A new comprehensive documentary on the life of James Connolly. The film traces Connolly’s life from his childhood in the appalling squalor of the Cowgate slums in Edinburgh to the tragedy of his execution in Kilmainham in May 1916.
James Connolly – A Working Class Hero is the fullest account of a man who worked single-mindedly for a decent, just and free life for workers everywhere. The film reveals how Connolly was unique among his comrades, a self-taught scholar, a Socialist, a Marxist and the outstanding Labour leader of Ireland. Documentary maker Brian O’Flaherty painstakingly gathered together a vast array of historians, political commentators and writers to examine the life of a man whose vision and writings were never more relevant than today.
Contributors include Eamon Gilmore, Fintan O’Toole, Francis Devine, Anne Casey, Ross Connolly and Dick Spring among a host of others. Owen Dudley Edwards, of the University of Edinburgh, calls Connolly ‘ the most profound mind and the greatest theoretician among the founders of the modern Irish state’. The film includes musical contributions from Christy Moore, Andy Irvine, Adrian Dunbar, Paul Cleary and Jimmy Kelly. International film-star Colm Meaney reads from Connolly’s work and letters.
James Connolly is one of the great iconic figures of Irish History but James Connolly - A Working Class Hero places the spotlight on Connolly the person, his family life, his struggles and disappointments as well as his politics. This long-overdue documentary will inform a contemporary audience of the importance of James Connolly then and now.