| Part of a series on |
| Irish republicanism |
|---|
 |
The Connolly Association is an organisation based among Irish emigrants in Britain which supports the aims of Irish republicanism. It takes its name from James Connolly, a socialist republican, born in Edinburgh, Scotland and executed by the British Army for his part in the 1916 Easter Rising.
It was formed in London in 1938 as the Connolly Club by members of the London branch of the Republican Congress, the Irish branch of the League Against Imperialism (a front for the Communist International) and the British-based Irish Self-Determination League. They claimed as a goal to be working for a united and independent Ireland and to provide a social and cultural centre for those promoting the teachings of James Connolly.
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the Connolly Association influenced trade unionists in Belfast who went on to establish the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association in Northern Ireland. The Association continued to organise meetings throughout Britain and a number of new branches were established. [1]
The Connolly Association has produced a newspaper since 1939, known first as Irish Freedom and then from 1945 as the Irish Democrat. It supports the Good Friday Agreement but continues to press for an end to the partition of Ireland and the unification of Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland.
Notable members of the Connolly Association included C. Desmond Greaves, [2] Anthony Coughlan [3] Roy Johnston, [4] Luke Kelly, Eddie Dempsey, and Derry Kelleher. [4]
Irish nationalism is a nationalist political movement which, in its broadest sense, asserts that the people of Ireland should govern Ireland as a sovereign state. Since the mid-19th century, Irish nationalism has largely taken the form of cultural nationalism based on the principles of national self-determination and popular sovereignty. Irish nationalists during the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries such as the United Irishmen in the 1790s, Young Irelanders in the 1840s, the Fenian Brotherhood during the 1880s, Fianna Fáil in the 1920s, and Sinn Féin styled themselves in various ways after French left-wing radicalism and republicanism. Irish nationalism celebrates the culture of Ireland, especially the Irish language, literature, music, and sports. It grew more potent during the period in which all of Ireland was part of the United Kingdom, which led to most of the island gaining independence from the UK in 1922.
The Irish Citizen Army, or ICA, was a small paramilitary group of trained trade union volunteers from the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union (ITGWU) established in Dublin for the defence of workers' demonstrations from the Dublin Metropolitan Police. It was formed by James Larkin, James Connolly and Jack White on 23 November 1913. Other prominent members included Seán O'Casey, Constance Markievicz, Francis Sheehy-Skeffington, P. T. Daly and Kit Poole. In 1916, it took part in the Easter Rising, an armed insurrection aimed at ending British rule in Ireland.
Irish republicanism is the political movement for the unity and independence of Ireland under a republic. Irish republicans view British rule in any part of Ireland as inherently illegitimate.
Southern Democrats are affiliates of the U.S. Democratic Party who reside in the Southern United States.
The Communist Party of Ireland is an all-Ireland Marxist–Leninist communist party, founded in 1933 and re-founded in 1970. It rarely contests elections and has never had electoral success. The party is a member of the International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties.
The Irish Socialist Republican Party was a small, but pivotal Irish political party founded in 1896 by James Connolly. Its aim was to establish an Irish workers' republic. The party split in 1904 following months of internal political rows.
Alice Letitia Milligan [pseud. Iris Olkyrn] was an Irish writer and activist in Ireland's Celtic Revival; an advocate for the political and cultural participation of women; and a Protestant-unionist convert to the cause of Irish independence. She was at the height of her renown at the turn of the 20th century when in Belfast, with Anna Johnston, she produced the political and literary monthly The Shan Van Vocht (1896–1899), and when in Dublin the Irish Literary Theatre's performed "The Last Feast of the Fianna” (1900), Milligan's interpretation of Celtic legend as national drama.
Ireland was part of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1922. For almost all of this period, the island was governed by the UK Parliament in London through its Dublin Castle administration in Ireland. Ireland underwent considerable difficulties in the 19th century, especially the Great Famine of the 1840s which started a population decline that continued for almost a century. The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw a vigorous campaign for Irish Home Rule. While legislation enabling Irish Home Rule was eventually passed, militant and armed opposition from Irish unionists, particularly in Ulster, opposed it. Proclamation was shelved for the duration following the outbreak of World War I. By 1918, however, moderate Irish nationalism had been eclipsed by militant republican separatism. In 1919, war broke out between republican separatists and British Government forces. Subsequent negotiations between Sinn Féin, the major Irish party, and the UK government led to the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, which resulted in five-sixths of the island seceding from the United Kingdom, becoming the Irish Free State, with only the six northeastern counties remaining within the United Kingdom.
James Anthony Lane is an Irish republican and socialist from Cork. He was a central figure in left-wing politics in Cork city during the 1960s to late 1980s and involved in many campaigns. He was also influential in republican circles nationally and a well known advocate of socialist republicanism of a Marxist-Leninist hue.
The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) (Irish: Cumann Cearta Sibhialta Thuaisceart Éireann) was an organisation that campaigned for civil rights in Northern Ireland during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Formed in Belfast on 9 April 1967, the civil rights campaign attempted to achieve reform by publicising, documenting, and lobbying for an end to discrimination against Catholics in areas such as elections (which were subject to gerrymandering and property requirements), discrimination in employment, in public housing and abuses of the Special Powers Act.
Cumann na mBan, abbreviated C na mB, is an Irish republican women's paramilitary organisation formed in Dublin on 2 April 1914, merging with and dissolving Inghinidhe na hÉireann, and in 1916, it became an auxiliary of the Irish Volunteers. Although it was otherwise an independent organisation, its executive was subordinate to that of the Irish Volunteers, and later, the Irish Republican Army.
The British and Irish Communist Organisation (B&ICO) was a small group based in London, Belfast, Cork, and Dublin. Its leader was Brendan Clifford. The group produced a number of pamphlets and regular publications, including The Irish Communist and Workers Weekly in Belfast. Τhe group currently expresses itself through Athol Books with its premier publication being the Irish Political Review. The group also continues to publish Church & State, Irish Foreign Affairs, Labour Affairs and Problems.
Charles Desmond Greaves was an English Marxist activist and historian. He wrote a number of books on Irish history as a Marxist historian. A member of the Communist Party of Great Britain, through the Connolly Association he was one of the key figures, along with Roy Johnston, responsible for inserting Marxist perspectives into the 1960s Irish republicanism, in relation to the Northern Ireland civil rights movement.
Anarchism in Ireland has its roots in the stateless organisation of the túatha in Gaelic Ireland. It first began to emerge from the libertarian socialist tendencies within the Irish republican movement, with anarchist individuals and organisations sprouting out of the resurgent socialist movement during the 1880s, particularly gaining prominence during the time of the Dublin Socialist League.
Anthony Coughlan is an Irish academic, secretary of the National Platform, and retired Senior Lecturer Emeritus in Social Policy at Trinity College, Dublin.
Roy H. W. Johnston was an Irish theoretical physicist and republican political activist. He was a Marxist who as a member of the IRA in the 1960s argued for a National Liberation Strategy to unite the Catholic and Protestant working classes. He wrote extensively for such newspapers as The United Irishman and The Irish Times.
The Wolfe Tone Societies (WTS) (Irish: Muintir Wolfe Tone) is an Irish republican group whose chief objective is the establishment of a 'united Irish Republic.' It evolved from the commemorative Directories which the IRA helped set up in 1963 to mark the bicentenary of the 1763 birth of Wolfe Tone. In 1964 the Directories were dissolved and replaced with the Wolfe Tone Society. The publication of the Wolf Tone Society from 1965 onward was called Tuairisc.
The Socialist Party of Northern Ireland, sometimes known as the Northern Ireland Socialist Party, was a small socialist group based in Northern Ireland in the 1930s.
Clann na hÉireann was a support organisation among Irish emigrants in Great Britain for Sinn Féin during the 1960s and its successor organisation the Workers' Party in the 1970s and the 1980s.
Jim Prendergast (1914 – 1974) was a leading communist, civil rights activist, trade union leader, and member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). He joined the Irish section of the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), founded the Connolly Association to support Irish immigrants in Britain, and served as the editor of Irish Freedom. In 1966 as a leading member of the National Union of Railwaymen (NUR), Prendergast led a successful campaign to end racial segregation in employment of London Underground rail stations, allowing black people to become station employees.
