page G,
James Connolly.
The following is an extract from 'Tho Re Conquest of Ireland’,
3 pamphlet written by Jamas Connolly, shortly before the easter
rising of 1916. We are printing it, not just ss a token of respect
for the great Irish revolutionary, but also becsuse many of the
ideas contained therein still relevant today. It is also worth
noting that Connolly, In his own csreer, put these ideas into
practise and that women played » honourable and heroie role in
the 1716. rising.
In our ¢hapicr dealing with the Industrial conditions of Belfast, it wos
noted that vie extremely high rate of sickness in the textile industry,
the prevalence of tuberculosis and cognate disesses, affected principally
the femele workers, as docs algo the prevalence of a comparative
{llitcreacy smongst the lower paid grades of labcur in that city.
The recent dispute in Dublin also brought outin a very striking manner
the terrible nature of the conditions under which women and girls
labour in the eapital city, the shocking inssnitary conditicns of the
workshops, the grinding tyranny cf those in charge, end the slarningly
low vitality, which resulted from the inability to procure proper food
and clothes with the meagre wages paid. Consideration of such facta,
inevitably leada to reflection on the whole position of woman in
mode rm Ireland, and their probable stbitude to any such chonge as
that we are forecasting.
It will be observed by the thoughtful resder, thst the development in
Traland cf what is known 25 the women's movement, has synchronised
with the appearance of women upon the industrisl field, and thst the
acuteness and fierceness on the womens’ war hes kepb even pace with
the spread amongst educated women of the Knewledge of the sordid and
ernel nature of the lot of their suffering sisters of tha wage earning
closes,
We might say that the development of what, for wont of « batter name,
is known as sex consciousness, has waited for the spresd amongst the more
favoured women, of a deep feeling of social conscicusness, what we
have elsewhere in this work dgscribed as 4 civic cons¢ience.
The awokening samongsh women of a reslisation of the fact that the
highest honours of society have no relation to the merits of the
recipients, and that acute human sympathies were rether hindrance
than helps in this world, was a phenomenon due to the spread of
industrislism and to the merciless strugglo for existence, which it
IMPOSES asa. ee ae Cont.
'Tha yo Conquest of Irelend' by James ConmolLly is an Ivigh Sociglist
Library publication.
bate
Tron woman, as tha weaker phyodgal veesal, an’ as the mat untrained rossnit: the strugzic was inovitably the most orucl; it is a mattor for doop thankfulness that tho pore intellectual women breke out inte reyolt against tho anomaly of bring eampollod to bear all the worst burdons of tho strugelc, and yet be dented ovyon tho fow politipal rights onjeyod by the male pertion cf their fellew-suffurors.
Had tho boon of political cquality boon grantud as readily as political wisdom should have dictated, much of the reveliticnary value of women's anfranchieonmont would prcbably hayo. toon lost, Sut tho dclay, tho peliticians! broach cf faith with tha woron, 4 breach of which all parties wore cqually onlpable, the lone-cantinned struggio, the ovor-spreading wave of martyrden of tha militant woron of Grost Britain and Ireland, and the apread anonegst the active spirits cf the Labour moyonognt 1f an epprociation of the ecnuinomuoss of the wonon's longing for froodeon, as cf their ccurage for fightin for it. produced an almost incalculable offact fcr food upon the rolations betwuon tho two factions,
In Iroland thos women's cause is folt by sll Lebcur men and woron as their cans; tho Labour cause has no more oarnost and waolo-hoarted supporters than the militant wonen. Rebellion, aven in thought, produces a mental atmosphere <f its swn; the movital atmosphere tha women's reballicn preduced, oponed thoir oyos and trainad their minds to an understanding sf the offecte upon thoir sox of a secisl syaton in whioh the wosakest tist inevitebly go to the wall, and when a furthor atety of the capitalist syeten tought thom that the torm "the woakoat" moans in practice tho most sorupulous, tho contlest, tho most himano, the most loving and oompassicratc, ‘the most honourable, and tho most synpathctic, thon the militant womon could mct fail to soc, that capitalism ponslised in human boings Just as theese charactoristics of which women supposed thomselvoa te be the uost complote onbedinont,
Thus tho sproad of indysatrinlisn makes fer the awakoning of a social conscirusneag, awakes in women a fecoling of aclf-pity as the proatest sufferers urndor s*cial and pelitical injusticos; the diving wrath aroused when that solf-pity is moct with o sneer, and justica is denicd, loadsa woman te revolt, and rovelt places womon in corrnadcship amd oquelity with all tho finor souls whose life ia givon to warfaro arainst catab-lished iniguitics,
The workor is tho slave cf capitalist socicty, the fomale werkor is the sleve of that slevws. In Iroland that fomale worker has hitherto exhibited hor martyrdom, an alnoost damnabla pationec. Sho. has toiled wn the farme from hor oarliest ehildhood, attaining usually to tha age cf ripe wonanhcod withert over boing veuchsafod the right te clain as hor cwn a single penny of the mongy enrnod by her labour, and kmowing that all hor toll and privation would net carn hor thet richt to tho farn which would so without quosticn to the most worthless mombor cf tho faiily, if that monber chanced to be tha @ldest scr,
The gqughters cf tho Irish paasantry hava boon tho choapest slaves in cxistenoc - slavoa to thoir own fanily, who ware in turn, slaves te all seoinl paranites of a landlord and gcooboen-riddon cormmnity. Tho ponsart, in whom conturies of servitude and hunger had bred a fiera@ oraving for monoy, usually roperdsd his daughters ag beings sont by God to lighten his Burdon through life, and too oftan tha sane point of yiew was es fiorcaly insisted upon by the clorgyman of all deneminations, Naver did the idorn secon te onter the Irish poasant's wind or be taught by hia rolicicus ] teachars, that sach ecnoration ehould pay to ito guooossers tha dott it owes to its forcrunnmers; that thus, by spending iteolf for tha bonefit of tho children,
the human race onsurcs the prucressive dovelopment of all. The Irish poasant, in ¢o0 many cases, troated his dan,hters in mich the samo mamnor og ho rocarded a Plcuch or a spade - as toole: With which te werk the farm. Tho whclo mental cutl: ok, the ontire moral atmcephere cf tho ceuvtrydids, cifcrced this pi:t of view. IT: avory chapol, church or neoti:.c-heuse the insistence waa ever up = dutics - duties +> these iz. superi:r stations, dutics t” the Church, dutios t. tho pare-ts. Never wore tho sare if tha young pelluted (7) by any refercnce te "richte", and, crowiuc up in this atucaphero, the women in Irolaid accepted thoir prsitic:: .f accial ivferi-rity. Thot, i: spite cf thia, they have aver preven: valuable assots in cvery proeressive movonent in Ireland, is evidence of the creat yalue their co-operativn will be, when to thoir solf-socrificin; occeptancea of duty they boris: te unite ite uscossary ccunterpoise, ao hich-mindod assertion of rights. Wo aro not saponkin: hora of rights, in the thin and attenuated monning cf tha torn to Which wa hava beon arceustcmed by the Liberal and cther spokesmen of the capitnlist clase, that class te whom tho assertion °-f riczhts has ever beon the last word of Humon wisdom, We are rathor using it in tho seuse it which it is uscd by. and is familior to, tho Labowr movorort. We belicvea, with that moveme::t, that the serane performmcca cf duty, ocnbined with and insoparnable from the fearless asscertion cf rights, unite tc ooke the highest expressicn of the human acu]. Thot acul ia the grandost which ocet ungqucsticuably aequiesces in the perfcamance of duty, and ocst unflinchingly claims ite rights, coven against a world in arms. In Ircland the seul of wonanheod has beet trained for cantur: os te surrendoar its rights, ond as o cocisoquenes tho rage has lost ite chicf capacity tc withetarnd assaults from without, and domcralisaticon from within. These whe prooched t: Irish womankind fidelity to duty as the culy ideal te be striven aftcr, wore, gonsoiously or wecisclously, fashioning o slave mortality, whseh ‘tho Trish ncthors had porf<reo to trazemit to the Irish child. Tho uoilitant women who, without abandinine their fidality to duty, arc y.t teaching their sisters to assert their rights, arc re-establishing oe sano and perfect balancs that makes mere possible a woll-urdured Dish maticn. Tho systen of private capitalist proyjerty in Ircland, os in «ther ocutrics, has given birth to the law of primogundture under which the eldest aon usurps the cynorship of all preperty te th: cxolusi:in of the fomales :f the family. Hocted in a property system fuundcd upen fores, this iniguitcus law was unicicwn to the colder social systen of qncjont Erin, ond, in its actual workings cut in medcrn Erin, it has beon and is responsible for tha moral murder of ocuntlogss virtucus Irish maidens. It has mant that, in the continual diapersicn .f Irish fanmilice, tha first to co wae not tho aldest 9: n, as most capable of bearing tho burdon and heat of a strugele in a foreign country, but was rather the ymmgor and loast capable acna, or the gontlor and acfter daughters. Gontle Charlos Kickhan sang:-
0 brave, bravo Irish cirls
We woll might oall you brave: e
Sure tho least of all ycur porils
Is tho ateoruy cecan Wave. Everyone acquainted with the Ict onccuntered by Irish onigrant girls in the great citios -£ Enrland or América, the hardships they had to undercc, tho tenptaticns te which they wore subject, and tho extravrdinary proportion cf thon that
sucounbed t those tomptaticns, mst ackncwlodgo that the pcotic insight of Kickhan corroctly appreciatad the cravity cf tha perils thet awaited thom, It is huniliating to hava te reecrd that tho cverwholming majority +f those firla waro sont cut upom a ocnscicncoless world, abawlutoly destitute ¢f treining and proparatich, and relying sclely upon their physical stronvth and intolligencoa t> carry then safely through. Lawes onde by non shut them out of all hemo cf inheritanco in their native land; their male relatives oxplcited their labour and returnod then never a ponny as reward, and finally, when at last thoir lebeur eould not wring sufficiont from the meagre soil to satisfy tho oxactions cf all, thasé sirls wore incontinently packod off aerces the vooan with, as a parting blcesine, the adjuraticn t> be sura and send com menoy homo, These whe preto clibly abcut tho “sneradncsas of tho fanily circle" wuld ade oll to consider what home in Ireland today is smoarod from the influonso of tha svoody norconary apirit, born cf tho syston cf capitalist property; whet family circle is unbriken by tho emigration of its most gontle and loving onoa,
Just as tho present syston in Ireland has mado cheap slavis cr untrained unigrants of the flowor of -cur poasant women, 30 it has darkoned the livue and starved the intellect cf the female <pordtivea in mills, shops and faoctcrios, Wherovor thera ia a eroat demand for fomale labour, as in Belfast, wea find that tho wemen tonds to become the chiof support of the house. wriven cut to work at tho sarlicsat poseible aga, she reanins fcttored t> her wagu-carning - 8 slave for life. Marriage does not moan fcr her a roast from outside Jabcur, it tisunlly moana that, to the tuteside Iabcur, she has added the duty of a double dcomoatic teil, Throughout hor life sho remaing a wagu-corner; completing each day's work, sho becoms tho slave of the dotieetic needs of hor family; and when at night sho craps woaried upon hor bed, i¢ is with the knowledga that at the carlisst morn ashe met find hor woy again inte the service of the ospitslist, and at the ond of that coming day's sorvice fcr hin hasten homoward again for anothor round of dometio drudmery. Sc hor whela.life runs =a dreary pilgrinaco from one drudgory t: ancthor} the coning of children but serving es milestenos in hor jcourncy to sigmalise frash incrcases t: her burfons, Oververkod, underpaid, and scantily nourished becavec underpaid, she falls casy prey to all the diseasos that infcet the bedly-constructed "warrona -f tho poor", Hor life ie darkonod fren the cutsct by poverty, and tho drudeory to which poverty is born, and tho starvation of tho intolicct follows as an inevitable rosult uperthe too carly drudgory of the body.
Of what use to such sufferors can bo tho ro-cstablishvent of arp form .f Irish State if it doom not enbody the omancipsation cf womanhcrd, As we hava shown, the wholu spirit and practice ef modern Ireland, aa it oxprossca itself through its pastors and masters, bear socially and politically, hardly upen wenen. That spirit, and that practica head thoir origins in the ostablishmont in this country of a soeiel and political order based upon tha private ownorship of pr:party, as afninst the “lder urdor based upon the commen cwnership cf 2 ralated comminity.
Whatever class rules industrially will rule politically, and inpose upen tho eonmuinity in cenoral the! boliffs, custcms snd idena most suitable t) the perpetuatin of ita rulo. Those boliofe, customs, ideas become then the highost oxpressicn cf morality and so renain until tho ascont tc power «+f ancthor ruling indvetrial class ostablishes a now morality. In Ireland since the Conquest, the landlcrdcapitalist class has rulod; the beliofs, customs, ideas of Ireland are tho unbodinent of the eZavo morality wo inheritod fron those who accapted that rule in ona or cthor of its forms; tho subjection cf woman was an integral part of that rola.
Unless wornen were kept in subjection, and their rights denicd, there wes nc guarantee that field would be added unto field in the patrincny cf the farily, or that wealth would accumulate even although men should decay. So, down from the landlord to the tenant cr peasant proprister, fron the monopcelist te the enall business man eager to ba a nenopolist, and from all abeve te all below, filtered tha beliefs, customs, ideas establishing 2 slave morality which enforces the sub- Jection of women as the standard norality of tha country.
None so fittad to broak the chains as they wh. weer than, none so well equipped to dacide what is a fotter. In its rarch towards fraedon, the working class of Ireland must cheer on the efforts of those women whe, feeling on their aculs and bodies tha fettore of the ages, havo arisen to strike them off, and cheer all tho louder if in its hatred of thraldom and passion fcr freadon the women's arny forges ahoad of the militant army cf. Labour,
“
But whosover carries the outworke of the citadel of oppression, tha working clags alone can raze it to tho ground.
Chapter 6, at cf Iroland by James Connelly, Wow Bocks Publications, 1966. 2/6 availeble fr n Piciear Book aioli 8 sec Stroet, London El.