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.
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.
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.
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.
The Presentation of the Spirit of Mother Jones Award 2024. Front row: Fiona O’Rourke, speaker, Zeina Alazzeh, Embassy of the State of Palestine, Walaa Sabah, speaker and Dr. Nick Maynard. Back row: John Barimo, James Nolan, Ann Rea, Ger O’Mahony, Ann Piggott and Dominic O’Callaghan, members of the Cork Mother Jones Committee.
Carla Gover and CornMaiz from Kentucky playing at the Maldron Hotel, Shandon.
Maggie O’Neill speaking at the Cork Feminist Walk.
Jennifer Ahern, Artist and Environmental Anthropologist and Dervla Baker, Director of the documentary, field.
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.
The sun shines on the Mother Jones plaque behind Martin Leahy.
You can listen to Martin Leahy’s wonderful new Mother Jones song on the link below.
Martin Leahy – “Mother Jones” – Copyright: Martin Leahy
(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”
Some of the huge crowd who attended the Mother Jones Toast at the Plaque at the concluding event of the 2024 Spirit of Mother Jones Festival.
Owen Reidy, General Secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) receiving a presentation of a portrait of Mother Jones from Ann Piggott of the Cork Mother Jones Committee. The original painting is by Lindsay Hand and the original is the Irish Embassy in Washington.
The Feminist Walk arriving at the Butter Market in Shandon on Saturday evening. The walk was organised and led by Maggie O’Neill and Conach Gibson-Feinblum and had come from University College Cork.
The panellists who participated at the Environmental Roundtable, “Climate Change and Taking Action.” Left to Right: Niamh Guiry, Dearbhla Richardson and Claudia Hihetah.
The award ceremony took place at the Dance Cork Firkin Crane on Friday evening, 26th July 2024. The award was presented to Miss Zeina Allazzeh, the Research and Policy Officer of the Embassy of the State of Palestine in Ireland.
Miss Allazzeh had been nominated by Ambassador Dr. Jilan Wahba Abdalmajid to receive the award on their behalf.
Miss Zeina Allazzeh receiving the award from James Nolan, of the Cork Mother Jones Committee accompanied by Ann Piggott.
The presentation ceremony took place after a public meeting “Stories of Palestine”, which featured speakers, Walaa Sabha, Fiona O’Rourke and Dr. Nick Maynard.
Miss Zeina Alazzeh on behalf of the Palestinian Ambassador to Ireland with the Spirit of Mother Jones Award 2024 from the Cork Mother Jones Committee at the Dance Cork Firkin Crane. @Sweeneynmedia.
Response from the Palestinian Ambassador to Ireland, Dr. Jilan Wahba Abdalmajid to the Cork Mother Jones Committee.
The Spirit of Mother Jones Award 2024 at the Embassy of the State of Palestine in Dublin.
