Connolly’s words are still apt in dispute over poppy

WITH November 11 marking the centenary of the Armistice at the end of the World War I, and in light of the controversy in regard to the wearing of the red poppy, it is worth recalling the speech of James Connolly, the Irish socialist, which he made in The Square in Tralee, in October 1915. When he addressed the crowd, he said the

following against Ireland’s involvement in the war in Europe: “I know that we in Ireland had never suffered one particular iota from any European power, but one… this war was not for Ireland, it was not for them no matter who wanted it. They stood for that section of the community who had fought the battles of the world and who had remained at the bottom no matter who was at the top. They would no longer accept the position of inferiority. They say not only are they part of the nation but they are the most useful part of it. No matter who sold Ireland in the past, the Irish working class never sold it, they always fought for it.”

It should also be noted that Connolly’s anti-war argument was supported by the local branches of British-based unions. Kieran McNulty Tralee, Co Kerry