James Connolly

"Germany has shown a lesson to the world in this respect. That country had the best educated working class in the world, the greatest number of labour papers, daily, weekly, and monthly, the greatest number of parliamentary and local representatives elected on a working class platform, the greatest number of Socialist votes in proportion to the entire population. All this was an index to the high level of intelligence of the German working class, as well as to their strong political and industrial position. This again was an infallible index to the high civilisation of the whole German nation. Germany had builded well upon the sure foundation of an educated self-respecting people. Upon such a foundation Germany laid her progress in peace, and her success in war.

Let Ireland learn this lesson. The labour fights the public hears of in Ireland are not signs of mere restlessness – they are the throbbing of the hearts of the worker aspiring after a civilisation that shall make the Irish nation of our time a worthy representative of the free Ireland of the past." Forces of Civilisation (Workers’ Republic, 8 April 1916)

Ireland is in the throes of a new invasion. But whereas all other invasions have been invasions of fighting men, this last invasion is an invasion of men who have declined to fight.

Since the passing of the military service law and its coming into force in England this country has been flooded daily with fresh hordes of English and Scotch, who have run away from military service in their own country and settled down like a swarm of locusts upon Ireland.

Here in Ireland we have another kind of dilution of labour. Everywhere since the conscription act was first mooted there has been a rush of Englishmen and Scotsmen to Ireland to escape the military net. These Englishmen and Scotsmen – let us call them Brit-Huns for short – are appearing as if by magic in every sort of job hitherto held by Irishmen. There is not a week and scarcely a day, that goes by without some unfortunate Irishmen being told by his employer that the firm is going to reduce its staff, and that his services are therefore no longer required. He goes, and in a day or two a Brit-Hun appears in his place ... all up and down the city the loyal capitalists are weeding out Irishmen and slyly substituting English and Scots – Brit-Huns – in their places. The Irish are wanted to fight the battles of the tottering British Empire – to set the ‘glorious example’ of dying for the Empire that denies their country the merest shadow of national freedom – and as the Irish will not go willingly they must be starved into going ... It is a new plantation, this time with the blessing and connivance of the Parliamentary leaders of the Irish race at home and abroad. And as the Brit-Huns come in the Irish boys march out in khaki, puzzled, misled, betrayed, the wonder of the world for stupidity, and the despair of their country ... It is the product of crime and folly – of British crime and Irish folly.

Perhaps after he has been here as many years as he has been days he will begin to understand that the instinct of the slave to take sides with whoever is the enemy of his own particular slave-driver is a healthy instinct, and makes for freedom. That every Socialist who knows what he is talking about must be in favour of freedom of the seas, must desire that private property shall be immune from capture at sea during war, must realise that as long as any one nation dominates the water highways of the world neither peace nor free industrial development is possible for the world. If the capitalists of other nations desire the freedom of the seas for selfish reasons of their own that does not affect the matter. Every Socialist anxiously awaits and prays for that full development of the capitalist system which can alone make Socialism possible, but can only come into being by virtue of the efforts of the capitalists inspired by selfish reasons.

The German Empire is a homogeneous Empire of self-governing peoples; the British Empire is a heterogeneous collection in which a very small number of self-governing communities connive at the subjugation, by force, of a vast number of despotically ruled subject populations.

We do not wish to be ruled by either empire, but we certainly believe that the first named contains in germ more of the possibilities of freedom and civilisation than the latter.

Therefore on Sunday, 16 April 1916 the green flag of Ireland will be solemnly hoisted over Liberty Hall as the symbol of our faith in freedom, and as a token to all the world that the working class of Dublin stands for the cause of Ireland, and the cause of Ireland is the cause of a separate and distinct nationality.

In these days of doubt, despair, and resurgent hope we fling our banner to the breeze, the flag of our fathers, the symbol of our national redemption, the sunburst shining over an Ireland re-born