Mother Jones – once described as the most dangerous woman in America – is to be honored in her native Cork.
Born Mary Harris in Cork city, the achievements of labor activist Mother Jones are to be commemorated at a festival in her hometown.
The three day celebrations will mark the 175th anniversary of Mary Harris’ birth on Shandon Street on the north side of Cork city.
The trade union activist lived until the age of 93 and earned the ‘most dangerous woman in America’ tag thanks to her campaigning on behalf of workers.
Born in 1837, she emigrated to America after her family had survived the Great Famine.
The Irish Times reports that Mother Jones settled in Tennessee where she witnessed the horrors of the American civil war.
She then moved to Chicago and at the age of 60 became involved in the fledgling US labour movement.
Mother Jones was a co-founder of the Industrial Workers of the World movement known as the Wobblies.
She was active in organising union campaigns in Alabama, West Virginia, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and New York and counted the Mexican revolutionary leader Pancho Villa among her friends.
The Cork festival will feature a lecture by her biographer, Prof Elliot J Gorn, a documentary by filmmaker Rosemary Feurer, and a concert featuring famous traditional musician Andy Irvine and others.
The events will take place from July 31st to August 2nd at the Firkin Crane, St Anne’s Shandon and the Maldron Hotel.
A special memorial plaque to Mother Jones will be unveiled at John Redmond Street near Shandon.
20 Comments
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Switch to the desktop site to post a comment.Bernie62 | Oct 13, 2012, 10:05 AM EDT
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and Mary Harris must be spinning in their graves. Today's ACLU is garbage, and unions in general are corrupt. Both were extremely necessary in their day and saved countless lives. They have been distorted beyond repair, I'm afraid.
tundish45 | Jul 03, 2012, 09:40 PM EDT
@Bythebay | Jul 03, 2012, 10:11 AM EDT So a place can celebrate only those people who do great things while living their entire lives in that one spot? And anything else is false commercial grab?
tundish45 | Jul 03, 2012, 09:32 PM EDT
@edmundburke | Jul 02, 2012, 11:46 AM EDT Find out a little more about Mother Jones before you spout. If you have a job, and it is a traditional kind of job of 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, and the pay more or less is fair, and the MAN is restricted on getting into your personal life .... Mother Jones got it for you. If your job is not like that, then you still need Mother Jones. Dude.
ProudCanadian | Jul 03, 2012, 04:26 PM EDT
Bythebay you are absolutely correct. The Ameicans don't do anything unless they can prosper. As long as it is American you could put anything up. If not look out, you are in trouble. They will take over your town and country.
eiriamach | Jul 03, 2012, 03:23 PM EDT
I certainly agree, McNamara31. We need a thousand of Mary Harris to turn us around from the "wealth rules" mentality. But do you think there's still time to save the unions?
McNamara31 | Jul 03, 2012, 02:50 PM EDT
The world, especially America, needs another Mary Harris. As worker's pensions funds and medical benefit's are eliminated across America, by corporations who are seeing enormous profits, the ideal of the American Dream is being replaced by a "corporate plantation" mentality. Corporate America has thrown us into a near depression, bought our politicians, and snuffed our political voice under the hundred of millions rolling through Citizens United.They use their own prop machine (Fox) to delude and confuse; setting citizen against citizen, all the while they are pulling the rug out from under America's feet turning everyone into someone one step above a day worker. Our kids graduate with bundles of debt, because while everything else has gone down in value: homes, college funds, 401k's college tuition is at an all time high. And best of all; who is corporate America backing to do their bidding the Gordon Gekko of investment banking, Mitt Romney and the biggest joke is they have convinced half of America the "other"guy is the bad guy.
phearne | Jul 03, 2012, 02:40 PM EDT
She was a distant relation of our family,but I know very little about her.One of her relatives became a well known poet.Her name was Etta Caldwell Harris.She was my mother's great aunt I believe.I have one of her books of poetry,and a hand written letter written by Mrs Harris's daughter,Virginia Ruth Harris Burchfield sent to my mother.Enclosed is a lithograph print of the Harris and Caldwell Coat of Arms.Copies of her nomination as Poet Laureate of Arkansas and several copies of her awards of excellence and honors bestowed upon her.My mother entrusted these cherished family mementos to me and I am very proud of my Irish,English,Choctaw ancestors and their accomplishments,especially Etta Caldwell Harris.Some of my ancestors were very well known in Ireland and America but not for such lofty accomplishments. They were better known for their drinking prowess,questionable activities and hot tempers. Pamala Denice Hearne,Caldwell.
moorehall | Jul 03, 2012, 10:59 AM EDT
By The Bay Irish overseers were given their orders by those absentee English landlords.
Bythebay | Jul 03, 2012, 10:11 AM EDT
tundish45, no way. You Yanks can do that. She didn't do anything in Ireland but leave.
tundish45 | Jul 03, 2012, 12:18 AM EDT
You can visit her grave just outside Mt Olive, Illinois, USA at the United Mine Workers Cemetary. Which is about 90 miles South West of Chicago a few yards off the old two-lane Route 66 on land bought by the union when a nearby coal mining town refused burial to its own sons, striking miners killed by some kind of Pinkertons. In addition to a noble monument there is a standard, current, functioning union bulletin board with the usual glass door. Which side are you on? Which side are you on?
EphraimKibbey | Jul 02, 2012, 11:58 PM EDT
A very large THANK YOU to Mother Jones and all the others who have shown the oppressed how to fight their oppressors. Sadly, here in America, much of what was won in the first half of the last century at the cost of many lives has been lost over the second half and continues to be under the threat of extinction.
Bythebay | Jul 02, 2012, 04:23 PM EDT
ProudCanadian, no doubt this is being orchestrated on the US side since they seem to be needy for attention in Ireland just like they're orchestrating July 4th in New Ross. It's only Irish orchestrated events which enfuriate them.
Bythebay | Jul 02, 2012, 04:21 PM EDT
pilib04, most of your so called Brit landlords were very part-time and actually had local Irish as their overseers. It's the Irish overseers who more often had substantial differences with their Irish tenants. So get the facts of the story before you parrot blame.
ProudCanadian | Jul 02, 2012, 03:43 PM EDT
I wonder if the Americans will try to block this the way they are trying to block the Statue for Che in Galway.
merefalow | Jul 02, 2012, 02:29 PM EDT
only dangerous to exploiters and opressors,just like Che.good girl.
crowsnest | Jul 02, 2012, 12:18 PM EDT
P.S. There should be quote marks after the word fun .
crowsnest | Jul 02, 2012, 12:15 PM EDT
" "smart, fearless journalism" keeps people informed—"informed" being pretty much indispensable to a democracy that actually works. Because we've been ahead of the curve time and again. Because this is journalism not funded by or beholden to corporations. Because we bust bullshit and get results. Because we're expanding our investigative coverage while the rest of the media are contracting. Because you can count on us to take no prisoners, cleave to no dogma, and tell it like it is. Plus we're pretty damn fun. MOTHER JONES magazine has been published In the USA for many many years .
edmundburke | Jul 02, 2012, 11:46 AM EDT
I think they should move the proposed Galway Che Guevara to the Mother Jones memorial in Cork. Birds of a feather should be flocked together. Reserve space nearby for the future Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness memorials.
pilib04 | Jul 02, 2012, 11:10 AM EDT
Mother Jones got her moniker of most dangerous woman in America from her activities as a United Mine Worker organizer. However, J. Edgar Hoover reserved that moniker for Emma Goldman, the workers rights, free love advocate, peace advocate, anarchist and feminist leader. Sadly, we can't claim Emma, She was not of Irish descent, but from Kovno Russia. But one other "dangerous woman" that we Irish can claim is Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. She was also an IWW activist and was a founder of the American Civil Liberties Union. Flynn's Irish ancestors fought alongside the French beginning in Killala Mayo in 1798. However, she is called the Rebel Girl because of her own actions in the USA and not because of her Mayo ancestors. Her father Tom Flynn had to go on the run to America due to a difference of opinion with a Brit landlord. That was quite common in Mayo in the late 1800's.
eiriamach | Jul 02, 2012, 08:10 AM EDT
Cork made a great choice to celebrate the life of Mother Jones. She had a clear vision of the world she lived in and of a better, fairer future. "I asked a man in prison once how he happened to be there," she wrote. "He said he had stolen a pair of shoes. I told him if he had stolen a railroad he would be a United States Senator."