Come Here To Me!

Edit: Here is the translation.

A 1902 election leaflet for James Connolly, Wood Quay ward

Serious praise is due to Tomás O’Riordan and all involved with the University College Cork MultiText Project in Irish History , which has become an online home to many rare Irish historical photos and texts from the revolutionary years, ranging from characters like Jim Larkin and James Connolly to WB Yeats and Hanna Sheehy Skeffington.

The above find is undoubtedly one of my own personal favourites.

Some great insight into the election of 1902 can be found in Samuel Levenson’s fantastic biography of Connolly.

“As usual, Connolly’s campaign consisted for the most part of open air meetings, his favourite location being in New Street. The support of the Trades Council did not do much to make Connolly respectable, he recieved the usual amount of vilification. Sermons were preached in which he was termed an anti-Christ, and Catholics were forbidden to vote for him under pain of excommunication. It was charged that his children attended Catholic school only to camouflage his own beliefs”

Connolly was one of three Irish Socialist Republican Party candidates. None of the three managed to get elected on the day, with the other two candidates losing by decisive majorities. Connolly ultimately polled 431 votes, while the winning candidate achieved 1,424 votes.

An address made by Connolly “to the electors” and “fellow workers” of Wood Quay can be read online here

“…remember how the paid canvassers of the capitalist candidate – hired slanderers – gave a different account of Mr. Connolly to every section of the electors. How they said to the Catholics that he was an Orangeman, to the Protestants that he was a Fenian, to the Jews that he was an anti-Semite, to others that he was a Jew, to the labourers that he was a journalist on the make, and to the tradesmen and professional classes that he was an ignorant labourer; that he was born in Belfast, Derry, England, Scotland and Italy, according to the person the canvasser was talking to”

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