Herosongs 4 : Where History Meets Song Episode Four

Episode 4 - Broadcast on August 4th at 7pm on RTÉ Radio 1.

It is a century since these events occurred and our three sung heroes in this episode Jim Larkin, James Connolly and Roger Casement are at the heart of contemporary history and politics. But what of the songs they inspired both at this time and since? In this episode of Herosongs presenter Therese McIntyre, explores the lives and legacies of these three men and the songs written about them. We hear from UCD professor Diarmaid Ferriter, author of ‘Lockout 1913’ Padraig Yeates, tour guide and author of ‘James Connolly: Sixteen Lives’ Lorcan Collins and James Connolly’s great grandson James Connolly Heron. Fergus Russell, of the Góilín traditional singers club gives his opinion on why he likes one particular song about Connolly written by Paddy Galvin; “So I sing the song and it would be one of the songs that I most enjoy singing, and am inspired most when I sing it because, Connolly is my hero” and singer Frances Black shares the Black family’s version of the song.

We also hear from labour historian and traditional singer Francis Devine about the song ‘The Ballad of Jim Larkin’ while the singer and member of the Young Wolfe Tones, Derek Warfield tells us the story of how he added an extra verse to the song about Roger Casement ‘The Lonely Banna Strand’ in 1965.

Full Transcript Below

00:00 Intro; Music: ‘Lonely Banna Strand’ sung by Sarah Conway. Seaside sounds underneath. Boat oars lapping, birds calling. 01:00 Thérèse McIntyre; ‘The Lonely Banna Strand’, sung there by Sarah Conway vividly narrates the failed landing of guns to support the 1916 republicans and the capture and execution of Roger Casement. I’m Thérèse McIntyre and in this week’s episode of Hero Songs, I’m exploring ballads of protest in 1913 and those of the Rising in 1916, songs of Casement, James Connolly and Lockout Leader, Jim Larkin, Hero songs like this one ‘James Connolly,’ sung here by the Black family. 01:27 Music: ‘James Connolly’ sung by The Black Family 01:58 Thérèse McIntyre; and The Ballad of Jim Larkin, the leader of the workers during the Lockout of 1913 02:02 Music: ‘The Ballad of Jim Larkin’ sung by Francis Devine 02:29 Thérèse McIntyre; Francis Devine singing The Ballad of Jim Larkin, written by Donagh McDonagh in 1963 for the 50th anniversary of the Lockout. Now folk music has long had a global connection with the worker’s struggle and there was an outpouring of ballads written during the emerging trade union and labour movement in Ireland. James Connolly, who was effectively Larkin’s assistant during the Lockout, wrote songs himself. We went to Liberty Hall in Dublin to ask Labour historian and singer, Francis Devine why songs became so important during this time. 03:00 Francis Devine; I think songs were popular at the time because of the absence of what we would have experienced today, television radio, etc. an awful lot of entertainment took place either in the homes or the street or in courtyards and people sang and it’s pretty obvious from attendances at things like music hall and so on that songs were very popular, in the case of the labour movement, there was a tradition, I think which predates 1913 of people singing songs often to music hall tunes or traditional airs, sometimes 03:30 Francis Devine; this was the great strength of the Irish worker, they would diminish the status of the good and the great by parody or lampooning or by poking fun. The ballads, the songs, the poems, the squibs in the Irish worker which incidentally was read by a hundred thousand people a month, twenty thousand a week and at the top of the Irish worker, it would often encourage readers when you’ve read it pass it on so readership was very significant, there were problems with literacy in some quarters so you can imagine 04:00 Francis Devine; particularly the poems and the songs, that they would have been performed in tenements and in pubs and so on and that appears to be the case, for example at the end of the Wexford lockout in January or February 1912, Connolly wrote We are Freedom’s Pioneers to the tune of We are the Boys from Wexford, 04:18 Music: ‘Freedom’s Prioneers’ sung by Michael Gallen 04:26 Francis Devine; and it was sung the night the dispute ended in victory for the workers and within weeks was in sheet music terms, in today’s parlance, a number one hit and was sung around the city. He also wrote The Watchword of Labour, the music of which was provided by Seamus Hughes, JJ Hughes, later a director of Radio Eireann, 04:47 Music: ‘The Watchword of Labour’ sung by Michael Gallen 04:52 Francis Devine; and that became again an anthem that was sung and remains the anthem of the Irish Transport and General Worker’s Union stroke SIPTU so songs and poetry and even the text of plays that appeared in the Irish worker were obviously you know, sung around the city and there’s evidence around the time of Larkin of squibs being sung by kids, skipping rhymes or as taunts to scabs or as taunts to police 05:15 Music: ‘The Watchword of Labour’ sung by Michael Gallen 05:35 Thérèse McIntyre; Francis Devine there on the power of songs to galvanise and singer Michael Gallen there performing James Connolly’s Freedom’s Pioneers and The Watchword of Labour. Jim Larkin, a Liverpool man, gained his reputation as a trade union leader during the Belfast strike of 1907 and established the Irish Transport and General Worker’s Union, James Connolly, a Scottish born socialist, was his aide de camp in the events leading up to the 1913 Lockout, when Dublin employers, led by William Martin Murphy, take on the union 06:05 Music: ‘The Watchword of Labour’ sung by Michael Gallen 06:16 Thérèse McIntyre; Padraig Yeates is an author and expert on the period. 06:20 Padraig Yeates; This is one when it was really workers on one side and employers on the other and if Jim Larkin’s great achievement was to unite workers in the belief that they could achieve better conditions, William Martin Murphy’s achievement was to unite employers, Catholic and Protestant that they could beat the other side so it was to some extent a battle of personalities but they very much personified those camps of labour and capital, Larkin was Liverpool Irish, his parents were children of a diaspora, they were from County Armagh, they met on the immigrant boat to Liverpool 06:50 Padraig Yeates; they stayed in Liverpool, he left school at fourteen, which was a normal age at that time, he worked in various jobs, he became a socialist very early in life, as early as school really so when he came out of prison, he decides to set up his own union; the Transport Union in 1909 and the core of that union became Dublin and the battle there was to get decent pay and conditions for members who were unskilled workers, Dublin had more unskilled workers than any other city on these Islands, over a quarter of all adult males over the age of 07:20 Padraig Yeates; fourteen were unskilled workers, they were dockers, building labourers, messengers, carters, various other unskilled jobs 07:25 Music: ‘James Connolly’ sung by Fergus Russell 07:36 Padraig Yeates; well, that’s one of the ironies of Irish history, that the two founding fathers were both actually born in Britain, Connolly born in Edinburgh, there are mysteries of Connolly’s early life, his time in the British Army, he never spoke about it, whatever the experience was, it engendered a very bitter hatred of everything the British Army stood for and very unusually he was again mixed marriage, he married Lily Reynolds who was Wicklow, she was a poor Protestant working as a domestic servant when he was stationed in Dublin, he was a member of the Liverpool regiment which was a sort of a Irish regiment or people of Irish descent tended to join it but for some reason he 08:11 Padraig Yeates; was nearly at the end of his service and he left, he deserted to marry her. 08:17 Music: ‘James Connolly’ sung by Fergus Russell 08:28 Padhraig Yeats; They didn’t work well together, they often rowed with each other even though they shared the same political objectives, they were very different, Connolly was a brilliant polemicist, writer, propagandist, he was a very fine speaker, not as good as Larkin but Larkin would talk rubbish and the crowd would still be swayed, Larkin’s primary skill as an orator was to connect psychologically with a crowd, he was like Adolf Hitler if you like, it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it. 08:56 Extract from Stumpet City: Jim Larkin (Peter O’Toole); Ask them for your rights and they’ll see you go jobless first and your children starve, they did it to those men and tomorrow if you let them, they’ll do it to you! 09:10 Padraig Yeates; and he had this amazing capacity, my father would have heard Larking speak and it’s just this huge voice, like an opera singer, a powerful voice that could project over a crowd, someone who listened to him compared him to Chaliapin, the great Russian bass singer, that sort of powerful voice. 09:26 Extract from Stumpet City: Jim Larkin (Peter O’Toole); They know I’m here to ask you to do something that’s greater than their power 09:33 Music: ‘The Ballad of Jim Larkin/In Dublin City in 1913’ sung by Fergus Russell 09:47 Thérèse McIntyre; Peter O’Toole as the voice of Jim Larkin in Strumpet City, the TV drama from Jim Plunkett’s book and Padraig Yeates on the background to the event. You’re listening to Francis Devine and The Ballad of Jim Larkin, it’s perhaps the best known of the many Larking ballads and was composed by Donagh McDonagh, the son of executed 1916 leader, Tomás McDonagh. McDonagh was asked by the Irish congress of Trade Unions to write something for the 50th anniversary and the play ‘Let Freedom Ring’ was born with a few verses in it 10:17 Music: ‘The Ballad of Jim Larkin/In Dublin City in 1913’ sung by Francis Devine 10:33 Thérèse McIntyre; Here’s Francis Devine on the song which links the events of 1913 and 1916. 10:41 Francis Devine; and when I sing that song today, I am much more conscious of having some sort of connection back to the men, women and children of 1913, the tenement dwellers as well as the slum dwellers and the sheer physical, moral courage that they demonstrated against huge odds so I think for a lot of Dubliners in particular, singing that song today, you’re connecting back through the generations and that’s a magnificent tribute to the writer of the song, I think when people sing it or hear it sung, they feel good afterwards, what is the purpose of a hero ballad from a class point of view 11:11 Francis Devine; it is to make people better, to feel energised, to believe in struggle and in that sense politically, it’s a magnificent song, as a socialist and as an organiser, this song takes some beating 11:23 Music: ‘The Ballad of Jim Larkin/In Dublin City in 1913’ sung by Francis Devine 11:41 Francis Devine; This is a hero ballad written after the man has died, the second thing about this ballad is it does link 1913 into 1916. 11:48 Music: ‘The Ballad of Jim Larkin/In Dublin City in 1913’ sung by Francis Devine 11:56 Thérèse McIntyre; So while the McDonagh ballad is about Larkin and the Lockout, it’s climax is the execution of the 1916 leaders, including Connolly at Kilmainham Gaol. 12:07 Music: ‘James Connolly’ sung by Patrick Galvin 12:11 Thérèse McIntyre; Both the Ballad of Jim Larkin and the song ‘Where, O Where is our James Connolly?’ were written long after the events and imposed a direct link between 1913 and 1916 that historians often challenge. The Connolly song is from the 1950s and is by Patrick Galvin and we’re listening now to Galvin himself, singing it in New York in 1981. 12:32 Music: ‘James Connolly’ sung by Patrick Galvin 12:39 Music: ‘James Connolly’ sung by The Black Family 12:43 Thérèse McIntyre; and then to the Black Family version with Mary and Francis Black on vocals 12:49 Music: ‘James Connolly’ sung by The Black Family 13:06 Thérèse McIntyre; I asked Frances Black to show me her memories of that recording. 13:11 Frances Black; Something very magical happened when we recorded that song and something still magically happens when we sing it as a family, the voices of the lads on it when they come in and sing on the harmony, you can really hear the passion in it, I suppose that’s the only way I can describe it and we all love singing it and it brings back James Connolly, his memory, it brings back his memory every time we sing it and it’s something that I feel very passionate about, it’s very important that we keep his memory alive. 13:41 Frances Black; I mean, I think it was James Connolly who was in the wheelchair when they did shoot him, I think that for me, again going back to when I was 11 or 12 going to Kilmainham Gaol with the school just as a tour and i remember them talking about that and talking about James Connolly being brought out in his wheelchair, he had already been shot and they shot him in his wheelchair, I mean how awful was that. 14:06 Music: ‘James Connolly’ sung by The Black Family 14:18 Frances Black; I suppose when you think of the words of the song and the grief and the pining for this man who really wanted to help us, our people back in 1913 to 1916, the very first line which is ‘Where o where is our James Connolly/ Where o where is that gallant man,’ and what a gallant man he was and he’s gone to organise the union but the bit I love is ‘Then who/then who will lead the van/ then who then who will lead the van/ who but our hero James Connolly/ hero of the working man,’ I love that verse. 14:47 Music: ‘James Connolly’ sung by The Black Family 15:15 Thérèse McIntyre; The Black Family with the ballad ‘James Connolly’ 15:21 Music: ‘We only want the Earth’ sung by Michael Gallen 15:35 Thérèse McIntyre; We’re listening now to Michael Gallen singing one of Connolly’s own songs, ‘We only want the Earth’ 15:42 Music: ‘We only want the Earth’ sung by Michael Gallen 15:49 Thérèse McIntyre; but if the more recent ballads frame the worker’s struggle in the lockout as a precursor to the 1916 rising, it’s not a link that historian Diarmaid Ferriter agrees with 15:58 Diarmaid Ferriter; There is not I think, it’s fair to say, a direct link between the lockout of 1913 and the rising of 1916, that would be a misreading of history, there’s nothing to suggest in 1913 or at the end of the lockout that this is going to lead logically onto the 1916 rising, what you have at the end of the lockout is a degree of hurt, of disillusionment, of despair about what the future will hold for those who are advocating a worker’s republic but what you also 16:28 Diarmaid Ferriter; have is the creation of the Irish citizen’s army but the transition from that to supporting the rising of 1916 is one that’s intriguing and one that would have come as a surprise to some of James Conn...