I was stunned by Labour
Party Minister Sean Sherlock's response on the front page of the Echo (Dec 14th) to comments that James
Connolly would be rolling in his grave over the policies of the current
government. Minister Sherlock was quoted as saying that 'I sometimes think
those invoking James Connolly have not read his works. James Connolly was first
and foremost a patriot'. As a reader of Connolly myself, I wonder which works
in particular Minister Sherlock could be referring to. It certainly could not
be the article published in Workers'
Republic in 1900 which states clearly Connolly's position on so-called
patriotism. Let me refresh the Minister's memory:
'Ireland without
her people is nothing to me, and the man who is bubbling over with love and
enthusiasm for "Ireland", and can yet pass unmoved through our
streets and witness all the wrong and the suffering, the shame and the
degradation wrought upon the people of Ireland, aye, wrought by Irishmen upon
Irishmen and women, without burning to end it, is, in my opinion, a fraud and a
liar'.
The government of which
Minister Sherlock is a part has certainly wrought its fair share of suffering,
shame and degradation on the people of this country with its recent budget,
which has featured cuts to Child Benefit and the Respite Care Grant and a host
of other regressive policies. The most vulnerable in our society are bearing
the brunt of an economic program of austerity that has been designed and
imposed by those who are safely protected by large salaries and positions of
power and influence. The idea that this situation could be justified through an
appeal to doing our patriotic duty, as Minister Sherlock suggests, is the very
kind of fraudulent rhetoric Connolly was denouncing 112 years ago, and he would
most surely be denouncing it if he were around today.
