James Connolly, founder of the Labour Party
Posted on October 05, 2010 at 11:02 AM
I anticipated, but I am still amazed and annoyed that RTE and Joe Duffy could do a programme about James Connolly and not mention that he founded the Irish Labour Party. It was his life's work to set up such a party. He proposed the motion that led to he founding of the Labour Party at the ICTU congress in Clonmel in 1912. He was a member of the executive of the Labour Party when he was executed in 1916. The programme highlighted that he founded the IRSP and no mention of the Irish Labour Party! Update: My letter to the Irish Examiner Letters page on the programme was published on Friday and there was a piece where I was quoted in yesterday's Sunday Mail. To be fair Joe Duffy linked to my letter on his twitter account and also described James Connolly as James Connolly founder of the Labour Party.
Revolutionary whose great contribution to democracy was overlooked
Friday, October 08, 2010
I WATCHED with anticipation this week’s RTÉ programme in the series ‘Ireland’s Greatest’ because it was about James Connolly, the founder of the Labour Party.
Connolly’s ideas about Irish society and the values he believed should underpin our politics and economy are as relevant today as they were when he was alive.
However, I was taken aback that there was no reference during the programme to James Connolly’s role in founding the Labour Party and I ask why RTÉ would omit this historical fact? It was the Labour Party that James Connolly foresaw would put his ideas into practice in an Irish parliamentary democracy. When he proposed the motion that led to the founding of the party at the ICTU conference in the Town Hall, Clonmel, on May 27, 1912, he asked: "When the representatives of Ireland came to meet in the old historic building in Dublin, which they had heard so much about, were the workers to be the only class that was not to be represented?"
His answer to this question was that Irish workers should be represented in an Irish parliament by an Irish Labour Party. He persuaded his comrades in ICTU and the Labour party was established. Connolly was a member of the party executive when he was executed in 1916. In 2012, Labour will celebrate his initiative in 1912 in setting up the party. Let’s hope by then Connolly’s values will underpin the actions of a new government in its efforts to build a society based on equality and the solidarity of the Irish people.
Joanna Tuffy TD
Dáil Éireann
Dublin 2
This story appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Friday, October 08, 2010
Comments
Why do you think that RTE would leave out such information?
Personally I think what James Connolly did in getting the workers represented was laudable, however I find nothing glorious about violent rebellion.
I don't want to die, for my family, my community or Ireland, but there are times that I would be willing to lose my life for some greater good, but there is no time when I believe it is good to kill.
I think someone who started the 1916 rising being involved in establishing the democratic party that is Labour does more good for their CV than yours.
Then, my opinion is just one in 4.5 million, a very minority opinion.
Stephen,
Your opinion is not as minority a one as you may think. It is a strong thread in the debate that has occurred internally in the Labour Party, about James Connolly's role in 1916.
See this previous blog post of mine and the ensuing debate between myself and another Labour member Colum McCaffery here, where we debate that aspect of James Connolly's heritage:
http://www.labour.ie/joannatuffy/blogarchive/2010/04/28/save-our-1916-heritage/
My point about James Connolly is that his goal was a parliamentary democracy with a Labour Party active within that democracy. In otherwords he was primarily a democrat, and had previously run for election. He got involved in the 1916 rising because that was the direction in which Irish nationalism was moving, having previously been directed at the goal of home rule. He wanted Labour to be a mass party and at the centre of the initiative that was to lead to the foundation of the State of Ireland, and hence his decision to get involved in the 1916 rising.
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