Cork singer-songwriter performed his new song Mother Jones at the Mother Jones plaque on John Redmond Street in the Shandon Historic Quarter on the final day of the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival 2024 to great acclaim from the large gathering.
You can listen to Martin Leahy’s wonderful new Mother Jones song on the link below.
(Words and music used by kind permission of Martin Leahy)
“Walking boldly in her black shoes
Not a saviour from outside not a saviour from above
She was of and she came from the wounds
Of the working class people the people she loved
Shining through the darkened back roads
A star that lit the way for the ages yet to be
Organizing in the shadows
Freedom for all people in the land of the free
To the struggle where the workers and their families rights were abandoned
From the alleyways the streets and the lanes by the bells of Shandon
Out of Famine out of fever
Out of fire out of grief out on her own
Out of a wounded Mary Harris
Came the healing burning blood of Mother Jones
Striking out across the nation
In the white heat with the strikers side by side
Striking fear into the bosses
They were powerless to stop a revolutions rising tide
Close to the workers and the movements right at the root
Spinning yarns and shaping myths in the service of a bigger truth
We need you in our hearts more than ever today
The rich still burn the earth and the poor still pay
We can hear you in our heads when the spirit won’t give in
Pray for the dead but fight like hell for the living
Across the lines of all religion
Across the lines of race we’ll hold her name
Across the women men and children
The iron heel on all flesh feels the same
Marching to the city with the little ones broken and bruised
To the mansions of wealth built on the crushed bones of youth”
