Speech at a Symposium Entitled: “James Connolly: Life and Legacies”
University of Edinburgh, Scotland, 29 June 2016
A Cháirde,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Is mór an pléisiúir a bheith libh tráthnóna agus bhur bplé ar saol agus ar oidhreacht an sóisialach, an ghníomhach, an tírghráthóir agus dár ndoigh mac chathair Dhún Éideann, Séamas Ó Conghaile.
[It is my great pleasure to join you this afternoon as you are drawing to a close your discussions on the life and legacies of the great socialist, labour activist, Irish patriot, and, last but not least, son of this city of Edinburgh – James Connolly.]
It is for me, as President of Ireland, greatly uplifting to see so many scholars from Ireland, Scotland and beyond throw new light on the important figure that James Connolly was in the international socialist movement at the turn of the last century.
May I thank you all for your contribution to our understanding of James Connolly’s eventful and generous life, and so rich, complex and powerful thought. Most of all, I want to thank you for contributing to keeping alive, through your research and debates, the flame of James Connolly’s life-long struggle for justice and equality.
When reflecting on how we might remember James Connolly – a question which we, in Ireland, have had many occasions to raise during this ongoing centenary year of the Easter Rising of 1916 – it is essential, I believe, that we avoid relegating the potent ideas and ideals that drove James Connolly throughout his life to the safe closet of a bygone past. Those generous, subversive, indeed revolutionary, ideas and ideals should never be petrified; nor should they ever be reduced to the benign status of a tamed and sanitised “heritage”, amenable to bland political statements on “the heroes from our past”, or, even, touristic consumption.
The writings, the injunctions, the energy, the activism of James Connolly are flames and arrows, which, a hundred years later, can continue to orient our present and illuminate our future. They are best described, perhaps, through the words of Paul Ricoeur, as “arrows of futurity”, “whose trajectory has been interrupted.” They are part of that “unfulfilled future of the past” that can still offer a wellspring of inspiration for our present.
Today you have been reflecting on the “legacies”, in the plural, of James Connolly – and indeed the gifts of hope and vision bequeathed to us by James Connolly are manifold. There is, of course, the gift of equality, the challenge to create such a society as would enable all of its children, women and men to flourish.
So many of Connolly’s ideas, as expounded in his books, essays and articles, offer a glimpse of the possibility of dealing with injustice – that is, of eliminating poverty, the exploitation of vulnerable workers; of dealing with inadequate access to education and healthcare, and of advancing the rights of children and women, amongst other things.
Indeed as regards this latter point, I believe that one of the important legacies of James Connolly for us today is the place he carved out for women, both among the ranks of the Irish Citizen Army and in his vision for the Ireland of the future. Connolly’s injunction to women to “break their chains” and march towards freedom are ones that still resonate powerfully with us, not just in Ireland, or here in Scotland, but in all those places across the world where the journey towards full equality and dignity for women is still ongoing.
Then, too, there is Connolly’s gift of a conception of labour that was never limited to issues of wages but that encompassed, instead, a transformative vision for the whole of society. Such a vision can, I believe, productively inform our contemporary efforts to bring about “decent work” – an understanding of work as a source of personal dignity and freedom, family stability, prosperity in the community and democratic flourishing.
There is, finally and importantly, the gift of internationalism – of a solidarity that reaches beyond national boundaries – a form of solidarity into which we so urgently need to breathe new life and soul as we seek, together with our brothers and sisters with whom we share this fragile planet, to respond to the great global challenges of our times.
Dear friends,
Is mian liom a rá arís cé chomh sásta is atá mé a bheith anseo ag an siompóisiam seo atá tiomnaithe d'oidhreacht Shéamais Uí Chonghaile.
[May I, once again, say how delighted I am to be here at a symposium dedicated to the legacies of James Connolly.]
May his vision of a people free from want, free from impoverishment and free from exploitation be one that continues to inspire, not just good scholarship, but our lives together – in Ireland, in Scotland and in Europe.
Go raibh míle maith agaibh go léir.