James Connolly — Socialist, Nationalist & Internationalist
by Liam McNulty
Merlin Press, £25
 
SOCIALIST, nationalist and internationalist nicely summarises the life journey of James Connolly.

The author, Liam McNulty, does an excellent job of tracking that journey from Edinburgh to Ireland and on to the United States before returning to Ireland for the final four years before his execution as one of the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising.

Connolly’s life work as a socialist activist began in Edinburgh and he never lost his Scottish accent.

Born in the Cowgate, an Edinburgh slum, in 1868, his Irish parents came from County Monaghan.

He then went to Ireland in 1896, helping found the Irish Socialist Republican Party, with the intention of transforming nationalism into socialism.

McNulty chronicles in detail Connolly’s prolific activism, organising working people, writing and editing papers.

He moved to the United States in 1905 where, as a member of the Socialist Party of America and Industrial Workers of the World, his experience of labour organisation and vision of a socialist future set the course for the rest of his life.  

Returning to Ireland in 1910, McNulty describes Connolly as “a more rounded, more mature Labour movement leader, with a high profile as a socialist organiser and real experience of mass working-class struggle to his name.”

Connolly was always looking to unite the working class against capitalist oppressors. He was dismayed by the divisions caused by religious affiliation with working-class Protestants under Edward Carson uniting to oppose home rule.

McNulty tries to tease out Connolly’s at times ambiguous relationship with Catholicism and the church. Although himself an atheist, the political strategist within him recognised the need to avoid conflict with the church.

The book goes into much detail regarding Connolly’s role in various groups and publications, and the list of acronyms is not short.

Indeed, it can be argued that there is too much emphasis on the minutiae of political sects where more on the personality of the man would have helped.

That said, the detail does help explain how Connolly arrived at the Dublin GPO on Easter Sunday 1916.

As a socialist activist, Connolly, along with union leader Jim Larkin, were major players in the Dublin Lockout of 1913-14.

A general strike in all but name, the dispute went on for months and was a real sign of how specific industrial action can bring about united working class action.

It contributed to the revolutionary atmosphere of the years before WWI — the so-called Great Unrest — when major industrial action, the suffragettes’ struggle for women’s rights and the battle for Irish independence all contributed to the febrile atmosphere.

McNulty brings this to life, placing Connolly as an important player in all of these struggles.

The outbreak of war had considerable impact on Connolly’s views. He was said at first to have backed the Germans as allies in the struggle for Irish liberation despite privately viewing British and German imperialism as equally bad.

As a socialist Connolly opposed war as merely a mechanism to pit working class against working class in defence of the capitalist class interests. Latterly, however, he seems to have converted to nationalism.

He met the Irish Republican Brotherhood leadership over a number of days in January 1916, after which he and the Irish Citizens Army were committed to revolt.

McNulty explores this crucial conversion without ever really nailing why the methodical, analytical socialist decided to throw in his lot with the predominantly Catholic nationalists. At best, it seems to have been an action designed to seize the moment.

The legacy of Connolly is briefly covered, without too much speculation and, all in all, this is a thoroughly scholarly work that provides some fascinating insights into a true Irish socialist revolutionary.

Although hard going at times, the reader will feel far better informed on the important role Connolly and his comrades played in transforming Ireland during this unique period of history and the impact of his legacy thereafter.