We are now on the threshold of a newer movement, with a newer hope and a new inspiration.
James Larkin
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James Larkin quotes
A few among them - not lost to all sense of manhood - had tried, time and again, to organise their fellows, but failure attended their efforts.
A legal eight hours' day, provision of work for all unemployed, and pensions for all workers at 60 years of age. Compulsory Arbitration Courts, adult suffrage, nationalisation of canals, railways, and all the means of transport.
A mutual arrangement, I repeat, is the only satisfactory medium whereby the present system can be carried on with any degree of satisfaction, and in such an arrangement the employers have more to gain than the workers.
By God's help, and the intelligent use of their own strong right arms they could accomplish great things.
Claiming for ourselves liberty of conscience, liberty to worship, we shall see to it that every other individual enjoys the same right.
Comrades - We are living in momentous times.
For years and years I have done the work I was born for.
Humanity abhors, above all things, a vacuum in itself, and your class will be cut off from humanity as the surgeon cuts the cancer and alien growth from the body.
I am careful about my conduct because I know this cause requires clean men.
I am, of course, aware that the ultimate solution is the ownership and control of the means of life by the whole of the people; but we are not at that stage of development as yet.
I call to your memories tonight the three men who died in Manchester prison on that dark and gloomy morning in 1867 - Allen, Larkin and O'Brien.
I have raised the morals and sobriety of the people.
I have tried to kill sectarianism, whether in Catholics or Protestants.
I never stood in a public house bar and alcoholic drink never touched my lips.
I turned my attention to a body of men who were the most degraded, harrassed body of workers I had ever any experience of in my chequered career - the iron ore workers who discharged the boats from Spain on the Govan side of the River.
Intolerance has been the curse of our country.
It is for us to preach the gospel of tolerance and comradeship for all women and men.
It means that the men who hold the means of life control our lives, and, because we workingmen have tried to get some measure of justice, some measure of betterment, they deny the right of the human being to associate with his fellow.
Man must be associated with his fellows.
No, men and women of the Irish race, we shall not fight for England. We shall fight for the destruction of the British Empire and the construction of an Irish republic.
Russia is the only place where men and women can be free.
Stop at home. Arm for Ireland. Fight for Ireland and no other land.
The best thanks we could offer those who went before and raised the Irish working class from their knees was to press forward with determination and enthusiasm towards the ultimate goal of their efforts, a Co-operative Commonwealth for Ireland.
The employers cannot carry on industry nor accumulate profits if they have not got the good will of the workers or their acquiescence in carrying on such industry.
The fate of you, the aristocracy of industry, will be as the fate of the aristocracy of land if you do not show that you have some humanity still among you.
The land of Ireland for the people of Ireland.
The men whose manhood you have broken will loathe you, and will always be brooding and scheming to strike a fresh blow.
The question of religion was a matter for each individual's conscience, and in a great many cases was the outcome of birth or residence in a certain geographical area.
The souls you have got cast upon the screen of publicity appear like the horrid and writhing creatures enlarged from the insect world, and revealed to us by the cinematograph.
There is one grand, glorious page in Irish history that has never yet been turned down or besmirched, and that is the page that records in undying words the fact that the Irish working class never deserted her or betrayed her.
There must be freedom for all to live, to think, to worship, no book, no avenue must be closed.
Therefore it is essential that some means should be sought whereby the work of the nation may be carried on without constant yet at present necessary dislocation.
They have lit a fire in Ireland they will never put out. There will be a cry raised in England, Scotland, and Wales which will not be quietened for some time.
They take to themselves that they have all the rights that are given to men and to societies of men, but they deny the right of the men to claim that they also have a substantial claim on the share of the produce they produce, and they further say they want no third party interference.
Those who want to divide the workers have resorted to the foulest methods.
We are beaten, we will make no bones about it; but we are not too badly beaten still to fight.
We are now on the threshold of a newer movement, with a newer hope and a new inspiration.
We make mistakes, we have our faults, and God knows some of us have more than our share, but when danger threatens and duty calls, we go smiling to our own funeral.
We shall not fight for the preservation of the enemy, which has laid waste with death and desolation the fields and hills of Ireland for 700 years.
We will fight to free Ireland from the grasp of that vile carcase called England.
You may succeed in your policy and ensure your own damnation, by your victory.
Your insolence and ignorance of the rights conceded to workers universally in the modern world were incredible, and as great as your inhumanity.
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