May Day

by Paula Geraghty Sun Apr 30, 2006 21:28

(c)

by Paula Geraghty Sun Apr 30, 2006 21:36

http://www.indymedia.ie/article/75753

(c)

by Paula Geraghty Sun Apr 30, 2006 21:38

(c)

Where do you look?

by thorn in the verucah of memory Mon May 01, 2006 01:58

There he is! Big Jim, special in so many ways, the object of hero worship like all the rest of O'Connell street, the only man in Irish history to get the "Big" prefix ( besides of course General Liam Neeson ). Of course Jim, who we remember for the last (and only) great working protest in Ireland (1913), didn't get to play a part in the blood sacrifice of 1916. He had left Ireland, perhaps in reaction to the failure of 1913, perhaps in reaction to the acusations of fraud & corruption which had plagued the Irish Labour party he helped form, and for which reasons he had resigned his only elected position one month into its term. Off he had gone to the USA like many Irish workers before and since, and thence became a noted fan of the Soviet Union, which led to his expulsion from the USA as a bolishevik sympathiser a full 5 years after Emma Goldman & the other US anarchists and libertarian socialists of the true May Day tradition had been put to sail by E. Hoover who would later be remember as the FBI top man in the flowery dress. They of course went to Russia too, and had to a one condemned centralised state communism and the cult of Lenin within 24 months.

Next time you look at Big Jim Larkin, standing there below the balcony (on what is now Cleary's and was then the Imperial Hotel) which Eva Gore Booth alone may be credited with bringing him to, for that great & memorable speech, the best soundbyte of which is carved into the pedestal of his statue, remember one thing - "his hands weren't that big. that's art. that's myth. that's selective memory". Then wonder - that is ponder - meaning really work your intellect -

why you can't find a statue to Eva. "the countess markievicz"?

by Jim Monaghan Mon May 01, 2006 17:11

I made it less than 300. If the Trade Union officials alone came it would be more. There is a disconnect between living struggles and Mayday. As far as I know there was no effort to make this a day for all those in current active struggles with the possible exception of a few Aer Lingus workers who turned up. If this is the workers opposition to Capitalism we have a long way to go.
Let next years march not just mention struggles but be a mobilisation event with workers, immigrants, communities not just mentioned but there.
As usual I found the speeches boring with lots of platitudes
Jim Monaghan

by Elaine Mon May 01, 2006 22:49

> why you can't find a statue to Eva. "the countess markievicz"?

You can but you have to search for it, down Townsend Street on the way
to Tara Street Dart Station.

Countess Statue Near Tara Street Dart Station

by pat c Tue May 02, 2006 12:19

The Countess was originally known as Constance Gore-Booth. She had a sister named Eva (1870 - 1926). Eva was a poet, trade unionist, suffragist and pacifist. She moved to Manchester in the 1890s ( became an ardent MU fan). She edited Women's Labour News and also contributed poetry to the Irish Homestead and New Ireland Review.

Eva deserves to be remembered in her own right. At least Yeats put Eva first:

William Butler Yeats - In Memory Of Eva Gore-Booth And Con Markiewicz

The light of evening, Lissadell,
Great windows open to the south,
Two girls in silk kimonos, both
Beautiful, one a gazelle.
But a raving autumn shears
Blossom from the summer's wreath;
The older is condemned to death,
Pardoned, drags out lonely years
Conspiring among the ignorant.
I know not what the younger dreams -
Some vague Utopia - and she seems,
When withered old and skeleton-gaunt,
An image of such politics.
Many a time I think to seek
One or the other out and speak
Of that old Georgian mansion, mix
pictures of the mind, recall
That table and the talk of youth,
Two girls in silk kimonos, both
Beautiful, one a gazelle.

Dear shadows, now you know it all,
All the folly of a fight
With a common wrong or right.
The innocent and the beautiful.
Have no enemy but time;
Arise and bid me strike a match
And strike another till time catch;
Should the conflagration climb,
Run till all the sages know.
We the great gazebo built,
They convicted us of guilt;
Bid me strike a match and blow.