1:00 p.m. Official opening by Alderman Dan Boyle, Lord Mayor of Cork.
Special appearance by the Kalyna Ukrainian Community Choir.
2:30 p.m. Adrian Kane “Union Renewal”
4:00 p.m. Fight Like Hell – The Testimony of Mother Jones.
Documentary written and performed by Kaiulani Lee.
Dance Cork Firkin Crane
7:00 p.m. Liz Gillis
‘Is This What They Fought For? Women And Independent Ireland”
Anne Twomey
“A Dauntless Spirit who went on to fight for women in a country where
they were treated like half-wits” Margaret Goulding Buckley.
Dance Cork Firkin Crane.
9:30 p.m. Cork Singers’ Club.
Kalyna Ukrainian Community Choir
Lord Mayor of Cork, Cllr. Dan Boyle with Cobh Animation TeamLiz Gillis and Anne Twomey.Filipe Bustos SierraCork Singers ClubKaiulani Lee with Lord Mayor of Cork, Cllr. John ButtimerAdrian Kane
Portrait of Mother Jones by Lindsay HandKaiulani Lee as Mother Jones
Irish Premiere: Dance Cork Firkin Crane, Thursday 25th July at 4pm.
Kaiulani Lee as Mother Jones.
“We were never supposed to know her name. She was a poor Irish immigrant who survived famine and war, fire and plague. Unable to save her husband and four very young children, she dedicated her life to saving working families everywhere. The “robber barons” called her “the most dangerous woman in America” but the workers called her Mother Jones.”
And she asked the workers to pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living. This documentary has been adapted from Obie Award-winning actress Kaiulani Lee’s one-woman play “Can’t Scare Me” Kaiulani performed at the Firkin Crane Theatre back in July 2015 and visited Cork city for the inaugural festival in August 2012. Kaiulani lives Mother Jones.
The Lord Mayor of Cork, Cllr. John Buttimer meeting with Kaiulani Lee at the Lord Mayor’s Office in 2012.
Length: 55 minutes.
The performance is drawn from the 1925 autobiography of Mother Jones as well as her letters, speeches and interviews.
Kaiulani visiting Abbeystrewry Famine Graveyard in 2015.
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
‘field’ is a self-reflexive documentary that explores the environmental concerns of biodiversity and climate mitigation on a local scale. Centred on an old dump, and marshland, near Mayfield in the Northern suburbs of Cork, it weaves its way through multiple perspectives to discuss how meaning is placed on landscape.
‘field’ is directed by Dervla Baker.
There will be a Q & A with director, Dervla Baker after the documentary.
Running Time: 30 minutes
Maldon Hotel, Shandon, Friday 26th July 2024 at 10:30 am.
All are welcome.
field – Horses
field: Jen Walking field: the Portalfield – Blue- Clock- Towerfield – passage
Speaker: Jack Lane of the Aubane Historical Society.
Venue: Saturday 26th July 2024 at 2.15 p.m Maldron Hotel, Shandon.
“The ‘All for Ireland League’ does not feature very much in the standard history of the country. Yet it was one of the most significant movements in our history. It was instrumental in nothing less than creating a social revolution in empowering the rural working class – the farm labourers – into a movement that satisfied their essential needs as a class. It is a very appropriate subject for this festival as it was always identifiable with Cork in its origins and successes. It has many monuments in the numerous Labourers’ Cottages that dot the local countryside.” Jack Lane.
Historian, Jack Lane.
Aubane Historical Society was founded by a number of local people in Aubane in North Cork in 1985. “It seeks to make available original and first hand accounts of various aspects of our history’. It has produced many publications and some of these are available from its website. See www.aubanehistoricalsociety.com
General Background note from Cork Mother Jones Committee:
The Irish Land and Labour Association (ILLA) was founded in the early 1890s in Munster to agitate for tenant farmers and rural labourers rights. Among its founders was Kanturk born D.D. Sheehan (later an MP from 1901 – 1918) who became its chairman. He placed a particular focus on the rights of farm labourers who lived in poor housing conditions, very often in mud and stone cabins almost unchanged since the Great Famine times.
Demanding land and houses for people along with fair wages, education and pensions, the organisation quickly commanded widespread support from rural workers mainly in Co Cork, but also in Limerick and Tipperary. Growing in power and influence, Sheehan’s ILLA demanded a housing programme for these long neglected rural labourers. Later, William O’Brien’s All For Ireland League from 1909, both largely based in Cork supported these demands. This substantial cohort of rural workers and labourers had been largely ignored by the Irish Party in favour of the tenant farmers who were availing of favourable land purchase schemes.
The Labourers Acts of 1906-1914 were influenced by this agitation and their implementation utterly transformed the Irish countryside when the local County Council created a massive programme of large scale public house building of rural cottages with attached plots of land. Tens of thousands of these cottages were constructed over the next decade especially in County Cork and throughout Munster and upwards of a quarter of a million low income people were housed in decent comfort.
Labourers Cottage known as Sheehans’ Cottages. (Wikimedia). (Osioni).
It represented an incredible achievement over a short period. The Government using the state institutions such as the County Councils to acquire the land,construct good quality and affordable houses to a number of designs and then house local families
One is left to wonder why the modern Irish state today with vastly more resources cannot resolve our housing crisis based on the very effective and practical housing template across rural Cork and other counties. A template of public housing sourced and implemented by the ILLA and the All For Ireland League over one hundred years ago.
Ann Piggott of the Cork Mother Jones Committee presents a Mother Jones portrait to Jack Lane, speaker.
Julianna Minihan will deliver a talk on the above topic on Saturday, July 27th, 2024, at 10:30 a.m. in the Maldron Hotel, Shandon.
Most of us take water totally for granted, and we never ask questions about where it comes from, how it is delivered to our homes and where it goes. Yet where there is no water, there is no life! It is the very lifeblood of the land and nature. It has been fought over; it has been dammed, polluted and disputed, politicised, and wasted; humans have failed to perfect the cycle of water. Clean drinking water may yet be the oil and gold of future generations, but whereas we can live without oil and gold, we cannot survive without drinking water.
Berwick Water Fountain on the Grand Parade in Cork.
In Ireland, the Environmental Protection Agency has been warning about the growing pollution in our rivers, lakes and seas. Growing controversy from 2013 to 2017 about the privatisation of water supplies and charging for water led to tens of thousands of citizens taking to the streets, arguing that access to fresh water is a basic human right. Uisce Eireann, previously Irish Water, a state-owned company, was established to take over the provision of water and wastewater services, which had previously been carried out by Local Authorities across Ireland.
Old water pump which delivered a public water supply to many communities.
The following is Julianna Minihan’s outline of her talk:
“This talk will outline the historical provision of water in Cork City 1760-1900, with some background information on the people of the city, public health, economics, and levels of poverty at the time. It will consider how the poor of Cork were affected by a part time and inadequate supply of water from a very few public fountains paid for by the City; and how 50,000 poor Cork people were dependent on contaminated water in the 1840’s. It will consider how just 900 houses owned by wealthy people had a private supply of water (which they paid for) in the 1840’s, and how that came about.
It will consider the supply of water to industry, and will briefly mention waste disposal, the cess collection business, the usefulness of market gardens for utilizing compost, and the importance of tidal flushing of the river twice daily. It will explain why the City once again took over the water supply around 1860, and why they had once sold shares to businessmen after 1765. It will provide some information on the people who benefited, the politics, economics, public health, and even the basic need for water for human survival involved in the 1800’s.”
In 1833, one fountain provided water (part-time) for the poor in Cork. It was located on Nile Street (now Western Road). At the time, the company was paying its shareholders 5% dividends, and they complained that the fountain for the poor was built at a great loss to them. They refused to allow other fountains without ongoing payments.
The weir by the water works, originally erected by Mr Fitton in 1765, was known as ‘the Bald Weir’ in an 1845 court case, taken by a mill owner when the height of the weir almost blocked the flow of water on the south channel of the Lee.
The Water Weir on the River Lee is close to the Waterworks.
Julianna Minihan will speak at the Maldron Hotel, Shandon, on Saturday, July 27th, at 10:30 a.m.
All are welcome.
The Dunscombe Fountain on Shandon StreetThe Dunscombe Fountain at Christmas.
The Dunscombe Testimonial Fountain above was donated by the Dunscombe family to Cork Corporation in 1883 as a drinking fountain representing an appropriate memorial for abstinence from alcohol. It disappeared in the late 70s, and Cork City Council say they do not know where it is. Would any reader know?
Congratulations to Cork singer/musician Martin Leahy who on Thursday 16th May 2024 completed two years of travelling from Cork to Dáil Eireann in Dublin where he sings his own composition ‘Everyone Should Have a Home’.
Singer Songwriter Martin Leahy in front of the Mother Jones plaque in Cork.
Martin’s song was described recently in the Guardian newspaper as the “soundtrack” for the housing crisis in Ireland. With a huge lack of affordable property to buy and rents spiralling in Ireland, many young people are finding it virtually impossible to put a roof over their heads. Homelessness was brought home to Martin himself when he received an eviction notice in 2022.
That was resolved but then he decided to write his well known song as a protest against Government policy which allowed a huge shortage of affordable homes to arise for an increasing population through the failure to construct social housing, and the provision of financial incentives for vulture funds and increased interest rates.
Martin remains resilient and determined to continue his protest outside the gates of the Irish Parliament each Thursday as his contribution to highlighting this huge failure which prevents young people from acquiring a place of their own to buy or rent.
Martin Leahy with Cork’s Mother Jones, Joan Goggin.
Martin Leahy will sing ‘Everyone Should Have a Home’ and more at the Mother Jones Plaque on Saturday evening 27th July at around 6pm. His appearance last year attracted an enormous crowd to the annual toast to Mother Jones using her favourite tipple which takes place at the conclusion of each year’s festival. All are welcome to join us on Saturday evening.
On April 28th the formal announcement of the Mother Jones Sculpture Design winners took place in front of a packed attendance.
A four-person team headed by Kathleen Farrell and Kathleen Scarboro won the contest. The team will include David Standifer and Dante DiBartolo. They are committed to a dynamic presentation of Mother Jones in their work.
This group will now complete the design development and bring the magnificent sculpture to reality near the iconic Water Tower in Chicago. It will be a memorable and fitting tribute to the spirit of Mother Jones, once described as ‘the most dangerous woman in America.’ On behalf of the Cork Mother Jones Committee, we would like to congratulate all involved in this great project and we long to see Mother Jones taking her rightful place in Chicago.
For an account of the great celebrations at the announcement just click on the motherjonesmuseum.org website for a full report.
Portrait of Mother Jones by Kathleen Scarboro.
Portrait of Mother Jones by Kathleen Scarboro used in the celebratory booklet.
Historian, Liz Gillis returns to the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival 2024.
Liz will speak at the Dance Cork Firkin Crane on the opening evening Thursday 25th July at 7:00 pm.
Historian, Liz Gillis.Liz and Anne Twomey.
Now that the look back during the Decade of Centenaries has finished in 2023 with the end of the Civil War, we will continue to examine how the new state developed. Defeated Republicans either adjusted to the new order or emigrated. However for the women of Ireland, many of whom had actively participated in the Revolution, it became a very cold place. Liz intends to discuss how and why this took place.
According to Liz:
‘The 1916 Proclamation guaranteed ‘religious and civil liberties, equal rights and equal opportunities to all’, yet when independence came, the new Irish state quickly forgot to honour that guarantee. Women were not to be treated equally in the new Ireland. The new Ireland was a patriarchal society where the role of women was to be that of wife and mother. Was this the Ireland that so many women had fought and sacrificed for? Liz Gillis will discuss how the Ireland that emerged from the revolution was so conservative in its attitudes to women right up to the present time, and in doing so betrayed the vision of the 1916 Leaders.’
Historian and author Liz Gillis is from the Liberties in Dublin. She is the author of six books about the Irish Revolution including, ‘Women of the Irish Revolution’, ‘The Hales Brothers and the Irish Revolution’ and has been a contributor on numerous publications, television and radio documentaries covering the revolutionary period.
She lectures at Champlain College Dublin and in 2021 was appointed the Historian in Residence for South Dublin County Council for the Decade of Centenaries. Liz was the Researcher for the History Show on RTE Radio and was a Historical Consultant for the new Custom House Visitor Centre and Curatorial Assistant in RTE, specialising in researching the Easter Rising. In 2018 she was the recipient of the Lord Mayor of Dublin’s Award for her contribution to history.
Date: Thursday 25th July 2024. Time: 7pm. Venue: Dance Cork Firkin Crane. All Welcome. Liz will be followed by historian Anne Twomey. Discussion will follow.
