Terrence MacSwiney, an Irish Republican activist elected to mayor of Cork and jailed for sedition by the British, died in Brixton Jail on October 25, 1920 after 74 long days on hunger strike. Coming during the Irish War of Independence, MacSwiney’s death brought British misrule in Ireland to the world’s attention. No Communist paper in the U.S. was more focused on Ireland’s revolutionary events than Duluth’s Truth, echoing that regions large Irish population and its editor, Beflast’s Jack Carney. Here, an editorial on MacSwiney’s death.

‘The Irish Hero’ from Truth (Duluth). Vol. 4 No. 44. October 29, 1920.

There is something big about the spirit of Terence MacSwiney. He and his fellows are unique among the martyrs for a great cause.

In the excitement of the howling beasts of the arena and in the turmoil of the masses that stormed them the early Christians could forget for the moment the impending suffering and thus go bravely to their death. Not that their fine steadfastness was any the less beautiful than that of MacSwiney, but the power of the spectacular was a great factor.

It takes a big soul to go into solitary and have days and nights all by himself with no influence but his own vision of right and to abandon himself to the certainty of death in order that he might serve the cause which life denied him to serve.

On the tray by his side were the steaks and roasts, the muffins and wheat cakes, the fried foods with their tempting odor and their compelling invitation. Every device known to the ingenuity of the persecutors was brought into play to break the will power of the young and hungry prisoner. The pangs of the first few days of hunger are not to be compared with any other pain known to a suffering human.

Ever present was the food in all its tempting forms. By his side were the keepers and the physicians urging him to eat. Within him the awful craving. Always there. No place to go to dissipate his thoughts. Nothing to vary the lonely waiting. Only time was there–time and more time–only time. Time and craving–craving and pain–craving and pain. And food, good food–craving and food and time. Day and night, day and night, craving and pain and food and time. All waiting on the sufferer.

But within him was Ireland. A free Ireland. The Ireland of his love. Strong and mighty Ireland. Suffering, bleeding Ireland. Hopeful Ireland. Ireland calling to him, praying for him, inspired by him, snapping the chains thru his loyalty and love.

“Greater love hath no man than that he lay down his life for his friends.”

Willingly, deliberately, lovingly, he placed his life upon the altar of his country.

Outside stood England–brutal, heartless England. In the cold, chilly, raw winds of scorn she stood. In the majesty of ignorance and blindness and pride she stood there. Unmoved by the cry of an oppressed nation pleading for its benefactor–stiff and stony and Christian she stood there. Raw, uncultured, beastlike, murderous, she licked her vulgar lips like a cannibal at the sight of quivering human flesh. And now she feasts upon the flesh of starved MacSwiney.

And outside of England stands a sobbing world. Its heart it touched by the sublimity of the spirit that conquered all hell’s suffering that right might win. And in this sobbing world the working class is wiping dry its eyes and swears that tyranny shall soon be swept from all this earth. That tyranny and vile oppression shall not triumph over love of liberty and right of reason.

Truth emerged from the The Duluth Labor Leader, a weekly English language publication of the Scandinavian local of the Socialist Party in Duluth, Minnesota and began on May Day, 1917 as a Left Wing alternative to the Duluth Labor World. The paper was aligned to both the SP and the IWW leading to the paper being closed down in the first big anti-IWW raids in September, 1917. The paper was reborn as Truth, with the Duluth Scandinavian Socialists joining the Communist Labor Party of America in 1919. Shortly after the editor, Jack Carney, was arrested and convicted of espionage in 1920. Truth continued to publish with a new editor JO Bentall until 1923 as an unofficial paper of the CP.

PDF of full issue: https://www.mnhs.org/newspapers/lccn/sn89081142/1920-10-29/ed-1/seq-4