Eadaoin Delaney | The Spirit of Mother Jones Festival

Left to Right at the Presentation: Ger O’Mahony, Brian O’Rourke, Anne Piggott, and Eadaoin Delaney. Photo: Emma.

Joan Goggin.

Joan was a familiar sight at the festival, dressed as Mother Jones in her Victorian outfit and being present at launches, openings or just attending some of the many events.

When not at the festival she often joined the picket lines at strikes in the city especially whenever nurses were involved.

Daughter of union man Bill Martin, she remembers her father telling her that Jim Larkin used to visit their home on Bandon road, when he came to Cork.

Joan passed away on March 26th 2026. May she rest in peace.

A memorial plaque was presented to her daughter Eadaoin Delaney on behalf of the Cork Mother Jones committee.

Joan Goggin 2022 Spirit of Mother Jones Festival.

Norman O’Rourke

Norman attended many festivals and his stirring bagpipes piped in the Lord Mayors of Cork at the launches and openings of the Spirit of Mother Jones festivals. He was indeed a familiar sight at festivals, matches and Republican ceremonies around Cork and beyond for decades. Norman was thrilled to receive a Lord Mayor’s Community Award in 2024 and he was even more thrilled with his image on a large banner which hung on the Grand Parade for many years where it overlooked the Gaza marches on Saturdays.

Norman passed away on 27th August 2025. To Marie, his wife and to Brian, Dara, Niamh, Breffni and Cliona we extend our sympathy. Brian accepted the plaque on behalf of the O’ Rourke family and afterwards took it to St.Finbarr’s hospital to present to his mother Marie.

May Norman rest in peace.

Norman O’Rourke (Spirit of Mother Jones Festival 2023).

Ní bheidh a leithéid ann arís!

The Cork Mother Jones Committee will show a short film of Mother Jones visiting Cork 100 years ago in December 1920 at the Spirit of Mother Jones Virtual festival (Friday Nov 27^thto Monday Nov 30^th).

There is no evidence that Mary Harris/Mother Jones ever did return to Cork city where she was born in 1837 and left after the Great Hunger in the 1840s.

However for the purposes of the imagination, we imagine Mother Jones visiting her childhood home and streets in Shandon just before Christmas 1920 after the burning of Cork City.

Taking the lead role is actress Joan Goggin know to all as Cork’s own Mother Jones. Joan’s family, especially her Dad had an involvement in the labour/trade union movement for many years and the famous union leader Jim Larkin sometimes stayed in their house when visiting Cork.

The film also features a series of flashbacks to the 1840s where Joan is joined by her daughter Eadaoin Delaney who plays the role of Ellen Cotter, Mary Harris’s mother. Joan’s granddaughter Aoife plays a young Mary Harris skipping on the streets of Shandon.

In a remarkable twist of faith, in her soliloquy at Shandon, Mother Jones recalls her only son named Terence who was born in 1865, but who tragically died in the Memphis yellow fever epidemic in October 1867 and acknowledges Cork’s Lord Mayor Terence MacSwiney who had died a few weeks earlier in October 1920.

This short film entitled Mother Jones Returns to Shandon was filmed in and around the Streets of Shandon by Frameworks Films.

All events will be streamed by Frameworks Films for the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival 2020 and will be freely available to view by all.

Full programme of events will appear here and the Mother Jones Cork Facebook by mid-November.