THEY may be more than 100 years old but the writings of one of the leading figures in Ireland’s fight for national liberation still have important lessons for the Scottish independence movement.
That’s the view of historian Conor McCabe who has unearthed long forgotten articles and letters by James Connolly which he has published for the first time.
Many of them were written in Edinburgh where Connolly was born and brought up and his often overlooked Scottish background was pivotal to the development of his ideas, according to McCabe.
Today Connolly’s views on breaking with Britain have particular relevance for those working towards Scottish independence, McCabe told the Sunday National.
“He makes the point that political independence is not enough as what you need is to break particular types of economic links with Britain,” he said. “For example, you would have to have your own currency because currencies are not neutral, they are instruments of empire. If you have monetary policy being set by the Bank of England then you are going to be in a form of permanent semi-austerity going forward.”
Ireland did not break with sterling until 1979 and McCabe’s research shows that any time there was economic growth in Ireland, the Bank of England stepped in saying it would be inflationary so public spending would have to be cut.
“One of the reasons Ireland went for foreign direct investment in the 1950s was because it was a workaround,” said McCabe. “That got a lot of good press in Ireland but actually it has been quite problematic because you are constantly running on a treadmill chasing foreign capital with sweeteners like tax breaks.
“Foreign investment is a sugar rush you are constantly chasing and you are in competition to cut labour standards and workers’ rights. It does not play out well and if Scotland did not have its own currency it would be even worse.”
McCabe said Connolly’s analysis was that Britain is an imperial project which affects even the so-called “core”.
“It played out in Ireland with resources being extracted and it seems to be playing out in Scotland as well.”
Born in Cowgate in 1868 to poor Irish immigrants, Connolly had to leave school at the age of 10 to help support the family. In his youth, he joined the Scottish Socialist Federation which backed Keir Hardie and his Independent Labour Party. Despite having left school so early, Connolly became well-read and was highly literate, authoring many articles as well as lecturing on socialist ideas.
Many of his early articles and letters were written in Edinburgh and McCabe believes it is Connolly’s exposure to the activism and radical ideas percolating in Scotland that made him such an exceptional leader in the Irish independence movement.
“I don’t think we would have Connolly if he had been born and raised in Ireland,” he said. “He would have been a radical but a very different one as he would not have had access to the socialist meetings and people he met in Edinburgh. It had a more radical and socialist movement at the time than Ireland.
“What I think is fascinating is that you can see in his writings that the ideas he brings over to Ireland have been formulated in Edinburgh.
“He was very much a child of the radical centres in Edinburgh and is feeding off that much wider and longer radical history in Scotland. I see him as part of Edinburgh and Scotland’s long and proud history of radical thinking.”
Connolly moved to Ireland in 1896 where he formed the Irish Socialist Republican Party, the country’s first socialist party. As well as calling for political independence, it also called for independence from British “capitalists, landlords and financiers”.
“He doesn’t see nationalism in some sort of vague romantic way – he sees it as part of an anti-imperialist movement,” said McCabe.
Connolly’s political views are sometimes seen as a reaction to what was happening in Ireland but McCabe said the articles and letters he uncovered show that Edinburgh was central to the formulation of his beliefs.
McCabe said he took on the mammoth task of compiling Connolly’s writings because – almost unbelievably – it has never been done before, despite his significant role in Irish history.
“I would say he is the most quoted and least read figure in Irish history and I am trying to fix that,” said McCabe. “Until now, there has been no complete copy of Connolly’s writings out there and his early writings are the most neglected.”
In the course of compiling this book, McCabe came across 18 new pieces of writing by Connolly which were previously unknown. On top of that, there were another 19 articles which were known about but hadn’t been republished in over 100 years and even when they were republished, they were severely edited.
“Part of the legacy of Connolly is that due to the manner of his death in the 1916 rising in Dublin, he enters into the cannon as a martyr so his writings, to be quite blunt about it, are used mainly to score points against various factions,” said McCabe.
“What I wanted to do was print his words as he wrote them so it is the first time – which is incredible really – that this has been done.”
This book is the first in a series of what is hoped to be a five-volume set and covers Connolly’s Scottish and Edinburgh period.
Said McCabe: “He is quite funny, caustic and witty and I am hoping this will tie into the very interesting dynamic going on in Edinburgh in the 1890s as Connolly is in the thick of it as a socialist radical.”
The Lost And Early Writings Of James Connolly, 1889-1898 edited and introduced by Conor McCabe is available from Lighthouse Books in Edinburgh and Calton Books in Glasgow as well as online bookseller markets.
