relief. Today among the plains of Illinois, the hillsides and valleys of Pennsylvania and West Virginia, In California, Colorado and British Columbia, strong men and toil worn women are weeping tears of bitter grief. The reason for this contrasting relief and sorrow is the same.
Mother Jones is dead!”
Author, Edward M. Steel editor “The Speeches and Writings of Mother Jones (1988 University of Pittsburg Press) in his afterword described the final public “birthday” appearance of Mother Jones on 1st May 1930.
“Although she had been confined to bed for weeks, on 1st May she summoned up the energy to move from her upstairs bedroom to a rocking chair under the apple tree in the yard (of the Burgess farm), where all day long she opened telegrams and letters, received visitors, reminisced with old friends, bantered with reporters, and presided over the cutting of the five-tiered birthday cake supplied by the bakers’ union.
Mother Jones with her birthday cake. Photo: Courtesy of Saul Schniderman.
Many labour leaders in their Washington HQ had conspired to make the day a success and Paramount sent a crew to film the festivities. When she spoke into their microphones, she probably addressed more people than she had in years of street gatherings and public addresses.”
Mother Jones.
The New York Times report the next day contains the longest quotation from her fiery birthday remarks:
Out on the lawn she faced the talking picture cameras, took a deep breath and a drink of water, and began an impromptu speech which brought loud applause and sent the nearby circling crows wheeling back to the woods. A dog enjoying a nap in the May sunshine jumped to his feet as the white-haired labor leader said in a ringing voice:
“America was not founded on dollars but on the blood of men who gave their lives for your benefit. Power lies in the hands of labor to retain American liberty, but labor has not yet learned how to use that power. A wonderful power is in the hands of women, too but they don’t know how to use it. Capitalists sidetrack the women into clubs and make ladies of them. Nobody wants a lady, they want women. Ladies are parlour parasites.”
Baptism Font at the North Cathedal in Cork where Mother Jones was baptised on the 1st August 1837. At the rear is St. Joseph the worker, a carving by Ken Thompson.Burial place of Mother Jones in Mt. Olive. Photo: James Goltz. Note: The Irish flag flies over her grave.
Later on in the day in a TV recording which still exists, she said in her singsong accent which betrayed her Cork roots:
“You know I am considered a Bolshevik, a Red and an IWW and a Radical. And I admit to being all they’ve charged me. I’m anything that would change moneyed civilization to a higher and grander civilization for the ages to come. And I long to see the day when Labour will have the destination of the nation in her own hands and she will stand as a united force and show the world what the workers can do.”
Mother Jones
In an earlier letter from Mother Jones dated November 12th 1928, she had made a special request to the miners of Mt. Olive.
“When the last call comes for me to take my final rest, will the miners see that i get a resting place in the same clay that shelters the miners who gave up their lives on the hills of Virden Illinois, on the morning of October 12th 1898. For their heroic sacrifice for their fellow men they are responsible for Illinois being one of the best organised labor states in America. I hope it will be my consolation when I pass away, to feel that I sleep under the clay with those brave boys.”
This Union Miners Cemetery was founded in Mt. Olive in 1898. As well as the Virden dead, many activists of the Progressive Miners’ of America (P.M.A) lie buried in this unique resting place. Among those who have been buried there recently include singer songwriter, and union activist, Anne Feeney, who performed in a concert at the 2014 Spirit of Mother Jones Festival in Shandon, Cork. In 1936, members of the Progressive Miners’ of America erected a large monument with two bronze statues and a 20 foot pillar over the grave of Mother Jones at its center. It was unveiled on the 11th October 1936 and more then 50,000 people attended the ceremony.
United States senator Bernie Sanders and Jane O’Meara Sanders arrived on Shandon Street to huge applause today.
Waiting for Bernie on Shandon Street. J. Nolan.
Bernie and Jane were paying a courtesy call to the Spirit of Mother Jones HQ on Shandon Street where they met members of the Cork Mother Jones Committee and friends of our festival. James and Marie Nolan welcomed our American guests to their local butcher shop which has been on the street since the 1800s and has served as the gathering point for planning the festival which has been held annually since 2012. James is one of the founder members of the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival.
Left to Right: James Nolan, Jane O’Meara Sanders, Senator Bernie Sanders and Marie Nolan. Photo (Mary Dineen).
Bernie stepped inside the counter and admitted that this was a first for him in his career as the longest serving Independent senator in United States congressional history. He examined a wide selection of Cork products and checked out the local bodice.
Is that enough bodice for your tea? Photo: Angela Flynn.
Cork Mother Jones Committee member Ann Piggott then proceeded to make a number of presentations to the Sanders family. Among the items was a copy of the Frameworks Films produced Mother Jones and Her Children, a festival poster and Elliott J. Gorn’s biography of Mother Jones.
In addition Ann produced some Cork treats of a bottle of Tanora, chester cakes (donkeys gudge) and some Tayto crisps, as a symbol of a special Cork welcome which she presented to the Sanders and were very appreciated by Bernie and Jane.
Bernie with Mother Jones Committee at presentation. Photo (Mary Dineen).
During a brief account of the extraordinary and long life of Mother Jones by committee member Ger O’Mahony, a number of interesting connections between Bernie and the Mother Jones family were revealed. Back in May 26th 2015 Bernie Sanders made his formal announcement that he was running for president of the United States on the waterfront park on Lake Champlain in Burlington, Vermont which he had helped to create while he was the proud Mayor first elected in 1981 of his hometown. He was re-elected three times during his tenure and served until 1989 after which he was elected to Congress.
Exactly a decade after announcing his presidential run, almost to the day (27th May 2025), Bernie Sanders was standing in Shandon, the home of Mother Jones.
Amazingly it was from here in Shandon in the heart of Cork City that Richard Harris and his son Richard junior, the father and brother of Mary Harris (Mother Jones) left to go to Canada on the infamous coffin ships in the late 1840s, probably during “Black 47”. According to author Elliott Gorn, the Harris men first appeared in the 1850 US census as living in Vermont in Bernie’s own town Burlington. Boarding with a local family, they were described as Illiterate and propertyless. In an era of fluid borders, the Harris’s had initially travelled into the United States to Burlington just over the border from Canada where they spent some time after emigrating from Cork .
By the time Richard’s wife Ellen Harris along with the remaining family members including Mary arrived from Ireland in the early 1850s, the Harris family had left Burlington and moved back to Canada to Bathurst Street in Toronto, where young Mary Harris grew up and was educated.
Jane and Bernie at the Mother Jones plaque for the first time. Photo (Angela Flynn).
Everyone then strolled through the ancient and historic streets of Shandon where a young Mary Harris may have walked to assemble at the plaque of Mother Jones erected in 2012 by the Cork Mother Jones Committee.
Jane and Bernie. The famous Shandon Bells can be seen in the background. Photo by Angela Flynn.
From underneath the plaque Bernie addressed the crowd,
” Now is the time to fight for the living. Seeing massive concentrations of wealth and power of a handful of multi-billionaires who literally want to control not just the United States but the entire world, who couldn’t care less about working people……they want it all”
“It is imperative that we stand together as what we see in the United States today will be in Europe and Ireland tomorrow”.
Bernie Sanders. Photo: Mary Dineen.
Calling for international solidarity he continued
“We must remember our common humanity, all the children of the world have a right to live, with food and with education, security and that we must strive for a world of peace and not war. There is an enormous amount of work in front of us, Let’s stand together and let’s do it.”
Jane added
“It’s wonderful to be here to commemorate Mother Jones. What she stood for in terms of workers rights in terms of protection of the children is very much in our feeling of what are the priorities of life. Thank you for welcoming us to Cork on such an auspicious occasion”
Committee member William Hammond then sang the ballad of Joe Hill and concluded with a rendering of Salonika to rapturous applause.
And the meeting concluded with the traditional whiskey toast at the Mother Jones plaque led by Bernie and Jane.
Toast to Mother Jones at the plaque. Bernie, Jane and members of the Cork Mother Jones Committee (Photo by Andrew Desmond).Bernie Sanders at the Mother Jones plaque. Photo: Angela Flynn.President Michael D. Higgins with US Senator, Bernie Sanders.Bernie and Jane with the local community Gardaí. Photo: Angela Flynn.
The Spirit of Mother Jones Festival takes place from Thursday 24th July until Saturday 26th July 2025.
Full programme of events will be available on this site by mid June or thereabouts.
Recently a new marker was added to the story of Mother Jones at her burial place in Mt Olive Union Miners Cemetery in Illinois.
Dr Helaine Silverman of the Dept. of Anthropology at the University of Illinois unveiled a new marker at the location where Mother Jones was originally buried in December 1930.
Mt Oliver Marker, Dr Silverman (Photo by Whitney DeMartini).
Following her research the University of Illinois through its Mythis Mississippi Project which advocates the use of cultural heritage resources to assist community development erected the informative marker at the location with the support of the Mt Olive Perpetual Care Committee.
Original grave-site of Mother Jones. (Photo by Whitney DeMartini).Scott Thomas, President of the UMWA Local 1613 speaking in Mt Olive Cemetery at the unveiling of the marker.
The Cork Mother Jones Committee has written to Dr. Silverman to thank her for her efforts to promote Mother Jones as part of the Mythic Mississippi Project.
There are two celebrations for Mother Jones in America over the next few days. An American birthday for Mother Jones takes place in Chicago on Sunday 27th April 2025 from 3:00 pm to 5:00 pm at the Irish American Heritage Centre. A great afternoon of music, speakers and performers with Chicago’s Mother Jones, Brigid Duffy attending. Among those appearing are Beatriz Ponce de Leon, Deputy Mayor for Immigrant, Migrant and Refugee Rights, Keith Ricardson, American Postal Workers Union, and Kathy Hanshew, Chicago Worker United.
The 4th annual International Mother Jones Festival is set for Sunday, May 4, from 1 pm to 5 pm in downtown Mt. Olive, IL, and in Union Miners’ Cemetery, where Jones is buried.
Included in the event is Music by Casting Runes, Wildflower Conspiracy, and Piasa Canyon. For the young at heart, there will be a magic and medicine show by Dr. Longhair, Randy Thompson, the Macoupin County Art Collective or MAC, plus performances by Loretta Williams as Jones for the young and old alike. Williams is the only MJ actor to portray her in both the country and place of her birth, City Cork, Ireland and at her final resting place in UMC. She will have a special program in the library. In case of inclement weather, the downtown activities will move inside the City Hall and library.
On behalf of the Cork Mother Jones Committee, we wish both events every success and congratulate all the organisers.
The Mother Jones Heritage Project Committee and its supporters marched in the St Patrick’s Day parades 2025.
Accompanied by the enormous Mother Jones float the large contingent made a colourful display in the windy City with their banners of “Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living”. While it was balmy on Saturday, heavy snow fell on Sunday.
According to organiser Rosemary Feurer, who was delighted with the large turnout and the crowds response” It was really heartening to hear the cheers from the crowd. “I LOVE MOTHER JONES!!” and “Go, Mother!” “and this rubbed off on the enthusiastic marchers.
It was a great celebration of Cork born Mother Jones.
All photographs courtesy of Dave Adams. Our thanks to the Mother Jones Heritage Project in Chicago.
On November 16th 2024, Lord Mayor of Cork, Cllr Dan Boyle visited the future site for the erection of the sculpture of Mother Jones in Chicago.
Above: Margaret Fulkerson, Brigid Duffy (members of the Chicago Mother Jones Statue Committee), Kathleen Farrell, (one of the lead sculptors along with Kathleen Scarboro), Cork Lord Mayor Dan Boyle, Rosemary Feurer, (project director) Ireland’s Consul General for Chicago and the Midwest Brian Cahalane, and Nathan Mason, Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events representative. The group is standing in front of the Water Tower and near the site of the future sculpture. Photo courtesy of the Mother Jones Heritage Committee.
The Lord Mayor had returned to the city where he was born and he was welcomed by members of the Mother Jones Heritage Committee along with one of the sculptors, Kathleen Farrell who are in the final planning stage of erecting this landmark sculpture near the famous Chicago Water Tower.
Rosemary Feurer, project director who attended the first festival in Cork in 2012, in welcoming the Lord Mayor pointed out that the sculpture of Mother Jones project was initiated following her visit to this festival in Shandon, close to the birthplace and baptism of Mary Harris in Cork. The strong connections between the Mother Jones committees in Chicago and Cork have been strengthened over the past decade and both groups have worked to promote the story and the spirit of the inspirational Mother Jones, whose heritage we share.
The Lord Mayor of Cork, Cllr. Dan Boyle with Brigit Duffy and Ireland’s Consulate General, Brian Cahalane. Photo courtesy of the Mother Jones Heritage Committee.
The Lord Mayor expressed the view that the efforts of the Chicago Committee will also be an inspiration to the Cork City Council in relation to celebrating the spirit of Mother Jones in Cork itself. He stated that he has a portrait of Mother Jones in his office, this portrait also hangs in the Irish Consulate General’s office in Chicago which commissioned the painting from artist Lindsay Hand.
The Mother Jones Heritage Committee, through effort and commitment, is having a statue of Mother Jones erected at a key city centre location in Chicago. I was delighted to hear of the support of Chicago City Council for this project and the inspiration given to the Chicago group by the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival in Cork. Cork should be similarly inspired to further acknowledge Mary Harris/Mother Harris in her native city.
Sculptor Kathleen Farrell with the Cork City Librarian, Patricia Looney. Photo courtesy of the Mother Jones Heritage Committee.
The sculpture is expected to be erected in Chicago during 2025 and should be a fitting monument to the Cork woman who as an emigrant during the Great Hunger went on to become “the most dangerous woman in America”.
Project Director: Rosemary Feurer, on the Bells of Shandon during the inaugural Mother Jones Festival 2012. Photo courtesy of the Cork Mother Jones Archive.
The Mother Jones Foundation annual dinner was held at Springfield, Illinois on Saturday evening 12th October last. The Foundation is the longest established organisation which promotes the work of Mother Jones and is dedicated to educating and raising awareness about labour history.
Mother Jones Foundation Dinner 2024. Photo: Mike Matejka.
The large attendance at the 2025 event heard guest speaker, author Hamilton Nolan speak of the power of the trade union movement to practice democracy, “a union is not a special interest, a union is a training school for democracy”.
Solidarity Forever. Photo: Mike Matejka.Solidarity Forever: James Goltz is on the right hand side. Photo: Mike Matejka.
Nolan called on trade unions to organise millions of working people into the movement and to just go out and organise. While union membership has dropped dramatically in the past decades, there has been a recent resurgence in numbers, in activism and in the fight against inequality.
Author: Hamilton Nolan with Joann Condellone of the Mt. Olive Cemetery Committee. Jim Alderson is in the red shirt. Photo: Mike Matejka.
Sunday October 13th saw a further large attendance gather under a sunny blue sky for the annual Miners’ Day at the Union Miners’ Cemetery outside Mt. Olive where Mother Jones is buried.
Miners Parade Arriving at Mt Olive Cemetery 2024. Photo: Mike Matejka.
Miners Day commemorates the tragic events of October 12, 1898, when union miners confronted the Chicago-Virden Coal Company at Virden over the arrival of strike-breakers. During a subsequent gun battle at the local railway station, a total of thirteen people died, eight miners and five company guards and some 40 miners were wounded.
Union Miners Cemetery at Mt. Olive, Photo: Mike Matejka.
However when Mount Olive town refused to allow some of the miners to use the cemetery, the miners purchased land just north of the town. The Union Miners Cemetery was thus established and remains the only union-owned cemetery in America. For the past 125 years people have gathered annually to remember those Virden miners.
Joann Condellone, a founding member of the Mother Jones Museum in Mt Olive and of the Perpetual Care Associaton of the Union Miners Cemetery welcomed all to the ceremony. The opening speaker, Tim Drea, the Illinois AFL-CIO President spoke of the vital contribution immigrants had made to the American Labour movement. Mary Harris was herself an immigrant from Ireland.
President of Illinois AFL-CIO, Tim Drea. Photo: Mike Matejka.
Highlight of the day was the appearance of Cecil Roberts, President of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) who spoke of the huge work which the union had contributed to ensuring pensions and health care for the miners. He called for a just transition for the communities impacted by the reduction and phase out of coal due to climate change.
President of the UMWA, Cecil Roberts speaking in Mt. Olive Cemetery. Photo: Mike Matejka.
President Roberts, whose great Grandmother Ma Blizzard was a close friend of Mother Jones and whose family supported the miners during the infamous Paint and Cabin Creek strikes in West Virginia during the “Coal Wars” of 1912-1914 gave an account of the impact on miners and their families and solidarity of those who fought for justice in those struggles.
Cecil Roberts with Joann Condellone. Photo: Mike Matejka.
In a prescient observation, President Roberts also recounted the burning of the miners’ union tent village by the Colorado National Guard and Mine company militia and the massacre of the women and children and men at Ludlow in Colorado one hundred and ten years ago. Many of those killed in Ludlow were immigrants from Greece.
Cecil Roberts with UMWA comrades: Photo: Mike Matejka.
He then concluded by quoting Mother Jones who spoke in her autobiography of the “dark story” of coal, and asked how in order for “life to have something of decency, something of beauty – a picture, a new dress, a bit of cheap lace lace fluttering in the window – for this, men who work down in the mines must struggle and lose, struggle and win.”
Loretta Williams as Mother Jones: Photo: Mike Matejka.Dale Hawkins as General Alexander Bradley. Photo: Mike Matejka.
The Daughters of Mother Jones at Mt. Olive Cemetery. Photo: Mike Matejka.
Loretta Williams and Dale Hawkins in period costume transformed into Mother Jones and union leader, English born “General” Alexander Bradley for the proceedings, while Wildflower Conspiracy provided music and union songs. Loretta attended the Spirit of Mother Jones festival in 2018. Wildflower Conspiracy sang the Children of MotherJones written and first performed by the late Cork singer/songwriter Pete Duffy at the 2014 Cork festival.
Wildflower Conspiracy: Erin O’Toole. Photo: Mike Matejka.
“Those in power showed her no sympathy In her fight to set the children free.
She lies in Mount Olive Illinois But Mother Jones’ true spirit never dies.”
Cecil Roberts, Dale Hawkins and Loretta Williams then honoured the miners of Virden by placing a wreath on the Virden miners grave.
Gathering at the Grave of Mother Jones, Sunday October 13th 2024. Photo: Mike Matejka.
The Cork Mother Jones committee wishes to thank Mike Matejka of the Illinois Labor History Society for permission to use some of his photographs. Our gratitude also to James Goltz of Mt Olive, a regular visitor to Cork, for all his assistance. We send our good wishes to Nelson Grman who has been involved with the Union Miners Cemetery Perpetual Care Committee for many decades.
On April 28th the formal announcement of the Mother Jones Sculpture Design winners took place in front of a packed attendance.
A four-person team headed by Kathleen Farrell and Kathleen Scarboro won the contest. The team will include David Standifer and Dante DiBartolo. They are committed to a dynamic presentation of Mother Jones in their work.
This group will now complete the design development and bring the magnificent sculpture to reality near the iconic Water Tower in Chicago. It will be a memorable and fitting tribute to the spirit of Mother Jones, once described as ‘the most dangerous woman in America.’ On behalf of the Cork Mother Jones Committee, we would like to congratulate all involved in this great project and we long to see Mother Jones taking her rightful place in Chicago.
For an account of the great celebrations at the announcement just click on the motherjonesmuseum.org website for a full report.
Portrait of Mother Jones by Kathleen Scarboro.
Portrait of Mother Jones by Kathleen Scarboro used in the celebratory booklet.
