JAMES CONNOLLY FESTIVAL 2024

The festival opens on Thursday May 9th with a panel discussion titled ‘Land And The People’. We ask the question - what is our relationship to land and resources. We’ll be joined by Sinead Mercier, Patrick Bresnihan, Róisn Ní Chinnéide and Rory Rowan. Friday May 10th will see us mark the 40th anniversary of the powerful Dunnes Stores strike with a screening of ‘Blood Fruit’. The documentary tells the story of an inspiring struggle that eventually led to the first complete ban on goods exported from Apartheid South Africa. Mary Manning (Author & Activist), the first worker to refuse handling of the goods and thus sparking the strike, will join us for a Q&A afterwards.

The opening event of what will be an action packed Saturday May 11th sees Dr Conor McCabe host a ‘James Connolly Walking Tour’. The 2.5km stroll will take in some of the lesser-known or ‘hidden’ places associated with Connolly’s life. Meeting at the Connolly statue, Liberty Hall at 11am.

In the afternoon we return to The New Theatre. Firstly for a youth panel discussion ‘Youth, Imperialism & Revolution’. We’ll welcome Georgina Andrews (General Secretary Young Communist League), Tomás Sheehan (General Secretary Connolly Youth Movement) and Matthew O’Brien (Chairperson Communist Party of Ireland Youth Committee). This year’s Connolly Memorial Lecture will be presented by historian Dr Fearghal Mac Bhloscaidh. The title of his lecture ‘The National Question & Anti-Militarism’.

The evening will see a Palestinian solidarity eevnt in association with IPSC. The evening will see music, poetry and discussion. Gazellend is a duo of Palestinian oud player Reem Anbar and musician Dr Louis Brehony, Gazelleband tell the Palestinian story through music. Also, Irish-Palestinian singer/songwriter Roisin El-cherif. Recently awarded All Ireland Slam Poetry champion Anna Doran completes the evening’s bill which will be mc’d by local hero Emmet Kirwan.

The weekend comes to a close on Sunday May 12th will the annual Connolly Commemoration at Arbour Hill, Dublin. The main oration will come from Cuban Ambassador to Ireland Bernard Guanche Hernandez. It will also see a speech from General Secretary of the Communist Party of Ireland, Jimmy Corcoran. The event will be followed by drinks in the Cobblestone.

WHAT IS JAMES CONNOLLY FESTIVAL?

The James Connolly Festival is an annual, week-long series of events in radical arts, culture and politics. It is a community-centred celebration of music, film, discussion and debate that brings together the ideas and thoughts of progressive and radical thinkers and organisations from across Ireland and beyond.

Since the festival’s inception we have sought to promote progressive arts, culture and politics, providing a platform of discussion and debate for those seeking alternatives in a world where the lives of the many are dominated by the few. We challenge societal inequality and the class barriers fraught within the arts, encouraging an inclusive and collective approach to artistic expression. Our annual festival serves as a celebration of the rich working class culture that exists in Ireland and provides a space for the people of our ever-evolving island to express the wealth of their culture and articulate their experience of life.

James Connolly remains Ireland’s foremost working class hero and founder of the Irish trade union movement. In his humble introduction to the 1907 songbook ‘Songs Of Freedom’ he famously remarked that “no revolutionary movement is complete without its poetical expression”. He noted that if a movement caught hold of the imagination of the masses that they would “seek a vent in song for the aspirations, fears and the hopes, the loves and the hatreds engendered by struggle” and that until the movement was “marked by the joyous, defiant, singing of revolutionary songs, it lacks one of the most distinctive marks of a popular revolutionary movement, it is the dogma of a few, and not the faith of the multitude.” It is in this revolutionary spirit, and recognition of the importance of culture to transcend society, that the festival centres its ethos.

For more information on the festival you can find us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter using /ConnollyFest or the hashtag #JCF2024

BOOK TICKETS

MAKE A DONATION