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 Cork Mother Jones Committee is sad to announce the passing on Thursday 10th April 2025 of our great friend Anne Scargill following a long illness with Alzheimer’s disease.
Anne was a lifelong community activist in the North of England.
She was a co-founder of the Women Against Pit Closures (WAPC) who took a key part in the struggle in defence of their mining communities during the Miners Strike in 1984/85. Later she remained active on social justice issues alongside her great friend Betty Cook for over 40 years and took part in the occupation of the Parkside coal mine over the Easter weekend in April 1993. This underground sit-in required extraordinary courage, made international news and highlighted the dreadful treatment of the mining communities after the strike was long over.
Anne Harper was born on the 12th October 1941. Her background was totally connected to coal mining.
“I was brought up in the heart of the Barnsley coalfield with my mam, dad and sister Joan in a terraced row in Barugh Green. There was a pub called the Phoenix at one end of the row and a Co-op at the other. My dad was Elliott Harper, a coal miner from a big family of colliers in Gawber. My mother was Harriet Hardy from Skelmanthorpe near Huddersfield.”
From Anne & Betty United by the Struggle. 2020
Anne Harper met a young trade union and political activist Arthur Scargill in Barnsley when she was 18 when he visited her father who was also a trade union man. They married in 1961. In their book with Ian Clayton, Anne describes their life and adventures as the union activist Arthur rose in the ranks of the National Union of Miners (NUM) to eventually become the president of the powerful NUM. She traveled extensively and experienced life in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. She attended the World Social Forum in Mumbai, traveled to Australia and visited Cuba where she encountered Fidel Castro. She met Hortensia Bussi, the widow of Salvador Allende in Cuba also.
Anne second from left supporting the Greyhound Bin workers strike in Dublin in 2014. Courtesy of J Thomson.
She remained very proud of the way, her then husband, Arthur led the miners and proud of the women who joined in at the pickets, at the food kitchens and the marches. She also noted that as the men marched back to work at the end of the strike, many women had been changed by their activism during the strike. Anne began to spend time with women’s activist groups. Taking inspiration from the Greenham Common women, the WAPC organised several pit camps outside mines to highlight the mine closures by the Tory government, Anne spent a year in the Grimethorpe pit-camp. She even sat in a camp outside the Tory party offices and the Department of Trade in London. And like Mother Jones, she was arrested on several occasions, once placed in a van prison cage and strip searched! She became even more determined to continue picketing and did so up and down the country wherever she was needed..
Anne and Betty at the County Hotel balcony, Durham Miners Gala 2014.
In recent times Anne accompanied by her friend Betty Cook, she visited the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival in Cork in 2014 and 2015 and returned in 2019 to take part in the March of the Mill Children recreated in Shandon that year.
Anne and Betty with their Daughters of Mother Jones banner at the March of the Mill Children in Shandon in 2019. Courtesy of Claire Stack.Left to Right:. Anne Scargill, Spirit of Mother Jones Award recipient 2019 Louise O’Keeffe and Betty Cook.
Anne and Betty spoke at the festivals and sang Mal Finch’s great anthem ‘Women of the Working Class’. She enjoyed signing the visitors book in the Cork City Mayoral Office in the presence of the Lord Mayor of Cork, Chris O’Leary in 2014.
Anne Scargill signs the visitors book, at Cork City Hall in the Lord Mayors Office in 2014. Cllr Chris O’Leary, Lord Mayor of Cork and Betty Cook look on. Courtesy of J. Thomson.
The women marched each year in the huge Durham Gala and proudly carried their ‘Daughters of Mother Jones’ banner along the parade route. Anne was just so happy to be amongst mining community friends. She also visited Jonesborough in the Appalachian mountains to meet up with the Daughters of Mother Jones colleagues such as Marat Moore and Libby Lindsay.
Durham Gala.
With a glint in her eye, Anne loved to tell funny and hair raising stories about her activities. Laced with wit and shrewd and perceptive observations,she certainly did not stand on ceremony in the presence of the famous or those charged with upholding the law if she felt she was right. Her humour was ever present and her positive energy radiated through her activism. She always knew which side she was on and followed passionately in the footsteps of her hero, Mother Jones!
Ní bheidh a leithéid ann arís.
To Anne’s daughter Margaret and family we extend our sympathy and also to Betty Cook, her great friend and colleague in activism, and to her many comrades. May she rest in peace.
While on his recent travels, James Goltz of Mt Olive visited an exhibition at the Yuma Arizona prison museum. The exhibition included a photograph of Mother Jones and information about some of the Mexican revolutionaries which she had assisted. It also mentioned that Mother Jones had addressed a meeting of socialists in the Arizona area in 1909 and had brought a sum of some $4,000 raised by the US trade unions to help defend the Mexican revolutionaries imprisoned in the United States.
Mother Jones at the Yuma Arizona Prison Exhibition, courtesy of James Goltz.
One of the constant if less well appreciated themes of the life of Mother Jones was her endless campaigning for the release of political revolutionaries especially the Mexicans imprisoned in U.S. jails. The revolutionaries opposed the anti-union authoritarian government of Mexican President Porfirio Diaz* whose autocratic regime from 1884 to 1911, promoted U.S. investment through low taxes, compliant courts, a lack of labour regulations and the banning of trade unions. These industrial ” Wall Street pirates and robber barons” as described by Mother Jones were extracting the oil and mineral wealth of Mexico using low cost labour to enrich themselves. The Cananea miners strike of 1906 had been broken by the Mexican army of Diaz in cooperation with the Arizona Rangers.
The main Mexican opposition movement was the Partido Liberal Mexicano (PLM) , some of whose leaders such as Ricardo Magon, Antonio Villareal, Manuel Sarabia and Librado Rivera had fled to the U.S. to avoid execution and imprisonment. The PLM backed the Mexican trade unions and US trade unions including the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) had found common cause with this revolutionary movement in order to prevent Mexican labour from undercutting US union workers in the mines and mills, especially in Arizona.
Mexican Revolutionaries at the Yuma Arizona Prison Courtesy of James Goltz.
Mother Jones took up the cause of the Mexicans. She organised many protests, addressed meetings raising substantial monies to pay for the defence of those who had been arrested by the US government and imprisoned for breaking America’s neutrality laws. She argued that these men fought for the cause of labour in the same way the American unions were doing and urged international labour solidarity. She even took their case to President William Howard Taft who did nothing. Interestingly, she compared the activities of the revolutionary Mexicans in America to the revolutionary Irish Fenian and republican movements of the Irish in America who were attempting to secure independence from England.
Richardo Magon, (C) Wikipedia.
The Mexicans were eventually released from prison in Arizona in August 1910. Early in 1911, an uprising deposed President Portfirio Diaz and the new Mexican government led by Francisco Madero restored democracy and trade union rights. Mother Jones and officials from the United Mine Workers and WFM visited Mexico soon afterwards in October 1911 to congratulate the new government.
Later in 1921 she again returned twice to Mexico where she was treated as a hero ‘Madre Juanita” due to her work for democracy and trade union rights in a Mexico where competing armed factions remained volatile, She addressed the Pan-American Federation of Labor and visited friends such as Antonio Villarreal whom she had helped back in 1909 and who was now the Minister for Agriculture. Mother Jones enjoyed the adulation of Mexican workers and hospitality during her visit.
Antonio Villarreal. (c) Wikipedia.
She had certainly earned the honour as a result of her endless campaigning for the rights of Mexicans imprisoned in the United States over several decades.
The following is an extract from a leaflet of a radical and a speech from 1908 about the Mexican situation which resonates politically today by Mother Jones.
(as quoted in Mother Jones Speaks by Philip S Foner.)
“Now it is the United States government seconding the murderous despotism of Russia and the irresponsible dictatorship of Mexico. The fight has become international; yet it centres in the United States. If these foreign vultures of oppression win now, then our liberty goes.
For Diaz and American capitalism are partners! Pierpont Morgan (a wealthy banker) goes to Russia and shakes hands with the czar; and now the czar comes to America demanding the surrender of political refugees. Mrs Diaz, when visiting in Texas is entertained by members of the Copper Queen syndicate, whose headquarters are at 95 John Street, New York, and Elihu Root, of New York (a Wall Street lawyer) is wined and dined by the tyrant dictator Diaz, when in New York”
Source of material.
Mother Jones: The Most Dangerous Woman in America. Elliott J.Gorn provides an account of Mother Jones efforts on behalf of the Mexicans.
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.
The National Monument in Cork was erected at the junction of the South Mall and the Grand Parade (Sráid an Chapaill Bhuí)” Yellow Horse Street in 1906. It replaced the statue of King George II on horse-back, which lasted one hundred years in locations around the Grand Parade until it was finally removed in 1862. Cork’s citizens “gratitude for the many blessings that they enjoyed during his auspicious reign” had seemingly lost its ardour.
The Cork Young Ireland Society then raised the finances for a national monument and the foundation stone was eventually laid on 2nd October 1898. Almost eight years later on St Patrick’s Day 1906, the present impressive monument, designed by Dominick Coakley with figures sculptured by John Francis Davis of College Road was finally unveiled. It lists the names of some who took part in the Risings of 1798, 1803, 1848 and Fenian rebellions over the strident poses of Wolfe Tone, Michael Dwyer, Thomas Davis and Peter O’Neill Crowley on each of the corners.
Recent Gathering at the National Monument in support of the people of Gaza.
A “Mother Erin” sculpture facing north takes the central position in this very imposing edifice. Over the years it has become an assembly area for political and social gatherings especially during the War of independence and election campaigns. Recently the 2016 commemoration of the 1916 Rising was held there and currently the weekly Palestinian support groups gather nearby on the Grand Parade.
One hundred and thirty three names of individuals appear on three sides of the monument, some recognisable and some not. Other important patriots such as John Swiney, the draper of Goul Na Spurra near Shandon Street and the Cork leader of the United Irishmen along with Roger O’Connor, Tadhg O’Donovan (Tadhg an Astna), and John Griffith are not there.
However the almost total lack of women listed or referred to on the National Monument is a glaring omission. Just two women are named on the side plaques, Anne Devlin and the Marchioness of Queensberry.
Anne Devlin was extremely active in the plans for the 1803 Emmet rebellion. A very close confidant of Robert Emmet and sister-in-law of Michael Dwyer, Anne suffered in prison as she refused to testify against Emmet. She died in poverty.
Caroline Margaret Douglas (1821-1904) was born and spent time as an infant in Bantry. Later she aided the Manchester Martyrs and contributed financially to nationalist and radical causes and corresponded with James Connolly re his Workers’ Republic newspaper. One of her sons, John, was responsible for the adoption of the Queensberry rules in boxing while a grandson was Lord Alfred Douglas. Catherine is buried in Scotland.
The men listed on the National Monument are all quite laudable no doubt for their patriotic contributions to Irish freedom and each worthy of remembrance. It was erected to “perpetuate the memory of the gallant men of 1798, 1803, 1848 and 1867 who fought and died in the wars of Ireland to recover her sovereign Independence”. And it concludes with the wish that “righteous men will make our land A Nation Once Again”.
Metal plaques representing the Cork Coat of Arms and the four provinces have been added to the surrounding metal guard rails. Curiously, two oval metal plaques with the eagle and flag of the United States with the words ‘Hail Columbia’ and 1776 is attached to the northern and southern metal guards. ‘Hail Columbia’ dates from the inauguration of George Washington and was the national anthem of the USA until 1931. Today it remains the official anthem of the Vice President of the United States.
The monument also predates the 1916 Rising and the War of Independence as well as the establishment of the Republic? Recently a plaque has been added to the monument to commemorate all who served the cause of Independence 1916-1923. The recent plaque is slightly obscured by the Hail Columbia plaque.
Yet how representative is it of the real history or indeed of the complete Irish story if just over one percent of those listed on this Mother Erin or Erin monument are women and references to the contribution of women are overlooked almost entirely?
Is it time to create an additional memorial in the heart of Cork City which is more representative of Cork and the entire nation, inclusive of all women and men who contributed in any way to achieving our sovereign independence, to those who built our community and to the emigrants who impacted positively on the wider world?.
Mother Jones is remembered for many things, for her bravery, her resilience, her support for the unionisation of all workers especially women, her leadership of the March of the Mill Children and so much more.
March of the Mill Children. Shandon 2019. Photo: Claire Stack.
And yet her enduring spirit remains relevant and very much alive across the world mainly as a result of a simple sentence addressed to poor miners standing in a dark field in West Virginia, over 120 years ago… According to her autobiography, Mother Jones went to speak one night to a mining town in the Fairmont district in West Virginia.
Daughters of Mother Jones at the Durham Gala.Photo: Courtesy of Mother Jones Heritage Project, Chicago.
She discovered that the meeting was to be held in a church. On entering she discovered that the priest was collecting money from the union miners presumably for the rent of the church in which the meeting was taking place.
‘I reached over and took the money from the priest. Then I turned to the miners. “Boys , this is a praying institution. You should not commercialize it”
She led the union miners out to a nearby field, in front of a school and held the meeting. Pointing to the school, she advised them to hold their meetings at the school declaring
” Your organisation is not a praying institution. It’s a fighting institution. It’s an educational institution along industrial lines.
Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living!”
Source: The Autobiography of Mother Jones, Chapter V1 War in West Virginia. Charles H Kerr Publishing Company. Page 41.
Those profound words of Mother Jones at a little town in Fairmont, West Virginia in 1902 remain so powerful that over 120 years later they continue to echo through history wherever union members and people gather to fight for justice and human rights.
It’s been uttered by presidents, on banners in the US Congress, printed on posters, written on plaques and walls in union halls, quoted by trade unions across the world and by social justice and human rights organisations in countless articles….it has become a rallying call for many especially during Covid, and recently at Palestinian support demonstrations, imprinted on awards, painted on union banners at strike picket lines.
Demonstration by Jewish union members against the genocide in Gaza.
The President of Ireland, Michael D Higgins in paying tribute to the front line workers quoted it to praise and generate public support for their brave efforts to combat Covid-19 in April 2020.
Source: US Department of Labor.
Organisations from Oxfam to Greenpeace, many peace and justice organisations and the Justice for the Stardust 48 Campaign have repeated this battle-cry. Its global reach stretches from the New Zealand Professional Firefighters Union (NZPFU) to SIPTU (formerly the Irish Transport and General Workers Union of Connolly and Larkin) in Ireland and to the Washington State Nurses Union.
The New Zealand Professional Firefighters Union on International Workers Memorial Day.Washington State Nurses Association.
The front page of the New York Times (23rd April 1972) contained the quote. when reporter George Vecsey described the pop art wall posters with a picture of Mother Jones when he visited Appalachia. A few days later a “Mother Jones Day” organised by Miners for Democracy took place in Pursglove, West Virginia. It was addressed by Kenneth “Chip” Yablonski, son of murdered union leader Jock Yablonski who urged the miners to reclaim democratic control of their union, the UMWA, in which Mother Jones was one of its first organisers under then President John Mitchell.
The New York Times 23rd April 1972.
Variations of the cry such as “mourn the dead” or “remember the dead” rather than the original “pray for the dead ” are also used. A wonderful documentary written and performed by Kaiulani Lee called Fight Like Hell: The Testimony of Mother Jones has been produced. Controversially, the growing use of the phrase “fight like hell” by the Right has increased in recent times. We must reclaim those passionate words, which reflect the communal ideas of Mother Jones, first spoken back near Fairmont all those years ago to the union miners gathered at the dead of night in that field.
Source: Library of Congress.
Historian Elliott Gorn in the introduction to his book, Mother Jones: The Most Dangerous Woman in America mentioned that the words “Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living” are all that most people know of Mother Jones.
As long as her words resonate as a call to action wherever in the world people struggle for social justice then Mother Jones lives on.
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 Cork Mother Jones Committee wishes to announce that the 2025 Spirit of Mother Jones Festival will take place in and around the Shandon Historic Quarter over three days from Thursday, 24th July, until Saturday, 26th July.
Large Crowd Attend the Mother Jones Plaque at 2024 Festival.
According to James Nolan, spokesperson for the festival,
“We are delighted to confirm that our 14th Annual Spirit of Mother Jones Festival will once again be held in Shandon in 2025.This unique festival is dedicated to labour leader Mother Jones and has become an eagerly awaited festival and summer school in Cork each year. It is entirely organised by a voluntary committee and attracts huge crowds to our community annually.
Audience Response at 2024 Festival.
We appreciate the support of the Irish trade union movement and the Cork City Council, along with local businesses, which enables the festival to remain free and open to everyone who wishes to attend.We will announce participants and speakers over the next months, but we promise that our emphasis will, uniquely among summer schools, remain on heritage, history, trade union rights, social & climate justice and human rights issues, all matters close to the heart and rebel spirit of Cork-born Mary Harris.”
Some Participants at the Launch of the 2024 Spirit of Mother Jones Festival. Photo: Claire Stack.
The Cork Mother Jones committee is asking people to suggest ideas for topics, possible speakers or issues they might wish to see at the 2025 festival.
Proposals should be based on material which is relevant, interesting and challenging and we promise to consider all suggestions.
The Cork Mother Jones Committee extends our sincere sympathy to Catherine and the Cooke family and friends, on the sad passing of Richard T Cooke on Friday 25th October 2024.
Richard was a founding member of the Cork Mother Jones Committee in 2011 and an active participant each year in the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival. Quintessentially a Cork man with a grá for Kerry, he loved this city, its people, its history and its heritage and he cycled everywhere on his bike. His writings in articles, books, songs and music, radio and TV reflected the past, and present of this city and its many colourful inhabitants by the River Lee, in the heartland of the marsh where he was born and reared.
Richard T Cooke speaking at the launch of the 2020 Spirit of Mother Jones Festival at University College Cork.
Growing up near the North Mall, Richard lived in the Rock Terrace and was educated nearby at CBS Blarney Street, later at the School of Commerce and later still at University College Cork. He also worked in the then Cork Corporation’s Archives Institute and became prolific in researching and publishing books on the history of his beloved city. Cooke and Scanlon’s Guide to the History of Cork (with Marion Scanlon) became a school textbook. In the foreword, historian CJF MacCarthy, whom Richard admired as a mentor and a friend, described it as “a compact volume of Cork lore, compiled in a wise, careful and dedicated manner by the authors”.
Richard at the 2023 Spirit of Mother Jones Festival.
He played a huge role in researching and writing the very successful heritage television series My Home by the Lee screened by Irish Multichannel TV, Cork in the mid 80s. Irish Millennium Publications later published My Home by the Lee by Richard T Cooke in 1990 which is described as “the people’s history of Cork”. Dedicated to CJF MacCarthy, it contains many of Richard’s own photographs and drawings by Catherine M. Courtney, and remains a fitting memorial to Richard’s painstaking research and lively text. His classic book on “The Mardyke – Cork City’s Country Walk in History” echoes the loss of this once magnificent amenity.
Richard with Joan Goggin (Mother Jones).Richard with piper, Norman O’Rourke.
Richard’s versatile contribution to the community life of Cork over almost five decades is inestimable. From his work in the Middle Parish, as editor of the Middle Parish Chronicle and the Parish Development Committee to his community heritage organiser of festivals such as the Coal Quay Family Festival and multiple heritage events in the City and County, Richard was the driving force behind so many gatherings.
Richard and the Shandon Shawlies.
He was also President and Chairperson of the Cork Adult Education Council. He wrote many songs and told stories as Muddy Lee and his band which are remembered at events throughout the city. He interviewed Echo boy Michael O’Reagan, musician Mick Murphy and sang songs with the Cork Shawlies and so many other Corkonians who create the unique atmosphere in the city.
Richard with Jimmy Crowley.
Richard helped organise the very first Mother Jones Festival in Shandon in 2012 to which he brought a sense of enthusiasm and his energy and his concerts will live long in the memory. His dedicated work for the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival each year and his affection for this “great woman”, his positivity and encouragement to the committee was appreciated by everyone involved.
Richard with Dr. Séan Pettit
A highlight for Richard took place in 2016, when his dear friend, historian Dr. Séan Pettit agreed to speak at the festival. Introduced by a proud Richard, the “Master” gave a mighty performance before a capacity audience. Sadly Séan passed away a few months later and Richard gave a memorable funeral oration in St Patrick’s Catholic Church for Séan. Our visit to the Stardust Memorial Wall in 2023 left a lasting impression on Richard as he often spoke about it. His online YouTube video reflects the powerful emotion of that day.
Richard at the Filming of the 2021 Spirit of Mother Jones Festival in the Cork Butter Market Garden.
Prior to the 2019 festival, Richard in an interview on the Examiner, when asked what he would do if he was king for a day;
“I’d give everybody in the land a day off to enjoy a holiday and a voucher for a 99 cone and sprinkles and Leo can pick up the tab”
Codladh sámh a chara agus suaimhneas síoraí do anam
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.
