Thomas O’Flaherty with already the third launch of a Communist-inspired newspaper for Irish-American Workers. ‘The Irish People’ began started in 1920, replaced by the ‘Irish-American Worker’, and here revived in 1923.

‘Radical Irish Monthly Published in Chicago’ by Thomas J. O’Flaherty from Voice of Labor. Vol. 11 No. 601. June 2, 1923.

Many attempts have been made to reach the Irish workers in America with the kind of propaganda that produces the maximum results with the minimum expenditure of energy and they have all been successful. This may sound queer, but it is nevertheless true. Some people believe that any revolutionary effort that does not present an impatient public with a full fledged revolution after the five o’clock whistle blows is a flat failure. They seem to think that the business of bringing about the downfall of capitalism’ is subject to the laws that govern the business of exchanging watches for pawn tickets. If at the end of the year the pawn broker is nearer being broke than when he started, he is justified in considering the advisability of adding the profession of bootlegging to his accomplishments. Not so the revolutionist. Every time he opens his mouth and says something-sensible of course–in condemnation of the existing robber system and in favor of the establishment of a Communist society he makes progress and is therefore successful.

Other Attempts

If that is clear we shall proceed. In 1908 James Connolly published a Socialist, paper called the Harp. It rendered good service. Harps are no longer as popular as of yore so the next effort to reach the Irish workers thru the medium of a paper called the Irish Worker was made by Jim Larkin in 1917. after a few issues that paper gave up the ghost but its spirit still lived until 1921 when the Irish American Labor League published the Irish People and continued it is a weekly for six months. The latter was the most ambitious and successful so far made.

It has often been said that the Irish never begin to fight until they are licked and if it can be said of any group it is true of the few comrades in Chicago who decided to bring forth a monthly magazine called “The Irish People,” that will tell the Irish workers in America some things they are not told by their bourgeois, superstitious press. It will tell them about the labor movement, what Gompers is doing and not doing, what William Z. Foster is doing and why he is doing it, why Ireland is not free and how to free it, why the United States Government does not Russia and did not recognize the Irish Republic, why they should not support the Democrat and Republican parties and why they should support a Labor Party, in fact, it will tell them mostly everything that can be read in other words in the Voice of Labor, The Worker, and the Labor Herald.

The editor of the Irish People is T.J. O’Flaherty. M.F. Scanlan, of the Amalgamated Street Carmen’ Association is Business Manager publishing address is 1615 A Street, Chicago, Ill. The subscription is $1.00 a year. Send in a sub.

Among the contributing editors are: William F. Dunne, editor of the Butte Bulletin, Michael T. Berry of the Amalgamated Shoe Workers, Donagh Dwyer of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers and several others with long terms of service in the labor movement to their credit.

‘First Issue of “Irish People” Appears’ from Voice of Labor. Vol. 11 No. 603. June 16, 1923.

The Irish People, “a militant Republican magazine.” makes its first appearance with the June number. In its statement of principles it declares: “The Irish People will uphold with all the vigor at its command the principle that the Irish Republic, established by Connolly and Pearse in Easter Week, has never been repudiated by the people of Ireland. but was crushed by British money, British arms and Irish hirelings of British capitalism.

We will urge a course of action on the part of all sincere Irish republicans in Ireland and, America that will ensure the speedy downfall of the Irish traitors masquerading as a Free State government and their supersession by men and women who will be true to the common people of Ireland, namely the workers on the land and in the cities as well as all those who contribute with hand and brain to the development of Ireland in the interests of all the people of Ireland.” It will also further the interests of workers in the United States and other countries.

The Irish People is edited by Thomas J. O’Flaherty and is published monthly at 1615 Addison St., Chicago, at $1 a year.

The Voice of Labor was a regional paper published in Chicago by the Workers (Communist) Party as the “The American Labor Educational Society” (with false printing and volume information to get around censorship laws of the time) and was focused on building the nascent Farmer-Labor Party while fighting for leadership with the Chicago Federation of Labor. It was produced mostly as a weekly in 1923-1924 and contains enormous detail on the activity of the Party in the city of those years.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/vol/v11n601-jun-02-1923-VOL.pdf

PDF of issue 2: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/vol/v11n603-jun-16-1923-VOL.pdf