All events take place at the Maldron Hotel, Shandon.
Thursday 24th July 2025 at 1.00 p.m.
Choir Kalyna.
Winners of the Lord Mayors top community prize at Cork City Hall in 2024, this choir has become a huge favourite across Cork in recent years. It comprises women and men who are now living in Cork following the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing attacks on their country. The choir perform traditional songs from the Ukraine and their wonderful renderings of “You Raised Me Up” are inspiring for all who have been present at their performances.
Choir Kalyna should not be missed and their creative performances against a background of the assault on their homeland provide an example of hope for the human spirit to overcome adversity. We look forward to welcoming them back to perform at the opening of the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival.
Choir Kalyna with Viktoria.
The Cork Singers’ Club.
Thursday 9.30 p.m.
Established in 1993, the Cork Singers’ Club has uniquely featured in every Mother Jones festival since the opening night on 31st July 2012. Eagerly awaited each year, the Cork Singers’ Club will present an evening of songs. It has ensured that the tradition of singing remains alive in Cork, no instruments are allowed. For locals and visitors this is an opportunity to hear songs being sung in a pure manner in front of an attentive audience. Club members also gather each Sunday night at An Spailpín Fánach to hone their remarkable art. Under the Fear An Tí Jim Walsh, the Cork Singers’ Club is a gem of the singing heritage of the people of Cork. A special effort is made by the singers each year to honour Mother Jones with songs of unions, of working class people and social justice. Go along!
Cork Singers Club.Cobh Animation. Claire Stack.Lord Mayor of Cork singing Fulsome Prison Blues.
Friday 25th July at 1:00 p.m.
Maldron Hotel Bar.
Jimmy Crowley accompanied by Eve Telford.
Legendary Cork ballad and folk singer Jimmy Crowley accompanied by Eve Telford will perform at lunch time on Friday. Jimmy has created and played on the folk music scene in Ireland and across the world for over 60 years now. He established one of the first folk clubs in Cork in Douglas in the late 70s and early 80s. His band Stokers Lodge was very popular for a number of years.
From his song-writing to his solo albums to his Opus Mór; Songs From a Beautiful City(The Free State Press 2014), Jimmy has made an enormous contribution to preserving Irish ballads. He submits songs weekly to the Cork Evening Echo with a note dealing with its background and his contribution has now exceeded a thousand songs. He has appeared at the Spirit of Mother Jones festival since its very beginnings and holds the woman in very high esteem.
Eve Telford sings traditional folk songs from Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales. Born in Australia, her original songs are inspired by the wellsprings of world mythologies, indigenous rights, the natural world and political protest. Their concerts now embrace a wide variety of songs, old and new, traditional and modern.
Jimmy Crowley with Songs from a Beautiful City.Eve Telford and Jimmy Crowley singing at the Palestinian meeting on the Grand Parade.
Friday 25th July at 6.30pm. At the Shandon Plaza.
The Mexican Community Choir.
Cecila Gamez and her dancers representing the Mexican Community in Cork will perform close by the Dance Cork Firkin Crane on Friday evening. Their performance in traditional attire along with striking sombreros will add a riot of colour to the festival and will honour the connections Mother Jones made with the Mexican revolutionaries in the early 1900. Mother Jones campaigned for the release of many of the Mexican leaders who were imprisoned in the US and was honoured as Madre Juanita in Mexico in 1921.
Friday 25th July at 9.30 p.m.
Maldron Hotel Bar.
John Nyhan and Gearoid Nyhan and friends and introducing US labour singer George Mann.
George Mann is a former union organiser and now a singer of American Labour songs. Based in Ithaca New York, he is interested in labour and working class history and sings the songs of the labour and social justice movements of the 20th Century. He has toured widely and performs at hundreds of concerts each year. In 2013 he produced the “Almanac Trail” with Rik Palieri, which is a tribute to the famous Almanac Singers. Along with Si Kahn he recently released an album of Labour Songs. He is joining us here in Cork directly from singing at the Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival in Dorset. This is George’s first visit to Ireland and we are eagerly looking forward to his performance at the festival.
(At the Mother Jones Plaque on John Redmond Street)
Martin Leahy will again perform his song about homelessness “Everyone Should Have a Home” at the Plaque. He has performed this each Thursday outside Dail Eireann for the past two years and in doing so highlights the great failure of many recent Irish governments. His song “Where We Lay our Bodies Down” remains a tribute to Ann Lovett while “Snowflakes” relates to the online attacks on people. Martin hates injustice and he has been very active in exposing the genocide in Gaza and regularly sings also on Saturdays at the Palestinian marches in Cork City and in Bandon.
Martin Leahy with Mother Jones.
Dee Power is a music and drama educator, teaching piano, vocals, speech and dramas and coaching choirs in a variety of schools in the city and county. She plays in two Cork bands, Cork Floyd and Silvertone and plays a variety of sessions in music haunts around the city. She is outspoken re inequality and social injustices and you can regularly hear her using her voice to protest social injustices. She is delighted to be singing at the Mother Jones annual celebration and is much looking forward to setting with the esteemed Martin Leahy
Nick spent several years working in Latin America as a freelance journalist and translator. He has written on Colombian politics and the peace process for different media outlets.
Justice for Colombia promotes links of solidarity between British and Irish trade unions and organisations in Colombia and gives a political voice internationally to Colombian civil society in its struggle for human rights, labour rights, peace and social justice by working in the British, Irish and EU Parliaments.
11:30 a.m. Maldron Hotel, Shandon.
Iron Ladies
This is a new documentary about the role of women during the 1984/85 Miners’ Strike in Britain. It features interviews with some of the women such as Betty Cook, Rose Hunter, Liz French, Sally Higgins, Kay Case and many more who held the communities and families together and who worked behind the scenes to support their husbands, brothers, sons and neighbours throughout the long strike and the bitter winter of 1984.
Shut out the Light Films was founded in Liverpool in 2014 by Christie Allanson and Daniel Draper.
We remember our inspirational friend Anne Scargill who attended, spoke and sang at the our festivals in 2014 and 2019.
Anne Scargill born 11th October 1941, died 10th April 2025. A true Daughter of Mother Jones, Rest in peace!.
Betty Cook and Anne Scargill at the March of the Mill Children in Shandon in 2019. Photo by Claire Stack,
1:00 p.m. Maldron Hotel Bar.
Jimmy Crowley and Eve Telford.
Jimmy has featured every year at the Spirit of Mother Jones Festivals since its beginnings. He performed his many Cork ballads and folks songs to an appreciative audience of locals and visitors to the festival.
His collaboration with Eve Telford has now added a wider international and reflective dimension to their vast repertoire of songs and stories. Alongside the new material, the concert will feature some of Jimmy’s most popular ballads also. This is one of the musical highlights of the festival.
Photo: William Hammond, Jimmy Crowley, Eve Telford and Richard T. Cooke.
2:30 p.m. Dance Cork Firkin Crane.
Mick Lynch
Former General Secretary of the RMT Trade Union.
Mick Lynch returns to the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival after his previous visit in 2023. His father, Jackie Lynch emigrated from Warren’s Lane off the Bandon Road to London at the beginning of the Second World War. Mick’s mother was Ellen “Nellie” Morris, who left Crossmaglen in South Armagh to go to London during the Blitz.
Mick Lynch with Joan Goggin (Mother Jones) in 2023,
Mick recently retired as General Secretary from the Rail Maritime & Transport Workers Union RMT after four years. An electrician Mick had joined the union in 1993 and served in a range of positions. He became the public face of the trade union fight in Britain for fair wages and work conditions as a result of his reasonable and cogent defence of union workers in the media. You can listen to his interview with Emma Bowell during his last visit to this festival.
4:00 p.m. Dance Cork Firkin Crane.
President Cecil E. Roberts of the United Mine Workers Union of America (UMWA) (By ZOOM)
The United Mine Workers Union of America was founded in 1890. It is a legendary union having participated in all the key union battles in America during its 135 year long history. The union under John Mitchel employed Mother Jones as a union organiser in 1890, one of the very first women organisers where the Cork woman’s fearsome reputation for organising workers was born. The union is led today by President Cecil Roberts who was elected in 1995 and who has served as President for 30 years. He has announced that he retire in October. We are honoured that President Roberts will join us by Zoom to discuss his life and career in the union and his family connections with Mother Jones. President Roberts is the great grandson of Sarah Blizzard a friend of Mother Jones and a grand nephew of Bill Blizzard, the union leader involved in the Battle of Blair Mountain in 1921.
President Cecil E. Roberts of the United Mineworkers of America. (Courtesy of UMWA)
Note: We wish to record our thanks to James Goltz of Mt Olive for his assistance in establishing this connection with the UMWA.
Friday 25th July at 6.30pm. At the Shandon Plaza.
The Mexican Community Choir.
Cecila Gamez and her dancers representing the Mexican Community in Cork will perform close by the Dance Cork Firkin Crane on Friday evening. Their performance in traditional attire along with striking sombreros will add a riot of colour to the festival and will honour the connections Mother Jones made with the Mexican revolutionaries in the early 1900. Mother Jones campaigned for the release of many of the Mexican leaders who were imprisoned in the US and was honoured as Madre Juanita in Mexico in 1921.
Members of the Mexican Community Choir. Photo: Claire Stack.
7:00 p.m. Dance Cork Firkin Crane
James Connolly
A documentary by Alan Gilsenan
Presented by Ethel Buckley, Assistant General Secretary of SIPTU
About Yellow Asylum Films, Alan Gilsenan’s production company:
They have just completed a feature documentary, We Only Want The Earth. The film aims to reclaim James Connolly’s story as well as invoking his important social vision – with a clear eye on how it resonates in our contemporary time – an era when even democracy itself appears under threat.
Panel discussion afterwards.
9:30 p.m. Maldron Hotel, Shandon
John Nyhan and friends.
John Nyhan is well known in Cork music circles and has spent a lifetime bringing music and songs to all corners of Cork and beyond. He has played at every Spirit of Mother Jones Festival and his Friday night at this festival has been a highlight for many years. His versatile guitar playing and his vast repertoire of songs of all genres makes him a fountain of knowledge and experience. Many people will recall his concerts with North Cork folk singing legend Mick Treacy where they sang the songs of Pete Seeger, Joe Hill, Woodie Guthrie and Ewan MacColl. His son Gearoid will accompany him.
John Nyhan. Photo: Claire Stack.
Introducing union singer George Mann.
George is a former union organiser and now a singer of American Labour songs. Based in Ithaca, New York, he is interested in labour and working class history and sings the songs of the labour and social justice movements of the 20th Century. George tours widely and performs at hundreds of concerts each year’.
George Mann. Photo by Frank Maldon.
In 2016, he produced “Until You Come Home: Songs to Heal the Wounds of War,” a CD focusing on post-traumatic stress disorder and the human cost of war. The CD features songs by such artists as Utah Phillips and Ani DiFranco, Magpie, Roy Zimmerman, Joe Crookston, Joe Jencks, and John Gorka.
George released his CD “This Chain” in October 2023, and in September 2024 he released a CD of Si Kahn’s songs, “Labor Day,” to honour Si on his 80th birthday. Si featured at the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival in 2014 where he sang alongside the late Anne Feeney. He is producing a new album with Mick Coates for September 2025 release, “Ghosts of the Old West,” and will be featuring songs from this album on his 2025 tours. George will play at the Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival (UK) and Spirit of Mother Jones Festival (Cork, Ireland) in July and will then tour Australia starting in October, including the 50th anniversary of the Maldon Folk Festival.
Lord Mayor of Cork, Cllr. Dan Boyle with the Cork Mother Jones Committee 2024 and friends.
2024 Festival, some memories. Solidarity is referred to regularly in trade union circles, even the Ralph Chaplin romantic song Solidarity Forever, forged in the bloody union war tent colonies of the bleak Kanawha hills of West Virginia in the winter of 1913/14 remains a favourite at Trade Union conferences. Yet the opening event of the 2024 Spirit of Mother Jones Festival demonstrated to the audience what real worker solidarity is and what it can achieve.
Director Felipe Bustos Sierra with the Scottish workers.
Nae Pasaran is a triumph of all that is human and powerful in trade union solidarity. It focuses on a small band of Scottish workers including Bob Fulton, John Keenan, Robert Somerville and Stuart Barrie who blocked the refurbishing of Hawker Hunter jet engines from the Chilean Airforce which had been delivered from Chile to their Rolls Royce factory in Kilbride for maintenance. Those planes had earlier attacked the Palacio de la Moneda where Salvador Allende died during the Pinochet coup of September 11th 1973. The Scottish workers had effectively grounded the Chilean junta’s air force. Director Filipe Bustos Sierra who joined us on Zoom has created a stunning masterpiece of the impact of union solidarity.
Owen Reidy, General Secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions.
Later Irish union officials Owen Reidy, general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) and Adrian Kane of SIPTU spoke at the festival where they offered a realistic analysis of the Irish trade union movement, detailed its challenges such as the right to collective bargaining and suggested ways to attract young people. They both offered a progressive vision of the role of unions in the future world of work. Nae Pasaran should be on the agenda of every trade union ADC in the coming years!
Fight Like Hell-The Testimony of Mother Jones, a film written and acted by Kaiulani Lee, portrayed a passionate and reflective older Mother Jones. The fire still burned in Jones in 1921 and her tales of 40 years of organising workers raised hairs in their telling. But the tales of action were tempered by the wisdom she had earned and the experiences acquired. Kaiulani Lee joined the audience on Zoom and discussed her own experiences while she travelled in some coal mining areas prior to the making of the film, One wondered if indeed much had changed since the days when Mother Jones tramped those hills. And one was left very much in awe of Mother Jones and how she survived four decades of union organising in such locations? The film is a must see and represents a history long neglected.
Later that evening social historians, Liz Gillis and Anne Twomey considered what became of the women revolutionaries of the War of Independence after 1923. For some reason the Decade of Centenaries pitched tents in 2023, but few have asked about what became of the many hundreds of women of the invisible army who populated the Civil War prisons in 1923. Amazingly enough the British were often reluctant to jail women, however the new native government jailed their erstwhile female comrades with extraordinary relish and brutality. As Liz documented the sad litany of repressive legislation discriminating against women, it became obvious that many women were driven to lives of silent acquiesce, of living with the trauma and violence endured during incarceration, some decided to emigrate and a few remained to do what they could to improve social conditions in the shadows of history.
Pictured: Liz Gillis, James Nolan and Anne Twomey.
Minister for Justice Kevin O’Higgins had a particular obsession with removing the “hysterical young women” from jury service and from other organs of the new State. Ironically, although a devout married Catholic it seems that O’Higgins was conducting an affair in the early days of his ministerial duties. Later Taoiseach Eamon De Valera and Archbishop John Charles McQuaid renewed their Blackrock College “old boy” connections in the early 1930s and along with their disciples erected further fences of exclusion for women from Irish political life for another four decades.
Historian Anne Twomey discussed how one local woman, Margaret Goulding Buckley of Winters Hill and Maddens Buildings, worked all her life in the shadows and beyond to stand up for women workers and bring about change.
John Barry of Dublin and Queen’s University calls capitalism “a death cult” and his dissection of the predictable outcome of its activities for all life on Earth suggests that indeed the end result will be a dead planet. He asks why is the voluntary and community work of countless millions of people who contribute to social good and wellbeing of society excluded from the capitalist measurements in economics and financial balance sheets. Simultaneously, the useless financial trading and gambling in futures and shares, currencies and commodities and paper by millions of stockbrokers and attendant retinues of white collar legal and financial elites which control governments contributing little to the common good are counted in the figures? Why indeed?
Speaker: John Barry with John Barimo.
By way of contrast, the documentary ‘field’, the story of biodiversity on an old dump on the Northside of Cork City was a gem of a production. Remarkable in its zen-like simple walk through the waste ground. As the headlong rush to eliminate truly “wild” areas gathers pace in Cork city urban areas to create a controlled concrete landscape with amenities and Victoriana biodiversity, this film was a breath of fresh air. A story of a neglected ground, which surprisingly yielded the blue remains of the infamous southside Douglas tower, held the large attendance captivated. Alas it emerged in the Q&A that the land is privately owned and development will inevitably replace the sturdy resilient biodiversity so ably brought to life in this wonderful film..
field: The blue tower.
The Environmental Round Table led by John Barimo introduced us to the next generation of environmental experts and activists in Claudia Hihetah, Dearbhla Richardson and Niamh Guiry. Let’s hope they can influence government policy and are listened to!
Pictured: Niamh Guiry, Dearbhla Richardson, Claudia Hihetah and John Barimo.
The music and songs of Jimmy Crowley and Eve Telford before an appreciative audience were like balm to the soul. These two musicians just get better and better with a wide range of singing material. Eve read some of her poems, ‘Waterplace’ an ode to Cobh, ‘Lighthouses’ in tribute to Caoimhe Butterly and her work for the Palestinians, where the womb of humanity will last longer than the wounds.
Eve Telford.
She concluded with ‘Curlews in Cork Harbour’ in praise of our beautiful harbour. Jimmy announced that his 2014 publication “Songs From The Beautiful City: The Cork Urban Ballads” has been reprinted. And followed it up by singing John Fitzgerald’s ‘The Green Hills of Cork’ better known as ‘Beautiful City’. It helped to restore the downcast Corkonian hurling supporters present and perhaps 2025 will be our year!
Jimmy Crowley. (Emma).
Tears of sadness, shards of anger and rays of hope were present for the 2024 Spirit of Mother Jones award. It felt so futile to give people the Children of Lir themed award, when those people are being bombed daily, need a ceasefire now, along with food and practical assistance, as well as freedom. Speakers Walaa Sabah, Fiona O’Rourke, Dr Nick Maynard told us the “Stories of Palestine”. The Firkin remained silent throughout as one tried to imagine the daily hell on earth that is Gaza. Ms Zeina Alazzeh accepted the Award from James Nolan on behalf of the Embassy in Ireland of the State of Palestine.
Pictured: Fiona O’Rourke, Walaa Sabaa and Dr. Nick Maynard. Photo (@sweeneynmedia)
Maybe one day the Spirit of Mother Jones award will mean something to a free people!
Ms. Zeina Alazzeh representing the Palestinian Ambassador to Ireland with the Spirit of Mother Jones Award 2024. Photo @sweenynmedia:)
If you want to learn about the history of Cork, visit the Cork Butter Museum and listen to curator Peter Foynes on his walking trip around his native place elucidate why Shandon looks like it did once and explain why it looks like it does today. Question: is Skiddy’s Apartments now the oldest public housing scheme in Ireland after 300 years of providing homes for Corkonians?
Jack Lane receiving a presentation from Ann Piggott.
Indeed, historian Jack Lane in his revealing account of the All For Ireland League and the Irish Land & Labour Association confirmed that the 50,000 cottages with an attached acre which were built in Munster, mainly in Cork represented the first major public housing scheme in Western Europe. Championed by D.D.Sheehan MP, those houses accommodated hundreds of thousands of people. The blueprint for the solution of homelessness nearly 120 years ago. Julianna Minihan earlier discussed the provision of a public water supply to the poor people of Cork, some 50,000 of whom had no fresh water prior to the Great Hunger. Gerard O’Rourke author of Land War to Civil War 1900-1924 provided an enlightening account of the perseverance of the people of Donoughmore to the fight for Irish Independence.
Lord Mayor of Cork, Cllr. Dan Boyle with Svitlava Deikun and Victoria Tymoshehuk.
Kalyna Ukrainian Community Choir again performed in the presence of the Lord Mayor, Cllr. Dan Boyle. Their colourful and joyous singing, in spite of personal and political worries about the war in their homeland, displayed the true resilience of the Ukrainian people. Cork Singers’ Club on opening night provided a public platform for the singers of songs in Cork and beyond, it is a unique treasure!
Carla Gover, and CornMaiz of Zoey Barrett, Arlo Barnette and Yani Vozos provided a striking contrast on the following evening when they entertained a large crowd with fiddles, banjo and guitar music from Kentucky. Introduced by Johnny Nyhan it became a memorable night of music and Appalachian culture. Thanks Carla for coming all this way to Shandon!
Carla Gover and CornMaiz in full swing.
Before a huge attendance which had been joined by those who arrived from the Feminist Walk from U.C.C at the Mother Jones Plaque, singer songwriter Martin Leahy unveiled his new composition ‘Mother Jones”.
Martin Leahy.
Taken from the words of Mother Jones it certainly left an impression on those present who accompanied Martin in the final choruses.
” We need you in our hearts more than ever today
The rich still burn the earth and the poor still pay”
Rory McCarthy added a song and Cork’s Mother Jones (Joan Goggin) sang a lusty version of “The Half Door”. John and Gearoid Nyhan accompanied by everyone present closed out 2024 with Foster and Kristofferson’s “Me And Bobby MaGee”. Yes indeed, Mother Jones after her early life tragedies knew that “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose”. Therein lies the source of her resilience and inspiration!
Pictured: John and Gearoid Nyhan.
The slanting evening sun from the west which had earlier draped the Mother Jones plaque in a warm glow gradually slipped behind the Butter Market and signalled the end of festivities. Its warm rays recreated the memory of other pleasant evenings with friends and absent friends on John Redmond Street.
The Evening Sun on the Mother Jones Plaque.
The Spirit of Mother Jones Meitheal for 2024 was over. Over one hundred people, speakers, singers, musicians and performers had participated in the actual festival over the three days, while several dozen had worked behind the scenes to ensure the thirty events took place. We thank the many hundreds of people who attended those events along with our sponsors in the trade union movement, the Shandon Community, the local business community, and the Cork City Council as well as the Dance Cork Firkin Crane and the Maldron Hotel, Shandon.
Norman O’Rourke, Cork’s favourite piper, will again lead in the Lord Mayor of Cork to formally open the 13th Spirit of Mother Jones Festival. Norman recently received a Lord Mayor’s Award for his contribution to the community in Cork. In recent years a giant banner featuring Norman and his bagpipes overlook the Grand Parade in the City Centre.
Norman O’Rourke with Richard T. Cooke.
Kalyna Ukrainian Community Choir.
Recent winners of the Lord Mayors top community prize at Cork City Hall, this choir has become a huge favourite across Cork in recent years. It comprises women and men who are now living in Cork following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. At the recent Festival launch, their rendering of Amhrán Na bhFiann was a highlight. “You Raised Me Up” is another firm favourite. A performance by the colourful and very impressive Kalyna should not be missed.
Kalyna Ukrainian Community Choir.
Thursday 25th July at 9.30.
Cork Singers’ Club.
This unique club of unaccompanied singers has performed at the opening night of the festival since the festival began in 2012. Jim Walsh is Fear An Ti for this year’s session and the night will hear songs of trade unions, workers’ lives, social justice, human rights and many other topics. Singers are welcome to participate and if anyone wishes to contribute a song, just put your name down on the list. The Cork Singers’ Club holds regular sessions at the Spailpín Fánach Bar on South Main Street on Sunday nights and is a must see for anyone with an interest in singing..
It can be contacted through its Facebook page.
Jim Walsh, Cork Singers Club
Friday 26th July at 1pm.
Legendary Cork ballad and folk singer Jimmy Crowley accompanied by Eve Telford will perform at lunch time. Jimmy has created and played on the folk music scene in Ireland and across the world for over 60 years now. He established one of the first folk clubs in Cork in Douglas in the late 70s and early 80s. His band Stokers Lodge was very popular for a number of years. From his song-writing to his solo albums to his Opus Mór; Songs From a Beautiful City (The Free State Press 2014), Jimmy has made an enormous contribution to preserving Irish ballads, which would have been lost without his intervention. Each week since 2002 he submits songs weekly to the Cork Evening Echo with a note dealing with its background and his contribution has now exceeded a thousand songs. .
Eve Telford sings traditional folk songs from Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales. Born in Australia, her original songs are inspired by the wellsprings of world mythologies, indigenous rights, the natural world and political protest.
Ann Piggott with Jimmy Crowley and Eve Telford
Friday 26h July at 9pm.
John Nyhan and friends, and introducing Carla Gover and the CornMaize Stringband.
John Nyhan. Photo: Claire Stack
Following an invitation to play at a festival in Mexico, which went so well Carla and her friends dubbed themselves CornMaize (the words for corn in English and Spanish). The band draws heavily on the fiddle and banjo music of Eastern Kentucky where the band members are from but also includes some bluesy influences. “There’s a lot of fun and a lot of love in our performances and we hope you feel it as you listen and (hopefully) dance along”. Members of the band include Arlo Barnette, Zoey Barrett, Yani Vozos and Carla Gover.
Carla Gover and John Nyhan in Cork.
Corn Maiz String BandCover of Corn Maiz Album.
Saturday 27th July at 6pm (at the Mother Jones Plaque on John Redmond Street)
Martin Leahy will sing a number of songs including his song about homelessness which he has performed each Thursday outside Dail Eireann for the past two years. Martin sings also on Saturdays at the Palestinian marches in Cork City.
Martin Leahy singing at a Palestine support march in Cork City
The Spirit of Mother Jones Festival continued in Shandon on Friday, all speakers were excellent. Again, we had some packed attendances and we had great performances from Jimmy Crowley, Eve Telford, Johnny Nyhan, William Hammond, and members of the Chilean community in Cork.
Cork Chilean Community Remember Victor Jara.
William Hammond, Jimmy Crowley, Eve Telford and Richard T. Cooke.
Mary Crilly and Angela Flynn of the Cork Mother Jones Committee.
Niamh Guiry, speaker with John Barimo, Cork Mother Jones Committee.
Eoghan Daltun.
Large Attendances at the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival.
Sharon and James Goltz, all the way from Mt. Olive, the resting place of Mother Jones.
The Spirit of Mother Jones festival and summer school contains challenging and relevant talks and interesting discussions but it also includes singing, music, poetry and some walking.
The Cork Ukrainian Choir will perform at the opening by the Lord Mayor of Cork. After their stunning performance at the Festival launch earlier in the month……..do not miss them!
Cork Ukrainian Choir.
The 2023 festival again features the Cork Singers’ Club whose unique tradition of singing songs without musical accompaniment has ensured that singing songs for enjoyment to an appreciative audience remains a living cultural idiom of communities all over Cork. Come and enjoy this unique experience in the company of the Cork Singers’ Club which has rendered songs of unions, workers’ lives, freedom and social justice at the opening night of the Spirit of Mother Jones festival for the past 12 years.
Therese and Sean MacCarthaigh of the Cork Singers’ Club.
Legendary Cork ballad and folk singer Jimmy Crowley accompanied by Eve Telford will perform at lunch time on Friday 28th. Jimmy has been involved with folk music in Ireland and abroad for six decades and has released many important folk albums. From his time on the Cork folk club scene to Stokers Lodge, his song-writing to his solo albums to his Opus Mór; Songs From a Beautiful City (The Free State Press 2014), Jimmy has made an enormous contribution to preserving Irish ballads. He has submitted well over 1000 songs to the Songs of Cork column which appears each week in the Evening Echo since 2002. Eve Telford sings traditional folk songs from Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales. Born in Australia, her original songs are inspired by the wellsprings of world mythologies, indigenous rights, the natural world and political protest.
Eve Telford and Jimmy Crowley.
Friday evening sees a Cork tribute to Chilean folk singer, guitar player and socialist, Victor Jara who was murdered by the Chilean military dictatorship, some fifty years ago on 16th September 1973. The tribute is organised by John Nyhan, a versatile musician and singer who has been associated with the Spirit of Mother Jones festivals and has spent many years in the folk and bluegrass music worlds.
John Nyhan with Arlo Guthrie.
John and his friends will continue later with the theme of the evening and play a selection of the songs of protest associated with the Folk Music revival. A memorable evening of music and songs is awaited.
Traditionally, each festival concludes with a toast to Mother Jones at the plaque. This year we will be joined by Cork singer songwriter, Martin Leahy whose song “Everyone Should Have a Home’ has become the theme track of the current housing crisis in Ireland. Each week for a year to May 2023, Martin travelled to Dublin to sing this song outside Dail Eireann to remind the politicians entrusted with solving this human tragedy of their responsibilities to enable people seeking a place to call home are facilitated to do so.
Martin Leahy, Photo by Michael Meade.
“It’s a basic human right to have a dignified place to call your own”
Eve Telford is a singer of traditional folk songs as well as her original compositions. She sings traditional Irish songs, and also Welsh, Scottish and English songs.
Eve Telford
In her singing of traditional songs, one can sense her deep-seated connection with the old folk singers who have passed on.
She is currently recording an album of Child ballads learnt from the singing of Irish Travellers, with her partner, the singer and musician Jimmy Crowley. She has been booked for folk festivals in Ireland and Britain, such as Cork Folk Festival and Whitby Folk Week, both solo, and as a duo with Jimmy Crowley.
Her original songs are inspired by the wellsprings of world mythologies, indigenous rights, a proximity to the natural world, and a commitment to political protest.
Eve was born in Adelaide, Australia, and grew up in Japan, Tasmania, England and Wales, before finding her home in Co. Cork, Ireland. She believes that her early exposure to different cultures, as well as the absence of television and screen-culture in her childhood contributed vastly to the development of her folk psyche.
Jimmy Crowley has been a regular at the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival since the very beginning of the event.
Jimmy Crowley with Richard T. Cooke
His collection of ballads and his singing style has appealed to generations of people everywhere but especially on Cork’s North side. Many of his songs represent working class traditions and gatherings.
Jimmy began singing in the late 60s and he formed Stokers Lodge. The group became regulars in the folk clubs around Cork city.
By the early 70s he had begun to write his own material and revived the art of the ballad maker.
His songs feature local Cork customs, sports and drinking. Draghunting, road bowling and hurling appear as well as local features such as Quinlans Pub in Blackpool, the Lee Road and The Boys of Fairhill.
The Boys of Fairhill Album and Songs from a Beautiful City.
While serving his time to a cabinet-maker he learned a popular song in 1920s Cork called simply Boozing.In Johnny Jump Up he sings of a cider so strong from being stored in old whiskey casks that it represented a passport to heaven. Jimmy sings of Katty Barry, Mother Jones, Mick Barry the bowler, Father Mathew and Jack Doyle.
The words of many of over 140 of these ballads are contained in his great work Songs From The Beautiful City, published by the Freestate Press in 2014. Jimmy has made an inestimable contribution to the preservation of traditional Cork ballads.
Jimmy loves playing at the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival and one should not miss his performance with Eve Telford on Friday 29th July at the Shandon Maldron Hotel.
Jimmy and Eve will sing at the Shandon Maldron Hotel from 1 to 2pm for a lunchtime concert on Friday 29th July.
All are welcome, but please come in good time to guarantee a seat.
Jimmy Crowley and Mick Moloney in 2015 at Cork City Library at the launch of Songs From a Beautiful City.
Note:
Mick Moloney was born in Castletroy, Co. Limerick. He joined up with Donal Lunny and Brian Bolger in 1966 to form the Emmet Folk Group, where he sang and played the banjo and mandolin. Later this group became The Emmet Spiceland (after Mick had left). In the late 60s he and Paul Brady joined the Johnsons, with Adrienne and Lucy Johnson whose father had a pub in the village of Slane, Co Meath. The Johnsons had a string of hits including arrangements of The Travelling People, The Tunnel Tigers, O’Carolan’s Concerto and The Wind in My Hands. Mick went to America around 1973 and played traditional songs and collected roots music. In 1993 he was awarded a doctorate in folklore and music from the University of Pennsylvania. Mick played, sang, taught and amassed a vast collection of songs and tunes during his lifetime. He was professor of Music at New York University. Sadly he was found dead at home in Greenwich Village on 27th July 2022.
