Following the very successful Launch of the Feminist Walk Cork website at last year’s Spirit of Mother Jones Festival, we are delighted to announce the return of Maggie O’Neill to the festival for 2023.
The feminist walk of Cork (the first in a series of feminist walks created with community partners, staff and students at UCC) celebrates the contribution of women to art, culture, society and the city. Along the route we will explore the role of women in addressing sexual and social inequalities, and building fairer, safer communities.
Maggie O’Neill at 2022 Festival.
Following the legacy of Mother Jones, the walk writes women into the spaces and topography of the city and is facilitated by Maggie O’Neill and Conach Gibson-Feinblum.
Meet at 4.30 at the Maldron Hotel, Shandon on Saturday 29th July.
Maggie O’Neill is Professor in Sociology & Criminology at University College Cork, she has a long history of working with communities to create change, using arts based and participatory research methods. Maggie loves walking, walking as a way of doing research and as a teaching and learning method. She leads a walking module at UCC and is a member of the Walking Artists Network. Maggie has co-created a number of pedagogic walks.
Conach Gibson-Feinblum is a graduate of Criminology (BA) and Anthropology (MA) at University College Cork. She has a passion for feminist epistemologies, particularly Jewish feminism and worked as a research support to co-create the development of the feminist walk website and the feminist self-guided walking map.
On Saturday afternoon 29th July at the Maldron Hotel, Shandon, Patrick Murphy will speak about the split in Cork Nationalism in the early 1900s.
The emphasis for the past decade has been on the Revolutionary period 1913-1923 yet the story of constitutional nationalism and its unique and bitter conflict in pre revolutionary Cork is of interest.
William O’Brien MP. (Wikipedia).
In the present day, John Redmond Street and Great William O’Brien Street are busy thoroughfares located close together on the north side of Cork City, yet how many know about either Mr O’Brien or Mr Redmond or indeed how just over a century ago the vicious riots and violence which broke out between their passionate followers resulted in 90 admissions to the South Infirmary and North Infirmary (The present Maldron Hotel) hospitals on just one night in May 1910.
The Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP), whose MPs attended Westminster was forever riven with rows and dissension even as it sought Home Rule for Ireland. Later the All For Ireland League (AFIL) founded locally in 1910 and led by Mallow born William O’Brien succeeded in winning eight of the nine seats available in the House of Commons for Cork in the subsequent general and local elections. Largely now based in the county of Cork it acquired seats on many local authority councils, taking control of Cork County Council, and the Cork Corporation.
Cork city and county witnessed pitched violent battles in many villages and towns yet both factions professed a nationalist outlook in supporting Home Rule, both had significant working class support and both leaders had little time for trade unions or socialism. The AFIL urged cooperation between Catholic and Protestant through working together and mutual cooperation.
Then in 1914, Redmond and O’Brien advocated participation by their followers in the First World War as many of their volunteers went off to fight and die in the war, some young men and women stayed at home and began to work towards achieving an Irish Republic.
By 1918, the All for Ireland League was no more and the Irish Parliamentary Party was to follow soon afterwards.
Dr. Patrick Murphy was born in Cork and grew up in Ballyphehane. He attended Sullivan’s Quay school which he left at the age of 15 having failed the Inter Cert. His subsequent education was funded by the British taxpayer after he moved to England in 1984. He has a BA in social science, an MA in social history from the University of Nottingham and a PhD from the University of Liverpool with a thesis on the All for Ireland League.
Pat Murphy.
In 1993 he founded the Nottingham Irish Studies Group which runs courses for the local community in Irish history, Irish literature and the Irish language. He is also Chair of the Nottingham Irish Centre. His article ‘Class, Conflict and Conciliation: The All for Ireland League in Cork 1910-1918’ was published in Saothar 46, The Journal of the Irish Labour History Society (2021).
The Banshee’s Kiss: William O’Brien MP and the All For Ireland League in Cork 1910-1918.
Saturday 29th July at 3.15 pm at the Maldron Hotel, Shandon.
Further Funding for the Mother Jones Statue in Chicago
The Mother Jones Statue campaign announced on June 19 last that it has received a further $250,000 funding for the statue project at the Water Tower in Chicago.
Brandon Johnson, Mayor of Chicago making the announcement
The years of work the Chicago Committee has invested in planning for a Mother Jones statue is getting closer to fruition and the Cork born labour and union organiser will soon grace the Chicago skyline.
It is particularly rewarding that this is part of a package in support of multiple projects of underrepresented peoples projects. The Mellon Foundation announced a grant of $6.8 million to The City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) to support the Chicago Monuments Project (CMP) and citywide community-generated commemorative initiatives and installations.
The Plaza where the Mother Jones Statue will be erected.
The Mellon Foundation grant, in coordination with the Monuments Project, is part of a recent expansion of the Mother Jones project from the original plan. This is now a landmark project that will result in a much bigger impact.
The Mother Jones Monument project committee has now raised about $160,000 dollars and still needs about $40,000. The committee wishes to raise further funding to fulfil its share of the costs of this magnificent project, some $200,000 and continues to seek donations, including from Ireland. Congratulations to all for the hard work in organising the Mother Jones statue project from a dream to a reality.
The Cork Mother Jones Committee is proud to present the 1954 documentary Salt of the Earth at this year’s Festival. It will be shown on Thursday 27th July 2023 at the Maldron Hotel, Shandon, beginning at 11:00 am.
Salt of the Earth is the story of a strike which is based on a 1951 strike in New Mexico.
Deemed “culturally significant” by the US Library of Congress,it is now preserved in the National Film Registry.
Source: Wikipedia.
On its release in 1954, the American Legion called for a nationwide boycott, it was denounced in the US House of Representatives, investigated by the FBI and the film set was attacked by vigilantes. As its writer Michael Wilson, director Herbert J Biberman and producer Paul Jarrico were all blacklisted in Hollywood in the McCarthy campaign against Communism, Salt of the Earth itself was also blacklisted and many cinemas refused to show it..
Due to financial constraints, a few professional actors such as Rosaura Revueltas as Esperanza Quintero (later deported to Mexico). Will Geer played the Sheriff, he was a socialist, a comrade of Woody Guthrie to whom he introduced Pete Seeger. (he is better known to Irish audiences as Grandpa in the Waltons). They were joined by miners from Local 890 of the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter workers. and their families in the cast. Juan Chacon who played Ramon Quintero was a union local official.
Rosaura Revueltas and Juan Chacon. Source: Wikipedia.
The blunt and austere realism of the strike is full on and direct in some emotional and powerful scenes. Crucially it embraces a unique feminist approach to union politics which was rare in the early 1950 cinema. The wives, family and widows of the miners rally to offer hope for the future of migrant workers.
The earlier efforts of Mother Jones to assist the Mexican trade unions and support the Mexican Revolution is especially relevant
In spite of production difficulties and the quality, this film remains long in one’s mind due to its honesty, its realism and the common human story of labour injustice it displays as the participants strive to tell the story of the union activists and the strike.
Even the biblical origins of its title, Salt of the Earth did not prevent its condemnation in some quarters as communist propaganda. Yet its message lives on as a brave political statement in opposition to the rampant McCarthyism which prevented progressive film making, culture and the arts in America. That it survives and endures almost 70 years later is testament to the everlasting story of workers organising to fight injustice.
Salt of the Earth will be shown on Thursday morning 27th July 2023 at 11:00 am at the Maldron Hotel, Shandon followed by a discussion. Running time 90 minutes.
She Carried Out All the Duties Given to Her in a Most Efficient Manner – Women in the Irish Revolution.”
As we approach the end of the Decade of Centenaries, Liz Gillis who is a prolific writer on the revolutionary years 1913-1923 will address the treatment of activist women during and after the period. Originally from Dublin’s Liberties, which she loves and promotes, Liz has highlighted the role of women during that era and has argued that they were fighting not just for freedom but also for real freedom with social justice at its very core.
Liz Gillis
From Cumann Na mBan to the labour based Irish Citizen Army and onwards to the “Invisible army” of the Irish Republican Army, many of the women were often the public face of the resistance as the men risked immediate death if exposed. Conversely with the arrival of the new State, the men became more prominent and conservative in the Church dominated post Civil War politics of the era, while many of the radical women were rendered powerless and became invisible for decades.
The 1916 Proclamation declaring an Irish Republic addressed to the people of Ireland (Ireland is described as “she”), is directed to “Irishmen and Irishwomen” and includes direct reference to Irish women in two later sections. The use of the pronoun “her” in reference to Ireland as feminine appears on ten occasions in the first two paragraphs of the Proclamation. The signatories certainly intended that Irish women should play an equal role in the Irish Republic.
Ms. Gillis’s book Women of the Irish Revolution, published in 2014, exposed the faces, achievements and sacrifices and treatment of hundreds of these invisible women who served in the engine rooms of the revolution. The book contains a unique set of photographs which provide a human face to many of those heroes for the first time. The publication along with others which highlighted the essential work of the women made an enormous contribution to the belated, if often grudging State acknowledgement in recent years of their pivotal importance during the period. The new Free State meted out cruel and harsher treatment to them than the British forces had attempted during the War of Independence and over subsequent decades failed to provide pensions to many of the women activists. Even today there is very little recognition of the contribution made by these women in for example public space names or monuments by national or local government.
Women of the Irish Revolution.
“They were the wives, mothers, sisters and girlfriends of the men who fought and died for Irish freedom and their story is one that needs to be told”
“Women of the Irish Revolution” Published by Mercier Press Cork 2014.
Liz is the author of several books and has championed the contribution of women for many years. She previously worked as a researcher for the RTE History Show and lectures at the Champlain College, Dublin. She has appeared in many RTE documentaries in relation to the revolutionary period and has recently authored The Hales Brothers and the Irish Revolution.
Liz will speak to the topic “She Carried Out All the Duties Given to Her in a Most Efficient Manner – Women in the Irish Revolution.”
Venue: Dance Cork Firkin Crane. Thursday evening 27th July 2023.
A Mother Jones Birthday party will take place on Sunday 30th April from 3 – 5 pm at the Irish American Heritage Centre in Chicago.
It will feature Liz Carroll, (fiddle), Brendan and Siobhan Mc Kinney (pipes and Flute), Kathy Cowan, vocalist and Mother Jones, Brigid Duffy. In attendance also will be Sarah Keating, Vice Consul of Ireland in Chicago.
Karen White of the NEA. (Source: Mother Jones Heritage).Kathy Cowan. (Source: Mother Jones Heritage)
Karen White of the National Education Association will speak to issues of the exploitation of children on this the 120th Anniversary of the march of the Mill Children led by Mother Jones in 1903.
Fundraising is proceeding for the erection of the new Mother Jones Monument in Chicago.
Meanwhile about 250 miles further south in the town of Mt. Olive, the burial place of Mother Jones an International Mother Jones Festival takes place also on Sunday 30th April. It will be held at the Union Miners Cemetery beginning at 12 noon and continuing afterwards at the Mother Jones Museum on Main Street.
Speakers and artists include the Consul-General of Ireland in Chicago, Kevin Byrne. Tim Drea, President of the Illinois AFL/CIO and Brother Jerome Lewnard of the Viatorian Order. Music will be provided by Wildflower Conspiracy along with a number of other bands. Loretta Williams will participate as Mother Jones and historian, Dale Hawkins will also take part.
Further details call 618-659-8759.
Congratulations to all involved and best wishes from Cork for the May Day American Birthday celebrations for Mother Jones.
Note: The American celebrations have traditionally taken place around May Day which was the day, Mother Jones gave as her birthday, however her real birth date was probably 31st July 1837 as she was baptised at the North Cathedral of St. Mary and St. Anne in Cork on the 1st August of that year.
Credit: Consul General of Ireland, Chicago.Credit: Mother Jones Museum, Chicago
Photo 1: Kevin Byrne Consul General of Ireland, Chicago with Tim Drea, President of the AFL-CIO in Illinois at Mount Olive Cemetery on the 30th May 2023.
Photo 2: Rosemary Feurer of the Mother Jones Museum, Chicago making a presentation of a limited edition artwork by Lindsay Hand, “Chicago March 1915” to Karen White, speaker at the May Day Chicago Celebration of Mother Jones.
Having selected the site for the Mother Jones Monument, the City of Chicago is now seeking the RFQs (Request for Qualifications) from artists who wish to submit designs for the monument. The next steps will be for the Advisory Committee to choose an artist and a design, with a goal of dedicating the memorial.
The idea to honour Mother Jones was promoted by the Mother Jones Heritage Project, and the great news is that Irish artists and sculptors can apply. So if you know friends, groups or people who might be interested and qualify, especially those here in Cork (the birthplace of Mary Harris) please do send the link underneath to them.
Closing date is 26th March 2023, all details in the attached link above.
The Chicago Monuments Project (CMP) Advisory Committee and the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Projects has decided the statue memorialising Labor icon “Mother” Jones will be placed in Jane Byrne Plaza, in the shadow of Chicago’s historic Water Tower. Jane Byrne (Burke) was the first woman Mayor of Chicago.
Chicago Water Tower. Photo: (Rosemary Feurer).
Irish poet and playwright, Oscar Wilde, in an effort to court controversy back in 1882 unfairly described the historic water tower as “a castellated monstrosity with pepper-boxes stuck all over it”. Wilde died on the 30th November 1900, thirty years to the day before Mother Jones.
The artwork commission will be $250,000.
Water Tower and Jane Byrne Plaza. Photo (Rosemary Feurer).
According to Rosemary Feurer of the Mother Jones Heritage Project in Chicago,
“Mother Jones organised oppressed and exploited people, including women and children, black and white, native born and immigrant. She fought to end child labor, and campaigned to improve the working conditions for millions of poor people all over America for many decades,”
James Nolan for the Cork Mother Jones Committee stated;
“This competition to find a suitable design for a monument to celebrate Cork born Mary Harris in Chicago represents a fantastic opportunity for Cork artists with a track record to apply to design what will be a landmark public memorial in a major American city.
We are really hoping some Cork artists will get involved in this design due to its huge connection to the rebel spirit of a woman born in our own city. She was the rebel daughter of Cork City, who survived so much tragedy and yet her indomitable spirit prevailed.
The Chicago City Authorities have just recently issued details of the initial requirements needed to participate in the process.”
The Chicago Water Tower after the Great Fire of Chicago. (Wikipedia).
The Cork Mother Jones Committee is pleased to announce the dates for the 2023 Spirit of Mother Jones Festival.
Our 12th Annual festival will be held in and around Shandon in Cork City from Thursday 27th to Saturday 29th July 2023. All are welcome.
Thanks to our sponsors, the festival remains open to all free of charge. We are promising a very interesting selection of speakers and topics. Further announcements will appear regularly on this website and on the festival Facebook pages.
Hope to see you all and thanks to everyone for your support for this very unique festival.
Mother Jones in 1909 enjoying a chat with her friend, Terence B. Powderly, whose family was from Co. Meath, Ireland. (Illinois Labor History Society).
Terence V Powderly (1849-1924) started life as a 13 year old railroad worker where he worked as an apprentice in a machine shop. Born in Pennsylvania, Terence’s people were from Co Meath in Ireland.
Having joined the trade union movement, he became a moderate head of the Knights of Labor in 1879. This “Order” grew to having about three-quarters of a million members by the mid 1880s, but subsequently went into rapid decline due the growing radicalism and militancy of the new trade unions and the oppression of the growing industrial corporations which treated workers very badly.
Powderly, who originally lived in Scranton in Pennsylvania went on to hold a number of government posts until his death in 1924.
Mother Jones, although regarded as a radical became great friends with Terence and his wife Emma for several decades and stayed at their homes in Scranton and in Washington with them when visiting those cities.
On Saturday 11th February 2023, the 42nd Anniversary of the Stardust fire was commemorated at the site of the 1981 tragedy in the presence of a huge attendance of family members and relatives of the children who died. 48 children from the immediate area in Dublin lost their lives when the Stardust Night Club caught fire. Their families are awaiting the truth about what happened that night and are still seeking justice for their loved ones.
The Stardust Memorial Wall, which was unveiled by Charlie Bird on Saturday 11th February 2023 at the site of the 1981 fire.
The Dublin Fire Brigade Band played at the unveiling of the Stardust Monument. Several members of the Fire Brigade, who tried to save the children, also attended the ceremony. “The firefighters wept for they could not hide, their sorrow and anger for those left inside.”
Following an emotional gathering in the marquee located alongside the site, Charlie Bird unveiled the impressive memorial wall which displays the faces and names of the 48 people who died in the Stardust fire on Valentine’s Day in 1981. It is a powerful visual monument to the children who died that awful night.
Earlier, Antoinette Keegan of the Stardust Families Committee had introduced a series of inspiring talks, songs, and poetry in which the children who lost their lives were remembered. Their everlasting spirit was present among the flickering candles and thoughts of their dignified families and friends and all those who attended.
Large Crowd attend the Monument Unveilling.
Dublin Fire Brigade Pipe Band.
Describing the remarkable Stardust relatives as his heroes, Charlie Bird expressed optimism that this will be the year when Truth and Justice will prevail.
“I have said this many times in the past, if the Stardust tragedy had happened in the southside of Dublin, you would not have had to wait for over four decades for the truth of what happened”
The North Dublin Community Gospel Choir sang “What About Us“, “Tears Stream” and “Stand By Me‘ in an emotional tribute to the lost young people of that night.
The North Dublin Community Gospel Choir sings What about Us.
Christy Moore sang on video his once banned song “They Never Came Home“, which recounts the events of the Stardust Fire, commenting that:
“I never thought I’d be still singing it 40 years later still waiting for justice”
The Album cover, of Ordinary Man (1985) by Christy Moore which contained the banned track, “They Never Came Home”.
Jean Hegarty of the Derry Bloody Sunday Families and Trust mentioned that it took 38 years for their families in Derry to get justice, but stated that:
“We expected nothing from the British Government, but you had every right to expect more from your own government, our own government.”
Maurice McHugh, father of Caroline, read a poem “Remember Me” penned by Bernadette Ni Bheolain where the children make a plea from beyond their graves to remember them.
“Remember me, remember us as the scales of justice swing to and fro.”
The names of the 48 children who died in the Stardust Tragedy.
Claire Bird (left holding Tiger) with Maurice McHugh at the Stardust Memorial Wall.
As relatives of each of the children were presented with a photograph of their loved ones by Charlie Bird, there was a heavy sense of the shocking unfairness of the four decades of waiting for truth and justice. Yet there is also a growing sense of optimism, hope and expectation, as finally the relatives and families of the Stardust fire are about to be heard.
These families and survivors are now preparing their statements for the opening of the Inquests, which will commence on 19th April 2023.
We wish to thank Antoinette Keegan of the Stardust families for their kind invitation to the Cork Mother Jones Committee to attend the 42nd Commemoration for the Stardust victims. Antoinette was the recipient of the annual 2020 Spirit of Mother Jones Award, which is given to those special people, who have campaigned against injustice. Her two sisters, Mary and Martina died in the fire, and her parents, Christine and John Keegan led the Stardust families campaign in spite of many disappointments and setbacks to establish the truth of what happened on the night and to seek justice for their lost children.
Antoinette Keegan (right) with members of the Cork Mother Jones Committee, Ann Piggott, John Barimo and Richard T. Cooke at the 2023 Stardust Commemoration in Artane.
Members of the Cork Mother Jones Committee with Charlie Bird, who unveiled the Stardust Monument.
Pictured: Eithne and Gerard O’ Mahony of CMJC with Phyllis McHugh (centre) at the Stardust Memorial Wall. Phyllis and Maurice’s daughter, Caroline McHugh died in the Stardust Tragedy on the 14th February 1981.
