Cornelius Lehane deserves to be far better known and studied as a pioneer of revolutionary Socialism in Ireland, Britain, and the United States. On the eve of a 1915 speech in Providence, Rhode Island, the local Socialist Party paper gives valuable details of Lehane’s rich biography. Jailed for his anti-conscription work in the World War One crackdown, Lehane’s health suffered in prison and he died on December 31, 1919 shortly after his release.

‘The Story of Cornelius Lehane’ from Labor Advocate (Providence). Vol. 3 No. 20. January 9, 1915.

Cornelius Lehane of Cork, Ireland, who will deliver an address in Carpenters’ Hall, Providence, on Sunday evening, Jan 17, at 8 o’clock, and in St. George’s Hall, Pawtucket, on Monday evening, Jan. 18, is one of the best known and most brilliant orators in the Socialist and labor union movement today. The subject of his lecture will be “Ireland, England and the European War.”

Cornelius Lehane first came into prominence in Irish politics through the notable fight he made in Cork City for the right of Socialists to publicly advocate their views in Ireland. Bishop O’Callaghan singled Lehane out for attack and used all the power and influence of the cloth to arrest the educational movement of which Lehane was the mouthpiece.

Lehane was in his teens when he started the Socialist movement in his native place, and had not reached manhood’s years when the Bishop thundered at him. But with the courage of his Fenian father, one of the ’67 men, and of his grandfather who had shouldered a pike in 1848, Lehane faced the denunciations hurled at Socialism, held a monster public meeting of citizens in the Bishop’s own parish, and successfully laid the foundations of the Socialist movement in Cork. The people of Cork remember with pride to this day the brilliant oratory and the supreme courage with which young Lehane demolished the pretensions of the Bishop to use the weight of the Catholic Church in siding with property against labor in Ireland.

Having endeared himself to the working people of Cork, Lehane was given chief command of the great gas strike by the Cork Trades Council. In fighting for the rights of the gas workers, Lehane cut off the entire gas supply of the city, which was in a state of total darkness for several weeks, as no gas was available for street lighting or other purposes, and so well did Lehane’s pickets do their work that cargoes of scabs brought to Cork to break the strike were always compelled to return to their homes in England. The largest gas holder in the city was blown up, but nothing could be placed to Lehane by those who sought to entrap him in the meshes of the law.

The Wolf Tone Literary Society, the forerunner of the Young Ireland Society in Cork, and the mother of the Socialist movement in the South of Ireland, was founded by Lehane. The famous Franciscan Father Kavanagh was president of the society, Lehane being the chairman. Father Kevanagh was against secret societies, but Lehane found a fruitful field for his activities in the Fenian secret societies, many of the members of the Fenian Brotherhood rallying to his support when the clergy made him the center of their famous attack.

Lehane is Irish of the Irish. His Socialism was naturally developed out of studies in the Irish History. He was very active in the Irish literary revival, taught classes of young men in the Gaelic tongue, and was aided in his youthful work by the late Dennis Flemming, one of the first Gaelic scholars of the day, and editor of “Fainne ama Lae.” Lebane was the first Irish organizer of the National Union of Shop Assistants, Warehousemen and Clerks.

His penetrating analyses of the political and industrial situation have stamped many of Lehane’s public utterances with the gift of prophecy, and his sympathetic breadth of vision enables him to see and interpret correlation of social forces in astonishingly clear historical perspective. No man who ever stood on a Socialist platform succeeded better in the art of exposition, and Lehane’s fine disposition, broad humanism. energy personified, have brought into the International Socialist movement thousands of its best recruits.

This visit of this famous Irish Socialist and labor leader to Rhode Island will undoubtedly arouse tremendous interest and a large audience is sure to be, present at this meeting.

PDF of full issue: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn92063933/1915-01-09/ed-1/seq-1/