Labor Day is an 'Irish' Holiday too - the national day commemorating America’s workers was an Irishman

I have long studied the work of Mother Mary Jones, but the article has made an error...Kensington is a neighborhood located within Philadelphia, Pennsylvania--it is NOT Kensington, Pennsylvania. The children she marched with were many of the injured and sick from the dangerous conditions under which they were forced to work. Her constant ability to be among the dis-enfranchised workers all across America is a testament to right over might.

Nicomax, you hit the nail on the head yes, they sure did "build that". It wasn't easy yet they did it.

A hearty 'go raibh maith agat' to Patricia for hhis very fine article. In addition to Peter McGuire, Mother Jones, Qiull and Sweeney, Matthew Guinan and John Law should also be added to the list of those who led the Labor movement in the U.S., these two gentlemen also having served as Presidents of the N.Y.C.s T.W.U. I'm also reminded of Mickey May and his brother Johnny who respectively led the N.Y.C. Firefighters'Union and the Transi Police P.B.A. in the 1970s.

Everything's 'Irish' when its convenient for Ireland.

This is truly what Irish was about; a common empathy for your fellow man, and a sense of justice that a good days work deserves a good days pay. When the immigrants arrived in America they were treated as sub humans and only by organizing labor did they ever achieve the American Dream. However today, many third and fourth generation Irish Americans have forgotten that, or never knew it in the first place.So strong was the respect for labor and unions that even Cardinal O'Connor of New York supported unions time and time again.O'Connor was a passionate defender of organized labor and advocated for the poor and the homeless. Early in his tenure, O'Connor set a pro-labor direction for the Archdiocese. During a strike in 1984 by 1199, the largest health care workers union in New York, O'Connor strongly criticized the League of Voluntary Hospitals, of which the Archdiocese was a member, for threatening to fire striking union members who refused to return to work, calling it "strikebreaking" and vowing that no Catholic hospital would do so.

Wonder if there be a statue to the memory this famous and brave Ms Harris of County Cork.

Mother Jones, the McGuire brothers, and others like them can also have proudly said, "We built that."

Like Reagan taking credit for Lech Walesa and John Paul II bringing down the Berlin Wall. The Suffrage for the Rights of the Working Class, is as old ( If indeed, not older. ) as Plymouth Rock, itself. Early Colonial questions of Land Distribution, The Collection of Debt, and Indenturement, that ultimately led to the Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights; Also provided the Basis for the French Rights of Man, and the German Workers Revolution of 1848. It is hard to Imagine what present day Organized Labor would look like, without the benefit of Marx/Engels, the Russian Revolution, or even F.D.R.`s New Deal. Consider Ireland. Emerging from her own Independence alongside, Democrats ( Fianna Fail ), Republicans, ( Fine Gael ) Revolutionary Militancy, ( Sinn Fein ) Socialism, and Communism; Organized Labor is too often, given leadership credit for Political Action and Issue, that is well beyond the scope of her wealous and self centered addenda. Organized Labor, as Bourgeois Proletariat, has no real interest in “ Stand with the People “ reactionary-ism like Occupy Wall Street, the EU austerity crisis, or the Arab Spring. I. think Alexander Hamilton said it best: "... whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitution on accident and force. " Ask not what Society can do for Labor-ask what Labor can do for Society.

I have fond memories as a lad seeing Mike Quill on New York City TV during the transit workers strike. My was he Irish. I am proud of my time as President of a local of a union that represents Federal government employees here in the USA.

Again, poor sub-editing. James Connolly, not Connelly.

jackinnj-I respect your right to quote your religion,however does it really belong in social commentary like this?

Always a good day to re-read the great papal encyclical "Rerum Novarum" on this day. It gave moral legitimacy to the labor movement.