William Walker, Unionism’s James Connolly 

It’s hard to overstate the centrality of Pearse and Connolly to the modern Irish state and Irishness. Yeats wrote in his famous verse wrote: ‘Connolly and Pearse Now and in time to be, Wherever green is worn’ Eamonn McCann wrote: “One learned quite literally at one’s mother’s knee, that Jesus had died for the human race and Patrick Pearse for the Irish section of it.” Professor Michael Laffan wrote: “When I was a schoolboy… reading Carter’s history of Ireland, more space was …

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McGuinness’ hero on royal visits…

JAMES Connolly is an undoubted hero of Martin McGuinness’ – the deputy First Minister even invoked him in a speech as as recently as last month. But I wonder if this icon of republicanism’s ‘patriot dead’ would have approved of McGuinness meeting the Queen? Here’s some of Connolly’s thoughts on a previous royal visitor to Ireland, King George V in 1911. Different rules for a different era? Knowing from previous experience of Royal Visits, as well as from the Coronation …

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Republicans and loyalists unite to mark centenary of James Connolly arriving in Belfast

SIPTU – the Services, Industrial, Professional and Technical Union – are marking the centenary of the arrival of James Connolly in Belfast to organise dockers and mill workers in an event in Belfast City Hall on the evening of Friday 28 October. Lord Mayor Niall Ó Donnghaile will unveil a a portrait of James Connolly by artist Frank Quigley, followed by a panel discussion on the theme of the ‘The Task Today’ looking at “the current needs of workers and …

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