CONNOLLY & BILLY BHOY AT EASTER

JAMES CONNOLLY

Irish: Séamas Ó Conghaile or Ó Conghalaigh, June 5,1868 – May 12, 1916) was a Scottish-born Irish socialist politician and fighter against British rule. He became involved in the socialist movement while in Scotland, and when back in Ireland founded the Irish Labour Party. He was Commandant of the Dublin Brigade during the Easter Rising, and after being captured by the British, was shot by firing squad.

Quotes

If you remove the English army tomorrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organization of the Socialist Republic your efforts would be in vain. England would still rule you. She would rule you through her capitalists, through her landlords, through her financiers, through the whole array of commercial and individualist institutions she has planted in this country and watered with the tears of our mothers and the blood of our martyrs.
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Yes, friends, governments in capitalist society are but committees of the rich to manage the affairs of the capitalist class.


'Those who live by the sword shall perish by the sword' say the Scriptures, and it may well be that in the progress of events the working class of Ireland may be called upon to face the stern necessity of taking the sword (or rifle) against the capitalist class..."

Under a socialist system every nation will be the supreme arbiter of its own destinies, national and international; will be forced into no alliance against its will, but will have its independence guaranteed and its freedom respected by the enlightened self-interest of the socialist democracy of the world.

Such a scheme .. the betrayal of the national democracy of Industrial Ulster, would mean a carnival of reaction both North and South, would set back the wheels of progress, would destroy the oncoming unity of the Irish labour movement and paralyse all advanced movements while it lasted.

The cause of labour is the cause of Ireland, the cause of Ireland is the cause of labour.

Theobald Wolfe Tone

Theobald Wolfe Tone (1763-1798) was born of the Protestant ascendancy class in Ireland. He was also a rebel, one of the founding members of the United Irishmen, and is regarded as the father of modern Irish Republicanism. He organized a convention of elected delegates that forced Parliament to pass the Catholic Relief Act of 1793, and staged a rebellion against British rule in Ireland in 1798. He was captured by British forces in Donegal and taken prisoner. Before Tone was due to be executed he attempted suicide and consequently died from his wounds a week later, thus avoiding being hanged for his involvement in the 1798 rebellion.

Some of his quotes:

"To subvert the tyranny of our execrable government, to break the connection with England, the never-failing source of all our political evils and to assert the independence of my country - these were my objectives. To unite the whole people of Ireland, to abolish the memory of all past dissensions, and to substitute the common name of Irishman in place of the denominations of Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter - these were my means."

"If the men of property will not support us, they must fall. Our strength shall come from that great and respectable class, the men of no property".

As can be garnered from his sentiments, Tone, although a Protestant, recognised the oppression and injustices inflicted upon the indigenous Irish Catholic people by the British ruling class, and wanted nothing more than to discontinue British rule in Ireland with the aim of creating an egalitarian Ireland independent of the British crown, and one where "Protestant, Catholic, and Dissenter" could live in peace and harmony and as equals.

I ask you, what was wrong with that attitude then? And what is wrong with it now?

By Wikiquote

by Billy the Prod