Labour in Irish History

It is not often that a political book is beautifully written, but this is one that really is. Connolly, it is said, learned to read and write beside the fire in an Edinburgh slum. The book is really a potted History of Ireland from a Marxist perspective; history as a political weapon, aimed at two things: one, removing Britain from Ireland, and, two, the socialist transformation of an independent Ireland. Connolly was incredibly idealistic about the Human Race in general, and Irish people in particular. I suppose because he was personally utterly selfless, saintly really. When he lay in hospital, waiting to be shot by the British for his involvement in the 1916 Easter Rising, he said to his wife 'Hasn't this been a wonderful life, and isn't this a wonderful end.' Ie., dying as a martyr for Irish independence. The book's original research comes from a Victorian historian called Leckie. Connolly used Leckie's book as the basis for his short history to, as he would see it, demystify Irish people-especially militants. His political position was that Irish nationalist aspirations had been betrayed by generations of Irish political leaders as 'the rich always betray the poor.' He developed this as a theme through Irish History, of the bribes that has helped to dissolve the Dublin Parliament, for example, and so on. It was time for the Irish people, especially the industrial working class, to look to their own leadership.'The cause of Ireland is the cause of Labour.' When denounced by people for writing potted histories and socialist leaflets, Connolly said that 'A leaflet read by everyone is worth more than entire shelves of books read by no-one.' There is a kind of companion volume whose name I forget, which is a rebuttal of a Jesuit priest -Father O'Kane-'s Lenten attacks on contemporary socialist ideas (c1910) When you think of social conditions of Irish people at that time, when the infant mortality rate in Dublin was greater than that in Bombay, Father O'Kane must have had a heart of stone, really. Connolly denounces Father O'Kane's predictions that a socialist society would not have a free press. Your heart cheers Connolly and your head knows that Father O'Kane is predicting the world of the Eastern Bloc countries of the Soviet era. It is desperately sad, really.