Jim Connell, composer of The Red Flag, was born in County Meath, on this day in 1852. As a teenager Connell was involved in land agitation and later joined the Irish Republican Brotherhood. Having moved to Dublin and been blacklisted for trying to form a dockworkers union, he moved to London in his mid-20 Amongst a variety of jobs he held in Britain, Connell worked as a journalist on The Labour Leader, the by the great Scottish socialist Kier Hardy, the first Independent Labour MP, and secretary of the Workingmens Legal Aid Society. Written in 1889, on the train from Charing Cross to New Cross (Connell was returning from a lecture on socialism at a meeting of the Social Democratic Federation)The Red Flag was inspired by the London Dock Strike of 1889, time,the Match Girls Strike of 1888, as well as activities of the Irish Land League, the Paris Commune, the Russian nihilists and Chicago anarchists. Although associated with the tarnished labour parties of the late twentieth and early twenty first centuries, the song is one of the two great anthems of the international socialist movement, the other being The Internationale, written by Paris Commune member Eugene Pottier. Particularly poignant, given the current politico-economic situation in these islands, is the penultimate stanza: It suits today the weak and base, Whose minds are fixed on pelf and place To cringe before the rich mans frown, And haul the sacred emblem down. Here is the song in full. The peoples flag is deepest red, It shrouded oft our martyred dead, And ere their limbs grew stiff and cold, Their hearts blood dyed its every fold. Chorus: Then raise the scarlet standard high. Within its shade we live and die, Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer, Well keep the red flag flying here. Look round, the Frenchman loves its blaze, The sturdy German chants its praise, In Moscows vaults its hymns were sung Chicago swells the surging throng. (chorus) It waved above our infant might, When all ahead seemed dark as night; It witnessed many a deed and vow, We must not change its colour now. (chorus) It well recalls the triumphs past, It gives the hope of peace at last; The banner bright, the symbol plain, Of human right and human gain. (chorus) It suits today the weak and base, Whose minds are fixed on pelf and place To cringe before the rich mans frown, And haul the sacred emblem down. (chorus) With head uncovered swear we all To bear it onward till we fall; Come dungeons dark or gallows grim, This song shall be our parting hymn. (chorus)
Posted on: Thu, 27 Mar 2014 14:41:06 +0000
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