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Origins: James Connolly as sang by Mary Black

22 Mar 15 - 11:30 AM (#3695939)
Subject: Origins: James Connelly as sung by Mary Black
From: GUEST,Bearheart

Looking for information on who wrote this song. Anyone know anything?


22 Mar 15 - 11:57 AM (#3695946)
Subject: RE: Origins: James Connelly as sung by Mary Black
From: GUEST,Peter Laban

I believe it's the same one sung by Christy Moore (where oh where is out James Connolly..). Written by Paddy Galvin from Cork, poet, socialist and writer.


22 Mar 15 - 11:59 AM (#3695948)
Subject: ADD: James Connolly (Patrick Galvin)
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick

I'm not familiar with the Mary Black recording. However, there are at least two songs bearing that title. (BTW, note that it's spelt Connolly, not Connelly.) The one you may be thinking of was written by the poet Patrick Galvin, about 1956, I think. It goes.

JAMES CONNOLLY
(Patrick Galvin)

Where oh where is our James Connolly ?
Where oh where is that gallant man ?
He is gone to organise the union
That working men they may yet be free.

Oh who then who will lead the van ?
Oh who then who will lead the van ?
Who but our James Connolly
The hero of the working man.

Who will carry high the burning flag ?
Who will carry high the burning flag ?
Who but our James Connolly
Could carry high the burning flag.

They carried him up to the jail
They carried him up to the jail
And they shot him down on a bright May morning
And quickly laid him in his grave.

Who mourns the death of this great man ?
Who mourns the death of this great man ?
Oh bury me down in yon green garden
With union men on every side.

So they buried him down in yon green garden
With union men on every side
They swore they would form a mighty union
That James Connolly's name might be filled with pride.

Where oh where is our James Connolly ?
Where oh where is that gallant man ?
He is gone to organise the Union
That working men they may yet be free.

The other one, which is perhaps even better known goes

A great crowd had gathered outside of Kilmainham
With their heads uncovered they knelt on the ground
For inside that grim prison lay a brave Irish soldier
His life for his country about to lay down.

He went to his death like a true son of Ireland
The firing party he bravely did face
Then the order rang out: "Present Arms, Fire!"
James Connolly fell into a ready-made grave.

The black flag was hoisted the cruel deed was over
Gone was the man who loved Ireland so well
There was many a sad heart in Dublin that morning
When they murdered James Connolly, the Irish Rebel!

God's curse on you, England, you cruel-hearted monster
Your deeds they would shame all the devils in hell
There are no flowers blooming but the shamrock is growing
On the grave of James Connolly, the Irish Rebel!

Many years have rolled by since that Irish rebellion
When the guns of Britannia they loudly did speak
The bold I.R.A. they stood shoulder to shoulder
And the blood from their bodies flowed down Sackville Street.

The Four Courts of Dublin the English bombarded
The spirit of Freedom they tried hard to quell
For above all the din rose the cry "No Surrender,"
'Twas the voice of James Connolly, the Irish Rebel.

I've no idea who wrote it or when, although it sounds to me a lot closer in time to the actual event. Incidentally, its tune is that which is normally associated with the Scots song Dark Lochnagar. Which is rather fitting in view of the fact that Connolly was actually born in Edinburgh.


22 Mar 15 - 11:59 AM (#3695949)
Subject: RE: Origins: James Connelly as sung by Mary Black
From: GUEST,#

No offence, but spell it Connolly. That will help with searches (if spelling means anything with Google).


22 Mar 15 - 01:37 PM (#3695964)
Subject: RE: Origins: James Connelly as sung by Mary Black
From: Reinhard

According to Mary Black's website, her James Connolly has Paddy Galvin's verses, even though it is declared as trad. arr. The Black Family.

By the way, James Connolly has a Roud number - 12495 - too, so it may well be on the way to traditional...


23 Mar 15 - 02:52 AM (#3696076)
Subject: RE: Origins: James Connelly as sung by Mary Black
From: Thompson

And if you'd like to read some of what James Connolly wrote. including his pamphlet The Reconquest of Ireland.


23 Mar 15 - 06:09 AM (#3696109)
Subject: RE: Origins: James Connelly as sung by Mary Black
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick

12495 refers to the song by Patrick Galvin. Roud quotes two sources, one being Irish Songs of Resistance, where for some reason, Galvin doesn't acknowledge his own authorship. Given the lack of any evidence to the contrary, Steve probably assumed it was a traditional song and therefore catalogued it, along with all the other songs in the book.

The other source is a cassette which Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann published under the title Traditional Songs & Singers. There it is performed by Liam Weldon. Let's not go down the road of what constitutes a traditional singer, but I would have described Weldon as a revivalist singer and songwriter. In any event, Steve was probably misled by the title, and by the inclusion of people like Elizabeth Cronin, Paddy Tunney and Geordie Hanna into thinking that the contents were precisely what it said on the label.


23 Mar 15 - 08:38 AM (#3696127)
Subject: RE: Origins: James Connolly as sung by Mary Black
From: GUEST,Ewan McVicar

Second verse missing above.
Where oh where is the Citizens Army?
Where oh where are those fighting men?
They have gone to join the great rebellion
To smash the bonds of slavery.


23 Mar 15 - 10:16 AM (#3696152)
Subject: RE: Origins: James Connelly as sung by Mary Black
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick

Ewan, you're quite right. I copied the text from the Internet without noticing that said verse had been omitted.


23 Mar 15 - 01:12 PM (#3696204)
Subject: RE: Origins: James Connelly as sung by Mary Black
From: The Sandman

IRELAND NEEDS JAMES CONNOLY NOW,NOT PLONKERS LIKE ENDA FECKIN KENNY


24 Mar 15 - 06:18 AM (#3696339)
Subject: RE: Origins: James Connelly as sung by Mary Black
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick

They could use someone who knows how to switch from upper case to lower case as well, and someone who could at least spell Connolly's name correctly.


25 Mar 15 - 03:51 AM (#3696621)
Subject: RE: Origins: James Connelly as sung by Mary Black
From: Thompson

Spelling James Connolly's name properly is less important than understanding his principles and his actions properly surely? But yes, it would be useful for future searches if the name was spelled correctly in the thread title.
A couple of corrections, for those who don't know about Ireland, or about labour history:
1) James Connolly wasn't laid in his grave with union men on every side. On either side of Connolly are buried the two youngest of the 14 buried there: Con Colbert and Ned Daly. There's one other "union man", Thomas MacDonagh, who was one of the founders of the ISTA, the secondary teachers' union (secondary teachers, or high school teachers as it would be in the US, then being an exploited and underpaid class of teacher working purely for private institutions - there were no state secondary schools then).
2) There was no great crowd kneeling outside Kilmainham Gaol. Connolly was dying of gangrene in the hospital in Dublin Castle after a bullet exploded in his ankle on Thursday 27 April as he directed his fighters outside the GPO. On May 12, after 13 other executions had already taken place, he was rushed the 5km across the city in a military truck, propped up by soldiers around him, and into the old stonebreakers' yard in the disused jail. He was tied, semiconscious, into a chair - or rather across, his legs trailing at the front and his back draped across the back - and blindfolded and a paper target pinned on his chest, and after hand signals for "Ready" and "Aim", the officer directing the killers shouted "Fire", and they fired. The guns had been loaded with explosive bullets, which blew out his chest and the back of the chair. His cooling corpse was then rushed the 2km across the river to Arbour Hill, where it was put in a grave with the other dead leaders, and covered in quicklime - "a burning sheet of lime", as Oscar Wilde wrote of another jail burial. An officer involved in these burials made a sketch map of the positions of the bodies to show who was buried where - someone might want to know later, he thought. The widows, orphans and parents of the dead men tried to get the bodies back for proper burial; this was refused.


25 Mar 15 - 05:18 AM (#3696638)
Subject: RE: Origins: James Connelly as sung by Mary Black
From: Thompson

Sorry, ASTI, rather - Association of Secondary Teachers in Ireland. Here they are remembering MacDonagh.


25 Mar 15 - 05:56 AM (#3696645)
Subject: RE: Origins: James Connelly as sung by Mary Black
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick

Thompson. "Spelling James Connolly's name properly is less important than understanding his principles and his actions properly surely?"

Of course it is. But when the originator of the thread misspells his name and then someone else does likewise, a modicum of correction is called for.

My own view of Connolly is that he was one of the greatest labour leaders these islands ever produced. A very courageous and principled man, and a major intellect as well. And a man from whom we could still learn a lot.

When I was last in Edinburgh, I managed to walk right past the spot where he was born, without even realising it. Next time I'll check and see whether there's a plaque there honouring his name. If there isn't there damned well ought to be.


25 Mar 15 - 07:11 AM (#3696672)
Subject: RE: Origins: James Connelly as sung by Mary Black
From: GUEST,Liberty Boy (sans cookie)

There is a plaque in the Cowgate Fred!


25 Mar 15 - 08:18 AM (#3696692)
Subject: RE: Origins: James Connelly as sung by Mary Black
From: The Sandman

my apologies for making the mistake of missing out an l in his name.


25 Mar 15 - 08:25 AM (#3696694)
Subject: RE: Origins: James Connelly as sung by Mary Black
From: Thompson

The missing 'l' is an easy one to do, since another of that name, the Speaker Conolly, spelled it with one 'n' missing!

There should be a few plaques around New York too - James Connolly lived there for a while, making it his base while touring the United States speaking to labour and syndicalist groups. The excellent book of his letters, Between Comrades, details this time and these lectures.
But yes - could someone perhaps ask the masters of the Mudcat universe to retitle this thread with 'Connolly' spelled correctly?


25 Mar 15 - 09:27 AM (#3696715)
Subject: RE: Origins: James Connelly as sung by Mary Black
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick

Jerry. You're doubtless right. I'd just come out of an eating house and was hurrying to the next venue, and in truth hadn't even realised I'd been down the Cowgate until I looked at a map later.


25 Mar 15 - 09:53 AM (#3696729)
Subject: RE: Origins: James Connelly as sung by Mary Black
From: The Sandman

Come the revolution, I will rely upon those who spelled connolly correctly, and those who knew about correct use of upper and lower case undoubtedly they will be like immovable rocks, god bless you all said tiny tim.
A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery.
Mao Zedong


25 Mar 15 - 11:53 AM (#3696760)
Subject: RE: Origins: James Connolly as sang by Mary Black
From: Thompson

A thousand flowers will bloom.
- a) Mao Tse Tung
- b) Portishead


25 Mar 15 - 11:54 AM (#3696761)
Subject: RE: Origins: James Connolly as sang by Mary Black
From: Thompson

And it's as sung by.


10 May 21 - 04:11 PM (#4105556)
Subject: RE: Origins: James Connolly
From: Felipa

I've known the song by Patrick Galvin a long time, but I don't understand the verse
So they buried him down in yon green garden
With union men on every side
They swore they would form a mighty union
That James Connolly's name might be filled with pride

because I read that Connolly and most of the other executed leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising were buried in a mass grave. There does not seem to have been any re-interment? The bodies were covered in quicklime so that they would decompose more quickly.


10 May 21 - 07:21 PM (#4105586)
Subject: RE: Origins: James Connolly as sang by Mary Black
From: Joe Offer

Do we have correct lyrics?


JAMES CONNOLLY (DT Lyrics)
(Patrick Galvin)

Where oh where is our James Connolly ?
Where oh where is that gallant man ?
He is gone to organise the Union
That working men they may yet be free.

Oh who then who will lead the van ?
Oh who then who will lead the van ?
Who but our James Connolly
The hero of the working man.

Who will carry high the burning flag ?
Who will carry high the burning flag ?
Who but our James Connolly
Could carry high the burning flag.

They carried him up to the jail
They carried him up to the jail
And they shot him down on a bright May morning
And quickly laid him in his grave.

Who mourns the death of this great man ?
Who mourns the death of this great man ?
Oh bury me down in yon green garden
With union men on every side.

So they buried him down in yon green garden
With union men on every side
They swore they would form a mighty union
That James Connolly's name might be filled with pride.

Where oh where is our James Connolly ?
Where oh where is that gallant man ?
He is gone to organise the Union
That working men they may yet be free.

-------------------------------------------------------------------
recorded by Christy Moore on "Prosperous" (1972), who names Johnny
Moynihan (of Sweeney's Men) as his source, by Mary Black on
"The Black Family" (1980) and the Fallen Angels (1992), who both na
Christy Moore as their source.

Mary Black sings an additional verse:

Where oh where is the Citizen Army ?
Where oh where is that gallant band ?
They've gone to join the great rebellion
That working men they might yet be free.

James Connolly was co-founder (with James Larkin) of the Irish
Transport and General Workers Union (ITGWU), founder of the
Irish Citizen Army, Union leader in the great Dublin lock-out
of 1913, Marxist (and friend of Lenin) and one of the leaders
of the Easter Rising 1916, for which he was subsequently executed
in Kilmainham jail by the British Authorities. He is revered as a
hero in Ireland, but his position is a bit strange because the
nationalists are irritated by his socialism and the socialists
by his nationalism. Let's just say he was an Irishman. MJ

Copyright Patrick Galvin
@Irish @rebel @union @death
filename[ JMCONNLY
TUNE FILE: JMCONNLY
CLICK TO PLAY
MJ