The 2011 Jim Connell Festival, Crossakiel
Festival Events - Music
Friday 29th April
KING & I - McCabes
Saturday 30th April
Seamie Nally - McCabes
Sunday 1st May
COSCAN Traditional Irish Band with The Farrelly Brothers & Noel O'Neill and Rough Deal - McCabes
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The Man Who Wrote 'The Red Flag'
Jim Connell was born in Kilskyre in County Meath in 1852. As a teenager, he became involved in land agitation and joined the Irish Republican Brotherhood. At 18 he moved to Dublin, where he worked as a casual docker, but was blacklisted for his attempts to unionise the docks. Failing to find any other work, he left for London in 1875, where he spent most of the rest of his life. He worked at a variety of jobs. He was a staff journalist on Keir Hardie's newspaper "The Labour Leader" and was secretary of the Workingmen's Legal Aid Society during the last 20 years of his life. He wrote "The Red Flag" in 1889 on the train from Charing Cross to New Cross after attending a lecture on socialism at a meeting of the Social Democratic Federation. It was inspired by the London dock strike happening at that time, as well as activities of the Irish Land League, the Paris Commune.. Read More >>
