Though a good number of working class leaders have come from Irish-America, influencing the decidedly conservative Irish-American working class through its enormously rich native revolutionary traditions has long been a struggle for the left. The U.S. Communist movement, with Irish-American leaders like William Z. Foster, Bill Dunne, and James P. Cannon, attempted a number of campaigns to reach the large Irish-American working class with limited achievement. The most successful of those, however, were the Irish Workers’ Clubs founded in 1932. It was out of the New York clubs that much of the leadership of that city’s still mighty Transit Workers Union developed, including Mike Quill. Another member, Frank Ryan, would go on to lead the Connolly Column in Spain.

Below is an extensive dossier of Daily Worker articles detailing the work of the I.W.C.s, from their first arrests defending Irish families in the Bronx from eviction, protests to De Valera for U.S. and Irish political prisoners, the deportation campaign of Jimmy Gralton (who would become a key figure in the I.W.C.s), to the founding of the Communist Party of Ireland in 1933 and the 1934 tour of its leader Sean Murray across the country to raise awareness of both organizations. Includes announcements of meetings, forums, dances, lectures, and socials.

Dossier of the U.S. Irish Workers’ Clubs, 1932-1934 from The Daily Worker.

Irish Workers March In Body to Bronx Coliseum. February 24, 1932.

The Food Workers’ Industrial Union joins with the revolutionary working class in mobilizing its forces for the mass protest meeting for the release of Tom Mooney, the 9 Scottsboro boys and all class-war prisoners, that will be held tonight at the Bronx Coliseum, under the auspices of the Inter- national Labor Defense. The many struggles carried on in this city by our union against the bosses, terror, injunctions and the jailings of our members in the struggles, solidifies us with the great cause for which Tom Mooney has dedicated his life. The Food Workers’ Industrial Union therefore calls upon its entire membership and especially instructs all shop chairmen to mobilize the entire membership to attend in a body at the protest meeting on Wednesday evening, Feb. 24th, at the Bronx Coliseum. At a mass meeting of Irish workers held at Lexington Hall, 109 East 116th Street, Sunday afternoon, members of several Irish Workers Clubs made arrangements to attend in a body the Mooney-Scottsboro meeting tonight at the Bronx Coliseum. Under the banner of the “United Irish Workers Clubs”, members of the following organizations will attend the meeting: Irish Workers Republican Alliance; James Connelly I.R.A. Club, Leitrim Workers Club, Irish Reading Circle. Other sympathetic organizations of Irish workers are urged to join in this display of militant working class solidarity.

GET-TOGETHER AT IRISH WORKERS CLUB. April 19, 1932.

NEW YORK. An entertainment and get-together party will be held by the Irish Workers Club of Greater New York this coming Saturday, April 23, 8 pm. 2072. 5th Avenue, between 127th and 128th Streets. All workers are Invited. Refreshments will be served. The Irish Workers Club will hold its first open air meeting at 139^th Street and Willis Avenue, tomorrow at 8 p.m. The subject to be taken up at this meeting is “The Irish workers in the revolutionary movement.”

Irish Workers Club Holds First Open Air Mass Meeting. April 26, 1932.

NEW YORK. The first open air meeting of the Irish Workers Club, which was organized two weeks ago, was held at 139th and Willis Avenue, Wednesday night, at 8 p.m. Over 250 workers, mostly Irish, enthusiastically endorsed the call of the speakers to organize and demand that the Tammany capitalist government reopen the relief agencies at once and give adequate relief to all jobless workers. The workers unanimously pledged to come out on May First to demonstrate against the Hoover hunger program and in defense of the Soviet Union. Many applications for membership were signed by the workers. The meeting was addressed by Comrades Hays, Collins, White, McGuire, Mullally and Rooney from the Irish Workers Club and Ray from the Unemployed Council. The club meets every Friday night at 2072 5th Avenue, at 8 p.m. This Saturday night the club will hold its first social affair. Admission is free. All Irish workers are urged to attend this affair.

IRISH WORKERS TO MARCH MAY 1. April 29, 1932.

Pledge to Defend the Soviet Union

NEW YORK. In spite of the rain and snow, over one hundred Irish workers rallied to a mass open air meeting held by the Irish Workers Club at 139th and Willis Sts., Wednesday night. The meeting was called to urge the Irish workers to come to the May Day demonstration and parade Sunday. The workers cheered the speakers when they called for a united struggle to free Ireland from bloody British imperialism and against imperialist war. The meeting pledged unanimously to defend the Soviet Union against all attacks of the robber powers. The speakers pointed out that for seven-hundred years the forefathers of the New York Irish workers fought bravely against British imperialism and the Irish landlords and capitalists. “Now,” said one of the speakers, “we must fight against Wall Street imperialism.” This was roundly applauded by the workers. The Irish workers will march under the banner of the Irish Workers Club in the May Day parade, May First. All Irish workers are urged to assemble 15th St., East of Union Sq., at 12:30 p.m.

IRISH WORKERS HOLD DANCE FRIDAY. May 19, 1932.

New Fighting Club’s First Affair

NEW YORK. The Irish Workers Club, which was organized about six weeks ago and has since played an important role in the struggles of the New York workers, will hold its first dance and entertainment Friday night at the Finnish Workers Hall, 15 West 126th St. There will be Irish and American dancing with music furnished by the Red Front Band. Other good entertainment is assured. The Irish Workers Club members have been active in many working-class struggles since the club was organized. They have assisted the Unemployed Council in the fight against evictions, were in the forefront of the May Day parade and were the only ones to carry their banner back to Union Square from the City Hall following the brutal police attack in City Hall Square last April. Workers all over New York should support this militant fighting organization. Come to the dance and get acquainted with the Irish-American revolutionary fighters.

JAIL 4 MEMBERS OF IRISH CLUB. June 24, 1932.

Lead Eviction Fight in Bronx

NEW YORK-Four members of the Irish Workers’ Club are held in the Bronx County jail on charges of felonious assault, following an eviction fight on E. 147th St., Bronx, in which a large crowd of unemployed workers took part Wednesday night. The jailed workers were badly beaten by police in the patrol wagon on their way to the jail. Those arrested are Martin Moriarty Rooney, Mullallay and McCairnay. They are being defended by the International Labor Defense. The fight followed the attempt of the workers to replace furniture of an evicted Irish working woman with six children. A policeman who stood guard at the entrance of the door was rendered helpless as a result of a bed falling upon him. The reserves were then called. Mullallay was given the worst beating, his body being covered with welts. Although the judge examined him today and saw the extent of his injuries, he refused to permit his lawyers to file a cross-complaint against Kane, the cop who slugged him. Hearing has been set for Monday before Judge Harris in Magistrates’ Court, 161st St. and Brook Ave. Immigration agents are already snooping around the jail.

Demonstration Before Bronx Court Monday In Irish Workers Trial. June 27, 1932.

NEW YORK. Workers will demonstrate before the Magistrate’s Court, 161st St. and Brook Avenue, Bronx, Monday morning at 10 o’clock where four members of the Irish Workers’ Club come up for trial charged with felonious assault, the International Labor Defense announced. The workers, Moriarty, Rooney, Mulallay and McCairnay were arrested and beaten up Wednesday nite following an eviction fight on E. 147^th St., in which a large crowd of workers took part.

Militant Members of Irish Workers’ Club on Trial Wednesday. June 28, 1932.

NEW YORK. The four members of the Irish Workers’ Club—Mullaly, Moriarty, McKiernan and Cooney, who were arrested and viciously slugged last Wednesday night following a protest meeting against an eviction on E. 147th St., were released under $1,000 ball each, through the International Labor Defense. Charged with felonious assault, the workers will divie up for trial Wednesday morning. They were all beaten while in jail, the worker getting the worst treatment being Mullaly, who is crippled. A friend who managed to get into the Bronx County jail found him in a bruised, bleeding condition.

Call Workers To Fill Court in Trial of Four Irish Militants Today. Jul1, 1932.

NEW YORK. Workers are called upon to attend the trial this morning at 11 o’clock of the four militant members of the Irish Workers’ Club, arrested last week and viciously slugged by police following an eviction struggle on E. I47th St., Bronx. The workers, following an open-air meeting attended by several hundred, replaced furniture of an Irish unemployed worker with six children The trial of the workers—Mullalay, McCairney, Rooney and Moriaity— all framed-up on a charge of “felonious assault,” will be held in the Morrisania Court, 161st St. and Brook Ave., Bronx, before Judge McKinnery.

Irish Militants Secretly Indicted Maneuver to Prevent Brutality Expose. July 2, 1932.

NEW YORK. The four militant members of the Irish Workers Club, who were arrested and viciously beaten up following an eviction struggle on E. 147th St., Bronx, recently were secretly indicted on felonious assault charges by the Bronx county grand jury on Thursday. This fact emerged yesterday in the Morrisania court, 161st St. and Brook Ave., after Allan Taub, International Labor Defense attorney demanded the release of the defendants, and judge McKinnery dismissed the case. As the defendants-Hugh McKiernan, Martin Moriarity, John Mullally and John Rooney-prepared to leave the court they were at once re-arrested on bench warrants and in- formed of the indictments returned against them. The defendants who are released on bail will speak at a picnic of the Irish Workers’ Club tomorrow at Van Cortland Park. Workers attending will meet at 242nd St., and Broadway at 12:30. The prosecution hoped that by de- laying the trial the bruises inflicted on the workers by the police third degree would be less noticeable. The date for the new trial has not yet been set. About 150 workers many of them members of the Unemployed Councils and the Irish Workers Club, crowded the court room yesterday, in answer to the call of the I.L.D. to prevent the militant Irish workers from being railroaded to long prison terms.

Irish Workers Plead ‘Not Guilty’; Plan Many Protest Meets. July 12, 1932.

NEW YORK. “Not guilty,” four members of the Irish Workers’ Club pleaded yesterday in Bronx County Court when they were charged with felonious assault because they resisted an eviction of an Irish family on E. 147th St., Bronx, recently. The court room in Bergen Building, Tremont and Arthur Aves., was packed with workers demonstrating their solidarity with the four men, John Mullally, Hugh McKiernan, John Rooney and Martin Moriarty, as the plea was entered by Allan Taub of the International Labor Defense. The defense was granted a week to make a motion concerning the indictment, which had been rushed by the Bronx County Grand Jury while the cases were pending in the lower courts. Prevented by this legal trickery from telling the inhuman story of the eviction and police brutality in open court, the four workers will expose Tammany’s “relief” schemes in demonstrations throughout the Bronx tomorrow night, at 147th St., and Brook Ave., speakers will include John Donovan, National Students’ League; James Cooney, International Labor Defense, and Patrick O’Boyle, Workers’ Ex-Service Men’s League.

IRISH WORKERS DENIED SUMMONS AGAINST THUGS. July 16, 1932.

No Warrants Against Sluggers When They’re Cops

(By an Irish Worker) NEW YORK. They were clubbed, they were kicked, they were black- jacked, they were foully abused-but still they cannot get a summons against the policeman who led the cowardly attack on them. John Mullally, Hugh McKiernan, John Rooney and Martin Moriarty, of the Irish Workers’ Club, had resisted an eviction in E. 147th St., Bronx. Arrested and beaten ferociously, they were charged with disorderly conduct. Next day, Magistrate Harris, publicly regretting that Policeman Kane had not “broken his nightstick over every one of their heads”, obligingly raised the charge to felonious assault, Countercharges against the police? Impossible! Released on $1,000 bail, the four workers again demanded a summons when their case was heard by Magistrate McKinery. “Take that up Wednesday,” the magistrate said- “the case is adjourned till then.” “We’ll Consider” And on Wednesday he said: “We’ll consider the request on Friday.” (The prosecution had asked for postponement.) Meanwhile the four defendants were secretly indicted by grand jury and were served with bench warrants just as their case was called. Still they pressed for charges, through Allan Taub, attorney for the International Labor Defense. “Oh, no, no!” Magistrate McKinery smiled archly. “The whole matter’s out of my hands. Go to the District Attorney.” “What complaint can the men have?” Assistant District Attorney Sylvester Ryan wanted to know “What complaint can they have?” he asked indignantly. “If the men are innocent they will be tried by a jury–what complaint can they have?” Another, Different “Court”. And yesterday they were told: Go back to the magistrate’s court.” Smilingly the district attorney’s woman assistant assured them of “full co-operation.” Their ribs still ache, the welts still show blue on their bodies-but they cannot get a summons. They were only workers, fighting the brutal wrecking of an unemployed workers’ home. But, in mass demonstrations throughout the Bronx they will carry their case before the courts of the working class.

Frame-up Material on Irish Militants Kept Hidden by Bronx Judge. July 27, 1932.

NEW YORK. Magistrate James Barrett of the Bronx County Court ruled that the frame-up evidence against the four Irish workers charged with felonious assault for resisting an eviction must continue to remain hidden in the minutes of the Grand Jury. Barrett made this decision when Allen Taub, attorney for the International Labor Defense, demanded the evidence for inspection by the defense on Monday. The fight against the star-chamber methods used by Tammany courts and police to hush up the story of the brutal eviction, resisted by the defendants—John Mullally, Hugh McKiernan, John Rooney and Martin Moriarty of the Irish Workers’ Club— is being spread in demonstrations throughout the Bronx. The club will hold a protest meeting at Willis Ave. and 147th St. tonight. The Catholic Charities, callously indifferent to the plight of the dispossessed McPartland family, has been forced by the Irish Workers’ Club campaign to pay a month’s rent and food allowance for one week. Officials had tried to ignore their previous promise—loudly proclaimed in magistrate’s court—that $25 was far too much rent for rooms for a family having six children.

Irish Workers Protest Ban on Mrs. Wright. September 2, 1932.

NEW YORK. A meeting of the Irish Workers Club adopted a resolution of protest and sent it to Eamon De Valera, Irish President, demanding freedom of entry to Mrs. Ada Wright and J. Louis Engdahl, touring Europe for the Scottsboro boys. The resolution denounced De Valera as acting in the interests of American and British imperialism.

N.Y. Irish Workers’ Club Calls Conference. October 15, 1932.

NEW YORK, Oct. 14.At Thursday’s meeting of the Irish Workers’ Club it was decided to call a conference of all Irish workers’ organizations to protest against the murder of Irish workers in Belfast and to mobilize a mass support for the Irish toilers in their fight against British imperialism. The date of the conference will be announced later. It is assured that the murder of Irish workers in Belfast aroused the mass anger of the Irish workers of this city. The conference which the Irish Workers’ Club plans to call will have representatives of large masses of Irish workers.

Conference Sunday On Aid to Struggle Of Belfast Workers. October 22, 1932.

The Irish Workers Club of New York is calling a conference to discuss in what way the workers of New York can express their solidarity with the battling workers of Belfast. The conference will be held on Sunday. October 23. at 3 p.m., at the headquarters of the Club, Lincoln Square Theatre Building, 1947 Broadway, room 435. Irish societies have been requested to send delegates to the conference, which will plan protest against this new outburst of British tyranny against the oppressed Irish masses.

Irish Workers Score Skeffington Arrest. February 20, 1933.

NEW YORK. The Lincoln’s Birthday mass meeting of Irish workers in New York voted to send telegrams to Lord Craigavon of Ulster and President De Valera of the Irish “Free” State, to “protest detention of Mrs. Sheehy Skefflngton and denounce censorship and obscurantist education”. The Irish workers’ telegrams ask “the workers of the world to stand for economic emancipation.” The wires were signed by John Collins, secretary of the Irish Workers Club, in New York, at the instructions of the mass meeting. The Irish Workers’ Club will hold as usual Sunday open forum tomorrow at 1931 Broadway, Room 215. Admission free.

Take Up Case of An Irish Worker. March 13, 1933.

N.Y. Meeting Protests Exile of Gralton

NEW YORK. Before a Tom Mooney Conference attended by united Irish groups at Esthonian Hall, 27 West 115th Street, yesterday, a fight was begun for the defense of another Irish worker who till a week ago was less known than was his famous compatriot Mooney before mass pro- test made that case a worldwide issue. The man is James Gralton, from whose birthplace in Effrinagh, County Leitrim, the Irish Free State government is attempting to banish him, because he organized neighbors into a Working Farmers’ Committee Movement to struggle for land. Gralton, who had emigrated 25 years ago to the United States, is an American citizen. Chairman Joseph Byrne, of the Irish-American Alliance which sponsored the meeting, refused the floor to those who proposed a resolution condemning the attempted deportation. “It has nothing to do with Mooney’s ease,” he said. “The meeting is adjourned.” But the meeting continued, and a sum was collected to defray the cost of a cable to De Valera protesting the deportation. Gralton is a veteran of the Irish independence and working class movement in both countries. In 1921, he returned to Ireland to fight with the Irish Republican Army against the British black and tans. When that national struggle was betrayed and the Free State government established, Gralton presided over arbitration courts which fought for reinstatement of evicted and exiled, families on land seized from them by “grabbers.” After a jail sentence Gralton returned to the U.S.A. Last year the death of his brother again necessitated his return to Ireland so as to help on his father’s small farm. Again he began the same activities which had incurred before the bitter enmity of priests, landowners and the government. The Pearse-Connolly Hall, where he organized social, political and cultural activities, was shot up by thugs during a social and later bombed and burned to the ground. Escaping from the detectives who served the deportation order, Gralton is now being hunted over Ireland. Trade unions, the Workers’ Revolutionary Groups, the League Against Imperialism, the Dublin Labor College and leading Irish writers are active in the Defense Committee. Its work in America is conducted by the Irish Workers’ Club and groups anxious to fight the case. The committee asks workers’ organizations to send protests to the Ministry of Justice of the De Valera Free State Government.

FIGHT ORDER TO DEPORT GRALTON FROM IRELAND. May 5, 1933.

NEW YORK. A second conference to broaden the protest against the deportation of James Gralton, Irish Republican Army veteran and fighter for Irish freedom from the Irish Free State by the Fianna Fail government has been announced by the Gralton Defense Committee, 210 W. 68 Street, to be held Sunday, May 7, 2 p.m. at Lexington Hall, 109 E. 116 Street. The first conference was held April 9 with representatives from the following organizations participating: Co. Kilkenny Men’s P and B Ass’n; Leitrim Irish Republican Club; Leitrim Sports Club; United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America with a membership of 400,000; Irish Workers Club; Irish American Alliance and the Anti-Imperialist League of U.S.A. Latest groups in Ireland to back the protest which now includes many eminent men and women of letters, republican and labor organizations is Father John Murphy and Erskin Childers Cumann of Fianna Fail. “Unfortunately,” says the Committee, “our aid for Gralton in the United States so far is too limited- unworthy, indeed, of the great traditions of struggles for Irish freedom that are the heritage of Irish exiles and their kin in America.” The Committee urges workers organizations to elect delegates to the May 7 conference and asks them to receive their speakers who come to speak for Gralton.

Give Gralton, Deported from Ireland, Rousing Welcome, Writes Worker. August 17, 1933.

Suggests Reaching Irish Workers on the Job and in Their Clubs

NEW YORK. James Gralton is being deported to America from Ire land, where he had “been on the run” from the De Valera government because of his Communist work among the poor workers and farmers in that country. May I suggest as an “Irishman” and organizer of Unit 4, YCL, that the C.P. take this matter up, and make some sort of welcome mass meeting for James Gralton? By this means we may be able to line up some of the Irish workers in the country. Some large hall could be hired, and speakers of different nationalities could greet Gralton in the name of the workers of America. The Irish Workers’ Club could be used in the matter, as they have been speaking about his work for some time. This is a chance for our Party to bring the class struggle to the attention of the Irish workers in this vicinity. For instance, Browder, in his Star Casino address, stressed the fact that the transportation system of this town was an important factor in the fight. As you know, there are lots of Irishmen employed in this system, and it is our duty to reach them. I believe that with the re turn of Gralton a means is created whereby our Party can drive a wedge among the workers. Leaflets could be distributed at all car barns, etc., power stations, to announce the return of Gralton and invite them to organize and send delegates to the “welcome” mass meeting for Gralton. There are hundreds of Irish dance halls in this town, that could be reached by leaflets, and with real hard work we could begin to work among the Irish and Irish-American workers in this town. Maybe the Party could arrange a demonstration when the “Britannic” docks this weekend. This would reach the longshoremen of Irish extraction, etc. For your information, the Irish Workers Club holds some very big meetings every Saturday night at Columbus Circle. In conjunction with the Party, these meetings could be utilized to lead up to the “welcome” mass meeting. Hoping for action on this chance to start real work among the “Irish” workers here. P.C.

Gralton, Irish Red Leader, Lands Sunday. August 19, 1932.

NEW YORK. Jim Gralton, revolutionary farmer deported from Ireland by the De Valera government of the Irish Free State, will be greeted by committees of the Gralton Defense Committee, Irish Workers’ Club and supporting bodies when he steps off the Brittanic at Pier 60, foot of W. 20th St. this Sunday. The veteran working class fighter, who was banished from his birthplace without trial or criminal charge against him because he organized neighbors to resist evictions, will speak at a mass meeting at Lexington Hall, 109 E. 116th St., at 8 p.m., Thursday, August 24. The committee is flooding the city with protest leaflets. It urges Irish workers especially to call for supplies at 40 W. 65th St.

Deported from Irish Free State, Gralton Arrives in New York. August 21, 1933.

Communist Organizer Greeted at Pier by Delegations

NEW YORK. Deported by the Irish Free State he helped to establish, Jim Gralton told his story yesterday to the delegation of the Irish Workers’ Club and the Marine Workers’ Industrial Union which met him as he got off the S.S. Brittanic. “They decided not to put up any longer with my organizing the County Leitrim peasants and they handed me the deportation order the day after my father died. I made up my mind to put up a fight and went from farmhouse to farmhouse staying four or five days at each place, walking at night. Regular underground railroad. The authorities got me a week ago last Friday and shipped me off. There were no charges against me and I got no hearing. They just took my money to pay for the passage and shipped me off.” Jim Gralton went back to Ireland a little over a year ago to help run the small County Leitrim farm which his 75-year-old father and mother could no longer handle. Immediately he joined the Communist Party and led an action to reestablish an employee evicted from the Earl of Kingston’s estate. “We stuck him back and he is there yet,” Jim says, “there’s plenty of guns in Ireland.”

U.S. Irish Workers Seek to Aid Dublin Party Center. August 13, 1933.

Jim Gralton Writes Daily Worker About Articles on Revolutionary Movement in Ireland

NEW YORK. In response to an appeal from the readers of the Communist Party of Ireland, the Irish Workers Club of New York has begun a campaign to raise funds for the support of Connolly House, the headquarters of the Irish Party, in Dublin. “The Movement in the Irish Free State Is in dire straits, due to the recent happenings over there,” says a communication from the club. “The continued tenancy of Connolly House is of paramount importance to the progress of the struggle there. Contributions can be sent to the treasurer, Irish Workers’ Club, 40 W. 65th St., New York. Members of the club are also making collections. Only those with credentials and name lists should be recognized. The names of all contributors will be acknowledged in future issues of the “Irish Workers’ Voice”. The club is organizing a picnic to raise funds for this purpose in Van Cortlandt Park, September 10.

NEW YORK. Jim Gralton, Irish revolutionary leader, recently deported to the United States, has written to the Daily Worker the following correction to the articles on Ireland recently published in the Daily Worker in the form of an interview with him: Dear Comrades: Workers in Ireland will be glad to see news of their struggle reported in the American workers’ paper, the Daily Worker. But there was a little mistake in the first article on the growth of the revolutionary movement in Ireland. There was no “Eighth Battalion” of the South Leitrim Brigade, I.R.A. I was a member of H (Number 8) Company of the Third Battalion in South Leitrim. This was the local company in the Gowel area. I was quartermaster of the third Active Service Unit, made up of men picked from the eight companies of the Battalion. This Active Service Unit was disbanded when the treaty was accepted (by the Free Staters who sold out) in December 1921. I would like to have this little error corrected, for people in Ireland will notice details like that. I’m glad to see the Daily Worker is attending to news of the movement in Ireland. I read the Daily Worker regularly, even when on the run. Fraternally, JIM GRALTON.

Irish Workers of Boston Hail Gralton. October 5, 1933.

By an Irish Worker Correspondent

BOSTON. Mass. Two hundred or more Irish men and women who recently attended a meeting of the Irish Workers’ Club in Boston, at which Jim Gralton, lately deported from his native Ireland by the de Valera Free State government for his efforts to rescue Irish workers and peasants from hunger, evictions and the terror of Fascism, were surprised and pleased to hear that a strong Communist movement was in progress in Ireland. When Gralton, a straightforward, convincing speaker, explained that not only was there a powerful Communist surge in Ireland, but that the movement was carried on and sanctioned by the mass of Irish workers and peasants and not by some outside, “foreign” forces, as opposition propaganda attempts to assert, he received enthusiastic approval. The meeting, which was the first step of the Irish Workers’ Club to solidify the ranks of the Irish working class in this vicinity and to fight in this unity, not only of numbers, but of purpose, to secure better living conditions both here and in Ireland. Several persons, hecklers planted by selfish interests, attempted to create an antagonism between the audience and the speaker, but they were in such a small minority and their disruptive efforts so unsympathetically received by the crowd that they finally gave up. A stirring appeal for united action by the Irish workers in disregard of political and religious differences was made by Jack McCarthy, district organizer of the Trade Union Unity League. Cormac O’Flaherty, secretary of the Irish Workers’ Club of Boston, as chairman, conducted the meeting capably.  Padraic O’Flaherty, (Signature authorized).

Movement Among Irish Workers Making Headway. October 16, 1933.

Recognize MacDonald as Example of Socialist Treachery

(By a Worker Correspondent) BRONX, N.Y. Talk, comrade, whether you like it or not, is a kind of a relaxed education, but it never should be a substitute for action. Patrick W. McGinty, a young Irish organizer of the steel workers in Pittsburgh, received the above answer from Michael Gold a few days ago. Many class conscious Irishmen in New York would be well advised in making a thorough examination of the advice given to their fellow countryman in Pittsburgh. During my past seven years in this country I have listened to Communist speakers expounding the program and activities of their militant workers’ revolutionary party. I have met other Irishmen there, perhaps few in numbers, but on every occasion my friend or friends would fully agree with me that the leadership given by the Communist Party is the only leadership which puts up a fight for all workers. This may sound strange to many Daily Worker readers, but the average Irishman is at heart a Communist. Proof of that is when he listens to some plausible orator misinterpreting Socialism, he ask a question, “Was not Ramsay MacDonald a Socialist?” and in a very short time he realizes that the leaders of the Socialist Party here and everywhere over the world are made up of the McDonald type; Franklin D. Roosevelt, friend of the bankers, enemy of the workers, and famous for his N.R.A. strike breaking campaign, is publicly offered membership in the Socialist Party a few nights ago in Madison Square Garden. DeValera, Owen O’Duffy and all the other reactionary forces in Ireland are open enemies of Communism, and it’s an old Irish motto, that to make sure that your pro- gram is genuine, examine who and what your enemies think about you. But to know, talk and give lip sympathy to a workers’ movement, is little good in the class struggle today. Slowly the Irish workers in U.S.A. like the workers in Ireland, are waking up and getting away from empty phrases. Boston has launched an Irish Workers Club. Gene Lehane writes from Chicago to the Irish Workers Voice repudiating the lying statements in the Irish press, about the National Recovery Act. New York has its Irish Workers Club there. Headquarters for the present is at 40 West 65th Street, when meetings and open forums are held every Friday night. Irish workers, men and women are invited to join to advance for Ireland the only form of government that will ever unite the workers of the North and South, Protestant and Catholic together, the goal for which James Connolly, the Lenin of Ireland, was executed on Easter week 1916. A workers’ and farmers’ republic for all Ireland.

The Irish and the Vets by Michael Gold. October 19, 1933.

TWO of the most enjoyable evenings I spent recently were at the Irish Workers’ Club and at a meeting of an East Side nest of the Workers’ Ex-Servicemcn’s League. The Irish workers give you a feeling of warmth and sincerity. Their discussions have a lyric and personal quality; they haven’t yet learned to be sophisticated and tired. Their nation has been in a revolutionary state of mind for centuries, and so all their ideas are very directly related to action and life. At the end of the discussion period there was a sing-song. Everyone got up and sang; one comrade an old ballad in Gaelic, haunting and beautiful with its ancient sorrow of a persecuted race, reminding one so much of the traditional Hebrew melodies. Another comrade, an Irish lassie, sang several amusing things, one of them about her Uncle Dan McCann, a bad egg, who’d disappeared out of the family, and then had turned up as a plump and wealthy congressman, making the laws in Washington…And an old blind comrade sang ballads gay and sentimental and nobody apologized for one’s voice or was self-conscious. Labor songs of Ireland and England were sung, too, of course. There is nothing more moving than the Irish revolutionary balladry. Why don’t American workers sing? The Wobbles knew how, but we have still to develop a Communist Joe Hill.

ABOUT THE IRISH WORKERS. November 8, 1933.

Comrade Editor:

The Irish have been left out of the revolutionary movement. Their cooperation is not needed it seems. The Jewish workers have their organ, the Italians, the Finns, the Germans ant other language groups -but the Irish! For goodness sake, get busy and get out the “Irish Workers Voice.”

Answer:

There is an Irish Workers Club in existence, whose members are doing what they can to organize our fellow countrymen for the revolutionary fight in this country. Our forces are small and we would be pleased if class-conscious Irishmen who think the masses of the Irish are being neglected would get down to action in our club. A word in reference to the various language organs: The reason other cares such as the Jews and Germans have their Freiheit and Arbeiter is because they can read Jewish and German much more easily than English. Now any Irishman can pick up the Daily Worker and read it, so it is up to us to make the Daily our organizer for our struggles here. As for Irish News, the club was in weekly receipt of 200 copies of the “Irish Workers Voice” from Dublin, but since O’Duffy’s blue-shirted heroes burned down Connolly House, the headquarters of the Communist Party of Ireland, the group at home have had to forego regular publication for lack of funds. When the papers do come from home, they can always be got at the Irish Workers Club, located at 304 West 58th St. The Club meets every Friday at 8 p.m. until November, when the meeting night will be changed to Thursday’s beginning Nov. 2nd. A. Hogan, Irish Workers Club.

The Irish Workers by Michael Gold. December 12, 1933.

I MEAN to take up the Irish question again and again, and would like to get letters and suggestions from Irish workers. This is of great importance to the American movement, I believe, and has been badly neglected. After the drive for funds for the Daily Worker is finished, I plan to propose a fund in this column to go toward the establishment of an Irish Workers’ weekly in this country. Meanwhile, visit the Irish Workers’ Club at 304 W. 58th St., and help them lay the basis of a strong organization. I wonder if it is widely known that Marx and Engels thought the Irish question so important that Engels, with the encouragement of its great collaborator, worked for years gathering material for an economic history of Ireland. His death interrupted the work, which would have had a profound importance. Engels was married to- an Irish girl named Lizzie Burns, an ardent Fenian, and made three visits for research and study to Ireland. His wife was an active worker in the Fenian cause. Engels contributed heavily of his own funds to that movement, sheltered the exiles, and agitated in the press for Irish freedom. He studied Gaelic, and could read and speak it. Visit the Irish Workers’ Club! You will be welcomed there, even If not a Gael, as a fellow-worker.

Irish Workers Urged to Read Club Publication. January 5, 1934.

NEW YORK—Sample copies of the “Irish Workers Voice,” weekly organ of the revolutionary workers’ groups In Ireland, published at the rebuilt Connolly House, which was wrecked last summer by the Blue Shirt Irish fascists, will be sent to any of our Irish readers by the secretary of the New Vork Irish Workers Club. Local Irish readers are invited by him to attend the lectures and forums held every Thursday at 8 p.m., at the club, 304 W. 58th St. Jim Gralton, of Leitrim, Ireland, club organizer who was deported with out charge or trial by Eamon de Valera’s government from the home and farm on which he was born, invites correspondence from groups throughout the United States desiring to form Irish Workers Clubs. Irish workers in Pittsburgh have recently requested such information.

Jim Gralton to Tour Country to Organize Irish Workers’ Clubs. March 23, 1934.

NEW YORK. —Irish workers clubs are being organized in Cleveland, New Jersey, Pittsburgh and Boston. Austin Hogan, secretary of the Irish Workers’ Club in New York, asks Irish workers throughout the states who want information on launching a club to write to him at the Irish Workers’ Club (Bronx group), 594 St. Ann’s Ave., Bronx, New York.

Pittsburgh Irish Club Hears Murray. May 11, 1934.

Communist Leader To Speak in 4 More Cities Before Departure

PITTSBURGH, Pa., May 10— An enthusiastic meeting of Irish workers in Gladstone school, Hazelwood, on Monday, heard Sean Murray, leader of the Communist Party of Ireland, speak on the revolutionary movement in Ireland. John Laffey presided. Terrence O’Connor, experienced fighter in the Irish Republican movement, outlined the aims of the Irish Workers Clubs, and the urgent need of assisting the building of the revolutionary movement in Ireland. Over 20 workers joined the club and a large amount of literature was sold. The club proposed to hold another mass meeting in the center of Pittsburgh on May 24, at which Sean Murray will speak on his return trip to New York. Comrade Murray is scheduled to speak in the following cities: Cleveland, May 10-12; Detroit, May 14-15; Chicago, May 17-20; St. Louis, May 22 and 23.

Irish Worker Flays Comrades’ Handling of Sean Murray Meet. May 14, 1934.

Criticizes Irresponsible Attitude of Party Members in Providence Toward Arrangements. Sean Murray of Ireland spoke here to a meeting of 132 Tuesday night (4-24-34), out of which will come the organization of an “Irish Workers Club.” This meeting was hastily arranged (3 days) by a few sympathizers after receiving an SOS wire from DO No. 1 to the writer, who is not a Party member but who follows the Communist line. The C.P. here turned down the date for Murray that was offered them many days before I received the wire. The committee told Murray that “the meeting is yours,” we have no suggestions to make. We have been criticized for the advertisement cards we got out, by the Party comrades who refused to arrange a meeting for him. They said it “hid the face of the Party.” We told them they had “sat on the face of the Party.” Murray made a fine connected talk that brought out the consistent and revolutionary methods and tactics that must be used by the workers net only in Ireland but in all capitalist countries. His appeal to the Irish workers to study and apply the teachings of James Connolly was well received. Seventeen workers of Irish birth or parentage signed up for the club. This is a “small matter,” but I am afraid this “ducking difficulties” is being done by many C.P. groups around the U.S.A. and is holding back the organization of the revolutionary movement among “the decisive strata of the American workers.” I read the Daily Worker. When I say I read it I mean just that; but I think a lot of the people in the Party just glance over it to see if their name is in that issue. Wish you would keep a standing urge square in your paper to have everyone read Joseph Stalin, “Report of the work of the Central Committee of the C.P.S.U.” If they are so damn busy-, just insist that they at least read the last 15 pages. Hope this letter will see the light of day, not like former letters, be ducked in the waste basket. Long live “Red Sparks” (where the hell is he?) J.C. Right to Live Club Providence, R.I.

Note by the District Organizer of Boston District The criticism made by Comrade C. Is undoubtedly correct. If the local comrades in Providence, when they were informed of the opportunity to have Sean Murray for a meeting, had themselves gotten in touch with Comrade C. and one or two other Irish workers with whom they had contact, they would at once have found out what a mistake it would be to turn down this opportunity. It is true that hiding the face of the Party is one of the worst shortcomings in this District, and it is a good thing that the Providence comrades are beginning to pay closer attention to this question. However, we do not think that the criticism applies to the throw away cards gotten out by Comrade C. On the contrary, when we received a copy of this card, we thought it so good that we used it as a mode! for the throw away card announcing Comrade Murray’s Boston meeting. It must be recognized that the unit organizer in Providence, a young and willing comrade, is working under great difficulties. But the only possibility of solving such difficulties lies in making contact with new strata of workers and acquainting them with our movement. If we treat exceptional opportunities to make such contact merely as additional tasks, then, of course, we will not make any progress. Certainly the organization of an Irish Workers Club based on the teachings of James Connolly will be a great help to the whole movement in Providence. H.S.

Chicago Workers Prepare To Greet Murray, May 18. May 16, 1934.

Irish Communist Leader To Speak at Mass Meeting Friday

CHICAGO, May 15. Irish workers of Chicago are preparing for the visit of Sean Murray of the Communist Party of Ireland. A great mass meeting will be held at 2911 W. Chicago Ave. May 18. at which Murray will tell of the struggles of Irish workers and peasants. The opportunity to hear this representative of our new brother Party is one that will attract hundreds of non-Irish workers. The Irish Workers’ Club, under whose auspices the meeting will be held, calls on every worker and sympathizer to attend the meeting. On Saturday, May 19, a banquet for Murray and Bob Minor will take place at Crawford Hall, 4003 Roosevelt Rd.

Banquet to Irish C.P. Leader Takes Place Here May 30. May 17, 1934.

Sean Murray Is Touring Country; Earl Browder To Be Speaker

NEW YORK. Sean Murray, leader of the Communist Party of Ireland, who is now touring the country, will be the guest of honor at a banquet given by the Communist Party of the U. S. A. at Irving Plaza Hall, 15th St. and Irving Place, at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, May 30, Decoration Day. Labor and fraternal organizations over the country are urged to send their contributions to the Sean Murray Banquet Committee at 50 E. 13th St., and all those who are able are urged to attend. Tickets are 50 cents, payable at the door. The Communist Party of Ireland, the youngest member of the Communist International, which has been fighting under tremendous odds, will receive the entire proceeds. Besides Sean Murray, and a representative from the Irish Workers’ Clubs, Earl Browder, General Secretary, will speak for the Communist Party of the U.S.A. A concert will be given by a section of the I.W.O. Symphony Orchestra, conducted by I.R. Korenman. You are all urged to send contributions, and your reservations, as soon as possible.

Murray Speaks in Akron. May 17, 1934.

AKRON, Ohio. May 16. Sean Murray, leader of the Communist Party of Ireland, spoke to a meeting of workers here Saturday under the auspices of the Irish Workers’ Club. James Doran, a veteran Irish-American fighter in the labor movement, presided. The workers showed keen interest in the struggle of the Irish people, and the necessity of joining this fight with the workers’ movement in the U.S. A large amount of literature on the Irish Communist Party, and the works of Jim Connolly, were sold. The meeting is the first step in the organization of the Irish Workers’ Club in Akron.

Irish C.P. Leader To Address Final Meet in NY May 29. May 26, 1934.

Speaks Sunday in Jersey on Irish Workers’ Struggles

NEW YORK. Just returned from an organization tour in behalf of the Irish Revolutionary movement and the Irish Workers’ Clubs of the United States, Sean Murray will address his final New York City meeting at 8.45 p. m. Tuesday, May 29, at Park Palace, 110th St. and Fifth Ave. Fire at the Lexington Hall, for which the meeting was originally announced, necessitated the transfer to Park Palace. Besides exposing the O’Duffy blue-shirts (fascists) as agents of the British empire and Irish capitalists and cattle ranchers, Murray will analyze the work of the new Republican Congress movement. Jersey City Meet Tomorrow Murray’s Jersey City meeting will be held at Fairmont Hall, 718 Bergen Avenue, corner Fairmont Avenue, Sunday, May 27th at 3.30 p.m. The farewell Murray banquet for which organizations are still urged to send contributions immediately to the Murray Banquet Committee at 50 East 13th St., New York, will be held at Irving Plaza, 15th St. and Irving Place, Tuesday evening, May 29. Earl Browder, representing the Communist Party of the U.S.A., Murray and a spokesman of the Irish Workers’ Club of New York will speak. Inspired by Murray’s tour, Irish workers are laying the base for a fighting Irish Workers’ Club movement in the United States. Out- of-town delegates and members and friends of the New York clubs are preparing now for the conference on Sunday, July 3. Lexington Hall, announced as the meeting place in the first conference call, will have to be cancelled because of the fire. Delegates will be informed of the new center by the committee in a few day’s time.

Murray, Irish Workers Leader, Describes Tour. May 29, 1934.

Farewell Banquet in His Honor Scheduled for Tomorrow Night

NEW YORK. Back in New York again after a two-month speaking tour which included Boston, Providence, Portland, Me., Philadelphia, Baltimore, Pittsburgh. Cleveland, Akron, Detroit and Chicago, Sean Murray, leader of the Irish Communist Party, yesterday recounted his impressions of the trip. Murray is here to fill his final two speaking engagements in this city, and to attend the banquet which the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the N.Y. District of the C.P. are tendering in his honor at Irving Plaza, Irving PI. and 15th St., at 8 pm. tomorrow. He will be greeted by James W. Ford at this banquet, speakers at which will include, besides Span Murray: Earl Browder, Max Bedacht, Charles Krumbein and Carl Brodsky. Aroused Interest of Irish Workers “I found very keen interest, generally,” said Murray, “amongst the workers with whom I spoke on the Irish situation. In the cities where we properly carried out the work of organizing the meetings, we were able to draw to us large numbers of politically organized Irish workers, followers of the Irish Republican movement. This was so particularly in Providence, Boston, Detroit and, to a lesser extent, Cleveland. “We found men who had been through the Black and Tan fight 1919-1922) in Ireland, and who were now facing all the severities of insecure unemployment and other misery under American imperialism. These men and women had not yet come to the point where they were able to relate our fight in Ireland with the fight of their class in America. But in bringing into being the Irish Workers Clubs, the workers took a big step forward in this direction.” Irish Workers Clubs were established in all the cities which Sean Murray visited. “We are bringing these clubs together in an Irish’ Workers Conference in New York on June 3,” said the Irish Communist leader, “to finally clarify the whole situation and consolidate the Irish Workers Clubs of the United States. “We found everywhere, at every meeting attended by Irish workers, that the Communist Party’s interpretation of the Irish question was enthusiastically accepted by them.” This interpretation is ably set forth in the recent manifesto of the Irish Communist Party, “Ireland’s Path to Freedom” and “The Irish Case for Freedom.” both published in the United States by International Publishers. “The big question here,” Murray declared, “is the development of workers’ clubs which will draw in the best Irish elements of the population. This will be of great assistance both to the working class movement in the United States and to the building of the Irish Communist Party.” Comrade Murray plans to leave for Ireland within two weeks. “The first thing I shall tell the workers of Ireland,” he declared, “is the tremendous growth of class struggles in America, as seen in the unprecedented wave of strikes. I shall tell them that the N.R.A., which for a short while succeeded in arousing great hopes among many sections of the workers, has not solved any of their problems, as the present strike movement shows; that the unemployment question and the suppression of the right to organize in trade unions, as witnessed in Minneapolis and now in Toledo and elsewhere, proves that the situation in America is the reverse of what the Irish petit-bourgeois nationalists and the British reformists try to tell them. It is not “socialism” as these people declare, but an attempt to bolster up capitalism. “The outstanding facts in the American situation, to me, are the transformation of the Communist Party from its position of a few years ago—small, isolated from the basic sections of the working class—into the present Party which is leading and stimulating the tremendous struggles now taking place. “This, I am sure, will be great news to the Irish masses.”

Irish-American Workers Should Be Champions Of Negro Liberation, Says Murray at Farewell. June 1, 1934.

1,000 WORKERS BID IRISH COMMUNIST LEADER ADIEU

NEW YORK. Packing Irving Plaza, Thursday night, in a farewell demonstration to Sean Murray, General Secretary of the Irish Communist Party, who has just completed a speaking tour in this country’, more than 1,000 workers heard leaders of the American revolutionary movement stress the importance of winning Irish-American workers to the struggle of the working class in this country. It was pointed out by Comrade Murray that one of the greatest obstacles to the struggle of Irish workers of other countries was the use of “antiquated weapons,” reformist methods. “We’ve learned,” he said, “that it’s necessary to get rid of these bows and arrows which are only hindrances in our fight and pick up the real weapons of Marxist and Leninist teachings.” Citing the similarity of the struggle of the oppressed Negro workers in this country and the Irish workers under the yoke of British imperialism Comrade Murray said, “I look forward to the Irish workers of America to stand out as the champions of Negro liberation.” He said that in Ireland they were meeting with fascism and were fighting it in “true Toledo fashion.” Comrade Murray brought home the fact that a set-back to the Irish working class, one of the oldest groups oppressed by imperialism, would be a defeat for the oppressed all over the world. “Before I’m six months back in Ireland.” he said. “I want to sec a lot of O’s and Mac’s in the ranks of the American Communist Party.” Earl Browder, Secretary of the Communist Party in this country, greeted Comrade Murray and pledged solidarity with the Irish workers. “The Irish Communist Party,” Browder said, “has shown in its short life that it contains the capacity to catch up with the struggle’s historical development. We’ll have to spur ourselves a bit if we hope to make the revolution here before the Irish do,” he said. Comrade Browder said there has not been sufficient attention given the Irish question here and he was glad Comrade Murray had come here to remind us of this. “When Comrade Murray pays us another visit,” he said, “we want to be able to introduce him to several thousand Irish Comrades here.” A sum of 5553.89 in cash and pledges to aid the Irish Communist Party in its struggles was raised. James W. Ford, Communist Party section organizer in Harlem, pledged the support of the Negro toilers to Comrade Murray and pointed out that Negro masses too were engaged In a fight against British imperialism, citing South Africa and India. Austin Hogan, active in the Irish Workers Clubs of this city, spoke and sang old traditional songs of Ireland. Chares Krumbien and Charles Newell also spoke. Peadar Noonan sang an old Gaelic song. Sandy Hanna who fought with James Connolly, great Irish leader, sang Connolly’s Rebel Song. Eula Gray sang two Negro Sharecroppers songs, and Deborah Martell, an opera singer, led several mass songs, Mike Gold also sang. The International Workers’ Order orchestra played.

Sean Murray, Irish Leader, Speaks To Veterans Today, Addresses Irish Workers Clubs In Harlem Tonight. June 4, 1934.

NEW YORK. Sean Murray, militant leader of the Irish Communist Party, will be the main speaker at the veterans mass meeting, to be held today (Monday) at 2:30 in Union Square, at 17th St. This will be one of the last opportunities to hear this leading representative of the Party leading the assault on British imperialism within the British Empire. Murray is returning to Ireland soon. A full record of what happened at the Vets’ Convention in Washing ton will be made by P. V. Cacchione, Commander of the New York contingent that left for the Bonus March to Washington. All vets, mass organizations. workers, and sympathizers are urged to attend.

NEW YORK. Sean Murray. Secretary of the Communist, Party of Ireland, who is shortly scheduled to return to Ireland, will speak tonight, at 8:30 o’clock to the newly formed Irish Workers Club in Harlem at 125th St. and 5th Ave. On June 7th at 8 p.m., Comrade Murray will speak at New Columbus Hall, Brooklyn. 123 Court St., near Borough Hall.

Start Collection Drive for “Irish Workers’ Voice.” June 5, 1934.

Gralton, Johnson and Nevile Head N.Y. Shock Brigade

NEW YORK. Following the successful banquet to Sean Murray-. Irish revolutionary leader, under the auspices of the Communist Party, the Irish Workers Clubs held a representative conference of delegates from the various clubs throughout the country at their headquarters in New York. The building of a strong Irish Workers Press is the immediate burning problem for the success of winning the Irish American workers for the revolutionary struggle. The conference therefore decided to make an immediate drive for the raising of a regular press fund to enlarge and increase the sales of Irish Workers Voice, organ of the Irish Communist Party. A special “Irish Workers Voice” Shock Brigade composed in New York of Comrades Gralton, Johnson and Nevile was set up at the conference. The other clubs throughout the country are following this example.

“Build Irish Workers Clubs,” Says Sean Murray, Returning to Ireland. June 28, 1934.

Urges Support of Irish Workers’ Voice, the Party Paper

NEW YORK. Sean Murray, secretary of the Irish Communist Party, sailed for Ireland yesterday, after a three months’ tour of the United States. The Irish leader, a veteran of the revolutionary movement already at 35, former captain in the Irish Republican Army, who was in the thick of the armed struggles against the Black and Tans a decade ago, gave through the Daily Worker a farewell message to the working masses of America, and especially to the Irish in the U.S. “I visited many cities in the United States,” he said, “and I can bring back to the masses of Ireland the heartening news of great and growing class battles in the U.S. “Here, especially. I met hundreds of Irish workers. I found none who retained an ounce of faith in capitalism. I found them shaking off the influence of the political bosses here, the greatest curse of the Irish masses. They are beginning to understand what the Irish who have climbed up into the ruling class in America have done byway of using their hatred of English imperialism to bind them to the service of the American imperialists. “A great beginning in organizing this growing class-consciousness among the Irish workers of the U.S. has been made in the building of the Irish Workers’ Clubs. These can become the centers of political and social enlightenment.” The Irish revolutionary leader then spoke about the sharp political situation to which he is returning in Ireland. There the forces of Fascism, aiming to become the Irish armed defenders of British imperialism, are gathering, while at the same time the workers are seeking powerfully to organize themselves into militant trade unions, and a whole section of the Irish Republican Army has split off and formed a militant, anti-imperialist wing. “To carry on the revolutionary struggle in Ireland, we need especially to have a strong press,” he said. “We must have the greatest support for our paper, the Irish Workers’ Voice. This has already been clearly seen by the revolutionary Irish workers in America, and they have undertaken to raise here in America a $2000 fund for the Irish Workers’ Voice.

The Voice of the Irish Workers. July 2, 1934.

THE “IRISH WORKER’S VOICE” is the organ of the Irish Communist Party. It is bravely battling against the fascist menace in Ireland. It is organizing and drawing increasing numbers of the Irish American workers around the international working class movement. Its start in America among the Irish masses are spreading. The “Irish Worker’s Voice” has a great task to achieve both in Ireland and in the United States to win the Irish masses for the Proletarian Revolution. “The Voice” is hampered because of the smallness of its size. It is fighting against printers’ boycotts, against organized sabotage and the fascist clerical pogroms. It needs assistance to surmount this and to conduct a powerful struggle with the bourgeois nationalist, clerical and Tammany bosses for the leadership of the Irish and Irish-American workers. The Irish Workers Clubs in the U.S.A. are tackling this problem. They are organizing workers shock brigades to ensure regular help to build the Irish revolutionary press. This is a matter of urgent concern for all American workers and friends of the revolutionary movement, The Daily Worker is taking up the cudgels on behalf of our Irish comrades. It asks for the raising of $1000 to purchase proper press equipment to better the “Irish Workers Voice.” Fascism in Ireland must be routed. The Irish workers must be won to the revolutionary working class movement. This is one important way to do these things. Throw in your donations to the Irish Thousand Dollar Press Fund! For the unity of Irish and American workers!

BUILD IRISH WORKERS CLUBS. July 4, 1934.

Philadelphia, Pa. An Irish Workers Club has been established in Philadelphia and held their first meeting at 419 Spruce, Phila., Pa, on Sunday, June 24th. The meeting was attended by 70 Irish workers, and was a success. Comrade Rosen, who is an active member of the C.P. and is doing good work in organizing the Irish workers, deserves a good bit of credit. I am sure she hopes for many more members at our next meeting, and she also says it would be very nice to have these Clubs in all our American cities. Hoping you will put this in your Daily Worker as an appeal for more Irish Workers Clubs.

WORKERS HONOR FRANK RYAN. September 12, 1934.

NEW YORK—The Irish Workers’ Club of this city has extended an invitation to all other working class, Irish and fraternal organizations to send representatives to a mass send-off tonight at 8:30 at the Irish Workers’ Club, 107 W. 107th Street, in honor of Frank Ryan, who was elected a delegate of the Irish Workers’ Clubs of America to the Irish Republican Congress to be held in Dublin on Sept. 29.

Irish Workers Make Protest On De Valera. December 15, 1934.

BOSTON, Mass., Dec. 14. —A pro test against the savage persecution of anti-imperialist fighters by the De Valera government of the Irish Free State was presented last Tues day to the local Free State Consul by a delegation from the Irish Workers’ Club of Boston. The Consul promised to forward the protest to his government. The protest reads: “We, the undersigned, as a delegation representing the Irish Workers’ Club of Boston, register the following protest with the Free State Consul in Boston, Mr. Galway D. Foley, to be transmitted to Mr. Eamonn de Valera, President of the Free State government: “That all political prisoners in the Free State be released, immediately and unconditionally; “And, especially, do we protest the outrageous sentences handed down by the Military Tribunal against two soldiers of the Irish Republic and members of the Irish Republican Army, Hugh O’Reilly and Michael O’Leary, who were condemned to three and five years’ imprisonment, respectively, at hard labor for fighting in the interests of the Irish people and against British imperialism.

Irish Workers To Hear Lecture on Liberation. January 3, 1935.

Mrs. Hannah Sheehv Skefflngton, of Dublin, will speak on “Culture and the Irish Revolutionary Struggle” tomorrow night at the Liam Mellows Hall. 256 W. 116th Street, at 3:30 o’clock, under the auspices of the Irish Workers Club. Mrs. Skefflngton, widow of Sheehy Skefflngton. who was executed in Dublin in 1916 for anti-war activity has been active in the national liberation movement in Ireland since her husband’s death.

The Daily Worker began in 1924 and was published in New York City by the Communist Party US and its predecessor organizations. Among the most long-lasting and important left publications in US history, it had a circulation of 35,000 at its peak. The Daily Worker came from The Ohio Socialist, published by the Left Wing-dominated Socialist Party of Ohio in Cleveland from 1917 to November 1919, when it became became The Toiler, paper of the Communist Labor Party. In December 1921 the above-ground Workers Party of America merged the Toiler with the paper Workers Council to found The Worker, which became The Daily Worker beginning January 13, 1924.